Short Term Parking

There is this bench at the end of the hallway, right before you enter the cafeteria. That’s where I would wait for her. It smells just like you remember it. Like half cooked frozen food and lunch boxes and kid sweat.

I was always granted a reprieve, however. The smells of Chick-fil-a or chipotle or McDonald’s wafting at me, tempting me, while I watched row by row march by, wearing the sticker name tag from my office check-in that always made us both chuckle. I had been 9months pregnant with her the summer that photo was taken. Woof. 

I never told her when I was coming. She enjoyed the surprise. I enjoyed the surprising.

And inevitably at some point I’d hear some other kid yell, “Is that your mom?! Laila that’s your mom!” She’d pop out of line beaming, at times toothless, always happy to see me. I think that sometimes she saw me, but reveled in the continuing to be surprised, pretending to not see me for just that extra moment. That’s totally something I would have done.

We sat right beside the peanut allergy table, near the corner where the janitors would congregate, whispering to each other. I always made sure to pass them an, “I know, right,” glance, even if my visit did not afford us an opportunity to speak. She was always so proud to show me off to her teacher, her friends. I sat at that table a single mother. Pregnant. With her new baby sister tucked neatly in a carrier on my chest.  Drinking protein shakes if I was on my diet bullshit at the time, others enjoying the delicious poison I had brought her, no guilt or shame involved.

Today was my first full Brittany 2007 day. I think partially because it’s the first time I’ve even been potentially allowed one. No clients. No work (not that there isn’t plenty to do, but I’m on strike). And even then, I’m pretty sure I just stole it. Dinner almost done, ice on my burned hand rivaling the steam shooting out of my ears, I went for a drive.

I wound up in the short term parking space at my daughters’ elementary school. I remembered walking her tiny body down to kindergarten, yellow dress and pigtails. I remembered running with her on that track during Girls on the Run, her beaming with pride because she just so happened to have a mom who ran regularly. The book fairs, the carnivals, ice cream melting down arms, my hurt going numb on those tiny benches cruelly attached to the table at lunch time, working the timer at battle of the books practice or making snowmen with her class. I have been her room mother darn near every year. There are no room mothers in middle school. No excited faces peeking out hoping it’s you during lunch time.

I thought of what would have been. The charter buses in a row waiting to take us to DC, a right of passage around here for fifth graders. The 5th grade musical, walking the short distance from my house to the school surprising her with lunch just one more time, a promotion ceremony. Every year I’ve had her teacher sign a copy of “Oh the Places You’ll Go” which I intend to give her for high school graduation. I’m currently and unexpectedly short a message and signature. 

I’m well trained enough to know it’s grief, mourning what was. What could have been. What will never be again. These transitions, it turns out, are just as much for us as for them. Honestly, I don’t even know how to get to the middle school she’ll be attending next year without directions.

Since November I have mourned two babies lost and all of the could haves, should haves, and would haves. I would know by now if it was a boy or a girl. I’d be visibly pregnant. I’d be able to feel their kicks sitting in my office chair doing tele therapy. I still mourn for those babies. For me.

And now I mourn for my babies that made it here and sometimes it feels like too much to hold. My grief. Their grief. They swirl so closely together that at times I can’t tell where theirs begin and mine ends except allegedly I’m the grownup and so I convince them that it’s hard but that it’ll all be okay.

 I mourn for my clients, some doing so well now thrown off balance. For my grandmother, crying as she waves goodbye to her great grand babies through glass windows dropping off Easter baskets, for my three year old who is regressing in potty training, my 5th grader, missing so much while having to take on so much, helping with her little sister, allowing me to work when I know she wants, she needs more time and attention from me. I mourn for families losing loved ones, for mothers birthing babies without partners present, for kids and adults trapped at home with their abusers, for jobs lost and futures forever changed. For the sense of safety that I know my children were privileged to have, but gone too soon all the same. For my graduate students. Grief that it took the apocalypse for me to go on a bike ride with my kids.

