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08/20/2006
Let the wild rumpus start!
There I was a few months ago, clicking obsessively through the stats pages for this site, carefully cataloguing who links to me so that I might send each writer a crisp, new $100 bill and a handwritten thank you note, and I happened across a link from Ayun Halliday. Ayun is the creator of the zine The East Village Inky and author of several books, including Dirty Sugar Cookies and The Big Rumpus. She's also the mother of two small children, and, because her link pointed to my page of advice for NICU parents, it was immediately obvious she and I had been around the same block. (Her own good advice is featured here.) I ordered The Big Rumpus, Ayun's chronicle of her early years of motherhood, immediately.
In a strange but compelling coincidence, the book arrived on the same day as Ayun's e-mail asking if I'd participate in her virtual book tour for its U.K. release (retitled Mama Lama Ding Dong but otherwise unchanged, "motherfucker"s faithfully unswapped for "Eh, wot?! Tally ho, guv'nah!"). I don't usually participate in these because, egad, what modern mother has time to read when we're all so busy drinking? But because Fate, costumed in one of her grubbier guises as the UPS delivery man, had decreed it, I told Ayun I'd love to.
Remember how I said up there that Ayun and I had been around the same block? Well, as I read The Big Rumpus, it quickly became clear that that was true, as far as it went, but that she's the breezy, funny, wisecracking woman ambling happily along the sunny side of the street, whereas I am the dirty guy crouching miserably on the corner holding out a tattered Partho-cup, shaking it feebly, asking for change, and then bellowing an outraged "BITCH!" after anyone who refused.
Whoa. Sorry. Maybe Ayun's colorful descriptions of Manhattan life were just a little too evocative.
Anyway, to abandon that poor slaughtered metaphor, what I mean is that while Ayun and I are both mothers, our experiences of parenthood are, so far, vastly, vastly different. She stayed in the city to raise her children; Paul and I abandoned it before we even started trying to have one. She conceived both her kids easily: "I had all the contraceptive luck with breastfeeding that I've had with my diaphragm." Her birth stories are hilarious and touching. And breastfeeding for her is a joy:
Shortly after moving to New York, I decided I'd better make a plan in case I got pushed in front of a subway train. [...] I wondered what I'd say if I were pinned between the train and the platform with just minutes to live...I could instruct the gaping herd to bring me my baby. "I want to feed her one last time..." Someone would put Inky to my breast. I would die happy.
Well, hell, I'd have people bring me Charlie, too. But if it had been while we were still giving nursing a go, I'd have cradled him close to my breast, stroked his head, and said, "No, no, it's okay, baby! No screaming! Hey hey hey, shhhhhh! Shhhhhh! Aw, bunny, it's okay! I'm not going to make you try this time."
These differences aren't necessarily upsetting, because I try to be a hundred-flowers-bloomer, but some of them do seem exotic to me. For me, much of The Big Rumpus read like a fascinating travelogue or perhaps an intriguing anthropological treatise — if anthropologists ever enjoy a rollicking laugh about head lice, that is. It was absorbing. It was thought-provoking. A lot of it was really, really funny. But to much of it, I couldn't really relate. And a few parts of it, I admit, even sent my hackles soaring skyward. And if you've ever tried to scrape a hackle off the ceiling, you can appreciate how long I spent swearing on the stepladder with the putty knife after reading this:
Some of my supporters would be horrified to learn that I breastfed Inky until she was two and a half, still sleep in the same bed as Milo and regard the highly popular Ferber technique of getting children to sleep through the night by leaving them to cry as close to sanctioned child abuse. Not that I judge anyone who Ferberizes her child! Oh no no no no no! We all do what we have to in order to make it work.
Oh, my stars, no. Not that we judge each other! No no no no no.
But there are a few places I found common ground with Ayun. The first came as I read the part of the book called "Neonatal Sweet Potato: Dispatches from the New World," specifically her stories of her daughter's stay in the NICU. India — her zine's eponymous Inky — was born full-term but spent two weeks in the hospital after contracting a mysterious infection.
My baby's bassinet in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit looks like one of the large plastic bins we used to store lettuce back when I was waiting tables at Dave's Italian Kitchen. It is lined with half a dozen hospital-issue baby blankets, expertly folded to perform a variety of functions. They anchor the crib sheets, warm the tiny occupant, and form a protective horseshoe around the eggshell head. The burgundy and turquoise stripes that edge the white flannel make me think of Mother Teresa's order, nuns in homespun saris. I steal one of the blankets to cuddle and cling to on the nights when I am in bed on the maternity ward and baby is in her salad bin one flight below. When I'm not crying into it, I hide the blanket in my fake-wood nightstand. I don't relish the idea of being busted, but I have reason to think I'll be treated with clemency if my theft is discovered. All the other new mothers get to keep their babies. Who would begrudge me a soft little blankie that smells like the dryer?
I hear you on the blanket, Ayun. Stolen and brought home. And although our reasons for being there were different, every NICU parent has this in common:
I remarked to the same nurse, "I can't complain. I know there are other people here whose situations are much worse than mine..."
"Well," the nurse replied, "it's a place of broken dreams. No matter what the situation is, it boils down to somebody's dream being shattered."
But Ayun and I were both lucky:
After she said that, I felt like I could relax. Yeah, my dream was shattered but my baby is alive. [...] What are dreams? They're plates you can afford to hurl against the wall as long as the important things escape unharmed.
