Whoopsie

I guess I disappeared there. Again. Suffice to say that post a couple down about rounding the corner was premature at best.

The anxiety came roaring back into my life and has just flat out refused to vacate. Oddly enough, it hasn't been all that fun. Go figure.

Any of you who were reading this blog last winter may remember that I was dealing with anxiety over my pregnancy (which I think I did not address until January or so, but which was definitely present during the holidays). I am learning that I tend to be more susceptible to anxiety at this time of year.

I'm also learning that there is, in addition to the post-partum element, a part of this anxiety that is sort of...self-centered/egotistical...? Like, I take things SO personally and create anxiety around things that really have nothing to do with me. And I have to remind myself that sometimes, it really doesn't have anything to do with me. It's a learning process, but I think I'm making some progress.

I talked with my doctor about going back on some form of medication, but pretty much the only thing available to me (because of the nursing) is the Zoloft, and as we already know, I did not enjoy the Zoloft. So for now, I'm going at this sans meds. If it becomes too unbearable, I guess I could give the Z another shot, or I could stop nursing and try an anti-anxiety med, but neither of those (particularly not the latter) is an option I'm really entertaining at present.

I think this is among my big lessons in life - figuring out how to manage this anxiety and live a life that is not ruled by it. ("No shit, MW." - everyone who has ever read this blog).

Anyway, in the meantime, I'm raising my four year old and my five month old. The four year old is...being a four year old the week before Christmas. Anyone who's ever had one knows what that means (read: AIYEEEEEE). The five month old continues to be a delight, notwithstanding teething misery. It does help me to remind myself of the insane blessings that have been bestowed upon me, especially in the form of my husband and babies (of course, I have to have a mantra of, "I deserve these blessings," because I'm a fun, neurotic type).

That's what's up with me. I am a BARREL OF LAUGHS, y'all. (At least I've still got my sense of humor, right?)

Guess Who's Back?

Political Mommywriter, that's who. (I started this post ages ago, but never fully completed/posted it.)

I've been working up to a post about Occupy Wall Street for ages, but it's been difficult for me to articulate my thoughts on the matter. I'm going to try.

As any reader of this blog knows, my views tend toward the left on social issues and more centrist to rightist on fiscal issues. Having worked for a commercial and investment bank for 10 years, I'm here to tell you that the vast majority of people in the industry are neither evil nor wealthy. However. Even the ones who ARE wealthy are largely not malicious or without moral compasses. They do, however, drive our economy as a whole. And if some not very well informed college kids want to vilify them for that, well, it's a free country. But since it's a free country and since this is my blog, I am free to respond.

My main thoughts on Occupy stem from the fact that two of my three brothers work on Wall Street. One of them is firmly in the 1%. And you know what? He's worked his ASS off to get into that 1% and he fully deserves everything he has. He worked his way through two degrees. He worked his way up the ladder at the grandest of Wall Street firms and then began his own venture. He is one of the smartest, hardest working people I have ever known or will ever know. He is honest and lives his life with an enormous amount of integrity. Additionally, he is absurdly generous, to both those of us he loves and to people in need. Each year when you all see the March for Babies banners on this blog? He is, every time, the single biggest donor to my fundraising effort. And that's just ONE of the charities he gives to. There are many.

My youngest brother, who is obviously a more junior type on the Street, has blossomed and matured in his time working there. His work ethic has developed, as has his attention to detail. His already strong sense of integrity has been cemented.

The company I worked for was full of decent, hardworking people who did the right thing every day. The first several positions I held gave me an unusual amount of access to senior executives at the company and what I learned was that, for the most part, they were honest, forthright people doing their best for a company they believed in. Sure, there were exceptions...and several of them got the boot for it.

Lastly, I would like to point out that I worked my way through college. My husband paid for his education himself. Neither of us had it easy at the time, but we both gained a healthy respect for money and the importance of being responsible with it, and I like to think our family benefits from that.

So, with these not insignificant frames of reference, you can see why I think the Occupy Movement is largely utter nonsense. Just because my brother has worked really, really hard to make a lot of money doesn't mean he OWES some slacker college kid a damn thing. If said college kid wants to be in the 1%, all it requires is a brain and a work ethic. This I know beyond doubt.

Happy Happy

Four years ago today, at 3:58 a.m., my life changed completely and irrevocably, in all the best ways. Suddenly, there was a SCREAMING, red, tiny, squirmy boy laying on my tummy. The four years since have been a whirlwind of love, worry, joy and exasperation. Never have I known a person who could make me so insane one second and so madly in love the next. Never before have I known a person at whom I could be content to stare, literally for hours. Perhaps more than anyone I've ever known, my son has made me who I am today. (Certainly, his father has helped, too.) He made me a mother, and for that I will be forever grateful.

Happy fourth birthday to my first born, B, to whom I will never be able to adequately express my love and devotion.

Me, Myself.

So, sometime over the last week, I began to really feel like the meds I was taking were not having enough of an effect to make the side effects I was experiencing worthwhile. I mulled it over for a couple of days, and discussed it with my cousin who is in the mental health field. I dosed myself off the meds over the past few days. I'm not sure whether I'll need to try a different medication going forward, but what I can say so far is that yesterday and today, I have felt more myself than I have in ages. I've still got some residual anxiety, but I feel more present and a bit more positive. I'm really hoping I'm rounding the corner on this. Fingers crossed!

