When we walked into Disneyland I looked around and thought “I have either entered the happiest place on earth or the axis of evil, but it sure is clean!”

I’ll admit it. I was skeptical. The price alone made me hate it. Then you add princesses and rides and masses of humanity and I figured the DMV on a Friday afternoon would be more fun.

But my kids really, really wanted to go and Mac and I felt some sort of American Obligation to take our kids to the big D-land. We put it off approximately 12 years, the age of our oldest daughter.

The problem is, within moments of walking through the front gate I was having a silly amount of fun. I was embarrassing myself. It was actually kind of irritating, were it not so fun.

I don’t know why exactly. It just was. The kids were walking around on clouds. I got such a kick out of watching them. I was kinda giddy. Mac was too. He may have skipped. We were a couple of kids ourselves.

All the planters were perfect and bright and balanced and shit. The rides were genuinely exciting and amusing. Weird puppets sang catchy tunes. Lights blinked. Things felt okay. I thought it would be a very strange place to drop acid.

I expected the standard amusement park smell of hamburgers, urine, and broken dreams. Instead I seemed to just smell good stuff. And clean. Good, clean stuff.

Yeah, the princesses. The materialism. The consumerism. And the lady yelling “Shut up!” in the face of her toddler, gripping his arm. And the lines. And the stores. And the asshole shuttle driver. And the “red man” (ohmygod) in the Peter Pan ride.

But, my family. My four kids and dad and stepmom and mom. And my brother and sister-in-law and nephews and niece.

Georgia looking up at me yelling “Goofy! He is REAL! He’s right THERE!” Ava and I taking pictures of ourselves on the Buzz Lightyear ride. Riding in the car singing “Don’t Stop Believin'” while Rocket “drove” and cackled. Going on Splash Mountain with my kids and Mac and hearing Georgia roar “That was scary but AWESOME. Let’s do it AGAIN!”

A few moments after returning to the hotel, while we took an afternoon break before heading back to Disneyland, I read a post on Facebook stating that my friend’s daughter had passed away just hours earlier from complications from Leukemia. She would have been 3 years old on November 4.

Lucy Selah, November 4, 2011 – October 24, 2014.

Through tears I looked around at that hotel room over there in Anaheim and I saw the Mickey ears sitting on that table and the Goofy stuffed animal I bought Georgia and the Pooh bear for Arlo, because we took him on that ride, and I felt the disgusting juxtaposition of where I was versus where my friend was, mere hours into her living nightmare.

I was skipping about PleasantVille in virtually pure carefree bliss while she was in a hospital, saying her final goodbyes to her baby girl.

The happiest place on earth.

Leukemia.

There’s no way to make sense of that. None. There’s no way to make sense of one day eating Mickey ear ice creams and the next day  watching your toddler crush under the weight of disease.

There’s no way to make sense of it and I won’t try. My thoughts were stupid and trite. I have no better ones now.

I thought about Lucy and cried some more and looked over all the pictures of her, the ones we had seen over the months, as she fought for her young life. I thought about her and her mom and siblings and dad and I was glad I wasn’t too good for Disneyland, that I took it in fully for once, that I let go of my old ideas to just be there fully with my family. I get caught up in failed expectations or exhaustion or just good ol’ self-centered preoccupation sometimes, and I miss it. Life. I miss the bouncing blonde heads around me. The action. The pulse and light and sound. It’s really fucking hard to remember.

But that trip to Disneyland had me in it, fully. I was terribly grateful for those couple of days.

I felt it in my bones as I read those words “Our little Goose spread her wings and flew away home this afternoon.”

I wanted to do something, say something, fix something. But I was there, and the only thing to do was keep on going. It all felt silly after that, the lights and puppets and weird sounds. The perfect planter boxes and characters and fireworks. It felt small and ridiculous and false.

But it felt like life, this good, good life – and I saw her face in my mind as I spent $24 on 3 freaking Mickey balloons, just to see the joy in my own toddler, niece and nephew.

I should have bought a fourth, and let it go into the sky, for no other reason than to watch it disappear.

