Internet Grapes

The pieces were there all along

Usually I do one or two jigsaw puzzles over winter break, more than that over the summer, and maybe one during spring break. Once in awhile I’ll do one over a long weekend. (I did many during the initial Covid lockdown.) One reason I don’t do them more often is because our house only has one good puzzle-doing surface - the dining room table. And although we don’t all eat together at the dining room table all that often, I like having that as an option, at least. So I don’t do puzzles very often. 

This year I got a puzzle for Christmas, as I often do, but I didn’t make time to put it together before school started. Last Sunday (the day before school started for me & the other teachers, but two days before the students would return) I decided to break my own usual rule, and I started the puzzle that Annabel had given me for Christmas. It’s called “Summer Fun,” and it’s much wider than it is tall, and the picture on it is a beach scene. There are lots of parasails and boats, and there is a lot of sand and sky and water and a boardwalk in the foreground. There are a lot of beach goers of various ages of various sizes and shapes and colors, some bicycles and strollers and food carts and beach umbrellas and dogs and scooters and dune buggies. And more! It’s the kind of puzzle I enjoy doing, because all of the background is so full of little things that you don’t have to spend a lot of time trying piece after piece and piece in one vast unvaried section of the puzzle after you’ve matched all of the pieces that having easily identifiable - although perhaps tiny! - differences. 

It’s now Saturday, and I still have a ways to go before the puzzle will be done, but I’ve made a lot of progress. I’ve hit that point where, whenever I sit down for a few minutes, I see quite a few new matches without even trying. It’s probably the point in the puzzle that I enjoy most, because it gives me what I guess I am looking for when I do puzzles: challenging questions, that require me to struggle enough to feel like I’m exercising my eyes and my mind, but for which there are certain unequivocal correct answers that are extremely gratifying to discover. Sometimes when I’m doing puzzles, I say “bam!” when I snap each piece into place, especially when I’m approaching the end stages of a puzzle. (I’m pretty sure my dad’s the one who started doing this one year when we were doing puzzles during our week at Potato Creek State Park, but the rest of us were quick to pick up on it.) 

I am 51 years old, and I am a fourth year middle school teacher. I was a theatre major in college, then started a masters in theatre program, temped for awhile while I applied to law schools, then attended law school, then worked for 11 years as a lawyer, first at a law firm and then at a title insurance company in their claims department. I had gone to law school basically because I loved being in school and didn’t know what I wanted to do. But I never loved being a lawyer, so when I was laid off in 2009, I actively looked for a new job as a lawyer, but I actively hoped that I would figure out another career that fulfilled me in a way that being a lawyer never had. (I believe that if I’d sought to become a criminal lawyer, the one type of law that really fascinated me, I might have felt differently.) I initially had no idea what that new career might be. I spent time taking family portraits and some time copywriting. I eventually started volunteering at Annabel’s preschool once a week, then started teaching there four days a week. The other teachers were pretty great, and getting to know and work with the kids was amazing, but the pay was extremely low, and I didn’t really get to make many decisions. I wanted something more, but was hesitant to make a move, since I was (am) still drowning in law school student loan debt, and didn’t want to do the wrong thing again. I started subbing for our school district, and got to try out elementary, middle, and high schools. It was so, so hard. But it was also extremely rewarding. After a year of subbing, I decided that I would like to become certified to teach middle school math full-time. After two more years, I received my teaching license, and the next August — over 9 years after I last worked as a lawyer, at the age of 48 — I started teaching in an 8th grade math classroom at a middle school 10 minutes from my house, and I’m still there with no plans to leave. When I talk about my later-in-life career change to people, I often say that being a teacher has been harder than being a lawyer was, because that’s true. It’s also true that while I can’t always say that I like how a particular schoolday went, I love the students, and I truly love that I’m a teacher. I don’t know if I should ever have been a lawyer, but I am 100% certain that becoming a teacher was the right decision. Bam.

The other day I came across a little online quiz that I’d filled out a few years ago. “What’s the first job you remember wanting to do?” was one of the questions. “Teacher,” was my answer. (I chose to go to law school because I didn’t want to leave school.) 

As I was working on my puzzle this morning, I picked up a piece with a small curved bright red spot on it. I had picked it up many times before, comparing it to the picture of the puzzle and to the pieces that I’d already put into place, but time after time, I couldn’t figure out where it went. This morning, though, I picked up the piece and immediately recognized it. I dropped it into its spot, which connected two large parts of completed puzzle to each other. “Bam,” I said to myself quietly, and laughed a little. 

And then suddenly I was struck by the fact that the puzzle piece had been there the entire time, and that in fact I had looked at it over and over, but it wasn’t until I recognized it that I could fit it into place, and this felt like a very Wizard of Oz type life lesson. (“You’ve always had the power, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself.”)

How many pieces are still there right now, sitting in front of me, waiting for me to recognize them? Is it possible to help my kids? — Or my students? — to find the pieces earlier? More easily? How many pieces are lost to me forever, never to be put in place? Have I been particularly bad at recognizing the pieces of my life puzzle, or are some pieces just hard to find no matter who you are? Would someone else have recognized the connections between the pieces earlier? Could I have done better if I’d changed something? Listened to my inner self earlier? Trusted myself more? Spent more time thinking and wondering and less time doing the next thing?

THE PIECES WERE THERE ALL ALONG. I just had to recognize them for myself.

 

a long winter

When we drove out of Chicago, on our way to Fort Wayne, I composed a letter to the city in my head.  Dear Chicago, I thought, I'm so sorry it has to end this way.  No hard feelings, Chicago, I thought.  I love you, I will always love you, and I will cherish the memories from our years together.  You're not perfect, but of course I'm not, either, and so I don't blame you.  I have blamed myself, but I am trying very hard not to do that anymore.  It turns out that we are just not a good fit, or maybe it's just that the timing's not right.  I think you're beautiful and amazing, and I hope we can be friends.  I've never lost interest in knowing you.  I'll come to see you when I can, although I know it will probably never be the same. 

The sun was shining, making the surface of the lake sparkle brilliantly.  It was Chicago's answer to me, I thought - giving me farewell diamonds.  I stared at the water, trying to preserve every detail of the view for myself forever.  In that moment, at least, I felt at peace.

I have spent a lot of time feeling like leaving Chicago was a mark of failure, not because living in Chicago is the ultimate mark of success (although I admit that in the wake of all of this I do have sort of a New York, New York "if I can make it there I'll make it anywhere" feeling about it), but because in the end, we didn't feel like the decision to leave or stay was really our own choice, but one that we had to make.  If we didn't take the job offer Geoff had gotten - or some other job in some other place besides Chicago - we could imagine a scenario where we ended up homeless.  Looking back, I can still imagine that, although I think we are too lucky and blessed to have ended up on the streets, whether or not we had a home of our own, since we have family and friends who I believe would take us in, if it came to that.  Still, in just over a week it will have been two years since my last day of employment.  We have still not sold our condo in Chicago.  It's been almost two years since Geoff and I had any health insurance.  During this time, I cashed out my 401k.  We have no savings or retirement funds of any kind.  We own nothing of any significant value, except the Chicago condo (which we only "own," owing on its mortgage loan approximately three times what it is now worth), Geoff's piano, and the not-yet-paid-off Honda CR-V (the Beetle doesn't count as something of significant value, that's for sure).  We owe hundreds of thousands on student loans. 

On the other hand, every time I feel too sorry for myself about any of this, I can't help but also feel grateful.  (It doesn't always get rid of the self-pity, but at least it tempers it.)  Two years without health insurance has resulted in zero unpaid medical bills; we've been all been remarkably healthy.  We live in a house with both heat and central air, an upstairs and a downstairs, a bath and a half, and each daughter has her own bedroom!  We have our own front porch and our own fenced in back yard, and we live in a quiet, safe neighborhood, one where Katie even has a good friend her age just down the block.  We never pay anything for parking, we go out to eat regularly, we have cable tv and cell phones and internet connections.  We have enough food and enough clothes and even enough toys.  When the cars have broken down or needed work, we've had enough money to pay to get them running again, and although we don't have health insurance, we do have car insurance.  We exchanged presents at Christmas, and we can buy presents and cake for birthdays.  I think of all of the other people who have been unemployed as long as I have - especially those of them, like me, who were the primary wage-earners for their families - and I am sure that we number among the luckiest. 

