Nonverbal

 Nonverbal 

Brows furrowed over deeply serious eyes, he uses his pointer finger to scrub the video to precisely 16 seconds into the ad. The tip of a raspberry tongue stuck out in concentration, he pushes Play.

“I don’t want to eat garbage, dad.” 

Remy the Rat has spoken, but it’s Rhett’s eyes that meet mine, insistent.

“It’s not garbage; it’s eggs. And I’m not making you anything else.” 

Rhett scowls, tapping the back of his first two fingers against his forehead.

“You call me stupid again, I’m gonna take that iPad away.” 

He continues to scowl, but puts his hands down. I go back to wiping off the kitchen counters. 

Forlorn, he pokes at the unwanted eggs with a spoon, willing them to be different. He looks up at me and decides to chance it again. “Duh-UH.” His voice is loud, lilting up at the end so I recognize this is a question.

“We can’t have donuts every day. The eggs are good, try them.” I do not sound convincing as the longer they sit there, the colder and more rubbery they become. The effort must be made, for his health. 

Rhett holds up both hands and flicks them a couple of times so the palms face me. I sigh, defeated.

“All done, huh? Not even one bite?” 

He dumps the cold eggs on the table.

“Okay, fine. We’ll get a donut. But tomorrow, we try something new, alright? Man cannot live on donuts alone. That’s Biblical!” He’s not even listening to me, gloating as he is in his victory. “Go get your shoes on, before I change my mind. Spoiled little monkey.”  

I’m rewarded for this defeat by a round of bouncing happy-flappies before he walks on his tiptoes towards the car.  

  ****

“We’re all gonna die!” screams a VeggieTales pea from his iPad. 

I don’t take my eyes off the road. “I’m not driving that fast, can you chill?” He giggles at his little joke and kicks his feet, playing the clip a couple more times. He is just as tickled every time. 

“What kind of donut do you want?” I ask as though I do not know the answer. 

“Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch.” Rhett’s response sounds like cheerful little maracas, rhythmic as a shimmy. 

“Chocolate? Again? They have so many good flavors, we could try something new. Like sour cream, or blueberry. You like blueberries.” 

He grinds his teeth loudly, the muscle working in his jaw. I’m transported back to early mornings on the lake, where the catfish call is so pronounced I can almost smell the bait. “Dude, can you stop? You’re making my face hurt just listening to it.” He chops one hand across the other. “Yeah, stop. All your teeth are gonna fall out.” He wasn’t agreeing with me though, just repeating; the grind continues until I hand back a silicone Lego necklace, an acceptable substitute.

The donut shop is brightly lit and overtly pink. It reminds me of the Barbie book I had as a kid where she opened an ice cream shop. The smell is yeasty and sweet, permeating the whole building. Rhett bounds up to the counter and loudly, proudly requests “DUH-uh!” 

A middle-aged woman is at the counter. She looks shocked for a minute, but turns on a hundred-watt smile. Speaking slowly and enunciating clearly, she says to him, “HELLO THERE. ARE…YOU….HERE…WITH…YOUR…MOMMY?” 

Rhett rocks back on his toes for a second. He is looking at the woman as if she is going to rear back and bite him. Nevermind that he has several inches and thirty pounds on her. I come up beside him and the woman turns her full attention on me as though Rhett suddenly vanished.

“Welcome to Bab’s Bakery, what can I get for you?” 

I turn to Rhett and ask “chocolate?” He doesn’t look at me as he whispers “ch-ch-ch-ch-ch.” 

“Can we get an order of chocolate donut holes? And a decaf coffee, black.” 

Bab starts punching in the order and filling the bag. “How old is he?” 

“Oh. Um. He’ll be 16 at the end of the month.” 

“16! He’s so tall though! My Chaz didn’t get that tall, but I suppose neither am I.” She gives a little chuckle. ``16 though. My gosh. Has he always been…” she trails off significantly, but I refuse to bail her out. “You know….like this?” Her voice has dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. 

My smile feels as thin as nori, and just as friable. “Yup. He was born this way.” 

“Oh, well bless your heart. I don’t know how you handle it. My friend Deb had a daughter who was, you know we didn’t have a name for it back then and everybody nowadays it feels like has this or that, but anyway: Deb’s girl, Ruby. They had to put her in one of those homes where there’s other people like her, and I mean, I heard it was nice; it wasn’t one of those bad ones. Ruby got to do arts and crafts and I think they had movie nights and she had her own room. Are you going to put him in a place like that? Your total is $4.58, dear.” 

I hand her the five I’ve been holding and take the coffee, squeezing it just a little too tight so the lid pops off. “We haven’t really discussed it.” Rhett rocks back and forth on his feet, staring out the window. He’s very quiet, and one hand has wound its way into his hair like he hasn’t done since he was a baby. 

Bab continues on as she punches buttons on the register, “well, better sooner than later. Y'all come back and see us sometime! GOOD…. BYE….. BUDDY!” she half-screams. 

Rhett carries the little baggie of donut holes to the car, dropping it on the floor and ignoring it. Donuts roll out on the floor. I don’t correct him as I back us out of the parking lot. 

We drive home in silence.

Da Mama

So, as promised, here is a little bit more about me, tha mama!

I grew up in a small town, surrounded by family. I have two brothers and a sister, we range in age- (soon to be) 22, 23, 24, and 25. We are very close because of our close ages, and being this far away from them kills me, as I know it kills them. I am obviously the youngest.

In school, I have always been really good at English and History--basically, things involving memory--but have loved the sciences. You can blame my mother for that because she got her degree in microbiology when I was little, and is as big of a nerd as I am. While in high school, I played trombone in the marching band (GEEK), and participated in Literary Critiscm for UIL, as well as volunteering for anything in everything. I was particularly active in my youth group, as well with the charity organizations Teens Living with Cancer and Carter Blood Care.

My dream has always been to be a neurologist, specifically in pediatrics, but unfortunately I have neither the stomach nor the time to invest. Which stinks, because medicine is a big love of mine, and will probably always be. As it is, with a degree in business, and my history with the company, I hope to get a position as a new accounts consultant for the aforementioned Carter Blood Care. I would be doing good work with them, and would still have intimate ties with medicine.

Art has always been a fascination with me as well, and while I am not particularly good at it. I keep working at it though, because talent is a matter of time invested.

