I Will

I will never be drunk enough for this, for these nights, the ones that shove me forward, my toes on the brink of the fall. There's nothing that can take the edge off the burning in my body, the muscles of my will to survive shaking in exhaustion, digging themselves into the earth. There's no respite, only sharp sobriety.

Anne Lamott is one of my most treasured writers and she taught me how to feel each moment, really drink it in and wait, wait long enough for the moment to reach my extremities. Our tendency is to fight it, to stuff it, to will it away. If I don't let myself feel the pain then maybe I can trick myself into thinking that it's not really painful.

The same theory applies to the pains of childbirth. The more we fight the contractions, the worse they feel and the slower our progression. As each wave hits, if we make our bodies rigid, clenching our teeth in rebellion and fear, we will literally be pushing against Nature in an attempt to win a losing battle. But what does it look like when we let go? Our bodies become vessels of that power, rocking through the waves, delivering love. We move around, roll our heads, sway our hips. Each wave, starting at the centre of Creation radiates freely through our bodies, unhindered by fear, untamed by control. It reaches outward, and is released. And just like that, as we let go, our love is birthed, and we can begin to heal.

I will hold my position on the edge, I will feel the burn of my will to keep going, to hold strong. I will ride each wave as it hits, I will resist the urge to fight it and instead let it move me, let it rock and roll me. Love prevails, and I will let go.

Push

A mother is bent sideways, balancing life on one hip, edges rounded by the delicious fruit of love. A mother carries the weight of her heart: her children. And when love gets too heavy, she lowers her heart deep down into the cells of each emotional and physical and spiritual muscle ever flexed within her and she draws upon a strength conceived in the exact second that she became Mother. And from that strength, with the grunts and groans of childbirth, pained and exhausted, she heaves life back into her children. Their frail limbs once quivering with the weight of their worlds, silently, from behind like a breeze, her love lifts them up and guides them forward.

I became a mother at the age of twenty-two. The shift from a life focused on Suzy toward a life focused on my child served to carve out parts of me that I didn't know existed. An operation of sorts carried on without anesthetic or any hopes of morphine, recovery, or regained mobility. Running marathons helped me to see the rigors of motherhood in the big picture--that the hard work pays off, the painful moments eventually pass, and a little throw-up never hurt anyone. But it's such a thankless job, isn't it? Our efforts are a well-kept secret from the rest of humanity like a private club in which the initiation would buckle the strongest of knees.

But what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger.

We don't do it for recognition, no. And we certainly don't do it for the fame and fortune. We do it for love. When our children, teetering on spindly legs, venture out into the big world and find their strength waning, they'll be able to look back home and feel the warm wind of our love holding them up and pushing them forward.

Expansion

There's no theme or life lesson whatsoever in this post. It's going to come out randomly and messily, the way Christmas sprays Lego diarrhea.

Lately I've been obsessed with pregnancy blogs. I love analyzing the different bumps, rejoicing over the bloggers who have gained more weight than I have, and quickly closing up the pages of the women who have gained only 7 lb by 29 weeks (LIARS!!!!!!). I take weekly photos of my baby bumps (I have two: one in the front that houses our little love bug, and one in the back--my ass that seems to think it needs to balance out my body so I don't tip forward).

Besides the initial scare in the beginning, this pregnancy has been smooth sailing. It's not like much has been going on, you know, to give me a bloody second to even remember that I'm pregnant. We got married, we sold our place, bought a place, we move in four weeks, spent a couple of weeks in and out of BC Children's, devoted our free time to Christmas concerts, grocery shopping in bulk, and phone calls with vice principals and teachers (one of the five may have thrown a snowball at the vice principal's office window while she was standing there watching), stopped by the maternity ward twice to get some IV fluids to shush some persistent braxton hicks, and a partridge in a pear tree.

And that was December.

All the cutesy pregnancy blogs detail how they're sewing their own baby clothes and oh look! Professional maternity photo session of the adorable soon-to-be family of four as they walk through a serene forest of falling leaves and distant rainbows! Meanwhile we cram all seven of us into an ultrasound room to watch our baby boy blow our $150 on pics by covering up his face with his hands for the entire 45 minute session while his siblings punch each other out in order to get the best view of the screen.

It's a good life.

So I guess if I were to write up a 29 week pregnancy update it would go something like this:

Week: 29

Cravings: a meal that doesn't involve uneaten food scraps

Weight gain: a lot

Baby: HUGE! And active. And boy. :-)

Cat Fight

Kylah had a soccer game in Abbotsford this morning right before Freddy's game at the same field which worked out quite nicely. Ethan, Freddy and I dropped Andrew and Kylah off at her game for her warm-up, and the three of us headed off to Tim Hortons for some breakfast.

I have had the worst pregnant-mama heartburn this side of the Mexican border and so therefore I go to bed hungry in hopes of warding off the horizontal food-burble. I am usually off-my-face starving in the morning but we were in a rush and I hadn't had the chance to eat anything and so by the time we pulled into the Tim Hortons parking lot I was ready to pick off and eat the dried bits of food stuck to the van seats.

