Another reason to feel guilty

I have three babies in heaven. I lost one to miscarriage before I got pregnant with Ethan. It was an early miscarriage – I was only six weeks along when I found out. I was spotting and went in – alone – for an ultrasound. It revealed that I had a blighted ovum, which is when the sperm and egg create an embryo but the baby doesn’t develop properly and is reabsorbed into the egg. I was crushed because we’d been trying for so long already… We called that baby Monty as a nickname before we lost him and I never felt the need to find another name after he was gone.

Ethan was just nine months old when I found out I was pregnant again. When I started spotting at eight weeks, I made Tom come with me to the ultrasound appointment because I was afraid of what the results would be. Amazingly enough, there was a baby and it had a heartbeat. We were safe. I went to my 13 week appointment alone. I wasn’t worried – I’d been feeling all the normal signs of morning sickness. But as soon as the doctor frowned when he was using the doppler to find our baby’s heartbeat, I knew it was over. Two ultrasounds confirmed it and I had a D&C because I’d been carrying a baby that had died shortly after we had seen its heartbeat, but I hadn’t miscarried yet. I never named her – I felt strongly that she was a girl. She was my Precious little girl.

The third baby we lost was kind of a “secret” baby. I was actually pregnant with triplets, but one of them was a blighted ovum and so I had twins – Kaylee and Sienna. We didn’t really tell anyone. It never felt like a loss. I didn’t name that baby either.

Thinking about our babies in heaven makes me feel strange. I have lots of Internet friends who’ve had miscarriages and they seemed to react about the same way I did – anger, sorrow, denial, broken and yet hopeful. But after the initial reaction, we take vastly different paths. I deal with grief by pretending that the bad thing never happened. My friends have memorial services and name their babies and release balloons on their birthdays or on the anniversary of their deaths.

During the initial grieving process, I went to Build-a-Bear and made bears in memory of our first two losses. But looking at them now makes me sad, so I don’t look at them often. I have the ultrasound pictures the tech gave me after we saw the baby’s heartbeat before it died and I feel like burning them sometimes because it hurts so much to remember. Even thinking about how happy I was to announce our surprise pregnancy to my family makes me want to punch someone (God?) in the face. How cruel to toy with my heart like that, to make me believe that having another baby could be so easy. So I don’t think about it. I’ve tucked those memories away and they only surface when I see the bears or hear of someone else’s loss.

Yet, I can’t help but feel like a terrible mother when I do remember our losses because I never gave any of them proper names – I never even made a bear for my triplet. Is she sitting in heaven, nameless because I was too heartless to give her a name? I don’t deny that she existed, but I can’t hold her or kiss her or visit her grave. And I don’t know how to deal with the loss of someone that I can’t prove even existed.

Some women who’ve lost babies tell me that they are honored to have been a mother to that tiny baby, if only for a short while. Not me. I wish I’d never gotten pregnant those times – and that there had never been a third baby with my twins. It was not worth the pain of losing those little ones just to say I was their mother. It sounds so selfish, but if I can’t have living children, I don’t want any children at all.

This sounds even worse: After my twins were born, I never wanted to be pregnant again. Everyone thought it was because I was overwhelmed by having a two year old and infant twins. It wasn’t, though; I was just terrified of having another loss. If God could have promised me a living baby – without another miscarriage in between – I would have tried to get pregnant again in a heartbeat. If my Endometriosis hadn’t come back when it did, I would have agonized about whether or not we “should” try again. As it was, I feel like God gave me a sort of break – the best answer to fix the Endometriosis was to have a hysterectomy. We prayed and prayed about it and God gave us peace – and I learned once that you should always go where the peace is. So I had a hysterectomy and I never have to fear losing another baby again.

I don’t know if I really am a bad mommy because I don’t think about my kids in heaven very often – because I never had a memorial service and I don’t think about their would-have-been dates. I will be glad to meet them when I get there someday, but I don’t want to cry for them anymore while I’m here. If that means I’m a terrible person, then I am a terrible person. But I know I’m not alone – if there’s one thing I’ve learned as the mother of living children, it’s that when I feel a certain way, I am not the only one who’s ever felt that way. (Anyone else ever feel like flushing your children down the toilet?) So if you’re reading this and you never had a funeral or birthday parties for the babies you’ve lost but never held – I think it’s ok. It just means we deal with grief in our own way.

