Eva Destruction

D and I watched Whip It Sunday night. It made me laugh out loud and want to knock people down, but I am decidedly not the type. One of the characters had the roller derby name "Eva Destruction" and while I managed to enjoy the movie rather than consider the myriad entendre, I slept fitfully. Friends visited with their twins earlier in the day. I love their girls and know them and their complicated history, so I do not regard them as I might the nameless enviable twins that just appear out of nowhere all the time. I used to look at those twins wistfully. I try not to look at all anymore.

But I have no explanation for what I am feeling and why. I am tired of feeling like liquid, like all my structure has left me and I am a puddle. Sunday was a beautiful day and usually that is enough. We went to the playground along with every other family in our town (it seemed). The boy scout troop, ever helpful, offered the rest of their brownies to us. It being pre-dinner, we were responsible and politely declined.

While at the park, I was spotted by the wife of a friend of D's. Last year when we first moved to our small town, we all went out to dinner together. It was an unmitigated disaster. Okay, so it wasn't a catastrophic oil spill, but it sucked nonetheless. We didn't know the place had video games and we do our best to avoid them. So my son went a bit haywire at the sight of electronic games. I think we ultimately had to carry him out while he frothed at the mouth. But his behavior was perhaps more tolerable than mine. Imagine, friends, our first "date" (because really, that's what it was; a date to see if we are compatible as family friends, fit for playdates and birthday parties). The other lady was heavily pregnant and I blurted out our whole sad tale. I felt strongly that to know me you must know this fact about me. I felt that there was little more to know than the fact of babyloss. And she very nearly ready to explode! Suffice it to say, our husbands get together every so often for beers at the local dive. And I hate  feel embarrassed and resentful towards them, begrudge them their normalcy and all the assumptions I have made about their reasons for quietly, politely avoiding keeping me at arm's length.

There's no winning, it seems. I might tell someone and Eva's story is either received appropriately? warmly? but swept aside or the other person runs for the door. You know the desperate trapped animal look a dead baby story can elicit. Either way, I feel alienated. Alternately, I can stay silent and in some situations I have -- either because the context is too "light" or too many people are around (such as the neighborhood gatherings, of which there are many). In those cases, I agonize over the how and when and what of telling. She's not a secret. She's my baby and talking is the closest thing I have to holding. I guess that is why this place is so important to me.

Pick Up and Drop Off

My daughter and I have a 2.5 mile drive together from her preschool to our home. Lately on that drive, she has been telling me, every day, only when we are alone, that she is so sad that Eva can't come back. Every day. She said that Eva is her best friend and that she wants her sister. All I can do is validate and agree with her feelings and try not to drive off the road.

Her grief is new in a way. It is expanding and taking shape as her understanding of what she has lost is just beginning to dawn. As knowledge and understanding have spread their weight over me and become a general pall rather than an acute agony, I have grown accustomed to its constant presence. Certain muscles have been conditioned to bear the load, even as others have atrophied. But this three year old wonder of mine is just awakening to the twin she'll never see. She is just starting to map her life knowing that she should be going to the park and playdates and to bed at night with her other half. And my validation is a pity. It's meaningless and feeble, just as my mother's "no one ever said that life was fair," was such a poor substitute for wisdom or comfort.

My grief is new in a way. I have long known that Eva's death would be experienced by each of us in a way unique to us. I knew that the time would come when my twinless twin would really mourn. My grief for her loss and her sadness is like stirring a great cauldron, raising those bits that had sunk to the bottom of the pot and started to burn, nearly but not entirely, forgotten.

And Back Down Again

(Wherein I expose some of the fetid thoughts in my brain. Consider yourself warned.)

Were you ever told that if you made a silly face, it would stay that way? I wonder if emotions might function in a similar manner.

I have sought to downplay my birthday since I was a child. My birthday was frequently a disappointment to me. Whether that disappointment is justified or not is beside the point I am trying to make. If I was disappointed, it is no doubt because my expectations surpassed the capacity of my parents or whoever is around me to make it whatever it was I secretly wanted. I think I am doomed to this worst of both worlds - not wanting to make it a *thing* and being disappointed that something about it sucked (and suckage seems like an inevitability).

