But Why?

I've made a lot of decisions in my life that have given my mother pause. Making those kinds of decisions have sort of become a past time for me over the past six or seven years. And while she eventually adjusts to the decisions I make (for the most part), she likes to make a bit of noise during the adjustment period.

Now you might wonder why I, a grown adult, cares about what my mom thinks. Well, why does any care about what their mother thinks? Because you love her. Because she birthed you and raised you and took care of you. Because she instilled important values in you from a very young age. Because you respect her opinion.

But sometimes you have respectfully listen to her opinion...then ignore it.

A couple of days ago I wrote about wanting to do a home birth. I know this is an event (if it takes place at all) that is some time off. But time moves quicker than we'd like sometimes, and I've become one of those, as I put it in an e-mail today, one of those weirdo planner people. So, today, I got in touch with a local midwife regarding her policy on doing home births with women who have previously had c-sections. As far as she's concerned, it's a go.

Now, it's not written in stone that the midwife I contacted today will be the midwife I approach several months down the road when I'm potentially pregnant (there are a few in the area and I plan on meeting with everyone to get a feel, though, being one of those "vibe" sort of people, I got a "vibe" with the one I contacted today, so we'll see), but she confirmed for me something I needed to be confirmed before I could go on dreaming about the birth of my next child. I needed to know that a VBAC at home was a least a possible option, if nothing else. And now I have that information and I can rest easy for a bit.

But I don't know if my mom will be able to. I mentioned the idea of a home birth to her tonight. There are certain subjects my mom will shut down on. Tattoos, my sexual history, previous decisions I've made that she's still uneasy about, and current decisions I'm in the process of making that she's uneasy about. Home births fit into the last category.

I mentioned home birth and she sort of shrank into herself. I could almost see the barrier she put up and knew immediately I should have backed off almost before the word, "What?" passed through my lips.

"It just makes me nervous. Is it safe if you've had a c-section? Maybe you should talk to a doctor first."

Translation: "Aw, crap. This AGAIN?!"

You see, whether it's a decision to make a butt-load of cookies or a baby, once I decide I'm going to do something, that I really, really want it, then it happens. (I mean, the one stipulation is that I have to really, genuinely, completely want it, and I have to have a feasible way of doing it--thus far, the option of having a home birth seems entirely feasible and right now it's something I really, genuinely, and completely want.) My mom knows this about me, and you'd think by now she'd just give up and roll with it, but I suppose that would be like asking a fart to not smell (not that I'm implying that my mother's persistence is...fart-like, but I suppose it can be just as annoying, though slightly more endearing).

So, I guess this next part is for my mom and for her desire to worry and argue and try to get me to not only hear her side of the story, but to also completely agree with her. This is my answer to her yet unsaid, "But why?"

Unlike some people who turn to home birth after a c-section, I did not have a horrible experience. In fact, I would say it was a really great experience...considering I was in a place where all I cared about was getting that baby out of me safe and healthy. And for some people, that's all that matters, for whatever reason, and that is totally and absolutely okay. It's great even.

I have become not one of those people.

As I've grown up over the last few years, parented my child, read, watched, listened, I've realized that for me, I want the birth of my next child to be the most intense and emotional experience I can possibly make it. It was difficult for me to muster the emotion I wanted when my daughter was delivered. I was fighting sleep, not unbound excitement, when I saw my child for the first time, because I was so drugged (which was completely necessary, because I was having major surgery at the time). While I didn't have a huge let down, like many women describe after having an unplanned c-section, I've instead had this feeling of slight disappointment eating away at me.

I don't want to say things "went wrong" at Lizzie's birth, because how could they? I was given a healthy and beautiful baby girl. But, in many ways, I feel as though I was NOT a participant in her arrival. I was just the vessel and everyone else did the work.

And therein lies the problem.

For a very long time (like, my entire life), people have done a lot of hard things for me. My dad helped me a lot with hard science projects and math homework. Mom helped me with chores, projects, and other responsibilities. Up until a year ago, family members drove my butt around because I was too chicken to get my driver's license (I was also an incredibly bad driver). Nice things were bought for me. I inherited money to pay for things that we otherwise would have had to save for a very long time for. Even school, where I powered through under my own steam while raising a child and keeping a home, came easily too me. A lot of things have been handed to me or haven't been difficult for me to obtain. And my daughter, who I would not trade for anything under the sun, was also handed to me.