I feel like an imposter, though.  These days I'm at home with my kids, doing all the housework and laundry and most of the cooking, but I'm not a "real" stay at home mom, because I didn't make the choice to be, and if I could get a job that I liked, I'd rather not be.  I love having more time with them than I had when I was working (especially since I had a 2-3 hour round trip commute most days), but I'll be honest: this much time is too much, especially since a huge amount of the time that I have available is not spent with them - Katie is in school for most of each weekday, and Annabel is at preschool three days a week.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Annabel is at home with me, but she usually naps for 2-3 hours, and even when she's awake, she is pretty independent - she usually spends an hour or two entertaining herself in her or Katie's room. 

I worked as a lawyer for nearly 11 years, but I'm not a "real" lawyer, either, both because I'm not working right now (and haven't worked in 2 years), and because if I have my way, I won't work as a lawyer again.  Yet people ask what I did, or what I do, and I find myself admitting that yes, I am a lawyer, because of course, even though I'm not, I also am. 

I would like to be a photographer, but I'm not a "real" one.  I have plans to start an official business here in Indiana later this year, but for various financial reasons, I won't be doing that for awhile.  I'm not making any money from photography.  I take very few photos (other than ones of my family and my surroundings).  And I'm very aware of my lack of experience and training and equipment.  (I also dream of being a writer, but it's hard to feel like that's real, also, when I only write a few times a month at the most, and usually much less than that.)

I imagine, as I make my way through the world, that others see me the way I've been seeing myself: as an example of wasted potential.  As a failure.  As a dabbler in many things but an expert at nothing.  As a lazy self-pitying unmotivated ingrate, who needs to sit up and smell the coffee, or the roses, or something, anything, as long as it makes her realize that maybe this is as good as it gets, and if she doesn't figure out how to appreciate it soon, her life's going to be over before she knows it, without her ever having figured out how to get it (anything) right. 

Since I am imagining that others see me this way, it might not surprise you to learn that - despite the fact that I often lonely - I have become something of a hermit, self-conscious and somewhat shy around others, especially others who ask me things like what I do for a living, or what I want to do for a living, or who want to compare notes about being a stay at home mom. 

So many days are so difficult, even when I feel like they shouldn't be.  It helps when the sun shines.  It helps when the days are warm enough to enjoy taking a walk, even a quick one that's just around the block.  It helps when I have upcoming plans to look forward to. 

In about a month, Katie and I are going to go to London (England!) to stay with my mom, and when I believe that that's really going to happen, I get pretty excited.  I am also really looking forward to this summer, when I assume I will still be unemployed and be able to be home with the kids.  I enjoyed our time together last summer.  I am looking forward to maybe taking a photography class or two at the university here, maybe next fall, so that I will feel more legitimate, more confident, more like I know what I'm doing. 

This winter has been hard.  I am ready for it to end. 

Home

home
Originally uploaded by jessamyn.n.

Our home in Fort Wayne. I am so very fond of this house. We don't own it, we don't plan to stay here forever, it doesn't have a guest room (although it could, if the girls shared a room), but almost every day, I am thankful and happy to be living here.

Geoff and I put up those icicle lights today, and I hung a sparkly mirror-covered wreath in the middle. I have plans to add a few things, like some garland on the porch railing, and maybe a real little tree that we can cover with cranberry and popcorn garlands.

Every December I am sorry to see the days getting shorter, but once people start decorating for Christmas, I am so happy to see all of those lights, shining against the early darkness.  Even on a long, difficult day, I see them and hope swells inside me.

No matter how dark it has been, there has also been light, and maybe that is part of the point of it all, anyway.

returning

Oh, hello there!  Let me introduce myself.  Actually, I have a hard time with introductions these days, because one of the first questions people ask is something about what you DO, and I don't have a good answer right now.  I'm a stay at home mom, sort of.  I'm unemployed (and still collecting unemployment, for another week and a half).  I'm a(n) aspiring photographer.  I'm the wife of the director of music here at the church.  I sing in the choir.  Grudgingly, but with a smile, I admit that I'm licensed as an attorney in Illinois, although not here in Indiana. 

It turns out that I'm relatively uncomfortable with general uncertainty.  (Gee, who knew?)  I am happy, these days, most of the time, most of each day, with most of the parts of my life.  The days pass so much more quickly than they used to in Chicago - or wait, actually, that's not exactly true, because most days here I feel like I can get so much more done - and can definitely run more errands and go more places - than I usually could on a day in Chicago.  But in a way the days feel faster, because most days and most weeks I find myself willing them to slow down.  There is never enough time to manage to do everything that I want to do, and yet almost every day brings something to look forward to in a way that many days didn't back when I was working as a claims attorney in downtown Chicago.  I have no long crowded commute to dread.  I have no angry customers.  I'm not at the mercy of a corporation that's going to keep changing the rules that I am supposed to abide by.  I don't have endless phone conferences with people who are mad at me.  In fact, I hardly ever deal with anyone who's mad at me!  Other than sales clerks and restaurant staff and the UPS guy, I hardly interact with anyone with whom I didn't choose to interact.  I see my husband, my kids, my mom and dad and stepmom and brother and his girlfriend and their two kids.  I see a couple of neighbors, briefly, occasionally.  I see Katie's first grade teacher and Annabel's preschool teachers.  I see the people who sing in the two church choirs that I sing in, too, and I see people who attend church services on Sunday. 

I have explored the area around Fort Wayne quite a bit - various parts of the city, the corn and soybean fields surrounding the city, quite a few parks and nature preserves, and many of the small towns 10 or 20 or 40 miles away.  I take my camera and set off with a particular destination or no destination in mind, and I come home feeling like I accomplished something.  There is not as much to explore as there was in Chicago, and I really miss my Chicago wanderings, but on the other hand, I can explore quite a bit even if I only have an hour of time to myself, and that was something that I really couldn't do in Chicago.  I have a GPS now (we bought it with points for me for my birthday), so I can wander to my heart's content, and when I'm ready to go back, I only have to hit "home" and I can find my way back.  "You have arrived...home," the robot voice will announce, and for the first several times I heard that, I felt something resonate inside me.  Home. 

Speaking of our home, I love it.  At least once a week, and usually more, I am somewhat overcome by how much I enjoy living in this house.  You see, I was really unhappy about a lot of aspects of living in our condo in Chicago, but I'd half-convinced myself that I was just becoming a person for whom the grass was *always* so much greener, and that living in a house wasn't going to make me any happier - I'd just find new things to be upset about.  I am relieved to discover that this is not true.  I love that the girls each have their own bedroom.  I love having two floors, and not having anybody living below us (or above us).  I love having our own front yard and backyard and attic and basement - with our own washer & dryer.  I love having two bathrooms.  I love the cozy den with wood paneled walls and wall to wall carpet (even though it's so stained it's ridiculously ugly), and I love that none of the other rooms downstairs have a television in them.  We bought some Halloween decorations for the first time, and we are going to put up Christmas lights on our house for the first time ever. 

What do I miss?  I miss my friends in Chicago and the ability to get together with any of them for a (relatively) quick lunch.  I miss the endless bounty of places (beaches, woods, streets, museums, churches, neighborhoods, restaurants, parks, and on, and on, and on) to explore.  I miss really yummy Thai yellow curry chicken, delivered or picked up. I miss being in a place where I had a history, interacting with people with whom I shared years of history.  I miss the sense of excitement and wonder I had when I would explore new parts of Chicago.  I miss being in a really big city. 