Yesterday was my birthday. Saturday night, the adults went out for a swanky dinner and I had the best meal of my life. It was a long time coming. I am really trying to hold onto that. Really, I am. But this year, what I wanted was a peaceful, pleasant birthday.

As for the actual day ... let's just say that the cake went uneaten and I went to bed at 8 p.m. The kids were uncooperative and D was sick so there was a lot of refereeing and lots of redirection and lots of talking in a slow, deliberate and stern tone of voice. "Look me in the eye. Do    You   Understand?" And I may have torn up the over-sized birthday card from my coworkers out of frustration when the hellions, er, kids, were fighting over it while I was trying to prepare dinner. Because by then, I. was. done. and counting down to bedtime.

But you know, the truth is that my birthday came downstream of some news with which I am struggling. My kids were probably acting out because they always seem to do so when I am stressed and sad and have little capacity for shenanigans. And too, I overreact and see profound implications in a cup of carelessly spilled milk, like I am reading the proteins for further signs of irreversible disaster. He pees on the toilet seat! A future sociopath! Because I know what we know -- that everything may not, in fact, be alright. May never be alright. With apologies to Leibniz-by-way-of-Voltaire, we do not live in the best of all possible worlds.

My son was diagnosed with AD.HD a few days ago and I am just in that place where I have to integrate this knowledge and I wish I could say I am bouncing right back, but I am not. Intellectually, I know that this diagnosis does not change the fact of who my son is, and in fact, is a positive development in that we will take what are hopefully the right steps to help him. He will finally and as expeditiously as possible get what he needs. But...
This is heaped on top of a  pre-existing  anxiety condition -- his and mine -- which confounds us and complicates him. Now I can no longer hope that his behavior is normal or a phase or even fallout from my long hospitalization and Eva's death. I can't pretend that the weekly therapy and sticker charts and activities and positive reinforcement and all the accommodations we have already made to our lives to fit his needs are enough. It is time to pay the piper. It's time for a formal plan with his school and for adding a psychiatrist to our growing network of support and [gasp] for the possibility of medication if worse comes to worse. It's time to face one of my greatest fears, that things will go horribly wrong for my remaining children.

So, yesterday I felt beleaguered by their inattention and poor choices. Being an incorrigible brooder, I read into my daughter's defiance and decided that she's probably got the dreaded "it," too. I see hopes dashed and potential squandered. I am, in short, totally wigging out.

But writing helps. Today is my day for wigging. Tomorrow, we start making appointments.

Out of [My] Sight, Out of [Her] Mind

This is not a post about separation anxiety, although we have had some of that lately, especially at night.

No, this is a post about my daughter who is coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs! She is a charmer, a delight, a curly-headed clown who can cross her eyes at will. She's a committed thumbsucker (and I thought binkies were bad!) and weirder still, she likes to play with her navel. When she's doing both, we call it "double dipping." She has the laugh of a diabolical genius. She may be a diabolical genius.

She breaks my heart every time I look deeply into her eyes of improbable, uncategorizable color. I feel this incomprehensible, indescribable tangle of sorrow and joy that there is probably a word for in another, more emotional language than ours. I swell. I celebrate and mourn for who she is and for the possibilities lost for who she represents. Shared DNA. Shared amnion. But not the life they should be sharing still and beyond.

In utero, she was sedate and impassive, the buddha of the womb. Eva was the tiny wild woman -- twin-climbing, kicking, administering "noogies," practicing rope tricks with her umbilical cord. But Twin A was named for her demeanor at the time, my beautiful, gentle baby. She was meant to be the easy baby my mother promised (eh... not so much, actually).

She is not so gentle anymore. Even (perhaps, especially) in her role as little sister, she gives as good as she gets.  I am guessing that this might be part of Eva's legacy. Eva means "giver of life." Okay... but don't go too far with that. I just mean that Eva might have left some of her bad-assedness behind, not that she fulfilled her purpose or anything, 'k? I'm just saying, I am not there yet. And maybe, like the mothers of intact twins on the momo message boards say, they just switch up their personalities. It is probably that simple.

