genesis

The end of one year has come and gone and what a year! Last year's word for the year for us was "Move" and that is what we did: my Sonshine rolled over, reached out, began to crawl, stood up, toppled over, and eventually began to walk and then toddle. Now he is on the verge of running his little heart out as I chase him around the kitchen every night, something he loves.

And, of course, we had our own epic "Move": from my rural home of the past decade to a new, old farmhouse (only slightly younger than the old, older one) in an urban setting this time.

Yes, last year was definitely the year for moving. And this year, I am moving on ~ onward, ho!

This year, I've chosen my Word of the Year to be "breathe/breath": as in take a breather, step back and breathe, stop and smell the flowers, take a breath before speaking (integral for me because I tend to blurt out my emotions without thinking or taking time to formulate what I'll say or recognize how my words might affect the listener(s)). I want to focus on getting back into yoga again and more regularly. After the harriedness and chaos of last year's monumental changes, my focus this year will be to close my eyes, take a deep breath, relax and trust myself, my instincts with each step forward.

I have also made this particular word choice for the year to focus on finding my breath deep within and by that I mean discovering my voice in my writing and further, in the storytelling I do via my photography, something I equally wish to kindle as a growing project on the side of the work I do to pay the mortgage. I continue to play with various photography projects on my current flickr photostream. This year it is my fervent hope to really let my creativity spark and see how high and hot its flame can grow. Like Gordo sings it, I'm trying to get into things more happy than blue. Hope you'll join me as my journey continues...

To that end, I have begun a new photography blog: Lenstrel. The title is one I've coined based on the definition of a minstrel: a traveling entertainer who recites poetry and sings folk songs. With my photography blog, I intend each photo to be its own poem in a way, and I will include music that inspires or complements the photos I share, along with a short, creative writing blurb at times (at other times I will let the photo tell its own story).

I turned another year older last Friday and this particular year I feel like I have been reborn in more ways than one! So 'breath' is definitely an apropos word for this new year as I feel I am taking my first real breath after a long period of stress and upheaval. I look forward now to the new year that stretches out before me and feel excitement (and some nervous anticipation) about all the changes it promises.

locks curling with (nervous) excitement

One impending change will be my return to work after almost two years off to give birth and raise my Sonshine. So I am cherishing these days we have left together but I know he will thrive in a busier learning environment than I have been able to provide alone with him. His mind is a sponge right now and absorbs every little thing. He will love the busy routine of the days ahead. And the plan is to have atleast 6 weeks off (paid!) each summer as he is growing so this will not be the end of our free time together, thankfully. We hope to travel, camp and I intend to delve more than spare time into my writing and photography once the days grow warmer.

I want to wish everyone out there one magical 2011.

And remember to BREATHE! :)

Music: Gordon Lightfoot, Minstrel of the Dawn

Dia de la Madre

It's indescribable. But I'll try writing this post, anyhow...

For a long time now, my family has gathered together for a Mother's Day brunch. It was really to honour our mother. But for many years, it was a gathering I would dread. I hated going. After losing one baby, then trying trying trying for a number of years for another, then losing a second baby six years after the first baby...

Well, I'm sure you can imagine. It was a bit painful to be out for brunch where I was literally surrounded by mothers being celebrated and motherhood, the focus of the day. Everywhere I looked there were mothers and their little children, flowers and laughter and smiles and, best of all, homemade cards from their little ones.

I bit my lip, my tongue, tried to swallow my envy down with the pancakes and syrup, but it would just get stuck in my throat and I'd go home, curl up in bed and cry myself asleep into my pillow.

Eventually, I had to tell my parents I wouldn't be attending the family Mother's Day brunch. I just couldn't do it. I made a point of going separately to my mom's and giving her a card and gift that morning or the day before. They both understood my decision.

Last year was the first time in many years I attended the brunch. I was so round and ready to burst, literally as I would give birth three days following Mother's Day. I felt safe celebrating it a little early.

But today. Today was my very first official Mother's Day as a mommy finally. There was snow on the ground this morning. This, after record temperatures in April reaching 25 degree, summer-like weather.  On the drive to meet my family, the sky was full of fluffy, white clouds. And I thought that is just what my heart feels like today: bright, white, fluffy, weightless, glorious, breathtaking. Like a cloud without rain. Like a cloud whose precipitation is pure and white and falls slowly and gently and quietly on a May morning such as this.