I don't miss our huge mortgage payment (supposedly the sale of our condo will close sometime this month) or our condo.  I don't miss the traffic.  I don't miss the panicky anxiety about whether we'd be able to pay bills each month.  I don't miss the politicking and gameplaying that had gone on at both mine and Geoff's jobs. 

I miss feeling like I knew what the future held for me, although it's been awhile since I felt like I knew that. And honestly, I guess I am maybe becoming more comfortable with uncertainty than I used to be, because I recently had a phone interview for a job as an underwriter with an insurance company, and although the job itself sounded like it would be ok (and a few people I've talked to have said that the company itself is known for being a wonderful employer), the idea of going back to an office to work in a cubicle (or best case, probably, a windowless office with industrial gray walls) from 9-6, day in and day out, doing a job I don't really care about, with two weeks of vacation a day (until five years of employment, at which time I'd earn a third week) makes me feel trapped.  As I (not melodramatically at all) said to Geoff, "It would feel like a kind of prison." 

I know that really, if I took a job like that (if in fact I were to even get offered a job like that, which hasn't happened yet), I would adjust to a return to that kind of daily routine, and it would not feel like prison.  It would not be the worst thing.  And it would be a very good thing for one of us to have a job that provided health insurance benefits. 

So I've been thinking about this, about my reaction to the idea of going back to a job like the one I had for 7.5 years, and I think that maybe I am just ready to have an adventure, or ready to continue this adventure that we have already begun.  I am ready to see whether I could really earn any money as a photographer, or at least whether I can earn as much as I've been making on unemployment.  I think maybe I could.  I think maybe I can.  I don't want to take another job unless it's a job I am really excited about.  Could that happen?  Maybe that could happen.  If there is any time when it could happen, I think that that time is now.  I admit, though, that I want more than that.  I don't just want to try to make some money as a photographer, because I could probably squeeze that in in addition to a full-time job, a few times a year, at least.  I want more than that.  I want time with my husband and kids, and I want a flexible schedule, and I want to keep spending my days and my time doing things that I care about.  It could be that this is too much to ask, but the hell with that.  For now, I'm going to ask anyway. 

And speaking of spending time doing things I care about...another thing I miss is writing here. 

peace and the unknown

I have spent a lot of time in the past year telling myself that I would feel better if my future life were more certain.  If I knew where we'd be in a year or two.  If I knew what city we'd be in, what house we'd live in, what jobs we'd have, what school Katie would attend.  If I knew that we were going to emerge on the other side of this un-insured time healthy (and not bankrupted by some emergency or illness that had taken place in the meantime).  If there wasn't so much that was unknown.  If there wasn't so much that was up in the air.  That was what was bothering me, I told myself (and Geoff) - that I didn't have any real idea what our lives would be like in the future. 

My photography business could succeed, but will that happen before my unemployment benefits run out?  Will I have to take a part-time job working retail?  Will I end up accepting a temp job, legal or non-legal?  Will I end up back in an office, working as a lawyer?  If I do, will I have time for photography work?  I've applied for some jobs out of the area - if I get one of those, will we leave Chicago?  And for where?  Somewhere closer to my family?  Somewhere else that's not close to anyone we know, but that's exciting to us for other reasons?  Should we try to stay in this condo until we can make some money from selling it, or should we just cut our losses and try to get out now?  Should we stay in it as long as we're going to be in Chicago anyway?  Or should we sell it either way?  What's going to happen to us when my unemployment benefits run out later on this year? 

I'm sure that this kind of uncertainty is hard for most people.  I know that it's been hard for me.  I have thought often about what I read in Stumbling on Happiness a few years ago, that possibly the biggest single factor in determining a person's level of happiness or contentment is the amount of control that she (or he) feels she has over her life (ironically, the author points out that depressed people are likely to have a more accurate view of the amount of control they are truly able to exercise over their lives).  In so many ways, for several years now, I have struggled to feel in control of my life. I have been waiting to get back to a place where I can look forward to next year, or even next month, and know what will be happening in my life.

Last Saturday night, a friend of ours from church treated us to a concert downtown performed by the St. Olaf choir.  It was a wonderful performance full of beautiful, moving music.  (Go see them if you get a chance.)  There was one piece, though, that stood out for me not because of the performance, or even because of the music itself, but because of the lyrics of the composition.  The piece - "This House of Peace," by Ralph M. Johnson - had been commissioned for the opening of a medical center in Oregon, and the lyrics included both a Gaelic blessing (as the chorus) and real words taken from letters written by loved ones of people who had been treated at the healing center (as the verses).  The last verse includes: "We live moment to moment now,/ not knowing what next will be./And in this unknown, I live in peace./She is sleeping well."  

At the very end of the piece, the lyrics repeat: "And in this unknown, I live in peace."

And in that moment, as the soloist's voice rang out through the sanctuary, I had my own epiphany.  I realized, suddenly, that the future is always unknown.  Here I have been thinking that once I had a job, or once we had a home we never planned to leave, or once we had financial security, or once we had health insurance, that I would know what my future held, and that the future would no longer be a vast unknown.  But in that moment, in a flash of intuition, I realized although we may sometimes have the illusion of knowledge and stability, that in a very real way, we never actually know. 

I never knew that I would be involved in a car accident in the summer of 2006 that would total our car and leave the other driver dead.  Katie and I could have easily been killed, too.  I didn't know, when we bought our condo, that it was not the sound financial investment that we thought it was; we were sure at the time that we would not live here for more than a year or two.  I never knew that out of all of our family members who attended mine and Geoff's wedding, including grandfathers in their 80's (and one of mine who is now 90), that the only person who would not live long enough to see our fifth wedding anniversary would be Geoff's sister Stephanie.  I never, ever even thought that the way I would leave my former place of employment (where a claims department had been in operation for at least forty years) would be because my employer would shut down the entire department and lay all of us off at once.  

There are good unknowns, too: I never knew I would marry my best friend after meeting him on the internet, or what amazing personalities my children would have (and when I would have them), or the fact that losing my job would turn me into an aspiring professional photographer within the year.  

I have been waiting, you see, for the knowing.  I have been waiting for more certainty in my life, assuming that once I had that, I could be less anxious, less fearful.  I have been waiting for stability to bring me peace.  And while it is true that my life has certainly had more dramatic upheaval and change in the past few years than most people's probably have (and certainly more than my life had in the few years before that), there will always be changes that can not be anticipated.  There will always be frightening unexpected occurrences that pop out of nowhere, and stressful events that I don't handle the way I thought that I would, and (thankfully) wonderful surprises that spring out of the mist to greet me.  And if I wait until my life is constant and stable before I allow myself to feel at peace, then I may never feel at peace. 

I want to feel some peace. 

At dinner after the concert, I told Geoff and the two women that we'd gone with (both of whom are friends of ours from the church) about the epiphany I'd had during the concert, about how we are always living in the unknown, and about how I wanted to find peace, regardless.  At home that night, half joking, I told Geoff that I wanted to give up when it came to trying to figure out what to do with my life (with our lives), and that maybe it was time to do what the church's interim pastor had suggested in a sermon awhile back - that when we no longer knew what to do, we should "give it to God," admit that we were not in control, and ask for help.  "I am ready to give up," I told Geoff.  "I do not know what are the best choices for us to make right now.  I want help."  I decided that maybe I needed to believe the idea we had explored in my Mondo Beyondo course - that "something greater is holding me," and that the universe has a way of working things out.  Just the idea that this was a possibility - that I could stop worrying about it - that God or the universe would deal with all of the agonizing implications arising from every tiny decision - made me feel a little bit better.  I don't know if it's true, but I don't need to.  Just the idea that it might be - that it's ok for me to stop trying to line up and piece together the 582 different future scenarios my life could include - gives me some peace. (And there is that other truth I've realized over the past few years: no matter how much I expect and prepare for the worst, it does not seem to make the worst any less painful, when and if it does happen - all it does do is make the previous days more painful.)

Anything can happen at any time, I told myself.  But for now, we are all right.  We are healthy, and we have clothes and a home.  We have friends, and family, and computers, and televisions, and cell phones.  We will strive for peace in the now, without knowing what will happen tomorrow. 

