birth power round 2

It amuses me to think of my small cadre of blog readers seeing the "birth" title. I like to picture which of you are going to be interested and which of you will roll your eyes and yawn!

BIRTH blog entry, incoming!

My second child. I carried her during a time when my marriage became permanently damaged. We were living in New York, I was 22 years old. My beloved little boy had just morphed into a textbook toddler monster and suddenly, I didn't know if I was going to have to have this second baby alone. The cold, stark reality was that I had virtually no work experience, no degree and I was about to be a mother of two. My assumptions about marriage supporting me were crumbling. My inner feminist voice was furious at me. Deafeningly furious.

A mentor gently suggested that I might want to consider terminating. I appreciated her concern and felt grateful for that option, should I have needed it. But more than anything else, I knew I wanted this baby. More than my marriage, more than an easier life. And I also knew this was going to be my last child.

Once my husband agreed to stay with me through the pregnancy and delivery, I signed up for Queens College for the semester after she was born. Words cannot describe how vulnerable and foolish I felt. How could I have woken up in my mother's life?

That said, I was young and healthy. Three times a week I went into Manhattan for expectant mother's aerobics. There was something empowering about acknowledging disappointment with the way things had turned out but knowing I had only myself to rely on to change all that. And it kicked in. That something. I knew I would be able to handle whatever was ahead. Amazing.

In neither pregnancy did I know the gender of my unborn child. Amnios were not routine and I wouldn't have wanted to know anyway. I LOVE waiting until Christmas morning to open my gifts. I tried to guess but was wrong both times–so much for maternal instincts.

There was a midwifery clinic attached to a hospital on Manhattan's Upper West Side. St Luke's Roosevelt Hospital had a great set up and I was thrilled to have found them. On the afternoon of October 20th, 1981 I woke up from a nap as my water broke.

Important note here: both of my beloved offspring had the good manners to begin their respective uteran exits after I'd had a good night's sleep or afternoon's nap. That's how I knew we were going to get along.

Now back to the story. Water breaking, nap over. My son was being babysat by the super's wife, Graciela. A lovely Colombian woman with six of her own. She loved children and took care of my boy a couple of afternoons a week. So I could catch up on housework nap.

I called my husband and told him to meet me at the hospital. To his, normally unsentimental, credit, he rushed home instead. I called Graciela and asked her to watch my son a little longer that day. Dave and I had no car, so we'd arranged with Louis, Graciela's husband and the building super, to drive me to the hospital. I called the clinic and told them where my labor was at and they told me it was probably too early to come in. I knew better. My short first labor and the fact that this baby was 11 days early was reason enough for me to get going.

We piled into Louis' old station wagon–me in the back on my pile of towels (water breaking is a misnomer, it's more like water leakage) and Dave up front with Louis. After six kids you would have thought the man would be used to this but he.was.a.wreck. Chain smoking and shaky, his passable English deteriorated and Dave's more than adequate Spanish did the same. I had never spoken such fluent Spanish before.

Louis' stationwagon had no shocks. None. Every bump in the road brought on a new contraction. We were in 5:30pm rush hour traffic trying to go crosstown. It took an hour-an-a-half to get from Queens to St Luke's.

And something unexpected happened. I had done the Lamaze classes for my son's birth but didn't feel the need to repeat them for this second labor. I sat in the backseat of that old car, giving directions and focusing on letting my uterus do the work and relaxing the rest of my body. It was transcendental. I am not bullshitting here. I had never practiced meditation or biofeedback but for whatever reason, the pain did not panic me the way it did the first time. I was so incredibly calm. I don't tend to tell this story because most women have such difficult experiences and my bliss just doesn't resonate with them. Still, I cannot express what an amazing 2-1/2 hours it was. Oh, yeah, and that. The entire labor from first pang to birth was 2-1/2 hours. 1-1/2 of those spent in traffic.

When we arrived at the hospital, I walked in and they took one look at me and said "maternity, 3rd floor." Dave ran to the elevator and I'm standing there (in what turns out to be late labor) and said, "Um, I could use a wheelchair about now." Wheelchair procured and rode up the elevator. They set me up in a birthing room and left me, thinking I'd be at least another hour or two. At this point, I am focused but edgy: I tell Dave, "don't talk to me, don't touch me...just sit there." Within 5 minutes Dave takes a peek around the corner and sees the baby's head crowning. He steps into the hallway and stammers that the midwife might want to get in there.

The midwife is surprised to see that I'm ready to start pushing. In the first delivery, pushing was the most blessed relief on the planet. This time, it hurt and I informed her that I didn't want to do that again. She calmly advised me that was not an option. I closed my eyes and focused so intently that she had to call my name loudly to get me to ease up. My second baby was born 35 minutes after I arrived at the hospital, 20 minutes of which was spent pushing. When the baby came out, I asked what it was and she placed the child on my stomach and said, why don't you look for yourself? Infant genitalia is quite swollen and I was almost sure but not completely. I said, "it looks like a girl"...to which she replied "yes, it is" and then handed Dave the surgical scissors to cut the umbilical cord. Man did he turn green.

She weighed 6lbs, 9oz and was perfect. She nursed right away and we spent an hour or so together before they took her to the nursery to put the silver nitrate ointment in her eyes (mandated at the time to prevent the spread of gonorrhea from mother to infant) and make little footprints and such. I had just spent 2-1/2 hours of what my body probably thought would be an 8-hour workout. I had so much adrenalin running through me I was up and walking the halls with my IV pole. After she'd been gone an hour, I asked the nurse to bring her back. She was annoyed and said, they hadn't had a chance to clean her up yet. To which I replied in my best Dorothy Parker, "Well, how did she get dirty?"

