A small explosion of thought

I got very lucky with my baby. I was worried before giving birth that I wouldn’t be able to be around another person all the time, much less a demanding baby. Pearl is relatively easy to be around, and creates much more joy than inconvenience.

It’s easy to feel like we’re just lucky, like it is by sheer chance that Pearl is so happy. It’s more politically correct to view the situation that way. It would be judgmental of me to say that Pearl is happy because I’m such an amazing mom, or because I breastfeed, or because we used this or that sleep training program. And if I say that Pearl is this way because God intentionally chose to bless us with this happy person in our lives, what does that say about women who have more challenging infants?

The problem with viewing Pearl as luck is that luck is so easily broken. Because of my continuing cancer treatment, I’ll have to stop nursing Pearl in a few months. What upsets me most about this development is that I’m afraid it will upset our balance. If I can’t nurse Pearl, maybe she’ll stop being so happy. Maybe without that comfort, I won’t be able to get her to sleep at night anymore. Maybe our bonding will fade and she’ll feel unsettled and frightened. Maybe our luck will break.

As controversial as it may be, I choose to believe that Pearl and her happiness are blessings from God. A blessing doesn’t break so easily. If God intended our lives to be peaceful and happy, that peace and happiness will endure the weather. If it is God’s doing that has brought my life to this moment, I can continue to ask him for what I need or want and hope that he will hear and respond. I can hope that God means to bless my life, and that those blessings will endure beyond any curse, even cancer. I can believe that light will make the darkness flee, even at sunset.

That pesky cancer thing is still kind of going on, so I have to have surgery on Tuesday to remove my thyroid. I’ve never had surgery before, and I’ve been advised by those who have to not think about what it actually is. Because if you think too long about someone, even a surgeon, cutting into your throat, the floor directly beneath you starts to sink. Granted, this is a relatively minor surgery, I’m in great hands, and I’ll have lots of help from my cute husband and my mom.

And yet, there are not completely illogical reasons to worry. I’m a breastfeeding mom, and the arrangements to make sure I can continue nursing after the surgery has required five phone calls in the last four days. I have a friend who was in a coma for two days after having this same surgery. I had another friend who died during a relatively minor surgery. All of that is pretty concerning, but I think I would be okay if it was just me.

I know within myself that if tragedy strikes, I can get through it. I’ve been through a great deal in my life and I know I can trust God to take care of me. It is much, much harder to trust God to take care of my family, especially my helpless two-month-old daughter. At this point, and possibly forever after, a tragedy for me has the potential to be an even greater tragedy for her. If I were to get really sick or die, Pearl’s life would be more effected than mine. While I can be concerned or even worried for myself, that thought sends me into out-and-out panic.

After Pearl was born, I felt that God gave me a new mantra, a phrase I can repeat to quiet and focus my mind while I meditate. Now, while I meditate, I repeat the phrase “I trust you with my daughter’s life.” I find that repeating this phrase releases tension I didn’t realize I was holding. There is a piece of the mother-baby connection that can turn sour and strangling; repeating that phrase unwinds that connection. I am telling God that I am willing to hand over the responsibility I feel for Pearl’s life. I am surrendering the idea that I can control or shape her, that I can protect her from all harm, that I am anything more than a mere mortal in her life. I am telling God that I trust him with the most precious and delicate thing I have ever held in my hands. And truly, if I can trust God with my daughter’s life, what else is left to worry for?

Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre was kind enough to read and review my recently released novel, The Other Side of Silence. Guante is a national poetry slam champion, an insightful rapper who can be heard on the Current, and has his own blog (which is way cooler than mine) here

Here’s the review.

“The Other Side of Silence” explores faith, but doesn’t sugarcoat or mythologize it; instead, it’s a story about regular people coming into contact with something transcendent, a story about the God that exists inside every moment of clarity, embrace with a loved one or decision to keep fighting. The novel is heart-warmingly optimistic, but it also pulls no punches; while humanity’s goodness is on display here, that goodness is shining through a brutal, dark-and-dirty realism. Characters deal with racism, poverty, homophobia and oppressions of all kinds, and the sometimes suffocating bleakness only makes the novel’s various spiritual and emotional payoffs all the more satisfying. To top it all off, it’s written with supreme confidence and remarkable lyrical skill; this is an impressive, powerful debut novel.

–Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre, 2-time National Poetry Slam champion

The book can be purchased in print form at CreateSpace, or for the Kindle on Amazon.

Now that I’m no longer pregnant, I feel more comfortable saying that I found pregnancy almost entirely miserable. My pregnancy could be measured in symptoms: First mind-numbing fatigue, second vomiting, third daily migraines, fourth crippling pelvic separation, fifth false (or “practice”) contractions, sixth freaking hives.