And the important things have. Ayun can stop you in her tracks with sudden blasts of perceptiveness and honesty. "How does Inky drive me crazy? Great leaping Jesus, how doesn't she drive me crazy?" she writes.
It's rooted in desire. Her constantly voiced desire to purchase a "beauuuuuutiful dress" like the one she saw in the catalog at her grandmother's house. My desire for my children to look like something other than the hemophiliac offspring of English royalty. [...] My desire for her to occupy herself quietly with a coloring book until it's time to go to bed early. Her desire for me to color with her. My desire not to do that. She drives me crazy.
I drive her crazy, too.
And she didn't lose her sense of humor.
I don't want to be one of those mommies who snap at their children for doing it wrong; neither can i stand to see a big glob of glitter glue squirted where it doesn't belong. Glitter glue should be distributed evenly, to form a pleasing shape. Actually, glitter glue should not be distributed at all. Please do not give glitter glue to people who have children, even if they are artsy. If you have given glitter glue to Inky in the past, please refrain from doing so again. It turns her mother into a bitch.
Maybe, but a funny bitch. And that's ultimately what allowed me to get off the stepladder and move past the few parts of the book that made me uncomfortable to the parts I could truly enjoy. That more than anything else is what my favorite mothers have in common, after all. And although our experience of being parents is radically different in many ways, at bedrock I'm glad that she's here to speak for all of us: raising children, she says,
...is like getting off the graveyard shift at Burger King with fifteen minutes to make it to my second job in the coal mines. Of course, once a week I am summoned from the mine shaft to accept the Nobel Prize, but goddamn it, I earn those.
SPECIAL BONUS AFTERTHOUGHTS!
Because Ayun's been so generous with her time as her virtual book tour moves around the Web, answering interview questions and sharing pictures, I thought I'd ask her for a picture of her daughter in her blanket to post alongside the ones I have of Charlie. I did, and she responded promptly, sending two pictures of a brand-new sleeping Inky.
I loved the pictures. I wasn't prepared, however, for how her accompanying note hit me:
"i sent 2 b/c the nicu picture looks so crazy alarming and I don't want to scare pregnant first timers."
My first reaction was a startled bark of laughter. I mean, wow, my entire blog reads like it was designed to scare pregnant first-timers. Not that most of you are pregnant first-timers — but just in case you are, do me one leeeetle favor: please skip all posts from March 2003 to, oh, about November 2005, okay? Because if you don't, Jesus, are you in for a shock.
My second reaction, as I thought about it more, was a complicated kind of hurt. I'd felt no such hesitation about posting our first pictures of Charlie (QuickTime, 316 KB). Why should I? I thought. This is my truth, important for me to tell, and every bit as beautiful, in its own roundabout way, as "3 pushes, all natural, no tearing." Should those of us whose truths are not so pretty think twice before the telling?
My next reaction was confusion. The parts I liked best about Ayun's book were the funny, honest parts, the parts where she was, I felt, telling it like it is, dirty-fingered crazy-making motherhood. So I was disappointed that she'd pull her punches here.
My next reaction — the hits just keep on coming — was to take a good long look at the picture itself. It didn't alarm me, not in the slightest, but as I looked at it I had to be fair: I could see why it might be frightening to someone who hadn't seen worse. It constitutes proof that bad things happen, suddenly and at random, that dreams, like the nurse said, get shattered.
But that didn't sit well with me. Bad things do happen, whether we're looking or hiding our eyes. And anyway, no matter how it looked at first, Ayun and Inky (and Charlie and I) aren't the scary stories. We're the happy endings. And isn't that a truth worth telling? A lucky break worth celebrating?
I read The Big Rumpus cover to cover and found plenty worth considering, as I wrote above. But a single line from Ayun's e-mail has made me think longer and harder than any of it. I'd like to know how you handle this. Are you careful with your unpretty truths?
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My care in the unpretty truths depends on the audience. It is strange that I censor myself more with people in real life - the people that I *could* take greater lengths to moderate the reaction to the unpretty truths. But the poor soul who happens to read something I've written previously gets no benefit of censorship.
Ironic that we have unpretty truths vs. pretty untruths.
Your picture of Charlie in the NICU with his blanket brings tears to my eyes every time I see it. It takes me right back to the time when I was overcome with the notion of potential. Potential for happiness and good fortune - a baby coming home - in full yin vs. yang with the notion that his potential would be lost to all.
And now that I see the video clip, I'm overcome with the fact that I see the reflection of his parent in the image more than I see him. It is powerful that the video captures both.
But my heart also soars when I learn about things in his world now - cake being all gone, et al.
For the Charlie and Inky that we have to behold, there are Ben and Hope that we miss each day.
The world should know about them all, no?
When my son was 11 months old he had an EEG and we took a really cute picture of him hooked up to all the wires (stuck to the skin, non-invasive) - he was happy, and smiling, and this was our reality. He's had 4 more EEGs since then. Anyway, I got emails back telling me how awful I was to send that photo, girlfriends told me it was cruel and made them cry. And I just thought it was a cute pic of my gorgeous boy.
So, I am a lot more careful now. I don't know why I should be, it's truth and it's out there. But I guess when I sent the pic there was no choice to look or not, it was in the inbox with no warning, and perhaps some of the more sensitive souls would have chosen not to see that.
