She Changed Everything.

          I know it the moment I wake up. I lift the covers and peek underneath. My breasts are huge-- full, round, and sore. What were average B-cups yesterday are full-on knockers this morning. It can't have been more than a couple of weeks, but I know. I pee on the stick anyway. It turns blue immediately. I knew it would, but it's still surreal.

            "Do it again," my best friend urges, but I know it's a waste of money. Instead I go to the student health center on campus. I've never even been to a gynecologist before and now I'm here for the "official" test. I pee in a cup and then wait, alone, in a chair in the hallway. The nurse practitioner calls me in to confirm what I know.

            "What do you want to do?" (I want to find a time machine.)

            I sit with my two best friends in a secluded booth at Baker's Square. They buy me lunch. They make me breathe. They make me laugh. They hold my hand and they hug me reassuringly.

            "What are you going to do?"

I know they think this is a question which needs to be answered. I know they think I have options. I don't. It isn't just religion or how I was raised-- somewhere deep inside me I simply know I have no choice. This is what I am meant to do. I am only 19-years-old, but I know.

            I have to tell my parents. I have to tell my grandparents and siblings. I have to tell Him. I don't know what to do first. My mother will hate me. Will my father? Will I have somewhere to live? I tell my dad first. He is surprised. I'm surprised that he's surprised. I can't understand how he didn't see this coming. He hugs me. He loves me. He will help me. I call my mother next.

            "I have something I need to tell you."

            "You're pregnant." She always thinks the worst of me, but it is easier because she took the words away.

            "Yes."

She is uncharacteristically comforting. I guess she just always expected I would end up this way. She is disappointed, but at the same time she is the most humane she has ever been to me. She makes me feel better. She loves me, in her own way.   

Finally, I call Him.

             "Are you sure?"

                                                           "Very."

                                                           "What will you do?"

                                                           "I'm keeping it."

                                                          "You'll change your mind."

                                                          " No. I won't."

I know he believes I will, but I won't. We are not in love. We are not together. We never were. We never will be. I will do this alone. No, not alone. I will do this without Him, but I will not be alone.

            I have to go to church on Sunday. I have to face them; all the people who know, all the people who have known me since I was a baby. I know how they are. I know they will whisper behind my back and judge me. I know they are secretly delighted for the gossip--and because I am not their little girl. I hold my head up against them. My two girlfriends flank me, one on each side. I love them.

             She smiles at me when we offer peace. I hardly know her, this mother whose sons I only recently met. She holds my hand and leans close.
           "Congratulations!" she beams at me. 

I want to cry. Yes! I think to myself. Yes. This a wonderful thing. I'm allowed to celebrate this. I'm allowed to be happy. For the first time I let myself feel the joy I have been hiding.  I love this little woman whose name I barely know.

            "Thank you."

            Everything changes. My skin, my hair, my body, they become someone else's. I am merely the shell for the egg. My body takes from me what the baby wants. It takes my nutrition, my energy and my figure. Everything I am becomes about the baby. Strangers want to touch me in line at the grocery store. They ask me personal questions. Every morning I vomit before breakfast. I vomit before lunch. It becomes my routine, like it is something normal. I eat the same three foods everyday: microwave French toast for breakfast, microwave macaroni and cheese for dinner, a loaded baked potato everyday on the way home from work. I can't resist it. It's what the baby wants.

             I can't even make it upstairs after work at night I am so exhausted. I fall asleep on the sofa as soon as I get home. Sometimes I feel my dad sitting there next to me, eating his dinner and watching TV. My friends don't understand. They want to "do stuff." They want to hang out. They invite me for dinner or to the movies. They think I'm blowing them off. They can't understand what it's like. Even if I could gather the energy to go, it's weird. They are young. They are having fun and being wild like they should be. I am pregnant. I can't be one of them anymore. I am not 19. I am an adult. I am the reality of youthful indiscretion. I am someone's mother.

            I haven't bought anything to prepare for the baby yet. I am afraid to. I am afraid that if I buy something, if I look forward to this, God will take it away, to punish me. One day my father comes home from work with a baby seat. He wants to take me to pick out a crib. He is very excited. I am grateful and I enjoy seeing him this way. I go shopping with my mother too. She wants help picking out fabric to make a quilt for the baby. While I am there, I see the prettiest bolt of material. It is plaid in lavender, yellow, and green. It is soft and I want it. I buy it. It's the first thing I buy for my baby. I wait, but God doesn't punish me. I spend months on a ladder hand-painting carousel horses around the baby's room. My ankles swell up while I am on the ladder. My friends come and help so I will be finished on time. I turn 20. They throw me a surprise party. I am embarrassed by the attention. At least I am no longer a teenager.