I'm trying very hard to change that. It's nice to have people to help you, but I don't want that help to be my plan A. Going into my first pregnancy I knew (I promise I really, really knew, even if it wasn't what I thought I wanted) that I would have a c-section. A lot of things contributed to this thought process, which I'm not going to go into here, but we'll leave it with the fact that I had that expectation and it only grew stronger as I got closer to my due date and eventual birth of my daughter. Perhaps, subconsciously, I knew this birth would be one more thing that I would have excessive help with.

So, why go over the top and do a home birth rather than just insist, with an OB that I have a VBAC, or even go to a birth center or have a midwife in a hospital? Well, I haven't ruled any of those things out. I may find that for whatever reason, an OB is my only option. Or I may decide that I would prefer to be at a birth center rather than my home. Or I may decide to be at home (and right now, I'd really rather be there). The point is, I want to be in a place where my desire to give birth to my child on my own terms is respected the very most while keeping myself and the baby as safe as possible. At the moment, I do not feel a traditional hospital setting is the most conducive to that IF I'm having a normal, healthy pregnancy. The statistics and my personal experiences simply do not mesh with my current desire to have an unmedicated, midwife attended, vaginal birth. And to me, an unmedicated, vaginal birth is a decision that represents the obtainable goal of me making a plan, figuring out how to execute that plan, and having the outcome benefit both myself and my family.

I know I've written a lot, and I hope that I don't sound ungrateful for the wonderful things I have been given in life, and I hope, as each day passes and I take on more and more responsibilities, I start to earn those wonderful things. I appreciate and love and respect my mother immensely, and I get why she worries. And I hope she knows that I don't resent her or anyone for what I've been given. I simply feel blessed for it all. But now I want to make something for myself, to do it myself, and while there are a million little things I've started to take on by myself, I want to start claiming some bigger things, and this birth, however far off into the future, is one of those big things.

First Day of School!

On Monday we all got up bright and early and got ready for Lizzie's big day. I got her dressed and did her hair. I had written her a short little "Happy First Day of School!" letter the night before, which I read to her. After I felt like she was all settled and ready to go (and that DOH was okay on his own...he was a little nervous about his baby girl starting school--so cute!), I headed to work. That part sucked. I really felt like I should have been there, but such is the life of the working mom.

Though I wasn't able to be there fore the drop off, DOH (who really has proven this week how truly wonderful he is) took Lizzie out to breakfast (a tradition he's continuing from when I was still in school) and then brought her to school.

Lizzie took to preschool like a fish to water. She was fine when DOH left, happy to see him when he came to pick her up, but not desperate to go home. And when I came home, she was so excited to describe everything she did at school. I know she had a really wonderful time and will hopefully make lots of new friends!

But I still can't believe I am the mother of a preschooler!

It's Hard to Find the Words

I am a member of a generation who grew up in the shadow of the attacks of 9/11; who had friends who have been shipped overseas to fight the wars these attacks prompted; words like hijack, ground zero, and terrorist bring to mind very specific ideas and images.

 The tragedy of 9/11 is so much more than that horrific day. I was thirteen on the day those planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania, yet the repercussions of that day have followed me into my 23rd year.

There is no forgetting, only quietly remembering who and what was lost that day to our country and facing what is ahead of us on the road that we have been forced to go down.

Today is a day to remember what we have lost and to realize what we have and will gain.

New Kid In Class

I started my new job yesterday. When I woke up yesterday morning (early: 5 AM), I was all nerves. I shook while I showered. I could barely eat my breakfast. I broke down in my car after I dropped Lizzie off at daycare (she, of course, was fine). I don't know why I was so scared, this really wasn't that big of a deal.

But, then again, it was.

This is my first real job, my first gig right out of college. I was excited about it, about everything it could become (and I still am excited). I knew I had the job, but will I (I keep thinking) be able to keep it?

What's more, it's never easy being the new person.

I've been the new kid before. We moved to Maine when I was nine and then I covered my fear with a false bravado and an extra strong "Mass-hole" accent.

This time, I had nothing to cover my fear. I had to cross my fingers and hope for the best.

The beauty of working in education, however, is that you're often thrown into a room of women who, regardless of their age, want to mother you. It's like they smell vulnerability and instead of like sharks to blood, it's like mothers to their babies. They want to give you hugs and make sure you have everything you need and explain the same procedure twenty times, then say, "If you have any questions, just ask!"