***********

If you feel compelled to help, please consider making a donation to Lucy’s family to help support them through this time.

Her memorial service is Sunday, two days before what would have been her 3rd birthday.

I also want to thank those of you who have already donated. With just one Facebook post on the Renegade Mothering page, over $2,500 was raised. I have long suspected the best humans read this blog. You are proving me right.

THANK YOU.

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know I get lost sometimes.

And then again. And again.

But I don’t want to write about that. I’m tired of writing about that.

I’ve written it all before.

I don’t want to write about anything, really. And that’s not new. I’m sick of myself. Do you ever get sick of yourself? Your story? Your “insights,” the shit you keep giving the world, even your humor or other things people like about you?

Does it ever begin to feel false and wrong or just simply totally uninteresting? Like it’s all a gimmick? A bunch of bullshit?

Or maybe that’s not even it. Maybe that has even too much definition, too much clarity. Maybe you’re just floating up in the air at random like a balloon 400 feet in the air and wind and clouds.

That’s where I am.

I think.

How the hell am I supposed to know?

I haven’t written anything here for a few weeks.

Can’t.

I’m struggling. When I’m struggling a little, I write a little.

When I’m struggling a lot, I write nothing.

(And worry all day about the fact that I’m writing nothing (because I’m never going to write again, obviously.))

I get ideas, but they don’t seem right. I start things but I don’t finish them, because it all feels like a lie.

It all feels so wrong I eventually determine I’m just fucked.

But maybe I’m not fucked. Maybe this is just new motherhood, again, when I’m rearranged and my life family home brain is recreated. Destroyed, and reborn, though I kick and scream and worry I won’t get found again. Maybe I’ll stay lost this time. Maybe I was never found at all, but rather just found some groove that felt comfy and cozy and allowed me to delude myself into thinking I had some control, like my life was moving in a direction that made sense, that I’m a grown-up.

I’m not trying to be deep.

I’m fucking

confused.

I want to be “authentic” but I can’t find “authentic.”  What the fuck is authentic?

I want to be “real” but “real” is a series of days that knock me flat. How do you write about that?

I can’t get anything done. I NEED A MOTHERFUCKING ROOM OF MY OWN.

I get, you, Virginia.

Actually, at this point, I’d settle for a corner of the bed.

“Authentic” is that I’m so exhausted I can’t think of simple words and I wake up feeling like a bolder is flattening my forehead and my eyelids weigh approximately 12,000 pounds each and I’ve got 3 kids and a newborn in the house all day and night and it’s summer and every time I “finish” the laundry every hamper is full again.

But that’s not it.

My tired is a relentless tired, one that smashes me every single day, and keeps happening because Arlo goes to sleep at 11pm or so but I NEED SOME FUCKING SPACE so I hang out by myself in bed and read or play on my phone for an hour or so which puts me asleep at 12am or 12:30 and he wakes at 3 or 4 and then Georgia wakes at 6am and it starts all over again. I have a tired that makes me want to sit down and cry sometimes, or throw a temper tantrum, which I do occasionally, then I feel guilty for acting worse than the children I’m trying to raise. Sometimes I realize it’s 3pm and I have eaten only 4 bites of Cheerios, but not on purpose.

But there’s more.

I have ONE article due each Tuesday and it takes everything I’ve got, people. ALL OF IT. All the creativity. All the energy. All the mental faculty. Is that pathetic? Probably. But it’s real. There’s no time for creativity, for art, for spirit.
I’m an insane overly sensitive irritable zombie milky ass human.

Nah, not that.

I’m a mom hanging out with 4 kids, happy as hell to be home with them, loving her house and dog and backyard hens, grateful for the article-writing gig (virtually my only income right now). And in the evening when I give my baby boy a bath he coos and smiles at me and it’s just him and me and sometimes I hold him naked against my chest and I almost cry I love him so much and I’m so grateful for him and his milk sweet breath.

And we’ve been going to the library every week, which is a new thing, discovered because it’s hot as fuck and we’re broke and it’s free and cool. Ava thinks she wants to grow up to be a librarian. Last year it was a NASA engineer. I find that wonderful.

