While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

By now I’d have two kids

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FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHY BACKDROPS uk

That’s me up there, four months pregnant with the baby I lost in December. I remember feeling way further along when I took the pic. It’s one of only two belly pics that exist from that ill-fated pregnancy.

They say by the time you sprout your second or third or, if you’re Michelle Duggar, your 19th kid, your wrung-out stomach “pops” early, making it doubly or triply or quadruply harder to resurrect your abs. This is the sad truth for all gestating women, except Heidi Klum.

I read a description somewhere that likened the bellies of women who’ve had babies to balloons that have already been inflated. New balloons are a bitch to blow up. They don’t give. You have to pre-stretch them and blow like a mother to fill them with air. Your face turns red and the tail can be difficult to knot.

Twice inflated balloons are another story. They swell immediately.

With my second pregnancy, I quickly inflated, then quickly deflated – both physically and emotionally. When it became apparent that I couldn’t repress my way back to feeling normal, I did the only two things I could think to do at the time: I ran and I blogged. More accurately, I ran a lot and blogged just once.

This miscarriage wiped me out. Running made me feel strong again. Blogging – as heavy as that last post was – helped me compartmentalize my thoughts and articulate things I couldn’t in person.

The thing is: I’m a lighthearted person. I cry NOT AT ALL in front of people. Prior to this miscarriage, few people outside my family and BFF of 20 years have seen me cry. In the last five years, I can count two: the veterinarian who euthanized my dog and my friend Kim, who watched me break down over breakfast when my son’s off-the-wall behavior became too overwhelming to handle. “I can barely parent one,” I tearfully confessed. “How will I manage two?”

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The heaviness of being empty: the crushing reality of a late miscarriage

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full lace wigs

Note: this is a deeply personal story. I’m still struggling to articulate it – in real life and in words. As a writer, I find it impossible to not process my feelings in narrative form. As a journalist, I find it equally impossible to write only for myself, which is why I have a blog and not a journal.

On Dec. 1, I lost my second son due to (still mostly) unexplained reasons. He was 18 weeks old – too early to be considered stillborn, too late to still be a secret. The experience wrecked me in some way. Despite my attempts at maintaining a sunny disposition, I withered.  Despite my naturally steely resolve, I withered. Despite having just grieved the death of my sister’s newborn, I withered. Despite knowing nothing good would come from turning to the internet, I Googled – and withered. The people who knew me best thought I was doing OK. How could I let them think otherwise? No one wants to talk about dead babies, so I put on a nice face, feigned levelheadedness and withered.

Each night, I searched the web for stories like mine in a fruitless attempt to find answers or peace or a crystal ball forecasting that this will never happen again. 

Yet Google never brought me peace. It just made the situation worse. I cursed my luck. I cursed my body. I cursed the shitty misfortune of being born a woman and not a man. It’s always easier for men, or at least it is in the MINDFUCK that is reproduction. I cursed my genes. I held my sister as the doctors pulled her baby off a respirator. I watched in horror as my niece, born full term to loving parents, took her last breath. It was a moment so awful, so cruel and so sad that I vowed I would never write about it. Instead, I channeled this sadness into something positive – an online photo project that went semi viral. I wanted my sister to know that her daughter mattered. Now here I was, exactly six months later, curled up on my bathroom floor, moments away from delivering a boy who wouldn’t matter in the most literal sense. At 18 weeks, he wasn’t even old enough to warrant a birth or death certificate. 

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Turn down the noise. Parenting is hard enough.

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On drums

A dear friend who doesn’t have children recently asked me a very standard, very benign question:

“How’s motherhood?”

I deliberated for a week. I typed and retyped responses in the dialogue box. I started writing things like, Motherhood is the best. It’s awesome. I’m astonished and humbled every day. I found my purpose, my true calling, the reason why I’m meant to be on earth. 

I erased those sentences and started again.

Motherhood is a mixed bag. Some days I feel like I’m floating down a river, bobbing effortlessly like an otter on its back, my head tilted toward the sun, my body weightless and my mind on nothing more than playing. Next to me is a smaller otter, a tinier version of myself. We’re splashing and slip-sliding and doing whatever it is otters do. The small otter is following my lead. I dip underwater. He dips underwater. I flip onto my back. He flips onto his back. The air is warm and the water is cool. The small otter climbs on top of my chest, burrows under my chin and together we float as one, at peace with each other in our wild, meandering domain. 

Then there are days when I feel like I’m swimming against the current in a heavy Mississippi flood. I can’t touch the bottom. My muscles ache from kicking and paddling. I’m swimming in slow motion past fallen tree limbs and wayward debris. A young boy is clinging to the branch of an old oak, crying like a kitten, desperate to be rescued. “Mama,” he cries  “Save me.” I push my body upstream, past overturned cars and floating piles of untethered junk, the flotsam and jetsam of everyday life. Beleaguered but not broken, I wade through waist-high weeds. I climb the tree, retrieve the child and clutch him to my chest. I lower us back into the water. I kiss his wet forehead and like Rose in Titanic I vow to never let go. He hugs me, happy to be in my arms. He tells me he loves me. Then he punches me in the face. 