I, for one, love the photos of Charlie - and Inky. Why should you hide where they came from? And Tertia has a photo of Ben linked to her site. Oh what a beautiful, touching, magical photo of mother and son. I see it as an honour that she shared it with us.
I do censor some sensitive information with blithely overconfident first timers, mostly I think because I don't want to sound like some neurotic Cassandra. Three of my children spent time in NICU, one of my nephews died the day he was born, I had two miscarriages, and my sister spent much time on 5 IVFs, so I don't take any pregnancy for granted. But so many women (and men) think it is all babydust and fairies, and that nothing can ever go wrong. I try not to be the voice of doom, but I do always think to myself, 'I hope you are lucky enough never to know how bloody ignorant and heedless you really are". I can't go to baby showers, and I tend not to fulsomely congratulate the 5-minutes pregnant. These are the scars one carries. I love your work, and that of many other linked bloogers, because you also know about the scars, and acknowledge them.
I love your truths! Every scary and beautiful one of them. I love your swooping highs and lows of trying to get pregnant and miscarrying, because they reminded me of how lucky I was to only have to go through 4 tries and one miscarriage to get here. I love all your stories from the NICU because it constantly reminds me of how freakin' lucky I was to have two babies born full term and full size, even though I was dying to have them taken out of me at 36 weeks. I love them because it reminds me that I could have really had a tough time nursing, instead of the slightly tough time nursing, and that I could have had REAL reflux issues instead of the mild ones...etc etc etc. I love your unvrnished hilarious truth!!!! Never change!! And I love Boulder's and Tertia's too.
Speaking of which...Boulder, how the heck are you??? And did you get the stuff? Please tell me you did!
I love that book, even though we ferberized. I must have read it three times already.
I've lost friends over the truth thing--I don't think that hiding the unpretty truths does anyone any favours, especially not those coming right behind you. And actually, if you'd told me three years ago about everything we would go through, the ultrasounds and preemie birth and slow growth and reflux and mountains of specialists and no diagnosis and some sort of very rare genetic condition, I would have cried buckets. But now it's my happy ending. I think if I were to hide any or all of that, if I were to write or share only the parts that everyone thought were happy, it would only obscure the real joy I've found in my real life with my daughter.
I think that the best service we can do is to be honest about how absolutely unfuckingbelievably hard it all is, or can be--and that it's still the best thing that every happened to us--because putting those two truths together shows just how good the good parts are.
I prefer it when people are as brutally honest about their lives as they can stand to be. I feel like it gives me the power of knowledge and helps me to prepare for unfortunate events that might befall my own perfectly pretty world.
That being said, everyone has their own opinion and level of comfort, whether it be with letting your baby cry-it-out, or showing a picture of your newborn in the NICU. If you think you're being abusive by letting your baby cry, well, that's far more important than anyone telling you otherwise. If you think the picture of your sick baby is disturbing, and are worried that it may disturb, that's more important than if it ever will actually bother anyone.
It sounds like it's worth reading.
I don't censor my truths. In all honesty, I feel there are far too many people who have been shielded (or shield themselves) from all the bad stuff that can and does go wrong. I'm a member of an online community comprised of IF, SIF, recurrent miscarriage and life after stillbirth bloggers, and the majority of these parents are upfront about the horrors they've had to endure. IRL, I'll show anybody pictures of my beautiful Nicholas, from delivery to the funeral, because that is my truth, and that experience wove itself into what I am today. Shocking, perhaps; maybe they'll get over it, but I have not. I have delivered two babies, and he will not be dismissed. So far I have not had anyone turn away in disgust or fear. This is reality, however unpleasant, and the head-in-the-sand approach doesn't work.
I lay it all out there. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Because it's all my story, and I shouldn't have to hide it.
Censor...IMHO, no. Disclaimer, yes. If you tell them upfront that there may be graphic content, then they only have themselves to blame if they can't handle it.
I refuse to hide my unpretty truths. If I did...where would my son's first two months be? I don't have the happy pretty first pictures. Those are what I have -- a much loved little boy who just happened to be very small and very thin and attached to wires and IVs.
I was a NICU baby myself. At my wedding reception, my mother and my husband's mother had created collages of each of us from birth to the present, each one using one of our engagement photos as its centerpiece. I had one uncle who complained that I chose to include my first photo -- wrapped in gauze from my surgery, IVs in my scalp, skin blazingly red, monitors and probes of every variety attached to my chest and foot. And I was offended by his complaint. That is me. Being there, having the issues that I had and the multiple trips a year to the children's hospital to ensure that things were fine...it was those things that shaped who I am. That picture is the beginning of my definition of who I am. It created me. It's what I know and who I am.
And I hope that my son will look at the pictures of himself in a similar location and find the beginnings of his definition. Those unpretty truths allow us to see the strength that we might not otherwise realize we possess. They help (for me) to take away the fear of what may be.
Pretty? Maybe not conventionally. But beautiful in their strength, in their hope, and in their obvious love.
Censoring my truths? Usually only for currently pregnant women. Even then I don't lie, I just don't contribute. Unless they call me and say "I'm bleeding, I'm cramping, do you think I'm having a miscarriage?" Then I ask if they want the optimistic or pessimistic viewpoint. Frankly sometimes its better and easier to have someone acknowledge the feeling in your gut. It almost makes it easier when someone else says it out loud. Hearing about the 6 babies I lost (including 2 passed the magic 12 week point and well into the second trimester) is hard, but they are part of the story of the 4 children I have. It's the full and accurate picture.