            My sister makes me take a walk with her every day on our lunch break. She could be doing a million other things, but she has read that walking makes labor and delivery easier. She is my best friend now, even when she tells me I look "frumpy" and the hormones make me cry. We walk and talk every day. I love this time together. One day at work when I am all alone and it is very quiet, I feel it move for the first time; unmistakable twitching in my belly. It is amazing! It is just the two of us, the baby and I who share this moment.

           My work throws me a shower. My aunt throws me a shower. My friends throw me a shower. My dad's work throws him a shower. I have enough baby stuff to open a store. I am due. Everyone is waiting. We watch a movie. I watch a movie, everyone else watches me. Then they all go home disappointed. My best friend is my labor coach. She stays with me. Midnight. My water breaks. It's painless. I am sleepy and it takes me a few minutes to realize what is happening. Everything is changing. Here in the dark, alone for this moment, I reconcile what is happening, what is about to happen.

            I wake my coach and my dad, so he can drive me to the hospital. He is calm, but I can feel his excited energy barely contained beneath the surface. Grandpa.  There is no pain yet, but I have to change my clothes several times because of the water. No one warned me about this. I ride to the hospital in my dad's midlife crisis--his red Corvette. He loves this car. He loves me more. When we get there I have to roll out onto my hands and knees because the car is so low to the ground I can't get out. A boy I went to high school with is working at the hospital. Awkward. I hope he doesn't recognize me, but I know he recognizes my coach.

             I call Him from the hospital. He doesn't say so, but I can tell he isn't alone. He will come later, after the birth. That's ok. I just thought he should know. I am in my backless gown. I am in my dim labor room. I am breathing like they taught me in Lamaze. It's bullshit.  It's a Catholic hospital. I'm a single teenage pregnancy. My nurse is a bitch. She thinks I should suffer the consequences of my choices. She keeps making nasty remarks to me. I want to punch her in her gum-popping mouth. We go for a walk instead. It's supposed to progress my labor. We walk out to the waiting room where my dad is playing cards with the man who has become one of my best friends.  They look concerned to see me this way. Florescent hospital lighting is not flattering to begin with, but I am green and in pain. They didn't used to let women walk around in labor. This is especially startling for my father, who based on my mother's labor, expected this to go much faster and easier.

             I don't want to walk anymore. I'm tired and it is getting harder to concentrate on taking the steps-- right foot, then left-- it's getting too complicated. There has been a shift change. My nurses are younger and friendlier. They give me encouragement and pain medication. I like my new nurses. My labor is hard now. I want to bite down on something like they do in the old western movies. My mouth becomes so dry it is a distraction. I honestly fear I will choke to death on my own swollen tongue before I deliver. I beg my coach to spit in my mouth for moisture. She doesn't think I'm serious, but I am. The nurse finally allows me to suck on a damp paper towel.

            I can't breathe. I can't remember how to breathe or why. I can't remember to focus, or what the hell my "happy peaceful place" is. My mind is wild. My body is in revolution. I want to go home. I just want to quit and come back another time. I don't want to do this anymore tonight. I am not panicking, I am just done. I want to go home!

            They tell me it's time to push. My nurses sense my desperation and fatigue. They gather around me like a cheer squad. They hold my legs and my head and encourage in unison,

            "PUSH PUSH PUSH," they yell together.  We become a well-oiled machine. Everyone is focused on one goal. I am part of the team although I am also watching from a place all by myself. Far away. The head won't crown. They tell me I can't go to delivery until the head crowns. I think I have been pushing for hours. Hours of "almost, but not quite." Finally they tell me it's time. I have done my job. I can go to delivery. I am exhausted. They push a gurney up to my bedside and tell me to "slide" over. They have to be kidding. I have a head between my legs and they want me to "scootch over."

            Somehow I manage to barely wiggle onto the gurney. They wheel me into delivery. It is a cold and bright place. Everything is stark white tile. I have seen this room in a horror film--covered in blood. The lights are intensely bright, reflecting off the tile and it is very cold. This is a harsh place. I am oddly transfixed by the sterile feeling and smell. My doctor is here. This doctor, who delivered me, will deliver my baby. I wonder if this makes him feel old.