Blocked

One of the most unfortunate (for me) aspects of whatever it is I've been going through lately is that words are in short supply. For someone who relies so heavily on words, both spoken and written, this...is not helpful. But I'm going to do my best to put some words to what's in my head. Probably won't be my finest work, but it's worth a shot.

So, the official diagnosis is something like post-partum anxiety disorder. Which really just means anxiety disorder with an onset within one year of giving birth. Most likely, it's a pre-existing anxiety disorder that is exacerbated by the hormone swings in my body now. It's more likely to occur if the pregnancy or labor is traumatic in some way (my pregnancy wasn't the easiest but not traumatic - labor was maybe a little traumatic but was also crazy fast). It's also more likely to occur if the previous pregnancy ended in miscarriage, which applies to me.

On the upside, unlike the more severe, well-known form of PPD, I did not experience difficulty bonding with my daughter or feeling joy in her presence. I'm very grateful for that. What I did experience was a very acute form of anxiety, and an inability to talk myself down from that (I'm usually pretty good at talking myself down). I couldn't seem to envision a future in which I felt normal again and was happy. I kept convincing myself I was gravely ill and wouldn't make it to the future, or if I did, that I would always carry this feeling of terror about the future.

After a little over five weeks on the meds, I think I'm in a better place. I'm sure it also helps that E has begun sleeping through the night more often than not, which obviously means I'm getting closer to a full night's sleep regularly. But my mood overall does seem stabilized. I'm still having some anxiety spikes, and I still have to be really vigilant about not allowing the hypochondria to creep in and overtake me. But I think the worst may be behind me.

One of the things I'm dealing with now is guilt and frustration over not being myself - or at least not the self I'm used to being. I'm forgetful. I'm not great at communicating with people other than E and my mom. I'm still unsure how to describe what's going on with me to friends who ask me. I've actually sat down to write this post about six times, and have been completely unable to find the words. So, to anyone from whom I've been a bit more isolated than usual who happens upon this post, please accept my apologies. I know I'll be myself again soon.

In terms of my care for the kiddos, I feel really lucky. That's the one area where I've really felt pretty unaffected. I'm enjoying them and loving them. And they both seem to be pretty content, which tells me they're not being impacted by my anxiety. I also have the most amazing husband there is, who is supremely supportive, even at times when work is nutty for him. And my mother and sister are, of course, unfailingly willing to help whenever and wherever there is a need. My mom has been here about once a week which, above all, keeps my house from becoming a complete horror show (in terms of being messy and cluttered).

So, that's more or less where I'm at, at the moment.

9.11.11

In October 1989, I went to New York City on a trip with my Junior CYO group. One of the places we visited was the World Trade Center. We went to the top, and looked out of the observation deck, and we went on the sky walk. I have always been terribly afraid of heights, but what I remember about being up there was that it was so surreally high that it wasn't really scary. I remember looking down through the thick glass windows at the tiny taxi cabs. I remember feeling like I was IN the sky out on the sky walk.

Ten years later, it is still so hard to comprehend that those buildings are gone.

We will never forget.

A Year

A year ago today, I had an ultra-sound that revealed that the pregnancy I was carrying was no longer viable. I'll never forget the words, "I'm so sorry, I don't see a heartbeat," but what a difference a year makes.

How Kendra Wilkinson Saved Me...

Yes, you read that right. Some of what I'm about to write is kind of embarrassing, but much like I talked about my miscarriage because I felt like it needed not to be something we get embarrassed about, I feel the same about this topic. A lot of us go through it, and it's nice to know we're not alone in it.

My beautiful daughter is six weeks old now. I remember with B, the six week mark was a biggie. It was when things finally kind of fell into a groove and I started to feel more myself again, and to feel like maybe I could handle this gig, after all. So, I'd been really looking forward to hitting the six week mark this time, thinking the same would happen. Instead, this weekend was basically one prolonged panic attack.

The first couple of weeks after Baby E was born were pretty great. I felt much better, physically, than I had the first time. And emotionally, I felt way more prepared. And then, after those first couple of weeks, instead of continuing to improve, things...kind of backslid. I started having MORE trouble sleeping between feedings. I started having MORE anxiety. (I'm about to unleash the crazy, so buckle up.) Specifically, I started to develop this weirdly specific hypochondria. I spotted what I thought was a mole on my back that was changing, and convinced myself it was aggressive melanoma. I started to fixate on the idea that something (like melanoma) was going to happen to me, to take me away from my babies. I love them more than I ever imagined I could love anything, so this idea is obviously completely panic-inducing.

I talked a little bit about it with my therapist, and I talked around it with E, but there was still the part of my brain that knew how completely ludicrous I was being and was hesitant to discuss just how far the crazy had gotten. But even after seeing my primary care doc and having her tell me nothing looked suspicious to her, I couldn't quite shake the thoughts, or the accompanying panic. And I started to have similar episodes with other random symptoms I was either having or imagining (not quite sure). And I mean, at some point, you have to recognize that you're probably NOT dying of four different types of cancer simultaneously.