Pulling into the parking lot, we noticed that the drive-through lineup was uncharacteristically long so we decided to go inside to get our food. They were out of sausage, so I ordered two bacon and egg sandwiches, some bagels and coffee. We waited through three Christmases for our food to be ready at which point they informed us that they have also run out of bacon. I decided to get my money back and get the hell out of there, but while I was doing the transaction, a lady in the back of the lineup yelled at the top of her lungs (red-faced, protruding forehead vein, balancing on a pair of crutches), "GET TO THE BACK OF THE LINE, BITCH!!!!!!" The whole place went silent. I spun on my heels and took two steps toward her and informed her that I was not budging, but that I was getting my money back for the food I ordered that they didn't have. Keeping her eyes fixed on me, she repeated again, "BITCH." I swear that the only reason she didn't come over and put her fist through my face was because a) she couldn't walk and b) she really wanted her doughnut. 

The boys were behind me and knowing that they needed both their food and an intact human being to drive them back to the game, I decided to keep quiet. And where were all the cops, anyway? They're always there when we don't need them but as soon as I lose my bacon and get screamed at, they're nowhere to be found.

You never know who the bad guys are, you know? Like walking through the mall or sitting in a coffee shop. And in fact, we're usually totally wrong when we think we know who people really are. The guy in the trench coat could have just had a laundry day, and the lady living with 148 cats in the feline rescue house probably waxes her bikini line and insists on leather interior.

The other day I mistook a raccoon for a cat scurrying across the road, and this morning at Tim Hortons I mistook a doughnut-crazed woman for a sane person. Despite each animal's similarities, one will leave the other for dead in an instant. And probably all over a fight for some food scraps.

It's Not Pretty

My iPhone 4 has been acting up. Every few days it will kick me out of an app and when I re-start my phone, all of my contacts are erased, and when they get iClouded back over, for some reason the contact info is matched up with the wrong profile picture and ring-tone. For instance, whenever the kids' elementary school phones me, my friend Lora wearing a cowboy hat pops up on my screen and my phone plays "Bad to the Bone."

I figured since my phone is on its way out, that it's about time I did another edition of iPhone Notes. Here goes:

Vitamin K (for blood clotting, to help heal the blood clot in my uterus)

Parsley
Kale
Brussels Sprouts
Broccoli 
Asparagus
Cabbage
Prunes   

Can you say, "diarrhea?!?!?" But I have to admit that my steady diet of Vitamin K foods must have done something for me because that nasty blood clot is all gone!!!

And another one:

www.squatpoop.com

I don't even know what to say about that. I don't remember why I wrote it down but I do remember forwarding the link to my father. He always appreciates these types of things.

Then, thankfully something completely unrelated to bowel movements, I jotted down the name of the girl at the Water Shed who always knows my name and I forget hers (it's Satori), and an author I'd like to check out, "Isabel Allende." Followed by the license plate number of a car parked too close to my van at the Rec Centre (just in case I came back and saw a dent... aren't I a SPAZ?!?)

I jotted down "Shawshank Redemption" (I must have wanted to re-watch it again one day soon) and then the title of a future blog post, "Noodles in My Scarf" which originally held profound meaning I am sure, but now for the life of me, I've no clue what that might have been.  I do, however, remember dropping chow mein down onto the front of me while I piggishly wolfed down dinner while driving somewhere, and feeling frustrated at the difficulty I had of removing the sticky noodles from my woolen scarf. In my head, there's always a possibility for a story and a metaphor. As soon as I am allowed to resume drinking,  I'll be sure to come up with something grand.

And lastly, I jotted down some thoughts on the subject of love:

Feelings are yo-yos. Sometimes we feel like loving and sometimes we don't. The ability to love well is revealed in the secret dark corners, not just when the world is watching. Love is a choice, not just a feeling.

There's so much I would love to write about in regards to those thoughts but maybe I'll save it for another post when I can weave it into some chow mein noodles and wool. For now, I'll stick to the kale and prunes.

Baby Steps

I'm sitting at the Water Shed in Langley, one of my favourite coffee shops. They make the wickedest Americanos; the espresso is dense, practically beckoning to me in Italian prose while the crema on top swirls me in and dunks me under its healing waters. It's decaf of course but even its decaffeination loses not its potency.

Six-books-deep into my must-read pile, I decided to use my morning off to make a dent in the stack. However, my brain had other plans. What should I bring to work for lunch? I have to go pee. The baby kicked! Then this lady teetered into the coffee shop in a pair of high heels, reminding me that I need to practice wearing mine for next Friday, when I marry my love.

Several weeks ago I bought a fabulous dress. I was pleased to find something to wear in advance so as to have one less thing to worry about, until I tried it on again a couple of nights ago and now I most definitely have something to worry about. I'm trying to work with the new developments, but they seem to have a mind of their own. At this point, I'll be lucky to even see my shoes.