I have committed my life to looking for the rainbows, and I promise that I will. Tomorrow. For today, it’s gray and stormy and sad and scary. That’s the price we pay for rainbows. I know that already. 

That doesn’t make it suck any less. 

I won’t shave my head or break a windshield because 1) I’m not entirely convinced that my hair hides what I suspect is a rather oddly shaped head and 2) I hope that more often than not I can breathe and adapt, and I think I’d miss my hair, and, 3) Geico is apparently refunding some portion of my premiums for the last month or so since nobody is really driving.

If the wine glasses and Nutella aren’t enough, I want to make clear that this is easy for nobody. Not one of us. And I’m not trying to sell that it is. We are all making the best with what we have. Some days that looks fun. Sometimes it looks like a woman crying in an elementary school parking lot.

But today, I’m a mess. And that’s okay. The parking, you see, has ALWAYS been short term. That doesn’t make the time to move along any easier. Especially when it comes even earlier than we expected, though on some level we have always known that it could for one reason or another. That’s grief in a nutshell, isn’t it?

So here we are.

Here I am.

Even the keeper of the grief, must sometimes grieve. 

My Body Keeps The Score (Roundabout Musings on Trauma Informed Care)

I had a really talented lover once, who told me that it was sexy. Considering it had been something that as a child I had hidden beneath clothing and band-aids and balled  somewhere in middle school when the dermatologist refused to remove it because he said it looked totally healthy and would likely scar, that compliment made my panties dissolve. And hey, everyone deserves that kind of energy at least once in their lives, though side effects often include heartbreak and accepting a pretty dumpster fire of a person’s bullshit for a while until you’ve had your fill of both good sex and nervous breakdowns.

My husband, on the other hand, never mentioned it, my far more stable adonis. Nervous breakdowns, thankfully, not required. And so it for years it was far from my mind, neutral at most.

He looked to be three, maybe four wives in at this point, the dermatologist. His face pulled back smooth in that, “I have access to great skincare treatment and procedures and this is what healthy skin looks like,” which, maybe aided by the slicked back pony tail and botox actually read as more of a Star Trek character but confident all the same.

I hadn’t thought about getting it removed in years, honestly, the mole on my chest. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it had a nurse friend about six months back not looked at it randomly and said, “I used to work in dermatology, you should get that looked at.” And so I made an appointment for six months down the road because welp, that’s how dermatology works and here we are.

Back on The Starship Enterprise it’s apparent within seconds of our first handshake that on the contrary, Dr. Smooth Face does not think my mole is sexy and indeed does want to remove it because he doesn’t love the pigmentation. He offers fake apologies, seemingly asking to touch me as if he weren’t already doing so, as he explores the mole, my collar bone, the skin around it.

The nurse is silent during the brief in office procedure, I see in my periphery a flurry of activity that, due to the proximity of the mole on my chest, limits me from seeing much more. The needle for numbing. The tools for removing. The chemicals for cauterizing. Minimal explanations. Minimal warning. No questions about my questions or comfort.

He has no idea, he can’t have known in fact, what a challenge it has been to be in this body recently. Two pregnancy losses, a surgical procedure after one loss, months of pregnancy sickness with no baby as my reward, so many lab orders with needle sticks, a totally unrelated but at least equally unpleasant biopsy at the ENT which was also incredibly painful and slow healing.

But what if he had? Known, I mean. Or maybe, and probably more importantly, even cared to know?

The details wouldn’t have been important.

May I touch you?

I’m just laying this over you to keep things sterile and protect your clothes.

Is it alright if I adjust your shirt a bit more?

After the numbness wears off it may be a bit sore.

What would have been, could have been different?

I think a lot of about the idea of universal precautions, this idea we are taught in healthcare about acting as though everyone we interact with has some sort of cootie that we should prudently protect ourselves from.

But I think of trauma informed care much the same. The idea that we should interact with people as though we have no idea where they have been before this moment with us, but we can safely assume that for most there have been some unpleasant stops on their journey.

