Does That Make Me a Grandma?

Okay, off the bat, no. This has nothing to do with Corey. This is all about one Fynnie Fynn.

Do you remember her traumatic poop incident? Happened in early July, took 'til September to recover. And many dietary changes. And put potty training, which I was so sure was going to be a breeze, on hold.

By mid-October things were really looking up.

Two weeks ago the signs were clearly present, she was ready to potty train again, right before my week off at Thanksgiving. Only we weren't staying home for Thanksgiving. 

A seven hour drive just really doesn't mesh well with potty training.

Fynnie is such a sensitive child. I don't think this is such a bad thing, generally. It has caused me to stretch and grow (okay, yes, and groan).

Unlike her traumatic poop incident, this time I do not know what happened.

I think maybe she connects using the potty with the stress, pain and strain of this summer. But she was the one asking to use the potty recently.

Whatever it was, she quit pooping again. For four to five days at a time.

She went on Monday and then nothing all week during our little vacation up in the Bay Area.

The vacation? 

Unfortunately, the girls didn't often get the two things they need when they needed them. You know, food and sleep.

On the up side, it was better than this summer's trip to Boston in that I only spent about half the time in a darkened room with the girls. Plus, this room's curtains still let a little light in. Said room had a very nice seating area reasonably separate from where the girls were sleeping, too.  And my new phone kept me connected to the rest of the world longer than five minutes at a time.

But unlike Boston, where I attended a wedding and had a brief walking tour of downtown, this time my excursions included a girls' night out with my friend who lives nearby (thank you!), two walks in a shopping center, one of which was during normal business hours. One happy trip to the park (that ended with Madelyn having a meltdown). One very tense trip to the same park (that ended with Madelyn having a major meltdown) after I declined taking the girls to a different park about 35 miles away when no one else could get themselves ready to go for the day until it was the girls' lunchtime.

Did you know lunchtime comes right before nap time? No? Then, like the rest of Tom's family you are either the parents of adults, the parents of your first infant or childless. For the record, I do not expect any of them to automatically understand our girls' needs. However, both of their parents should know this. And the one who is actually related should grow a pair feel comfortable speaking up. It's not even remotely like Tom's family is a pack of wolves. They would understand if they knew. *ohm*

Oh, and we also had a lovely meal on Thanksgiving at Matt and Sarah's, after which everyone but Fynnie and I went for a three hour walk. Why stay back? Because the girls hadn't napped yet, since the meal was scheduled to start at 2:00. True to form for Tom's family, it actually started about 90 minutes later, which means they could have slept.

That tense trip to the park? That was yesterday. It was awesome. Between Mad's meltdown, Fynnie's obvious discomfort and Tom and I searching different parts of the sky for the answers to life's persistent questions... well, I'm glad it was yesterday. After the park, we went back and put the girls down for their nap. Tom and I worked on a little 160 piece puzzle together, solving it almost silently in record time.

Last night we joined the family at this fabulous vegetarian/vegan restaurant. They were very nice and didn't seem at all put off about our party having two littles and a wee bebe. The servers engaged Madelyn and talked with Baby Zoe. They would have included Fynnie but she was only up for being held by Mama.

Dinner was amazing. Seriously, if I could get vegan food like this regularly, I would give up meat in a heartbeat.

The restaurant? Tiny, but very hip.

Since they have do have one highchair, there's a sense that the occasional kidlet does come into the joint.

You know what they probably don't usually get?

A toddler, no longer able to delay the inevitable, using vocalizations... LOUD grunts and gasps while clawing at my shoulders and crying... as she pushed out something unholy that made the back side of her heinie seem to grow by three or four inches.

The upside? Fynnie usually declares, "I'm pooping!" This time? No. But in case people had any doubts about what had just transpired, she did announce, "I want you cwean ma diapah!"

Oh, and me? Yeah, I was the one cheering her on the whole time. Rubbing her back, kissing her sweaty head, giving a big thumbs up and goofy grin to the rest of my table mates. And in case that wasn't clear enough for them? I added, "Successs!"

The single restroom in the joint was occupied (I have my doubts we'd find a changing table anyway), so I carried Fynnie out to my car and changed her in the cargo area.

Right in front of the little Prius that was parked just a few feet behind us.

With a couple that, only moments before, could not keep their hands off one another.

I'm pretty sure they were parked close enough that they couldn't see around me. But I know they quit hanging around and left right after I double-bagged that diaper.

This morning all of Tom's family gathered in the hotel lobby where we stayed and hung out before heading off in separate directions.

Fynnie ate more than she had the entire trip.

About 90 minutes into our drive home she started fussing about having "booboo for you booboo," which is our rather long pet name for nursing. It was almost lunchtime, so Tom pulled off at the next stop. I brought Fynnie into the front seat with me while Tom took Mad in to get lunch.

Not long into it, I realized that Fynnie was acting very similar to last night. I sat her up and held her with her bottom hanging between my legs.

Again I cheered and rubbed and smooched while she sweated and grunted and pushed. Again, her diaper grew by several inches. When I went to change her, however, I found that things had stopped coming out simply because there was no more room. Using the diaper, I pulled while she finished pushing. Seriously, it was like performing a poopectomy.

