Transformations

Yesterday, I asked a friend of mine who recently had a baby how she liked motherhood. Her response was not what I was expecting, though it should have been exactly that. She said she loved her baby, and that he was awesome, but that she didn't feel like "the mommy" yet. And then she asked me if I had felt like the mommy as soon as my son was born, or if it had "clicked" somewhere down the road.

When I found out I was pregnant with my first child, I was in shock. I didn't think I could get pregnant, so when I found out that I was, it took...a while...before it really sank in. I wasn't able to work while I was pregnant because there was a very real risk that I would miscarry. And so my career, part of what had really defined me for many years, was suddenly on hold. So in a matter of a month, I had gone from a single career-oriented woman, to a married Army wife and soon to be mom with no job and no real sense of self. I was thrilled that I was pregnant, because I had always wanted to have children. But the way it happened was not how I imagined it would be.

And there's the rub. Whether it's how or when we got pregnant, or what kind of mother we ultimately become, it's never how we planned it. I always thought that I would have a baby on my own, and that once the baby was born, I would go back to work and still be myself...just with a kid. But I got pregnant unexpectedly, after an unexpected marriage to a man who left for Iraq only a few months after we were married and I got pregnant. And so when my son was born, with no new husband there the way you imagine he will be when you get married, I was still trying to be the old me. The old me with the same friends, the same interests, the same selfish decision-making...just with a kid. My life had changed drastically in nine short months, and I was still clinging to the way things had been.

And then I had a wreck. A horrible, traumatic, twisted metal and shattered glass kind of wreck. My collar bone snapped and my head slammed into the side windshield giving me a giant hematoma on the side of my head while my car flipped and crashed and ultimately landed in a giant mud pit. And when the car finally stopped moving, it "clicked." I couldn't hear my son. There wasn't any movement. There wasn't any crying. It was just the eerie silence of five a.m. on the interstate in the middle of nowhere. And my heart just...stopped. And it didn't start beating again until I stuck my head through the shattered door window and saw his beady little eyes staring at me in the dark with a look of wonder and confusion. The ambulance showed up and was trying to assess my injuries and put me in a c-spine, but I wouldn't let them do anything for me until they checked Jameson. And when the paramedic came and told me that he was perfectly fine, not so much as a scratch on him, I burst into tears and was suddenly overcome with pain. My shoulder and my head throbbed. But he was ok, and that was all that mattered. And from that moment on, things were different.

Now, I'm not saying that women shouldn't expect to feel like the mommy until they've survived some kind of traumatic event. I could have just as easily experienced the "click" the first time I heard him say "momma," or any number of other random, seemingly mundane things that happen with kids. But for me, that was when I suddenly felt like "the mommy."

I never did go back to work. I had a daughter and now my full-time job is being the mommy to two kids. Sometimes I struggle with feeling like I have no identity anymore outside of being "the mommy." And sometimes I wonder if I would be happier if I went back to work and put the kids in daycare. But for me, with the transient, far from family life that we lead as a military family, that doesn't feel like the right choice for me and my kids. But, I am a remarkably calmer and more relaxed mommy now that I have two. I used to worry about every little thing with Jameson, and whenever he didn't reach a developmental milestone at the time specified by Dr. Knowitall in his book "Dr. Knowitall's Guide to Being a Mother," I inevitably blamed myself. Will he be ok as a formula fed baby because I couldn't breastfeed? (huuuuge guilt trip for me) Why is he constipated? When is he going to walk? Why isn't he talking like he should be? Why is he so afraid of other people? Should I send him to preschool or keep him at home? With Fallon, I have figured out the perfect feeding system to keep her pooping, she'll walk when she's ready, it's normal for her to not like strangers at this age, and yes, she'll probably go to preschool when it's time. She's dirty 80% of the time because she is an avid crawler, and I'm not going to limit her explorations because I want her to stay clean, nor am I going to waste precious time with my kids to turn into some psycho germaphobe compulsive cleaner because I don't want her legs to get dirty when she crawls around. It's dirt. She'll live.

