I wanted to let you all know that there are still a few spots in my Saturday Writing Parenthood class at the Loft.
Where: Open Book, Minneapolis
When: 9 am - 1 pm, Saturday July 11
Why: It will be fun
For more information or to register, visit The Loft. It's for moms and dads, so feel free to pass the information on to all the local dads you know!
I spent the weekend at my mom’s cabin up north (which is what we natives say when we’re talking about Northern Minnesota.) The weather was perfect: sunny and warm during the day, cool in the evening. Stella played and argued and played with her cousin, and Zoë played in the sand and ate the moldy bread intended for the sunfish. It wasn’t relaxing in the way that, pre-children, I would lie on the dock and read all afternoon, but still, there were moments of relaxation, and more than anything, it was a needed change of scene.
I didn’t check e-mail or my cell-phone for messages even once. And I was able to read most of a novel--a non-motherhood, non-reviewing novel. It’s been a while since I’ve done this, and I couldn’t have picked a better book: Pat Barker’s The Ghost Road, the third novel in her Regeneration trilogy. These novels are based on the real-life experiences of British army officers who were treated for shell shock during World War I at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh. I’m reading the book for my book club, otherwise I probably would have begun with the first in the trilogy, and indeed, I find myself floundering a little in spots, knowing I’m not getting the full story on the characters. But still, the book stands on its own, and indeed, it won the Booker Prize in 1995.
Sometimes I become so consumed by my daily life and the juggling act of work and family (and weaning) that I lose sight of my place in history. I lose sight of the expanse of human experience. Pat Barker is an expert in capturing the complexity of human experience. Her characters in this trilogy are based on real people, true, but she brings them to life for us. The pause, the uncertainty, the lust and love, shame and confusion—it’s all there, and it’s there in the smallest gestures, in word choice, in the way a gaze lingers too long.
This book (though it is a novel) reminds me of why memoir and strong characters must go hand in hand. I’ve had more than one person ask me why I was teaching character development in a memoir class. (I’m serious.) There is an assumption that because the people in a work of creative nonfiction really exist, there is no need to be concerned about character development. But nonfiction writers need to write believable and three-dimensional characters precisely BECAUSE these characters are real people. It’s a way of honoring them. And this is exactly what Barker does: she honors these men by making them real for us on the page.
Go get this book. Hell, get the whole trilogy. She’s that good.
First, I want to thank everyone who weighed in on last week’s post about weaning. One of the great things about blogs is their potential to start and sustain a real discussion. And of course the challenge with an online discussion is to keep it from turning into a “fight.” Breastfeeding is such a hot-button issue for so many people, and I really want to thank you for not letting the discussion turn into a yelling match. I do realize that my sensitivity about weaning emerged a bit, and that probably hurt my facilitation skills. Ah well...
It’s been a challenging week for me. I’m craving prolactin—doesn’t that stuff come in a bottle?—and I’m really missing my cozy time with Zoë and the way nursing calmed her.
All of this (plus the health scare I had a couple of weeks ago) has made me very tense. I developed these ridiculous knots in my back last week, knots so tight that my arms began to tingle and my chest felt heavy. But instead of realizing the tingling was a result of this tension, I became convinced that I had a serious underlying health issue. (This is what happens when you combine an active imagination and a worrying nature with hypochondriac tendencies.)
So I spent a week brooding and worrying and feeling generally low. I sat and stared at my computer, working over the same sentence again and again, struggling with the silliest of words.
Yesterday, D said, “Go get a massage. Today. Now.”
I love massages. I do. But they seem like such a luxury, an expense that I hardly ever justify. But yesterday it was either try a massage or go to urgent care toting my Internet-procured list of possible causes for my symptoms. I decided on the massage, partly because I figured it would be less expensive than urgent care. I got a last-minute appointment at a salon near my dad’s house, dropped Zoë off with grandpa, and splurged.
But it turns out that sometimes a splurge is not a splurge at all. This woman was fabulous, and the massage was painful, but afterward, there was no tingling in my arms and no heaviness in my chest.
Then last night, I was checking my website for messages, and there was a note from another mother writer, the wonderful Erin White of Hatched by Two Chicks. (Erin’s lovely essay “East Wind” was in Creative Nonfiction a few years ago, but I didn’t realize she was a mother-writer and blogger until last night!)