I knew everything would be okay after yesterday morning. I was able to ease into things slowly. As I walked into the high school cafeteria, I spotted people I knew. My school's principal, the director of special education, who hired me, a teacher from another school I had subbed at who recognized me. When I went to go find a table to eat my fruit cup at (the district does a district-wide breakfast for all staff members at the beginning of the year), a friend of mine from student teaching found me. After a long and much needed hug, she ushered me to her table where she sat with another teacher and two bus drivers. We talked about music and expensive guitars.

I've been very lucky so far. Everyone seems kind and interested at making me feel at home and wanting my work to be important and effective. People are eager to make connections ("Do you know...?"). There are a couple of people from my neck of the woods, including a teacher who I went to high school and college with (though we never crossed paths, oddly enough). It's a comfort to know that we share some of the same people in our lives.

On Monday, assuming the school isn't blown away by Irene, the students arrive and the school year begins in earnest. There will be other new kids coming in, just as nervous as I was (am). They will show it (or not) in lots of different ways, but in the end, it will be the same for all of them. Deep down, they will be hoping for those connections, those new friends to help them through those first days. And I will be there, to help, to facilitate, to be the new kid again right along with them.

How to Overcome Your Fears

Yesterday we went back to one of our favorite summer spots, Old Orchard Beach.

We've been two other times this summer and both times, Lizzie has been less than impressed.

She doesn't like the waves.

There are lots of people.

I think it's really overwhelming for her.

And DOH and I find this very disappointing, because we love OOB and we wanted her to love it as much as we did. But it didn't seem as though she would...

...until she did.

"Mommy! I'm having so much fun! I LOVE it here!"

I am the queen of the rush. I rush, rush, rush through things, through life, through fun. But yesterday I stood and just watched (and not just because I didn't want my little girl to be carried off by the abnormally huge seagulls that make OOB their home). I watched my daughter have the time of her life and saw a memory for make itself right before my eyes. I knew that she was going to remember the day she learned to love the sun and surf here at one of her parents' favorite places. I knew she would remember the freedom of crashing through the waves, the smiles on her parents' faces, the idea in her mind that she's "really a brave girl."

This Old Town

Based on a few of my previous blog posts (like this one), the following post may come as a surprise...So, brace yourself.

I might actually miss our old digs.

Okay, not so much the digs (okay, not at all), but I do miss our old town.

Today, my mom, Lizzie, and I drove first to the locale of my new job (YAY!!), and then took the hike up to my university to pick up my official transcripts so I can send in for my certification. 

It really is the perfect town. It's geography just stinks (rule of thumb is you must drive an hour to anything).

We walked through the picturesque campus, drove through the small, but lovely downtown area, let Lizzie play at the park, her old stomping grounds. I resisted urge to ask my mom to drive by our old apartment building. (God forbid I get spotted by someone I know and feel forced to stop and talk.)

After graduation, we had left so quickly I feel like I didn't quite have time to "mourn" the loss of the town where I had really grown up, having spent the five most formative years of my life. I mean, this was the town where a huge experience, college, started and ended for me. This was the town where my daughter was born and where her first home is located. This is the town where DOH and I returned to after we got married. That town is where I made some new friends, was a "usual" at the local coffee shop (where they had my order memorized and got free drinks), and had the local used bookstore guy pulling his car over to tell me they "had that book you're looking for" in.

As much as I complained this past spring about having to live there (more specifically, having to live at our apartment), I truly love that town. I always said that if I could just take the town and place it closer to our families and a lake, it would be the perfect place to live (though the real estate would probably be even farther out of our price range).

So, I'm taking this moment to truly appreciate what we've left behind, the place that will always feel a bit like home to our family.

I miss being a townie...just a bit.

Identity Crisis

As I've mentioned on here before, I'm pretty young. I guess I've been a bit of an early bloomer. I met my husband just a couple of months after I turned eighteen...and we were engaged 5 months later. Despite taking the appropriate precautions, a year later, we found out I was pregnant right after I finished a very successful first year of college. Four months after our daughter was born we got married. I was twenty.

I've always felt a strong need to know who I am, and I've seemed to always pin the repsonsibility of definition on someone or something else. It might be strongly identifying with a particular political group or ethnicity, it might be based off of who I was hanging out with (more in high school) or what sort of parenting technique I tried to adopt and then throw myself into, complete with extremely rigid rules (Lizzie cannot cry ever at night time!). I would tell myself I'm a mother, so I must be a certain way. I would tell myself I am a wife, so I must be a certain way. I am a young, so I must be a certain way.