We make plans. We have this vision of what kind of parent we will be. As mothers we are pressured from every direction by books, the media, moms who stay home, moms who work, moms who seem to do it all effortlessly but who in reality probably drink themselves into oblivion after the kids go to bed. But there really is no gold standard here. In the end, we are who we are, and that goes for what kind of mommy we are too. All that really matters is love. If you love your kids and you love your life and, most importantly, you love yourself, then you are the mommy that you're supposed to be. And whether you feel like "the mommy," or you feel like the same person you were before you gave birth, but now you have the extra added bonus of an awesome kid, that's completely and totally ok, too.

Dear God...

When I was a young girl, my two year old cousin passed away. And for several years after that, I found myself confused about God, and what I believed. When I was 16, I went to the cemetery where my cousin is buried and took her flowers, and I sat by her headstone and I wept as I talked to God. I told God that I didn't understand how he could take a baby like my cousin, someone who had never done anything but shine light on those around her with her love and her smiles. And I looked up to the sky, and I told God that from that moment on, I was no longer a believer. That I was turning my back on him, just as I felt he had turned his back on my cousin when, rather than curing her of her affliction, he instead chose to take her from us. And the sky turned dark, the thunder rolled, and the sky opened up and poured rain down on me in a deluge. And I turned to the sky and I screamed at God that I hoped his heart was broken just like mine. And for years, I stopped talking to God because as far as I was concerned, he didn't exist.

On March 17th, 2010, as I was driving down the interstate in Arkansas with my three month old son in the back seat, I swerved to miss a car in front of me that had slammed on their brakes, and lost control of my car. When the loose shoulder of the road grabbed hold of the front tire of the car and flung me end over end three times into the median, crushing the front, top and back of my car, for the first time in 20 years, I called out to God. Every time the car hit the ground and began to flip over again, when I felt my collarbone snap, when my head slammed into the side window, I called out to God to please, please protect my baby. I didn't beg for my own life, but I pleaded to God for my son's. When the car finally stopped flipping and came to a stop, I jumped out into the cold darkness, knee deep in mud, begging God to let Jameson be ok. He wasn't crying, and my glasses had fallen off during all of the flipping of the car. I was finally able to stick my head through a shattered rear window, and Jameson was there, still firmly fastened in his car seat, not a scratch or bruise on him.

My greatest fear used to be that I would die alone. When Jameson was born, and again with Fallon, my greatest fear became that some tragedy might befall my children. And after today, while I was putting my children to bed, weeping silently as I thought about the parents of those 20 small children who will never again rock their children to sleep or hold them in their arms, I found myself praying to God, beseeching him that if he ever saw fit to call my children home before me, that he would let me be there with them. That he would allow me to hold them and comfort them and tell them that they had nothing to fear as they closed their eyes on this world and moved on to a world more wonderful than their innocent minds could ever imagine. I think about those children today, what they must have been thinking when their lives were snuffed out by such a heinous act of violence, how they probably cried out in fear for their mommas and their daddies, and the thought is almost more than I can bear.

But even in the face of such a deplorable tragedy, today I cannot turn my back on God the way I did when I was young. I thank him every day for protecting my son that early morning in Arkansas. I thank him every day for my two beautiful, healthy children. And I know, deep down in my soul, as I hear the thunder and the pouring rain outside, that God wept today for those children in Connecticut, for their parents, for all the children who survived, for the adults who were killed, for the families of all those involved, and for all of the people who responded to the shooting and found themselves witness to such an atrocity.

We must look into our own hearts to heal this world. We must start with ourselves and work out from there, with our children and all of the people that we come in contact with. We must stop trying to withdraw from the world and start caring about our fellow man, and become instruments of change. Otherwise, human kind will continue on it's path of self-destruction until we are empty husks, devoid of love, and hope and kindness.

1 John 4:8 - "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."

Where has my happy place gone?

About 15 years ago, when I first started thinking about having children, Mom said to me "You don't need to have kids. The world has gone crazy and it's not a good place to raise kids anymore." And I used to roll my eyes at her, and say things along the line of not living life in fear and the only way to make the world a better place is to raise children to be good people. Of course, that was all before I had children.

I've been thinking about this horrific shooting in Aurora, CO, and what keeps exploding in my head is...what would I have done? What would I have done if I had been in a movie theater with my children when a man threw out canisters of tear gas and opened fire into the theater? Would I have frozen in fear? Would I have pulled my children down to the floor and huddled over them while I pleaded to God to make me enough of a human shield to protect them from the bullets flying through the air? Would I have tried to get them to an exit while this man was shooting innocent people like fish in a barrel?