This is what Erin said:
“There is nothing quite like the end of the nursing relationship, especially with a toddler. I weaned my first right before her second b-day and the process knocked the two of us off our feet. But we got back up again, much faster than I might have expected, and then we got going on the task of figuring out new and amazing ways of connecting to each other and to our own worlds. My second (who I think was born the same day as your second!!) weaned herself at 11 months and I will always be grateful to her for that. I got my energy, my body, my work, and--dare I say--my chi, back in the most amazing way. Nursing is heaven and weaning is freedom. For mamas and for babies. I tend to see nursing and the decision to stop as really great practice for making later decisions about ourselves in relation to our children. And as the mothers of daughters (I have two, as well) I think its so so important for us to get really good at valuing our bodies and our independence while at the same time staying really connected to our kids.”
I went cold turkey on Zoë on yesterday.
On Monday I went to the acupuncturist to help with my general malaise and to get an immune system boost, and the acupuncturist reminded me (as her husband had back in February) how hard breastfeeding is on our bodies, how much energy it takes. I nodded and agreed. Let me explain: I have been sick more in the last year than ever in my life. I am well—breathing freely for a week (maybe two)—and then I’m sick again, coughing until I puke. And I’m tired all the time.
Part of this is not the fault of nursing, of course. It’s me doing what I do: too much. It’s the master juggling act that, even on the days I feel I have perfected it, takes its toll. But with nursing, it’s as if I can feel the energy just draining out of me.
The acupuncturist told me her own story—similar to mine—about the exhaustion she experienced while nursing her second child. She said that in the end she weaned for self-preservation. I nodded again. I know it’s time.
Then she asked if I was still eating a lot of sugar. (It’s in the notes from several months ago.) I said I was, and she reminded me that sugar is an immune-system depressant. (Had I blocked this? I knew it was hard on the sinuses, but had I forgotten—not known?—that it actually made your immune system less efficient.) So much for the 3-pound bag of gummy bears I just bought. (It’s true. I really am in my late-30s and buying gummy bears in bulk.)
“There’s also a lot of sugar in wine,” I said with a grimace.
“For now, why don’t you wean Zoë, wean yourself from sugar, and keep the wine.”
I love this woman. “Deal,” I said.
Deal. I had my coffee without sugar for the first time EVER in my life yesterday. And guess what? It was fine. At the coffee shop I put in a little honey, and I actually liked it! Mikey likes it! I didn’t shove a handful of gummy bears into my mouth after lunch, and I was still fine. I didn’t even want a bowl of chocolate ice-cream when D dished himself one after dinner. The sugar, I guess, will be the easy part of this deal.
The hard part, clearly, is weaning Zoë. I made it through yesterday. When she pounded on my chest in the afternoon, I distracted her. We had dinner at my mom’s and she was up later than usual, so when D put her down to bed, she was fine—so tired she didn’t care about her milky. And even early this morning, when she cried out at 4:45 am (yes, I’m serious), I just nudged D and told him he was on. He took her downstairs and fed her some banana and a little bit of a smoothie.
But when I got up at 7 (7!) and Stella came upstairs talking about her new feather collection (we have to drive all over town looking for the dirty things), Zoë heard my voice and immediately started to keen mamamamamamama. She crawled up the stairs, grabbed my legs and pointed to the bed.
When I said, “milky all gone,” she began to wail. And I mean WAIL.
In the bathroom, she threw a tantrum of which I wouldn’t have believed a 15-month-old capable: she upturned the basket holding extra rolls of toilet paper; thrashed around the plastic step-stool, slapped Stella, and banged her head against the door. The only reason that she didn’t hit her head, hard, on the tile floor was because Stella was there to catch her, cradling Zoë’s skull in her hands.
“Just feed her, Mom,” Stella said.
It crossed my mind for a moment, and then D was there: “You can’t feed her forever.”
This thought is usually the most helpful for me to remember. I have to stop at some point, and it will be hard for me no matter when I do it. But maybe I could do it in a way that would be less hard for her? I had started on a slow-wean process, cutting out a feeding a week, and I had successfully eliminated the bed-time nursing. But then Zoë got sick and I got sick again. And the thing about the slow wean is it’s still hard for her, but it’s hard for a longer period of time. And if I just cold-turkey it at this point, my thought is that it will be difficult for her for a few days, and then it will be done.
But the “you can’t feed her forever” wasn’t actually helpful this morning, when my heart was breaking because I wasn’t giving Zoë what she wanted and needed. My eyes filled with tears. D apologized and herded the girls outside with the lure of a dog sighting for Zoë.