Michael says I am super-sensitive and a bleeding heart (which is why he frightens away any stray that gets too close to our house). I love cats so much--probably because we share one big common factor--when we want to be loved on, when we want to be touched, we will initiate it. I am not very cuddly, as it would turn out, and am not a big fan of hugging or kissing anyone but my husband and children. My cats are Remy LaBeau and Oscar de la Renta (I'm weird), and we also own a rat terrier named Pepper Ann Potts. Michael refuses to let me have any more pets unless something "mysteriously" (read--I find new homes for them and they...) disappear.

Medicated

I couldn’t think, couldn’t sing, couldn’t write.

It had stolen my ability to be Andie.

I have suffered from depression in one form or another for over ten years. First arriving on the scene as postpartum with the arrival of my strawberried Emerald, it took root in our difficult life circumstances, fed on my up-and-down hormones from four pregnancies, and flourished in autism and diabetes.


With tiny baby Emerald, I should have been suspicious when I told Michael, “I’ve read that some mothers don’t bond with their babies right away, so it’s okay if I don’t love it yet,” by his response:


“She’s already here; can you not call her ‘it’?”


From the thickets, it’s kind of hard to see though. Your body is telling you that you indeed feel this way so obviously you are supposed to feel this way—if it wasn’t a logical reaction, you wouldn’t be having it. It isn’t until you separate yourself through the lens of someone else’s perspective that you start to realize the script is all wrong—this isn’t how your story is supposed to play out.

The analogy that is most often referenced is getting glasses for the first time: you didn’t realize how blurry everything was until it came into focus.


After Benjamin was born, I was sitting at my general practitioner’s, Dr Andy, for my 25 year annual physical. It was my first appointment with him; I was referred by my obstetrician because they were golfing buddies. Michael wanted me to bring up my mood swings in response to an incident we had earlier in the week: We were running behind getting ready to go to church, so I got upset and kicked the high chair across the room. Which apparently was the wrong reaction.


As I sat there, feeling ridiculous because I had a couple of bad days and Dr Google over here was diagnosing me with depression, and the doctor is going to think I’m an idiot, why am I even here, this is stupid, stupid. Tears are in my eyes and my throat is sore because I am not going to cry again and make a fool of myself, and I’m just so, so angry and I don’t know why. I am absolutely furious, fuming, sitting there on the examination table all by myself and there is no reason.


This isn’t what depression was advertised as. You envision sadness, not anger. Thoughts of suicide. I didn’t want to kill myself. That would have taken way more energy than I had available, and I couldn’t see hurting myself. At night when I closed my eyes for the briefest moment, I would wish I wouldn’t wake up. I didn’t want to die, but living was so hard, and death sounded so...peaceful.

Dr Andy explained that depression wasn’t just sadness; it was all the emotions, right under the skin, ready to fly out before we could stop them.

He prescribed Celexa (citalopram) for depression, Elavil (amitriptyline) for anxiety.

The first week, I was euphoric. Not because the medicine had such a profound impact on me, but because I was so optimistic—we had identified the problem and there was a solution! I wasn’t a cold, hateful mother; it was a biological issue. The medicine was going to help, I could feel it in my bones.

The second and third week felt like I had been cruising down the highway going 80 miles per hour and someone had thrown the parking brake. Instead of my emotions feeling right under my skin, it felt like I carried them overflowing in my arms—in any given situation, I had to frantically sort through and figure out what exactly I was supposed to be feeling, experiencing every emotion at once in a confused and upsetting state.

After about a month and a half, everything evened out and we got on kind of a system. Weekdays, I’d put Gabe on the bus to PPCD, drop Emerald off at preschool, and go home to put baby Benjamin down for nap. While he was sleeping, I would take my two little “happy” pills and hope nobody needed me for an hour because I would be too dizzy to drive. I’d lay on the couch feeling like I was rolling somersaults; then it would pass and the rest of the day would be pleasantly tepid.

It felt like the colors had been scaled down on my life. I was no longer seeing red furious or blue sadness, but I wasn’t laughing and joyous either.

After hurting for so long, the mediocrity of okay days was paradise. 

I stayed on the two meds for a couple of years until I moved to Abilene and got a new doctor, one that reacted with horror when he saw the amount of serotonin-affecting medicine I was on. He had me drop the Elavil and cut my Celexa dose by half.

The new regimen lasted about a year. During that time, I slept whenever I could get away with it. I was a perfectly pleasant (for the most part) individual, perpetually living between nap times. What drew me up short, what made me question the medicine I was on, was when someone asked me what I did for fun and I realized:

I can’t name one thing I enjoy.

I’m a person of superlatives—I have a favorite in every category, just go on and ask me. But during that time, I couldn’t think of anything that brought me pleasure. It felt like I was doing things because I had done them before, things like watching cooking shows and reading, but there was no satisfaction, no emotional connection, just an automated response.

With depression, my chest ached remembering things I had once enjoyed, longing to recapture that experience. I’d get a plate of TGIF hot wings—my favorite, with the crispy outside and the buttery, spicy sauce—and will it to taste as good as I remembered, but it never did. I’d get dressed up and go out on dates but no matter how much I put on my “happy” costume, I couldn’t make my insides reflect out.

The treatment, the antidepressant, though...it felt like the candle inside me had been blown out.

If my favorite show was on, I wouldn’t look up once until the credits were rolling and realize I hadn’t heard a word. I would sit down my favorite meal and taste nothing before the food was gone.

My mind felt like a yawning, wind-filled cavern where placidity reigned supreme. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t sing. Couldn’t write.

Antidepressants had stolen my ability to be Andie. 

For a brief while, I switched to Wellbutrin to see if it was the specific med that was causing the issue, but it was an emotional cataclysm and I couldn’t finish the initial 6 week course. I talked to my doctor again, noting that my youngest child was then four years old, so the underlying issue—postpartum depression—had likely passed its course. I had ridden the wave of celexa through the last storm, but now it was time for the clouds to part and let us evaluate what was left to work with.

It was hard to wean me off because I was on such a low dose to begin with, but gradually I got to the point that my system was clearing out. There was a significant period of adjustment, a time in which Michael and my mother asked repeatedly if I thought this was a wise choice (with the heavy implication that they disagreed with this course of action). To ease the transition, I started going to counseling to learn coping mechanisms.

Three main strategies emerged successfully for me:

The first was my lists. I made a list of the minimum I was allowed to get done each day. Eat healthy, Drink Water, Do something enjoyable. If I accomplished nothing else that day, then I could say I tried to take care of myself, which was a start.