So, last night, we were eating chocolate cake. Cuz screw it. We like chocolate cake and sometimes that is reason enough. And yes, I am having to wear my fat clothes today...thank you for noticing.  This child asked me for some of my frosting. Friends, I never thought I would utter these words under any circumstances that did not involve the threat of bodily harm, but I gave her some of my frosting and damned if that isn't pure love. She looked up at me,  having just smeared herself silly with chocolate buttercream and breathlessly said, "I lufff you, Mommy."

She has stripped me of all my defenses.

Exercising Diplomacy

A few weeks ago, I acquired via Craigs.list what is currently my prized possession, an Adams Trail-a-Bike, for a mere $70. Making the deal sweeter still was the fact that I was buying it from Bikes for the World. A few days later, the weather was right to go for a spin and my son, who does not ride a two-wheeler independently yet, did very well. The trail-a-bike has given him confidence, improved his balance, and has made it possible for us to go on longer rides than we could otherwise accomplish -- 8 miles or so before the complaints become deafening. I feel better because I can get some exercise with my son while our daughter naps and at the same time, D can get his run in on the treadmill. It is also a way for our active boy to stay out of trouble and for us to wear him out in order to try to keep him out of trouble (a post, or a book, for another day)!

On our ride this past Saturday, my son made an observation from his perch. You see, he likes to talk during our rides. Apparently, (and unlike me) he has the breath to do so, probably because he's not pedaling. Come to think of it, that might be the cause of the bemused grins I get from other adults while we ride (and here I thought we were somehow charming). I have, in fact, caught him with his head down on the handlebars, resting. Anyway.
He noticed, he [loudly] informed me, "that some adults have large butts."
"Ohhh?" I asked. "Like whom? Whose butts, pray tell, have you been observing lately?" The boy is sitting right behind me.
He starts.
"Like..."
Abrupt stop. Even while we ride, I can practically hear the gears in his head grinding laboriously, trying to divine the correct response. He chooses to be prudent.
"Like Dad. He has a big butt and it is hairy, so that means that when I am big, I will have a big, hairy butt too."
Ever the diplomat.
For the record, D's butt is not big. Ehem.

This is the Day. Let us Rejoice.

[Regarding the title: What can I say? I did my stint in Catholic school.]
Sometimes peace seems as attainable as my goal weight, which is to say (need I say it?) not very. But there are times -- and I don't know it's coming until it's upon me -- that my chest is lighter and more open. My breath is a little fuller and deeper. There it is for a fleeting moment -- the feeling that all  90% is right with the world. 90% is my maximum capacity for joy and rightness, but what I've lost in joy, I have more than recovered in other capacities, which is a paradox of loss, but one that has taken me 3 years to understand.  90% is as good as it gets, but it is more than welcome when it arrives. I am always surprised to feel "rightness," but I didn't chase it off this time. Instead, I let D drive the car. I let the kids eat as many Munchkins as they could stuff into their faces. I  looked up through the moon roof and smiled back to the tree limbs that swayed at me in greeting.

We spent Eva's day in the mountains, closer to the sky and to her. In quiet. In the muted browns of the woods before Spring arrives at that elevation. We saw Red Buds throughout the day. Eva's tree is a Red Bud. Seeing so many of them, those violet buds set to unfurl... sigh... I want to imbue that experience with some forced spirituality and meaning. But we picked a native tree quite deliberately, so it is no wonder that we would find this tree in our native land. And anyway, it's not necessary. It is good enough that we were all together. It is better still that everyone was peaceful. It was enough.

Having performed my rituals of love and memory, I was and for now remain, at peace. Now, I just need to hit the gym.

Eva's Day

I want to mark this day in some way. I want to parent her, so these rituals are a proxy for holding her, raising her. I had wanted to have this finished last year, but couldn't. I fell to pieces each time I tried. This year, I could face this project and finally finish it, though seeing the picture of my husband reading Goodnight Moon to Eva just about guts me.