Then came this weekend. I'm sure the weather didn't help matters, but I was just an anxious mess all weekend. And then last night, during a bout with insomnia, I was on people.com and spotted an article about Kendra Wilkinson's battle with Post-Partum Depression. And all of a sudden, all the pieces kind of fell into place and a lightbulb went off in my head. All the nights of sleeplessness, the fixation on something happening to me, the brutal anxiety for no real reason, the lack of appetite during the day and middle of the night munchies, the random aches and brutal daytime fatigue. It was like, "Ohhhh...I'm sensing a pattern here..."

And I mean, this hasn't been a crippling thing, by any means. For the most part, I've been myself. But there are enough things that have been slightly askew that I knew something felt kind of off. And then the acute anxiety and the hypochondria...yea.

So, I saw my OB this morning and she confirmed my suspicions that PDD is probably the culprit. So, we're going to treat it. I'm really big on being proactive about my health - both physical and mental, so it's a relief to feel like maybe I've got a name for what's been bugging me.

On another ironic note, I just received in the mail a parcel sent to me by my friend B, containing Brooke Shields' book on Post-Partum Depression. Serendipity is cool.

My Girl

She's Heeeere...

Well, there's nothing quite like a newborn in the house to keep a girl from blogging...

On Friday, July 15th, our daughter E made her appearance. She arrived a couple of weeks early, and in a big hurry, at just 5 lbs 6 oz. My labor was only about three and a half hours long. I was one of those women who have natural childbirth because there is no time for anything else (luckily, I had been considering going epidural free anyway, because if that turn of events had taken me any MORE by surprise than it did...wow.). I'm glad I did it. It was great to prove to myself that I could do it, but WOW, was it a miserable and painful experience. I am not one of those women who finds beauty in it. Nosiree. Not enjoyable. But. SO WORTH IT, for my beautiful girl.

The past four weeks have been, as expected, a bit of a rollercoaster. On the upside, I have felt really good physically, aside from some difficulty adjusting my sleep schedule. On the downside, B is NOT happy with me AT ALL. On the upside, I've had a lot of help and support from my mother, my sister and my mother in law. On the downside, it's a new adjustment for B every time someone arrives or leaves. On the upside, B DOES adore his little sister. On the downside, he's had some instances of potty training regression.

But with four weeks under our belts, we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I remember when B was born, that the first six weeks were pretty brutal, and then we found our groove.

But even with the brutality, the joy so far outweighs anything else. We are so blessed.

Hush

I've been pretty quiet lately. I think it's been the late pregnancy brain muddle. I mean, I realize there are plenty of bloggers out there who've chronicled the later parts of their pregnancies with poignancy and eloquence. I just haven't been one of them.

This pregnancy has been utterly exhausting. Add to the pregnancy the fact that I spend all day every day with 3.5 year old B, and three days per week with Roasted Beat's adorable five month old son and there is often just nothing left in the tank.

As of today, there are three weeks until my due date. And I've already been showing signs of very early labor for days and days. It's exhausting.

As a result, we had to miss my family's annual get together at my oldest brother's place in LI. We were all pretty bummed out about that. B, especially, was NOT a happy camper. We never actually told him it was going on this weekend, but being the smarty and the keen observer he is, he put two and two together.

When I was putting him to bed on Friday night, he wanted to know why he hadn't been invited to the gathering. This absolutely broke my heart. Obviously, it wasn't the case, and obviously, I explained that to him. I think he got it. But all weekend, when I think of him saying those words, I get choked up all over again.

All this by way of saying we're in a kind of tricky transitional phase as a family and it's manifesting in some interesting ways. But I'm beyond excited for the new phase we're entering. I cannot wait to meet my daughter and to help her and her big brother get to know one another. Sure, it'll continue to be tricky, but it'll be so worth it.

Remembering

Thursday night, I got the call we all dread getting. The call that says someone you love is gone and that as a result, others you love are hurting in ways you can't fix. I've gotten this call many times, as most of us have. Usually, it's not a huge surprise - usually, the person is elderly, or has been ill for a long time. Not so this time. I went into a kind of shock, which is why it's late Sunday night and I'm just now posting.

That night, my dear, kind uncle passed away suddenly. He had just turned 70, but you'd never have known it, based on his appearance and vitality. He seemed more like someone in his late fifties.

Some of my earliest memories in life involve him. He was pretty badass when I was little and seemed larger than life (perhaps in part because he was over six feet tall). He wore combat boots sometimes. He was a Vietnam vet. As we grew up, he took up car racing. He had an unreal knack for making good time on the trip from PA to MA or vice versa. He was a giver of sound, level-headed advice on many topics.

He was a gentle soul, but although I don't think I ever heard him raise his voice, we all just knew as kids that he was the one you didn't mess with. We weren't scared of him, really, we just knew that whatever we were trying to pull, we weren't going to put it over on him and it probably wasn't worth trying. But we knew without question that he loved us and was unfailingly focused on our well being.

As I got older, and became a truly stereotypical middle child, always feeling invisible and/or inadequate, my uncle was someone who had an uncanny and welcome ability to make me feel like I was very, very important, and that whatever answer I was giving to his questions of, "What's new, Linds?" were the only thing in the world he wanted to hear about right then.