The very next night, our church - where Geoff has been the director of music, and which we as a family have attended and participated in for the last five years - was set on fire by a member of the congregation. The sanctuary and offices are mostly destroyed.  The outer walls are mostly intact.  Geoff's piano is ruined, and his personal music collection (thousands of dollars worth of music collected over decades) is largely destroyed.  

You may expect some pithy ending to all of this.  I don't have one.  Except that Geoff could have been at the church that night, working on some things, and he wasn't.  The fire could have been set on Thursday night, when Geoff was at the church, working on some things, and it wasn't.  Someone, including the man who set the fire, could have been killed, but no one was.  Geoff could have lost his job, but he hasn't.  Insurance will cover not only rebuilding the church (although it's possible that the total rebuild could cost more than the insurance policy limit, it will at least cover the vast majority), but also Geoff's piano and most (if not all) of his music. 

Already there is something amazing happening at the church, too, which is that the community is coming together in ways that I haven't seen while we've been there.  The huge loss of the church building that so many of its members have cared so much about for so many years has caused grief that we are all sharing, together.  It is a reminder, as so many sudden losses are, of what matters most.  And just as I will never be grateful to my former employer for leaving me without a job (especially in a time when finding a new job has been, and continues to be, so difficult), I do not give thanks to the arsonist for starting this devastating fire that destroyed so much of what was once (and what will surely be again) a beautiful building beloved by so many.  And yet it would also be wrong to fail to notice the good that so often does arise out of loss, or to fail to realize that sometimes the events that endanger our previous stability the most are the same events that create new possibility.  They may even show us where our real strengths lie. 

Or at least this is what I am telling myself, even in the midst of my own grief and confusion.  And even in the midst of this grief, knowing even less about tomorrow than I did a few months ago, I am amazed to find that I do have some measure of peace. I try to hold it close to my heart, for as long as it will stay.

2009

 

I want to start fresh around here, a little bit, for 2010, but I feel compelled to do a little bit to wrap up 2009 first.  In some ways, 2009 was the strangest year I've ever had.  When I found out on January 5, 2009 that I'd be out of job as of March 9, 2009, I never really expected that I'd still be unemployed when 2010 started.  I thought that if I was unemployed for any significant length of time, I'd end up getting in shape and reading lots of books, keeping the house nearly spotless, planning endless creative activities to do with Katie and Annabel, watching all kinds of movies I'd always wanted to see but never had time to.  I also thought that the only thing that would really bother me about being unemployed was the lack of money. 

 

What really happened was that I job hunted all year long without finding anything, and only getting one interview.  I didn't get in shape (although I did lose and keep off about 12 pounds from my highest weight ever).  I read very few books.  I didn't keep the house spotless, or even close, and although we did come up with regular activities, they didn't tend to be all that creative or unusual.  I watched a few movies I'd never seen, but not many. 

 

And I discovered that - even though I didn't want my old job back, even though I didn't want a new job as a lawyer at all, and even though we were able to just barely scrape by on unemployment benefits, which allowed me to spend a lot of my time any way I wanted to - being unemployed was really hard on me.  I spent a lot of time regretting earlier decisions I'd made, including, but not limited to, the decision to go to law school in the first place (mostly since it led to all of that debt).  I spent a lot of time feeling like I'd started life with a whole lot of potential, but that now I was at a place where I was all out of options.  I spent a lot of time worrying about what was going to happen to me, what was going to happen to us, what my contribution to my family was going to be, what my future would hold and whether I'd be miserable in it.  For close to a year, I have cried almost every day; it's not that every day was horrible, and in fact most days were pretty good.  It's that every day I found myself with my emotions - every single last one of them - right on the edge of bubbling over and spilling out.  Some days I cried because I was panicky and forlorn and lonely and worried.  Some days I cried because we had been lucky enough to still be hanging in there.  A lot of days I cried about both, and more besides.

 

I did also spend a lot of time feeling silly for feeling so bad, and enumerating to myself all of the good things that were happening in my life, all of the blessings and love that surround me, all of the freedom I had, all of the possibilities.  You may guess where those thoughts often led, though, right?  Back to feeling bad, this time because I wasn't appreciative enough of what I had (have). 

At the end of 2009, I found myself looking back on what felt like a wasted year.  It felt like that - but I knew that it wasn't, really.  And so I found myself, on January 5th, 2010, making a list of what had happened in 2009. 

• On January 5^th I found out I was losing the job I had started in August 2001; March 9^th was my last day of “work.”  I took Katie to work with me for one day during the last full week of employment. 

• On March 7^th, Katie turned 5.  On May 26^th, Annabel turned 1.

• In late March, I moved Katie out of her room and into the bigger bedroom to share it with Annabel, and moved us out of the bigger bedroom and into what had been Katie’s room.  (This was a LOT of work.)

• Also in March, I painted the kitchen.  In October, I painted the smaller bedroom (which is now ours).

• I got a new hair cut, twice - once in January, once in November. 

• I made countless batches of chocolate chip cookies, pancakes (banana, chocolate chip, pumpkin, blueberry), French toast, macaroni & cheese (mostly Kraft, but I made mac & cheese casserole with cauliflower twice), fried eggs.  I made a lot of smoothies, mostly “green” (usually purple from the berries, but green because they had greens in them).  I made cupcakes – devil’s food with vanilla cream filling (twice), strawberry with strawberry filling (twice), yellow with chocolate ganache filling (once).  We made bread (with Geoff's mom).  We made mozzarella cheese (twice).  I tried to make a cheesecake (and failed).  I made bread pudding with bourbon sauce (at least twice).  I made “homemade Oreo cookies” (twice).  I made strawberry shortcake (at least twice).  I made strawberry muddles (or got Geoff to).  Katie and I made homemade cinnamon rolls.  I made blueberry cobbler (twice).  I made a lemon meringue pie (or two).  I made sugar cookies (and decorated them, with Katie), chocolate crinkle cookies, toffee squares.  Before Christmas, Katie and I made a gingerbread house.

• Annabel learned to sit up by herself, to clap, to crawl, to stand, to cruise, and to walk.  She also turned one, started to talk, to sing, to scribble, to call out for us by name.  She also stopped breastfeeding, and got 10 teeth (to add to the two she already had), and in April she started sleeping through the night (even better, she hasn’t stopped)!  

• Katie finished preschool, started kindergarten, learned to read and write (these felt much larger than these few words make them seem), and got her hair cut twice (first in February, then in December).   She  learned many of the lyrics and tune to "Don't Stop Believin'," which she successfully sings in Rock Band. (She also, thank God, started pooping in the toilet 100% of the time.)
  

• In March I participated in a recording session of the church's women’s chorus singing Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols.  I sang with the women’s chorus throughout the year, and during the Advent Vespers service, during which we sang John Rutter’s Dancing Day.  I sang with the Celebration Choir at regular Sunday services.  I also sang a lot of Rock Band and Guitar Hero, and  of course sang in the car, and around the house, and to the girls at bedtime.  I also sang karaoke in public for the first time ever (in Cincinnati – “Don’t Stop Believin’”). 

• Saw/heard live music: in July we saw The Airborne Toxic Event in Cincinnati;  I saw Poi Dog Pondering at the Vic Theatre in Chicago with my friend Rebecca, and saw Matthew Ryan at Schuba's with Geoff.   

• In June, I spent a week with Katie while Geoff and Annabel spent a week in Halifax.  While it was just the two of us, we: ate breakfast at Wishbone, went to the Anti-Cruelty Society to visit the cats and dogs, went to Brookfield Zoo, went to Kiddieland, went to a cherry picking party at our friend Emily’s house, went to a backyard cookout with our downstairs neighbors, went on the architectural riverboat cruise on the Chicago River, rented and watched Harry Potter, and rented and played Monsters v. Aliens Xbox game.  We also read a lot of books, sang a lot of songs, and did a lot of dancing.

