Now Where Did I Put My Stamps?

Dear Guy Ahead of Me in Line at the Safeway Who Declined to Donate $.50 to Kids with Special Needs, But Then Bought Smokes and a Lottery Ticket:

You're totally going to hell.

Love, Falling




Dear Person or Committee Who Chooses Waiting Room Music:

Really? A Muzak version of Lollypop? Huh. You might also be going to hell.

Love, Falling



Dear Co-worker Who Was Rude To Me and Later Claimed Not to Recognize Me:

1) We've worked together for four years.
2) I wasn't wearing Groucho glasses

Love, Falling


***************

In other news, my friend C had her baby! (C sometimes comments as "Anonymous," but not always. I mean to say that all of C's comments are Anonymous, but not all Anonymous comments are C. See?) (That was funny when I said it out loud. If you don't find it funny, try reading it aloud. In a library. Also, be drunk.) Welcome to the world, baby T (isn't that a sweet name?)! You're a lucky girl to have such an amazing mama. Also, in about 20 years, I know this great guy. You like 'em large, right?

The Internet Is, In Fact, For Porn, Apparently*

So, I finally got myself hooked up with Google Analytics, purely so that I could do one of those funny posts where you list the web searches that brought people to your site and then write pithy remarks about them.

I fully admit I don't know how to fully make use of all these pretty pie charts that I now have access to, but I figured out how to get the keyword search report. Sadly, so far, I don't have a whole lot to go off of. There are a couple related to birth stories ("having contractions videos," "homebirth story," and my favorite, "hypnobirthing and hippies," which I'm pretty sure is redundant). Someone found me by searching for "creepoid," which is a word I thought I made up.

But the rest?

"blogspot xxx amateur"

"enematime"

"i jerk myself amateur video"


So, um, not only are people coming here for porn, they're coming here for awkward, novice porn. Swell.




*This blog title refers to the song "The Internet is For Porn" from Avenue Q. If you're familiar with the show, you'll appreciate this little story: my mom saw the show in NY on a business trip and enjoyed it. As she would do with any musical she enjoyed, she promptly bought the soundtrack. Later she told me about how she had it on the stereo on a bright spring day, with the windows and doors open, only to realize that she hadn't really paid close attention to many of the (hilariously dirty) lyrics until she found herself blaring lines like, "Me grab my dick/and point and click" to the sleepy suburbs.

Possibly the First Time Brangelina Has Been Mentioned in a Treatise on Grief and Loss

Wow. So, um, who's cool? You guys are.

I didn't mean to post a big ol' "Hey, my mom's dead, plus I have to change my password" thing and then disappear for days while you all wrote such lovely things in the comments. I think about you all the time, I swear. It's just that right now, MOTH is working three nights and one weekend day each week, plus my full-time (and then some, lately) job, and...and...and...well, let's just say I don't know how Brangelina does it. (Grammar nerds: do it? Is "Brangelina" a plural noun?) (Humor nerds: would the Duggars have been a funnier reference?)

I started to reply in the comments, but it got so long, I just thought I'd write it here. Huge, weepy, embarrassingly effusive thank yous for all the kind words, thoughts, and hugs. Yes, yes, to those of you who mentioned writing about your own loss as a method of catharsis. And, of course, it was our own dear Elly Lou who (no relation to Cindy Lou Who) parsed it out so perfectly:

"I'm compelled to write about the cancer thing. Even though many people think I should just never speak of it again. But it was a huge momentous thing in my life that I think warrants documentation...if only so that I can purge it from my brain into a tangible record that I can file away somewhere safe...somewhere permanent...so I don't have to relive those moments over and over again for fear that some detail will be forgotten or trivialized. Then once it's out and safe and documented, it doesn't have to live in my head. Like waking up in the middle of the night to jot down a reminder to drop off the dry cleaning."

Yep. That's it, exactly. That's why I want to write it: not because I want to relive it, but because I worry that to forget the detail would be to trivialize what happened. And, while I don't want to relive the details, I don't want to forget them, either.

I think that what happens, at least for me, is that you tend to hang on to these awful moments, these stark flashes that can instantly take you back to a particular second, going through them again and again in your head. At first you do it because there is no choice, it's like your brain has to go through this loop to figure out that this is really what happened. And then it becomes almost comforting, in a weird way. Like, it helps explain why you feel so odd. You're walking through Target and everything is terribly normal, except that it feels like there's this invisible, thick film between you and that normalcy. You can participate in the rituals, the mundane exchanges with the salespeople, the pleasant surprise of a price slash for your favorite granola bars, and yet it's all weird and surreal and dream-like and you wouldn't be surprised at all if a bear walked out of housewares or if your 7th grade science teacher showed up with a test you hadn't studied for. And you need to relive those details to remind yourself that, oh, yeah, that really did happen, and that's why I'm like this. You need those little mini-blows to keep from getting hammered by the big picture, which is what happens when you do manage to forget for a while. (Also, those little details tend to be in the past, which make them easier to grapple with. It's perversely less distressful to remember how I used Mom's eyeshadow when getting ready for her funeral than to consider that she'll never meet her grandchildren.)