The second was taking time for myself. Twice a day—once before Michael left for work and the second after dinner—I would go for a run. It was 90 plus degree weather and I loved it because I could blast my heavy metal music and not talk to anyone or socialize with anyone for a half an hour or more. It was just me.


The last was my “Thought Vomit” journal.

My counselor had recommended a mindfulness program. He said thoughts are like leaves in the stream; we can watch them pass by; we acknowledge they are there, we hear them, and we let them pass. If we don’t hear the thoughts, they’ll just keep repeating until we do, so acknowledge them.

My homework every week was to write down what I was thinking for 15 minutes every day. Just write. It’s a different process to write than to speak or to think; it feels so much more actionable. I would find a spot, usually not long before bed, and I would write down everything I was thinking—every emotion I was feeling, every song I had stuck in my head, every complaint and every praise and everything, like a grand purge until there was nothing left.

Emptiness not like the one caused by Celexa, which felt like a desert with friends hiding where I could not see them, but an oasis where nothing was happening, no one was moving, and I could just be at peace.

I spent a year getting reacquainted with myself, remembering what brought me joy and satisfaction outside of being a wife and a mother. Lemonheads, Tim Burton movies, the dark and macabre, but also sunlight and dancing and Jude Deveraux. I liked things that were powerful evocators, things that demanded a reaction. Joy was something I had missed for so long and wanted to spend as much time in as possible, but I rediscovered things I did not like as well: loud noises, big crowds, being late, messes. It reminded me of what it took to take care of myself.

Toward the end of my pregnancy with Tula, the depression took hold again. I was snapping at the kids, taking four baths a day, just waiting. Waiting to feel better. Waiting for happiness to come back. Three weeks postpartum, having cried every day because of change in routine or unexpected events or delays, I started on a low dose of Zoloft (Setraline). I was dizzy at first, but then it just ran quietly in the background. It felt like it was gently nudging me away from the darker thoughts, away from spiraling into a panic attacks. It was a little platform that held my emotions up until I could take over again on my own.

Sometimes I felt weak or foolish for needing medicine, for not being able to handle it. I felt like I was supposed to be coping better.

When I was feeling kinder, I knew that just as Gabriel took medicine to control the symptoms of his autism and Emerald took insulin to manage her diabetes, I needed support, too. It wasn’t a matter of my ability, but a physiological disruption that had to be corrected. Taking action was coping. 

I still have bad days. Thursday was a bad day. Gabriel ruined my coffee, drank the back-up; Emerald and Benjamin would not stop fighting and I burned only dinner to complete inedibility. We were supposed to play a game as a family but my dour mood had soured it for everybody. That day, I didn’t cope so well. Spending that time learning how to care for myself, satiate my emotional needs, taught me though: it is okay to have a bad day, because tomorrow will be better.

I know how to make it better.

—Andie

She's a Natural

People think parenting is instinctual.

I have to assume they base this on observing nature. Look at God’s creation, who know exactly what to do to care for their young! Surely man, who was made in God’s own image, is even better equipped to rear their offspring!

This only works of course if you don't look too close. Black bear mothers, for instance, are lauded as one of most protective and nurturing, but will often deem single births as not worth the time investment and will push singlets outside the cave before going to sleep and trust the situation to resolve itself. Pandas will choose the most promising offspring and ignore the other completely, devoting all her time and energy into her favorite.

There are many species that treat their young callously, making you wonder how their kind has managed to survive at all. It is no surprise then that the extent to which humans are inherently nurturing extends precisely to not eating our babies when they are born and not much further.

I have mentioned before that I myself was not born maternal.

My mother likes to recount the story of a Christmas when I was small that I received a babydoll. This was a special babydoll that made crying noises, just like a real baby! I named him Christopher, and before all the wrapping paper had been picked up from the floor, I had stuffed the squalling nuisance in a drawer and left the room.

If you had asked me when I was younger if I wanted children, it would have stumped me. Honestly, I never thought about it. I liked names--Stephen and Varian for boys, Scarlett and Charlotte for girls. Names were pretty and interesting, things I enjoyed studying. Children were scary and unpredictable and more than a little gross. I went out of my way to avoid interaction.

Cousins tempered me a little. Jacob was close to me in age so he was more of a peer, but the rest were considerably (nine or more years) younger. Jessica it took me the longest to warm up to. Justin was always wanting to do stuff and be outside and move. I didn't see Sean very often, but he was sweet and didn't bother me excessively.

Tyler, who Benjamin reminds me a lot of, was probably the one I...it sounds harsh to say “tolerated”, but it is somewhat apt. I loved all of them, but Tyler was the easiest to spend time with for a while. He would get a stack of books and sit in my lap and twirl my hair while I read to him. This was the kind of kid I could handle.

When Emerald came along, it was like handing me a rubix cube with a bomb inside.

I never baby talked to her. It was matter-of-fact speech. “Hello, infant. I am your mother.”

Had she known better, I'm sure she would have been terrified.

She didn't though, and so we set on the path of learning together. Nursery rhymes were not in my wheelhouse, so she was lulled to sleep by Mom crooning Matchbox Twenty and Queen. Growing up Church of Christ was a boon because I had a positively endless trove of worship songs memorized.

One particular afternoon, I sang “Down to the River to Pray” (from the “O Brother Where Art Thou” soundtrack) for an impressive four hours, inviting every familial name I could invoke to “let’s go down, come on down”. It kept her from crying at least until Michael got home.

We didn't play games like peek-a-boo or hide-and-seek. I explained to her what I was doing, showed her how things worked. I shared facts with her about everything--things we saw on walks, the nutritional value of food we were eating (if any), the science or history behind everyday items.

Eventually we amassed a collection of children's books, but before then, I read aloud to her whatever I was reading, be it scripture, textbooks, or classical literature.

And let's just say, people like me are the reason there are instructions on the side of the diaper box.

She and I didn't know what to expect from each other, so we learned with and from one another.

As a child, I spent a lot of time around animal babies. Mostly cats, my Sassi having a litter of darling kittens what seemed like every few months, but also chicks and ducklings, little bunnies and puppies and goats. All those that were born at our house knew right away had to find their mom for food, even with their little eyes and ears still shut.

Why then was breastfeeding so inexplicably, intricately difficult? With each new kid, it was like riding a bike. Except the bike is on fire, you’re on fire, everything is on fire and you’re in hell.

A lot has changed in the decade since Emerald was born. She taught me a great deal, the least of which is every subsequent kid is a totally new creature. You'll feel as inept and out of your element trying to figure out each new little person.

