Finn has been alive now for almost six months and obviously, so much has changed. So much though that I am already forgetting things about the beginning and wishing that I had followed through with the journal idea and logged this process more thoroughly. At the time though, I thought I would never forget what time he was born and what I thought when I first glimpsed him or the way James slept all folded up on the cot in the recovery room and kept whining about the TV volume being so loud and inexplicably impossible to adjust.
Six months has passed and those memories seem far away. A friend from work just had her baby girl on wednesday and I realized as I heard the details of the birth how important this information is, how it offers the web to support the story. How the fact that Finn was born on a Wednesday in May is interesting because I went to the Indy 500 the Sunday before I was induced in record breaking heat and nearly fainted in the stands. James soaked a towel in our cooler over and over again and slapped the icey wetness on my neck to keep me cool. How Finn was 8 pounds 11 ounces and most of the weight was in his enormous head that still looks a little bulbous and makes me wonder how he ever came out at all. And how when I first saw him, he was sort of pinkish bluish, greyish--not in a scary he might be dead way but in a wrinkled, I've been in the pool too long way. He looked so much like James in that first instant too. Not the pool color thing, his features. He seemed like he was squinting at me just the way his dad does at the TV without his glasses. He has come to look less and less like James these last months. Or perhaps he has just looked more and more like himself and I don't notice the resemblance so much. But at first, it was uncanny.
I was induced that Wednesday morning, and we arrived a few minutes past 6am. I had showered the night before and curled my hair that morning knowing I would look hideous for pictures and figuring my hair might as well look nice. We waited in the waiting room with a middle eastern family, a chatty patriarch and silent pregnant wife with two little brown eyed girls, about two and four years old. It came out that they had four other children at home and this pregnancy was more risky, the baby was flipped the wrong way. We watched cartoons until our rooms were ready. Apparently it had been a busy night.
Wednesday was the one day my mom said not to go into labor because she had to work and had no one to cover for her. But she called in sick anyway and they had to reschedule all her patients. She wouldn't miss it. And my dad couldn't have missed it. As the putocin started to work and the contractions came on, my mom sat at my right watching the moniter and talking me through the swells, telling me when the number peaked and I would start to feel better, running her fingers over the skin of my arm and looking so concerned. James sat at my left and held my hand loosely, registering no emotion on his face apparently so that I would read relaxation in his body language. It looked like indifferent nonchalance to me at the time but has since been cleared up and the hysterical tears after the birth confirmed the presense of plenty of emotion.
My dad stood at the foot of the bed, his hands in his pockets, his camera at the ready and a ridiculous grin on his face. He looked from the moniter to me to mom and smiled with what could most accurately be called pride but also, it must be said looked nearly maniacal in its consistency and considering the circumstances, very out of place. I looked between the three of them and most often ended up staring at my dad and flexing my toes against his legs at the end of the bed as the contractions waned. He was directly in front of me, so it was easiest to look at him. But he was also the least charged one in the room. He was just ecstatic to be there and certain that all would end in a gradchild. He was easy to lock eyes with because he was so sure and so happy. He had to leave when I started to push, no one's dad needs to see that. But he didn't want to go. And he paced in the hallway outside the door until the nurses chaced him off to the waiting room. Even then, he made laps around the maternity wing and slowed conspicuously in front of our room each time until one lap, he heard my mom say "he's almost here Katie, one more push." And he stopped and he waited and ducked into the vestibule of the room where none of us could see him and he heard that first little cry after they scooped out the gunk in Finn's throat. And then he went back to tell Heather and when my mom called to give the news, "He's been born!" My dad said, "I know!" She was so mad.
Three years ago today, my two roommates convinced me to grab a New Orleans mask I had hanging on the wall, bring my thirteen year old hoodlum student and make an appearance at a party with many varieties of intoxicated people. I shouldn’t have gone. I am normally a much more responsible and rational person and would worry too much that my charge would tattle on me. But I went. And amidst the revelry and the bizarre costumes and the shirked responsibility, I met a boy who made me laugh. He wore a loud polyester shirt rolled up to his elbows and funky glasses that framed his very blue eyes; he cheated at cards with as much skill as he dealt them; he quipped back at every brilliant comment I could muster; put cocky drunk people in their place and directed my preteen to the video games in another room away from the bad influences; and generally began the process of making me fall in love with him.