• In the spring, we said goodbye to our cat Ichabod, who died at home.  In the summer, we got a new cat, Max, who looks an awful lot like Ichabod did, but who is much friendlier and much less fearful (which is both good and bad). 
  

• In the summer, we went to the farmer’s market.  (Not enough. I think 3 times.)

• On the 4th of July, I took Katie to the Evanston fireworks over Lake Michigan.

• We spent time with friends and family.  I went to Indiana to visit my family - in February (for my niece’s 2^nd birthday party), at the end of April (for my Grandpa Bagley’s 90^th birthday party), in late October (shortly after Jace’s first birthday, since I missed the birthday party), for Thanksgiving, and right after Christmas.  Mom came to visit while Geoff went to a conference.  Then after Geoff got back we all went to the Indiana Dunes and met up with Josh & Frankie & Keagan & Olivia & Jace.  Tracy & Tim & Xander came to Chicago for a visit in June.  At the end of July, we went to Cincinnati to visit them and stayed for a week.  We went back for New Year’s Eve, when we also got to see my friend Allen. Geoff’s Mom visited twice for about a week each – once in March, for Katie’s birthday, and later at the very end of November.  I got reconnected with my college friend Rebecca on Facebook (one of many ways that Facebook was awesome this year); we visited in person in Indianapolis in April, the girls and I visited her and her family in October, and then we hosted her overnight at our place in November (and she and I went to see Poi Dog Pondering).  Managed to get together with my friend Erin: twice for lunch, once to see her reading at the Hideout, once to be the attorney for her and her husband’s purchase of their new home! In August I went on a photo walk with my friend Amy, and in November we met for lunch. I got to visit with my friend Carolyn and her daughter many times - several times at our place, and several times at her place.   In August, we went up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a week to stay in a cabin that my dad had generously rented for many of us to stay in.  We swam, boated, fished, ate, relaxed, visited, and played cards.  (I took a lot of photos.)  In the fall, my cousin Steve came to visit and stayed overnight. 

• I contracted and recovered from pneumonia.  I went to one real job interview, and one interview with a legal temp agency (n either was fruitful).  Got the Beetle towed - at least five times.
  

• Geoff and I went to Mon Ami Gabi for a post-Valentine’s Day date night, and to Smoq (barbecue) before going to see Star Trek.  I took Katie to Olive Garden for a post-birthday celebration.  We all went to Red Lobster to commemorate two years passing since Stephanie’s death.  Geoff and I got a babysitter and went to a formal wedding reception downtown, and later got a babysitter and went out to Hopleaf on our anniversary.

 

 

 

 

• I took and posted 794 photos and 4 videos to Flickr, and made my Flickrstream photos of people viewable only by family & friends.  I took thousands and thousands and thousands of photos, including some of my very favorite photos that I’ve ever taken.  Having set a goal to take a post one photo per day for every day of the year, I ended up with photos for 335 days - if you'd like to take a look at the set, consider yourself invited. 

• And in the fall, I took this Mondo Beyondo course, which is all about dreaming big, trusting the universe, believing in yourself, and moving forward.   

Speaking of dreaming big, the list making made me realize that there actually was a lot to put on the kinda-wow-I-guess-I-really-did-sorta-start-my-own-photography-business list, which I don't think would have happened (at least not when it did) if my friend Kerry hadn't amazingly generously offered to pay for me to

• ...take the photography class that I took and loved (and learned a lot in) in April and May.

• After that, I ordered and received new photography business cards. 

• I designed and ordered postcards advertising my photography business.  I also designed a photography website, set up a Facebook fan page, and an etsy shop.  Designed two calendars and sold them on Zazzle.com. 
  

• I had a photo published in Manhattan magazine.  I had an “art show” at Kathy Reller Designs in Oak Park in September. I printed and sold some notecards containing my images.

Biggest of all, though, were the photo shoots. 

• Between May 15th and November 28th, I had 25 photo shoots (kind of - two of them were weddings where I was not specifically asked to be the photographer, but where I instead tagged along with wedding photographer friends).   I had three maternity shoots, ten family shoots, seven baby shoots, one toddler shoot, two individual adult shoots, and the two weddings.

And although I still don't feel like a professional photographer, not really - and although I still have not made any sort of significant income taking photographs, not really - and although I have almost nothing lined up for 2010 when it comes to photographs...still.  I am proud of my 25 photographic undertakings.  I learned something at every single one, and I am a much better photographer now than I was at the beginning of 2009.  There is a part of me that does not believe that I can really ever make a living being a photographer, but there is also a part - a growing part - that believes that maybe I can.  And that second part didn't really exist before the middle of 2009, and so for that I am grateful to the past year. 

For the record, I do still hope for better things in 2010.  I do still get weepy pretty much every day.  I do still doubt myself and my decisions (as well as my decision-making ability) a lot.  I do still feel like I am not doing all of the things that I wish that I were doing.  But if 2009 is the worst year that I ever have, then I am incredibly, indescribably, overwhelmingly lucky.  And on days like today, I actually believe that better times are ahead.  Maybe even as soon as this year.

 

prayers, answered and un

One day, several months ago, as we sat in church listening to the sermon, I found myself looking out at some people in the congregation - a father with his son and daughter.  The father was wearing glasses, and the son was wearing his glasses (although I've also seen him without them), and the daughter didn't have glasses on. I tried to think whether I'd ever seen her in glasses or heard her mention contacts.  The mother of the two kids was not sitting with them - she was sitting with us in the choir - and I know she wears contacts.  We occasionally see her in glasses.  I only thought about this for a second (not nearly as long as it has taken me to type this). 

These thoughts led me to start thinking about genetics, and about how things like poor eyesight make their way from one generation to the next, and I wondered about the baby growing inside me, and whether she would need glasses.  Geoff wears glasses.  I have had glasses during two different periods of my life, but for eyestrain, not for vision.  I guess it remains to be seen whether Katie will need glasses. 

And then I started thinking about other members of mine and Geoff's families, and which of them have glasses, when suddenly, as clear as a photograph held right in front of me - no, as clear as a person sitting right in front of me - I had a vision of Stephanie, wearing her glasses, leaning toward me, beaming at me happily and maybe a little conspiratorially, the way she did so many times.  And as I saw her, I felt an urgent PLEASE rise up inside me, a plea for Stephanie to be alive, for her death to have been a dream (a nightmare), and for me to have a chance to see her smile at me like that again.  And even though I knew, of course, that my plea would not be answered, there was a part of me that kept hoping that somehow I had misunderstood, that even though all these months had passed, that she was really ok, and that her death had never happened.

On a different day, around the end of April, in the last month or so before Annabel was born, I was driving home from work on Lake Shore Drive when I realized that I couldn't remember feeling any major movements from the baby that day.  Usually there was a flurry of activity at some point every morning, and again every afternoon, that was so forceful that I couldn't help but stop whatever I was doing to focus completely on the baby in there, to wonder what she was doing, and to be grateful for her existence (but often also to wish that she wouldn't push quite so hard).  I couldn't remember any such flurry from that day.  There was no such movement right then, either.

I reached down to my belly to feel for her hard shape under my skin.  Just there, to the right of my belly button, I felt an expanse of babyness - maybe a back, or a butt, or a head.  I pushed on it gently.  It didn't push back. 

This was normal.  She slept, often, so the fact that she wasn't pushing back at me didn't mean anything was wrong.  I knew that she was probably just fine.  But still.  I had a nagging sense that maybe, just maybe, something was wrong. 

I pushed again.  Nothing.  "No."  I said.  I was alone in the car.  I said it out loud anyway.  "No.  No, no, no, no, no."  After a few minutes, I started to cry.  "No."