I remember bringing Gabriel home, thinking I was officially old hat at this newborn thing, when he ended up peeing all over my living room wall during a diaper change. (Gotta watch those boys; I know this now.)

It serves us well to start parenthood out as a blank slate, I think. Excessive programming would have made it that much harder to acclimate to the unusual circumstances each of us face in our unique children. It helps us stay innovative, trying new and different things in an attempt to nurture these lives we have been entrusted with in better ways.

If you had told a fifteen year old me that I would turn into mush over a baby, I would have thought you were crazy. But Tula here transforms me into a pile of mashed potatoes, she's so cute. I have a virtual arsenal of nursery rhymes and lullabies (though I still sing my fair share of Queen), and a closet chock full of picture books to share with her.

And would you know it, I coo and baby talk with the best of them.

There's still so much more to learn, though. This is the first baby I've had that was mama’s--she cries if I'm not holding her constantly. Even Michael has trouble getting her happy sometimes.

And would the powers that be just decide what is safe and just leave it at that? I just read an article the other day on why you definitely should not use Dreft laundry soap for your infant. I didn't even know babies needed different laundry soap until two kids ago!

Like any vocation you dedicate yourself to, you are going to get better. I have spent the last ten years perfecting my craft at a rate of nearly 24 hours a day.

People often ask how I do it--how I know what Gaby is thinking or what he needs, how I wrangle one kid while nursing another while making a plate and calculating carbs and taking a phone call and baking an award winning pie (yeah, right. Like we get pie).

Hey, I guess I was just born for it.



Yup. This is good.

--Andie

Tula's Birth

At my March 16th obstetrician appointment, the doctor told me he had scheduled my repeat cesarean section for Monday, April 10th at 9 am.

I smiled, thanked him, made an appointment for the following week...and cried all the way home.

Twenty-five more days.

Because of extensive scarring from the three previous surgeries, my uterus burned and struggled holding this final little fetus. I couldn't stand or walk for more than short bursts because her head had been firmly and deeply in my pelvis for weeks already; even if she was still, it was uncomfortable, but if she moved, it was agony. Her substantial little body was compressing nerves that sent pain shooting all over. Her tiny tush was lodged in my ribs, causing a numb spot about the size of a lime under my left breast, her feet and knees stretched to kick the other side. The Braxton Hicks "practice" contractions left me breathless and curled in on myself, occurring every night for hours. The only relief I could get was taking three baths a day, laying in the tepid water for as long as I could to let my sore and over extended body rest.

All of these things...the most mundane pain in the world. This is all just pregnancy. Everyone suffers like this, and those last few weeks can range from uncomfortable to downright miserable, with everyone counting the days until the beloved they have been waiting on and praying for is politely (but firmly) evicted.

I was just so tired. I couldn't sleep through a combination of heartburn and restless legs, waking up to pee or starving or nauseous. During the day, I was barely able house a toddler sized meal in my ever-shrinking stomach, a fact that left me frustrated and dissatisfied most of the time.

The plan had always been to deliver me early. Three high risk pregnancies are a pretty good reason for them to keep an eye on me. This was compounded by the uterine rupture--or full thickness separation of my uterus--during the last c-section. I was lucky then; it was controlled because it happened while they were already performing the surgery so there was minimal risk to me or the baby, and they were able to get the bleeding under control without having to resort to a hysterectomy. There is not much data on whether a uterine dehiscence (an incomplete rupture) or true rupture in a previous delivery will put the mother at higher risk for developing the condition again. There were concerns however.

So they monitored me very closely. Measured the thickness of my uterine wall and watched for even slight signs of labor. They tested and retested my blood to check my glucose, a1c, iron, platelets.

And time after time, everything came up normal. Healthy.

I have to admit, I found it disconcerting. I wasn't hoping anything would be wrong, but I was expecting it. During my pregnancy with Gabriel, the nurse assumed I couldn't possibly have diabetes for having no risk factors, misfiled me as having passed, and it ended up causing problems later on down the road. I didn't trust that everything was going to go smoothly, perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But here we were, a month away from delivery and with no medical justification for delivering any earlier than the standard 39 weeks.

I was somewhat devastated. Partially because I was in so much pain so much of the time that I was convinced I was not going to be able to make it another three and a half weeks; but also because I felt like I was being marched precariously close to my womb shredding like a wet paper bag, putting both my life and the life of my unborn daughter at risk.

Over the next couple of weeks, I fell into a bit of depression, spending the time the kids were in school staring blankly off into space in the dark. Unable to sleep, unwilling to eat, I stopped going anywhere that was not strictly necessary, stopped doing anything that might be considered "enjoyable". I existed, and that was all I felt I was capable of doing.

The final week in March was kind of a blur for me. Sleep deprived and undernourished did not leave me with the sharpest mental status, but biologically, there are some things your brain just doesn’t care to remember. The final times before giving birth being top of that list.

My mother comes to help as personal care assistant three days a week. During her Wednesday shift, I was struggling more than normal, the contractions fairly consistent and strong. She recommended I call and talk to the nurse. This is usually her suggestion. I gave her my stock answer: nah, I’ll be fine.

So she shrugged and left me kneeling on my hands and knees in the kitchen. Can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make a stubborn jackass call the doctor. Or however the phrase goes.

Over the next two days, I struggled a lot with anxiety. Specifically over letting the kids leave the house. I have never had problems with them being gone before, but now I was talking about homeschooling. I would just feel better if they were -with- me.

Friday, Benjamin had a field trip to the zoo with his class. The urge to be with him was overwhelming; I called Michael several times in tears to try and calm myself down. Nothing could take my mind off of being with him, so I succumbed and went to the zoo. He was thrilled to have me there, even if I was panting heavily and sitting on every available surface.

I couldn’t convince Benjamin to leave with me, even with bribes of lunch with Daddy, so I left him to finish out his school day. Michael and I had sandwiches for lunch, the contractions persisting. Michael said it would make him feel better if I would just go and get checked out at labor and delivery.

The nurse hooked me up to the monitors and do all their little tests. Michael and I are sure we will be deemed fine and sent home in time to get Benjamin from school at 2.30.

After an hour of monitoring, she comes back in and says my contractions are three to five minutes apart. The doctor thought I had been jumping all over the room because the monitor was so active. They decide to give me demerol (pain killer) and phenergan (antinausea) to see if they can ease or stop the contractions; she said it would make me very drowsy for a while but it should help with the pain. Michael had to get back to work, so we called Mom to pick the kids up from school. I took the meds and laid still for a couple of hours, spinning on my axis, in pain and not sleeping.