When my childless friends ask me about motherhood I have an urge to respond with these longwinded analogies as if it’s the only way to articulate how terribly difficult it is. GAG.

The truth is nothing is easy. What’s easy is being a kid and even that’s hard.

I willfully signed up to be a mother, ugly bits and all. As much as it may feel like parenting is a herculean feat, it’s not. For better or worse, big people have raised little people for centuries. Same complicated human experience, different generation. Same circle of life, different shit getting our panties in a twist.

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Rock me mama: Growth and change in 2014

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I started this post a couple weeks ago and my intentions were to discuss the ways in which I think I’ve grown as a person, a mother and a journalist. I also intended to discuss the ways in which I think Joe has grown as a person, a father and a journalist. I thought this would be semi-interesting to at least four people.

I intended to share some of my brilliant and ghastly time management strategies, as well as some of my brilliant and ghastly potty training strategies.

I thought I’d tell you that Henry regularly uses the toilet, but since he also regularly bites other humans, throws close-fisted punches and flings chewed food on myself and the dog I wouldn’t say he’s 100 percent housebroken yet.

I thought I’d tell you we got a new dog.

Folding him into our life has helped fill a void and mend an ache. After months of huffing Cubbie’s favorite blanket in an attempt to bring him back, I washed it today for the first time with a load of sheets.

I thought I’d tell you that after a year of hustling as a freelancer, work is starting to happen with as much surprising regularity as Henry’s good potty days. This month I filled my calendar with so many projects and assignments I had to turn down work.

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Upon waking

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Last week I had a dream.

I dreamed I was on a date with my husband. We were walking hand in hand through Ybor City in downtown Tampa. It was late. The sky was black. The streets were filled with people scattering like bugs, people spilling out of bars and clubs, women teetering atop stilettos, men pretending to have muscles in sweat-soaked shirts, electronic dance music pumping electricity onto the sidewalk, thunder clouds rolling in.

The streetlights were so bright they blotted out lightening.

Everything was obscured by darkness, trailed by neon and pulsing like a heart, a neon heart squeezing and releasing.

In my dream it began to rain. Water pooled like molten silver at my feet. People began to scatter faster. Cars began to accelerate. We crossed railroad tracks, Joe’s Adidas tennis shoes sloshing through the mud between the tracks. I picked up the hem of my dress, giggling at some joke he had made about running in the rain.

I suddenly couldn’t remember where I had parked.

Rather than lecture me about my forgetfulness, Joe teased me. We were on our first date. I was the free-spirited one, the non-planner, the girl in old flip-flops, cutoffs and short hair, which I had lazily trimmed the night before with my friend’s kitchen scissors.

We had yet to fall in love, my husband and I.

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Of monsters and boys

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There are three parenting bridges I thought we’d have plenty of time to cross: drugs, dating and bullying.

I suspected bullying would rear its ugly head first, but I figured we’d at least have until kindergarten to give Henry street fighting lessons.

Turns out I was wrong about bullying. Turns out that happens pretty quickly. Like as soon as your kid can walk away from you.

Last week Henry and I crossed paths with three bullies.

The first two looked to be about eight years old. First they taunted my kid for wearing a diaper, then they threw fistfuls of rubber mulch at his head.

“Wah wah,” they snorted. “I’m a BABY. Change my diaper!”

Under their breath they whispered, “I wish he would go away.”

They didn’t know I was watching them, that I had been watching them for 10 minutes before my son even wandered in the direction of their closely-guarded mean boy space.

They radiated piss potted-ness. They scowled at their mothers and hissed at each other.

I’m not the kind of parent who hovers over my child on a playground. Consequently, I let Henry walk into this mean boy space. As usual, he was looking to make “friends,” someone with whom he could briefly dig in the dirt.

My child approached. The boys grew agitated. They cast their eyes at the ground and then at each other. They mumbled something about “dumb babies,” and retreated to a new mean boy space. Henry, however, followed. As did my gaze.

Upon noticing the toddler’s return, the mean boys made a joint decision to pick up mulch and toss it at his head. This act was followed by the aforementioned diaper comments and mock crying, prompting my involvement.

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The view from here

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Two days before it was scheduled to be shut down, I took Henry to the St. Pete Pier so we could bid farewell to our favorite ailing tourist attraction.

Like most Bay area residents, I’ve known for years that this old landmark would soon be demolished. I also knew that once I had my son I would regret having not made memories with him on the old pier before a slick new pier one day opens in its place.

The fate of the Pier has become a hotly contested subject. I refuse to discuss the pros and cons of its replacement design, The Lens, out of sheer exhaustion. I’m tired of hearing about it. When it comes to CHANGE I’m as much a fan of progress as I am a curmudgeon, so I’ll refrain from offering what would likely be an uneducated opinion.

However, this fact remains true: the Pier’s infrastructure is falling apart, its concrete pilings, if left alone, would crumble into the bay. Studies revealed 10 years ago that the aging destination with its smattering of kitschy gift shops and empty restaurants wouldn’t survive another 20 years of saltwater erosion, never mind an impending economic blow.

