Rollin’.

She returned from camp happy, healthy, and brimming with stories and excitement. She came home with new friends, songs to sing, and dances to dance;  a scraped knee and adoration for her too-cool eighteen year old guardians who left indelible impressions on her. Chloe the counselor plays guitar and has a pet pig; she uses the f word a lot- she can’t help it. Jamie is more responsible but still tons of fun. Turns out you can be responsible and fun.

She kept a journal of her week there, including every meal and activity. Each day received a star rating and a level on the “fun-o-meter”.  Day 5, Beach Day, broke the meter. She told us that Day 4 (ropes course and s’mores at night) would have broken the meter as well but the idea of meter-busting fun hadn’t occurred to her until Day 5 happened.

She came home with lanyards (thank you, Billy Collins, for forever changing the way we see lanyards), copper bracelets hammered with love, the requisite tie-dye t shirt, sand in every crevice of the duffel bag, still-wet towels, and hugs. Lots and lots of hugs. Can you see me smiling? Because I am.

So what did mama do while baby was away? While making preparations for her grand summer adventure, I consoled myself with the thought of a writing retreat.  A “stay home and do nothing but write” retreat. No cooking or cleaning. No leaving the house for anything except coffee breaks. Writing, writing, and more writing. Of course, a little reading too. Sounds great, right? Write. Wrong. I decided that in between writing, I’d sneak a little time in to repaint the angel’s room. Lesson: one cannot “sneak” painting in.

This is probably the first time in my life that manual labor glittered with appeal. But perhaps I instinctively knew I’d need a physically demanding distraction from the mental chatter; a hard-core (for me, anyway) project to bury myself in while the angel was away. S took a few days off to help me and just like that, with a swipe of the paint roller, the idea of a writing retreat was erased. I wielded the paint roller like an M-16; I wielded the paint roller like a lullaby.

Painting The Room, Day 1:

This is fabulous!

Creedence is jamming: Big wheel keep on turning Proud mary keep on burnin Rollin rollin rollin on the river…

I have my man and my coffee to keep me company while I toil.

Sweat is a good thing.

Hallelujah! I finally understand my father’s love for working with his hands.

Paint rollers are fun. Roll up, roll down.

Now this is a good day’s work.

Painting The Room, Day 2:

My neck hurts.

My head hurts.

Sweat is not a good thing.

Paint fumes are not a good thing.

Dust is not a good thing.

Have you ever noticed the word pain inside of painting?

Toiling with your spouse may not be as romantic and sexy as previously imagined.

Why do you work so slowly?

Why are your paint lines so crooked?

Why did we even get married?

Painting The Room, Day 3:

Who takes three days to paint a single small room?

Painting The Room, Day 4:

We did it.

—-

The room, the house, and the marriage remain intact.

Baby is back and we’re all together now.

Big wheel keeps on turning, proud mama keeps on burning, and we’re rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river.

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Today’s Poem is for days so fun they bust the meter, light splashed mornings, the wheel that turns, the rolling, the round.

The Round by Stanley Kunitz

Light splashed this morning

on the shell-pink anemones

swaying on their tall stems…

Timeline, Part 4.

*if you’re new here, or have just wandered over, this post will make more sense if you start reading from Timeline Part 1, and work your way back to this  most recent post.

(continued)

12

The birth of our daughter will be induced early, which is customary for babies of diabetics and high risk mothers because of the complications that can arise during the last weeks of gestation.  An amniocentesis is performed to ensure that her little lungs are fully developed, and that she’ll be able to breathe on her own. We wait for the results, walking around Baltimore Harbor, trying to pass the time.  I am exhausted, grouchy, and uncomfortable. The long, deep, nasal honk of the boats coming into harbor reflect the way I feel: heavy, slow and in need of a respite. A call with the results: her lungs are mature, we will move forward with the induction tonight, come to the hospital. S and my mother are with me at the hospital for support. The nurse begins an iv, and once I’m settled in, the nurse administers a dose of Pitocin. After just one dose, my water breaks, and I go into labor spontaneously, much sooner than anticipated. I labor through the night, with S and my mother by my side, trying to comfort me. S keeps trying to “calm me” during the contractions by sticking pictures of our dalmation in my face. This does not calm me. It is by the grace of God that I don’t rip the pictures out if his hands and punch him in the head.

Around 6 in the morning, I go into active labor and I want to start pushing, but my beloved Dr. N has not arrived yet. They ask me if I can wait a little bit. I try to resist the need to push as long as possible, but my body has stopped paying attention to any external information, I’ve gone completely inward (the phase of childbirth called transition), and this unfolding cannot be controlled as surely as the sun can’t be stopped from rising. I give in to the pushing, and Dr. N arrives soon after. I am breathing so hard, straining, unable to catch my breath. I can’t stop pushing but I need more energy and I need more air. I can’t go on, I pant. What I’m thinking, but don’t say out loud, is I need oxygen, please give me oxygen. One more push, Dr. N tells me, and she’ll be in your arms. I push with all my might, with all that I have left in me, and it is the most strenuous, exhausting, exhilarating moment of my life. She is healthy and perfect, Dr. N says catching the angel as she comes out. She is healthy and perfect.

13

By that time, my father has arrived, and we are all taking turns holding the angel and wiping away our tears. Joyful tears in a hospital. Joyful tears in a hospital? I didn’t know that was possible. I’ll never forget that moment.

14

Because of the intensity and force of my pushing, my eyes look as if I’ve been punched in the face. My skin is still broken and bleeding and red. I don’t sleep at all for the first two days after our daughter’s birth, but for the first time in months my lack of sleep isn’t due to discomfort. I am simply in awe of life, the wholeness that my daughter holds within in her. I can’t stop gazing at her, memorizing every detail about her. I will spend the rest of my life gazing at her, getting to know her, and it still will never be enough for me.

15

Ten days after the angel’s birth, I receive a telephone call at home from Dr. N’s partner. He’s had a massive coronary. But he’s okay, right? Right? He has died. Angel is the last baby he delivered. He was the person necessary to help me bring forth this baby. And now he’s gone.

S and I attend his memorial service while my parents babysit. There are hundreds of people there, and every single one of them has been touched in some way by this man’s life. The service is far from our home, and by the end of the service, I am hurting from having gone all these hours without nursing . My shirt is drenched with leaking milk, and my face is wet with the tears that don’t stop falling from my eyes.

16

The next six months: I’m beginning to realize that I’m not the bouncing back kind. Apparently, I’m not able to just bounce back from pregnancy, much less a difficult, sleepless, poison running though my blood type of pregnancy. I am so tired. Please let me sleep is the mantra that runs silently through my head: pleaseletmesleeppleaseletmesleeppleaseletmesleep. My body is about to give up. I’m barely holding on.

(to be continued)