I had been keeping my mother-in-law in Lubbock updated during the process; she kept asking if she needed to come down. I assured her time and again that there wasn’t going to be a baby, they were just keeping an eye on me. There was no way I would have this baby before April 10th.

The on-call doctor, my sister and sister-in-law’s obstetrician Dr Tadvick, came in to tell me they were admitting me for the night. While labor wasn’t progressing in that my cervix was resolutely thick, closed, and in hiding, they didn’t want to send me home with my contractions so close together. Because I have never actually labored before, my body still acts like it is the first time and doesn’t know what to do--I could be in this false labor for days. They just wanted to keep an eye on me.

They move me to a different room for the night. At 7, Dr Tadvick goes home for the night. The new doctor comes in and administers some medication that is supposed to stop the contractions. He says that they will monitor me overnight, but it is likely I will have a baby in the morning. Michael and I are still highly skeptical. Sure, okay. If you say so. We both know we still have nine days.

At 9, about an hour and a half after they started the new medication, the doctor comes back in. It had had the opposite effect, contractions were now one to three minutes apart. He said we couldn’t leave me like this overnight; he was going to perform the surgery now.

All of this was so surreal; neither of us were expecting it at all. While they ran a last sonogram to check the position of the baby and the placenta, I asked Michael to call his mom and ask her to come. She had left hours before, was already past Sweetwater.

We had been reassuring people all afternoon that we weren’t having a baby, and here it was, 10 at night with me walking in an open-backed gown down a deserted l&d floor to get this show on the road.

It is so different having a c at night. During the day, there are so many people, extras of everyone. Tons of nurses, tons of people running around. At night, it felt like I was the most exciting thing on the floor.

The anesthesiologist got the spinal block taken care of. When I laid down, there was a brief period of panic. This was all happening so fast, after all. I remember that I kept moving my legs while the nurse tried to insert the catheter, much to her annoyance. I just wanted to know that I could. I wanted to curl up, cover up. Felt so exposed. She sternly told me to sit still because I was sterile now and I needed to stop.

My legs got warm and heavy and I couldn’t feel anything down there anymore, little less wiggle all over the place. They got started. I was overcome with nausea, I say to no one in particular. Luckily, they hadn’t let me eat from the time I came in at 12.30, so now ten hours later Michael didn’t have to worry as I turned my head and heaved violently toward him several times. They gave him a small bucket to catch anything just in case and the quick anesthesiologist gave me something to settle my stomach.

They made a small incision, exposed the baby’s head, and yanked and tugged the rest of her out behind. She was the first baby of mine I got to see while still gick covered. She looked enormous, as big as she felt living inside me. The doctor mentioned that my uterus had a dehiscence again, further assuring me that waiting any more would have been a bad mistake.

Though we had gone back and forth for months of should we, should we not, ultimately I knew that I could not physically handle another pregnancy so we signed the paperwork and asked the doctor to please tie my tubes. It was a hard choice for me personally. I knew I didn’t want more kids, but destroying a perfectly healthy fallopian tube that God made for me felt wrong; making such a final proclamation on any matter like that felt so definitive. I didn’t like it. But I knew it was the right choice.

They had to remove my entire uterus to expose the fallopian tubes for the tubal ligation. I kept telling anyone that would listen that my stomach hurt. This wasn’t pressure, this hurt, it hurt. I repeated myself because I needed them to know. The anesthesiologist assured me that it was perfectly normal and expected, to relax, I was alright. He said he could give me something to relax, but they were almost done anyway. I declined. I wanted to be able to see my baby.

After removing her, they checked her out right there in the operating room. Michael went back and forth between us for a while, updating me. She weighed seven pounds, three ounces. She was twenty inches long. She had a big bruise on her bottom lip and chin where she had been smooshed in my pelvic bone. They were giving her some oxygen with a mask. I asked what her APGAR was. Michael had no idea what an APGAR was. I chided him for sitting through three of these and not knowing. They called out the numbers to me; I believe they were 8 and 9.

At Hendricks, they don’t bathe or take the baby for a while after they are born so that the parents have a chance to bond. They wrapped her up in a blanket and Michael sat in a chair by my head holding her and talking to both of us. It was 11 at night at this point; I was exhausted.

Everything finished so quickly. They moved us to recovery for two hours to do skin-to-skin with me and the baby. She was much too tired to make an attempt at nursing, but we tried. She was also quite chilled and had to spend some time in the warmer.

Michael is dead on his feet when they finally say they have our room ready for us. I could already wave my toes to shift my legs; that made me feel better. They kept smashing on my uterus to make it contract and check for clots. It hurt, a lot.

There is no nursery at Hendricks; the baby stays in the room with you. She laid in the plastic bucket by my bed while we tried our hardest to get some rest in between nurses coming to smash on my belly or wake the baby to feed.

I wanted to get out of bed as soon as possible. The leg compression garments were the first to go, after I repeatedly assured the nurse that I would continue to wiggle and flex my toes all night to prevent clots. She wouldn’t yield on the catheter though, saying I was still a risk for falling if I tired to go to the bathroom.

Staff change in the morning found me with a new nurse that removed the catheter and that I convinced to let me go without the pulse-ox monitor, despite having 14 more hours to have it checked. I told her it was interfering with my ability to nurse the baby and that if I felt light headed or like I was having trouble breathing, I would call right away. I pointed helpfully to the nurse call light on my bed. I guess it wasn’t worth the argument because she unhooked it.

Tula was perfect. So quiet and good natured. Family came in steady streams all day to come meet her. Such a pretty baby. It was hard to wake her to feed, but she nursed well. Such a good baby all the time. So alert, bright eyed, intelligent. Never has there been a baby such as this. I was ridiculously happy.

Breakfast from the hospital--cream of wheat--was disappointing because they don’t make it like I do: rich and thick, buttery and comforting. Theirs was watery and lumpy and made me sad. My sister Amber came first thing and brought me Starbucks sous vide eggs with roasted red peppers and a white chocolate mocha. Pretty sure that was the best meal of my life.

I wasn’t bouncing back as quickly this time. I hurt more, was more swollen and slow. It was frustrating. I don’t like feeling weak and invalid, but I did. This did not set well with me; I pushed myself hard to get back to feeling like myself again, probably slowing the healing process further.