But then, after some time, you start integrating this New Reality into your life. It becomes part of you, for better or for worse. And you're ready not to be confronted with daily reminders of specific, sad moments. But letting those moments go doesn't feel right, either, because it's still a connection. It's still a part of you and your story. So those stories, those details, those moments can still exist somewhere, just not in your brain-box.

So I'm going to keep working on it. It helps to have a better sense of why I want to work on it, and it helps to know that y'all are out there with your own stories and willingness to share in mine. So many, many thanks to you guys.

What? I'm not crying. Shut up.



P.S. Homework! When do you blog? With my crazy job and MOTH picking up work and shifting nap times (curse you, DST!!) and the occasional desire to see a three-dimensional person outside my home, I'm finding myself feeling like I can't eke out the time that I'd like to write, to read and comment, etc. So you tell me: how do you balance your own writing and participating in the blogosphere with your job/kid/s.o./working on your velvet Elvis portraits? Am I just that lame? Is there, perhaps, a trick that I don't know? Or are you all just bending time to your very wills?

Spam from the Great Beyond

So, first of all, you all are awesome and comforty and I'm totally coming to you with my next bad day (like, um, in a few paragraphs). Thanks for your sympathetic words on last week's post. I noted this in the comments, but it occurs to me that it's almost a week old (bad! bad blogger!), and in case people don't check back there: things worked out OK. I called the mom today about something unrelated, and she was all, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry I forgot to call last week about the burn!" It was, as I suspected, an accident, and she knew that the kid was going around saying, "Mommy burned me," but she'd forgotten to call me. Neither of us acknowledged the DHS call, but I felt OK about telling her I'd been sure there was an explanation. We have a meeting coming up, and hopefully our relationship can continue intact. I feel like a huge weight's been lifted, because I literally lost sleep over that stupid call. (For now, let's ignore the fact that a colleague had to make a call the next day about a different family, one about which we do have serious concerns, because...well...sigh, you know?)

Hm, let's think of something cheerier to discuss. Hey, who wants to move from talking about child abuse to cybercrime and dead moms? You do? Well, you're in luck...

My mother died three years ago on April 13th. Yesterday, I had planned to post something about the story of what happened. I wanted to write about getting the call, about the surreal plane ride, returning to the house I'd left only a week ago, seeing her slippers still on the floor. Like writing out my birth story, I've had it in my mind that I need to write about this. However, unlike my birth story, I'm not sure why I want to write it all out. I wanted to be able to remember everything about Tankbaby's birth, all the little details and the order in which they fell. I don't really want to remember the little details around Mom's death, I guess, but I feel like...I need to? Maybe because, three years later, it still seems unreal lots of the time. Or maybe because it feels like some sort of honoring ritual or closure (although my suspicion is that Mom herself would brush this off and tell me to go do something cheerful). Or maybe simply to document a horrible, scary thing in case someone else needs to know what one person's experience was like. I don't know. My compulsion to write it is almost equal to my revulsion in thinking about it and I've danced around the possibility for three years now. But I figured, hey, I have a blog and a newly re-affirmed mission to write more boldly and honestly...

...and then I found out that my e-mail address had been hacked and I'd just sent about 200 contacts links to some Canadian sex aid site. Dontcha hate it when that happens?

Anyway, I generally only have the time that Tankbaby naps in the late afternoon/early evening to write, and instead of composing a touching, brutal, memorial post, I spent yesterday's hour cleaning out my inbox, contacting everyone to warn/apologize about the link, changing my password, etc., etc.

Oh, and receiving e-mails from my dead mom.

I'm not sure how this all works, but I'm guessing it's related and that the hacker also got into her account, or from hers to mine or something, but there it was in my inbox: new message from deadmom@aol.com (um, not her real address). On the date of her death. Swell. What's the appropriate phrase for punched-in-the-stomach-but-creepily?

I called my dad to warn him about the link and also to commiserate about the weirdness of the e-mail. It just so happened that my sister, the famous Aunt Benevola, was over for dinner, so I talked to both of them. Benevola wanted to know what the e-mail said. I explained that it also contained a link, but that I didn't click on it. Later on we had this text exchange:

Me: Hmph. Found a few more e-mails from mom in my yahoo acct. Looks like hers might've been hacked, too.

Benevola: Or maybe mom wants you to buy Viagra.