After a week, as instructed, I stopped covering the healing wound that had replaced the mole which had once been my shame, then my pride, then nothing at all. I had to battle the urge, ironically, to hide the scar. But I haven’t. I won’t.

It’s all a part of the moments that have come before, the good, the bad, the lovely. It’s all a part of what makes me, me. I will honor it, and I will not be ashamed.

But I do wish that there were space…respect…regard even, for that journey, for my journey, in more of my healthcare.

Ashes to Ashes, Cheese Doodles to Dust

When I was a little girl…oh hell may as well put her on blast too. When my sister and I were little girls, we used to play Mommy. Not just any old mommy, we were starting from scratch. I’m talking pillows and doll babies shoved under shirts with the click clack of plastic heels because of course that’s what most pregnant women wear on their feet. Sometimes there were even hospital stays for deliveries, the fake tearful joy of our babies born. (We were also very Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman in that we were often in labor at the same time but managed to doctor each other’s newborn without missing a beat because, hey, WOMEN GET SHIT DONE!

Come to think of it, I don’t think I have snapped back so quickly from a pregnancy since. Ahh, the good old days.

I have now left four hospitals following the release of a baby. Twice, with my sweet baby girls in tow. Twice, with no babies and no answers and I don’t mean this in a “why not you instead of me” kind of way, but I guess in my mind I had gained some weird statistical protection from losing another baby after the first. I am obviously capable , well, VERY capable of getting pregnant and carrying a baby to term. And I’m willing to accept a fluke, of course I am, but I would be lying if I didn’t say it was pretty far off of my radar this time. The odds were so in my favor. I guess, it turns out, kind of like in the Hunger Games.

At the hospital while I was waiting for my D&C, for the surgery to help my baby out who passed away days ago but for some reason wasn’t ready to leave me yet, I was handed two forms in front of a folder.

The folder, I was familiar with. It had all sorts of information and resources on pregnancy loss. A few of the handouts I keep in my office to give out myself to my own clients.

The first form, I realized halfway through, was for vital statistics. Like a sad birth certificate application. My info, my husband’s info, a little insult to injury with a box that for some reason was interested in how much weight I had gained this pregnancy.

The last sheet was for disposition of the baby.

My options were to leave it to the hospital after pathology.

My second was that after pathology, a local funeral home would take and cremate the remains, interning them about once every six weeks or so with others in a Christian ceremony. We could be a part of the ceremony. Or not.

I chose to have the baby interned, but I don’t want to go to any ceremony. I am comforted by the idea that my baby will be treated like my baby. That’s not a political statement, just a personal one.

One of the main reasons that I opted for the procedure, in addition to the risk posed by waiting for the tissue breaking down inside of my body, was the removal of the baby hormone factory planted firmly in my uterus, confusing my body into thinking we were still supporting a life.

Along with it came all of the usual pregnancy suspects. The extra salivation that begins along with the intractable nausea which usually warns me I’m pregnant long before a test could. The sore breasts. The fatigue. I needed them to go, and I knew that my sanity could not, would not permit me to keep suffering through a pregnancy that I already knew was over.

And so since Friday, Friday when my sweet baby left me. Friday when a baby made of the cells of my husband and myself left what should have been the safe confines of my body until they were ready to stand on their own, I have been waiting with bated breath to at least feel less pregnant.

I give my breasts a squeeze in the shower, they haven’t gotten the memo. The nausea comes and goes now, the spit still in full effect requiring quite the trail of chewed gum behind me. One piece after another, the only way I don’t become ill with every swallow.

And the cravings. They come and go. Weird things. Shitty things. Salty, carby things. Cravings that leave me requesting gas station Cheese Doodles on a random Sunday drive to see family. It’s this weird need to cater to my still hormonally pregnant body, a postpartum body that sweats and whose mood swings and who can still smell someone cooking bacon five states over. It’s tears welling up when I see babies and pregnant people or, you know, CVS commercials or really anything. It’s also relief that one way or another, grief marches forward because at least now we know what the outcome is. It’s wine I’m allowed to have but perhaps too nauseated for. It’s wanting to throw shit and burn my maternity pants while struggling to yet fit back into my regular clothes. It’s looking at my children’s faces in wonder and awe and overwhelm with the love they conjure in me still after all this time and it’s looking at our loaded car, wondering if perhaps it were only ever supposed to be the four of us. It’s wanting the world to keep turning and for people to not look at me with sad eyes while also wanting to scream, “MY BABY JUST DIED,” and see that sadness in other people’s eyes too, to know they care. That it matters. It’s wanting small talk. It’s wanting to be asked about my baby. My body. My loss.