Every time I leave the house with my children, I take my ridiculously large diaper bag full of everything I can possibly think of that I might need. Diapers, wipes, bottles and formula, changes of clothes, bibs and cutlery for little hands. But what do you put in a diaper bag that could protect your children from a bullet? What kind of contingency plan can you carry with you everywhere? We strap them into carseats to protect them from injuries in an accident. We put helmets on their heads and padding on their little limbs to keep them safe on bikes and when they're playing sports. But what in God's name can you do to protect them from someone who has no regard for their innocent life?

I honestly struggle everyday, trying to wrap my brain around the world we live in and trying to figure out how best to protect my children from it. Should I build a house in the middle of nowhere and hope that some lunatic never happens upon our little sanctuary? Is there anywhere left in the world that hasn't become a place that has to be survived? I love my children. And I wouldn't change the fact that they are here for anything in the world. But honestly, I know now why Mom was always telling me that I shouldn't have children. Because she was like me, always worrying, afraid that some horrible thing that she had seen on the news might one day befall one of her own children.

I guess all I can do is love them. Wrap my arms around them and tell them I love them every chance I get. While I would like nothing more than to hide them away from the world and from anyone who might hurt them, I guess it's simply not possible. What kind of life would they have if I never let them out of the house? If they were never allowed to make friends and explore their surroundings and do simple things like go to the movies, how happy would they be? So what do we, as parents and as a society, do to protect our children?

I can see clearly now...

Yesterday, while shopping for something for my two year old son to wear to my Mom's funeral (which we believe will be taking place in the near future), I was reminded of a story that my Mom used to tell about one of our own shopping trips. I was little, maybe four years old, and we were in a department store. Mom said that one second I was there, and the next second I had vanished. She looked around but couldn't see me. She looked under the clothes racks but I wasn't there. She called out my name, but I didn't respond. And suddenly she found herself standing there, paralyzed with fear, until after what felt like an eternity (but in actuality was only a few minutes), I came skipping out of the dressing rooms where I had gone to sit and tie my shoe. I remember that day. I remember how pale she was, how she couldn't speak, and how still she was as she took my hand and led me out of the store and to the car, where she just sat for several minutes with her hands on the steering wheel. I used to laugh when she told that story. And she used to tell me that one day I would understand.

Yesterday while I was trying to sift through the racks of children's clothes at a department store, with my purse on one arm, Jameson's new dress shoes in one hand and his hand in the other, he broke free from my grip and took off running. I hung the article of clothing I was trying to look at back on the rack and walked in the direction that he had run off to. He was gone. I looked all around me and couldn't see him. I couldn't hear his feet padding around on the carpet. I couldn't hear his laugh. I squatted down to look under the hanging clothes and called his name. And that's when it happened. All of the air in the room was gone. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. Every horror story that I had ever read about children vanishing in an instant, never to be seen alive again, exploded in my brain. I somehow managed to force myself to call out his name again, loudly and in as stern a tone as I could muster, and he came running out from behind a distant rack smiling and laughing. The whole ordeal had lasted maybe a minute, but I felt traumatized.

I used to look at parents who walked around the mall with those harness things on their kids and think to myself "Wow, you have to put your kid on a leash? How sad are you?" This morning I found myself looking on amazon.com for one of those harnesses for Jameson. Because the truth is, he's not a bad baby. And it's not that he's trying to be disobedient when he wants to walk around a store on his own two feet. He's two, he's asserting his own independence and trying to explore his environment, which is completely natural for his age. I can't be angry at him for what happened yesterday, and I can't be angry at myself for the fact that I only have two hands. However, the world today isn't how it was when our parents were children. It's not even what it was when I was a child. But if anything ever happened to Jameson, if someone was ever able to seize the opportunity to take him from me in the split second that he was out of my sight, I'm not sure I would survive it. So maybe the next time I'm at the mall and Jameson is wandering around in his leash, some non-parent will judge me for my choice the way that I used to do. But frankly I don't give a damn, because just like my mother always said I would, yesterday I finally understood.