I kept driving, and I kept waiting for movement, and every so often I would push on my belly, and there would be no response (even though each time I could feel some part of her little body in there, under my skin).  Even though there was no real reason for it, I felt panic rising inside me.  I thought of the day, almost a year before, when we'd gone to the doctor and discovered that I was having a miscarriage; I thought of how the day had been sunny and clear and warm.  I thought of how up until that afternoon, there had been nothing to distinguish that day from any other day, no way to know about the grief that I was going to experience before the end of the day.  Nothing to warn me that I was going to spend the afternoon sobbing and the next few days despairing.  No clues. 

"Please," I said.  "Please," again, out loud.  "Please.  Please.  Please."   

I thought how easily this day could be another day like that day last May, how suddenly, with no warning, this day could turn from ordinary to unforgettable. I thought about how bad things so often do happen that way, coming out of nowhere, slamming you to the ground and knocking the wind out of you. I thought about how so many bad things happen not because we deserve them, but in spite of the fact that probably nobody deserves them.  I imagined getting home, telling Geoff, driving to the hospital, discovering that the baby had died, deciding where to go from there (I was eight months pregnant; there would have to be labor and delivery; there would be no miscarriage in the privacy of my own bathtub), and wondering whether I would ever find the strength to try again. 

And then, as I drove along, crying and praying and pleading, as I was preparing myself for disaster and despair (it couldn't really have been very long - maybe it was fifteen minutes, or maybe it was only five), she moved, gently, inside me.  And then she moved again.  And then again, more deliberately, and stronger. 

I gasped a huge sigh of relief.  "Oh, thank you," I said, still crying (maybe crying harder).  "Thank you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you." 

A little over a week ago, at the end of July, we were in Halifax, Nova Scotia, visiting Geoff's family while I was on maternity leave.  While we were there, we all drove out to Lawrencetown Beach, to scatter Stephanie's ashes in the ocean, from a beach she loved to visit.  There was fog everywhere, and the air was much colder than I'd realized it would be, so before we could walk over to the water, we had to spend a few minutes dressing Annabel more warmly, and putting a jacket on Katie.  Geoff strapped on the Baby Bjorn, and we put Annabel into it, and we all walked over to the rocky beach together.  As we stood there in the fog and wind, watching what was left of Stephanie's body fall into the water and blow through the air, I did not say "please."  I tried, really hard, to think about how glad I was to have known her, to be grateful to have had her as my sister in law and friend, and to feel lucky to have known her.  I tried, really hard, to pray "thank you," even though there will always be a part of me, I think, that can't help but say "no." 

In the car, driving back into Halifax after we left the beach, Katie (who had sobbed nearly hysterically at the beach) kept asking us to tell her about Stephanie and about how she had died.  We did the best we could to explain, again, what had happened, and why, and made sure to let her know that we didn't completely understand it ourselves.  Katie started to cry again.  "I don't remember her," she said, and cried as if she understood just how much of a loss that was. 

Annabel is two months old now, and except for a mild rash on her cheeks, she is completely healthy.  For the most part, she is a happy, alert, easily soothed baby, who makes me smile every day.  There is a woman at the church who wants to hold Annabel every time we see her. "A healthy baby," she says, "is like winning the lottery."  She smiles at us, and tells us how lucky we are.  We smile back, and nod, and say that she's right.

A Birth Story

 Written on 5/30/08 (four days after our daughter Annabel was born.  8 lb, 14 oz, 21 inches long.  She looks a lot like her big sister.

Ok, so I'll see how much I can type right now, two-handed, with Annabel in a sling, while it's just Annabel and me at home.

Sunday morning (May 25th) we went to church, and all of Geoff's choir from the 9:00 a.m. service was there - normally there are two services, at 9 and 11, but in the summer it switches to one 10 a.m. service, and this particular Sunday was the first of those. The only reason I mention this is that all of these folks in the early choir (who I don't know very well, but who know Geoff, so I'm sure they feel like they know me) kept coming up to me and annoying me. I can't tell you how many of them said, "Are you ready? You look ready!" I was thinking that "looking ready" was equivalent to looking really freaking tired and irritable - oh, and huge, of course. One woman also reached out and rubbed my belly when people were "passing the peace." And there was a LOT of "Oh, so Thursday is the big day!" as if my due date was some sort of guarantee. Also, see 9 months pregnant: I was definitely more irritable than they deserved.

After church, Katie and Geoff and I went for lunch, then came home and took naps. After we got up, Katie and I made chocolate chip cookie dough, and we started doing some more cleaning/straightening around the house. I was sweeping the rest of the living room (I'd started the day before), wearing one of my many Target maternity dresses, at about 6:30 or 6:45 in the evening, when suddenly I felt warm liquid running down my legs, and I knew that was it. I pointed out to Geoff that my water had broken.  He was pretty calm about it.  I went to get some dry underwear and a towel.

We spent the next couple of hours packing my suitcase for the hospital (I had at least made a list of essentials the week before, so I didn't have to really focus), Geoff called my parents and his parents, we took quite a few family portraits, me sitting on the couch on top of a towel. (I wouldn't have cared if we had actually done this, at that point, but I'd been talking about wanting to do it for weeks, so when Geoff set up the tripod and said we should go ahead, we did.)  I kept leaking fluid, which Katie was mildly grossed out by ("I don't like the fluit!"), and which the dog kept licking up if Geoff didn't get to it first (which I was a little grosssed out by, myself). Geoff made some calls to find someone who could come stay with Katie until my mom made it up here from her house, which is about 4 hours away. (Our friend Rebecca, who was our first choice, was out of town for Memorial Day weekend.)  I soaked a couple more pairs of underwear before I decided not to put any new ones on. I soaked a few towels. Eventually Geoff heard back from our old neighbors and friends Heather & Arek, who said they'd come get Katie at the hospital and bring her back to our place to wait for my mom.  (Thank you, Heather & Arek!)  We left for the hospital around 7:45 or so, I think, and got there around 8.

Katie had been born on a Sunday, and my current OB, Dr. Thorpe, had been on call that day, so we wondered if she'd be there this time.  It turned out she WAS the doctor on call from 8 a.m. Sunday through 8 a.m. Monday. So we were glad about that. We checked in, and I wasn't really haven't any major contractions.  Not a whole lot of fluid was leaking anymore compared to when we were at home. They immediately hooked me up to monitors and took my blood pressure, which was SCARY high at first. Scary to me, anyway - at first it was 157 or something over 95, and then it was 162 over 107. It's never been high like that, so they didn't panic too much, but were concerned enough to take some blood and run some tests and have the doctor come by sooner rather than later. The next time they took it, though, it was 135 over 84 or something, and the rest of the time it ranged between that and down to 113 over 62 or so, so it became a complete non-issue.

They checked my cervix, said the baby wasn't dropped all the way, that I was about 3 cm dilated, about 60% effaced. They hooked me up to monitors, which annoyed me, because I wanted to walk around, which we told them - they said as long as the doctor said it was ok, I could, but because my BP had been so high, I needed to stay put for now. The fetal heartbeat was great the whole time, galloping away in our hospital room.  Katie pointed out on her own that it sounded like a horse galloping.  I was SO uncomfortable in the stupid hospital bed - I know I wasn't really having much in the way of contractions, because the fact that my lumbar region was unsupported was bothering me much more than anything else. Somewhere in there, they put in an IV, in part for antibiotics.

At some point in there, our friends called Geoff's cell to say they were downstairs to get Katie, so he took her to them. She was pretty worried and scared and was trying to be brave - before she left, she kept giving me hugs and trying not to cry, but crying anyway. She wanted to stay with me, but at the same time was really worried that I might "make loud noises" and "there would be blood" (both things I had told her before just to give her information, not to scare her...oops).   After a few minutes of that, though, Geoff took her to them and came back, and then I got the ok to walk around, so we walked up and down the floor a little, but still nothing was really happening, contraction-wise.

