My Own Personal Louise

Back in June, I wrote about longing for Louise to come save me from the piles of un-done and dis-organized and un-made that seemed to be looming in on me from every angle in our little house. I was experiencing a longing for someone to come help me figure out what to do with all this stuff that we accumulate and then haul around with us. In this case, I'm talking about physical stuff - old bills and bedding, letters and linen - though I'm sure my frustration with the messy build-up in my house is also frustration with the mess and difficulty of my life lately.

I have thought about Louise often since then. She has also come to represent the ability to ask for - and accept - help. I've been lucky in the last months to have a few real-life Louises come and help me. My friend Julie, who called me up shortly after the miscarriage and said, "I have a light week. Can I come and be your Louise?" And then she came and vacuumed my house and folded laundry and returned videos and library books. My parents, whose fun beginning-of-vacation visit turned into trauma-support. My mother-in-law, who made an impromptu visit for two days last week, took Elan to the park more times than I can count (his nursery school was closed for vacation), and helped me reorganize my linen closet. This kind of help is such an amazing gift. It gives me a boost of energy and makes me feel not alone even when the day is difficult. It is the kind of help I imagine people used to engage in more often, when families lived in the same town and communities were more cohesive. It is the kind of help I would like to offer more too.

Louise has also become a metaphor for me, a way to think about a certain kind of energy that I know I have inside but that is sometimes difficult to locate. I love to be organized, and yet I am slow and methodical when it comes to getting organized. I keep things too freely and find culling them difficult. The nice thing about Louise, though, is that I can call on her when I am ready for her (today she came for a few hours and made nice progress on the guest room closet), and when she's not around, I don't beat myself up about that. Louise is out on vacation, I tell myself. I imagine her sipping a mai tai on a Hawaiian beach, and I shut the closet door behind me.

Sometimes All A Boy Needs

Is his dada and a big old bowl of mac & cheese.

Elan's been a picky eater pretty much since he entered toddler-hood, but about once a day he'll surprise us and tuck into a meal with gusto. It's always a crapshoot what that meal will turn out to be, and many times it's been crackers in the car instead of something at least marginally more nutritious.

Both Mikhail and I seeded our fair share of bad-eater karma when we were little, so it's no surprise that we have to deal with Elan giving it back to us. I famously subsisted mainly on apple juice for some unspecified period of time when I was a toddler (family friends insist I smelled like apples for months). Mikhail required foods to be blended, refused key ingredients, freaked out if items touched other items, and had very specific aversions to texture (Elan especially takes after him in this respect).

Mainly our parents are sympathetic, but occasionally they like to laugh at our plight. 

Zero is My Favorite Number

Since my miscarriage, a negative HCG level (signified by a big fat ZERO result from my blood test) is the best news I could hope for. And yesterday I got it.

000000000000000000!

Yeah!

Aren't I articulate?

Now I wait a month between blood tests, which are to make sure the level stays at zero. There's a lot of different information out there about how long you should wait before trying to conceive again after a partial molar pregnancy. So much different research and so many different conclusions being drawn by different people. My doctor generally favors the six-month wait, and since that's the timeframe I've managed to wrap my head around, that continues to be my working assumption. My doctor has started to show some signs of flexibility with that number, and I'm not sure if I will enquire more about that or leave it be. I know myself well enough to know that, given any tiny kernel of doubt, I will worry needlessly during another pregnancy. And I assume I'll be worrying enough during my next pregnancy without adding in fear of developing cancer to the list. 

I also feel like my recovery, physical and emotional, is taking time, and I want to allow myself to take that time. I want to be pregnant again, but I don't want to rush the processing of this loss, which has been a real loss for me requiring its own grieving process. I'm not going to say more about that right now. I will, at a later date, once I feel my thoughts more formulated and my energy higher (today I am sleepy after a very productive week).

I finish off the week with a picture of my beautiful and intense boy, who will be waking soon from his nap.

Colorado Part II

I am feeling totally uncreative after a very busy & blessedly productive day, but I feel the need to post a few more pictures of Colorado. So bear with me and enjoy the toddler eye candy.

Bubsy happily surprised by the bubbling water-play fountain on Pearl Street in Boulder.

Add a balloon and it gets even better.

Elan is very into older women these days, such as his cousin Molly, who he adored.

Elan and doggie pass out in the backseat.

Go Here.

I'm going to take a break from sorting through my stack of medical bills to tell you I really loved Steamboat Springs, Colorado. So much so that, when we were there, I found myself perusing real estate listings, a habit of mine when I find a place where I *could* imagine myself living. I have no plans to move anywhere anytime soon, but this is a sweet place to visit.