As I was about to close up her new diaper, I realized that we hadn't gotten everything. So, with her half-naked body not quite fitting across the front passenger seat of my car, I again cheered her onto victory.

It was like delivering twins.

In other news, I am looking forward to having a vacation that feels like a vacation. Some day.

"How Did You Get Through It?"

That was what my very pregnant friend, Maija, asked me the other day.

It was when Madelyn went into the neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU, after she was born.

It came up because Maija is recently home from a nearly three week stay in the hospital, where she and the doctors successfully stopped her twin daughters from arriving two months early.  Now home and just under four weeks away from her due date (and less than two from when the doctors would be happy for them to arrive), emotions float just under the surface.

"How did you get through it?  I don't know how I could do it.  How could I leave them at the hospital and just walk away?  I don't think I could.  I mean, how did you?"

As I listened to Maija, my immediate response was, "I was very strong.  I did what I had to do.  You will, too."

But as she spoke I remembered wanting answers to those questions.  Over four years later, I remember them like yesterday.  That line of questioning is, plain and simple, unnecessary self-abuse.  It's as if the very act of leaving the hospital without your child is the first act of bad parenting you are carrying out.  Abandonment at the very outset of this mommy and me relationship.


What kind of mother does that?  I asked myself that question a lot before I walked out of the hospital without Madelyn.


Oh, I was terribly hard on myself.  Pretty sure I'm not the only one who has felt that way.  Of course we know that it is healthier for some babies to stay in the hospital, in those damned plastic boxes.

Beyond the questions about how to get over that incredibly high hurdle, there was the matter of getting through every minute between birth and going home.

When it came to actually answering Maija's question, I gave her the truth as I now see it.

I handled it like a crazy person.  I did.  I smiled and nodded every time the nurse came to let me know that, no, Madelyn still wasn't stabilized, but they'd let me know as soon as she was.

"No, spending some time on oxygen didn't quite work like we'd hoped.  The neonatalogist will be in to speak with you and your husband soon.  We might be able to let you see her and hold her in the nursery before she is transferred to NICU."

"Here's a photo I just took of your daughter (covered in wires and tape and little gold heart shaped stickers).  She's beautiful.  I don't say that to everyone.  Sometimes I just say, "Whoa, hey, it's a baby!"  Hopefully we'll get you over to see her soon.  You won't be able to hold her, but you might be able to touch her foot.  Hopefully."

The crazy person in me came out smiling and full of energy and trying to act like everything was fine.  It was fine and I was fine and I could do it my own self, thank you very much.

What did I do after 36 hours of labor, including more than three at 8+ centimeters, and delivering an 8 pound 3 ounce broad-shouldered baby?  I walked from Labor and Delivery to my new room in Maternity.  Carrying some of the rather obnoxious quantities of personal belongings we'd schlepped to the hospital.

Other nurses protested as my nurse and I passed their station.  If I could have worn a top hat and tap shoes, I would have jazz handed my way from one department to the next.

"She should be in a wheelchair!  Why is she carrying her things?"

And there I was, smiling and waving, even laughing a little at them, "I feel great.  It's okay.  I can  do this."

And clearly, I could.  Some of why I could had to do with giving birth naturally and all the amazing things a body does for a woman whose just given birth.  But a lot of it was just me literally putting one foot in front of the other.  Getting through this minute while I tried to come up with a plan for the next one.

Away from the nurses and doctors, I let my true feelings out.  Breaking down on the phone to my aunt in Wisconsin because no one else was available.

Tom was with Madelyn, where he belonged.

My mom and Corey had gone to her house to sleep off the all-nighter they'd just pulled with me.  They left before we knew how serious the problem was.

Nancy, who left the same all night labor along with Mom and Corey, went and picked up her husband and took him on what turned out to be his last trip sailing until his ashes were buried at sea the following year.

Honestly, it has only just occurred to me that I could have used that energy to go be with my daughter and husband.  Isn't it strange how the brain works?  Why didn't I get that?

The other thing about having this experience with Madelyn is that it never goes fully away.  No, I don't sit around silently weeping about it.  I don't wake up in the middle of the night catching my breath.  I don't even think about it often.

But if I read or hear a story about someone going through a similar situation (or worse... and we got off comparatively easy, so the stories are worse), the memories come and tears will probably flow.  The feelings of that time are right there.

Back when my water had broken with Fynn and Tom pulled our car up to the hospital, my mood made a sudden shift from giddy to somber.


This was the place where we left our first daughter.

Apparently I am not alone in carrying these thoughts and emotions.  Maija recently witnessed something that brought back the equally traumatic experience of the birth of her first daughter.  She and her husband contained themselves because that's what people do, and because their young daughters were with them.  And also because the father was standing next to them in the hall as his wife was raced down the hall for an emergency C-section, and who wants to be the jackass who falls apart in front of him?

Having read hundreds of birth stories with happy and sad endings, I am fully aware that four days in NICU is hardly anything at all.  And coming home isn't guaranteed.  I'm sure Maija knows that emergency C-sections happen all the time, and that they don't always end with a beautiful child to raise.

We get it.

All the same, it's pretty safe to say that the births of our first daughters were some of the most difficult times of our lives.  I am amazed at how emotionally tied to that experience I am more than four years later.  I probably will always be.