By the way, the bank won't take the $100 bill you sent me. They say Richard Nixon isn't on the $100. I told them it's the new $100, just like you told me, but they won't listen.
I think it's everyone's decision on how much to tell, how much to hide. I look at Inky's picture and tears come to my eyes--not because I ever went through that, but because she had to. I'm a bit of a Pollyanna and would prefer to look at a picture of her today, happy and fighting with her mother. But when it comes to my--relatively easy--story, I'm honest to a fault. How did we conceive? Drugs. Why was Miss P 11lb 5oz at birth? Gestational diabetes complicated by another non-pregnancy related medical issue (that's where I usually draw the veil, who wants to hear about my ass abscess?!) And, yes, I did have a c-section. And will have another one, after I conceive, again using drugs and following a GD diet to hopefully not have another huge baby. And I'm fat. Any my parents are insane. And my dad & I didn't talk for 11 years... Oh, shit, I'm on a roll now with honesty.
What a great, thought-provoking question! In answer, I did censor my unpretty truths, to a point. Mostly with people in my real life, like Boulder said up top. Online, I didn't censor anything but neither did I have anybody comment about how painful seeing my baby was for them. The first pictures I posted online were this and this, however we waited a month to have a http://www.assortednutz.com/~cruiser/Ethan/smallEthan31dayoldannouncementpic.jpg"prettier picture for his birth announcement that we sent to family and friends.
When he was born, I understood the shock that seeing such a tiny, sick baby might have on some people. However now, as I look back and as I look at the picture you posted of Charlie, all I see is such an amazingly beautiful little boy. When I look at preemies, more than other children, I see such strength and beauty and my heart just soars. Perspective's a funny thing, huh?
What a great, thought-provoking question! In answer, I did censor my unpretty truths, to a point. Mostly with people in my real life, like Boulder said up top. Online, I didn't censor anything but neither did I have anybody comment about how painful seeing my baby was for them. The first pictures I posted online were this and this, however we waited a month to have a prettier">http://www.assortednutz.com/~cruiser/Ethan/smallEthan31dayoldannouncementpic.jpg">prettier picture for his birth announcement that we sent to family and friends.
When he was born, I understood the shock that seeing such a tiny, sick baby might have on some people. However now, as I look back and as I look at the picture you posted of Charlie, all I see is such an amazingly beautiful little boy. When I look at preemies, more than other children, I see such strength and beauty and my heart just soars. Perspective's a funny thing, huh?
Oops! Fixed that tag, sorry!
Oops, hit the post button before I was done...
Just wanted to share that I never withheld NICU pictures of my Boog. I was just so proud of him, and thought he was beautiful...all 3lbs 8oz, wires, monitors and all. Don't know if I ever scared anyone with the pics. Now, Tertia's pics of Ben made me cry terribly, but I knew what I was getting into when I clicked on the link. But what a beautiful way to remember.
Speaking of NICU pics...if you're interested...here's the Boog circa April 2004.
I thought about it more, and bottom line is shit happens. And when it happens to you, you want to know you aren't the only one. If no one talked about bad things, we'd all be awfully lonely with them.
I try to be careful with my "truth" in real life (note the word "try"), and as a consequence, truth gets spread all over my blog with very little attention to being judicious. I, like you, tend to assume that people who come to my blog can read my About page and determine if this amount of reality is for them or not.
Great review, by the way - you borderline child abuser!
I, for one, am grateful that you share your unpretty truths. Because of you, and others like you, I've learned more about the realities of infertility, pregnancy, and motherhood than from anyone I know personally. After 2 years of trying, we are finally about 5 minutes pregnant (6 wks, 2 days, actually) after IVF#1, in which my ovaries limped across the finish line, yielding me one 5-day blast to hang all of my hopes and dreams on. Currently it appears to be making a happy home in my womb...for the moment. Because of reading your unpretty truths, I know this could all be over tomorrow or next week. I know that IVF#1 could turn into IVF#2 and IVF#3 quicker than you think. BUT, from you I also know that this could turn into the most amazing joy in my life, no matter how it arrives. I know to have hope even when life seems to be kicking you square in the ass and mocking you as you run away. I know that this is all worth it and that we will get there, somehow.
I do not occupy my thoughts with everything that could go wrong right now (well...kinda). I am hopeful. And I am so grateful for every moment and for your unpretty truths.
As far as my unpretty truths go, infertility is not a fun party topic. I am careful about how I discuss this part of my life. Infertility has amazingly brought me closer to some...including my wonderful husband and even friends who have not experienced it themselves. Others keep their distance, choosing to remain untouched by my unpretty experiences. And really, how can I blame them?
I know I hid the bad things. I was just thinking about this the other day when a girlfriend of mine told me she had a miscarriage. It immediately brought me back to mine. And how I had to hid the fact that I had just lost a baby to all of my coworkers who didn't understand why my eyes were so puffy and I couldn't stay at work longer than 4 hours.
I feel like I can be myself to the internet - hence the new blog after taking the old one down. Isn't that a form of hiding too? That I took down all of my pain and frustration of IVF when I was done and had my beautiful child?
I think it's human nature to want to show the pretty parts only. Put makeup on it or make a joke about something sad...just be happy all the time. Unfortunately, life doesn't really work that way, does it.