How do I properly put it into words just how I feel this day? Nursing him this morning, I made sure the tears that flowed down my cheeks didn't hit the soft curls of his hair. Tears of relief. Of pure ecstasy. Of longed for Joy. Tears for the babies I'd lost. Tears for the baby I found. The baby I have now. Smiles and tears.

I overhear people bemoaning parenthood all the time. Rolling their eyes in collusion over the burden it sometimes is, and according to some, often is, as though it is more often than not. And even as a parent now, I remain in mute astonishment towards this attitude. I wonder if I will ever get to a stage where I take this gift for granted? This amazing gift bestowed and entrusted to me. To parent the child I have. Would I, too, be one of these nodding, winking people had I not endured such a battle to have my child? Would I, even if I'd had the struggle I've had, if my baby had been colicky, not so easy, not so perfect as he's been? I admit I have a hard time imagining me ever taking this gift for granted after all the years of wanting it for so long and dreaming of it and hoping for it and having those hopes dashed time and time again.
People say, "you must be tired." "You look exhausted." And I know I do. I am tired somedays. But it's a happy tired. It's a "I'm so goddamn lucky" tired. I wouldn't trade it for all the sleep in the world. People say, "it must be hard on your own." But I know, having lived both sides now: I would rather be alone with this gift of a child, than be with somebody without this gift. If I only had those two options, I know which one I would choose. Have chosen.

I am so lucky lucky lucky. I know so many women who have struggled with infertility. Who still do. Who have had one or more IVFs in their struggle and whose IVF surgeries failed in some way. The fact that mine worked on my first attempt, resulting in the birth of my beautiful Sonshine, is unfathomable to me after all the years of failed attempts and despair, loss of hope.

This day. To celebrate this day, finally! I cannot describe it. But I will say, it feels like heaven. And I am over the moon this day.

Today, before leaving for brunch. I caught a gift outside my front window: a very pregnant robin perched on the wooden stoop in the snow. A sign, perhaps. A message...

Happy, Happy Mother's Day.

Showered with Love: Celebrating 9 Months

Just a brief little note today. I've got three agents coming to the farmhouse on the weekend and into next week, just to give me a sense of its value and some tips on what I can do in preparation for putting it up for sale so as to maximize the asking price. I hope to have it up for sale by the end of March at the latest, if not earlier. (I sigh as I type that. A sigh of melancholy. A sigh of relief, too. I know it's the right decision for us both.) Yesterday, I could smell Spring in the air, even though it was snowing...

Frontierswoman gatherin' her firewood.

My son has now turned 9 months old. I cannot believe he is almost one year! He is as old now as the time he spent growing in my womb. Two different worlds, altogether, but our bond is the same. It is surreal to think back when I carried him in my belly. The absolute JOY of that! I never thought I'd get to know it.

Diabolical cuteness. Mwahahaha.

The day my mother and sisters held my shower was Sunday, May 3, 2009. My twin sister (who was also my birth partner) did all the preparations herself and, with my mom, helped me clean my farmhouse that morning while I waddled around trying to assist them. What would I have done without them? My twin sister actually handcrafted about 100 birds for the special day. She not only printed them and tied them together, but she's a graphic designer, so she designed each beautiful, intricate pattern on them herself. WOW.

More William Morris than Alfred Hitchcock.

Pre baby shower.

This room was a former studio space I had renovated into a bedroom for myself and my new baby, so we could share some mama-baby space for a while on the main floor of the farmhouse, conveniently closer to laundry and kitchen.

 

(I know Ciara, my Irish blogger friend from Milkmoon, will appreciate my apron lampshade - something I threw over the lamp to soften the light - and the Burton print from the National Gallery of Ireland, Meeting on the Turret Stairs, which portrays a bit of a tragic love story.)

Post baby shower. Birds and gifts galore!

We are now in our separate bedrooms upstairs, of course, but this is the room in which I did all my nesting, preparing for the arrival of my sweet child. There was a lot of love put into this room. And the day of the shower, a lot of birds flew around rejoicing. It was as though I had my own winged messengers foretelling the coming of the birth of my son. He was born about a week later...the happiest day of my life (thus far).

cake at my shower: robin with nest
(this photo and cake courtesy of my twin sister and birth partner)

The next big family birthday celebration is for one of my brothers who will turn the big 5-0 in April. After which, I'll be thinking about a very special cake for the following month. By then I trust my home will be sold and I'll be in that in-between stage just preparing to move without the stress of still having the house on the market. In May, I hope to still be here at the farmhouse to celebrate my son's first birthday party. My plan is to move by June 1st, if it all goes smoothly. I can't believe that is only 3 months away.

