I stand quietly

~ Sahara ~ Leave a comment

How to see love? how to see strength? This post moved me in a way that only simple and profound writing can, and I want to help the writer spread information about a condition that affects so many people.

homeedjilly's avatarDirty, Naked & Happy

I stand quietly while you do somersaults on the bed as you aren’t being naughty, you are just trying to get your out of sync body under control.

I stand quietly by the toilet door every time you need to go, and come with you around the house, and sometimes even just across the room, because I know you can feel truly frightened when you are not near me.

I stand quietly at the supermarket checkout while everyone stares at you barking like a dog and blowing raspberries on my arms to cope with the buzzing lights.

I stand quietly while you tell the baffled shop owner that you are looking for shoes that feel hard like splintered wood because your skin can’t bear soft things.

I stand quietly when the attendant gives us scornful looks when I ask for the key to the disabled toilet because the hand dryer…

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Week One With A Baby – A Promise Kept

~ Sahara ~ 6 Comments

The Wee One came a little early; I’ll write about that part soon.

Week 1

When they pulled her out of me, I didn’t feel it.  I wasn’t really aware. When they offered to bring her over to me, I was ready, though. They opened up my shirt and put her small naked body on my bare chest, as I had asked. Her little hairs were wet and her eyes, which opened slightly, were dark blue. We looked at each other and I said, “Oh.” She closed her eyes and nestled down on me under the blanket that was covering us. Later, as they were moving us from the operating table to the rolling bed, it looked like the bright lights of the operating room were bothering her, and I wanted her to be as untrumatized as possible. I put my hand over her eyes to cover the lights and she nestled down again.

It was just us.

Daddy could see her, but it was just us. She was in a special ward for babies that had had a bit of trouble, not as intense as a NICU, but a little more than a regular nursery. The oxygen in her umbilical cord blood was low and they were afraid she’d suffered some trauma. I also had an episode that they originally thought was a seizure but later said was a reaction to the anesthesia. Cohiba was scared to death that he would lose both me and her.

That first shower was hard. Cohiba had to help me, and I was messy and embarrassed. I cried about it and was like, how are you going to be attracted to me now? He said, this is the good stuff. This is the real stuff.

The end of the hospital trip was hard.  Everything special put into place for her was gone. Well, not everything, but a lot. I left the hospital and went home, to put new special things into place.

I gave her her first bath at 6 days old, on 2.28. She didn’t like being naked, but I talked her through it and I think we were closer when it was finished.  My milk started to settle in, too, and she could eat more regularly from me. i love breast feeding her.

She is so beautiful and tiny, such good humor. Sleeps on me and with me so well. I think she’s starting to recognize me and trust me.

Even the smells i thought Id be grossed out by, I’m not. I love them. I love my belly. It’s all part of us. I love experiencing it all. Part of me is afraid of it going back to pre-pregnancy form. Away from the time that I had her with me always, growing and protecting her, when it was us.  Now it’s also her and Other People (although for her to be with Cohiba, that’s okay) (and also, I am horrible at sharing.  How am I going to teach her this?) The IV scar on my arm will disappear. I won’t feel the c-section sutures anymore, the feeling in my hands will come back. She’ll outgrow the newborn clothes she fits into right now, the ones I can look at and still see her in.

I love it and I hate it.

It’s hard to see the changes in her already and I miss the wonderment of the past week. How to accept change? As promised, I am sad, tired and overwhelmed, and I’m crazy about this child.

This completes one of the 51/51 challenges.

Oh, Time, Please Slow Down

~ Sahara ~ 1 Comment

Almost a year ago, I reblogged a post entitled “I Write to Stop Time.” It is in this spirit that I sit down to write tonight, one week the night before my daughter is born.  One week. I want to stop time.  I want to freeze it now.

Wee One just dropped this week, and while the rest of this pregnancy has been a breeze, I’m starting to have some of the difficulty that other women have. Not that that’s a good thing, but I know it stems from her growing strong! Go me for giving her a good environment to grow in!

When i feel her move, I like imagining what she looks like and what she’s experiencing.  What does she think of the music she can hear? Can she feel my hand push on a spot or tickle her foot?

When my husband goes to Wendy’s, he always brings me a Frostie.  Even when I don’t ask for one he brings me one, because he says he heard Wee One ask for it.

I’m feeling the Braxton-Hicks get stronger. (Not that this is a good thing, but wow!)

I’m crying at all the schmaltzy “mommy” things like I never did before. And I’m not even embarassed.

I”m getting things wrapped up at work to take my leave – I just decided tonight that it’s going to be sooner than I originally thought.

I’m less afraid of the idea of sacrificing things for her, and even looking forward to the trade off of her snuggles in exchange for something less pleasant.

I’m looking forward to the torrent of love I get to pour over her and wrap her in.

This is the best thing I never knew I wanted, and I don’t want it to pass too soon.

Inspiration From Mappy Maps

~ Sahara ~ Leave a comment

I was recently writing with a fellow blogger about my first Spark of the Week post and image, and realized something I haven’t ever talked about here, something that can give me hours of inspiration and enjoyment: studying maps.

One semester in college I worked in the copy room of the Health Sciences library at Mizzou.  It was an awesome job because it was quiet and I could read or study and not have a lot of interruptions. One night, I had gotten all my work done and had a few hours to kill, so I retrieved one of the atlases from the main floor.

I was so happy.

I spent several dreamy hours studying regions of the middle and far east so closely, looking at the topographical markings of the different lands and imagining what it would be like to travel there. Then I studied Gujarat, India, a state my then-boyfriend was from, and looked around his home town, trying to place the landmarks he had told me about in context.

I remember buying an atlas to have here at home when I first moved in, and spent several nights just alone in the recliner – no TV, no music, nothing. Just studying the pages.

Last year, at the renaissance fair in Bristol, WI, I found a vendor selling maps he had created of different fictional worlds: Narnia, Middle Earth, Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, Asgard, Atlantis, and Verona according to Romeo and Juliet, to name a few. He had drawn them on old parchment-y paper, you know, so it fit in perfectly with the imaginative (and nerdy) environment or a renaissance fair.

Processing Change Through A Painting

~ Sahara ~ 3 Comments

It begins and ends with love.

When I first learned I was pregnant, I was lost; overwhelmed by swirling thoughts of anxiety and fear. I sought insight from dear friends and internet strangers, and one idea from these searches struck me: No matter the fear or anxiety or dread I felt, this Wee One was created by the stong and beautiful love I am lucky enough to share with Cohiba.

Continue reading “Processing Change Through A Painting” →