Me: Wow. That's creepy in, like, so many ways.


So, I never got around to writing the post I'd planned. Maybe I still will (because, Goddammit, there's always next year). Or maybe this is Mom's way of telling me to cheer up and focus on the blessings in my life (of which there are plenty, including a Tankbaby who can now find his ears on cue and a MOTH who sent me a text today with a picture of the first spring lilac blossoms and the message, "Your mom sent you something today to cheer you up").

Or maybe Mom really is shilling penile enhancers from the afterlife.

Might Want To Look Elsewhere for Sunshine and Rainbows

My assistant pulls me aside. "When I pulled up P's sleeve to wash his hands, I saw a round mark. I didn't get a good look at it, but he's got something on there."

Swell. Circular owie? I'm thinking ringworm.

I go over to the three-year-old. "Hey, P, Carrie says you have an owie. Can I see?" I pull up his sleeve and see not the raised round rash I was expecting, but a small, perfect circle. It's about the diameter of a marker cap, but even thinner. In fact, I look closely, thinking that somehow he's stamped himself with a cap rimmed in ink, or something. But it's not ink. It's not a rash, either. It looks like a scab. "What happened, sweetie?"

"Mommy burned me."

"What?"

"Mommy burned me."

Well, shit.

Here's the thing. I know this family. I am 95% sure that this is one of three things: 1) that something happened where his mom accidentally burned him, like he came up behind her and she turned around too fast or something, 2) that he did this to himself somehow, but his mom was involved before or after and he's mixing that in, or 3) something else entirely happened. However. I don't get to make that call.

The call I get to make is to the child abuse hotline. I am, by law, a mandated reporter, which means that any time I see a suspicious or unusual mark or a child reports an injury or basically any time I suspect abuse or neglect, I am legally required to make a call, or risk license suspension, termination, and fines or even jail time. Even when I suspect, as I do here, that there is more to the story. Even worse, I'm not supposed to interrogate the child, so I can't ask many follow-up questions, lest I later be accused of "leading" the child. I ask again, "What happened?" and he repeats himself, but this time with more stuff that I can't understand and "ow" and "hot." The thing is, he's three. And in special ed. So his language skills are not so hot. So I don't get a lot more information.

Here's the other thing: I'm not allowed to call the family, either. It's one thing if they call me and say, hey, just so you know, xyz happened and that's why Petunia has that black eye. But I can't call them. I can't tell them that I have to call the hotline.

This might be the part of my job that I hate the most.

I understand the rationale behind all of these rules, and I respect it. Child abuse and neglect is especially prevalent among kids with special needs, because they are less likely to be able to defend themselves, to report it, and to get help. As a reporter, my job is only to repeat what I was told or what I saw, without making any judgment on it. But in a case like this, I feel like I'm totally screwed. I have to report it, and theoretically my call is kept anonymous. But if a caseworker investigates, it's not too hard for a family to figure out who made the call. After all, these are preschoolers. They don't go out on their own very much. So then the relationship, the trust that I've spent the past however many months building, is wrecked. Parents feel (rightly) betrayed and don't want to trust us anymore. They may even pull their kids from the program. That's a lot to risk for what, in this case, I think is a less than 5% chance of there actually being abuse.

However. That 95% certainty I mentioned? That's because I've been doing this for a while, and I'll never say I'm 100% sure. Because I can't be. Because kids that I've worked with have been hurt while I'm working with them, and I didn't know. Because kids that my agency has worked with have died at the hands of their caregivers. Thankfully and obviously, this is extremely rare, but it's happened. So I'm never 100% sure. So I have to make the call.

I called, and I did tell the intake worker that I was calling because I had to, that I've never had concerns about this family, that the child's reporting could be garbled or missing information. In all likelihood, this won't even become an active investigation, because it's (as far as I know) the first report. It'll probably just get filed away, and if other incidents occur, an investigation will be opened. (Which, of course, is tragic in other cases, where there is likely something horrible and ongoing happening, and it can take several incidents to get an investigation going.) Odds are that the family will never be contacted and the report will just languish somewhere, unless something happens in the future to warrant further examination.

But still, I won't sleep well tonight, knowing that somewhere I've put a likely perfectly innocent family's name on a list. I'm sick over it, and sick of it. I hate that this responsibility rests on me, and that they system that places this burden is the same one that regularly screws over the very people it's supposed to help. I never feel like a call to the hotline is "saving" a kid, even when I do suspect that the child's safety is in danger. I feel like I'm dooming them to a faulty process with failing resources, and that I'm covering my own ass and that of my employer.

It all sucks, and right now I wish I'd gotten that nice graphic design degree my mom wanted for me.