It will fly, like all the birds in the room of his first waking memories...

Music: Lullaby Mountain, The Acorn

Blue Moon

Tonight is the final day of the best year I've experienced in my life thus far. I thought 2008 was pretty great. I'd spent some of it loving a (new) special someone. I spent the last part of it planning for my own special someone and realizing that dream via In Vitro Fertilization surgery. The fact that the surgery was successful on its first attempt was mindblowing and 2008 ended feeling the kick of a baby inside me that December for the very first time in my life (fourth pregnancy, first kick).

2009. Now there's a year that will be tough to beat. Hard to imagine topping the joy of experiencing the burgeoning of an unexpected (though hoped for) pregnancy and the elation of pushing your first child between your legs out into the world after you believed for more than a decade that you were infertile...2009 was one damned good year.

But that doesn't mean I'm not optimistic. I think 2010 promises a plethora of wonder and laughter and joy yet to come in my life thanks to my beautiful, blossoming son.

He's asleep right now in his crib, arms curled around the little, white, fluffy bunny one of his aunts gave him. There is a roaring fire in the woodstove and I'm getting ready to open a tiny bottle of bubbly and drop a couple of blackberries into the glass. At around 11:45 p.m., I will lift him silently out of his crib and try to keep him asleep while I dress him in his snowsuit. Then I'm going to wrap us both up and take him out onto the back deck for when midnight strikes so we can keep the pines company and get a clear glimpse of the moon.

See, tonight, on this very special New Year's Eve, a blue moon will be shining brightly, illluminating the start of 2010. And you know what they say about blue moons. They only come around once in a...well, you know. A blue moon happens when there are two full moons in one calendar month. But it's pretty rare for them to happen on New Year's Eve. That's about once in a generation.

The last time there was a blue moon on a New Year's Eve, I was 23 years old, just about to turn 24. Another decade had begun. It was December of 1990. The following year would be pretty damn special itself:  the summer of '91, I get lost on my own in the fog for hours on the Southwest coast of Ireland and this mystical experience affects me greatly; my outlook, my spirit, my future. That same summer, I head to England to study Yeats and Other Irish Poets as well as Modern British Drama at Cambridge University towards my English degree back home. It's the last time I see my Aunt Rita alive and spend time with her. That autumn, I finally begin the degree I truly want to pursue (Drama) and as winter nears, I meet my first love. Like I say, 1991 held some extraordinarily special moments. I was still so young, still figuring out my life the last time a blue moon happened on New Year's Eve. I still had my whole life ahead of me, so to speak.

I'm hoping I still have a good chunk of life ahead of me now. Haven't figured it out yet, but I'm winging it as I go and enjoying myself. And tonight feels extra special.

We're having a quiet New Year's, my son and I. I just wanted to share it alone with him. In this old farmhouse that I'll be sad to leave but must come spring.

Ending my marriage almost 3 years ago was the first of several monumental changes that have happened since in my life; becoming a mother not being the least, but the greatest, in every respect.

The next time a blue moon occurs on New Year's Eve, it will be 2028. My son will be 19 years old. I doubt he'll be spending that particular New Year's with me, but I know what I'll be doing. I'll be remembering tonight, the last time there was a blue moon, a second full moon, in the calendar month of December. The night of our first New Year's together. The night I held him as ma wee 7 1/2 month old laddie in my arms. The night I bundled him up against the cold and the snow and we strolled outside to gaze up at the rural sky above the farmhouse that was his first home (and mine).

And I'll be happy to remind him that the exuberant brightness of the full moon that night was still dull in comparison to the sonshine that he is, lighting up my arms and my heart and my soul and my life the way he has and, I'm sure, will continue to for many years to come. Yes, I think 2010 promises to be one amazing year! Though, with all the candles I have lit in this farmhouse, 2010 may never hold a candle to how wondrous 2009 was for me. Still, it may yet prove me wrong. ;)

At least this New Year's Eve, I can smile and truthfully sing,
Blue Moon, now I'm no longer alone...
without a dream in my heart,
without a love of my own...

Happy New Year, everyone!

All the best of health and happiness to you and yours in 2010...

Maternity Photography: Mattitude Photography
Music: Blue Moon, Ella Fitzgerald

Fireworks

Here’s what I’ve learned:
Things don’t always go as planned.

You dream of a homebirth. Of candles. Of soft music. The presence of strong, empowering women helping you through this, your first labour.

