Lizabean

Duality

"Opening", Canon Digital Rebel XT, September 2007

My mother-in-law, Midge, had a dream two years ago.  She dreamed I had a baby girl and our families were there in the hospital room surrounding me as I held her.  I turned to Midge and said, "It was well worth the wait".  At the time she thought, "Well, that's odd.  Liza's baby is due this May, not two years from now".  I called a few days later with the news of the miscarriage.

This pregnancy has brought many wonderful emotions.  With each new change, each new step, I marvel at how simply life has granted me my deepest wish.  It all feels so normal.  This happiness, the apprehension.  I feel astonished when I look at the ultrasound pictures, at our baby, and can't quite believe she is growing within me.  In that body that once betrayed me.

I think a part of me thought that once I got pregnant, the remnants of sorrow from the miscarriages would disappear.  That happiness over a new life would beat and conquer the journey to get there.  And in many ways it has. 

But it's not so black and white, these emotions.  I feel unbridled joy while simultaneously experiencing a need to still comfort the person who wrote this, on February 7, 2007:

"The Moment"

I remember that moment.  When I became an adult, emerging from a shell of ignorant bliss and inexperience.  I thought I knew pain, I imagined I knew the true depth of sorrow.  It was in that moment, lying on the cold, smooth tiles in my cramped closet.  Facing the rows of sweaters and hanging shelves of dirty shoes.  Oh that emptiness, that overwhelming pain of loss.  In that moment I could not imagine continuing on with this life.

The pain was so large, so deep, so cuttingly sharp.  My heart forever cracked and slowly healing?

She was with me only a few weeks, but I loved so deeply.  A love I've never felt before.  Shattered into a million pieces.

There's a shame of having such feelings.  She was most real to me, her mother, but to many -including other women- she was not quite a life.  So how do you grieve the "never" living?

There is the thought that I grieve(d) the dream.  Which is partly true.

But in that raw moment, filled with tears and full out wailing, it was my babe that I grieved.  In whatever stage of development, little one, you were with me.  I kept you warm- however many cells of you- and sustained your life, ever so briefly.

I'll never know what went wrong.  But I'll always know that sorrow.

Even still, that damn deafening sorrow.

I find it interesting, this need to still be comforting myself.  Not so much from the sorrow.  Joy has mostly trumped that.  But from the experiences, from those two hard years of not knowing.  I cried when I saw that February date.  Could I imagine then that in exactly one year I'd be shuffling about, carrying that rather heavy dream within me?  Even still, I can barely imagine it.

Then there are those flutters from within.  Soft, little bubbles.  Not strong enough for me to be sure, but reminders that ,yes, that baby in the photograph, he's there inside of me.

Well worth the wait, I whisper to the part of me that still needs comforting, well worth the wait.

Been reading...

graduation sunset, originally uploaded by liza-bean.

After September 11, a Native American grandfather was explaining to his granson how he felt about the tragedy. "I feel as though I have two wolves fighting in my heart", he said. "One wolf wants revenge and the other wants to understand, and to stop this from every happening again."

"And which wolf will win the fight in your heart?" the boy asked.

"The one I feed", replied the grandfather.

At any point throughout this journey, two birds must sing in your head. The bird of doubt sings the song of blame and misfortune and self-flagellation. The bird of faith says, "More shall be revealed." You'll have to decide which of those two birds you choose to feed.

Julia Indichova, The Fertile Female

Lizabean returns to that really personal stuff

A few months ago (in a dramatic fit of anger, frustration, and downright hopelessness)  I threw away our enormous book of baby names.  I had this ridiculous superstition that if just maybe Brent and I could decide on names (like some other couples I knew of), then a baby would come to us for good.  I am so far away from that person who used to play with names, dream, picture our little child lying between us.  My bedside nook is now scattered with books entitled: Miscarriage: Women Sharing From the Heart, Waiting for Daisy, The Fertile Female,  Inconceivable...etc. 

Replaced is a woman taking charge of what she wants her life to become...without relying on that thing called family.  Well, at least that's the idea.  But not-so-secretely, am still hurting. Not as much from the losses (water children**- I recently learned that this is what some people call them), but from, well, I just can't put it in nice terms... 

Infertility is a bitch.