In Case You Want a Reason To Scratch Out Your Own Eyes

My friend E (yes, that wonderful wise woman presence from my birth story) posted this on my Facebook page recently. I don't know why she hates me.

(Caution: Twisted stuff. Like, if the Yardbabies freak you out, this is probably not for you. Would you enjoy some interspecies cuteness instead?)



If you need me, I'll just be over here. Shuddering.

I'll Never Be Able To Show My Face Around Here Again

This is the last day of personally-imposed little challenge, and I thank all of you for being so awesomely supportive and pretending you actually wanted to read all about the most unflattering things about me. Tomorrow I go back to work and likely back to my post-every-couple-of-days pattern, which will hopefully allow for some more time for reading and commenting on all of your blogs, a task which I did not accomplish this week.

So, Fie Upon This Quiet Life asked, "Have you ever dated someone you worked with? How did it go, if so?"

Interestingly, this seemingly innocuous question provides a perfect opportunity for my final likely-to-embarrass-myself post (well, it's probably more accurate to say "my final intentional likely-to-embarrass-myself post"). Because the answer is sort of and I married him. MOTH and I worked together for two summers, although we didn't start dating until a couple years later.

Here's where the embarrassing part comes in: We met? At a Renaissance Fair.

Now, now, quiet down...I can't type with all that laughter. Besides, you'll wake the baby. Yes, yes, indeed...I spent my summers in late high school and college (and a few years post-college) performing a Renaissance festival, complete with accent, bodice, and an over-reliance on Kenneth Branagh movies for historical knowledge. I called paying customers "m'lord" and pretended not to know what a videocamera was.

You can generally sort the people who work at (or visit with any frequency) a Ren Faire into the following categories:

1) Faerie Folk--these are the hippies who love walking around in leather bikinis (just like in Shakespeare's time!), live for the afternoon drum jam, and wear glitter and wings and feathers without irony. They generally dig on the "mystic energy" and can probably tell you where the good 'shrooms are to be found in the parking lot.

2) D&D/Magic/Other Wizards, Vikings, Pirates, etc.--like their ethereal brethren, these guys are totally into this mythical world, and relish the opportunity to play dress-up and live out their fantasy play...whether or not it actually has any historical accuracy or relevance. There was this one guy who used to come every damn weekend (not a performer), in full loincloth and fur regalia. My friend Melissa used to call him Pronoun the Barbarian.

3) Historical Re-enactors--on the opposite end of the spectrum, these history buffs learn every damn thing there was to know about Elizabethan England, and are liable to corner you explaining why that turkey leg isn't really period, you know, because barbeque sauce wouldn't be invented until the 1800s when Edmund Kumquatch brought high fructose corn syrup to the New World. Or something.

4) Performers (actors, musicians, etc.) who want to entertain, and treat this as a job. However, they also dig the community that comes from performing with the same people for nine weeks in a row, year after year. This was me. This was/is my friends, some of whom actually work the Faire circuit, traveling around the country performing and making a living at it. And while I would understand why a "serious" theatre artist might look down on a Rennie, I can also promise you that it's not an easy gig. You're wearing hot layers of clothes, you're in character all the time, and everything you do is improvised in front of a live audience. You perform in all weather, for nine hours at a stretch. As a result, the people that I worked with are some of the funniest, quickest people you'll ever meet. Who can also juggle fire.

I was 15 when I started, and 25 when I stopped, and in those ten years, I made some of my closest friends, people who stood up in my wedding, people I've now known for over half my life. I met my best friend there. I met my husband there. I felt pretty there for the first time in my life. It is the home of wonderful, amazing memories of me transforming from a terribly shy nerd into a garrulous, (semi)confident proud-to-be-a geek.

So mock me at your leisure, but I know people. People with swords. And people who swallow them. We're fun at parties.

Don't Drink, Don't Smoke...What Do You Do?

So, here's the thing. I don't really have any deep, dark secrets. I'm quite boring, and have had a life-long fear of Getting In Trouble, so I don't have any wonderful stories about youthful madcap foolishness that turned legendary with the application of time and adulthood. I want to keep with my challenge theme about posting potentially embarrassing things, but today I'm drawing a blank. How embarrassing (heyyy...)!

So, for tomorrow's post, I'm going to give you an assignment: you ask me something, anything, and I'll answer it honestly. What do you want to know?

In exchange, I will offer up these tidbits of cringiness (seriously--I actually cringed while writing each one). They may not seem like much (certainly none of them alone are enough for a whole blog post, dammit), but these are exactly the kinds of things that my subconscious likes to offer up in the wee hours of the morning, whenever it feels like I might be thinking too highly of myself.

