Nov
17
Obstacle Course
Filed Under Baby Book | 7 Comments
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Little Red Submarine
I felt my first paternal pang at twenty nine. Just woke up one day thinking it’d be cool to have a child. My life has been rich in adventure and creativity and I’ve delighted in a posse of family and friends I love more than a fat kid loves cake. But what is getting harder and harder to find is inspiration and surprise. THAT’s why I wanted a child. Fourteen years later that pang was a need. We both needed it.
One thing Jodi and I can be thankful for was our ability to get pregnant. Staying pregnant was another story, but I could whisper the word ejaculation when Jodi was ovulating and it was game on. Five months after the third miscarriage we were ready to try again and got pregnant the fourth time in a year and a half. This pregnancy was different than the others. The high risk fertility docs never landed on a definitive problem so they had us take precautionary measures. Jodi now had the pleasure of sticking a needle into her belly every evening before bed, a blood thinner, in case clotting was the issue.
I injected the first shot, but it stung, so from then on she stuck herself. Just pushed that needle into her middle without hesitation night after night. Sometimes it hurt alot. Often it did not. But no matter how you slice it, inserting a needle in your stomach each night before bed SUCKS.
As she did in all the pregnancies, Jodi prepared the vessel thoroughly. She practiced yoga steadily. No sushi. No stinky cheeses. No deli meats. No booze. Ouch. Swallowed prenatal vitamins and a handful of pills every morning: folic acid, baby aspirin, healthy supplements. We rented a home Doppler heart beat monitor for those ‘more than a few’ times when Jodi just wasn’t sure and had to hear the little gallop right then. When her nerves went haywire it was hard for me not to try to cheer her up, to fix her … because, as I learned, that is what men do, we want to fix it. But the woman just wants to have it acknowledged and lived with. I failed that test repeatedly but, even a chimp learns not to eat poison ivy, and eventually I got it.
At our twenty week checkup the ultrasound tech asked if we wanted to know the sex. I come down on the “prefer not to know” side of this one. It seems to be one of life’s truly profound surprises. But Jodi had to know.
“Well, here are the labia. Looks like you’re having a girl” said the tech, pointing at something pixelated. Could she really see the labia? I guess this was no time to split hairs about plumbing. Wow! A girl. I thought it was a girl. I wanted a girl. Figured I already understood how men worked. I would learn the essence of women from a daughter. For several minutes I daydreamed about daddy and his little girl. And her pigtails and cute little toothless smile. And I’m walking her down the aisle when I hear, “wait, I think I see a penis!” …………………………………………………. Record Scratch!!
We soldiered through steady checkups and the shots and the pervasive angst, and you grew and flourished in your water world, kicking at night like a mini Maradona. At our 28 week checkup Jodi was feeling slight contractions and the high risk doc told us her cervix had shortened which could indicate early labor. We both felt sick in our guts when he ordered Jodi to spend the night at the hospital to run some tests. This could not be happening again!
“Gravity is the enemy,” Dr. McCay told us the following day as they sent us home with instructions that Jodi was not to get up off the couch except to shower once a day and use the toilet. Bed rest until further notice. She was not in immediate danger of labor however everybody was erring on the side of caution based on our history. Further notice ended up being two weeks later when they told Jodi it was bedrest for the duration of the pregnancy. She was 30 weeks. Ten to go.
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Nov
14
Fly Away
Filed Under Baby Book | 3 Comments
- Fly Away Bird
At 19 weeks our baby just died…
That was the whole story. Period. Full stop. No apparent reason. “These things happen.”
Batteries of tests. Countless blood draws. Sonograms. Needle sticks. Lab results. NOTHING. No medical answers. “These things happen.” Three miscarriages in twelve months. Unthinkable.
Francis Ford Coppoloa said he believed something happened when we died because he couldn’t believe that something as “specific as a person” could just disappear. I like that idea of people being specific. Our specific unborn son was not ready to come any further. He served his purpose and moved on to wherever we go. Not sure where that is. Not worried about it either. I do not fear my own death. I nearly drowned at age 16 and had time to think about it as it was happening. “So this is how it goes down,” I said to myself matter of factly as I fought the raging waters. “I never would have thought I was going to die young on a summer vacation in a river in Vermont.” What saved me was not the fear of my own passing. In fact, that option would have been a relief, given the physical struggle I was engaged in at that moment. No, what kept me fighting was the thought of my brother sitting on the bank unaware and waiting for me. His ultimate realization that I was gone was too much to bear. And his hideous burden of bringing that unspeakable news to our mother was way beyond the pale. So I bucked up with my last bit of strength and lived to fight another day.
I guess Jodi and I were sitting on the bank unaware when that baby died.
What did I learn?
That life is unscripted. Our “charmed life” is vulnerable as anyone’s. The smooth road we foresee can be gutted with potholes. Our reasoning minds need an explanation to soothe our pierced hearts…but that is not how the Fates work when they twist our strings in the cosmic puppet show. That tears do cleanse the soul and a good hard cry massages the heart. That we must spend time with our grief, feel it, let it wash over us, humble us and nurture us.