Before my pregnancy could end, I had to go through labor and birth. Labor, like pregnancy, gets continually worse before it ends, so the desire to move toward an endpoint is married to the awareness that more pain is coming. I chose to labor and birth naturally, which means I did not use any painkillers. For the majority of my labor, I felt like I could handle it. Even toward the end of active labor when I was crying and shouting during the contractions, I felt that those actions were part of how I was managing the pain. Between contractions I was still calm, serious, and committed to continuing without drugs. The transition between active labor and pushing was one of the most frightening experiences of my life. This is the only part we usually see in the media, when the woman says things she doesn’t mean, makes impossible requests, and shouts at people who are trying to help her. This is what Sylvia Plath described as a “long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor of pain.” Out of 34 hours, this lasted about 2 ½, or so I’m told. When my midwife told me I could start pushing, I felt an immense sense of relief. Now I could do something to move the process forward, I could use my strength, the might of my warrior woman, to end my pain and start my daughter’s life. At the climax, the space in which the highest peaks of agony and joy touch for just a moment, I gave my last push through the ring of fire. I pushed despite the fact that I could feel the pushing breaking me, partly because I chose joy over an absence of pain, and partly because I had no choice.

I was told that I would forget all my discomfort and pain when my baby was born. I did not forget it, but I also don’t regret it. That long, hard ascent to the peak of physical suffering is completely eclipsed by the sheer joy of my daughter’s mere existence. She does not erase the pain; she is the purpose of the pain.

Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus suffered on the cross because of the joy that was waiting for him. That is how I feel about pregnancy and birth. I did not suffer because suffering is a virtuous thing to do. I didn’t suffer because I wanted to be refined into a better person. I didn’t suffer because I have a martyr complex, or to have an excuse to complain for the rest of my life. I chose to suffer for one reason and one reason only; for the joy of being Pearl’s mother.

I have only sobbed for joy twice in my life. The first time was after I walked back down the aisle with my husband on our wedding day. I cherish that moment, when I couldn’t hold all the wonder and beauty inside for another second, and my new husband held me while I trembled and cried for joy. That was a small taste of what it was like to hold my daughter for the first time. She is miraculous in many ways, not least of which is in the simple and unbelievable fact that this complete person had just emerged from my own body. She came when we’d given up hope for children, she came despite my lack of faith in a God who keeps his promises, she came and grew and was healthy in a body that also is growing cancer cells, she came with a name God gave us before her conception. She is a true pearl, emerging from struggle and agony to grace the world with a pure and flawless beauty.

A poem in honor of the third time in my life when my jaw has gotten sore from too much smiling.  The only times I can remember feeling this way before were the day I was healed from a chronic pain that lasted six years, and my wedding day.  Pearl, my lovely baby, reminds me daily how God stupefies my expectations of what he’s willing to do.

Once again you’ve overwhelmed me

with just how good you are.

Once again you’ve given me

a light that defies concealment

a joy as bright and powerful

as obvious as any hurt

I might write or weep about.

Months and years stretch out in doubt

so unaware your wave of joy

is about to crash upon me.

While I hold out my little clay cup

and beg for just another sip-full

“Would that be so very hard?”

You smile and prepare an ocean

that embraces my horizon.

Once again you’ve given me

a joy that widens my perception

of how loyal your love is

how sincere your promise is

how good you really are.

On March 4^th, my husband and I welcomed our beautiful daughter into the world. Because I am totally not above bragging about my kid, here’s a picture of her utter cuteness.

I’m finding that parenting is deeply personal. The way I choose to interact with my child, the values that I emphasize, the behaviors I encourage, the words I use, the type and amount of affection I give, all of those choices come from the core of my being. They are a projected image of my true self. Because I read a great deal and put a lot of stock in education, I will carefully search out articles and books on various aspects of parenting, but that is all just raw data I’ll draw from to make those oh-so-important decisions. The way I choose will still be based on my values and intuition.

Here’s the rub though. Parenting is also done in public. The results of all those deeply personal decisions ends up running around the playground with her very own voice for all to see and evaluate. And because everyone’s parenting is deeply personal, it is just as inevitable that any other parent present would have done something different than I did. If that other parent assumes that the way they interact with their kids is the way to do things, we’re not going to be friends. If I go back and judge them for doing things differently than I do, we get the same result. Which is a shame, really, because if we can both agree to let each other be who we are in how we raise our kids, we can be really helpful to each other.

But it’s hard. In the mom’s group I’m in, we sometimes have to remind each other, which everyone is grateful for. Those women are amazing, and it would be tragic to lose their friendship just because they’re different moms than I am.