Pretty Minor But Still Awful Things I Have Done

• I totally manipulated a friend in high school into throwing me a "surprise" party when I was 14. I can't remember how, but I got her to offer it, and then to be in cahoots with me about how I would act (duh) surprised. I don't think I even helped her decorate or anything beforehand, as that would have...um...wrecked the surprise. Wow. I was a tool. I remember really having a good time at that party, though. So much for learning a valuable lesson, hm?
• In eighth grade, those of us with no detentions were allowed to go on a field trip to a nearby amusement park. One of the girls in my group, Diane, shoplifted a bunch of stuffed animals and other tchotchkes (screw you, spellcheck, that's a word. No, I didn't mean to write latchkey, artichoke, or crotchless) and passed them around to the group. We were summarily busted by the amusement park rent-a-cops, and while I can laugh now, I was TERRIFIED at the time. I mean, they read us our rights and everything! The rest of us were released (and ejected from the park, which was convenient, considering the buses were waiting...my friend Casie went back the next day, just to thumb her nose at The Man, while I didn't return for a year and only then wearing a pair of Groucho glasses), because we hadn't actually stolen anything. And while we maintained to the cops that we didn't know she was stealing things, and I've always made that part of my story when I related this to other people, even as an adult...I knew. We all did. I mean, we weren't sending her in with a list of things to steal and a blueprint of the kiosk security system, but when she handed us that candy or stuffed animal, we knew she wasn't buying it. We (or at least I) didn't know that she also had her shoulder bag crammed with over $100 of merchandise until the cops emptied it out when she claimed innocence. But the point is, I knew that these were ill-gotten gains, and I pretended I didn't. Even when I told this story as an adult. I guess I was worried about the statute of limitations on juvenile receiving of stolen goods. So don't drop a dime on me, OK? I've done my time. My sentence was to ride to the waiting buses--full of the good students--in a police car so that I'd hear "Ooooh...busssted!" from a bunch of white, middle class twelve-year-olds.
• In college, I was an RA in the dorms. As a fundraiser, we held a date auction, where you were signed up by someone (this way you were guaranteed a bidder) and you describe the date you would take a person on, which is then bid upon by the audience. Bidding started at a dollar, and usually went up to $15-20. When my friend Amanda went up, bidding went up in the usual dollar increments, until our friend Eric offered $50. It was sweet and unexpected, and they ended up dating that year and later got married (and then divorced, but I don't think that had anything to do with the date auction). I was next, and was flattered and, to be honest, a wee bit triumphant that I also got the bids up to $50. However, the guy (tall, confident, funny) who made the final bid was not buying the date for himself, but for this other guy (short, timid, possibly funny but who would know because he was so quiet) who we'll call Roger. And, in the finest tradition of teen TV sitcoms, as Tall Funny Guy stepped aside so Roger could shyly step forward, I could hear the "wah-wah-wahhh" in my head. I'm so ashamed about this now, but I was disappointed. And really nervous. I mean, the guys had helped this kid buy a $50 date...what if he really liked me? It is a testament to how inexperienced I was that I was absolutely panicked at the idea of this guy making some kind of move that I'd have to refuse and I wouldn't know how and even if he didn't, I'd have to TALK to him and he didn't talk and what would we talk about and STOP SAYING TALK, and, and...and I chickened out. I swapped out my original date offer (dinner and...a walk? a movie? I can't remember, but there was definitely a phase two) for a double-date with my friend Jason and his date. Roger and I had dinner in this pseudo-sandwich shop that was actually an extension of the dining hall, then we met Jason and his date at Ben and Jerry's. It was an uncomfortable, early evening, and I never gave that poor guy a chance. I was so terrified of awkwardness...in me, in him, that I ended up creating the most awkward situation anyway. I saw him in the dorms, of course, and was nervously friendly, but mostly embarrassed. And now, of course, I can see how much worse I made the situation by being so obviously uncomfortable. I mean, if he didn't actually like me and was just caught up in the camaraderie of the guys doing something nice for him, then he probably just thought I was weird.. If he actually liked me, well, I bet he didn't after that night.

Whew! Doesn't that feel good, to get that off my chest? And you all still like me, right? Right? Um, hello? HELLLLOOO?

Damn. Should have stuck with the pooping stories.

In Which I Mention Star Wars, a Death March, and Gypsies--Yes, It's About Parenting

I have wrested the computer away from my son's eager hands, and MOTH is distracting him with the Scooba (it's like a Roomba, but for mopping instead of vaccuming), so I have a precious few minutes to write. I've had this week off for spring break, and thus felt confident in my posting-every-day challenge, but somehow it's still hard. I've managed to post, yes, but I haven't gotten to read/comment elsewhere all week, so...anyway, I'm cheating a bit by digging out something I wrote when Tankbaby was about four months old. Consider it a sequel to the enormously loooong and drawn-out birth story. Like The Phantom Menace to Star Wars. Except, you know, without the weirdly racist overtones.