When my husband joined our family, he was, of course, welcomed by my close-knit family as a whole, but even he picked up on how warm and genuine my uncle was. And my son, likewise, immediately adored my uncle and followed him around whenever he was near. At my brother's wedding last summer, although he'd only met my uncle a couple of times before, he ran to him, jumped into his arms, and proceeded to be generally enthralled the entire weekend.

It's hard to wrap my head around a world without this man in it. He wasn't someone I saw all that often, but he was a strong and constant presence nonetheless. I will miss him more than words can express. I wish my words could somehow ease the ache that my aunt and three cousins and their families are feeling, but I know that's an awfully tall order for mere words.

I hope my uncle is enjoying the peace wherever he is, perhaps chatting with my grandfather. I hope he knows how loved he was, and what an impact he had on all of us who knew and loved him. I hope he knows how much I'm going to miss being asked, "What's new, Linds?"

Possibly Overly Self-Centered Ramblings (at least I'm honest...right?)

ABC, or at least the Boston/Manchester ABC affiliates, pulled a bait and switch with today's Oprah broadcast. The guide told me that today was the blooper show. Promos have run all week for it, in fact. Instead, what I saw was the first few minutes of the show the guide claimed played yesterday, about a little boy whose father and step mother were unbelievable monsters who kept him chained and locked in a bathroom closet. I don't know that I would knowingly have watched that episode - thinking it was on yesterday, I sure didn't. But it caught me off guard and I started to watch. I think I shouldn't have.

There are certain news stories, or stories on Oprah, or what have you, that stick with me. Most of them are about little boys. I'd say it's a result of my being the mother of a little boy, which I think is part of it, but this actually started long before I had him. It probably started when my second grade teacher described, in detail, what had happened to Adam Walsh (which I think I've mentioned here before). Or maybe it started because I had two little brothers, of whom I was, and am, fiercely protective.

There was the case maybe a month or so ago, wherein a mother and her boyfriend beat and kicked a three year old to death for wetting his pants. I don't remember how I stumbled across that one, but it quite literally made me physically ill to think of it, particularly since I'm also in the process of potty training a three year old, and while I realize how frustrating it is to do this, I cannot, cannot, cannot imagine ever hurting him for wetting his pants. He gets so upset when he does it that I can't imagine making that worse.

I think what really killed me with this Oprah was when they played the police recordings of this kid, at six years old, describing what had happened to him. Sure, it would've been horrifying regardless, but hearing that little voice describe it was physically painful.

Those ubiquitous "they" always say that when you become a mother, you suddenly cannot hear these kinds of stories without relating them to your own child/children. I guess that's true. But since this is a lifelong thing with me, there is this part of me that feels like it's my higher self or intuition telling me I should DO something about it- help in some way. But...what? That's what I need to figure out.

If I Were a Sociology Grad/Post-grad Student...

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about the new war on women in the U.S. Recent developments, like the changes in recommendations on routine breast screenings, the all out war on Planned Parenthood (where women do NOT, contrary to ignorant belief only receive abortions, but routine pap smears, cancer screenings, birth control, education and a host of other services), the ridiculous proposals in Congress for things like IRS investigations of abortions to assure they were paid for "properly" and investigations of miscarriages to make sure they were "spontaneous"...the list goes on. What I wonder is, where does this resentment come from? The proposals I've read about have all come from men. In the GOP. Mostly in the southern and midwestern parts of the country. Hmm. So...here's what occurs to me.

These areas are also among the hardest hit in the current economic crisis. Not that we haven't ALL been hit hard, but just bear with me for a minute. Since 2008, we've probably all read about rampant unemployment and how it has had a far greater impact on male breadwinners than anyone else, right? We've probably all read about how women are, for the first time in history, taking on a greater role in this country as breadwinners, because they are cheaper (on the whole) to employ than men are and have therefore been less likely to lose jobs. Not to mention that the direct-sales industry, of which I'm a part and can attest, has grown during this period, because it's such a great way for a woman to support her family or to supplement lost income while still being a caretaker for her family.

Do you see yet where I'm going with this? Maybe the resentment comes from a feeling of futility. A feeling of losing power. A feeling that the longstanding fear of men around the U.S. - that women would "take over" is coming true for many of them. I mean, it just can't be a coincidence, can it?

So, that's what is making me wish I were in some kind of program in which I could study this phenomenon for a dissertation. Fascinating stuff, and I'm pretty certain I'm onto something here.

Growing Up

I've been feeling like a rather inadequate parent today. Rainy Mondays, you know. It got me thinking about my own parents, and about the kind of parent I WANT to be.

Growing up, my four siblings and I had it good. We didn't have a lot of "stuff," necessarily, although I think in the grand scheme, we did ok on that front. But we had so much love. There was never so much as a shadow of a question that we were the most important things in our parents' worlds. Our Mom all but literally turned herself inside out to make our lives everything hers growing up was not. (Hers, growing up, went back and forth between difficult and downright horrific.) Our Dad worked his fingers to the bone to make sure we had enough, and he did his best to create the aura of love and security his parents represented to us all (I think, in some ways, he may have even surpassed them, with his ability to truly accept us as we were). We were, and are, really, extraordinarily lucky.