I told Rocket Arlo is getting his shots soon, so every day he asks “Is it today?” Finally I asked him why he keeps asking and he said “I just think I should be there.”

Those were the words, but the look on his face said “I don’t want my brother to hurt without me.”

And I thought about the way Mac always said he wished he had a brother and now there are brothers in our home and it’s gorgeous.

That’s true, too.

Georgia turned 4 and I enrolled her in a little nursery school around the corner. We got a cedar play structure as a gift from my inlaws and Georgia taught herself to swing. This morning I looked out there and she was naked, swinging in the sunlight. The light hit her gold hair and body and I just stood there watching because it was beautiful.

We have 4 hens. The kids named them all “Tina” so they can yell “Tina you fat lard come and get your dinner!” The labrador has made friends with Tina. Yes, that’s correct. The 90-pound dog kicks it with the chickens.

Rocket is begging to go back to regular school because he wants to be with the rest and he always wants the opposite of what he has, but did I mention he learned to read FOUR WEEKS after leaving school? Four weeks, people. Four weeks of homeschool and he went from knowing maybe ¾ of his letters to reading at a kindergarten level. By 8 weeks he was at a 1^st grade level. And now, sometimes, he reads some 2^nd-grade-level books. The pressure and anxiety of that classroom were literally destroying his ability to learn. It’s so hard for him.  He worked so hard to read. My God he worked so hard. I knew public school was slaughtering him. I knew it, so I responded, and he thrived. Sometimes I don’t blow it. What.

But he wants to go back to school, and we live in a better (read: wealthier) district so we’re giving it a shot, again.

I’m terrified though. And it’s probably a mistake. But as my friend said, “If he’s going to make it in public school, it will be this one.” So here we go.

Yes, here we go.

Please don’t tell me I’m depressed, or need help, or whatever the fuck. Maybe I’m a little depressed, but depression is an abyss, and I’m not in an abyss. I can see out, and I know it won’t last. This is different. This is right. This is life knocking you around, making you uncomfortable.

I’m just lost, so every story I try to give or say or write sounds not quite right, because if you’re lost you can’t wrap life up into some package, to be delivered and opened and consumed. You can’t turn it into something contained and palatable and friendly. It’s only messy and rugged and spilling wide open, everywhere, until it finds new edges, and contains itself a bit, and you open your eyes wider to a world you thought was much smaller, before.

And you’re glad you didn’t settle for the old, comfortable version. All worn out and tired.

Now the baby is crying. He was asleep.

I had a few minutes. Those few minutes are gone.  More will come.

Georgia is singing to him, trying to soothe him: “It’s okay, I love you, you love me, all the bad animals are gone….”

Kids are insane.

This shit is nuts.

I’m a fucking maniac.

Nope. Not that.

Here I am.

Alright.

brothers, found.

Dear Arlo,

I was looking at you today and thinking about how right now, today, the day you turn 3 weeks old, I’m a damn near perfect mother to you. I think this is why I love, crave, the newborn stage. Maybe it’s just biology, evolution. But for me, I think it’s more, because for me, it’s the only time I truly feel like a 100% capable mama. Like I’ve got this shit IN THE BAG. I’m a knock-it-out-of-the-damn-park newborn mama.

My job is defined. My role, clear. I nurse, clothe, bathe and hold you. I give you the breast to comfort you, whenever you want. I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to wonder. I don’t believe it can be done “too much.” In fact I think that’s the biggest crock ever. I wrap you up and carry you against my chest. For hours. Sometimes I lay you on your back so you can kick and look around and I can watch you and coo at you and smell your head. This is what we do, round and round, I know it and love it and own it completely (because you’re my 4th!). I’m tired, oh, so tired, but I know how to mother you now.

I know just what you need. I know what to try.

And this, I know, will fade.

You cry. I change your diaper, clean your little umbilical wound, wipe each little roll of your legs and pick you back up. Kiss, kiss, kiss. 