Taking her home, I had the age-old experience of falling in love with your second child...when you thought you'd never have enough room in your heart after loving your first.

compatible contradiction

There are no gradients without the gray.

I used blame fanatic Christianity for my fascination with black and white viewpoints but I suspect much of this is connected to my personality as well.

The first 21 years of my life were awash in Righteousness vs. Sinfulness. Everything needed to drop neatly into one of those ballot boxes. The more I learned, the more I needed a place for all the (beautiful) shades of Pantone Gray in between.

The next couple of decades were about learning to gather up the opposites and, if not embrace them, then, live harmoniously with them. For example, learning to equate goodness without Christianity's (or any other belief system's) dictates; learning to accept unanswerable questions (like death) without living in constant anxiety. Maybe it was learning to live happily without the Great and Powerful Wizard of OZ to provide all the answers. I drank, smoked a little weed and discovered whole new facets of my sexuality. All this alongside my very normal-looking life as mother, homeowner, spouse and student. It sounds so easy. So common sensible, doesn't it? But I had to uproot a powerful structure and rebuild it. It was like breaking down one of the rat maze walls and finding freedom. Exhilarating and scary. I questioned everything I'd been taught–gathered up the stuff I wanted to keep and threw the rest away. Even my notions of monogamy.

Ah, something I rarely talk about on this odd little public diary.

Goddammit, wish I'd have thought of this.

It was not initially my idea. After 3 years of marriage and talking about alternative ideas of love and sex, my husband asked me for an open marriage. I was 21 and, at first, it broke my heart. I was pretty sure that this was another way of saying, I want to fuck around but still want to come home to wifey. Well, that may have been true. But I was and am a woman who cannot tolerate theory and action to be too far apart. Intellectually, I agreed. I had married as chaste as anyone I knew. My experience was limited and perhaps there were other issues that I would do well to explore. So I agreed.

I will not share the gory details (your disappointment is palpable...if you know me, you know you can ask me anything in real life) but the whole thing was an exercise in the unexpected. For the most part, I had a field day and he did not. Never expected so many offers. Never expected to enjoy such decadence. It was not, predictably, good for the marriage. But I argue, and strenuously, that the damage done was more about the crumbling foundation than the non-monogamy, which just hastened the inevitable.

So. The experiment with polyamory was not an orgy of evil. It was messy. And fun. And a bit dangerous. And I liked it. It was also pretty clear that living that life for extended periods was exhausting; and had the same potential as any relationship for devolving into the mundane. At the same time, it offered a solution to an age-old problem. When I began my second marriage–a marriage with a strong foundation and a lot more trust–I made it clear that I had seen too many great marriages collapse under monogamy's unnatural tyranny. After 5-10-15 years of connubial contentment, the urge/attraction for someone else was normal. And shouldn't mean you have to lose everything. She agreed. In theory. And then, it turned out, in practice.

This makes folks very uncomfortable. I understand. It's scary and unpredictable. Of course, it was hard at times. Just because you're not cheating (all the cards are on the table) doesn't mean that jealousy and insecurity can't run riot. We talked, we modified, we dabbled. We had tremendous fun and it brought us closer. After the 3-Month Glaze of Stupid passes in each new relationship, you see how great your primary relationship really is.

Can you really be in love with your partner and deeply attracted to someone else without losing that love? Yes, you can. Is acting on it recommended? Most of the time, no...it is as exhausting as it is exhilarating. Regrets? Very few. Moral qualms? None. Is monogamy natural? I don't think so. Is it practical? Yes, it is.

How is that for embracing the contradictions?

trusims are sometimes lies

In the category of "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger" I'd like to present exception #398:

magi, musketeers, marx

The sweet one in the middle is St. Barbara.

One of my (and our) best friends moved in with us about 7 months ago. Joe and I went to design school together and he has known me even longer than St. Barbara. It might not be apparent on first blush (just an expression, we are both too..."whorish" is bit overkill...perhaps "experienced" for anything so coy as blushing) but that beautiful man is gayer than a tap-dancer in short-shorts and a hat full of fruit. So, I'm kinda in show-tune hell, people (read: constantly entertained and delighted).

It's so odd to think of the handful of people in this world with whom I could peaceably reside, I am currently living with two of them. We compost, crossword and cook together. We three are so oddly contented.This is how weird, fenced-off compounds get started. I'm building a root cellar and a bomb shelter this weekend.

daughter bride

Every other image of love or marriage or weddings seemed kind of boring/traditional.

Six months ago my daughter got engaged. Why so long to report? Partly because I've let Facebook suck away my writing time. Partly because I feel her sense of privacy and my enthusiasm should not sit too close to each other on the bus. To say that I'm thrilled with this match is no exaggeration. She is a-fucking-mazing and funny and complicated. He is worthy of her–I can give no higher compliment.

They have set the date. It's just under 5 months away. They have the location for the wedding (Rothko Chapel...wonderful). One of my wedding gifts to her is to contain myself while she doesn't worry about the details. This gift will get a little less pristine as the date draws near, I'm afraid. But it's not getting opened.

image source

the visitation

My son and his friend (now ours as well) came to visit. We had a week of laughter, conversation, good food and company. To have such a delightful relationship with one's grown child is amazing. Amazing. I feel very lucky and, since The Fates demand payment, full of sorrow at our parting.

Glass half-full, glass half-full...

Dammit.