I wrote this in a good moment, one where I was feeling OK about the not-so-much-OK-ness that had permeated the first couple months of parenting. That wasn't, and isn't, always the case. I still struggle mightily with the moments where I feel like I'm losing my shit, where I am so frustrated with this perfect, healthy, vulnerable little boy who is just being a baby. I know that it's normal, I know that I'm not alone, but it feels awful. It feels awful to have such strong negative feelings about the most precious being in your life, the one for whom you'd lay down your life, except you're pretty sure he's going to be the death of you long before you can make the sacrifice. They are flashes and they go away, but these moments are there in parenting, and it's scary to see how close we all are to the abyss in those moments. I felt immediate affection for this guy I met when Tankbaby was about five months old who, within minutes of talking about non-sleeping babies, offered up, "Oh, I TOTALLY get how someone could shake their baby." Because you do. You see how parents, especially those who are young and/or without knowledge and support, could lose it entirely for a minute. I don't understand the whole "wait until your father gets home" thing where you nurse a grudge against your child for hours and then administer physical punishment coldly and methodically (which is ironic, because the people I know who are pro-spanking are often very proud of the fact that "I do it when I'm calm, I never hit out of anger," which to me is waaaay more fucked up), but I can understand losing your nut and reacting out of the monster that lives inside all of us.

Anyway, in hopes that this somehow reaches someone who someday needs a little light at the end of the tunnel, or maybe someone who is continuing to beat themselves up for those awful moments, I offer this:

The First Trimester

When you are first pregnant, the traditional wisdom is that you don’t tell anyone for the first trimester. You’re all excited and want to share the news, but you hold off, lest you get everyone else excited and then Something Bad Happens. The first three months of parenthood are kind of like that, but in reverse. At least for me…I didn’t want to share too much, lest I scare people off from ever having a baby. But now that we’re into the second trimester of parenthood, I feel like I can share.

I was at L’s house today with Tankbaby and he was grinning up at me gummily. I leaned over and said something like, “Oh, man, you are so cute. I’m so glad I kept you, even though at around week five I thought of returning you to sender.” L’s mom said, “You don’t really mean that,” and before I could reply, L said, “Oh yes, she does.” She explained that, when she came to visit during those early weeks, particularly when I was also in the throes of mastitis, I was not smiling and instead resembled a member of the Bataan Death March (um, I might be paraphrasing here).

She’s not wrong. I loved my son pretty instantaneously, but that love came more from an unconscious, biological, hormonal place than the affection I feel for him now. That early love was powerful, but it needed to be in order to outweigh the sleep-deprived, equally-hormone-fueled desire to put the baby in a drawer for a few hours. If possible, a drawer in someone else’s house. On Mars.

So, while I loved my kid, I wasn’t all that crazy about Motherhood at that point. It’s different now, better. I have a chubby baby with big eyes and bigger cheeks and ham thighs who can smile and make eye contact and flirt, instead of a little crying grubworm, with whom the best I could hope to achieve is a state of neutrality, of just being still and quiet. Now, Tankbaby looks for me and follows my motions across a room, and I think I am finally more to him than just the Blur Behind the Boobs. It is all, as the clichés say, totally worth it. But I still remember those early weeks, when I wondered, “What have I done?” and I could look down at this tiny, vulnerable human being and say, “I love you so much. But you know what? If you would sleep a little longer? I could love you MORE.”

I don’t know. Maybe this was just me? But I would respectfully contend that those of you who are parents, if you don’t remember feeling doubt and desperation, feeling like you might want a do-over, feeling like you might well sell that baby to the gypsies in exchange for four hours of sleep or one hot shower, you a) are lying, or b) probably didn’t have a baby, but a houseplant. Think back—were you able to ignore it for long periods of time? If the answer is yes, you probably didn’t have a baby, or at least you shouldn’t have.

If I Haven't Gone to Bed Yet, This Counts as Today's Post, right?

(Spoiler alert: I had a baby!)

Part 3, or You'll Notice That While I Mention Poop, I Somehow Tell A Birth Story Without Every Using the Word "Vagina"

You know the drill by now, right? Labor, breathe, smugness. At my next cervical check, I was at…nine and a half. Now, a half inch may seem like a tiny amount, but apparently when you’re trying to push an infant’s cranium out of your hoo-ha, eeeevery leetle bit helps. However, Karen knew I was fatiguing, and she offered to try to “stretch” my cervix to get it all the way open.