In two weeks I will return to the doctor to find out of pathology has any clues as to why we have become a part of the unique 1% who has more than one miscarriage in their lives. Yes, I’m aware there are people with far more but as Brene Brown says, there is enough compassion for everyone, it’s not pie. Shortly after that, my baby will be cremated with others, interned peacefully and, in my mind, joining the ranks of some pretty awesome humans who have gone before. Including one of our own.

For now it’s spandex pants and foundation and lots of concealer. It’s naps and hiding and my house looking like a bomb went off in it and kids excited to eat something else out of a drive-thru window. It’s ibuprophen and heating pads. It’s night sweats and tears welling up painfully in the back of my throat. It’s relief as miserable pregnancy symptoms fade and wondering I can, or will, ever try to do this again. It’s winter break and board games and snuggles and hiding. It’s fingers too swollen for wedding rings and and the dark, hormone-induced streaks across my face. It’s knowing I won’t always feel this way. It’s being fully aware, however, that I do right now.

It’s Ashes to ashes. It’s dust to dust. And for now, I guess it’s Cheese Doodles too.

My Peleton was delivered today.

I Just Bought a Peleton Bike or I Just Might Lose This Baby

Grief is strange. Infuriating at times. The way the world insists on turning even if yours is not.

When my father-in-law died this year, my husband and girls and I were in Florida on vacation staying in a retro-themed resort. We had an absolute blast. It was my little one’s first time on an airplane, and perhaps what one might call our first “official” Griswold vacation as a family replete with baseball caps for protection from the sun and sneakers because bruh, my feet hurt now.

Our last night after nothing less than a gourmet over-priced meal in the retro-themed “diner,” which, yes, involved trays, we had made our way up to the room with plans to settle in and get ready to hit the road the next morning.

The phone rang and it was my brother-in-law, Noah, calling to say that John was gone. My husband crumpled into a ball on the floor. I was so relieved it was time to head home and start making plans to be with family as soon as possible.

The next morning I volunteered to venture down to the Starbucks to get breakfast for everyone, the girls excitedly awaiting their “coffee” (hot chocolate) to start the day like the little factory working chain smokers that they are.

That trip is etched into my mind in slow motion. I wondered if everyone could see how red my eyes were, hear the tears lingering at the back of my throat as I made our order. I hated everyone. Laughing, smiling. I managed to feel nostalgic watching the new arrivals roll in. That had just been us, we were so happy.

And then BOOM. Grief. That bitch.

My first miscarriage was the week of Christmas 2015. I had given my husband the pregnancy test as a birthday gift, and had laid in bed feeling that little life escaping me until we made our way to the ER per my midwife to make sure that at least everything was happening safely.

That fucking song. This was one of those hospitals that played a song every time a baby was born. I’m not entirely sure why. The person who had the baby knows they did, and there’s so much other fucked up shit happening in a hospital, I can’t imagine many people are at least comforted by the idea that someone, somewhere, is having a good day.

My husband offered to bring the car around. I wanted to walk. My first trip into the real world without my baby. The rest of the holidays that year honestly were a blur, probably because I spent most of them with a martini in my hand. I was pregnant two months later and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl.

Not many people know this, but Dutchess Kate and I are intimately linked. I know, I know, aside from the astonishing resemblance in both grace and body, I have hyperemesis when I’m pregnant. It’s pretty easy to tell who knows what that is, because they know if they make any of the following recommendations they’re BEGGING to get stabbed RIGHT IN THE THROAT:

• ginger

• saltines

• ginger ale

• sea bands

• bland foods

Have you ever had food poisoning? This is that. But on steroids. And for 10 months. And you have to function.

