Boastful confessions

I'm working tonight on a longer post about supporting someone with a mental illness (hopefully to be up soon), but there is a jubilant, victorious wind blowing through my mind that I must acknowledge. And actually, this does have a lot to do with support.

Someone dear gave me a wide and generous complement today. It gave me the extra boost to make this evening's challenge less heavy. She told me I was brave. Everyone has fears she said, but most people can ignore them. J faces hers every day. Her words warmed and strengthened me, and then...

...I cooked hamburger for supper! Heh heh. And I did it with no OCD behaviors. Or at least very few. I've been working up to this high bridge-walk for a long time. My psychologist and I decided that this was the week, and I am to cook hamburger every night for four or five nights. Tonight was the first. It was hard, but the shaking and the crying and the paralysis didn't happen this time. Whew. And Jem was proud of me. That felt so good. And Lily-girl DEVOURED the stuff, with obvious pleasure. That felt good too.

I find I am enjoying myself, despite my fear. Another quick little anecdote before I sign off:

Last week I went to a visiting author's lecture at the downtown library. A special treat made possible by Jem, who stayed home and put our girl to bed all by himself. I sat next to a fellow who, I learned, was doing his PhD in English--of all things (imagine sitting next to someone who tells you they own a chocolate-making business). He asked me what I did. I don't think I had been asked that question before, and I don't think my next words had yet passed my lips:

"I'm a mom."

I found I said it with pride, and felt just the same as if I had modestly confessed to being a rocket scientist and a computer programmer in my spare time.

It's no big deal. I'm really good at it. ;-)

Lily's Birth Day

I walked home today in the sun with my one-year-old. My one-year-old. I have had this gorgeous creature's company for a whole year, and I am bursting with gratitude.

Her birthday was two weeks ago now. We celebrated with Kleenexes and baby Tylenol and a store-bought cheesecake with grandparents and an aunty who came over to make tea for the sickies. Poor baby--to be sick on her first birthday!

Notice the baby Tylenol on the counter?

She's showing you how old she is!

But then last Sunday we really celebrated: with balloons and paper streamers and cake and pink lemonade and "champagne"! I loved planning the party.  I was heady with the excitement of getting to show off this darling daughter to friends, to celebrate her, enjoy her and the amazing fact that God has allowed me a whole, delightful, precious year.

A friend put it beautifully in an e-mail to us after the party: "How do you fête a daughter like Lily?" It was indeed my joyous conundrum. His answer was our best effort: "With strawberries and books and Grampa's champagne!"

But my fête isn't quite complete: I wish to follow suit after Christie in recalling the searing victories and triumphant pains of my daughter's birth story.

It began with two little words you never want to hear from a medical professional, especially if you have an anxiety disorder: "Uh oh." It was the day after my due date, and we were at our *last* (we hoped) prenatal appointment with the midwife. We'd finished discussing measures I could take to get labor going, if I wanted to, we'd heard our Pipsqueak's heart beat, and the midwife was taking my blood pressure. I've always had great blood pressure readings--typically on the healthy low end. But that day, it had sky-rocketed. So, my wonderful midwife straight-away rocketed us all off to the hospital, where I was hooked up to a fetal monitor for an hour, had multiple tests done, and was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and subsequently induced for labor.

I was strangely calm. I think I understood the gravity of the situation: the reality was, without medical intervention, both my baby and I could have died. But something--or Some One--told me that everything was going to be okay: I had my midwife, she had caught it in time, my mom was there, my Jem was with me, the doctor would do everything necessary, the hospital staff could handle this situation, and Pip (the name we used for her before she was born) would soon be in my arms!

Things went smoothly, though intensely after that. The labor pains were very soon hard and fast on top of each other, so that there was often barely time to breathe deep in between them. But I was, as I had imagined, just grateful for the physical pain that replaced the mental anguish of the months of waiting. My mother coached me, Jem comforted me, my midwife instructed and encouraged. A pediatrician and team came in to be there when baby was born.

Then suddenly, her warm, wet, wiggly, beautiful body was on me for just a moment. They whisked her away to make sure she didn't inhale meconium, and checked her all over, with her daddy holding her and letting her suck on his finger for comfort. I held her again. She looked deep into my eyes with her new ones. I recognized her, named her.  But I could not name the feeling that coursed through my torn and tender body--a love beyond words. My mother recognized it though, and in her arms, with my daughter in mine, I was just so grateful to her and for her.

I had torn, but not nearly as badly as Christie. Later on, I could only admire her gratefully for the wisdom and kindness and restraint that kept her from telling me the details of her birth story until after I'd had my own experience. Once I'd been stitched up, my mom gently helped me into the shower.