I've stopped trying.  I've had enough with doctors who don't believe me. Enough of taking my daily temperature, popping the prenatal vitamins, peeing on sticks, getting postive pregnancy tests that turn out to mean  nothing anymore.  Enough, enough, enough of living my life in monthly cycles of hope, heartbreak, despair and back again. 

The freedom from this knowledge that I most definetely am not nor will be pregnant is actually pretty wonderful.  I have my life back, my focus is on the other things that need to be attended to.

But, yet, it still hurts.  That little cloud that will always be with me.  Those drizzles of jealousy, sometimes the down pour...

The truth is I'm scared.  I want to believe that a family will come but am not fully willing to poor my fragile energy into alternative or traditional medicine and go back to the possibility of such pain and disappointment.   

Women go to hell and back for a baby and I am just not there yet.   I do not have that kind of courage, that strength.  I need to build up the reserves, so to speak, before going back to that place.

My initial instinct was that this is something I need to on my own.  Which, yes, of course, only I can actively work on building such virtues.  But then moments happen when I am reminded that I am not alone. I got a letter from a friend the other day who stumbled upon a washed up candle on the beach near our apartment.  At our little memorial service for our first water child** we lit candles and Brent threw one in the water as his way of saying goodbye.  She wrote, "I believe it should be taken as a sign and a gift of hope". 

What I took from it was this:  we are on the right track. It confirmed what I have felt recently -that even though I need to take a break from all of this- motherhood is waiting for me.  There it was from a friend.  That flicker of hope that doesn't come easy these days!

**In English, there's not a great word to use to describe a miscarried fetus.  The author of the book Waiting for Daisy explains that in Buddhism, they are called water children. They "lay in that liminal space between life and death but belonging to neither".  I tend to go more towards the life side but the word baby/children doesn't quite capture exactly what we had.  I like having a specific term so water child it is!

Initial reflections

I was hoping to be sharing some good news in the next month or so.  But life doesn't always go the way you'd like.  Brent and I recently discovered that I was pregnant.  Unfortunately, it didn't last very long.

Day 1:  So much for that break! I knew there was a chance it would end this way.  I just didn't think it would happen so soon.  I guess if it had to happen at all I'm glad it happened this quickly.  My hope wasn't given much time to grow and blossom.  (Not that it needs that long).  I can't believe this is happening again.  Rewind to a little over a year ago but speed the process up and here I am.  Grieving for another lost life.  This time here for an even shorter amount of time.  What I wanted to be showing you in April:

"November hopes", Canon Digital Rebel XT, February 2007

When you are trying to get pregnant and it gets to be toward the end of your cycle you start looking for early pregnancy signs.  I was joking with Brent that I have experienced nearly every early pregnancy sign without actually being pregnant.  This month it was extreme sensitivity to smells, bright pee, and bad headaches.  I didn't take them seriously.  But then the period didn't come...and didn't come...and I got brave enough to take a home pregnancy test.  It felt like a miracle.  Now it just feels cruel.  Oh life, could you tease me more?

Day 2:  Feeling a bit better, emotionally.  Wow, there was a whole lot of anger yesterday, but I have been determined to hold on to hope, to fight against my pessimistic nature.  I am in this journey for the long haul, thank you very much, so I've got to learn to handle this pain in a way that doesn't leave me in a fog.  I would rather not be too sad all the time.  I want to say yes, this hurts, but I can move on.  Do you find that life seems to run on themes?  The past two years I've been learning how to be hopeful.  Lately, I have been learning how to be more couragious.  And life has forced me to sharpen my skills with that annoying need of patience.  Oh patience, you allude me still.

Optimism takes practice

"little white flowers", Canon Digital Rebel XT, September 2006

I read this entry the other day, and it really got me thinking.  I do tend to have a pessimistic attitude, and it is a daily struggle for me to search for the positive.  As with many of my imperfections, I often feel guilty for not being a "naturally" happy person.  Lately, I've tried to really view joy as a virtue to strive for.  I put detachment and joy in the same "It is essential that I work on this " category and NOT feel bad about it.