Knowing

Tomorrow will be the anniversary, not of Eva's death, but of her first operation. On this day, three years ago at right about this time of day, I sat by her isolette, crying. Those tears came as a surprise, but once they started, I couldn't stop them for a long time. I didn't know why I was crying at the time, and I have only scarcely a clue now. I think it was just nerves, the mounting pressure, postpartum hormones and the sheer effort of having held my breath in anticipation and fear for those many months. I remember that I was sitting next to a woman who seemed kind and chipper. She was with her eighth child, I believe, a boy who had been in the NICU for months and months. I felt self-conscious crying next to this woman, and weak, while from her phone she doled out chores to her older children with pleasant efficiency and matter-of-factness.  The other possibility for why I was crying is that somehow I knew that rather than being at the nadir of this road, as I had consciously believed, some part of my being suspected that I had not yet learned what a nadir truly was.

On this evening three years ago, I held my daughter. Her head was in the crook of my left arm. The cords were draped over my forearm. She was a heavy 4lb 9oz baby (though by then she probably was a little less). I was surprised at how she seemed to sink into me when I held her. I was smiling, beaming really. I was confident. She was holding her stats steady, so I was allowed to continue to hold her as the doctors stood over us and informed us that her surgery would take place the next morning, first case. They would be doing a less invasive surgery because they, too, were confident about her chances. We were relieved and excited. We would finally start our climb to higher ground and put the nightmare behind us.

We never believed in anything other than a full recovery for Eva. We fantasized about bringing her home. It was all we fantasized about. I've never felt complete conviction like that before and I probably never will again.

---

Last night, our carefree Pro.ject Run.way viewing was interrupted by a commercial that rehashed the well-worn "fighter" conceit. You know how it goes. We're fighters, so we win. We beat [choose your disaster]. We conquer [fill in the calamity]. It reminded me of how one of Eva's doctors in the PICU called her that -- a fighter-- said he'd never seen a baby so small fight so hard.  And that word and that commercial became a trap door that I fell through last night, because calling her a fighter meant fuck all in the end. In the meantime, here, all around us, are fighters who did win/conquer/succeed/overcome. I am attacked by those stories of gut-listening, those gloating successes that pose as cautionary tales and I want to do violence, but of course, I am not enough of a fighter. I just didn't need any further reminders.

The dark clouds brewing within think that all the fighting and listening and advocating are probably unrelated or at best only tangentially related to one's outcome. The universe is random and cruel.  Faith is a waste of time and energy. We have no control and we do not understand. I have no control and I do not understand. In this case, with this child, we did not conquer. We were conquered. All that remains is what we do now.

Fun and its Antithesis

Parenting's best moments are the carefree ones. Unbridled joy, discovery and wonder. Being childlike. Existing in a pure moment. That purity means a kind of blindness to larger patterns, themes, realities, reactions, obligations, consequences, histories. Just a moment and an emotion without regard for what came before and what it might mean for the future.

I am so hung up on sorting, organizing, connecting, understanding, that I am not so good at childlike. My response, pathetically, is to want to work at it. I am earnest if nothing else, but I think it might be hopeless.

I can watch, though, and I can try to record it and I can try in my cerebral and impotent way to let go. I can, as my husband says, try to be more duck-like.

File under progress: We survived the tea party. But really, actually, and somewhat surprisingly, it went well. I might go so far as to say that it was a success. No, they did not let me finish my forensics-style reading of Perfectly Arugula, which was the inspiration for this event. And mostly they just ran in a crazed, locomotive procession of 2 and 3 year-old girls (led by one 6 year-old boy) in a loud and tireless loop through the main floor of the house. But I think everyone was happy. Food was eaten, crafts were made. Eager not to drink alone, I plied the ladies with wine.  Silently, a candle was burning for Eva on the family room mantel.   When the candle wicks stopped smoldering and the insulin was cresting in the children's bloodstreams, we said our relieved and pleasant goodbyes.

Waddaya know, it would appear that the third time was the charm.

In Response To Death (and kate)

My mother lives
in another state.
She does not want me
to move there.
It lacks quality of life
she says.
She is right
about that.

My mother stays
in that state.
She is held there
by my brother.
Her grief
is in that man
who lives
but not well.

That is a death
that does not quit dying.
She hates blood
But prefers it
to 36 years
of limbo. She said
Eva's death is better
than my brother's life.

Rant Time

I waste time. Every damn day, I waste time. But you know what, I do it on my own terms. I waste time on things in which I am or could potentially be interested. I don't have any spare time, therefore, to donate to hopeless causes about which I care not a whit.