Your brother Rocket is 8 years old. The other day at camp another boy made fun of him because his toenails were painted. The boy taunted him then ran around telling the other boys how “Rocket has painted nails like a girl.” They all laughed. When I asked him what he did in response he said “I just walked away.” I wanted to die for a minute, because I can’t fix that. I see my son and his dropped eyes and the feeling of rejection and horror as all the other kids laugh. And I’ve got no moves. No arsenal. No sound or breast or wrap to pull that pain to me and make it go.

Your crying almost always subsides when I hold you close and kiss your temple.

But in that moment with Rocket I feel only a rage that’s useless, the desire to pummel some stranger assholes raising asshole kids. I’ve got nothing to offer my boy. The clichés don’t work. I want to beg him to stay true to himself no matter what the other kids think or say, but is that real and true and valid? At what point do we fit in because it’s easier, or, and this is the saddest part, SAFER?

When you stir, I pat you, rock you, nurse you again. Again. I check you when you’re sleeping, feel your nose and toes to be sure you aren’t too hot or cold. I keep you at my bedside or on my arm, against me. I know you should be right here. Now. Nowhere else. I do not question.

Your sister Ava will be 13 in November. Sometimes she looks at me and I almost can’t find my child anymore. She’s changing so fast and sure I’m left in the dust, where I should be, and I can’t stop biology. Soon the teenage years will come then she’ll be gone. I yell at her sometimes (man she enrages me!) because my God she’s just like me and I simply can’t stand it, the thought of her inheriting the ways I suck. I lie down at night and think of the ways I’m failing her, how I could be better. How soon, soon…

I do not fail you, newborn. Not yet. I’m your perfect mother.

You cry, I hold. 

Feed. Change. Rock. Bathe.

Two days ago Georgia had to have dental surgery because her 2-year molars came in with virtually no enamel and they all needed root canals. One was extracted. I saw her in that surgery gown holding her Tigger and I had not one single move to keep her near me, to fix it. I had to let her go, down the hall, to be put under anesthesia, endure pain. They said it wasn’t anything I did. Or maybe it was medication I took while pregnant or breastfeeding. Doesn’t matter, does it? I cannot save her from that which is coming her way. I have nothing up my sleeve. I watch and love and hide my tears so she won’t see I’m terrified.

When you take a bath I put a warm washcloth across your belly and chest and legs to keep you warm, tell you I’m here. You cry anyway when I wash behind your ears. You’re so dramatic with your wailing. But in the hooded towel you find your tiny fist and I say “It’s okay, little buddy” and it’s enough.

It is enough. 

So hey, newborn, Arlo, I think I just want to thank you, for these few weeks of damn-near-perfect motherhood, while you’re just barely detached from me and my job is so clear.

Thank you for this time of meeting all your needs, pretty much all the time, or at least knowing how, more or less, to do so, without my personality flaws getting in the way. Your personality doesn’t clash with mine. Your whining doesn’t drive me around the bend. You don’t irritate me. I don’t irritate you.

Not yet.

You haven’t gotten sick yet. You aren’t defiantly yelling “no” for no apparent reason. You aren’t losing your shit because I gave you the blue cup instead of the red. Your hormones aren’t raging. My temper hasn’t screwed up our day. My impatience hasn’t snapped at you when you ask me the same question fifteen times. You don’t want to play board games I can’t muster the energy for. You don’t need camps I can’t afford. You aren’t worried about the bullies in junior high. Or the bullies anywhere. Nobody cares that you can’t read yet. Other people’s douchebag kids aren’t near you. Nobody makes fun of your baby acne.

You are only you. And I, I am only me. We’re just these two physical beings – still kind of primal and raw and distilled – so now, just for now, I’ve got everything you need.

Tomorrow will begin the series of letting go, and I’ll be ready for that, I think, or actually not at all, but I’ll do it anyway because it will be my job then, but it’s messier and harder and uglier than this.

This is simple. I’ve got this.

One day I’ll see you and I’ll have no move for you, either, no way to fix it, soothe it, clean, calm, or make it alright.

But not today.

So yeah, little one, thank you for these few days of perfect motherhood.

I guess I had forgotten I had it in me.