Okay, I am aware that it is nearly the end of January, but I didn’t do my yearly hopes/goals and I really like doing that. So for the purposes of this blog, it is still the beginning of the year and people are still talking about what they’d like 2012 to look like. I like to start out looking at least years goals to make sure this isn’t a huge waste of time. So here were my goals for 2011

1. Read 50 books, one of which will be the Bible, and one will be a Russian novel.

In fact, I read 58 books in 2011.  The Bible was one of the books, but unfortunately I was unable to finish the Gogol.  Interestingly, Dead Souls is by far the shortest Russian novel I’ve taken on and the only one I didn’t finish.  Six of the fifty-eight books I did not actually finish, but I didn’t count them unless I read more than half of the whole book. So you can say that I read 52 and six halves if you prefer. This was an incredible experience which probably deserves a blog all it’s own.

2. Go through The Artist’s Way.

I did go through The Artist’s Way with the lovely Kim and ever-so-talented Heidi, and it was awesome.  I learned a lot about my own process and how I was tripping myself up at several points.  I’ve done more writing and enjoyed it a great deal more since going through this course.  I think this in tandem with Jeff Pelletier’s class on finding one’s life purpose (God’s Work In Progress) has revolutionized the way I do what I do, in an entirely positive way.

3. Several goals related to my human trafficking novel.

Ironically, due to the wonderful progress I made on goal #2, I decided to stop working on my human trafficking novel.  I learned that while I believe that raising awareness is a vital and noble endeavor, it is not what I personally love to do.  The novel is complete in most respects, and there is a chance it will show up in the market at some point, but it will not be the intensive nation-wide tour I’d been planning.

4. Complain about other people less.

I do think I complain about people less than I did, although I could still get a lot better at it.

5. Have sex 365 times.

Oh, wouldn’t you like to know? (Typed by a woman now eight months pregnant who can’t tie her own shoes).

The real irony in last years goals is that it was the first year in three that I declined to even write down that I was trying to get pregnant or published, both of which came to pass in the great year of 2011.  In 2012, my daughter will be born and my first novel will be released, and I could not be happier.  Not even a little bit.

Choosing goals for this year feels kind of wonky, if only because I have no idea what my life will look like eight weeks from now.  After some serious thought, I’ve decided to write down the things that I hope to cling to even with the upcoming major life changes.  Here goes.

1.  Take a sabbath every week.  I’ve been doing this consistently for two years now, and I really believe it makes my life dramatically better than it was before I started.  I think it’s a good example to set for my child.  I don’t know exactly what a sabbath looks like with a baby in the house, but I’m willing to figure it out.

2.  Have a date night every week.  Yep, you heard me.  There are those who laughed at me when I said I was going to start having date nights while my husband was in school, but we managed 50 dates in 52 weeks.  Although I already love my daughter immensely, and I imagine actually seeing her will only increase that feeling, my husband will always be the most important person in my life.  I intend to treat him accordingly.

3.  Exercise at least three times a week.  I really hope to start P90X again once I’m recovered from giving birth and thyroid surgery, but I will consider the year a success if I work out three times a week.

4.  Write 500 new words five days a week.

5.  Sell 10,000 books.  That seems like a nice round number.

There we go.  Wish me luck!

Trying out this video blog thing again, this time talking about the inspiration behind “The Other Side of Silence,” coming out soon on Kindle!

My first attempt at a video blog. I thought something new and exciting would be an appropriate way to announce that my novel, The Other Side of Silence, is coming out on Kindle!

Pregnancy began as a strange phenomena in a body I understood very well. I could tell what was happening, what was changing, because I was very familiar with the functions and feelings of this body I live in. We’ve become good friends over the years, and lived in a wonderful harmony until recently.

As the pregnancy has progressed, my understanding of my body has blurred and now feels completely lost. I looked at myself in the mirror the other day and recognized nothing. The way my body aches and moans is completely incomprehensible to me. My body wants foods I don’t like, refuses things I love, tires without warning, hurts without discernible reason. My vision is literally blurred, requiring me to wear glasses all day, making my own reflection even less familiar. My legs, once so muscular and capable, now flatly refuse to carry me with any grace. But mostly, my hips are bent out of their natural shape and no longer perform their intended function. The pain this causes makes a major obstacle of tasks like walking and sleeping.

Since I really don’t want to live like that for three more months, I sought the help of a chiropractor. I do not love doctors, but I love this woman. She slid her hands over my bent bones and swollen muscles and made sense of them. When I’d given up on my body, planned to just wait this alien period out and hope it snapped back into place later, this doctor categorized and defined what was happening with each joint and bone.

The pain and swelling is not entirely gone after her first session of ministrations, but it is much improved. More than that though, I have a little hope that my body is still in here somewhere. I might understand her again, at least a little bit. And really, I want to understand her, especially now. Now when she is completing her most magnificent work.