Conspiracy Theory

The one thing I wish people had told me before I became a mom is that the phrase “sleeping like a baby” was not contrived by the parents of a newborn. In fact, I’m not sure any parent would use that phrase. I read somewhere that night-waking can be expected through age five. That means in about four months, we should have one child who will no long wake at night. I doubt it.

If you’re like me, you’d like to sock that other mommy in the face when she tells you that her baby slept through the night from the day he was born. Ethan slept about ten minutes on his own the night we brought him home. I remember Tom and I trying to figure out what he wanted. I would nurse our new baby and he would fall asleep in my arms. He was already swaddled, so we placed him ever so gently into his crib. Immediately he would start squirming. Then he would make those cute little baby grunting noises. Then he would start wailing. Frantically, we racked our brains for all the tricks they taught us in the new parenting class. Why hadn’t anyone explained that babies need to adjust to being out in the world? That they just spent nine months crammed into an organ that’s normally the size of an orange and now they can’t hear Mommy’s heartbeat and their arms and legs flail all over the place. Eventually, we learned that if we didn’t want him to cry, we would have to sleep with him. So we co-slept, something I thought I’d never do. Finally, when he was almost one, we moved him to his own room without too much hoopla. Soon after, when he started consistently sleeping through the night, I felt as though I could handle anything a new baby might bring.

Of course, at the time, I wasn’t expecting to become the mommy of twins. See, I was planning to co-sleep from the beginning with our next baby if he/she didn’t sleep well. (Notice I said “I” was planning to co-sleep, not Tom.) “So why can’t you co-sleep with twins?” you ask. Well, you can, if you and hubby aren’t deep sleepers. I know, I know – all the pro-co-sleeping people are pffffing at me. “You have instincts, you will feel them if you roll over, etc.” I was fine, but Tom was not. He was just too deep of a sleeper. One night, he was holding Sienna and I was holding Kaylee and we were trying to sleep. Somewhere in the middle of the night, he woke up and Sienna was upside down under the blanket beside him. Talk about freaked out! So he decided to start sleeping on the recliner in a position where he didn’t think there was any possible way for her to move. Ah, but he was wrong. That night he woke up with her face-down in his arms. He hadn’t even felt her move. That’s when we decided it wasn’t safe for him to co-sleep. Somehow we figured out that they slept when we put them in their carseats until, even swaddled in a Miracle Blanket, Sienna managed to flip herself out of one. Then we moved them to cribs. There was drama, I admit, but I don’t remember a lot of it. I went into the hospital for a c-section on November 28 and woke up somewhere toward the end of February. I don’t really remember much in between – except for the spinal headache. That I remember.

It seems, these days, that they sit in front of a calendar and plan it all out: Ethan, you wake on Monday night because you think your closet looks scary. Kaylee, on Wednesday you wake up because you need to pee and then stay up for an hour because you want to sleep with Mommy. Don’t let yourself fall asleep when they put you back into your bed, but do your best to look like you’re about to fall asleep so that Mommy and Daddy go back to their bed and are just about to fall back to sleep themselves when you let out another wail. Sienna, you’re the best at mumbling incoherently, so you wake up on Thursday and Friday and possibly Saturday. When they come to see what’s wrong, mumble something that resembles “My fleebles hurt.” When they ask you to repeat that the tenth time, give them a hug, turn over and go to sleep.

And now I must go and rescue my children from whatever peril they have gotten themselves into in the basement. Whatever it is, there has been tons of laughter. I’m not afraid to admit that I’m a wee bit scared of what I’ll find. The Master Night-Waking Chart? It’s quite possible.

Today’s lesson: Find something YOU enjoy

I rode my bike 23 miles last Saturday. It’s the farthest I’ve ever gone on a bike before. But it’s not nearly as far as I’d like to go someday. Biking has become to me what running is for my hubby. I do it because it’s fun and because I want to. When I’m riding my bike, it’s like I’m not even working hard even when I am working hard. Miles go by without even a thought. It wasn’t like that last year, though – when I first began riding.