If I could go out of town for three days, and then come back, it would be easier, but that’s not in the cards, and I am convinced it *is* time to wean her. But still, I feel so sad that I won’t nurse Zoë—or any baby—ever again. It’s so final, a part of motherhood that is over for me.
You see, I love nursing. When I’m lying down with Zoë before her nap and she is nursing away, I slow down. It’s just her and me and the rhythm of her gulping. Even if I feel hectic and stressed, for the moments I am lying there with her, brushing away a sweaty curl from her forehead, I am calm. When she glances up at me with her eyes wide, I think, this is the most amazing thing in the world. When she pulls my shirt over her face and twists its edge around her fist, my heart could break with love. When she peeks out from behind the shirt, I smile. “Where’s Zoë?”
I have been looking forward to the new anthology Unbuttoned: Women Open Up About the Pleasures, Pains, and Politics of Breastfeeding, edited by Dana Sullivan and Maureen Connolly, for a couple of months now. I’m planning on reviewing it for Literary Mama, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. But this morning, before I walked out the door to the coffee shop, I grabbed it from my stack. I clearly needed some nursing/weaning mama power.
Of course I wasn’t able to read the whole thing this morning. I jumped around, skimming the essays for words of wisdom, and it worked; I did feel a little better. What I love about this anthology—aside from some really stellar writing—is that it includes so many perspectives. Sometimes people get up in arms about breastfeeding, whether they are arguing for or against it, or have a strong opinion about how long women should nurse. But from what I read of this book, none of that proselytizing has a place in Unbuttoned. And that’s what I need right now—to feel a sense of community, to know countless women have been through what I’m going through, and to not be judged for how I’m weaning Zoë. And this is exactly what I got from Unbuttoned.
These are going to be a difficult couple of days for me and my little one. I’ll report on our progress (and also on my heart health—thank you for your kind words and blessings). Until then, send good weaning vibes, please.
On Thursday night while I was nursing Zoë (yes, we’re back to bedtime nursing because of her recent cold and ear infection), I experienced a sharp pain in my chest, followed by a dull ache lasting about 10 minutes. I had been short of breath earlier in the day, so I thought I should get a little more information. I Googled “chest pain in women” and was bombarded by stories about women who didn’t realize they were having heart attacks because the symptoms for women (neck, jaw, shoulder, upper back or abdominal discomfort, shortness of breath, nausea or vomiting, abdominal pain or “heartburn,” sweating, lightheadedness or dizziness, unusual or unexplained fatigue) are less publicized than the symptoms for men. Good information to know, but the pain in my chest subsided, so I shrugged it off.
At this point I should tell you that I am at low risk for a heart attack: I eat well, I have never smoked (other than those few bar and beach cigarettes here and there in my 20s), I run, and I’m only 37. But, I did have severe preeclampsia with Stella, and women who have had severe preeclampsia “remote from delivery” could be at an eight-fold risk for cardiovascular disease than women who did not have a preeclampic pregnancy. (You can read more about that here.)
I should also mention that I’m currently reading the manuscript of a writer whose husband died at age thirty of a complete arterial blockage. And this translates in my mind into: it can happen.
Friday morning I was tidying the dining room after Stella and Zoë’s breakfast, and I again experienced sharp chest pain followed by a dull ache. But this time the ache didn’t go away. It radiated to my upper back. I called my doctor’s office to make an appointment—just in case—and after I had scheduled an appointment for a couple of hours later, the receptionist put me through to the triage nurse, who, after hearing my symptoms, told me to go to the emergency room.
Donny was out of town, so I called my mom. No answer. I called again. No answer. Now I was getting nervous. My chest ached as I changed Zoë’s diaper, got her dressed. My step-dad called back and said my mom was out getting coffee but that she’d be home soon. I explained my pain and asked him to have her come and get us as soon as she got home.
Fifteen minutes later, we were in the car, driving to the emergency room, and, as traffic slowed and we took the wrong exit, my nerves began to fray. I started to feel pain in my jaw and my arms became tingly and numb. Holy shit, I thought, I’m really having a heart attack. “This would be the time to drive faster,” I said to my mom.
When we pulled up to the emergency entrance, I told Stella and Zoë I loved them, and got out of the car. (My mom agreed to take them to a park or to breakfast.) And as soon as I walked through the door and the triage nurse asked if I was okay, I started to cry. “I think I’m having a heart attack.” She was fabulous, got my in a wheel chair, talked me down with stories of her twins, and got me checked into the ER.