I have PTSD for SURE from all of my pregnancies, functioning that sick can make any person nuts. It’s not abnormal at times to wish the pregnancy would end, anything to feel better. Estimates are that 10% of very wanted pregnancies are terminated because of the condition. I get it. Hospitalizations, IV fluids, medications, depression, it’s a good time.

And so when we decided to try for a baby this time, I hunted down the latest research in hyperemesis care and found a provider on board. I was ready to Do. This. Thang.

On November 20th, I and apparently like, EVERY OTHER FUCKING PERSON ON THE PLANET found out they were having a baby. The feeling cruddy and depressed began, honestly I’m not sure if it was better or worse. But man, when I do the math and realize my trauma is triggered, how could I know? 24 months of norovirus style symptoms, yeah, Brit Brit 2007 seems like the next logical step.

What was I thinking? I have two awesome girls. They are my world. We can’t afford another baby. I am self-employed now. Constantly shoving carbs in my mouth is the only way I even kind of feel better. I am already heavier than I would like to be, and the gaining has begun. I don’t want to be sick. This sucks. Is this what I want?

And then the blood. A spot here or there at first. Then more. Something wasn’t right. The doctor squeezed me in. I was there for hours, watching the happily and even miserably VERY pregnant women wander in and out. An ultrasound was on deck. This is what I want.

She turned the screen away from me. Started making small talk. Eventually called the doctor.

That’s not good.

He explains that the baby does not look like we would expect this far along, that there is no heartbeat. I’m probably going to miscarry. They will scan me again in a week, help the process along if need be.

He was so warm, hand on my back, hand in my hand. I could hear the steady thump, thump, thump of a doppler one room over. Someone’s baby was alive and well.

I walked out into what appeared to be a sea of couples, pregnant and waiting. Tears streaming down my cheeks, my eyes bloodshot red. I just wanted to get out of there.

When I got home, I cried. And cried. And cried.

I went into my target cart and deleted the few items I had added, some maternity tights, a couple of sweaters, some army fatigue leggings (you know, in case I needed to hide my legs at some point).

I scrolled through Facebook, hoping to fade into the abyss for a while. AND MY GOD IS EVERYONE PREGNANT. A few friends. A few family. My 85 year old High School English teacher?!

I decide I will take this ball and run with it. I will mourn this baby. I will enjoy not being sick every second of every day. I will get my health back, I will find a new way to work out (I had to stop running a few months back due to a torn hip ligament). I am gonna GET MY WHOLE GROOVE BACK. And did I mention I won’t be sick anymore. And won’t that at least be nice?

And a Peleton add showed up. Before I knew it I had ordered the freaking thing. I promise, we don’t have it like that. But a pity Peleton is different. I guess.

Today the bleeding picked up and I went back in. They wanted another ultrasound.

And there it was. A tiny heartbeat. A tiny, much slower than it should be, not that rhythmic heartbeat thumping in a much smaller than it should be at this point baby body. But a heartbeat. A heartbeat that had not been there the day before.

Watch the bleeding, she said. It could be nothing but an irritated polyp on my cervix. Relax, she said, there’s a 50/50 chance this baby will stick around. Enjoy Christmas she said. We will see you on the 26th.

So I guess we will see on the 26th.

And my Peleton will be delivered on the 30th.

I guess basically I’m just asking for all of the prayer, positive energy, healing, and love that you can spare. For both.

A Deceptively Sweet First Entry or, What If You Just Loved Her?

Snapshot. Elementary school. They test me for the gifted and talented program. Apparently, I am neither gifted nor talented and I remain in “regular” classes. Shame.

Snapshot. Sixth grade. I am sitting in English class and the words for the week are projected onto a screen in the front of the room. “Hey, Lauren,” a boy shouts, “read that word.” He points and I answer, “N-A-V-E.” He giggles, the other little assholes giggle. The word was naïve. The irony is not lost on me. Shame.