Just like Boulder, it made my heart break to see the movie of Charlie. I've been on your website for over two years and don't remember ever seeing that. It continues to make me happy however, to see how far he has come from that video. (I still like the "Baby Einstein" video you made with the liquor bottle :) ).
I was going to comment also about how different people take different things out of books. I'm wondering, as a published author, how she feels about how people are 'reading' her book. Hmmm.
Thanks Julie - for sharing the bad times with the good. I've not only fell in love with you and your family - but continue to send people here when they are dealing with similar issues. Or just need a good laugh (see United letter - ugh...O'Hare IS that bad :) ).
I've realize that people don't want to hear or see the unpretty stuff IRL. They may love you to bits but they just don't want to acknowledge it in any way whatsoever. I learnt that the hard way and lost a few 'friends'. It's hard to say but maybe it's for the best?! I will never really know. I don't regret it though - I know if I didn't let the monster out in the open I wouldn't have been able to stay sane. For me, telling someone/everyone is my way of support for myself.
The unpretty truth I'm speaking of is not the same as yous and Ayun's. Instead it's about cancer / chemo and radiation / deaths etc.
In a way, it has similarities. They are both something people don't want to acknowledge that it *can* very well happen to them. It's too close to home and it's too scary. Things aren't *supposed* to be like that (but we all know that it can and does). Totally out of their comfort level and daydreaming days.
Some, well shit, many prefer the "ignorant is bliss"..
I think if we don't share the unpretty truths, then when our friends go through their own ugly moments they may feel all alone, feel like there isn't reason for hope.
We share our stories in part to get credit for surviving something awful, and in part to express that these things aren't as insurmountable as they seem.
Yup, I am economical with the unpretty truth in my blog- I freely admit it. Because a blog's not, after all, a personal diary. Other people read it.
If other people read your secret diary, they should expect some unpretty, and serve them right if they find it. A blog, however is too public for me to air too much unpretty.
If you buy a book, you read the blurb on the back, and you can most often be sure of what you're getting. Blogs are rather different things. You never know what you're going to get, and one (well, me) would rather not shock people away.
It's a drawback, a lot of the time, that editorial voice.
Our daughter spent the first four days of her life in the NICU and we didn't take any photos of her in her bassinet with the tubes coming out of her. Mostly because I was sick and too drugged to remind my husband to do it (he's not much of a photog on a good day, let alone on the days his wife and child were at their sickest). But now, I wish we had.
I wish we could show her what those days were like. How terribly shaken we were. How we were lucky enough just to able to sit with her as those few days passed and, thank God, as she started to get stronger. I want her to know that although we were as scared as we'd ever been, we were also filled with a heavy guilt when we saw the other parents visit their babies because ours was the only 10-pound baby there--the one the other NICU parents gawked at, wondering what the heck that gigantic baby was doing in there next to their tiny ones.
My husband later admitted that he didn't take photos on purpose. He didn't ever want to remember seeing her that way. But, I did. I do.
As for my blog, I censor myself all the time which drives me mad. But, it's read by friends and family. And, much as I'd love to talk about taboo subjects such as the argument I just had with my husband or how my friend just pissed me off, my blog's mostly a baby-book of things I want to remember in the years to come. So, it's not the right place for that. I'm toying with the idea of starting another, anonymous blog where I can be freely me, warts and all.
My boy never made it to the NICU ~ he died in the delivery room, 25 minutes after his normal, fun-filled, happy "it's a boy!" birth.
He had hypoplastic lungs, as we learned 2 days later when they sliced his little body open to peek inside. No reason. Just one of those things.
I'm pretty careful about how I tell pregnant people. But, I do tell. I realise that his story has the potential to scare the living crap clean out of anyone, much less someone who has no idea that sometimes babies die.
The complusion to include him in my life makes me tell. I simply cannot be who I am and what I have become if I deny him.
I was a first time pregnant woman when I started reading your blog. My due date was a month before yours.
Your story, it scared me. But not for me, for you and Paul and Charlie.
I keep coming back because I think you guys have a wonderful story to share. And you're hella funny.
I'm MORE likely to share them than mundane pleasantries. It's partially identifying as a writer, partially residual freaking-out-the-squares, mainly the feeling that nothing, absolutely NOTHING of this life needs be witheld, really. NICU baby pics and "Ask Me About My Abortion" t-shirts and whispered confidences...
I'm honest with pregnant women with twins as I know too many lost pregnancies from preterm labor because they weren't vigilant about the signs.
But your comment about "shattered dreams" really hits home with me. That is what NICU is about and although I had a different perspective having lost twins before and now at least having living twins. I was still sad and shocked about the loss of my pregnancy and the huge feelings of failure of my body not to keep them in.
It never crossed my mind about our early NICU pictures. No one ever said anything. I would be cautious about posting pics of my first twins we lost - alot of people can't handle seeing them although I think they are beautiful.
But overall for new moms I've learned to not say as much. Most if they get past the 1st tri will have successful pregnancies - I seem to be the small percent that doesn't but it seems I now know too many moms who have suffered too many 2nd tri losses and full term losses.
Small talk is small talk and I keep 99% of the unpretty truths out of it.
Anything beyond small talk with someone over the age of 20 or so? Forget it. No censorship based on the pretty/unpretty scale whatsoever.