I embrace sadness. It is a fertile garden in which my inspiration as an artist and poet has found rich soil all my life. I wrote long ago:
sadness is the mother of wisdom
wisdom is the mother of happiness
so sadness is the grandmother of happiness
I kiss you grandmother. You remove my sarcasm, no small feat. And augment my kindness, though that greater kindness is often a tree that falls in an empty forest since sadness lessens my ability to be amidst others.
I learned that people surprise you with empathy and strength when you are weakened and defeated. Loved ones gave us the distance we needed, stood just outside the circle we drew around ourselves, ready to enter at a moment’s notice but not until invited. This allowed us to grieve without mundane interuptions like talking and shopping…or the agony of repeating what happened again and again.
I cried warm luminous tears when friends in the Mission drove across town and over the Golden Gate Bridge with homemade soup, and left it at the doorstep without a word. That little package discovered at the front door said so much. Other friends left full bags of groceries, premade foods, fruit, snacks. Again, no words. And a couple on the dock who were pregnant themselves left brown rice and veggies and other super healthy stuff to fortify our limp bodies. No words. It is often a fine command of language to say nothing.
I found comfort in the Eastern worldview of Daren and Valencia, in which life is a flow of energy, constantly moving and touching down in our bodies briefly during our mortal existences before it continues on down the pipeline. Contrary to the Western view, this idea has lightness and nonchalance; it is free of platitudes and without sadness. As they saw it, that baby’s energy just flowed along elsewhere. Simple. That made sense to me. To both of us. And felt warm.
Fly on little bird.
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Nov
11
Three Strikes
Filed Under Baby Book | 2 Comments
You Cannot Hide
Before we move forward, we need to look back.
The very first time Jodi got pregnant she called me at my studio.
“When will you be home,” she asked with a smile in her voice.
“Whenever,” I said, absorbed in a piece.
“Well, come home soon.”
“I’m really in a groove on this painting. I’ll be home in a bit.”
I added some flourishes to the piece then locked up nonchalantly, and as I was walking down the dock she called again.
“Where are you?”
“I’ll be right there. Jeez Louise.”
As soon as I walked in she had me sit at the kitchen table and presented me with a small box. I opened it and slowly unwrapped what I thought was some kind of electric toothbrush. It wasn’t till I saw the little blue plus sign that I realized it was her pregnancy tester stick. BOOM! I must have looked like every guy ever told on every TV show. Surprised and elated. Overcome with a kind of warmth. At 42, for the first time, I had impregnated a woman and our child was a cluster of rapidly dividing cells inside her. What a truly beautiful concept and moment.
We lost that baby at nine weeks. And that beautiful moment evaporated into a dull disappointment.
We got preggers again quickly and the abstract idea of fatherhood again wrapped itself around me like cashmere. I relished the idea and was glad to be back on the train. I was out of town when Jodi learned we’d lost that baby at seven weeks. She was alone, feeling her body was too old, past its prime, broken.
We were pregnant again within a few months. And this time it stuck. Each day became a nerve wracking dance with the Fates. We passed the first trimester without incident, though the joy of pregnancy was gone, replaced by angst.
At eighteen weeks we were buoyed by a glowing report at our checkup. Jodi’s risk factors, at age 38, were those of a twenty year old they told us.
We were thrilled to learn it was a boy and all systems were go.
Congratulations, they told us as we left. At a potluck dinner party on South Forty dock that night I remember Jodi using the boy’s name we’d chosen.
“I don’t think we should use the name yet, just in case,” I told her.
“There is no doubt in my mind. I can feel that this is happening,” she said.
Five days later I flew out of town on business to the stunning Wasatch Mountains north of Salt Lake City. It was 11:00am and I was driving around looking at apartment buildings when I received the worst phone call of my life.
“THERE’S NO HEARTBEAT!” Jodi wailed.
“What?”
“There’s no heartbeat. It’s gone.”
Goodbye Old Friend
There were no answers, no reasons, no medical explanations. Just a dirty hole where our dreams had been. It was just over. At nineteen weeks…when it’s all supposed to be smooth sailing we hit the reef…and sank. And Jodi had to spend the next four days with a dead baby inside her.
We did our best to keep the lights on in our eyes and in our hearts. But our world was dark and primitive and pathetic. We needed quiet. To ache together that first week. We asked our friends not to contact us so we’d not have to explain and repeat the agony. We sobbed under hot showers together. On the phone. On the couch. In bed. We both hate the idea of being the people that others feel sorry for. But that was exactly who we were. I never expected to have any trouble having kids. Who does? Every goddamned junkie and slacker in the world has kids without trying. Yet we’re striking out in late innings? Why? A wise man once said: “Nothing turns out as we expect. It never does. Life is under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it is no worse than it is.”
For quite a while Jodi was inconsolable. Just too disappointed. Bleak and poisoned. I was deeply wounded but, being the man and far removed from the physical agony of the experience, my optimism crept back sooner. Jodi resented the fact that I was inclined to start to seek pleasure again. To have dinner with friends, go to parties, etc. But that is how I cope and heal.
So I slowly got back to our life…and eventually…she joined me.
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