The Promised Land

I was raised by my grandparents. I grew up calling them Mom and Dad, mostly because that's what everyone else called them, including my mother. And even though my mother and I have a good relationship, we've always been more like sisters, understandably so considering we had the same parents. Dad was 50 when I was born, and Mom was 48. And as I grew up, I realized that my parents were older, not only because I knew they were really my grandparents, but because the age difference between my parents and the parents of the other kids was visible. As a child, it never really occurred to me to mind. So they were older? Who cares? Their age had no real impact on my day to day life. I still did all the things the other kids did. I learned how to ride a bike without training wheels. I had cute stylish clothes. I went to slumber parties. It just wasn't something that I ever really thought about.

Fast forward to my teenage years. It was during this time that it suddenly occurred to me how the fact that my parents were 20 some odd years older than everyone else's parents was going to affect me. They started developing the usual minor age related health problems. High cholesterol, high blood pressure, that sort of thing. People like cardiologists came into the picture. And one day it hit me that I was going to lose my Mom and Dad earlier in life than most of my friends. Of course there are the exceptions - friends who have lost parents due to tragic illness or accidents and other similar circumstances. And then on occasion I would hear about someone's grandmother or grandfather passing away, and at that point I became acutely aware of the fact that I would lose my Mom and Dad.

I think subconsciously, this realization impacted me much more than I was aware. I went to college only four hours away and came home frequently. I stayed in Memphis for graduate school. And every time I contemplated or even attempted to leave the Memphis area, I would become overwhelmed by guilt for leaving my parents because I didn't know how much time I had left with them. Of course Mom didn't exactly help matters. She never wanted me to leave. I was her last child...the baby. And Mom lived to be a mom. She was happier doing things for her kids than she was for herself. And without someone to mother, she just seemed so sad. So I called all the time, went to see them every weekend, involved her in all my major decisions, and basically dragged out her chance to be a mom for 35 years.

When I was 35 years old, I got married. Unfortunately not to someone who lived in Memphis. I moved 12 hours away from my parents to Fort Riley, KS. I also found out two weeks after arriving in Kansas that I was pregnant with Mom and Dad's first great-grandchild. And ever since I finally decided to live my life, get married, leave Memphis, have kids...I have been overwhelmed by feelings of guilt that I abandoned my parents. Mom's health has steadily deteriorated in the time since I moved away. And then she found out that she had lung cancer. Her mental status has worsened as well. She's too confused to manage her finances, and I am 12 hours away and useless. I found out two weeks ago that I am pregnant and yesterday Mom called to tell me that the radiation she had for her lung cancer was unsuccessful, that the cancer has spread, that they are starting hospice care next week, and that she has less than six months to live. And when she told me, all I could think of was what a horrible person I was for leaving my parents. How I should have just not gotten married, stayed in Memphis, and waited until she was gone. Thirty-five years I waited, and in the less than three years I've been gone living my new life, she's reached the end of hers.

I laid in bed last night and wept. My greatest fear is, after everything my Mom has seen me through, I won't be there to hold her hand and tell her that it's ok to go. That her children are grown with lives and children of their own. That she was the best mother I could have asked for, despite all the differences of opinion that we had about things that seem so frivolous now. That she doesn't have to worry because we are all ok and we all love her. That I'm sorry she didn't have more time to spend with Jameson, and that she won't be able to meet the new baby, something that is almost inconceivable to me. Because I know my Mom, and I know that it's things like this that she will be thinking about at the end of her life. "Do my kids love me? Did I do enough for them? Are they angry with me about anything? Are they angry with each other about anything? Will they take care of Daddy after I'm gone?" And I don't want Mom to be worried anymore. She's worried every day of her life, and worried enough for everyone in the whole family, and all I want for her in those last moments is to finally be at peace with her life.

Pope Paul VI said "Every mother is like Moses. She does not enter the promised land. She prepares a world she will not see." My Mom taught me what it is to be a parent, but she'll never the see the fruit of her efforts. She won't be here to see Jameson as a man, or the new baby grown, but she will impact their lives more than she knows. Hopefully she knows just how much she has impacted mine.

Hit me baby, one more time...