When this news became public fodder in 2010, I added the Pier to my biking route. When Henry arrived in 2011, I added it to my running route. Knowing it would close before he’d be old enough to remember it, I decided to take him there often – always by foot or by bike.

Save for a handful of brooding old men drinking coffee and reading the paper, the food court inside the Pier’s dated building was usually vacant in the afternoon. Often it looked like Henry and I were the only people to order an ice cream cone for hours. In order to get the attention of the proprietor of the ice cream stand, I’d have to rap on the freezer doors and shout, “Yoo hoo! Anyone here?”

I once caught the guy asleep in a chair.

I wondered which was crumbling faster: the Pier’s infrastructure or its business.

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On 31

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Quick disclaimer: April was a crazy busy month. I had a ton of work to complete, a triathlon, a visiting sister, visiting parents and a brief family vacation on Daytona Beach. I apologize for the two-week hiatus. Here’s what I should have posted on April 24 to commemorate Lance’s FIFTH BIRTHDAY, a milestone I let slip by with little acknowledgment.

Hey! The Lance turned 5! 35 in pug years! That’s like a big accomplishment for an easily distracted, moderately busy mommy blogger. Woop woop.

ANYWAY. I read this piece April 19 before a small crowd at CL Story Time: Birthday Edition in Tampa’s Ybor City. I wrote it nine days after my 31st birthday and 45 minutes before the start of the event. At 31, I’m finally making peace with my procrastination pattern, among other things.

AND in case you missed it, this is how I coped with last year’s 30th birthday woes.

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¶  Last year I spent my birthday curled into a fetal position, sobbing quietly into a pillow. The voices in my head, sounded, on this particular day, a lot like Marge Simpson’s sisters crossed with my husband’s 95-year-old grandfather.

True to form, they were none too pleased with my despondency.

“You’re pathetic,” they rasped. “I’d give my left titty to be 30 again.”

As I sobbed, my infant son napping in the room next door, I glanced down at my left titty. It was visibly TWICE the size of my right titty.

Why? Because my breastfed child preferred the left boob to the right boob and because I subconsciously offered him the left more than the right so my stronger hand would be available for such important tasks as operating a remote control, reading an issue of Vogue, swigging from a bottle of Vodka (just kidding) or in some cases conducting a phone interview for work (not kidding).

After 10 months of exclusive breastfeeding, I was taking back my chest, which among some circles of mothers is considered sacrilegious. The healthiest, smartest, most benevolent children wean themselves. Didn’t I know that? Cutting my kid off early would cause irreversible damage to his psyche. Our bond would suffer and he’d grow distant and resentful. Formula would give him cancer, lead poisoning and cavities.

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To chase a career or a kid?

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Before I had Henry I was impatient with the world, critical of myself and sometimes of others.

I thought stay-at-home moms had it easy. Worse yet, I thought they were devoid of interests beyond the confines of motherhood. I pictured them schlepping kids from Gymboree class to play dates, dressed in yoga pants and a pained smile. I pictured them chained to the kitchen, the SUV, the laundry basket and the obligatory spin class. I pictured them dutifully scheduling time for mommy pep rallies that celebrate the pleasantries of breastfeeding, cloth diapering, baby wearing and holistic nutrition. (Dear Earth Mamas: I see nothing wrong with these things. As topics of discussion, however, I find them boring.)

I thought I’d lose my identity as a stay-at-home-mom. I thought I’d compromise my self-worth and freedom. I thought I’d be resentful of my husband and pissed at myself for having failed at being a working mother: the ultimate wonder woman. I thought I’d be considered a disgrace to the radical feminists who came before me and a quitter to the overachieving, have-it-all multitaskers of my generation.

Leaving my job at the newspaper would mean I’d dropped a significant ball in the heroic juggling act that is regularly executed by the modern working mother. I’d be forced to rethink everything I thought I’d do or wouldn’t do as a parent, as if you really know these things before you bring a tiny, demanding, Bambi-eyed being into this world.

I was wrong about working mothers AND stay-at-home mothers. (As an aside, I was right about yoga pants.)

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The middle ground

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This is Henry when he was four months old. He couldn’t crawl and he couldn’t sit. He was nursing every few hours and puking every few minutes. He was smiling. Always smiling. He did that pretty frequently pretty early on, which I took to be a good sign.

My baby will be happy, I said.

And boy was I right. When he’s happy, he’s really happy. When he’s frustrated, he’s really frustrated. He exists in a perpetual state of One Extreme or The Other.

Sometimes he’ll hang around in The Middle. When he’s in The Middle you’ll know it. He’ll bring you a book and in his most civilized babble, ask you to sit still with him and read.

He likes to flip the pages on his own. Usually he turns to a picture of a cat, or a dog, or a truck. Each time he’ll identify these creatures as “lights.” Everything is a “light,” or as he likes to say it, “ite.”

My kid loves the light. Airplanes are repeatedly identified as “ites.” Dogs are ites. Squirrels are ites. The garbage truck is an ite.

Henry aches to be in the light every second of every day.

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