You’ll forget I had it in me, too.

But for now, we’ve got each other dialed, kid.

You and me.

Love,

Mama

Once again, thank you Sarah Maren for the photos. Sarah took these portraits on June 8, when Arlo was 4 days old. It was a fucking lovely afternoon of our families hanging out. She’s an artist and a dear human and wonderful friend.

********

NEW SPONSOR: Have you ever wished you could support local businesses when buying (or creating) baby registries instead of big ass chain stores? Yeah, me too. Check out NEARBY (no seriously, do not the coolest people advertise on this blog? I’m genuinely impressed.) I’ll let Allison explain the rest:

“The concept for NEARBY was dreamed up when owner Allison Grappone got married in 2009. She and her husband were frustrated that they weren’t easily able to support their favorite local businesses through the traditional gift registry model. The couple created their own, allowing friends and family to purchase goods that reflected the couple’s personalities. The registry was a hit, and for the next two years Grappone spent her spare time researching what it would take to make her vision a reality.

In 2011, Grappone won a $25,000 award for her business idea through Manchester Young Professionals Network in New Hampshire, where NEARBY is based. This was the kickstarter for her business and she put a great team of collaborators together to launch NEARBY.”

If there is one cosmic message I seem to receive more than any other, it’s this one: “You are not in charge of this rodeo, Janelle.”

(So sit back, asshole, and enjoy the ride.)

I wanted to have a May baby. I really, really wanted a May baby. My husband was off work for the better part of 3 weeks in May. On June 7 was a family reunion that occurs once every 15 years. I wanted to go, and I wanted to take a week-old baby. My due date was June 3. I had a vision. I always have a vision. WHY WON’T THE UNIVERSE GET IN LINE WITH MY FUCKING VISION?

Of course, strategically-timed-baby-delivery is a bit harder when you’re planning a homebirth. Midwives offer visualization techniques and Amish birthing herbs. They do not offer Pitocin.

But I did try castor oil. At around 39 weeks, I gave it a shot. They said I could. It didn’t work.

It worked with Georgia, but I was a few days past my due date when I tried it with her. All it did with this one was make me sick (I’ll save you the details) and sap my strength. Also my soul, but I digress.

After the failed induction attempt I surrendered. Fuck it. The baby will come when it comes and I’ll either make it to the reunion or I won’t. Profound, I know.

Three weeks passed. Actually it was a couple days, but we all know how long those days feel. I was enjoying false labor ALL.NIGHT.LONG, or at least every night until 2 or 3am. You know, contractions that hurt enough to keep you awake, come regularly, get your hopes up, but don’t actually evolve into anything? Yeah, those. I love those. Those are fun.

Around June 1 the baby dropped so low into my pelvis I peed teaspoons every 30-minutes and enjoyed near-constant cramping and pressure and an existential misery that took my breath away. Okay, drama. But for real sometimes I would sit on the toilet and almost cry. Everytime I peed I’d think “was there blood on the paper? Anything? ANY FUCKING SIGN?”

I was sure my water was going to bust at any moment.

So much pressure.

But it didn’t.

At my 40 week appointment on June 3 I pretty much hated all humans. I couldn’t sit very long. I couldn’t stand for long. I couldn’t lie down (my bladder was all “UM you need to pee, bitch.”)

Precious, precious end of pregnancy.

On the evening of June 3 contractions began again around 9pm, and I figured it was more false labor. I had resigned myself to forever pregnancy at this point. But these continued through the night and into the next day. They came every 15 or 20 minutes but were mellow. I took Georgie to the dentist, picked up a prescription, got haircuts for Georgie and Ava. I wanted to believe it was the real thing but I had been misguided so many damn times I just assumed it wasn’t real.

But they kept up.

By 7 or 8pm they were 10 or 15 minutes apart and still manageable. I would stop and breathe through them, but they weren’t long and I was clear-minded. I ate dinner. I made cupcakes so we could sing him or her “Happy birthday.” I knew my baby was coming, but clearly it was early labor. Early labor can go on for hours. I’m no schmuck. This isn’t my first rodeo.