I realize that I am really young. But because most adults I know who are in the same place I am, at least in terms of settling down and having a family, I feel like I need to be where they are (even though, maturity-wise, that may be impossible). There is an air of confidence and security in who they have become that I do not have yet. (And worry that I never will.) They have had many more years than I have had to craft who they are and who they want to be before having a family. I didn't get a chance to build. There are many benefits, in my opinion, to having children early in life, but one of the biggest disadvantages is that you weren't given much to time to decide who you are without children in your life.

Some days feel like a battle where I am fighting to find out who I am or to feel secure with the person I've become. I feel a little lost on these days, which seem to come more and more frequently lately as I struggle to find a job for the fall. (A job. Another thing I feel I must use to define who I am.)

I know that after some time, more time to mature, who I am with emerge more clearly. I know, at my core, what I stand for, what I believe, who I love, what I don't love--I just don't know what sort of person this will form in the long run. Some days twenty-three seems very old, far too old to not yet really know who I've grown up to be. But I know that's unfair.

I just wish I felt that way, too.

Remember This

At an age when many little girls like to imagine themselves as princesses and fairies, glamorous movie stars or are emulating the Barbie du jour, my little girl is something different.

"Good night, my princess," I said to her tonight as I put her to bed.

"No, I don't want to be a princess," she told me.

"Well, what do you want to be then?" I asked.

"I want to be Lizzie. Just Elizabeth."

My darling little girl, please remember, years from now, please remember that even as a little girl you knew that being "Just Elizabeth" was better than anything else you could imagine.

We Love You Harry Potter

When I was ten years old, my grandmother and aunt took me to a bookstore. My family always encouraged my voracious reading, and I frequently manipulated that encouragement into free books. As we walked up and down the ailse of a Borders, we came to a pile of Harry Potter books on display. At this point, only the first two had come out, but were already beginning to gain traction in popular culture. A few of my friends had read and praised the books, but I had not interest in reading them. Not because I didn't think I'd like them (I'd always loved fantasy), but because I didn't like to read things just because "everyone else is doing it." (Which is exactly what my aunt and grandmother said to me.)

They forced me to get the books. My aunt had said. (Coincidentally, it was my father--the son and brother to my grandma and aunt--who "forced" me to read The Hobbit, one of my all-time favorite books).

Not to be one to let books go to waste, even if I didn't want to read them, I decided to give this Potter guy a try.

I devoured those books in two days.

When the third book was due to be released not too long after, I pre-ordered it through Amazon.

I coveted the moment the local library recieved an early shipment of the the fourth book and book to sneak a peak early (Mrs. Jackson was the best librarian ever).

One of my best friends in high school got a copy of the fifth book before me and I had her read the first couple of chapters to me over the phone.

The sixth book nearly got me fired from my summer job because I wouldn't stop reading it.

The seventh book was the only thing that kept my mother from killing her 19-year-old college student who came home for the weekend to tell her she was pregnant.

In between all these book releases, there were the movies, too. And for all my complaints about the movies (a lover of a book will always, I think, have a hard time watching the film version), I loved those as well.

And throughout all of this, I've been listening to the books on tape every night as I fall asleep, even after I moved in with my husband (much to his chagrin).

For over half my life, Harry Potter and his friends and his world have been a part of my life and I have made them a part of my world. I have revisted the books through reading, listening, and watching hundreds and hundreds of times. Harry, Ron, and Hermoine have been there for me through thick and thin, have grown up with me (truly), and have provided endless entertainment in reading and playing.

I went to the midnight showing of the last movie last night (loved it!) and could not find a better way to describe my feelings than as a friend of mine (the one who read the opening chapters of the fifth book to me over the phone) put it: "I laughed. I cried. And now it's over. And I could say, so is my childhood. But personally, I plan on remaining a bit of a child forever. Which of course means that when I have kids someday I get to re-live the whole thing with just as much enthusiasm :-)"

These are my sentiments almost to a tee, other than I already have a kiddo running around, but I am already so looking forward to when she's old enough (8? 9?) for me to beginning reading the books to her, and experiencing Harry's world once more though her eyes.

Thank you, Harry, for everything you've done for me.