Right after my hysterectomy last spring, I stopped running because my joints couldn’t handle it anymore. So I started looking for another sport that was low impact and that could provide a good cardio workout. Enter Tom’s suggestion that I think about cycling. I thought about it and on my 29^th birthday I bought a bike. It’s a Trek hybrid (half road bike, half mountain bike), good for those who aren’t really out for speed and might be riding on different terrains. It’s robin’s egg blue and has a leather saddle and hand grips.

I started riding in the mornings before Tom left for work. I had no idea how fast or far I was going and I was very nervous to ride anywhere other than in neighborhoods – cars scared the living daylights out of me. But I bought a speedometer, a headlight and taillight. I even got a saddle bag that fits under my seat for keys and a cell phone. Before long, I ventured out onto bigger roads where I could go for long stretches without having to think about what I was doing. That’s when I really started to enjoy myself – miles went by and I didn’t even feel like I was exercising that hard (except on the big hills). I’d get home, though, out of breath and sweating – and it felt good. (YES, I just said that exercising and being out of breath felt good!)

Yep, I finally found something that doesn’t hurt and that is actually fun. I know I’m still not as fast as other cyclists – I don’t have a bike built for speed – but because I found something that I enjoy so much, I find joy in challenging myself to ride hard and to see just how fast and far I can go. I feel like I could ride my bike a hundred miles and still have more left in me. Running, on the other hand? Well, let’s just say that I rejoiced greatly when I reached the end of my workout. It was like torture. So I ride – and when Tom runs 22 miles, I ride 23 – because it makes me feel good.

A runner I am not

My husband, Tom, is a runner. I mean he is a hard core runner. He would not agree with that statement, but compared to 90% of other “runners”, he is hard core. He is currently training for his second marathon. He wants to qualify for the Boston Marathon. He does research on how to make your training as effective as it can possibly be. He bases the pace of his runs on his heart rate and knows what VO₂ max means. He wakes up before 5:00am on some weekdays to run and on Saturdays he wakes before 6:00 so he can do a long run (Long to me is, oh, say a mile; long to him is over 15 miles. I’ve heard him make the statement, “I’m only going to run 14 miles today.” Only??) and be back in time to help feed the kids breakfast. He runs routes with huge hills in them on purpose. He is hard core.

I am not a runner. I’ve wanted to be a runner because running seems like such a pure form of exercise. I’ve wanted to be a runner because my husband loves it so much that he would do it even if our bodies didn’t need to exercise to stay healthy – he does it because he wants to. I wanted to be a runner so that I could share a common interest with Tom. A few years ago, when I wanted to lose that last bit of baby weight I’d put on from the twins, I actually tried to become a runner. (Note I said “tried”…)

Since I’m married to a hard core runner, I received wonderful training advice. I started the “Couch to 5k” program where you walk a little, run a little, walk a little, run a little more, until eventually you can run a whole 5k. After several weeks, I was running a full half hour with no walking in between. I was quite proud of myself. There was just one problem: Running really hurt.

A lot of beginner runners make mistakes and get running injuries like shin splints and pulled muscles, but that wasn’t my problem. My biggest issue was my knee – the one I’ve dislocated so many times that they basically rebuilt it by moving tendons and cutting ligaments and tightening other ones. Even with my brace, it was just awful pain with each step. The other problem was my right ankle – even with good supportive shoes made for people who have ankles that turn in, I couldn’t stop it from hurting. So while I was feeling the cardiovascular benefits from running, my joints just wouldn’t cooperate.

So I quit. And I got depressed because I didn’t want to quit. I wanted to be able to share a love of something with my husband because we really don’t have that many interests in common. I also really wanted to exercise without pain – and to do more than just go on walks. Believe it or not, it feels amazing to get your heart pumping and to push yourself to do things you’ve never done before. What a sense of accomplishment when you set a goal and finally reach it!

I found a solution last year – but you’ll just have to stay tuned if you wanna hear about it! If you don’t wanna hear about it, well, at least don’t miss the point that if you really enjoy what you’re doing, it won’t feel like exercise; it’ll feel like fun.

Vitiligo – on feeling like a leper

Vitiligo. No known cause, no known cure. Fortunately, it’s not a life-threatening disease. In fact, it’s really quite harmless. Unless you don’t like looking like a leper.