You surround yourself with them: there’s your midwife, your twin sister as your birth partner (the kind of strong woman who’s been through two homebirths already herself), your mum is there in the picture you’re making and she’s smiling, anxious but beaming. You are lucky enough to have your massage therapist offer to attend just for the experience of helping a woman through labour. You have four goddesses aiding you, touching you, whispering their love and encouragement while you descend into your belly and what lies there...

These beautiful faces surround you and walk you from room to room. They help you breathe through contractions that begin to grow closer together. That begin to grow more intense.

And then your water breaks and there’s meconium in it.
Here’s where things change from this pretty picture you’ve made…

There is zero hesitation on your part to transfer to hospital. Zero. Absolutely zilch.

Your sister battles traffic like she’s Mcgyver. Your massage therapist helps you through the stages of 6 cm dilation weaving through Wellington county in the back seat of a Toyota Tercel. She takes a photo of the license plate of the asshole who refuses to let us pass as we speed to the hospital. You watch the clouds, biting your lip and try to count them as you breathe through the sensation of having your uterus squeezed through a wringer.

Your thoughts are only on this baby within you and the journey she or he is making with you. To you. And your thoughts turn to meconium. You try to repress those ones though. They’re not helping your current sitch.

I want to talk about bravery. Courage. I’ve never seen so much of it in such a small, beautiful package. You are now 7cm dilated and been labouring for 16 hours and the pushing reflex has begun a little too early and you’re being told not to push. Don’t push. DON'T push. Don’t fucking PUUUUUSSSSSSSSHHHHHH.

It seems so small. Negligible. Three tiny centimetres of dilation separate this baby from me and my arms. It’s then I realize I don’t have the energy or stamina to handle what’s coming ‘cause what is coming is the most intense phase of labour: TRANSITION. I cave to an epidural. Naturally pitocin follows. And then the heart rate of this little package inside me begins to slow. It fluctuates, drops, then stabilizes. They flip me over back and forth like I’m a dolphin to get it back to normal. I’m thinking about waves. About each contraction as a wave. As water. Approaching the shore and then sliding away from it.

And I’m thinking about you. Only you.

Your heart rate drops and I begin to hum “dream a little dream” and watch it stabilize. I’m talking to you the entire time. I am whispering to you while 10 people wander around me: my homebirth team, doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists. I’m oblivious to anyone in the room but you – yeah, you there in my belly. You are my entire focus. You are the only one that matters.

The doctor suggests forceps and I just want to end the stress on my baby. To no longer have this little heart rate drop. Come out to me baby. Come out to my arms. The doc pulls and I push. I PUUUUSSSSSSSSHHHH.

My sister gives me the running commentary like she’s Ron Maclean: There’s the HEAD!!! The HEAD is OUT!!! Here comes the shoulder. Now the other shoulder...

And here’s where I give my final push and the absolute love of my life slithers from between my legs. They’re holding you upside down because of the meconium scare. The first thing I see is that you are a boy.

I have just given birth to my son. People are talking all around. I can’t hear them. My son. My son. My son. I have a son. I have a boy. A son. He’s mine. He’s all mine.

I have to wait to hold you. They suction your trachea and give me five minutes with you skin to skin. You are almost 10 minutes old when they place you against my breast.

So THIS is what Joy feels like. Shit, I wasn’t ready for it. I didn’t realize it was THIS all-encompassing. I feel humbled. Blown away. Breathless. I feel exhilarated and frightened. I remember this sensation while lost in the fog on the coast of the Dingle Peninsula 18 years ago. I feel a terrifying LOVE. Deeper than I’ve ever felt. WOW. Wowowowowowow. A terrible beauty is born....

We spend almost a week in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the local hospital. I move through this week sleep-deprived, like a zombie. Everything I do, say, breathe is done for you. I make pacts with gods I didn’t know I believed in. I double pinky promise everything so you’ll be okay. We are surrounded by preemies barely clinging to life, screaming their lungs out and you and I cling to each other like rafts in this ocean we're swimming right now. I feel lucky. You are full term. I feel so luckyluckylucky. I repeat it like this refrain is a bouy to embrace in this lake of doubt, confusion, fear. The boy in my arms. I listen to conflicting opinions as to what constitutes progress and I nearly go insane wondering which one will be the one that releases us to just go home. Just you and me. Home together. Safe. Away from all this. Away from these leads on your body. Away from this monitor. Away from that IV tube in your tiny, fragile head. Away from that damned nasogastric tube stuck down your tiny little nose that everyone says is my nose.