            He makes a cut. There is searing pain. He tells me when to push and when to wait. It all happens so fast. My coach is holding my hand. Overhead on the sound system I realize "our song" is playing. We are both aware of it. She is crying. She is not the only one. There is a baby. She is crying too. She is whisked away by nurses to be "scored." I can see from between my knees, over the doctor's head, parts of her purple flesh turning pink as she screams. My body is instantly freezing as though I have been thrown in a tub of ice. I am shaking and watching from somewhere outside my body. My coach is sobbing--mostly from joy but also because at some point in my feral state I bit her. I feel pressure to feel something too, but I can't. I want to cry tears of joy or pain, but I can't. I am insulated from my emotions. I thought it would be like the movies. It isn't.  My body continues to labor. No one told me this would happen. Someone wraps me in oven-warmed blankets. In my entire life I have never felt this good.   

            "She is beautiful," she keeps saying. "Oh my god. Did you see her? She is beautiful."

I want to hear if she is complete; all fingers and toes accounted for, but I am also removed. I am disconnected from any feelings or thought. I am just in a moment. I'm watching it and I'm all alone. For just this moment I am all alone. I feel nothing. I feel everything.

            I am in my room in time for breakfast. My coach has gone home to sleep. My other friend comes to the hospital and makes me presentable for visitors. She helps me brush my hair and put it in a ponytail. Soon my room is packed, wall-to-wall. The two visitor limit is ridiculously ignored as 16 of my nearest and dearest friends stand shoulder to shoulder and whisper and giggle. There is a mini-party in my maternity room. They make me laugh which hurts a lot but I am so happy they all came. These are the numerous others who love me and now love my baby. They will be her extended family for years to come.

            Finally we are alone. Together. She is perfect. She is amazing. She is the only baby to ever exist on the planet and she is here with me in her clear plastic bassinet on wheels. I just watch her. Like an angel, I am afraid if I disturb her she will vanish. I memorize her. I make her promises I know I will keep. The sins of my mother I will not repeat. She is my entire life in that moment. She is my entire being and purpose. I know I would die for her. I will give her all my pieces. I will love her unconditionally. We belong to each other. I have no doubt. I have no fear. I know. Everything has changed. Everything good in my life starts in this one moment.

            It all happened so fast! On Sunday, this baby is turning 20-- the age I was when I had her. The man playing cards in the waiting room is now my husband. His mother is the incredible woman from my church. The baby was joined, quickly, by three others. One moment changed the entire course of my life. She changed everything, and I am eternally grateful.

Becoming B! 

Now You See Her. Now You Don't.

There are less than a handful of photos of me as an adult. There's a distinct lack of evidence of my existence after, say, 20 years old. When you browse through our family albums, and the 10 years of photos which await album placement, you'll find me conspicuously absent. It's probably my biggest regret and yet I've done little to change it since I discovered the lack of evidence.

It's not a complete lack of existence. I'm there. Mostly I'm taking the photos, so I was present, but not pictured. In some cases I am escaping off the edges, or facing the wrong direction, unaware a photo was being snapped. But the majority of time an exerted effort has been made to avoid being in the photos at all. I am the Bigfoot of my family photos. (In more ways than one, sad to say.)

Bigfoot???

As my family grew, so grew my clothing size. I'm not accustomed to being overweight, even after spending half my life that way. I never had a weight issue growing up, and since I got pregnant at 19, I have no real concept of what my "adult" body was meant to look like, but my theory is I was supposed to be hot. While I was never going to be a model-- the family hips were my inheritance at an early age and until I had babies the boobs were somewhere between lacking and average-- I think I had some potential hotness waiting there in that post-teen future.

In fact, it was in a photo that I realized I had gotten fat. After I had my first I weighed five pounds less than when I started, and I had tremendous knockers-- for about ten months. I remember looking through a batch of photos my mother-in-law had taken and wondering what was wrong with her camera, that I looked so terrible. I'm slow in the head so it took a bit for me to realize it wasn't the camera's fault. Somewhere I had picked up an extra 75 pounds. I carried it well, it looked like 40 but when I weighed myself I had acquired the extra weight of a small child, and it wasn't the infant I was lugging around.

Because I never had a weight "problem" I had never really paid that much attention to my weight, or the details of maintaining it. In that ten months I had found my beloved, become engaged, and moved out to live on my own for the first time (if you can call a baby and a fiancé "on your own.") We ate a lot of fast food, pizza, and spaghetti. I may or may not have eaten that way before, but my body was completely different after having a baby. Another one of those little secrets the world doesn't share with you until it's too late. And no one told me chasing a baby didn't count as aerobic activity (I have A LOT more to say about that!)