I think it's a mistake to ignore pain, sadness, anger, etc., as a method of being more joyful.  This post is an attempt at exploring the truth of how I feel while searching for the beauty in my situation.  When I looked back at the limited number of posts I've written since the spring, I realized the majority have still been about the miscarriage.  As time passes it has only gotten more difficult to talk about its continuous impact on my life. So I write.  More so now, I need this outlet.  That is my reason for targeting in on the not so wonderful aspects of my life. 

"Little white flower", Canon Digital Rebel XT, September 2006

Yes, it still hurts.  Yes, about twice a month I do still cry myself to sleep.  Yes, sometimes I want to gather all pregnant women and move them to another planet.  And yes, I still feel guilty about my daily urge to shout at the top of my lungs, "Stop getting pregnant people, just stop for a few years!". 

But here's the positive, here's the cup's half full. Often those tears turn into tears of joy because last fall Brent and I started a family.  I was a mother for, well I don't really know for how long, but the love I felt and still feel for that baby makes me so happy I feel like I could burst.  And nothing can take that away. 

And the positive, the joy from that experience?  That feels unbelievably good.

Frustrated (the post within which I deleted all the swear words)

"Trapped", Canon Digital Rebel XT, July 2006

Turns out that May might have been an easy month.  August has arrived and is kicking my arse.  About a year ago I was pregnant and the happiest I have ever felt in my entire life.  I look back at that naive person I was and envy her immensely.

It would be easiest to just give up, in some sort of way.  To let go of the hope because disappointment hurts like hell these days.  To just let go of that desire, of that dream.  I wish it weren't there anymore.  Perhaps if I had more "ambitions" in life.  Something else to help plan my future.  I'm not very career oriented, but maybe I should just give in to that.  There's some limited amount of control there, isn't there?  Probably not. Last September I lost that beautiful delusion of control over my life, and I've been drowning in this new reality. 

"Bricked in", Canon Digital Rebel XT, July 2006

We may never have children.

We may never be "financially" worthy to adopt.

And we would have been good parents.  I may not be perfect, I have my flaws, but of that I am deep down certain.  I have a mothering soul.  I would have done that reasonably well.

But I don't get much of a say in this matter.

Who would have thought that hope could be so tiring, so difficult to hold on it?

I'm just exhausted from needing it, and would really like to be able to let go.  To stop dreaming and just be satisfied with a life with no children. 

"Blinded", Canon Digital Rebel XT, July 2006

I think I need a dog. 

My little hiccup trick

 

"Self-portrait: Laughter", Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT, June 2006

Life has been good, real good.  I absolutely love my job (finally!!) and enjoy my free afternoons and evenings immensely.  I get up, work, do creative projects, eat somewhat more healthily... it just all feels so more balanced. I've been in a reflective mood lately and felt compelled to share some of my thoughts.

Suzanne lent me the book "Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom" by Christiane Northrup.  I highly, highly recommend it!! Over the past week I've read the majority of the book and many chapters multiple times over.  I have spent the past 9 months so ticked off at my body and even though I knew it was not good for me, my anger lingered on.  In past college courses, especially one women studies course in particular, I remember discussing Western society's tendency to separate our body from our mind/spirituality.  I often think of my body as something separate from who I am, as a stranger with mysterious life rhythms and inner workings that have very little to do with "Liza" at all.  Northrup's book has given me some insight in how to lessen the mysteries and I find myself very fascinated with everything.

"Self-portrait: Squint", Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT, June 2006

This curiosity to learn about the human body has always been there.  My favorite college courses were those that dealt with human anatomy and physiology.  I remember learning about our respiratory system and how our diaphram and lungs work together to help us breath, speak, yell, etc.  My professor spoke about the physiology of hiccups for about a minute (from my mushy memory it has something to do with your diaphram going out of wack, pulling down on your lungs on its own schedule, and forcing air into your lungs in an offbeat rhythmic sort of way.)  From then on I decided that by visualizing the physiology of respiration -from picturing my lungs and diaphram working in rhythm together- I could will/encourage my diaphram back on track whenever I got the hiccups.  Because the book essentially reminded me to listen and pay more attention to my body, I have been using this little trick lately.  And it works, immediately, every time! 

I find myself even more curious to know as much about how the body works as possible.  As cliche as it may sound, it feels so empowering to know even just  a little more information than I did a week ago.  It also forces me to reevaluate my anger.  To listen to that emotion instead of throwing it inward.  I still have a lot to think about.  And that feels good.