          So yeah. Let me talk about bravery. Courage in the form of a 7 pound, 13 ounce little boy. You move through it all with wonder. With quiet strength. With this stoic expression. With rarely a cry from your beautiful, pursed lips. You have a cowlick swirl on the top of your head reminiscent of Vincent’s “Starry Night” and I think back to that meteor shower that sent you flying through the night sky to me. The peak night of the Perseids last August. The night I began to bleed the cycle that would bring you to me. The night I sat out on my muskoka in the backyard and wished on about a million shooting stars that I could gaze into the dark pools that look up into mine now.

Last night was Victoria Day. I sit on the fourth floor by the hospital window in the dark with you sucking at my breast and the night sky is lighting up again. I can hear the boom of fireworks in the distance. But see, I get confused. ‘Cause I can't tell if they are shooting off inside me. In the core of my heart as I hold you instead of simply showering over Victoria Park a few blocks away. I’m banking on the first scenario.

It was 11 years ago today that I lost my first baby via miscarriage and, as we are finally released from hospital, I step across the threshold of my farmhouse tonight holding you, my son, in my arms and I look back at this journey I’ve made. The journey of 11 years. The journey of 9 months. The journey of a 21 hour labour. The journey of the last week. Your beautiful, devoted, selfless aunt drives us home through the country and I feel like I’ve been gone forever. The world looks different. Everything is so green. Was it this green last week? Was the sunset this beautiful? Were the clouds this white and fluffy and perfect? I don’t think so.

The world has changed. My world feels as new as yours.

I look at you now lying in your bassinette. You are swaddled and cozy. Three little owls, your spirit siblings, the ones I lost before you, float over where you sleep and keep a watchful eye. We are home. It’s just you and me now. BOOM. Those fireworks are still exploding in my heart.

Goddamn I love you. My starry, starry knight.


Photography: Courtesy of my twin sister
Music: Starry, Starry Night, Don Maclean

Things that Go Bump in the Night...

The morning of Thursday, December 18, I think I feel you for the first time. I am sat on my toilet looking out at the snow and the trees. My midwife told me it might feel like gas, but I sense the little bubble that has burst in the lower part of my belly is not indigestion. It feels different somehow. I sit in wonder, waiting for more reassurance. Instead, I must shower and get ready for work.

It is called the quickening. I wonder why? I feel as though I've been waiting all my life to experience this amazing sensation! Sheila Kitzinger writes in Rediscovering Birth, that, "'Quick' is old English for 'alive'" and that, "in all cultures, quickening is recognised as an important transition in the process of becoming a mother."

Saturday morning. December 20. Tomorrow is Yule or Winter Solstice and tonight I am hosting a Solstice Soiree at my home. I have an insurmountable list of things to accomplish, but I lie in bed because the bubble I felt on Thursday begins to burst more than once. This time, I am sure it is you. My heart swells and my eyes fill. I am dialing my sister's number to tell her. Everything I do that day in preparation for the celebration of the Solstice is coloured by the fact that you have finally made your very real presence known to me. The grocery aisle is as exciting as a rollercoaster ride. I lower the window on the way to the Blackberry Bog so the wintry air can bloom roses on my cheeks. I touch the Scotch pine to thank it for being my yule tree before the man who sells it to me starts to chop it down. The strong scent of its needles inside my car fills my nostrils and I breathe deeply, my soul singing in elation of this day. Talk about a tiny light beginning to grow the longest night of the year!

Two weeks have passed since first contact and now daily, I feel your little bumps and grinds inside my womb. You are growing bigger with each day. When I lie down at night, you become most active. You push and press and kick and tumble. Each time you say hello in this way, my spirit soars.

I feel as though my very heart has fallen into my belly and is floating around inside there, banging against my womb walls to redefine Joy for me. You are my heart bursting and bubbling and blooming inside this tummy. I cannot wait to hold you, to kiss you, to press you to my breast, to smell your hair, to whisper to you, to touch you and to love you unconditionally forever.

In five months, I will look into your eyes. I will nuzzle your tiny neck and kiss your delicate fingers, your button nose. For now, your kicks keep my heart skipping a beat. Goddamn, I love you, my little star. You are all I am living and breathing for. You are whom I've been waiting for all my life. It won't be long now. At 22 weeks, I am more than halfway there. This has been one long journey and you feel closer than ever with each kick. I don't need to sleep to feel I am dreaming, that this long dream I've dreamt is finally coming true, finally manifesting. What a happy new year 2009 is for me!

The happiest I've yet known...but then again, wait until next year ;) HA!

Maternity Photography: Mattitude Photography

Music: In the Still of the Night, Cole Porter