It may sound silly to most of you, but that shower was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. How to explain? For months, showers for me had been compulsive, exhausting, terrifying. Many days, there were two or three, often hour-long showers. I would finish shaking and crying and freezing (I nearly always ran out of warm water), never sure I'd done it "right". Washing my hair, which I did typically twice every day, I would hold my breath and close my mouth tight, afraid dirt and germs or chemicals from my hair and shampoo would run into my mouth and affect my baby.          

This shower was different. I was shaking yes, not from anxiety but from the effort of the labor that had brought a healthy baby into the world. I felt the warm water course over my body, and I opened my mouth and let the water run in, and it tasted like freedom.

There followed three days of joy and almost complete freedom before I plunged back into the darkness and terror. But I thank God who in his kindness gave me those three wonderful days of relief with my Jem and my mom and my new little Lily.

And now He's given me a year. A year of joy and wonder and new, growing freedom, and indescribable love and gratitude for God's gift of grace.

I wrote in my diary on her birthday: "I really can't believe it's been a year--a whole year since that night of ripping pain and insane strength and uncontainable joy. The first time her soggy new skin landed slippery on my tired, stretched-out abdomen, she looked at me, deep in recognition. She still looks at me with the same dark, wondering eyes and the same tiny fingers curl around mine and I can't believe I've had a year of this and where have the moments gone and don't let them slip away and please give me more years of this! I've never known such purpose or such joy."

My dear little Lily,

"On the night you were born,

the moon smiled with such wonder

that the stars peeked in to see you

and the night wind whispered,

'Life will never be the same'

Because there had never been anyone like you...

ever in all the world!"

(Nancy Tillman, On the Night You Were Born, 2005)

And here you all, is Lily's contribution to this post!:

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<sb                                                      c

(I'm just so proud of my little budding writer!)

Looking back

You finally get to hear from me, J again. I'm ashamed its been so long since I've written! I wrote the following post just after Christmas, so I will put it up before I go on to what has been happening more currently:

I've been quiet this Christmas season--just soaking up family time, creative giving endeavors, baby-enjoyment, and delicious aromas and flavors of the season.

For me, all of the Christmas trappings seemed to joyfully whisper the reminder: "This is not last year."

Last year was, as a dear one put it to me, a "very strange Christmas." Indeed it was. For one thing, I nearly spent Christmas in the hospital. Most of my family and friends, even I myself, had been convinced that I needed some serious help, probably hospitalization. I was at the point when I was too terrified to prepare food or drink for myself--I just didn't trust myself to prevent contamination. There were days when Jem would come home to a starved and desperately thirsty pregnant wife, and literally have to spoon-feed me because I was too afraid to touch the spoon with my 'contaminated' hands. I wasn't gaining weight properly and I was dehydrated. But most of all, I was feeling utterly hopeless, often close to hysteria, the thought of death as a welcome escape never far from my mind. My psychiatrist didn't see a place for me in the hospital however, and perhaps if she had sent me to the hospital my anxiety would have simply been un-manageable (in my mind, the hospital was the very most germ-y and dangerous place to be!) So I was sent home, appointment after appointment, with a little increase in medication and the platitude: "You'll be okay."

A week or two before Christmas, a public nurse came to visit me. She saw no other alternative than to send me to the hospital, but Jem and my psychiatrist rescued me from a hospital food Christmas dinner. It was too little, too late. Jem was angry. He felt I had needed the hospital months ago, not now, not instead of family and love and a Christmas at home. So I got to go home, and I saw my husband really angry for my sake. That felt kinda good.

Rather than the confinement of a hospital then, I spent Christmas in the confinement of fear-paralysis. My dear family spent Christmas trying to anticipate my fears and keep my anxiety down.

Nonetheless, I held on for dear life to the Christmas message of peace on earth. I longed--I still do long--for that peace, as all of creation longs and groans in expectation (Romans 8:22). For some reason, God wanted my family and me to feel that groaning more sharply last Christmas.

And for some equally strange reason, a year later He has given me a tremendous measure of freedom. This year I didn't walk miles around the Christmas poinsettias for fear of the potting soil being contaminated. This year, I didn't cry for hours after someone brought home fruits and vegetables. I didn't come to the Christmas meal with my freshly-washed hands up in the air, surgeon-like, to keep dirty water from wrists and arms from running down to my fingers. This year I savored Christmas cookies in my fingers, dipped in milk. This year I sat on the floor with my baby and helped her open gifts. This year I held a healthy, happy, beautiful baby in my arms, gift of God's grace. This year, I really celebrated.