A couple of years ago I had to dress up to go to an awards ceremony with Andrew. I nailed down a dress but hadn't worn heels since my dear friend Renata's wedding in 2004. Jane came over with a bottle of wine and several pairs of shoes. I put on my dress and, attempting to showcase the first set of heels, I stepped gingerly down the stairs, wine glass in hand, to show Jane. I had only taken one step when my heel slipped and to catch my balance, I threw my hand against the wall only to realize it was the hand that held the wine glass. I smashed the glass into a million pieces, sprayed red wine all over the walls, railing, stairs, my dress and legs, and proceeded to tumble head-over-high-heels down the entire length of stairs.

We can alter what we look like on the outside to make everyone believe we're something that we're not but as soon as we start to move about and live our lives, we showcase the truth of who we are. We all get judged from the outside looking in, but if those people lived and walked with us, they'd know something very different.

Shouting our truths from the treetops will only make us look like assholes but quietly living them out, day by humble day, will grow our truths to the point that who we really are will be obvious to everyone around us. Even if we look down and can't see our own shoes.

Expectation

We saw the specialist yesterday and he showed us on his portable ultrasound machine where the blood clot still resides. The star of the show was moving about, opening and closing its mouth and flexing its wee little toes. The doctor flicked off the machine, leaned back in his chair and smiled at us. The panic in my chest certainly did not match his calm demeanor.

Andrew and I tag-teamed him with a gunfire of questions and concerns and his response can be summed up like this:

1) The baby is healthy and safe in its amniotic sac, and so we have nothing to grieve.

2) While most women with subchorionic hematomas (blood clots) go on to deliver full-term healthy babies, some do not. The blood can irritate the uterus and sometimes deliver the baby much too early.

3) There is nothing that we can do to control the blood clot (besides take obvious precautions). He looked at us in the eyes and told us to "let go." To stay connected to our baby just as we are connected to our other children, but to let go of the control that we really don't have. And to stop grieving something that hasn't even happened yet.

I guess they use the term "expecting" for pregnancy for a reason: we carry the baby and grow it and our accompanying body to gargantuan proportions until the baby is ready to breathe on its own. We expect these things, because this is how life most often plays out. Yes, there is tragedy, but it's not what *usually* happens. We don't cry in our cereal every morning, fearing the death of our 13, 11, 10, 8 and 7 year-olds (dear lord, that's a lot of kids), so why would we mourn the healthy person inside of me?

We shouldn't. We have our moments when our knees buckle in fear but we vow to hold on to the expectation that all six of our children will live, and be filled with our love.

"Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get - only with what you're expecting to give - which is everything."

Katharine Hepburn

Hold On

One lazy teenage summer, a group of us packed into a boat and took turns pulling each other around the lake on an inner tube. With our bellies full of ketchup chips and toaster strudels, one by one, we hopped onto the tube and trusted the driver with our lives for five minutes of delicious torture. Tyler was in charge of my ride and he spared no wave. He showed no mercy. Screaming, I spent every second in that tube debating which was worse: letting go to signal him to stop (and most assuredly causing him to speed up in malicious rebellion) or holding on for dear life until the spine-twisting, spleen-chattering ride was over.

I didn't have to wait too long because I was quickly cartwheeled over the edge of the tube and into the cold water at lightening-speed. Unfortunately, I hit the water in such a compromising position that water was forced into places where it should not be. I climbed back into the boat, eyes burning with tears. I punched Ty in the shoulder and sunk down into my seat and vowed to forgive him never.

On Saturday, we almost lost our baby. I stood between Freddy and Andrew while we watched Kylah's soccer game, and I started hemorrhaging. One second I was fine, the next I had blood pooling into my running shoes. As I waited on the ground for the ambulance, Freddy sat beside my head and I held his hand. With the very same strength that was birthed at each child's conception, I faced him and told him that I will be okay. That the baby probably won't be okay (Freddy nodded...he understood) but that I wasn't going anywhere. He hopped into the back of the ambulance with me and for the second time in his 11 years of life, we listened to the scream of the siren and road the ambulance together.

Despite the rocking boat and tumultuous waves, this baby in my womb remained safe and warm, healthy and vigorous. We rejoiced through sobs of relief. We were confused and sore, but this baby lived. And not only lived, but lived well.

We never really seem to know what kind of ride we're jumping on, do we? Until we're pulled along. We hold onto each other for dear life when the waves are hitting hard and then when we're deposited onto the beach, crumpled and compromised, we look up and squeeze the people we love, who have chosen to ride it out with us.

I'm thankful for my best friend, a man whom I didn't think I could ever love more deeply but do. Oh, I do. For our children, who give us a strength that we would never be able to construct on our own. For our friends and family who held us and cried with us. And for this baby, who is teaching me all over again, about love and letting go.

Sometimes it seems the smaller the gift, the more powerful the message.