On another October night, less than one year later, I married him. And I can’t help but feel very grateful that for one evening I departed from my normal sense of appropriateness and showed up at a Halloween party. And then showed up at a bowling event the next day and a night out for drinks a couple days later. And then talked all night a week after that and washed dishes in my kitchen with the low ceilings and then drove to Solvang and went to Roy and said I love you and then, one night on our way to see Jerry Seinfeld, that same boy who made me laugh had a ring turned in on his pinky finger and on the lawn of the courthouse made famous by Michael Jackson’s conviction, he got down on one knee and asked me to be his. And I said yes and I am and he is at home right now taking care of our little boy.
And it all started on Halloween, three years ago today. James, happy anniversary in a manner of speaking. You showed up and changed my world and I’m so glad you did.
In the moments of frustration, inability and fear, I have found prayer to be a surprising byproduct or I guess, companion. It sounds clichéd to say that my lack of control has induced a dependence on God but that is how it is. I need to defer the control, when I cannot have it, to someone or something that can. This started when labor started, or when the inducing appointment was made. Despite the many tubes and drips and utensils of the hospital, I arrived at labor by natural processes and found myself feeling completely without control, or at the whim of this momentum. Knowing that things could go wrong and nothing that I could do would help or hinder this brought me to a prayerful place unlike anything else has in a very long time.
And since we have come home, when I stand in the dim light of the lanterns above Finn’s crib, my leg cramping from the constant motion of jiggling him to sleep, I have found myself making noises like what the old testament gnashing of teeth must sound like. It is an inarticulate articulation of frustration that is a prayer; not a prayer I have ever prayed before. This is why it is surprising. I knew prayers before bed and call to worship and benediction. I even knew prayers of commitment and salvation and confession. Those prayers had become rote and clichéd and the most condemning of all, “evangelical”. But these prayers in the nursery were new, the circumstances and the language unfamiliar. Not any foreign garbling of the Corinthian tongues, but just an energy directed upward in blank supplication that can be translated most closely as: stop the crying; keep us safe; take away my fear.
We surround him, our home is filled, with protective measures. I lay him on his mattress, which is firm to prevent suffocation, surrounded by the bumper that cushions his head from the hard wood spindles of his crib. And I change his diaper on the contoured foam pad atop the changing table to keep him from rolling off. The bottles are sterilized; the outlets covered; I take vitamins. Yet when I return to bed in the wee hours after feeding him and wrapping him and settling him back into his protected bed, I feel fear come over me. I fear intruders breaking into the house and snatching him; or that he will stop breathing or that something will happen to James-and it paralyzes me. My life is tied to these two men, one grown and one small. I would end if either of them did. And in these moments where this fear comes, I can only whisper or think up this wordless or inarticulate prayer that we would all be protected: From faceless burglars, from car accidents, from bad health, from the very air.
Last week I trekked downtown, pushing the stroller over
All these babies are in the process of growing and being born around me and I can't help but think about my own baby's entry into the world and the inevitable accompaniment of pain to the process. My feelings on pain and the controversy over its alleviation regularly change, but at their extremes camp out in these two attitudes. After hearing about Tonya's near super-human effort at birthing Cosette sans any pain medication whatsoever, it seemed that the pain was a glorious physical journey not only necessary to the process but the priveledge of the new mother to experience the birth so tangibly. I thought about the women in the fields hundreds of years ago birthing their children with little more than grass and friendship to aid them. How beautiful that picture seems.
But then I visited John and Tonya in the hospital and heard Tonya's mom retell the labor story- all about Tonya's strength, the stretches of time, the contractions, the tunnel vision Tonya experienced where she heard only voices and felt completely taken away by the pain. This story is beautiful too, in its way. Because Tonya is (and I've thought this about her from the first) capable and reasonable and strong. I, on the other hand, am not enough of any of these things to deliver my baby without the most that modern medicine has to offer by way of relieving pain. Tonya is Titania-Amazon queen of mythical forrest. I am just me, spoiled and silly and all talk.
James said last night that he is already more proud of me than he thought he could possibly be; that he thinks I have dealt with the discomforts of pregnancy with both stoic strength and quiet grace and that he doesn't compare me to other women; that he doesn't expect a certain level from me. I am glad... and I think I need to think more in this vein. I am not a failure if I get an epidural, I am choosing the experience, which is a freedom the women in the fields didn't have. It is not important enough to me to feel every tear and strain of the labor process. As Carrie put it, "it's still work, it's still labor, it still hurts with pain medication."
And I don't think the drama or the emotion of the experience will be lost on me. If anything, I have a tendency to overdramatize and emotionalize situations. And I think this will be a big one no matter how much of my lower body is numb.