Now, friends. If anyone, even someone you know and trust, offers to stretch your cervix, you tell them NO THANK YOU JUST FINE OVER HERE GO AWAY NOW. If only someone had given me this same advice. As it was, I thought this sounded like a dandy idea, because I was all too ready to be done with these chump contractions. I wanted to get on with the pushing, which I’d heard that many women actually like, because it feels like such a relief to be doing something. So I assented, thinking, how bad could it be, compared to what I’d been doing and what I was about to do? The answer: worse and not quite as bad, but darn near. But it must have done the trick, because not long after, I felt like pushing.

When you take a childbirth class, they’ll probably tell you that pushing feels like needing to poop. They’re correct. It is one of the more unnerving feelings (and there are many to choose from) in labor, especially if you’re a nancy-prissy-pants like me who has been TERRIFIED at the idea of pooping in front of people, ever since I heard that was a possibility. So after the “stretching” (which is stretching in the sense that being put on the rack is stretching), I resumed the position. Karen left to check on someone, telling the nurses, “Page me when she’s ready to push.” About three minutes later, I felt what could only be The Urge. I mumbled, “Um, I think I’m ready to push?” like I was asking permission. The nurse asked if she should go get Karen, and I confirmed the pushing-similar-to-pooping theory, and said, yes please.

So Karen came back in. I was squatting at the edge of the bed and pushing, like they do on TV, only to be informed that I was not, actually, pushing. “Push here,” I was told as someone’s hand, um, invaded Normandy, shall we say. I pushed. I was told I wasn’t pushing. More emphatic handling of the lady bits. More pushing. But, apparently, not really. Finally, Karen told me I have to push like I’m pooping, and that, in fact, there is poop in them thar bowels and that I should go have some contractions on the toilet to help “move things along.” She says “poop” like an experienced mom: there is nothing self-conscious about it, it’s almost cute. (By contrast, you should know that I’m blushing every time I type the word.)

And here, dear Teh Interweb, is where I would draw a curtain to preserve my modesty (what? Stop laughing), but I do want to be honest. So, let’s quickly blow by the fact that…I pooped. While MOTH knelt next to me. We do not speak of it. However, for any of you who might find yourself in a similar situation, I can promise you that in the moment, I didn’t care. I was certain that I would feel embarrassed about all of these indignities, because, well, come on. But I didn’t. In the moment, I was all about getting the job done, nudity or bodily functions be damned. And when it’s over, it’s like it never happened. You know, unless you put it on the internet.

Back to the bed. I’d requested a “squat bar,” which is a metal bar that attaches to the end of the bed so that you can use it as leverage when you’re squatting and pushing. I remember that there was some fumbling during the installation, and at one point one end of it clattered as it slid out of place. Finally it was stable. I thought I would use the birth ball and different positions, but I ended up lying back in the bed (with the back still raised) to rest, and during contractions, I would pull myself up to the squat bar and push. For days after I gave birth, I had sore shoulders and arms, and I’m pretty sure that three hours of pull-ups was the culprit.

As my Splendoula, E was also in charge of documentation, and she took pictures and video of me a few times throughout the labor. I wasn’t sure that I would want them, but in the days and weeks following Tankbaby’s birth, I went back and looked at them over and over again*. There are pictures of me kneeling over the back of the bed, with MOTH and E in position, massaging and stroking and appearing very somber and respectful, like they’re at a museum. The picture of me pushing (torso and up) looks like I’m trying to do a particularly tough long division problem in my head. These pictures are, incidentally, followed by silly self-portraits of Karen and E (did I mention that Karen was also E’s midwife for her kids?), waving and grinning at the camera. They were clearly having a better time at my labor, with their little love-fest reunion.

Rest, contraction starts, pull-up, push, lie back. Over and over again I did this. I was getting really tired, and wished the contractions would slow down so that I could grab a quick nap in between them. Karen called for ice chips, and directed MOTH to give them to me between pushing, since she was worried I was getting dehydrated. I pushed and pushed, positive I was bursting blood vessels in my face, imagining bloodshot eyes and WC Fields nose in my post-partum photos. At one point between contractions, E leaned over and rubbed my back gently and whispered, “Is there anything you want right now that you don’t have?” I answered, “A fucking baby.”

I pushed for about three hours. Towards the end, not knowing it was the end, I asked a nurse desperately, “Is this doing anything?” She misheard me and answered soothingly, “Yes, you’re doing great.” Finally, MOTH told me that he could see the head in between pushes. In my dazed state, I sort of didn’t believe him, because, after all, I was planning on having this baby hours ago, and everyone keeps insisting I’m doing great, but I have yet to produce the child. Realizing that I was faltering a bit, Karen grabbed my hand and put it between my legs to feel the head. This was motivating (Actual baby part! Near the exit, even!), although at that point, all damp, hairy, bloody parts felt kinda the same to me.