I had an EKG, a GI cocktail, nitroglycerin, blood work and a chest x-ray. And everything was normal. I’m fine. I’m fine.
But why the chest pain? Was it because of the new cold and cough I have now, thanks to my little Zoë and my apparently nonexistent immune system? It was not a panic attack (at least not initially; I think the tingling of the arms was because I was beginning to panic and hyperventilate.)
I have a follow-up appointment with my doctor later this week, and I’m going to ask for a referral to the University on Minnesota, to see a doctor who specializes in the heart health of preeclampsia survivors.
I’m relieved that everything seems to be fine, but I don’t feel settled. I feel lethargic and tired. (This is probably a result of the chest cold rather than the scare, but still, I feel overwhelmed. All weekend I was irritable with my kids, exhausted by the constant vigilance that Zoë requires. I must have blocked these months of Stella’s development because I seriously don’t remember all the dirt and potentially poisonous berry eating, the teetering on chairs, the rifling through cabinets.)
What I need is a vacation. Not an I-can-still-check-e-mail kind of vacation, but a no-contact-faraway-childcare-provided kind of vacation. Any ideas?
It’s been an odd few days. I had a lovely birthday on Saturday—a really perfect day with breakfast in bed (strawberries doused in sugar and a vanilla latté). D and Stella and Zoë all piled onto the bed and I opened presents and the adorable card from Stella and Zoë, “I LOVE MOM” carefully spelled out by Stella. Then my dad took us out to lunch, we went to our nephew’s birthday party—a picnic at a local lake—and then we came home, dressed up, and D and I went out to a wonderful restaurant in St. Paul. The food was amazing, and we sat outside. It couldn’t have been more lovely.
Then Zoë got sick again—fussing, coughing, reversing the slow progress we had been making with weaning. Finally yesterday I took her to the doctor, and we were handed masks as soon as we walked through the door. I didn’t realize that Minneapolis is now a hot spot of the H1N1 pandemic. I also didn’t realize that a 5-year-old girl had died in the connected hospital the day before. I slipped my mask on and tried, unsuccessfully, to keep Zoë’s mask on, as well.
Luckily (luckily?), Zoë only had another ear infection—the second in a month. We left the clinic as fast as possible and picked up a prescription for a big-gun antibiotic. It was only last night after she received her first dose that I read the pamphlet of warnings: RARELY CAUSES TOOTH DISCOLORATION. WTF? I prefer to *stop* worrying once I begin my kids on antibiotics. Instead, I am doing constant teeth checks.
Then this morning, I was at the coffee shop, and when I checked e-mail, I discovered that a short essay I recently submitted to one of my favorite online journals was accepted! Accepted! I turned to the man next to me—another regular—and I was going to tell him my news, but he was intent on his work. So I waited until I got into my car, at which point I let loose, hooting and hollering. And when I walked in the door and told D, he hugged me and we rocked some high fives. I love that guy.
Then I put poor Zoë down for her nap and turned to an essay that one of my former students recently sent me—Sharon Solwitz’s “Abracadabra,” which is about the death of Solwitz’s son to cancer. (Thank you, Marilyn!) Marilyn told me it was amazing, and it is. It SO is. But reading it is like being repeatedly kicked in the stomach. (And of course I mean that as a compliment.) I have never read anything that does grief this well.
(“Abracadabra” has appeared in In the Middle of the Middle West: Literary Nonfiction from the Heartland and more recently in Creating Nonfiction, but you can read it online here. Brace yourself.)
So I guess that’s life—a wonderful birthday and a thrilling acceptance mixed right up with the death of a little girl and the raw grief and brilliant writing of Sharon Solwitz.
A year and a half ago, Andrea Buchanan’s and Miriam Peskowitz’s The Daring Book for Girls entered the book world with a raucous yee-haw! And in a shorter amount of time than it actually took you to say “the daring book for girls,” the book was a best-seller. I see it everywhere—in malls, in the airport, in boutiques and specialty stores—and each time I do, I utter my own yee-haw for Miriam and Andrea! You go, girls!
When I posted about The Daring Book then, this is what I wrote:
One of the things I love about The Daring Book is that it acknowledges the abilities and interests and achievements of girls and women today and of women throughout history. It’s not overtly feminist (the way I can, on occasion, be), but inherent in each of these pages is what feminism, to me, is all about.
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