Snapshot. Eight grade. I am HOT AF. But I’m wearing a sweatshirt to conceal by changing body and what I feel are the imperfections of my midsection. I sit with my legs perched on my tippy toes so that my thighs don’t expand to hang over the edge of the tiny chair attached to the desk. Holly’s don’t. Shame.

Snapshot. Highschool. All of my friends are in the play. I am the stage manager. Shame.

 Snapshot. College. My boyfriend, it turns out, is a cheater. He informs me that the girl with whom he is cheating calls me “The Weather Girl,” because apparently I look a lot like a chubby newscaster. I guess that injury needed a little insult. Shame.

 Snapshot. Graduate school. I am living on my own in New York City. I have never felt so lonely in my entire life while living in one of the most populated cities in the world. I am not having the time of my life. Shame.

 Snapshot. 2009. I am pregnant with a baby girl and separating from my husband. I am 24. I have no job, I have just finished graduate school. I am moving back to Virginia feeling like my tail is tucked between my legs. Shame.

 Snapshot. 2019. I feel like I am drowning. Is it still called baby weight if the baby will be three this year? So many of my dreams have been made real, why am I struggling to find contentment? You can’t, I’m learning, have it all and be it all. At least not at the same time. At least not well. Shame.

 Brené Brown defines shame as, “The intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.”

“Owning our story,” she says, “can be hard, but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky, but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love, belonging, and joy- the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

I love movies as an instrument of story and one of my favorite parts of any movie is the montage where the character relents and realizes they’re going to have to undertake some odyssey of change to achieve that which they desire. Set to a catchy tune, we watch our hero or heroine lose the weight, do the work, get the job, close the sale, move into the new place or whatever or, let’s be honest, take off their glasses and get their hair done if we are selling that they get cooler and more beautiful somehow and in a matter of minutes, it’s over. They have done whatever it is that they set out to do and their life is now finally beginning.

Before. After.

But that’s not how it works, is it? There’s never one magical solution that makes our world infinitely and permanently better, there is no official point at which we begin, it turns out, except the day that we are born. And certainly there are no three minute transformations. No real montages. No way to fast forward through the sticky bits. 

A couple of weeks ago I went to a performance that Gremlin 1 (my oldest daughter) was in. 450 4th graders came together and danced their hearts out as a part of a storytelling through dance and music program at their schools. They were wonderful. And terrible. And they were proud. I was so inspired. 

The most natural movers to the hottest lost messes, they were proud. Whether they got all of the steps, or none of the steps. They were proud. How? How can that be?

Hands waved excitedly from the audience, parents hoping that their kids saw that they were there, and that they were proud. Little eyes peered out into the darkness, hoping to orient themselves with the knowing that their safest people were there to cheer them on. They were met with bouquets of flowers and grandparents gushing and two standing ovations. They were lifted into warm, supportive arms and told how absolutely fantastic they were. 

I don’t know when the last time was that I danced without having to have less than a drink or two on board. I don’t know when the last time was that I gushed with pride for myself over a job well done or bought myself some flowers. I don’t know when the last time was that I clapped for myself just for trying hard.

Kids are able to do the most amazing things, even when they do them terribly, and I realize that’s largely because they have not yet been shamed out of being wholly and recklessly themselves. I’m sad to say that Gremlin 1, just 9 years old, is already starting to lose some of that mojo. 

 But who are we even as adults but our childhood selves who need to feel loved and accepted? Who are we really but people longing to know that we are enough, that we are worthy? Who are we really but people that need to dance and feel proud?

 I am a masterpiece and a mess. I am nailing it and royally fucking it up on a regular basis. I am doing my absolute best. I am a little girl asking to be loved and accepted. 

 And what if I just loved her? Who could she be? What could she do? I’m hoping to find out.

 I am inviting you to come with me as I wade through the muck. Do the work. Survive the minutes. And I am hoping that this small act of resistance in our shame-based culture, supports you in doing the same.

 Join me?