Of course, some of this, I really only realized after becoming a parent myself. My early twenties were marked by an obsession not to have the same financial struggles they had. This is the number one reason I don't have five children myself, nor will I. Because having four siblings was really amazing in so many ways, but that shit was expensive for my parents and it's certainly not getting any cheaper these days. I had a fixation on not making their mistakes, financially. And I think some of that did me some good, for sure. But I've also come to realize that we all have financial stress. It's a fact of adult life. The best we can do is to live within our means and work as hard as we can to achieve success.

But I AM a parent now. And when I think about the mother I want to be, I think of combining the best qualities of each of my parents - my mother's passion for education, nutrition, and closeness, my father's warmth and support. Am I succeeding? I hope so. It doesn't always feel like it...

We all question our parenting from time to time. Again, a fact of life. But what I do know is that my son is happy and that he knows, without a shadow of a question, that he is loved. The rest may be a work in progress, but he's got the foundation.

Love and Fear

The other night when I couldn't sleep, it was because, as occasionally happens to me, I became fixated on the thought that something (I don't know what, precisely) was going to happen to B. I've gotten better at managing that anxiety, which all mothers experience, I know, over the past three plus years. I've gotten better, too, at being truly IN the moment and enjoying my time with him as much as I can. But still, as a lifelong insomniac and anxiety sufferer, there are still those moments, late at night, when that fear grips my chest and won't let go until I swallow some Benadryl (I'm pregnant, so I only take Benadryl) and finally pass out.

Today, probably because I'm still overtired, and the weather is crappy (yet again), and I'm annoyed at my bandaged finer (long story, but the ring finger of my right hand is all gauzed up and it's annoying), I've been kind of cranky. E came home early from work and has born the brunt of the crankiness. He's enormously patient with this, thank God. But then I read a blost post on one of the blogs I follow, about a woman who lost her husband, and it reminded me once again that I shouldn't take that stuff out on E, because a) I'm so lucky that he's here and healthy and b) he's like the greatest husband that ever lived and does not, in any way, deserve my crankiness.

Love and fear are so intertwined, aren't they? When you love someone, isn't there always an element of fear that something will happen to take them away from you? And sometimes, it can be so easy to fall prey to that fear, and hold ourselves at arms' length, or to try to actively prevent those things. But can we, really? Isn't the best thing we can do just to make the most of the good times? To cherish the important people in our lives while we have them? To open ourselves up to as much love as we can, since in the end, the love is what gets us through those tough times, whether real or imaginary (the times, not the love)? I think so.

So, instead of being ruled that fear, I try to seize as many moments as I can. Of course, I still have those rough nights. I'm a work in progress. But I'm trying.

Someday...

Someday, I will go to bed and fall asleep. Someday, I won't have a pit of anxiety in my solar plexus. Someday, my head hitting the pillow will NOT be a signal to my brain to start scrolling uncontrollably through all the horrible scenarios that could befall my family. Someday, I will feel peace. I will feel, in the night, the faith that carries me through the day. I will feel happy and the happy images in my mind will float me into a sleep that will last until morning. And I will enjoy the hell out of that day.

Ups and Downs

Up: My "cousin" J finally had her baby yesterday (more than a week overdue, God love her), which is such a joyful thing. I'm so excited for her to experience motherhood and to see her flourish at it.

Down: If the pregnancy I lost had made it, based on when I gave birth to B, I probably would've had the baby sometime around today, give or take. And even though I'm pregnant again now, I can't help but reflect on that baby, and what he or she would've been like, and why he or she couldn't stay.

Up: As if sensing this, the baby I'm carrying now (a girl, btw), has really picked it up in the movement department this week. She's kind of a maniac in there, frankly. I'm actually able to feel her if I put my hand on my belly. Awesome AND reassuring.

Down: Feeling pretty stressed out this week. Not sleeping well AT ALL, for some reason. BLAH.

I would say the ups outweigh the downs pretty handily, so that's something.

Paucity of Civility

I was just speaking with my brother, who is very conservative, about a conversation he had with someone who works in politics, and it got me thinking.

The areas where we agree are things like this. George HW Bush was an underrated and unfairly maligned president. Bill Clinton was exceedingly popular and good at uniting the two sides of the aisle (even if what he was uniting them in was sometimes embarrassment at his excessive libido...but I digress). We need leaders with the ability to be centrists.

My biggest disappointment with the Obama administration, for whom I voted with the utmost hope and excitement, based on the "Change" mantra, is that...not much has changed. And President Obama seems largely unable and unwilling to strike a centrist note. He's intent on blaming Wall Street (which includes two of my brothers and one of my sisters in law) for the vast majority of the country's ills, which is...misguided at best. Meanwhile, we have the GOP and the Tea Partiers, launching more and more frequent attacks on things like Women's Health.

What happened to presidents like Reagan and Bush I, who went their entire presidencies without feeling the need to re-address Roe v. Wade, since, you know, the Supreme Court ruled on that one in 1972? What happened to presidents like Clinton, who found a way to work WITH Wall Street, to, what I think we can all agree, were favorable results (You guys, remember the late 90's? Yea, those were awesome.).

The two major parties keep diverging further and further from the center. And because things have been crappy for three plus years now, people cling to that passion in hopes of achieving some cataclysmic change. And in the course of this panic, we've all forgotten that things were better when people could and did work together. Is it too much to ask for a candidate who has charisma AND moderate views? These days, it seems so.