Adults should have a healthy relationship with life's realities, I believe. If someone chooses to stay in a world of fairy tales and fantasies, that's their choice, but I won't be aiding and abetting.
In talking about the scary parts, we learn how to cope from each other. That's important. How else can we cope? Life is not an endless hail of blessings for anyone.
I think I'm pretty forthcoming with the truths. I do mainatain some semblence of it for privacy, but when it comes to telling the world about my vag and infertility, I'd rather tell them the truth than to have them live in ignorance. Should anything bad happen, I'd probably do the same. I've always found your chronicles of Charlie from day one to be more refreshing than anything because it offers not only a learning experience, but also hope. I read all of it over again from time to time because it's definitely helpful when you feel as if you're losing your sanity.
Now, I'll wait for my crisp $100 and a thank you card. I'll even take half of that money and buy you the extra large bottle of Grey Goose.
Yesterday, I said to the woman we were interviewing to care for our son, "He's a surviving twin" and watched her face change with that information. But it's part of who he is, and who we are, and I don't think it's fair to anyone to hide that. Including our daughter, who was real and ours and deserves to be acknowledged even though she's gone.
I tell anyone who's really going to be in our lives what has happened to us, how early our son came. Although the news of our loss traveled like wildfire (and I say that not as a cliche but as a true metaphor of destruction), months later there were still people we care about who had only heard that we had a son, and when they called to congratulate us I would say, "Well, but we lost a daughter." When our twins were born, we sent out a joyous email announcing their arrival and including their birth weights--and received very few responses, as people were too stunned and alarmed by the news to know how to react. But it was who our children were, how they came into the world. If it was too much information for some people, it didn't matter to us.
I don't talk about the infertility, the early pregnancy losses, how much we suffered before we suffered the loss of a child. I may, someday. For now I've sifted out the most critical things that have marked us and those are the things I share with the people who are in our lives, or going to be. Because how can you ever have intimacy with someone to whom you have not told THAT? And how do you ever say it later?
I'm actively involved several groups for parents of twins, triplets and more, and part of my volunteer work is as a contact for newly expectant parents of multiples.
I am cautious with sharing our own experience, because it was "scary" having complications, and having triplets born at 30 weeks. Our story has a happy ending now that our kids are 6, but there were many times that we were terrified for our babies, and for my own health.
Initially I recommend good books and websites, and tell how to join local and national support groups. I don't tell them exactly what happened in my own pregnancy unless or until they ask more questions. But I make sure they have access to accurate medical information about the risks of multiple pregnancy, and warning signs of preterm labour or other complications. And I have tried to offer support to a few moms who have suffered losses.
This past year our kids did a kindergarten project about themselves, including bringing in a baby picture. I let them choose pictures of when they were home from hospital, or of their first smiles at 4 1/2 months, when they looked chubby and cute and happy. More suitable for a roomful of 5 year olds, I thought, but I felt a little sad at "censoring" our story. Our kids sometimes look at the very first scrawny red-faced wired-up NICU pictures, while I tell them about what was happening to them. But they like the cute happy baby pictures better.
I've never yet shown them the very first picture of 3 fragmented 6 or 7 cell blastocysts in a petri dish before their IVF transfer. I guess maybe some day we might, but not until they are old enough to understand more biology. I still find it disturbing to look at, though I'm not sure why. Would you want to see a picture of yourself like that? So fragile and vulnerable and scarcely human. I know they will want to ask which one of those pink blobs is which kid, and of course I have no answer!
Your blog is great for its openness, honesty, humour, and sarcastic attitude. Don't stop telling your story the way it is.
When my son was in the NICU, he was the healthiest of the bunch. His problems were minor (not to me, of course) compared to the other babies. And I saw things that I once wished I had never seen. For weeks, I had nightmares about the tiny babies. It seemed too painful to even know about. I realized even then that not seeing it didn't mean it didn't exist, but at that time when I so worried about my own son, I felt like I simply could not deal with that reality. I often wished the images of those babies would leave me.
Then someone very close to me gave birth to a 1.5 pound baby. When I went to visit the NICU, I wasn't shocked by the sight of her daughter. She later told me that I was the only person not to gasp out loud or burst into tears. Although I did cry later, I was glad that I was able to provide the support needed at that moment.
So, basically, I think that reality has a way of catching up with you. You might think you can avoid it forever, or pretend bad things don't happen, but that doesn't change the very basic fact that bad things happen. We need to be honest about it, and we need to face it even when it feels like an impossible task.
Anybody that doesn't like my unpretty truths can kiss my cellulite-ridden fat ass.
Seriously, if I had ANY inkling of what my reproductive career might be like, if anybody who had had a miscarriage had bothered to be open about it, shared their grief, then maybe I wouldn't have been so shocked and blindsided when shit started going wrong for me!
One of my best friends, an effortlessly fertile woman with 4 children, has never shied away - if I needed to tell it, she was there to listen to it. I needed her all through the tough shit, and thank goodness she was there for me. I'm not really interested in making things pretty and easy for people, but like you, Julie, I try to use humor a bit to let people know I came through it all okay.
And so that I can feel like maybe I didn't go through all of that in vain, if I can educate people on miscarriage, mullerian defects, IVF procedures, the grief of infertility and pregnancy loss, and my latest fun development - adenomyosis! - then I'd like to continue sharing my unpretty truths with those who listen. Because maybe they will someday have a son or daughter, or friend, or grandchild, who goes through what I did, and they might just be able to help them.