The white spots on my skin (the spots are caused by the pigment in my skin magically disappearing at random times and reappearing at other times) first showed up in my armpits. Yes, my armpits. It looked like an experiment with self-tanner gone bad. Over the past several years, it’s spread to various random parts of my body. Thankfully, quite a lot of it is hidden in places that never see the light of day. The rest of my spots don’t show up during the winter because I’m quite pale and there’s not enough contrast with my normal skin to see them very well.

I get nervous when spring comes, though. I love being outside. I use sunscreen all the time (because vitiligo takes away pigment, there’s no pigment to tan so the skin just burns) nowadays because there’s more exposed spots than there used to be. But the normal skin tans even when I use the kids’ spf50 sunblock. It isn’t until I start getting a little tan that I find out where and how many new spots have appeared each year.

Here’s what my feet, knees, and arms look like now.

What’s weird about vitiligo is that I never know when new spots will show up – or when the old ones might decide to start filling in. The spot in the crook of my left elbow has gotten “freckled” because pigment is reappearing. Ironically, as that has filled in some, I’ve got new ones that just appeared in the last week or so on my left hand and foot and both knees.

Usually, I don’t care about the vitiligo spots because there’s not much you can do about it and I am tired of doctors. But the more it spreads, the more I feel like people will think I have some strange disease. Well, I do, but it’s not contagious. And it’s not gonna kill me unless I let myself get sunburned – I’m much more susceptible to skin cancer because those spots burn so easily. But it’s weird to feel like people are staring at me – trying to figure out if I got into a fight with the girl at the spray tanning salon. Sometimes I fear what I’ll look like in another ten years – so far, I’ve been spared on my face except for one small spot by my lips. If it spread much more on my face, I think it would be much harder to deal with.

I’m not sure why I felt compelled to write about my vitiligo. I guess because it’s a part of what I see in the mirror and struggle to accept along with the rest of my body. I’ve come to terms with the spots – despite that every year I have to accept new ones. I like to joke to myself that at least I have something else on my body to distract people from my cellulite, spider veins, and non-cleavage. Yeah, it really doesn’t work, but you gotta try, right?

Miss Kaylee’s New Shades

This is what happens when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Well, it’s what happens when you’re a two-and-a-half-year-old who thinks her sunglasses look better upside down. (For those of you who are saying, “Hey, those aren’t new shades!” Well, they are – her purple ones broke and she picked these to replace them. Shout out to Children’s Place for replacing them for free!)

One step back

I believe I ate an entire bag of Ballreich’s potato chips (that’s a full pound) while we were on vacation. In fact, I ate so much more than I normally do while we were at the lake that I’m pretty sure I’ve gained a pound or two. If you’ve read my other posts, you might have an idea of how devastating that is to me. I’m ashamed to admit that I have obsessed about this for the past week.

It’s not like I didn’t have a chance to do well. I actually got some kind of stomach bug the day before we left for vacation. The first day of vacation, nothing we had at the cottage appealed to me at all so I didn’t eat much. But that night, even though I really didn’t want it, I ate a decadent chocolate lava cookie dessert. That’s when the guilt kicked in. I recognized that I didn’t need to feel guilty – that it’s fine to indulge sometimes. But it seemed impossible to change the way I felt. And when I feel that way, it seems like I only have two choices: Binge or go back to counting calories. No matter what I choose, I’m trapped in a cycle of guilt. Guilt for binging or guilt for not being able to stay within my alloted calorie budget. On vacation, I did what I might call a semi-binge: Eating junk food to spite my feelings of feeling fat and definitely not because I was hungry.

That’s not where I want to be. Yet even as I sit here typing, it’s as though I can feel my hips and butt growing due to eating so much junk on vacation. I think maybe my pants were a little tight this morning as I was getting dressed for church. It makes me want to cry. It makes me want to weigh myself so that I can confirm how badly I’ve failed. It makes me want to grab my iPhone and download the calorie counting app I used to have. It makes me want to ride my bike 20 miles and then come home and mow the lawn with the push mower and then walk three miles – and to do that every day for at least a week.

What about counseling? you ask. What about Galatians 5:1 and how Christ died so you could be free from this? Ahh, friends, this is where things get really sticky. When I think about those things, I feel like even more of a failure. Not only did I gain weight by not listening to my body’s signals (I ignored them like they were the buzzing of the vuvuzelas during World Cup Soccer) but I’ve also failed to enjoy the freedom I have because of my Savior’s sacrifice.