Before I had a chance to get any kind of a handle on it, I was pregnant again, which worked well because pregnancy doesn't agree with my appetite and I typically lose weight in the beginning. However, this baby was a boy and he brought the joys of arm and ass fat in the remaining trimesters. I have no idea what I weighed after he was born, nor following the third or fourth. I didn't even own a scale. In the five stages of grieving this stage is called denial.

My husband's clothes

Where's Waldo??? (hint: flag-head)

But this is where I began my disappearing act. I moved behind the camera, creating tons of family memories without me. I told myself that it was just because I was always the one taking the pictures, but the truth was I didn't want to be photographed. I made efforts to stand behind things or deliberately turn away in photos I was forced into. I hated the way I looked. Not only was I over-weight, I was haggard and exhausted. This was about the time I started wearing my husband's clothes (pants and shirts.) I wanted to hide how fat and ugly I was by disguising myself as a badly-dressed refrigerator box. There was no point in trying to dress it up, it was just sad and ugly, and I hated the way I looked. This stage is called anger.

Finally, working in the real world, I at least started making an effort to look like a human again. I dressed a little better and wore make-up. I consoled myself with thoughts like: I eat healthy, it's just my metabolism; At least I'm active; It's baby weight, it will go away; and, As long as my body is healthy, it's ok to be overweight. I even recall saying, "There's nothing wrong with being heavy. I'm comfortable and happy, I don't need to be thin. I have nothing to prove." Because I was young I was able to rationalize the weight. I made excuses and exchanged what I knew for what I wanted to believe. This stage is called bargaining.

Lost 60 pounds

Eventually I couldn't ignore it anymore. My health declined and age started catching up with me. I did pretty well on my Weight Watchers, but once I got sick-- couldn't walk anymore, I gained back everything I had lost. More importantly, I didn't appreciate what I had lost, until it was back. I had managed to lose 60 pounds, but since that was only a portion of what I needed to lose I considered myself a failure. Now I realize that missing-60 looked pretty good, but at the time it just wasn't anything. I felt lost and hopeless. I was stuck being this way forever. The older I get the harder it will be to lose, the less "hot" will matter. At this point, who cares. I started cutting me, or portions of me, out of photographs-- if I was in them at all. There are all these special moments in our lives and I can't find me in them anymore. I just wanted to erase the image of me. This stage is called depression.

I've decided on multiple occasions to get back on the ball and start doing something about it. I've told myself it's because I want to be healthy, because I can do more if I'm healthy. But the honest truth is, some part of me still wants to be hot, or at least pretty, and I think some part of me has decided that's not possible anymore, so I might as well just reach the final stage, acceptance. Only, I don't want to accept it. I want to believe that its possible for me to pull myself together. I know it's hard, and I would really rather avoid the hard part altogether, but I don't want to be this way anymore. It makes me sad, knowing there is a person trapped inside me, who would be evident if she could just get out. I know I choose to sit-out (literally) of a lot of things I'd like to do, because I can't see both of me doing them. 

I hate being fat. It sucks. I hate dieting. It sucks. I hate exercise. It sucks. I hate surgery. It sucks (although I could recover!) Apparently these are my limited options. It sucks! However, when my kids get married I don't want to be hiding in the photos. When I have grandchildren (a long, long, long, time from now) I want to be in the photos with them. Not just in the photos, but in their lives, active and happy. So I suppose I will continue down the path of most-resistance and keep trying to become the thinner, hotter, me. And in the meantime I'm just going to show up on film more often. If I discovered I was fat that way, maybe one day I'll discover I'm not.

Desperately Seeking A Vice

     When I married a musician I accepted a future of late nights schlepping equipment back and forth from gigs, being the only audience member for the band before his, and being a "band-widow"-- home with the family while my husband was off playing. The up-sides were getting to be married to a musician, which has been pretty cool, and always having music in my life, despite my own complete lack of talent in that department.

     After taking a few too many years off from the music world to be a regular guy, my musician is back in half-swing, and I'm happy about that because a musician who isn't playing music is like a Kardashian without a credit card-- a tragic, miserable soul. So the opportunity, like last night, to get to see my man doing that-thing-he-does-so-well is appreciated and thoroughly enjoyed. Some things have changed now that they're older though. They don't stay out nearly as late, so far the venues aren't dives, and there's no leather-pant clad poufy hair-band on stage first. Rehearsals are still Sunday's which cracks me up, but they seem much happier, like they're finally playing music for themselves. And that must make playing for others much more satisfying. 