Reasons to go (summer version):

#1: They have aspen trees. My favorite.

#2: Hot air balloon rodeo. I believe that's actually two separate things that just happen together, not that anyone's up in the air leaning out of a swinging basket to try to rope himself a giant flaming balloon.

Early-morning balloon sighting.

#3: Who can resist pretty nature?

#4: They have brother-in-laws who feed you lots of yummy food and wine. Well, I suppose you have to bring your own. 

#5: Lots of hot springs. The main springs in town have been made into a gorgeous rec center with a lap pool, several kiddo play areas, warm and hot pools, and a water slide. Since Elan is also a fan of water-therapy (it both tires him out and relaxes him - a wonderful combination as any parent of a 2.5-year-old will attest), we visited several times. They also have Strawberry Hot Springs in a more natural setting out in a beautiful river gorge. Elan wasn't so sure about these, but we adults loved them, and he eventually got comfortable with the hint-of-sulphur water and the mossy rocks.

#6: Hanging out and being a family. My parents rented a great condo (found by Jason & Laura) where we all stayed so we got to do things like play marathon games of Settlers of Catan (anyone in Berkeley want to come over for a game?) while bubs was napping. And there was a hot tub on the deck, for more water therapy.

Kickin' it family style at Strawberry Hot Springs.

Thank you Nana & Babu!

From The Thick Of It

What, you think a writer's blog should include WORDS? Picky, picky.

I haven't been writing publicly much because what to say? The question I've mostly had from friends and family members is How are you doing? And the answer is it's complicated.

Elan has a book that I love reading him called My Many-Colored Days. It's all about moods, very appropriate for a toddler. Some days we feel "happy pink. It's great to jump and just not think." But then there are the brown days, the purple days, and, of course, the black days: "I howl, I growl, at every cloud." Lately my days encompass a rich variety of colors, tending more than I'd like toward the gray, brown, and black spectrum. The bright end of the rainbow is not so well represented, though I do have times where I feel quite fine, relatively energetic and able to deal with the little and big mishaps of life. And then there are the other times, when I feel like I'm barely holding it together, whatever *it* is.

We writers hope to write about a specific experience an essay that teases out the details, gleans the essence of the experience, and then knits it back together with some kind of universal truth or lesson at the end. In order to write this kind of essay, one needs some psychic distance from the experience. 

My blog posts are clearly NOT this kind of essay. I have no distance, emotional or physical, from the events that have recently turned my life upside-down. I am still dealing with the sometimes startling physical effects of the miscarriage and partial molar pregnancy. I am still going to the doctor for ultrasounds (tomorrow) and getting blood draws to check my hormone level (sometime this week). I am still in the thick of it, and it's difficult from this vantage point to even understand my own reactions and feelings, much less try to impart them to others. If you talk to me on the phone, depending on the moment, I either sound completely normal or like a total mess. Rarely am I somewhere in between, though sometimes I try to hold off the mess part until I get off the phone, or Elan goes to bed. It's just not always an appropriate time or place to break down into tears.

Writing that last sentence makes me laugh though, because I have been pushing the boundaries that my previous self would have respected when it comes to appropriate places to cry. On Saturday, it was at the gym: locker room, sauna, steam room, and most impressive of all - in the pool while doing laps. And yes, it was difficult to breathe. My goggles got all fogged up, but I figured no one could hear a sob underwater. I was subtle about it; no one seemed to notice, or at least they didn't look twice if they did. This is Berkeley, after all. But what choice do I have? Some days, thankfully not the majority, I just can't stop crying. But life has to go on. I have to get my exercise. There's a tiger inside me, and he has to be walked. When he doesn't get his walk, he starts clawing at his cage, and it's not pretty. (When I shared this thought with Mikhail, he wondered why the tiger was male. It just is.)

And so, I write to you from the thick of it. These blog posts will not be prettily finished-off. They will likely not impart universal truths or little jewels of wisdom. They will be ragged and raw, seams showing, hems with pins still sticking out of them. Just like my days. I move carefully, trying not to prick myself.

Still Shaggy

From the most recent pre-haircut days.

I swear we don't try to get him to look so serious for pictures. He's just not one of those kids who generally breaks into a big grin for the camera. He will sometimes pose for pictures now when he's in the mood. But it's more fashion-model moody than "Say Cheese!"

What can I say? My kid is deep.