(oh yeah, just when you think you “know…” that’s right. you get served.)

At 7:30pm or so my mother-in-law picked up the three older kids. The plan was that they would keep the kids while I labored at home and bring them back when it looked like I was getting near the pushing stage, so they could be here for the birth.

I texted my dear friend Sarah, who was going to photograph the birth, told her I’d call her when it got closer. Did the same with my mom.

The contractions kept on, 8 or 10 minutes apart, 30 or 45 seconds long, and they just sort of stayed that way. I had to stand up and moan and lean against the wall during them, but they just weren’t really evolving. I called the midwife at 10pm and told her they were 10 minutes apart and I’d call her when they ramped up. I told her I was restless and anxious. She said take some skullcap, go for a walk and take a bath.

Mac and I took a walk around the neighborhood. It was hot. When a contraction came I would hang from his neck and lean on him and bury my face in his chest. I couldn’t believe the strength I found against his body. During my last 2 births I was kind of a lone birthing wolf (or whatever). I didn’t want to be near anybody or touched. This time was different. This time I felt dependent, overwhelmed. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want the work, the pain. I was just so tired.

This pregnancy was really, really hard. I’m pretty tough, but this shit damn near killed me. Three kids, teaching 3 classes, writing, moving, all of it. The last two months were the hardest months of my life, at least since I’ve gotten sober. I was so uncomfortable, so tired, and yet life just kept on. Kept on. And kept the fuck on. So much work. I had nothing left for this birth.

It seemed incomprehensible that I would face 7 or 8 or 9 hours of MORE WORK at the end, but there was no choice. The only way through childbirth is through childbirth.

Like life, I guess.

We got home from the walk. Still 8 or 10 minutes apart. I got in the bath.

They seemed to stop for a bit. It was probably 10:45pm at this point.

I thought “OH HOLY SHIT they’re going away.” But then, after what seemed like a long time, a contraction came that felt a little different. I felt a little panicky, scared, freaked out. I got out of the bath and thought “Well shit, that felt a little like a transition contraction.”

But it couldn’t be. The contractions aren’t hard enough, fast enough, I’m nowhere near that point!

I hadn’t labored actively at all, or I didn’t think I had. I was confused. I was in labor but I wasn’t. In my past births, there was a time when the contractions came hard and fast and long, my whole belly like a raging machine – 60 second pains, 90 seconds. It was all consuming, insane. I left this world for a weird “labor land.” All lucid thought ended.

These never went past 45 seconds. I never entered that place.

I remember standing out of the bath and thinking I just can’t do this. Mac held me and I cried. “I can’t do it, Mac. I just can’t do this work. The pain, all of it. I can’t face it.”

I had another contraction. He pressed on my lower back and it helped.

Out of the tub, I leaned against a dresser and had 2 or 3 contractions 2 minutes apart. What the hell’s happening? Why are they coming so quickly? They were just 10 minutes apart?!

He called the midwife and we told Sarah and my mom to come.

I had 5 or 6 contractions 2-minutes apart, maybe 30 seconds long. I knew I was entering active labor, and I just dreaded the hours to come. I knew I had A LOT OF WORK ahead of me.
I asked Mac if the tub was full yet. I asked him if he remembered to put the sea salt in, and I even helped him find it. Always the multi-tasker. Or, control freak. Probably both.

As I was walking across the living room to the birthing tub, I stopped and leaned against the high chair (yes, it was in the living room. Don’t ask.) to have another contraction. The pressure built and my water broke. Everywhere. Like a flood.

With the rush of waters I felt my baby’s head slam down, way down. Like coming out down.

He was coming.

“The baby’s coming NOW!” I was shocked.

So calm, he said “Get down to the ground. Get down to the ground.”

He ran across the room and grabbed some towels, threw them beneath me. I squatted, the head was crowning. I squatted more and the head was out.

“Get it out!” I yelled.

“You have to push the baby out with the next contraction,” Mac said.

“Are you holding the head?”

“Yes, I’m right here.”