The week before we left for vacation, I started writing a story. It’s the story of a girl who is seduced and then kidnapped by a sadistic pedophile. Yeah, sounds just like something I would write, right? Stay with me, it will make sense soon. The reason I wanted to write this story is because I had a vision, so to speak, of a little girl who was kidnapped as a child. She went along willingly because the kidnapper had something that appealed to her, maybe candy or a stuffed toy. Anyway, by the time she realized that she couldn’t go home, she was trapped; chained to a wall or a bed, at the mercy of her captor. Years go by and eventually a rescuer removed the chains. The girl was free to go, but she had been a prisoner for so long that she didn’t even realize she was free. She was like the goldfish who didn’t know that the glass partition was removed from its tank and never even tried to venture into the other half of the tank. Every day for most of her life she was only able to move as far as her chains would let her. She tested them at first, but after time, she just took it for granted that she couldn’t go any farther. She didn’t even notice when the chains were taken off.

I’m pretty sure you can see that the girl is me. (Or maybe she’s you?) I think God gave me this idea for a story to show me how pitiful I am. He loves me, oh, how He loves me! But He’s filled with sorrow when He sees me walking in circles like a dog tied to a tree when I have a whole yard – a whole world even – that He created for me to explore. He’s my Rescuer – He came and removed my chains, tended my wounds and then stood back and waited for me to be elated at my newfound freedom. Instead, I stand on a scale and let the number dictate my value for the day or listen to my stomach growl because I’m trying to “save” calories so that I won’t go over for the day. Or I binge because if I eat the forbidden food in large quantities, I won’t have time to think about what I’m doing.

The past few months, I’ve been tentatively testing the other side of the fish tank, dipping my toes in the water to see if it’s nice. I’ve caught glimpses of a whole ocean out there and it’s terrifyingly appealing. This past week, however, I decided that the partition was still there. I’m not sure why I did that, except that it’s what I’ve done my whole life and it’s still what comes naturally. My counselor said that if you have an obsession (especially a long-standing one), it’s the first thing your mind will turn to when your defenses are down; ie, when you’re tired or stressed. (What could be stressful about vacationing with a four year old, two two year olds, and your in-laws?) So yeah, I took a step backwards. But just a week ago I was two steps forward, so overall, I’m still ahead. I’m gonna test the waters again this week. I’m not counting calories, weighing myself or binging on food or exercise. In fact, I’m hungry right now and it’s not close to dinner so I’m going to have a snack. A banana sounds good, maybe with some peanut butter. It’s another tiny step in the right direction.

Did ya miss me?

I’m back! I bet you thought you got rid of me. Well, we went on vacation last week and I was under the impression that there would be Internet access there, but there wasn’t. So here I am, after a long absence. It’s good to be home. I have lots of new beach glass from Lake Erie, a nice suntan, new spots of vitiligo (you know, the white patches of skin that Michael Jackson had?), and maybe an extra pound or two. (I’m not going to weigh myself, but to be honest, I ate terribly on vacation and felt guilty about it the whole time. Two steps forward, one step back, I guess.) I have lots of ideas for future posts, but right now, I’m just trying to relax because as they say, I need a vacation from my vacation.

You mean you don’t obsess about me as much as I obsess about you?

I learned yesterday that I’m not the center of the universe. Shocking, I know. But hear me out. When I was 13 or 14 – a tomboy completely oblivious to the fact that I was becoming a woman – I had a lot of guy friends. Not boyfriends – just friends who were guys. We’d thumb wrestle, punch each other in the arms and sit together on the bus when our church group went on road trips. I didn’t think of them as anything other than friends. Until one of them declared his love for me. That was awkward – especially since I never saw it coming.

That’s when someone from my church who loved me like a mother told me that I had better be careful because guys probably misconstrued my friendly gestures as flirting. She told me that boys notice our bodies and even though I only wore jeans and baggy t-shirts all the time, showing off how flexible I was (because I am double jointed) might send the wrong signals.

She didn’t mean to, but that woman took away my innocence with her words. Some girls may have felt that they had power after being told that their actions could entice guys. Not me. From that day on, I became extremely uncomfortable around boys – even boys who’d been my friends before that. I felt self-conscious about everything I wore, every word I said, every bit of physical contact – no matter how innocent.