It's very difficult to write about being pregnant without employing the same tired phrases and cliches that so many other women have used before me. But then nothing is said and I will look back on this time and not remember what exactly it was that I thought or worried about. So I will attempt to get at the feeling here, even if it is the same feeling as so many who have gone before me.
I am tired of women-those I know and those I do not- telling me the horror story delivery that they survived despite atrocious odds. I'm not sure if they think this is some badge of courage they feel they have earned and therefore have the right to brag about to any expectant mother they see, but it's frightening to those of us who haven't given birth before, because that could be me. And I don't want to almost die and have emergency anything done to me or the baby. By the sounds of it though, it's inevitable that something horrific happen. Maybe they don't realize the effect this has on us, the expectant mothers, that is. Maybe they don't know that I am an irrational sponge for information and as they recount the shades of blue they and or the baby turned, I file the information away for future use. I don't necessarily think that it will happen to me but I am petrified at the prospect.
I am also very afraid of my part in the chain of dependance created when a child is brought into the world. At this point, I have no career to leave so I will stay home for an indefinite amount of time and James will work. The physical and circumstantial factors of our lives make this both practical and necessary for us. But even though I know I will love this child, I don't think I love him yet. And so it is hard to picture the life of dedication and love I will have in two short months. I hope giving birth is a transformation. I hope I am awash in maternal euphoria that lasts far beyond the delivery room. Because right now I can't picture me happy at home with a small crying person alone.
The financial and emotional dependance I will feel towards James also frightens me. I am too much of a feminist, too much of an extrovert, too easily distracted and changed to feel fulfilled by only one adult person in my life. Aren't I?
I know I make this sound like I am moving to a small deserted island to commit my life to silence and self sacrifice and really there are plenty of people who will interact in my life and challenge and inspire both my emotional and spiritual and mental persons. But sometimes it feels like I am moving very far away from adult conversation and career paths and coffee dates and epiphany to that very solitary and child talking place- stay at home mothering.
I'm sure I'll be fine.
The Starbucks at College and Fall Creek seems to draw an interesting crowd. My visits here have been limited thus far (two times to be exact) so I haven’t exactly made a study of the demographic but each time, I have been surprised. Today for instance, a forty-ish associate pastor looking man with a goatee has just rolled his absent-faced father through the door with various fanangling required to maneuver the unwieldy wheel chair over snow banks and door jambs to stand looking dazed at the seating area full of busy business types and students. He veers over to the overstuffed chairs in the corner where I am obnoxiously talking to my sister on my cell phone and positioned in the very center of the five chairs. He starts and stops a bit vaguely glancing at me by side-ways looks until I finally manage to focus away from Meg’s latest complaint on my mother’s insensitivity to this poor man’s predicament. I say quickly, “would you like to sit here?” He seems relieved that he didn’t have to initiate the request and moves towards the chairs as I jump from the chair and move to another corner. He gratefully gives his thanks and mentions that the corner makes it easier to hear for him—pointing at the aged man in the wheel chair.
Finding an audibly pleasing spot in the coffee shop seems to be one of many challenges on this outing. He pushes the wheel chair up to the arm chair and through such awkward heftings and slidings that I consider offering my help, lifts the older man from one chair to the other. Once positioned, the young man leaves his oblivious companion to fetch drinks. He returns and they say very little. The young man even unfolds a newspaper as he settles into his chair and they sip iced drinks through straws. About ten minutes later, after a mumbled comment by the older man, they reverse the lifting and settling back into the wheel chair and roll back through the seating area to the door and the snow packed parking lot. Relationally, the visit seems unfruitful to my observing eye. But perhaps if the young man is the older man’s son and if the older man’s mind is as absent as his expression, time spent is the most productivity they can expect. This excursion from the nursing home or wherever the older man lives is a consolation for the young man, an activity to enact an earlier relationship, the silence after the last note has sounded before the music ends.
As most young people do, I fear this scene in my future with my parents. Recently, my marathon-running, detail-obsessive dad lost his hearing in his right ear and since has taken on an almost caricature like tendency to cock his head in confusion and say “what?” He jokingly says things like “in my good ear sonny” but he had an MRI done and a CT scan on the hip that has been giving him pain and keeping him from running. I know I am lucky, as these things go. My parents are healthy for the most part; young for parents of people my age, and active. And sanity-wise, well there are other important qualities and none of their lack has come with age. It was always there. But I know I will be sad when I have to pick them up or check them in or pay for them. And I’m sure I will be like the young man who just wheeled his dad back to the car. I will bring them to coffee or dinner or movies like we have always done, whether they know what’s going on or not, for my sake.