I bore down a tiny bit, and out slipped a baby. I ripped my shirt off to hold him and tried to turn, but felt the umbilical cord. Duh. Mac passed him between my legs and I pulled him to me, kissed his gorgeous self, laughed, looked between his legs “It’s a boy!” (Though I already knew that, the whole pregnancy).

“Is he okay?” my voice shook.

“Well, he’s crying,” Mac answered. We laughed.

Mac grabbed blankets. They were already warm. He had them prepared already. My heart explodes for him.

We sat together and laughed again, gazed at this little creature, talked to him, loved him, suddenly the three of us in a quiet, darkened room.

I couldn’t believe it was real. Here he was. After virtually no labor, he came. After no time at all, he was in my arms. Peacefully, gently, quickly.

Maybe he knew I didn’t have the strength. Maybe the universe knew I needed this, like this.

A birth so fast I barely knew I was birthing. A perfect baby fallen into the arms of his father. We named him Arlo Theodore Valentine.

Since he’s our last, we just gave him all the boy names we’ve ever loved.

The midwives showed up about 10 minutes after he was born. Sarah and my mom about 30 minutes later. At one point I saw Mac literally jumping up and down. Adrenalin, I guess. He was born around 11:15pm, an hour after I called the midwife for the first time, telling her I’d call when real labor started happening. Ha.

We sat and talked and laughed and I smelled him and loved him. I thought for sure he was a regular-sized 8-pounder (since he came out so fast), but he was 9 pounds, 8 ounces. I had not a tear. The power of movement in birth. The power of the woman’s body.

The next morning, the other 3 kids came and I thought if somebody tried to tell me 6 years ago that this would become my life, that it would ever get this good, I would have laughed in their face.

In a birth like this, everybody’s born again. The heart bursts open, raw, exposed. People fall in love all over again. The man who sat beside me 13 years ago when we were 19 and 22 years old, as I birthed our first baby and we breathed together, to last week, as he caught our 4^th baby, second son, the remaining portion of our hearts.

And then, newborn breath.

********

And hey! Three more days to help fund The Before Project. Seattle-based filmmaker Terence Brown is making a documentary about tweens, “exploring those raw early days of growing up.” As a mother of a 12-year-old, I am both in love and terrified by this strange, liminal tween place. Talk about gray area. There are moments when they seem so grown up. Other moments not totally unlike my toddler.

Please click here to help fund this project. Though Terence has reached his initial goal, he is using thousands of his own dollars to fund the making of the film, so every additional dollar will make a profound difference. Also, there’s only 3 days left, and every backer (even at the $1.00 level) gets access to the finished documentary.  

In Terence’s words: “Last year I thought it might be interesting to film some very short interviews with a class of 4th graders just to see what they would say. Here’s what they said: 4th Grade. Now that this group of 60+ kids is heading to middle school, I’m planning to film more extensive interviews with each 5th grader this June.  I’m going to spend roughly 30 minutes with each student, asking them a wide range of questions.

The final project will be a documentary short called ‘Before.’  My goal is to explore and even celebrate this awkward and thankfully fleeting phase of life. The final video will live on a site we are creating called thebeforeproject.org. Our plan is to create an interactive site where people from around the world can contribute content and stories about the tween years.”

The other day, I looked in the mirror as I was getting in the shower and I saw myself, 39 weeks pregnant, huge and round.

I saw breasts nearly resting on an enormous belly.

I saw the stripes racing down its curve.

I saw the layer of fat beneath the belly, the hips. I saw enormous thighs.

And for the first time in my life, I saw something beautiful.

No, I saw something absolutely fucking gorgeous.

And I’m not talking about some mind candy bullshit self-talk. I’m talking about reality, a sudden, unexpected shift in what I saw.

My own eyes.

For some reason, I saw beauty. Real beauty.

I saw the belly I’ve been ashamed of and the untamable breasts and the thighs that are too thick, and I thought to myself “Gorgeous.” A smile moved across my face. So unexpected, to see that after all these years of shrouded disgust. I saw something else, it was as if my eyes saw the same but my brain and heart saw something new, so foreign.