In my mind, everywhere I went, boys were watching me. I couldn’t be at ease around them because I didn’t want them to think I “liked them like that.” This lasted all the way through my teen years and my twenties – until yesterday. It didn’t matter that I’d married my handsome prince (how on earth that happened only God knows!), when other men were around me I feared them. What were they thinking about me? What if they thought I was trying to get their attention? Did they think I was pretty? Did they wish their wives looked like me? Were they glad they didn’t?

I know this is silly. I’ve known it for a long time, but I didn’t know how to let it go. How could I let myself be at ease with people of the opposite gender?

Do you know what my counselor said? She said, “You are not the center of everyone’s attention.” Those guys I’m wondering about aren’t thinking about me at all. They are thinking, “I’m hungry. I wonder if the pizza will be here soon.” Or “I wonder why the car was making funny noises on the way here.”

I feel like a goofball writing this. I am pretty sure it will make some of you think I’m weird. But I’m writing it because if I’ve gone through this, others have, too. No situation is completely unique to me. Well, as I’ve said before, it could be unique to me which would mean I’m crazy. But I’m ok with that.

Sweet Prayers

Some of my favorite moments as a mommy come when my kids are praying. We have always said prayers before our meals and at bedtime – we teach our kids they can pray anytime, but those are the times we pray together as a family. When Ethan could repeat words after us (I think he was two or three days old), we’d say something like, “Dear Lord, thank you for our day. Thank you for Mommy and Daddy. Thank you for Grandmas and Grandpas. Help me be good and sleep good. I love you. You’re the best. Amen.”

Shortly before the twins were born, we overheard Ethan praying in his room after we had put him to bed. His words still melt my heart:

“Dear Lawd, fank you mommy (for my) mommy. Fank you mommy pizza. Fank you mommy yummy milk. You best. Amen.”

As he grew, he began to pray on his own, without repeating us and without completely following the formula we’d taught him with. Sometimes he’d pray for us when we were sick. Sometimes he’d ask for snow or sunshine. After the girls were born, he’d pray that they wouldn’t cry so much. When we moved them out of their cribs and into big girl beds, his prayers went like this:

“Dear God, thank you for today. Help the girls to stay in their beds and not bang on the door and wake me up. Amen.”

Sometimes he used a variation of that prayer, like this:

“Dear God, thank you for giving us a good day. Help me sleep tonight. Help me not to hear the girls screaming and crying. Help them to be good and not get out of their beds so they won’t get spankings. Amen.”

A few months ago we experimented with letting Ethan sleep in the twins’ room with them. It was kind of a failed experiment, and his prayers changed yet again:

“Dear God, help me not talk to Kaylee and Sienna. Help them not to talk to me or jump on their beds. Help us to be good so I can keep sleeping in here. Amen.”

The night we moved Ethan back to his room, he was devastated and prayed:

“Dear God, please help me to stop crying so I can go to sleep. Help me not be sad because I miss those girls so much. Amen.”

(That was also the night he asked us to turn on his fan because it would “help dry my tears, Momma.” Talk about feeling like gum stuck to the bottom of someone’s shoe.)

Kaylee and Sienna have said some cute things while they pray too. Sienna starts every prayer with “Dear God, Thank for the shunshine” even if it’s rainy.

Kaylee makes me laugh almost every time she prays. She always closes her eyes and keeps them shut, and even if she is repeating us, she likes to add her own twist. It ends up going something like this:

Daddy: Dear Lord,

Kaylee: Dear Lord, help me feel better.

Daddy: Thank you for this good day.

Kaylee: Fank you for good day.

Daddy: Thank you for our friends and family.

Kaylee: Fends and fambly.

Daddy: Help me be good.

Kaylee: Be good.

Daddy: I love you.

Kaylee: Wuvoo.

Daddy: Amen

Kaylee: Gamma-gappa. You best. Amen.

I’m not sure how much the twins understand since they are only two and a half. But I know Ethan knows what he’s saying and Who he’s talking to. Right now the subject of our kids’ prayers rarely extends beyond our four walls – we have to encourage them to pray for other people. Yet their prayers are always honest and sincere and that tells me that they believe God cares for their concerns. He does care, and I bet He giggles at them, too.