A mirror was brought in. I mostly ended up ignoring it, as my eyes were closed during contractions and pushing. I have a vivid flash of watching as a contraction ended, watching that little purple head recede a bit. I also remember the trickle of bright red blood where I would later receive stitches.

Now, if I may be a hippie, the room’s energy totally changed. There were lights being set up, the end of bed was dropped, equipment tables were brought over. I remember E telling me, “See all this stuff? They’re getting busy down there, that means it’s almost time.” Like MOTH, I understood what she was saying, but I still only half-believed her, because by this point I was convinced that, like Sisyphus, this would just be my life’s work from now on: rest, pull-up, push until the end of time.

But she was right. MOTH was gowned up, Karen took up her position and my feet were placed in stirrups, (wo)manned by nurses. I didn’t see E at the time, but a dozen pictures of my girly bits tell me that she was behind the camera (Again, I thought I wouldn’t want these pictures, but wow. To have the very first breath my kid ever drew on film, even if the background is rated XXX, is pretty cool).

I don’t remember a moment of “the next push is it,” but there was one particular push where I knew it was the one. The much-lauded Ring of Fire sensation (fairly accurate, by the way, with apologies to Johnny Cash), and then relief as the head came out. Another push of the shoulders, and a giant slippery rush as the rest of the body followed (which is, in case you’re unfamiliar with babies, what you want to see). MOTH told me later that the baby was crying, although I didn’t hear it. I reached down, greedy, to pull him to me, and heard, “Whoa, whoa!” because the cord was still attached. MOTH cut the cord and the warm, squirming, wet baby—my baby—was on my chest.

I hope you don’t think less of me when I tell you that, in that moment, I was equally elated that a) I had a gorgeous, healthy baby, and b) I was ALL DONE WITH LABOR.

Our birthing class teacher had sent us this crazy cool video about the breast crawl, a natural instinct in babies to, moments after being born, seek out the breast. It seemed weird and neat, so we wanted to try it. Somewhere in my daze, I had pulled up my tank top, and sure enough, that little tiny being, who had so recently been promoted from fetus to creature of the air, squirmed and wriggled and latched on. It was amazing and only later did E tell me how hard it was for her to sit on her hands and watch, rather than just “whomp that baby onto the boob.”

This should really be the end, except that hardly anyone talks about the rest. Before the credits roll, you’ve got to deliver the placenta. Unless you’re me, in which case you apparently hang on to it a bit, until there’s enough bleeding that you get your ass put on an IV with a little Pitocin, as well as some fluids (looking at pictures later, I did avoid broken capillaries, but I am…a little peaked-looking, shall we say. Probably a good call on the fluids, there). Then there’s the stitches and general tidying up of the, well, I don’t want to say “exit wound,” but you know what I mean. At some point, the adrenaline kicked in and I began shivering uncontrollably, while still holding the baby. I remember wondering why no-one was trying to take him. E coached me to do my deep breathing again, and lo and behold, it works. I stop shaking. I turned to her and said, “Tell me the story about the day when no-one wants to do anything painful between my legs again.”

Somewhere in here a hapless cafeteria worker comes up with my long-awaited dinner. She apologizes profusely when she enters the room and finds me…a la carte, but by that point I’m beyond caring, and I mostly want what’s on her tray. I’d heard that the hospital had great milkshakes, and, as the cafeteria closed at midnight and my son was gracious enough to be born at 11 PM, one of MOTH’s first acts as a father was to order the mother of his child a turkey sandwich and vanilla milkshake. They were both tasty as hell, and one of my favorite pictures is of Tankbaby nursing while I have half a sandwich stuffed in my mouth.

Karen finished her naughty-bits needlepoint and dashed out to deliver another baby. I finished my meal and started texting friends and family while MOTH helped clean and weigh the Tank (who, at 8 lbs 6 oz, was perfectly average at birth. Little did we know). E stayed for a bit longer, then went home to her own family when we were moved to a post-partum suite. And Tankbaby slept, which lulled me into a false sense of security about the next thirteen months.

So that’s the story about the day I had a baby. And an excellent milkshake.

*In the days immediately following the birth, I felt kind of weird about it, because I didn’t feel like I’d been a good Hypnobirther. Sure, I’d used the relaxation techniques and I hadn’t ended up using meds, but I complained bitterly…in my head. I felt like a whiner, like I’d been weak. Which I know now is preposterous, but it really helped me to see photographic evidence of me being strong, being calm, doing this amazing work that millions of women have done and do every day. It is the most common and yet most miraculous thing, and the photos I have, while not for public consumption, remind me of that. No matter the method or how it may vary from your original plan, to give birth is nothing short of a miracle. If someone gave birth to you, go hug them right now.