Sequel

When I was pregnant with B, I, like many first time preggies, constantly got the question, "Is this your first?" and when I answered yes, SO many people said things along the lines of, "Enjoy it, because it will never be this enjoyable again." And that kind of drove me nuts. I mean, I GET that the first time is sort of magical and mysterious, and I GET that if you don't have a child to run around after, you have more time to pamper your pregnant self (not that I had TONS of time to do that, with my insane job and even more insane commute, but I had SOME, at least), etc, etc. But it still sort of drove me nuts.

And now I think I probably have more perspective on it, since I am, in fact, pregnant with one of those subsequent children I didn't want to get the short end of the stick. And in some ways, all those people were right. Pregnancy isn't quite as mysterious as it was last time, although this pregnancy has found its own ways to surprise and mystify me in good ways and not so good ways. And I am flat out exhausted, even more than I was last time. Last time, even though I was working and unbelievably stressed out as a result of the dysfunction that surrounded me, I DID nap a lot - often to AND from work (E drove), in the evenings, and most definitely on weekends. And not that I don't nap now - I do, sometimes unintentionally (like today, when I sat down on the sofa and promptly PASSED OUT for half an hour), but it's harder to come by.

But at the same time, there are ways in which I'm...I don't want to say "more excited," because that seems like it would be mean to B, but I do think anyone reading this knows how unprepared I was for that pregnancy, so as a result, it's a nice feeling to have gotten pregnant truly on purpose. I'm not quite as terrified as I was last time, which is nice.

Additionally, it's unbelievably nice not to be working in a job where, spoken or unspoken, my pregnancy was a liability. It's nice not to have that external stress adding to my already often stressy and anxious nature. It's nice that, on days when I feel sick or especially tired, I can make adjustments for that (notwithstanding earlier today, when I was absolutely exhausted, but B was SO fired up to get outside and play street hockey that I couldn't deny him).

So, I don't know that I could say absolutely that this time is less "special" or whatever than last time was. Sure, it's not my first pregnancy, but it's my first time being pregnant with THIS baby, so that's special, right?

Lucky

Sunday is E's birthday, so this seemed as good a time as any to sing his praises a little bit.

I know I've addressed here previously that I feel blessed to have found him, and how he taught me what love should really be between a husband and wife. And that is all still true. I am a bit of a handful - I'm neurotic and dramatic and sometimes overly sensitive and fragile. And he somehow navigates all of this with skill and grace and professes to love me unconditionally even through my most epic of meltdowns. He makes me feel loved, cherished, safe, beautiful, sexy, brilliant and hilarious - all things I often doubt about myself until he reassures me that at least one person thinks they are all true.

The other night, he came home and I wasn't feeling well, so he made dinner for Benj and for us, and then folded the laundry I'd done that day but hadn't had the energy to fold. All of this after a long and stressful day at work. It's small gestures like that that make me feel unbelievably lucky. He doesn't come home and say, "Where's my dinner?" Or, "Why is the house such a mess?"(Which, sometimes, it is, especially lately when my energy level has not quite been sufficient to keep up with B's mess-making abilities.) He knows instinctively when I need a break, and takes charge with B.

Sunday will be seven years since the luckiest day of my life - the day I met my E.

Trying to Be Coherent

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2011/02/georgia-wingnut-gop-rep-wants-police-to.html

I saw this via twitter a little while ago, and I've been feeling sick and fighting off tears ever since. I realize this guy is a wing nut and I probably shouldn't even take him seriously, but I just can't ignore the horribly misogynistic overtones of this bill.

I understand that a lot of people are anti-choice. I even understand why. I do. Like I said yesterday, I think it's important for abortion to be legal, but I hardly expect other people to agree with that stance on an issue that is so fraught with emotions. And I understand that this type of wing nut views Roe v. Wade as too difficult to try to overturn, and so the alternative is to create bills like this one.

What makes me want to cry about this bill is the thought of someone having come to me after my miscarriage, an event you all know devastated me emotionally, to "investigate" it, to ensure it was "spontaneous." The bit about asking family members what caused the miscarriage especially sickens me. I can imagine someone going to E and asking him, "What did your wife do to cause this?" I mean...he would've landed himself in jail for punching a cop if he'd been asked that. And furthermore, as I've documented here, no one knows what caused my miscarriage. So, does that mean that this guy thinks I would be under suspicion of murdering my embryo? Chilling, isn't it?

Disgust

For those of you who don't want to read another of my politically-adjacent rants, well, stop reading now. For those who'd be shocked or offended to learn that I'm pro-choice, do the same.

So, yea, I'm pro-choice. That's right. I'm a pregnant mother who's had a miscarriage that devastated me, and I'm still pro-choice. Would I ever have an abortion? I honestly cannot imagine the scenario in which I would. But I think it's important for it to be legal, for so many varied reasons that I probably wouldn't have time to touch on all of them in this space. I am lucky enough never to have had to face the decision of whether to have one. I've had friends and loved ones who have, and that implication that pro-lifers often make that women make that decision blithely offends me, because I do not know one person who ever made that decision lightly. I know people who still mourn the decision, years later. I know people who know it was the right decision for them at the time, but who still wistfully wonder about the road not taken. But I don't know anyone who ever said, "Eh...easier to just end it." Maybe some MEN think that way, but...they're not the ones with the embryo growing inside them, now are they?