So a little over a month ago, I asked myself (and whoever else might read it) "how do I stop trying?" And since that time, I went to see my obstetrician who suggested that I not waste any more time trying to conceive on my own, and he referred me to a fertility specialist. I came home, waited long enough for the referral to be processed, and then called to make my appointment on October 10th with the fertility specialist two hours away in Kansas City. I filled out my eleven page new patient health history packet, submitted my medical record release at the hospital so that all of my OB records could be sent to the specialist, and patiently waited while days passed by ever so slowly. In the meantime, I had gone ahead and done my ovulation predictor tests, did the deed with my husband on all the days I was supposed to, and waited for my period to show up, yet again. Only this month, as my monthly visit from Aunt Flo got closer and closer, I noticed something was...different. I wasn't having cramps. I wasn't bloated. I wasn't anything. For months I had been hoping that all my usual PMS symptoms were actually pregnancy symptoms, but that was never the case. And this month, I wasn't even having my usual PMS.

Yesterday morning I woke up and decided that, even though I was about 99% sure I wasn't pregnant, I would go ahead and take a home pregnancy test, which I have a perpetual stock of these days. My period was a no show as of yet, but hey, at my age it's not exactly clockwork anymore. I dipped my stick, counted to twenty, laid it on the windowsill as usual, and went about my morning ritual of brushing teeth and taking my nine million vitamins. After about a minute I glanced over expecting to see the little hourglass still blinking, counting down the three minutes of torture until the words "not pregnant" appeared. But it wasn't blinking. So I bent down and looked closer and stopped cold. There it was. After months of thinking I would never see it again. One...single...word. Pregnant.

I gasped. Then I bounced up and down. Then I texted my mother, who immediately called me and was already crying. I texted the rest of my immediate family, at which point my phone started to blow up. And then I took a picture of my EPT with my phone and posted it on facebook. I'm not one of these superstitious women who thinks you should keep mum about such things until after the first trimester. I'm pretty sure me blabbing to everyone I know that I'm expecting isn't going to affect whether or not this baby decides to stick with me for nine months. What I am sure of is, I'm happy. And this is the kind of happiness that you want to share with all the people you love. So share it I did.

So this morning I went to the hospital to have my blood test drawn, and it's official, I am pregnant. My due date is May 26th, 2012. Ironically, I'm due the same month that my husband is set to deploy to Afghanistan. Luckily he will be able to stay behind until the baby is born, and for ten days after the birth. It may not sound like much, but considering he missed the birth of our son when he was in Iraq, this really is an improvement.

So how do you stop trying? Well, you don't. Not until your dream comes true. And I hope that everyone out there who is reading this never stops believing in their dream, and never stops trying to make it come true.

Never forget...

Ten years ago today I was at work. I was in a...transition phase of my life. I had left my job at the University of Memphis Art Department to pursue my big dream of working in New York City, which had spectacularly blown up in my face. When I returned home to Memphis, I was jobless. My old position at UofM had been filled, and I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. So I had gotten a job shelving books at Barnes and Noble to pay the bills until I got a grip. And that's what I was doing on the morning of September 11, 2001. I was shelving books. The store hadn't opened yet, so it was only staff in the store when the news first came in. One of the assistant managers of the store came running out of the office to tell everyone that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. Then he changed the store's music channel to the news, and we all listened in horror at the news reports of what was going on in the city that I had only just recently departed.

When I think back to that day, it seems life a lifetime ago. And for me I guess it was. Long gone are those days when I didn't know what I was doing with my life. And long gone are the days when I felt a sense of security that I truly believed to be impenetrable. Four months later I started nursing school. Two years later I was a registered nurse, which is a career I proudly did for four years. And then in 2008, I met this nerdy gamer guy who incidentally was a combat medic in the U.S. Army. And since then my life has truly found it's purpose. On December 7, 2009, on the 68th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I gave birth to my son. And as is the case with many a military child's birth since 9/11, his father was in Iraq when he was born.

Many American lives changed on September 11, 2001. And on that horrific day in New York City, New Yorkers and Americans everywhere made the promise that they would never forget. And while some people may have slipped back into the comfortable complacency that they are safe in this country, they have only done so thanks to the sacrifices that have been and continue to be made by so many brave patriots of this beautiful country. So on this ten year anniversary of September 11, 2001, hug your babies and your spouses and your family, thank someone who would sacrifice his or her very life for your freedom, and remember what you swore to never forget.