This is precisely why it is you who must write a book. Because in the sea of positive happy stories of beautiful babies and no-tears births, the dirty guy crouching is in sore need of a voice.
I've tried to not hide my unpretty truths, at least in my blog, and, whenever I could, in real life too. Yet there's a fine line between unhiding and wallowing, between healthy processing and willful sinking into. The pain is unreal and therefore really ineffable, but we need to keep talking about it. And, god knows, on some level I've been helped by hearing honest retellings of the shit that others have gone through. It makes you feel like less of a freak, you know?
I didn't find the picture shocking. (I can see the potential that NICU photos could make someone sad, but damn, those babies are fighting so hard.) My daughter had dislocated hips at birth (disclaimer: only an hour in the NICU, no long term effects, no complaints on my end. I was still in recovery and never even went to the NICU.) There is a picture fo her little legs askew, lying on the scale. And when Ayun said the picture was disturbing or might disturb some people. I thought of that picture of my daughter. A picture we showed everyone. Because she was on the scale and it showed her weight. Who's looking at the legs--look at the pounds. And so what? That part of the story of her birth. Pretty or unpretty, the truth is part of the story.
The blog tour of reviews of this book have left me completely flummoxed as to whether it will be a good read. Almost everyone's review has had some part bother them. If I had time to read anyway...
I'm one of the moms with the healthiest-baby-in-the-NICU stories... she inhaled meconium, had a torn lung and a bunch of respiratory problems, but then 7 days later we got to take home a healthy newborn. Our story is pretty tame, compared to yours, Julie, or many of the above posters', and heaven knows we've had a brilliantly happy ending. But it was still pretty traumatic at the time. I've found that sharing that truth, and the truth about how traumatic it was, has become easier with time. It's not something I trot out to currently pregnant people, unless they ask... but I always mention it in any discussion about my daughter's birth, in a very matter-of-fact way.
I've also begun to share with more people about my miscarriages and my clotting mutations. That unpretty truth is more private to me, but I've gotten to the point where I can tell it like it is when I need or want to.
I was one of those people who tells everyone everything, because the truth is going to come out anyway, so you might as well not have to remember who you told what.
Then I became pregnant with triplets. During a tenuous pregnancy frought with ethical dilemmas & natural disasters, I was continually stunned by the awful, thoughtless comments my "unpretty truths" elicited. I was also stunned by the warmest wishes coming from the least-expected people - usually people who had experienced some tragedy of their own.
I learned to read who could handle the truth, & who just didn't have enough experience or mental capacity to deal with it in a kind way, & so for a while I had two versions of my pregnancy story. Now that I am through the crisis & not so vulnerable, I tell the real deal, every time.
You asked: "I'd like to know how you handle this. Are you careful with your unpretty truths?
I'm asking what you think of the recent virtual commotion that occurred at your friend's site. If I recall correctly, Karen was somewhat dubious about the virtues of sharing and constantly rehashing the truth that one's gain is somebody else's loss. She was not entirely insensitive about the duality of greeting a new life. She simply stated her desire to welcome and congratulate the impossible happening by not dwelling on the supposed unpleasantries that are also associated with it.
So how do we reconcile the two sides of this seemingly annoying conundrum? Do we betray our primal instinctive desire to survive and thrive if we choose to acknowledge that our happiness is invariably tarnished by someone else's tragic story? What is more important and apt? To trudge along, oblivious of the imminent disaster, or to be permanenly aware of the perils to come along?
I don't know, but would give my left pinkie to hear your opinion on this one.
Love,
tsena
I think that life is difficult and part of what makes us happy is having overcome the difficulties. Why not share our war wounds?
Like Colleen, above, I didn't take pictures of my two in the NICU and I wish that I had. I wish I had them just to remind myself, like I need reminding, of how far they've come, how fragile they were, and what survivors they are. And they weren't even in the NICU that long.
I also have no pictures of me in the months after their birth when I could only get around using a walker. I admit to wanting to hide this truth. I wanted to hide it to myself then and I want to hide it to myself now. When I told my husband that I wanted to buy a jog stroller, for instance, he asked me whether I thought I would be running again. The answer is, probably not, but it's not something that I can quite bring myself to accept.
I think that there's a power in both telling an unpretty truth and in hearing one. However, it takes strength and skill to do. Sometimes I have that strength and skill; sometimes, I don't.
I'm not careful with my unpretty truths the way I used to be, partly because for me there seemed some inherent shame in not mentioning my them, some posturing involved in pretending I fit into the club. (What club, I wonder in retrospect) I am also not careful with my unpretty truths anymore because I desperately wish that I'd known more about possible complications when I was pregnant the first time--I detest the "don't scare the first time pregnant mommy!" kid gloves--there is a way to inform without intentionally frightening. I think we owe it to ourselves to stay informed. Your blog is fantastic in this regard.
I have a 25 weeker who is 2. Sometimes I share, sometimes I don't. It depends on where I'm coming from- genuine conversation vs. mild narcissism that I've "been there". Not everyone HAS to know that. It does not define myself or my child, even though thats where we begun.
hmmm, I started to say that I just let it all hang out, that I talk about Little Man's NICU stay and what brought us there truthfully, and about Trout's c-section, and most of the time I do. However, due to years of reading comments on online sites and others about insensitive comments, I have to say I HAVE become more careful about telling our story - careful, but I haven't stopped doing it. It is life. Has anyone stopped talking about 9/11 because it wasn't pretty? How about WWII?