The second day, Dr Tadvick came back and said we could go home if we wanted to, or we could stay an extra night. We started packing before he even left the room. There was nothing wrong with me or the baby; I was ready to start acting like myself again so I could feel like myself again.

When we got home, my mother and mother-in-law were cleaning the house. They had fed everyone KFC and now everything was ready for me at home. I laid down to rest, so happy--

I did it. I didn’t think I could, but I carried Tula to term and brought her into this world.

In Which Andie Takes a Swan Dive Off the Deep End

I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape. --Charles Dickens

Continued from….whatever the last blog post was called. “The Next Chapter” or something. Well, this is the Next Next Chapter.

It never ceases to amaze me what humans can adapt to. The frog in boiling water analogy probably puts it best--the issues with Gabriel arouse so gradually, we didn’t realize the sum total until we were firmly entrenched in it.

Our sweet son had been with us already for a year and a half. He wasn’t sleeping and would not give up that bottle or pacifier, but babies gained skill in their own time, you couldn’t rush it. And yeah, he was pretty sensitive to sound. But we kept the house so quiet all the time, he was probably not used to it! As for the social things--the lack of eye contact or meaningful play with other kids at daycare or his sister...well, I had read that girls were more socially motivated and boys more motor-oriented. Plus, no one would exactly argue that I was the friendliest little butterfly. Yeah, that makes sense. Nothing to worry about.

You also have to remember that at that time, Michael and I were wholly and fully nuts. We hadn’t slept--really slept--at this point for quite a while, and we were suffering for it.

Most can relate to the tiredness thing; we have all gone through stints of insomnia for one reason or another. Anyone with a child has fallen victim to a two-hour feeding schedule or an all-night vigil for a vomiting kid. Sacrificing your oh-so-important rest is just one of many you will make for your baby. When I talk about the dazed confusion of a exhaustion-addled mind, chances are that you are nodding along going, “Been there”.

We had adapted to the difficult circumstance; it was time to turn the heat up.

Gabriel started walking around 17 months old; just on the line of when I should be concerned, but not over quite yet.Emerald was a late walker too, so it wasn’t such a big deal. What always struck me is that he learned to climb before he learned to walk. Was that normal? The baby gate didn’t keep him out of anything--he just crawled faster and powered his way through. Barriers were scaled as though they were nonexistent. Putting him in the pack-n-play was only effective if he wanted to be in there; if he did not, he would throw his weight against the side until it tumped over and he could crawl away.

His crawl was an odd (but not so unusual to be concerning) bear crawl where he scuttled along on his hands and the tips of his toes. Almost freaky to see, like a spider crab creeping across the carpet with almost alarming speed.

There was a complete lack of regard for his own personal safety. He couldn’t be left anywhere unattended--he performed belly flops out of his crib, sat atop bookshelves, launched himself off playground equipment.

I remember at the time, my mom teased me, “haven’t you figured out how to take a shower while they are napping yet?” It was good-natured and probably instructional, but I wanted to take my toddler by the feet and hit her with it. I was never in a playful or teasing mood at the time; my nerves were jangled from having a near-constantly crying child that was determinedly trying to injure himself that hadn’t slept since he was a fetus. My main past-times were crying, yelling, and constantly chasing said child around to prevent a catastrophe.

Other parents would helpfully say, “You know, you can’t take your eye off of them for one minute,” while they watched me clean up a mess Gabe had just made. Thanks Mad-Eye Moody, for the advice; now either grab a broom or piss off because I am about five seconds from tearing you a new one.

Gabriel started going to the Parent’s Day Out program on Mondays and Wednesdays when he was 9 months old, the same that Emerald attended. We were getting more incident reports--he spilled the bottle warmer water all over himself, he dove headfirst out of the high chair, pulled a bucket of toys down on his face. Ha ha, boys will be boys, right?

The director of the daycare called us for a sit down meeting. Sitting in those tiny plastic chairs in a circle, we prayed for Gabriel and for this meeting, that God gave them the right words to help Gabe. What a weird thing to pray, I thought.

Gabe’s teacher, a kind, earnest woman, began to describe problem behaviors that she had noticed. He was struggling to walk, barely able to make it more than a few steps before he fell down. That didn’t stop him from trying to run away, though; he threw the door open and took off the moment the opportunity arose.

She described something she called “staring episodes”. She mentioned absence seizures, where the individual just seems to clock out for a few brief moments. Gabriel’s eyes would slide out of focus, glaze over. During this time, he was unresponsive to stimuli--she would clap her hands in front of his face or snap her fingers, touch his arm, say his name. Nothing would pull him back to reality until he pulled himself back.

We had noticed this behavior at home; we just attributed it to him being a deep in thought. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, we will certainly take him to a neurologist. -Nod nod- Absolutely, thank you.

That is when they dropped the million dollar word:

Autism.

….I wish I could describe how I felt in that moment. All the cliches come to mind--floor out from under you, breath knocked out of you. It felt like everything and nothing. Surreal. Clarifying. Dreamlike.

It felt like the universe held up a giant sign that said “DUH!!!”

How did I miss this? I mean, if you were to paint a picture of classic autism, Gabe is the perfect candidate. The aversion to touch and sound, the sleeplessness, recklessness, avoiding eye contact, the perpetual motion, lack of speech. Everything clicked so neatly and beautifully into place that I was shell-shocked for days.

What...what was I going to do with a special needs child?

Forget for a moment that, strictly speaking, I had already had one for eighteen months. This felt like a death sentence that things were not going to get better. It was a theft of hope, because the prognosis for autism...it is one big, life-sized question mark. You have no idea where it is going to go, what it is going to look like. Hell, you don’t even know what you are supposed to do. If you get strep throat, you get an antibiotic, done and done. You have autism? Welllllll…..

Despite all the advancements, how far we have come in understanding ASD, you would be genuinely shocked about the rampant misconceptions that still linger.

To Michael, who was somewhat of a layperson when it came to autism before this, the term "retarded" kept floating to mind. As offensive as some of us will find that now, the terms went hand-in-hand for so long that it is an understandable connection to make. What was his quality of life going to look like? What sort of impairments are we talking about here? How we were we possibly going to care for a child with a disability we knew so little about?

I was still enrolled in school at this time. I don’t know who I thought I was fooling, attempting school that semester. I’m not the type to fail a test, but I hadn’t gone to class since the meeting at the daycare, and I failed in a glorious blaze of humiliation. Below my score, the teacher had written in red “see me after class”.