I also have some pretty strong feelings about rape. Shocking, I'm sure. As a daughter, a sister, a wife and a mother of a son, I feel very, very, very strongly that a woman should NEVER falsely accuse a man of rape. There is absolutely no justification for that. It's disgusting and it sets back the cause of rape prevention every single time someone does it. That said, I, and all the women I know, and God willing the men too, know what rape is. And what it's not. Date rape? Is rape. No means no, like we've all been taught. There is no need to redefine the word rape, thank you very much Congressional Republicans. And to you men in Congress who are interested in redefining rape, consider this. If someone sodomized you against your will, would you want to quibble over wording? Or would you just want that person to be punished? Yea. I thought so.

When I lived in Georgia, my insurance company, in their infinite wisdom, decided they were more capable of making decisions about my sex life than I was. As a result, the birth control pills I had been on for four years (to treat severe menstrual cramps, not actually to prevent pregnancy since I was notoriously chaste at the time), became unavailable to me. If I wanted them, I had to go to Planned Parenthood to get them. Which begs the question - aren't birth control pills cheaper, and don't they require fewer taxpayer dollars, than the CHILDREN who would need support from the government if women can't get birth control? I realize I'm not addressing the moral argument here. And that's because I believe birth control is responsible, not sinful.

The reason I've found myself straying from the Democratic party of late is that I don't think government is responsible for everything. As much as I hate to agree with Sarah Palin, I don't think it's any of Michelle Obama's business whether I breastfeed my baby or not (I will, because I want to, but it's still none of anyone else's business). But by the same token, my reproductive health is also none of your business. Taking federal funding away from Planned Parenthood because abortion offends you is ignorant and short-sighted. There are plenty of organizations out there that get federal funding, and PP is one that actually saves this country money in the long run.

Eat, Pray, Love

People had really strong reactions to this book when it was all the rage a couple of years ago. People I know either loved it - a lot - or dismissed it as navel-gazing drivel. I can appreciate both points of view. Some of it is rather self-involved and self-indulgent. But I was among the people who really appreciated it. For two reasons. 1) My brother went through a similarly interminable divorce in New York, so that part was excruciatingly relatable, and 2) I could relate to Liz Gilbert's sense of being in something she didn't want. NOT my marriage, to be clear.

What I didn't want to be in was my so-called career. I'm smart. Always have been. It's kind of been one of my things. As such, everyone in my life had expectations of me. Among those, of course, was career success. And I had that expectation of myself, too. And then, after having some really terrible experiences in my work life, and after experiencing the magic that is my son, I realized...I didn't want to be there anymore. There being my entire professional life.

So, rather than setting off on a round the world journey of self discovery, I started my own search. I started this blog. I started thinking about ways I could leave my career. I started contemplating being a stay at home mother for a while. And so many people in my life thought I was completely nuts. But when it came down to it, only three opinions mattered - mine, my husband's, my son's. And we all came into agreement. So, I left my career.

It's been around nine months now. And it's not a piece of cake, by any stretch. My son sometimes drives me up a wall, especially during this interminable winter, when we are largely cooped up. I feel like a lazy, underachieving piece of crap sometimes. I miss having my own steady paycheck. I miss cocktails with colleagues. But in my heart of hearts, I know I made the right choice, and I can't imagine having made a different one.

It's not the choice for everyone. It's a very personal, very individual choice. And for me, it won't be forever. But for me, it was the right thing. I hope it was the right thing for my son, too, and I think it was.

January 28, 1986

I drafted this post yesterday but forgot to hit "post". Oops. Anyway...better late than never?

January 28, 1986 was a defining day in my childhood. I remember what I was wearing. It was exactly a week after my 10th birthday, and I was wearing the outfit my mom had gotten me for my birthday - those flowered jeans that were ALL the rage among fourth graders in 1986, along with a yellow shirt and irish cardigan...and of course my LA Gear hightops (a gift from my grandmother for Christmas that year). I don't know exactly why my outfit is so clear in my memory...although I remember precisely what I was wearing on 9/11 too, so maybe it's just a "thing" with me?

Anyway, I remember being really fascinated in the lead up to the "Teacher in Space" - first, because the teacher selected was from nearby (she grew up 10 minutes from my hometown and taught about an hour away), and second because the thought of going into space was, to me, terrifying, even then.

I remember coming back from lunch, and some kids talking in the hall about the shuttle blowing up. I said, "Did they die?" And the boy with the locker across from mine, John said, "Would you die if you were in the space shuttle and it blew up?" "I guess, probably," I said. It just seemed so surreal to me that these astronauts, not to mention Christa McAuliffe, could be dead.

We went into our science teacher's classroom and turned on the TV. And what I remember, really, really vividly, was watching Christa McAuliffe's son keep turning back to look at the sky again and again with a bewildered look, as if he half expected his mom to reappear somehow. To this day, 25 years later, the memory of his face can bring me to tears. He was pretty close to our age then, as I recall, so at the time, I remember relating to him and being unable to imagine losing my mom in any way, let alone in such a surreal one. While watching. And now, as the mother of a little boy, it wrenches me all the more to think of the pain of a little boy losing his mom that way.