That said, I did warn people when they were about to look at the graphic pictures of my first c-section and the pictures from the NICU - Little Man was the biggest one there, but also the sickest at the time. What his nurse told me was that the big ones are the sickest, but once they decide to turn the corner, they do it in a hurry, and that's what happened. But I do recognize the pictures can be frightening to some (like my MIL, who is so squeamish about body parts and functions that my SIL still, at age 31, likes to sneak up behind her and whisper "penis" just to make MIL's legs go weak) so I give them fair warning. Only a few have chosen not to look or been bothered, and I have to say that if they were disturbed by them, they either didn't tell me at all, or were quite polite about it - I did warn them, after all.
Pre-blogs, the unpretty truth was routinely untold. Women often suffered alone, thinking they were the only ones. Fifteen years ago, after my third miscarriage, thinking I might never be a mother, I knew no one going through the same thing. No one. I didn't know which was going to push me over the edge for good first; the pain of trying to have a baby or the pain of feeling so terribly alone.
Tweleve years later when I read my first infertility blog, I wept tears of relief. I can only imagine what a comfort it would have been at the time.
In the same line of thinking, the first pictures I saw of preemies on-line did shock me. But when my dear friend proudly, but tentatively handed me a picture of her preemie, I was prepared. It enabled me to be there for my friend in a way that was previously not possible.
Life consists of many unpretty truths. Do I tell people I've just meet that I've been pregnant four times and have one child? No. Do I censor the unpretty truth anymore? No.
I suppose I've reached a point in life where I am less concerned with causing someone to worry than I with causing someone to feel alone.
A few thoughts--
After reading this book, I came to the same conclusion you did, Julie--very funny, and interesting as cultural anthropology, but so far removed from my life!
As for the concern about the gritty reality of the photos, I suppose the same could be said. Many of us reading here know of such stories of loss, both our own and others', that the sight of a baby in the NICU may bother us much less than it might bother someone whose life had been unsullied by infertility and miscarriage (and, as you noted, those people are probably not the majority of your readers).
In the case of Charlie's pics, when I look at them, I think, "Look at this amazing baby--he may be covered in tubes and horrible things, but he's alive, and he's here, and he's beautiful." A picture of a live baby born after so much struggle to get there could never be anything less than miraculous to me--as you said, he's a happy ending, and why should you ever hesitate to celebrate that? Why shouldn't you, like any new mom, be able to share your photos of your new son, tubes and all? There may be some who find them unpretty, but if so, it's because of their own lack of perspective.
The other day, sorting through hospital pics of my boy, I came across one of him from his very brief NICU stay, covered in wires and monitors, and my heart stopped a little, to see him like that (I was too busy bleeding to make it to the NICU, so it's a sight I never saw first-hand). I'd love to edit those pictures out, but that would mean editing out a very real part of his story, and I can't do that. It may not be pretty, but it's us.
I first came across your blog when I was going through multiple miscarriages and you were the first person I came across online who was going through an equally tough time with honesty, humour and without sentimentality. I NEEDED your truth then and it helped me through.
My daughter and Charlie are around the same age and when she was very young I remember vividly turning on my computer in the mornings and checking your blog to see if you had had as sh*tty a night as I had just had. Your truth helped me through that period as well.
I was shocked by how tough the first few months with my daughter was, even though she was healthy and beautiful. I still chastise my friends for not warning me, for not explaining how BRUTAL it can be. Instead I felt alone, depressed and ashamed, ashamed that I wasn't enjoying this time one tiny little bit.
It's only now that I've discussed this with other mothers that I know that I was very far from alone and wish people had been more honest before.
I think we women owe each other honesty at the very least, as sometimes it's the most supportive thing we can do.
You (and Ayun) *are* the happy endings. From someone who has had an UNhappy ending, I can appreciate the different. But happy or otherwise, I've never spared my readers from my endings. For a picture of my second son (stillborn), I did put up the link with a warning, in case someone would not want to see something so upsetting. But as for writing down what happened, I didn't pull any punches.
Now in person it's a different matter. If someone asks, I'll tell them, but I don't volunteer any informaiton.
Just thinking - everyone is assuming references to wires and tubes, but what if one's baby was born with a hemangioma that covered half his/her face? That can be dangerous, scary, and as equally scary-looking to others as all the wires and tubes. Should this parent censor baby pictures?
It's a different situation, yes, but still part of the child's life. Tubes and wires might not be pretty, and may be upsetting, but it's those tubes and wires that give those babies a chance at life. To deny that is to deny the struggle.
I for one would rather see the reality, and deal with my reactions, than be "protected" and only see the perfect, chubby, pink baby pictures. They're all beautiful to me.
I truly try not to be careful with the truth that may not be popular. I write online not to make friends, although that has been an incredibly nice bonus, but primarily for me. And I know I've said things in the past that have hurt and alienated people who I would love to have kept as readers, some of it justified and some not. But I still feel that being true to myself is the most important thing.
I was going to say I censor things, but then I remembered that last week alone I told at least five strangers about that weird thing my cervix did when I was trying to push my son out. Really though, spend enough time around the infertility blogosphere and you'll hear it all.