It was some point after this that my OB came back and said we might want to consider pitocin.  The biggest downside she saw to pitocin was if I wanted to manage without pain relief, because the pitocin would make that really difficult to do. We said we'd think about it. I haven't talked about it here, but my hope was that I could manage without pain relief this time. Last time, with Katie, I had gone for about 16 hours without anything, and then finally, in desperation, crying, thinking I was not going to have the strength to give birth at all, I asked for an epidural. So this time I'd been hoping to handle things differently - do more walking around, letting gravity help, etc. But since my body wasn't doing anything, and we were already at the hospital - and since my water had broken, I wasn't going anywhere - I just decided. I said yes to the pitocin and decided we'd see how it went. They started the pitocin around midnight. For at least a couple of hours, still, not much was going on with contractions. Not regular, not very strong. I was getting really sleepy but didn't really want to sleep - I just wanted to get the show on the road.

Sometime around 2:30 the contractions started getting stronger, and around 3 I decided that I was ready to get an epidural. I didn't feel desperate. I didn't feel like I couldn't do it. I just suddenly felt like, All right, then. This is apparently what my body does - my water breaks, the uterus futzes around for a long time to get through the early stage of labor, and the last stage is pretty quick. And since this is where I am, and these are the tools I have, and since this time I no longer feel like I have to prove anything, I feel totally ok with getting an epidural. I kind of mused on it for awhile, testing to see if I was going to be disappointed in myself (I had been, a little bit, with Katie), and decided I wasn't going to be. So the next time the nurse came back I said I wanted the epidural.

It was almost 4 a.m. by the time they gave me the epidural. At that point the contractions were pretty strong. And I have to say, I HATE that stupid blood pressure cuff that goes off every 15 minutes while you are getting pitocin (and every 3 minutes when they are putting in the epidural).  Of course it was worse because the cuff had bad timing - it would go off during the strongest contractions, and was going off during a contraction AND when the anesthesiologist was about to put in the epidural. I told him it was the trifecta, and he laughed and said he'd wait until at least the cuff had stopped. The numbing shot hurt WAY more than I remembered it hurting with the epidural I got with Katie, and I started to cry a little. But other than that, it was fine. It gave me a lot of relief, and even the uncomfortable bed stopped bothering me. I could still feel all of the contractions, though, which again, was different than with Katie. Right before or after the epidural they checked me again and said I was 4-5 cm dilated, and about 80-90% effaced, and that the baby's head was "right there." So I at least felt like I had made some progress before getting the epidural. (I'd been thinking "open...open...open" to myself every time I had a contraction, and it was weird how much that helped me - I could really feel like I was dilating instead of tightening up.)

After the epidural, it was pretty quiet for awhile. I could feel the contractions, but barely, until an hour or so later, when they started getting STRONG again. Geoff came over and sat next to me and kept offering me his hand and telling me to "grip it and rip it" (which I also heard him saying to Annabel on the balcony in the sunshine yesterday, the weirdo), which made me laugh until the contractions got really strong again. I was feeling kind of down at this point, because I was thinking I was in for a long labor like with Katie, who wasn't born until 2:45 pm after getting to the hospital around 8 or 9 pm the night before. I was worried that the contractions felt so strong already, even with the epidural, so we had the anesthesiologist come back and adjust the epidural to give me some more relief - that was around 6:30, I think. Maybe 7.  I kept laboring, and the contractions were still REALLY strong to me - way more than I felt any of the contractions after getting my epidural with Katie - and around 8 my doctor came back and smiled and said she wished she could stay for the birth, but her own kids hadn't seen her in a little too long, and that Dr. Brennan would be there soon, etc. Then they checked my cervix, and the nurse looked at her, and Dr. Thorpe said, "she's complete?" And she said yes, maybe just a tiny lip of cervix in the way, but she's 10 cm and the baby's head is right there.

That's when I felt like crying more than at any other point, because I was so relieved, thinking that I was actually going to do this, that it was going to be soon, that this was mostly over, everything was going to be ok, and we were going to get a real baby out of this. I did cry some, and felt kind of hysterical. Dr. Thorpe told the nurse to call the OB on the way and tell her to go back home, because Dr. Thorpe would stay, since we were ready now. They asked me if I was feeling the urge to push, and I said not yet, but about 5 or 10 minutes later, I was feeling it (another thing that I did not feel at all with Katie), and told them so. They got everything ready, Dr. Thorpe asked me if I remembered from four whole years ago how to push, and I said I thought so, and they took me off of various monitors, helped push back my legs, told me to tell them when I was having a contraction.

During the first pushing contraction, the doctor said, "This baby is rocketing towards me!" And the nurse said, "Wow, she's a good pusher!" I felt very proud, which makes me laugh a little, but it's true. I pushed again during a second contraction, and this time after the contraction was over I could feel the baby's head down there even after I'd stopped pushing.

On the third contraction I pushed and pushed as hard as I could, and this whole entire tiny human being slipped out onto the bed in front of me, and she wasn't even very messy. It was 8:31 a.m.  She started crying almost immediately. They wiped her off a tiny bit, let Geoff cut the cord (there had been meconium in Katie's fluid, so he didn't get to cut hers), handed her to me to hold, and I just looked at her and cried a little and overall felt really happy. After a little while, they cleaned her up a little more, took her blood sugar (which was a little low the first time, but fine every time after that), weighed her (8 lb 14 oz, one oz heavier than Katie), measured her, and then gave her back to me to nurse her. I hardly felt when the placenta came out. Dr. Thorpe said I had two tiny tears - at first she only saw one - and put one stitch in each. It was all pretty quiet and serene - only 2 nurses, my OB, and me and Geoff. (With Katie there were a lot more people, maybe since it was the afternoon? It's a teaching hospital.) She latched on within a half an hour of being born, probably. She is, in general so far, sweet and calm and completely helpless, and I can't believe that it was only a few days ago that she was still inside me.  She looks a lot like her big sister did when she was born.

And there you go. The end of one thing, and the beginning of something even better.

Continuing pictures of Annabel & family are being posted here.

10 weekends until my due date. And counting.

To sum up the past almost three months: this pregnancy is kicking my ass. 

It's not that anything unusual or incredibly difficult is going on physically.  In fact, the past month or so has been really great in that respect; I'm no longer having daily headaches, feeling continous nausea, or suffering from extreme fatigue no matter how much sleep I get, and I'm not (quite) yet big enough that I have to have a debate with myself about whether or not it's worth it to try to pick something off the floor.  The cold and cough that lasted for over a month have been gone for at least a month by now.  And the baby in there kicks and punches and twists and turns many, many times each day, so often that even my newly cynical mind doesn't consider, morbidly, on a daily basis, whether or not she's possibly died in there.  (I was thinking that routinely for awhile, not because I expected it, but just because my frame of mind was very much along the lines of "anything bad can happen.) 

But I've been an emotional basketcase.  I think I've been better during the last week (although I probably shouldn't say that for fear of jinxing myself), but before that, wow.  Look out.  I don't have any way to test whether or not I'm more emotional and sensitive than I was when I was pregnant with Katie, but I know that I've been crying more often, feeling hopeless more often, wanting to throw things against the wall more often.  I blame, in large part, the awesome child I live with, who is just doing her part toward growing up - she's testing her boundaries.  Constantly.  I remember being weepy and sensitive when I was pregnant with Katie, but I don't remember feeling, over and over, like I was on the verge of a tantrum.  It's probably not a coincidence that when I was pregnant with her, nobody ever woke me up in the middle of the night.  There was nobody to stop me from going to bed as early as I wanted, or from falling asleep on the couch before dinner.  I didn't have to put anybody else to bed (negotiating with me every freaking step of the way) when all I wanted to do was to collapse in a chair in front of the tv.   

The two major issues we've been facing with Katie have been sleeping through the night - and going to bed on time - and pooping in the toilet.  The way things have shaken out, these end up in direct conflict with each other, because most days she will hold her poop all day, until after bedtime, and then she'll poop in her overnight diaper.  Sometimes it takes her 45 minutes or an hour to do that, and by then it's almost my bedtime. 