I also remember thinking, even at 10 years old, that the TV people should leave that kid alone. It was my first realization of how inappropriately invasive TV news could be. They couldn't even let a little boy have his moment of shock and grieving in peace, and it made me angry. It still does.

That was a really sad day. And for those in my age group, it was a loss of innocence. And we'll never forget that day.

Update

Well, I promised "more" yesterday, but long story short, it didn't happen. So, here we are TODAY, instead. Here's the scoop.

I'm pregnant again, which I'm guessing most people reading this already know, but there it is. And I am (and we are) so very, very, overjoyed and excited. Truly.

But (and you knew there was a but), I'm having an extraordinarily difficult time getting past the miscarriage-induced anxiety. I really thought once I got past the point when I lost the last pregnancy, I would relax. But that didn't really happen. So, then I thought once I got past the 12 week mark, I would relax. And I guess I did, a little, but...not entirely.

Monday morning, I got myself so worked up into a panic attack that I had to call my mom, who of course came up immediately with my sister (and nieces) in tow. She talked me down from the ledge and then they took all the kids (B included) out for errands and lunch so I could just rest, since I've had brutal, chronic insomnia pretty much this entire pregnancy thus far.

Yesterday, we had our first trimester screening. So, we got to see on the ultra-sound that everything is a-ok in there. Sequel, as we've taken to calling him/her, is growing great (in fact, a couple days ahead right now) and the heart is beating well and everything looks peachy. After the ultra-sound, I had my check up, and the nurse midwife was wonderful, and sat with me and talked over what I was going through. She reminded me that, statistically, if a pregnancy's going to end, it's exponentially more likely to do so before that 12 week mark, which is precisely WHY they wait until then to do the screenings, etc.

And the thing is, logically, I KNOW all that. I KNOW this baby is fine. I KNOW this pregnancy is going to be fine. I feel it in the same way I felt the last one was off. After the miscarriage, I wrote about feeling B from the beginning as a tenacious little presence. And I feel that again with this one. It's as if there's a little voice inside me saying, "I'm NOT going anywhere!" But that's the thing about trauma of any kind, isn't it? You get gun shy. You bring that trauma along with you, and you have flashbacks and you get terrified of it repeating itself. In fact, I think the main contributing factor to my panic attack on Monday was anxiety over the ultra-sound yesterday. Even KNOWING it was going to be fine, I kept remembering the ultra-sound during which the poor (and wonderfully kind) tech had to tell me there was no heartbeat.

It's not that I'm entirely without reason for my nerves. I've had a couple of issues with this pregnancy that, while entirely different than last time, at least REMIND me of last time. And it's been scary.

So, it's an ongoing process, I guess.

Today

Today was a roller coaster of a day. More on that tomorrow.

But most importantly, my best friend had a son today. And that trumps whatever silly neuroses are going on with me, by A LOT. I'm so filled with joy and pride on her behalf. I have another newphew(ish type person)! Woohoo! Welcome to the world, Tiny S! And congrats to Roasted Beat and S!

Sigh...

You know what's got my goat this morning? (Oh hi, by the way. I know I've been MIA through the holidays. Hope yours were great. Ours were chaotic and fraught with Internet issues, which is why I haven't been around.) Anyway...what's got my goat is the fact that the majority of people on Facebook who feel compelled to launch into angry political rants in their status updates are a) misinformed and b) possessed of exceptionally weak grammar skills. Ever notice that? I'm sure you have. But if you haven't, I apologize in advance, because now it's going to drive you up a wall.

Look, we all have political ideologies that we (for the most part) feel strongly about. Inevitably, some of these ideologies are conflicting. Even within the same FB friend circle, you're going to get wildly varying beliefs. And we all have a right to them, and a right to express them. I have no issue with that, even though sometimes, the things people say regarding those beliefs can annoy me, offend me and even make me question whether that person is someone I even want on my friend list. I have yet to un-friend anyone for expressing an opinion (although I have BEEN unfriended for voicing my opinion on gay marriage. Which is that I think it should be legal. So. Yea.)

I thought about giving some examples of this here, and had even drafted a version of the post wherein I did so. But the thing is, my goal in this post is not to call out any individual or to embarrass anyone. It's to, maybe, hopefully, call your attention to your reactionary ranting and the fact that, in the face of your emotion, you're...missing the point entirely, a lot of the time.

But it does annoy the crap out of me when people take a political stance in a very public forum and are...misinformed and in some cases, downright INCORRECT. Might I suggest that if you're going to get your panties in such a wad that you simply MUST voice your disapproval publicly, that you at least make sure you have your facts straight? Pretty please? And I'm not just talking to the folks I disagree with (who do tend to be the most egregious offenders here, recently). Even if I agree with you, I don't want you putting inaccurate stuff up, since that makes people with my political leanings seem ignorant and uninformed. See?

And finally, regardless of what you're posting about, can we all please agree that grammar on FB is appalling and frankly frightening to someone who used to teach it? I KNOW you all had English teachers who taught you the differences between contractions and possessive pronouns. If you can't remember that lesson, LOOK IT UP AND APPLY IT. You look like an idiot when you disregard rules you learned in elementary school and so help me, if you learned grammar from me and abuse it on FB, you will be corrected. There, I said it.