We sat in the hallway and he said he didn’t know what was going on with me, but he was there if I needed to talk. I said nothing, my eyes filled with tears. I couldn’t say anything, because if I did, then this was real. My son was autistic and my dreams of being a doctor were officially dead. I did not return to that class for the rest of the semester, an easily-avoided F that haunts me.

Our pediatrician at the time, Dr. Striping, was great. He didn’t want to talk about autism until Gabe was older--he was old-school in that regard--but he was happy to write referrals to whoever we wanted to see.

With medicaid and  many insurances, you have to get a referral from your primary care physician to get in to a specialist, a fact that has stalled more than a few parents as they have sought answers.

If you have a good pediatrician and speak with knowledge and confidence, you get your referrals to get evaluated by therapists, to see specialists, get tests done. If you are unlucky, have a pediatrician that is stingier with referring out, if you don’t insist in the right way...it can be a lot more frustrating of an experience. Personally, from this side of the bench, I really can’t understand why a doctor would deny the request honestly. That has been my line as I serenely smile: “What does it hurt to check?”

Should ECI comes out and see there is no need, they will say that and you will be denied services. They have such heavy caseloads and get paid salary, not hourly or by the patient, that they will never fudge the numbers on a kid “just to get paid”.

A friend of mine--Stacy, who did continuity of care for a home-therapy company--put it best when she said, “You don’t take a sore throat to a speech therapist and expect a diagnosis; why would you have a general practitioner evaluate a speech delay?” And she is absolutely right. Doctors, send it out. What exactly is it going to hurt?

Obviously, I realize there is another side to this, and if you would like to read more from the other perspective here is an excellent article: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/patient-advice/articles/2016-04-07/whats-behind-that-medical-referral

Off my soapbox, I promise. Sorry.

Anyway, we got lucky. Excellent physician that we loved very much. Even though he was not personally concerned, he knew that we were and he was happy to send us to whoever we needed to see to get peace of mind. Dr Stripling said that the staring episodes needed to be evaluated by a pediatric neurologist; the other symptoms we saw, they could be attributed to difficulty hearing. He got us in with an allergist/immunologist to do some testing, see if his considerable allergies were causing chronic sinus infections that would interfere with his hearing. We also got one for ECI to start evaluations, for an ENT, and an audiologist. Finally--and he warned us that it would take months to get in--he faxed over a referral to a developmental pediatrician.

The first specialist we saw was Dr. Brown, the neurologist. Potential seizures are serious business that cannot wait. This was October of 2010. Dr. Brown ordered a “sleep deprived EEG”. The nurse explained in the pre-appointment phone call that we would be required to keep him up all the night before to perform the test.

Michael stayed up with me that night so he could drive us the next day. It was honestly harder for us to stay awake than it was to keep Gabe up. We just watched movies and prayed for daylight.

Once in the car at 6 in the morning, Gabriel started to relax and drift off. Michael would stop suddenly and jerk him awake because we couldn’t let him fall asleep now--it would ruin the results of the test and we would have to reschedule, do this horrible thing again another night. At one point, he was nodding off and I had to pinch his little baby leg to startle him. He and I cried all the rest of the way there, but we made it.

There were wires attached all over his head and he looked so small and fragile, just a baby connected to a machine. He got to sleep through the test; we were glad he was getting the rest he so needed, but we were also aware what this meant: we ourselves would not get to rest when we got home. It was okay. As long as our little guy was taken care of.

After forty-five minutes, they peeled all the little sensors off. His hair was absolutely wild from having the things stuck all over his head. They sent us home with the promise they would call within the week with the results.

With the first specialist down and four more to go, we took our now well-rested and wakeful child back home.

--Andie

The Next Chapter in Our Story

This is story is continued from “God Is My Strength”.  “http://weardenfamilynews.blogspot.com/2016/05/god-is-my-strength.html”.

Gabriel had just been born, and Michael was fired from his job at the call center.

There is a concept in video games known as draw distance or render distance. Put simply, it is the maximum distance you can see out in the fictitious land from one immobile place. Done well, it can convey the enormity of an open world; done poorly, it is like wearing bad glasses where the further out you go, the more blurry and distorted it becomes.

Metaphor within a metaphor, better get to my point.

The time after Gabe was born is a lot like poor rendering. I feel as I stand here in my clarity like everything from that time is shrouded in a thick fog, isolated events and moments fairly obscured. Part of it was because of baby brain--I was pregnant more often than I wasn’t in those couple of years, and my body was having trouble recalibrating to its new normal.

The biggest cause may have been the sleeplessness. Gabriel did not consistently sleep through the night until perhaps the last year, and even now I say ‘consistently’ with a significant amount of hesitancy. From birth until the age of three when he could receive nighttime medicine, most 24-hour periods he got a nonconsecutive two hours of rest.

Someone had to be up with him during that time. Michael worked full-time; I couldn’t because the cost of daycare was outside our means, and because I was still going to school part time. All days and most nights fell almost exclusively to me. That is not to say that Michael had it easy or that he was not contributing. It is just one of those things.

That is why I have had such a time writing this; why it has been two months. The next page in our saga was not the most difficult; steadily our lives were improving, things were getting better. We would look back and laugh at some of the parts that made us want to cry at the time. Some parts, like the dirty taco restaurant near our old apartment, we would remember almost fondly. Others, like the day we got evicted...we don’t really talk about those. We bundle them up in the smallest parcel possible and stuff them way in the back of the closet of our hearts where we don’t have to see or think about them anymore. This blog series has been our first revisit to many of those memories.

A reluctant return in some cases; there is quite a lot I'd rather forget, let the render fog just….wash away.

To know Gabriel now, you couldn't even imagine anything bad about him. He's so gorgeous, loving, affectionate. His beautiful brown are always deep in thought. He likes to cuddle up next to you and give sweet kisses, loves Veggie Tales and docilely flipping through the Bible.

I don't want to take that image from you; that is who he is. There is kind of this unspoken code that you don't talk about the worst bits. People start to think the worst of your child, of autistics in general. Wonder if they are a danger to be around or allow to be with your children. It makes daycares feel justified for turning away special needs kids as liabilities. Churches feel like it is appropriate to ask a family to worship someplace else.

Everyone I tell this little tidbit to (particularly Christians) are absolutely horrified by it, but that doesn't detract from the truth:

I do not know a single special needs family that has not been kicked out of a church.