Work has also been incredibly frustrating lately.  I won't write much about that here, but I will say that the job itself, even on the best days, is full of possibilities for getting frustrated, since no one ever submits a claim unless and until something has gone wrong.  So by the time I talk to someone, they're usually already angry, and I am often the first person they can take it out on.  When you also take into account the suckage of the real estate industry these days, it means I'm doing spending more time doing more work which is more difficult for people who appreciate it less.  Despite that, we aren't getting any raises this year, and the corporate office adds new requirements on a near-weekly basis.  And this winter has been full of snow and ice and snow and ice and gray, dreary days with no sunshine.  Today it has already snowed at least 6 inches.

And on top of all of the other hard stuff, I find myself thinking often, lately, about my sister in law Stephanie, who in August 2002, three months before Geoff and I got married, asked me when we were going to make her an aunt.  Who came to visit more than once while I was pregnant with Katie, and who took me out to get manicures and pedicures about two months before my due date.  Who apparently bragged about Katie to everyone she knew, and who knew how much we wanted another baby.  Who told me often about how much she looked forward to having her own children.  I know she would have been excited for us, with this new baby on the way.  If she were alive, I bet she would be visiting sometime soon, to take me for a pedicure, to stock our freezer full of ice cream, and to offer to babysit for Katie while Geoff and I went out to a movie or dinner.  There aren't that many people who put their hands against my stomach and felt Katie kicking from the other side, over four years ago, but Stephanie was one of them, and facing the birth of this new daughter makes me think about her.  I miss her. 

And although I don't really grieve my miscarriage in an emotional way anymore, it has been on my mind lately, too.  It hasn't been quite a full year since I found out I was pregnant, but it seems like it, since I had my first positive pregnancy test that time on Good Friday 2007.  I found out that the fetus had died on May 31, 2007; this baby is due to be born on May 29, 2008, almost exactly a year later.  I certainly don't feel like the baby is cursed because of this; in fact, lately, when I think about it, it comforts me for some reason, as if this is all part of an intricate cylical plan. 

This is not how I planned this post to go.  This is where my head has been, a lot of the time, over the past few months.  But there have been plenty of good things, too.

We had a second trimester ultrasound, where we were told that the doctor was "98% sure" that we're having a girl. 

Katie started drawing pictures of our family holding hands.

And writing her own name.  (She can write all the letters of the alphabet now, nearly perfectly.)

My niece turned one.

Katie started participating in a new "liturgical dance troupe" at the church.  She's in a group with 2 or 3 other 4 year olds and one 5 year old.  She loves it.

As for that "other four year olds" part?  Katie turned four at the beginning of this month.  She is everything I was hoping I'd get when I wanted a child, and when I found out I was having a daughter - and lots more bonus things besides, and I told her so. 

Oh, and I've gotten a bunch of cute maternity clothes online from Target. 

At the beginning of the year, I decided to try to post one picture per day on Flickr.  I'm not exactly meeting my goal - I think I've missed 7 days already.  But it's still been satisfying - a tangible record of the past few months that pleases me to look back at, and reminds me in a very literal way that this year has not all been difficult and crazy-making.  Some of it has been downright wonderful. 

(Click on that photo to read the story behind it, because it's pretty awesome.)

It's just a little over two months before my due date, and we don't have a place for the baby to sleep.  (The old crib is broken and has pretty much had it.)  In order to create a place for the baby's bed to go in our room, we need to move the Ikea wardrobe in our bedroom out to the back porch.  But in order to move it to the back porch, we need to move lots of stuff back there down to the basement.  And it's possible that things in the basement will have to be moved around to find a place for what's coming down from the back porch.  Counting this weekend, we have 10 weekends until my due date, and I think we need to make them count.  Geoff also needs to complete his doctoral requirements no later than June (according to the school), and no later than we have a NEWBORN IN THE HOUSE (according to me).  I think it will be a busy spring.

But I also think it will be a good spring, and an even better summer.  The cynicism that's been surrounding me for the last four or five months seems to be lifting, and I feel like I am going back to my old self, able to see and appreciate my blessings even on bad days. 

I just wanted to let you know.

Hope

I don't know where to start.  I didn't mean for so much time to pass before I posted again, but from the last time I posted until just recently, it has been a whirlwind of busyness, celebration, grief, recovery, exhaustion. 

On September 18th, the same day as my last post, I took a home pregnancy test that had a second line so faint I thought I might be imagining it.  On September 19th, I got a darker line.  A couple of days later, one that was even darker.  Since then, I've had bloodwork and an ultrasound and exam at the doctor's office.  I'm pregnant again.  About 10.5 weeks right now, with an estimated due date of May 29, 2008. 

On September 26th, we celebrated Geoff's 31st birthday.  The weekend before his birthday Katie and I visited my Mom.  The weekend after his birthday, Katie and I visited my dad & stepmom, and also my brother and his girlfriend and my niece. 

On October 4th, Geoff's parents arrived to visit, and to be here for his doctoral recital on the 7th.  His sister Kimberley arrived on the 5th.  My dad & stepmom and Josh & Frankie arrived on the 6th.  The recital was a big success, with lots of our friends attending, and with everyone impressed by and/or proud of Geoff and his talent and skill.  On October 9th, his father and girlfriend and Kimberley went home.  On October 10th, his mom went home. 

On October 10th, Geoff's brother Matthew, who was worried about his sister Stephanie, went to her condo and found her.  Stephanie had died that day of an accidental overdose (I hope it is not a violation of her family's trust to say that; I know much of her story is not mine to tell, and I won't try).  She was 28 years old.  It makes me cry to sit here and type that.

I went to work on the 11th and prepared to be gone the next week.  On Friday the 12th we spent most of the day downtown at the passport agency, getting Katie an emergency passport so that we could fly up to Halifax the next day.  After waiting in many lines, we got the passport.  On the 13th, we flew to Halifax, to be with the family, to grieve, to attend the visitation and the service.  The outpouring of love for Stephanie was overwhelming and wonderful and heartbreaking.

On the 18th, we flew back home very early in the morning and visited my obstetrician in the afternoon.  Everything looked good, she said.  There was a heartbeat, just like last time.  So far, so good.

On the 19th, Katie and I flew to Boston for a trip we'd had planned for months, to visit with a huge group of women and their families; we have been an amazing support group for each other since I joined the PSV online forum in January (and many of them have been an amazing support group for each other for years now).  We had a wonderful time.  On the 22nd, we flew home.

On the 23rd, I went back to work.  The rest of the week, I tried to catch up. 

Geoff found and bought Katie a Snow White costume at the church rummage sale for $2.  On Halloween, we went trick or treating. 

And now it's November.  Saturday was my mom's birthday, and she came up to visit.  We had a good visit with her.

I will write more about the most important events here, but right now this is what I can manage. 

I miss Stephanie.  Already.  She was not just my sister-in-law, she was also my friend, and I thought we'd have until we were old women to get closer to each other, to be part of each other's lives, to watch our children (when she had them) grow up.  She was going to be Katie's special aunt, she said, the one who took her travelling and took her out for a drink when she turned 21 (or maybe even before).  When she saw me or talked to me, she would shout out, "Sister!" as if that was the best thing in the world to be.  I am mad at her for letting this happen, for leaving us.  But most importantly, I loved her.  I love her still.

I have not really allowed myself to be thrilled about being pregnant.  I am happy.  I am cautiously optimistic.  There is no real reason to think that things won't be ok, except that sometimes, things aren't ok.  I am nauseous a lot, eating pretty healthily, sleeping a lot.  I have had at least three separate nightmares of having a miscarriage with this pregnancy.  I am scheduled to have an ultrasound on 11/15, at 12 weeks, and in my mind that is a benchmark, a time past which I can relax and not worry quite so much. 

I am sorry that I never got to tell Stephanie that I was pregnant.  And I am sorry that Katie will not have any real, solid memories of her Aunt Stephanie.

We are ok.  Or we will be.  It's been a pretty hard year, in a lot of ways, but I am hoping that the near future holds some wonderful things, and that we are able to let go of some parts of the past.  I hope that wherever Stephanie is, that she is at peace.  I don't know what else I can hope.