Reflections

"An Iris", Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT, May 2006

Over the past few months I've wanted to write.  I've composed mini-posts in my head, but when I sit down to actually write, I lose all motivation.  I start to notice patterns and little phrases that I always say and have no mental energy (or desire!) to come up with more creative and descriptive words/language. 

Nonetheless, I feel compelled to continue with this little life story.  Things have been much, much better.

The month of May passed so quickly.  Liz and Nate welcomed their beautiful daughter Olivia into the world.  Brent and I went with my sister and her family to visit them in the hospital.  I became a bit unsteady entering the lobby area, seeing the signs for labor and delivery, remembering too well the route to the ultrasound area.  Memories of my brief stay there came swirling back and I whispered to Brent, "I hate this place".  But as soon as we left the familiar areas and entered the Davis' room, I felt better.  Holding baby Olivia was very, very special. 

"Olivia", Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT, May 2006

I had intended to take off work on May 23rd.  It was our baby's estimated due date, and I thought I'd need a "mental health day".  But I didn't. I felt okay, not sad, not numb, just okay. 

And so the month I had been dreading since October came and went quietly. 

June has been similar. I've become more hopeful with regards to having a family and do occasionaly say "when" instead of "if". I have for quite a while admired the strength and wisdom of this woman, and it brought tears of joy to my eyes when she announced this.

These were the little moments I've been meaning to share the past few months.  I'm grateful that this spring has been good to me, overall.  The summer's look'n pretty good as well.

Hope

"Winter's Hope", Canon Digital Rebel XT, April 2006

I am on spring break- yippee!!  My birthday weekend was cold, cold, cold, yet luckily SUNNY. Today, in a wonderful contrast, was absolutely lovely.  Brent's folks were in town through this afternoon and we had a great time together.

This year I took my birthday wish quite seriously and managed to blow out all of my candles in sheer determination/desperation.  I will not tell you my secret wish for fear that it may not come true.  It is not, perhaps, what you think I might have wished for, but it did have a little something to do with the title of this post.  Mysterious...

Brent and I also had Asian food for lunch today and received the exact same fortune from those yummy treats:

"Good news will come to you soon"

That settles it.  My new quest for this year is to remain optimistic.

Happy spring!

To dream again

I can honestly say that it is difficult for me to envision having children.  I think I have developed this protective covering over my heart that prevents me from experiencing the joy of even dreaming about it- at night or day. 

There seems to be several "becoming a parent" gatherings going on and I hesitate to attend.  There's so much hope and certainty and my story, thus far, doesn't follow the "normal" path.  I don't know where I fit in.  I wrote this poem the other night about feeling like a ghost of a mother. A few lines from it:  "A ghost I am, with human skin.  A heart lost between two worlds".  The rest was pretty much crap, but those two phrases accurately portray how I feel about motherhood at the moment.

When I hear people talk in the theoretical.."when I'm pregnant...when we have kids..", I have to fight away the feelings of subtle jeolousy over such hopefulness.  I used to be able to dream like that easily, but now I've got this little inner demon telling me, "don't go there, you aren't like them, you may not recieve that gift again".  I'm frustrated over this inability to stay optimistic.  Being pessimistic has gotten me nothing but grief, but here I am, holding on to it like it's going to save me from the any future pain.  Twisted self-protection mechanism!

Last night I allowed myself to let go of the doubt for a little bit.  Brent and I played "our future children" name game.  Favorites include Eva, Eliana, Lily, and Eliot.  Apparently we love names that begin with "E", and cannot for the life of us, agree on a boy's name.  Brent likes "James". I like none.  That doesn't leave us with many options.  I guess it's a good thing we have an undetermined amount of time ahead of us to decide! 

Anyway, I am trying hard to let myself dream again.  In the mean time, I don't really know how to find my voice in parenthood discussions because who wants to hear the "when things go very wrong" story? I think I should go to these gatherings because it would, symbolically, be a hopeful decision.  Perhaps, someday, I too will get to be a mother again. 

The following question may be easy for many people to answer, but for me it's complicated, and I'm not quite sure why it's so important to me:

What makes someone a mother?