The manner, the politeness, may vary, but every one I have encountered shares this common experience. I have a friend that took her child to Sunday School, one they'd be attending for years, to find a group of parents clustered around a notice posted inside the window like Martin Luther’s theses nailed to the door. It was a letter from the church with her name clearly at the top telling her they would no longer accept her child in bible class or the church-run daycare.

People who hear that balk, and insist that surely their church would NEVER do something so horrible. How is that a Christian attitude, they demand. For didn't Jesus say, “suffer the children unto me”??! That is simply and utterly outrageous!

….except that it's not. Should be, but that's not how it always works out. Having a neurodivergent or differently-abled child is one of the most cripplingly, devastatingly lonely journeys. You feel like the whole world has turned their back on you, this is something you have to face--and bear--alone.

You'll often hear me say how lucky I am to have Gabriel, and I still fully, emphatically mean it. I adore him. Plain and simple--I've loved him hopelessly since the day he was born and every day since.

I find myself trying to sugarcoat it. Pulling my language; don't want to scare you away, dear reader.

Then I ask myself...who softened the blow for me and Michael when we were 22 and 24 (respectively)? Who pulled punches to protect our innocence? We made it through; this story is one of triumph, not defeat. We were not especially blessed, uniquely qualified, or graced with particularly robust patience. Quite the contrary: ask anyone that knows me well and they'll tell you I'm a cantankerous, ill-tempered troll better suited to scaring children from under a bridge than rearing them.

I'm resilient though, and stubborn as they come. Michael, too. And we have a God that has not abandoned us or failed us for a second.

Gabriel as an infant had to be in motion. Benjamin as a baby was squirmy--he liked to roll in your arms like a manatee on crack, but Gabe was different. If his body stopped, he was gale-force squalling.

It was so pervasive in our lives that Emerald, at the tender age of two, developed anxiety and started showing signs of stress. Her parents day out program called us to in to have a sit down meeting. They were concerned because whenever the classroom got louder (which it is wont to do, full of toddlers), she would wring her hands, twist her shirt, and yank out her hair, babbling incoherently. If it got to be too much, she had a meltdown or ran away, behaviors generally frowned upon in daycare.

I internalized this, of course. Blamed myself for keeping our house too quiet, not exposing her to more at a younger age. We called for an Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) evaluation, where she qualified for speech and occupational therapies. ECI is a government-funded program being part of the school, so you can go ahead and judge me for being on that one as well. Medicaid reimbursed them for coming, which is weird that the government insurance was paying for a government program, but I'm not going to overanalyze it. Even if we weren't on Medicaid, ECI saw you--if you qualify for services, you get services.

Speech helped her gain language; OT taught her self-regulating, soothing techniques. For her brief stint as only child, she really was the perfect baby. Bright-eyed and intelligent, eager to please. She was so happy all of the time. The transition was difficult for her. She adored her baby brother, always wanted to hold him, play with him. It was a big adjustment, though. Always is.

For one thing, we were co-sleepers. We tried to do the crib thing, cry out, read all the books on getting her out of our bed, but honestly, I liked holding her. She was warm and squishy and smelled like milk and lavender and undiluted joy. It made me feel safe having her close-by in case there was an emergency, and it helped me bond with her when it didn't come as naturally to me as it should.

When Gaby was born, I had to be available to him for feeding. I had the night shift then. Emerald stayed in our bed, but I slept on the sofa near Gabe. Over the next several years, I tried to move back into my bed with my husband, but more often than not I was on that tomato red couch. It was where Gaby was, and Gaby needed round-the-clock care.

Writing it all out, things fall into place a bit better than they had at the time. I didn't know I still harbored feelings of guilt for Emerald’s anxious behavior until just now. I can also see how we arrived at the place where our family was divided neatly down the middle: Daddy and Emerald, Mommy and Gabe. Michael and Emerald had our bed in the back; Gabriel and I took the other end of the house. No reason for everyone to be up.

For hours most every night, I would walk the baby in circles: through the living room, across the dining room, into the kitchen, front hall, then back again. At the start of the night, I would sing. That's what you do for babies, right? You sing. Gaby hated my singing though, so after a while my voice would peter out until all you could hear was the rhythmic patting of my bare feet on the linoleum. If I stopped, my tiny son would start to cry again, so I kept going for as long as I could stand.

The swing didn't move fast enough for Gabe’s liking, the gentle gliding motion not neatly vigorous enough; when I needed to rest, I strapped him in and coaxed it along with my foot, nodding against the wall and jerking back awake until dawn.

In June 2009, Michael got a job selling cars at Scoggin Dickey. It was often thankless work, 10 hours of standing on scorching asphalt six days a week to sell cars to the rudest, most ill-informed consumers in existence. Everyone buys into the crooked, cheating car salesman so full-heartedly that it has almost become encoded in our DNA to mistrust them. The company treated him very well, though--as long as he was trying, they took care of us, sales or no sales. The paychecks were inconsistent amounts; we never knew how much we would have to work with until it came through on payday. We made do. It was no extravagant lifestyle, but we were surviving.

The demands of the job were taking a toll on Michael; it is exhausting work, and he was unaccustomed to the sheer force of hatred directed at him from perfect strangers. He periodically applied for other jobs all over town, but nothing else ever came of it.

He left at 7.30 to get into his office by 7.45. The kids and I would go out on the front porch and have picnic breakfast in the cool morning, watching people heading out. Emerald would color with sidewalk chalk or play with bubbles while I would gently push Gabe back and forth in the stroller. When it got too hot, we’d go inside. Emerald’s favorite movie at the time was “Meet the Robinsons”, so we would all three pile together in the recliner. Run time at 1 hour, 42 minutes, if I could get Gabe calmed enough to sit--or, if I was exceptionally lucky that day, asleep--I could get an hour or so nap, so long as I kept the chair rocking while I did it. It wasn't the ideal situation, but it worked.

The commute to the dealership wasn't far--ten minutes each way--but gas prices were so high that we tried to drive as little as possible. Despite the cost, Michael drove home for lunch most days. I couldn't make it an unbroken nine hours; if he was with a customer, it could be even later. He could have saved the money and take his lunch at work, but he trekked back and forth to offer relief to me.

Living it, I didn't realize anything was wrong. I knew I was tired, and that I actively dreading going to bed at night because night was the worst time. Children are all different though; probably just colic. A phase. He’ll grow out of it and things will get easier.

With reassurances like that, our days faded in and out much the same way for a year and a half.