        Being a "band-wife" is harder than it looks, at least for me. I'm bad with crowds, unfamiliar people and places, and the general nightlife. It's sort of a phobia, which makes me a terrible "band-wife." I love to watch them play, but I'm not the girl who gets up and dances, or strolls around networking with the crowd. If I make it passed the anxiety of "getting there" and "being there" you'll normally find me tucked away someplace (preferably backed up to a wall) where I will remain all night unless the need to pee becomes overwhelming. I know it looks anti-social but you have no idea what it took just to get me there. To lay any doubt to rest, I really am having a good time. It's just hard to see unless you know me well enough. In the past, good friends and better alcohol made it all possible. Good friends would drag me along, knowing I wanted to go, no matter how much I hated being there. And alcohol made it all a bit more blurry and less nail bite-y.

        I could drink pretty hard when I was younger. In retrospect I was probably the same idiot everyone else was, but I thought I kept it together pretty well at the time. However, in my early twenties I took some time away from alcohol to have a family. (Not only can't you drink while you're pregnant or breastfeeding, those bath times are a bitch after a glass of wine or two.) After those first ten years of involuntary sobriety I became the default designated driver for most events,  so I rarely consume alcohol anymore. Now my addiction of choice is Starbucks. I lost my stamina for liquor, which is a shame, but it makes me a pretty cheap date. Half a bottle of beer and I'm having a damn fine time! FYI I also lost my ability to balance on a pair of "fuck-me" pumps. But that's no big loss.

        I also haven't smoked a cigarette in 20 years. (Lies! I may have bummed a puff here or there.) I was mostly an environmental smoker anyway, meaning I only smoked in certain environments, mainly bars and parties-- anywhere there was alcohol. I really only smoked for less than a year and I never bought a pack. I could always bum one off someone else, since my three best friends smoked constantly. I bummed my final cigarette off my girlfriend's mom. She used a brand called Saratoga which tasted like an old sneaker covered in dog crap. I decided if I was desperate enough to smoke that cigarette, I never wanted to smoke again and quit. Normally I don't give it a second thought. I'm glad I quit, but in the right environment-- loud music, booze, and my friends lit up next to me-- my fingers start itching just to hold one. It's mostly a comfort thing-- a bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other. It just feels right. But I don't smoke anymore. I don't smoke anymore. I don't smoke...anymore.

        My youthful "sex, drugs and rock n' roll" phase was severely lacking in the sex and drugs, although there was plenty of rock n' roll. My phobia of crowds etc stems from a much larger fear of not being in control, so the drugs were never attractive to me, even the alcohol has a limit where I'm comfortable without passing that line. But I did have friends who partook of the occasional substance, and they were a hoot and a half. Likewise the sex. I lived mostly vicariously in those areas. Now of course, while I have no qualms with checking out the awesome arms on the guy who carried the couch passed my table, I'm a somewhat happily married woman, so my sexploration days are long gone. And while I get a real kick watching Weeds, there is something slightly pathetic about my friend who can't go out for an evening with the girls without getting lit in the minivan first.

        So there I was last night, (after having gone through the same "Maybe I won't go" rigmarole I used to)  hanging out with some of the same friends from 20 years ago, grooving along to a few of the old tunes and having the same good time, drinking my diet coke out of one of those plastic "I can't drink with the grown-ups" glasses, gulping at the second hand smoke like a fish gasping for air, and unconsciously rubbing the spot between my fingers where the stick belonged, when I suddenly realized I had lost all my vices. Don't drink. Don't smoke. What do you do? Goodie two, goodie two, goodie,  goodie two shoes. (Sorry. Random Adam Ant moment. We all have them. Don't lie!)

        I still love rock n' roll, but all the edgy stuff, if you could ever describe me as "edgy", has worn off. I used to be angry, angst-y. How many of you remember the angry, bitter me? The Bitch. (Uber-Bitch I believe.) Anyone? Anyone? It's strange because who I am now, remembers knowing who I once was, but only as acquaintances. I can and have pulled an all-nighter recently, but it's completely lost its appeal and is most likely caused by insomnia. While I may still stay up too late, I need my sleep. My brain doesn't function at all after a certain number of hours. The alcohol is fun, but not as much fun as the company. I used to go out with my friends to drink. Now I go out to drink with friends. I may miss a cigarette or beer here or there, and reminisce about the best of my memory's nostalgic moments, but my body is no longer designed to be 20. "Sex, drugs, and rock n' roll" has turned to "Starbucks, Tums, and a descent bedtime." Aging is a strange and wonderful thing.  While the definition of a good time may have changed, the elements are still the same, good friends, good music. Does life really need to be much more?