The round was lovely, its curve so powerful and determined and soft.

The deep lines of stretched skin that came when I was 22 and pregnant with my first baby, reinforced and redrawn and recreated a second, third and fourth time. The pain and transformation and power of each stripe, I saw.

The round that holds my heart and life and new life. My own line to my own mom once, now wrapped around the unknown. Soon to be known, or sort of known, dear unborn child. My last child.

It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, so I’ll show you, too.

The belly.

But really, the face. There’s a look of pride on that face, on the face of a woman who gained 60 pounds instead of the “proper” 25-35 (25 for a woman of my weight!), who has been ashamed of herself and her body, thinking her husband was just so full of shit when he looked at her and smiled with joy and adoration, maybe a quick tear, “You’re just so cute.”

I usually want to punch him in the face. Because his adoration mocked my self disdain. Maybe not anymore. Maybe I see what he sees. Not “cute,” I don’t see cute and probably never will, but I see beauty that almost never ends, that touched me days before the belly will end, the curve, its roundness, only the stripes to remain and remember.

I don’t know why it took this long to see, but I’ve seen it now, and I’ll never doubt again.

It may not be truth for anybody else, and it certainly isn’t for society, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t the truth for me, now.

And I caught it, just in the nick of time.

This is where I am, 39 weeks. gorgeous, miserable, ready.

change is always within. always.

P.S. Dear baby, if you’re listening, I would just like to clarify that just because I suddenly and inexplicably find my huge belly “beautiful,” I’d also be TOTALLY INTO IT if you, like, exited that belly. As much as I enjoy your head sitting so low in my pelvis I can barely walk or sit, and the uterine contractions that keep me up all night (but don’t produce an actual baby) and peeing 1500 times a day, and all the other joys of this glorious period of my life, I’d enjoy smelling your breath a whole lot more and we’re all really, really fucking excited to meet you. (Did I just swear at my unborn baby?)

Speaking of talking to unborn babies, my midwives told me to “talk to my baby” to help coax him or her out. So a few hours later, I was inspired. I looked down at my belly and said “Hey there little one. FYI, only assholes stay in past their due dates.” Not totally sure that’s exactly what they had in mind, but shit. It’s all I had at the moment.

Due date is June 3.

Don’t be an asshole.

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Hey, we have a new sponsor, and she’s a badass. She’s an artist, actor, screenwriter, filmmaker and short story writer. Yes, you read that correctly. And she writes a blog but it’s basically cooler than mine (and possibly yours) because there’s pictures and shit. Not stupid clip art (not that I’ve ever used stupid clip art) but actual DRAWINGS, as in, by her. And they’re real and raw and gritty, the blend of dark sarcasm and humanity that makes my heart sing. And resonates on that level. You know, the human one. Look at her portfolio. Read her blog. And then buy something from her Etsy shop. But first, meet Lindsey from Tense and Urgent, in her own words:

Hello, I’m Lindsey Connell

I live in Toronto with my husband and two kids, 4 1/2 and 2. They’re bananas and of course I’m wild about them. I am an actor, screenwriter, filmmaker and short story writer. All fun activities to do at home in a room by yourself with your cats, a mirror, and cigarettes by your side. A year ago I started Tense and Urgent because my cats/cigarettes had been replaced by children (not all at once) and because of the ensuing sleep deprivation, my ability to think of any story longer than a paragraph was seriously taxed. But one-liners or captions for drawings, I could do. And painting and drawing while listening to “This American life” became kind of the perfect way to spend my time.

 My work deals mostly with relationship stuff, parenting, existential dread… life stuff. And the tiny moments in a person’s life when something clicks or shifts- when a realization comes or something is professed. Often the people in my work are staring straight into the middle distance, caught in an epiphany. But there’s humour there, too. And lightness. It’d be a big drag if my cards made people feel lonelier, sadder, and dumpier than they did before they saw them, but they are called “Tense and Urgent” so that was fair warning, I think.

This website and blog are still evolving. I hope to start adding different elements to this website eventually. Short films, small animated pieces, postcard fictions. Stay tuned.