I donate my time willingly and dutifully to children because there's hope for them.

I do not like to give my time to trifling people over the age of say, 22. I believe that if you are over 22 and your mind is still trifling, then well, go in peace, but not with me.

So, you can imagine my outrage at have just spent 10 perfectly good minutes of my life discussing with a coworker the optimal number of beverage cans that should be cooling in our community fridge at any one time. Let's pause while this thought washes over you. Consider how hair was falling out, cells were dying and synapses became permanently disconnected, collapsing in a withered heap within my cranium while this conversation took place.

Oh, it would be one thing if we were having a light-hearted, enjoyable conversation, punctuated with a knowing shrug, a giggle, a roll of the eyes, maybe. But that was not the case. It was, rather, the kind of stultifying diatribe of beleaguered martyrdom that affects your lifespan, or at least your precious, irreplaceable today.

The Charm?

My first and second attempts at throwing birthday parties for our daughter were frantic affairs utterly lacking in the qualities that are supposed to define a party -- you know, like fun, for example. If one were to witness these exhausted, cooped-up, late winter birthday parties at our house, one would feel rather sorry for the child being, "celebrated." And one might suggest prescription meds to the host.

But you can cue the Rocky theme music because this year will be different! I have been baking and I have been shopping and I have been planning.

There will be a tea party.

There will be crafts
and scones
and cucumber sandwiches
and hats!

And if those aren't the ingredients in the recipe for three year-old fun, I don't know what is! Gentle reader, does "scone" not equal "fun" in your world?

I'm not fooling anyone, am I?

Do I know what I'm doing? Hell, no. But I am going to feign some confidence, even as I second-guess my every choice and decision:

Am I sending the wrong message to my daughter about gender roles? Will the girls sit still and do a craft? What do I do for Eva? What happens when someone asks about Eva's pictures? Where will I find the watermelon tea that the birthday girl requested? How can I make a handle for the teacup cake I've imagined? 
Mainly:

Will I hold it together or will I be deported back to Angstganistan from whence I came never to return to HappyPartyFunLand again?

Missing

My daughter woke up today screaming, "I miss my sister. I need my sister."
I figured that she had had a nightmare and I figured this was a long time coming.

My living children have made more frequent mention recently of their dead sibling. This day was bound to come. In some ways I have willed it here because I want Eva to be a part of our family, not just my private thoughts and fantasies.

Recently, my older daughter (well, by a minute, anyway and just now I realize how strange an idea that really is) came running, exclaiming, "I found Eva! I FOUND EVA!" and brought with her a doll with no face dressed in a hospital gown. The social workers gave our son two of these dolls to prepare him for his twin sisters' birth and NICU stay (the other doll is in Eva's box).

My son, ever-obsessed with and taunted by villains in his cut and dried world of good vs. evil recently chided his sister because he does not like to talk about real death, which makes him sad. Last month, we resurfaced his worry dolls and he told them that he wanted them to help him not think about "villains, sharks, Eva and death."

But then my daughter, who is not yet 3, told me that she wants to die so that she can cuddle her twin. I have no response for her. I am utterly bereft.

And my son told me that he wants to find a scientist who can turn him into a wizard so he can bring her back, and that one kind of made me smile.

All this was scrolling through my mind as I walked down the hall to my daughter where I found her, "looking everywhere" for her ... slipper.

Stations of the Cross to Bear

The process of getting to you was both one of steps taken individually and one of seeing nothing but the destination, which was your broken body lying in a cold place without your family.

To see you each day, I would get in the car, buckle the seat belt, pull out of the driveway, K-turn to the street heading in the right direction -- towards, away. I was always headed in the wrong direction for one of my babies and the right one for the other. Each step required sure footing (impossible) and my thoughts were both a precise recipe leading to you and an eye chart too far to make out, such was the state of my postpartum brain in survival mode.

Traffic lights were excruciating. Speed up to make the yellow. Force the car to stop for a red. Merging was an act of stoicism. No one needed their destination as much as I needed mine. If they could hear me crying, they would have known that. If they heard me screaming, they would have pulled over. I was the ambulance, such was my urgency.

And then, after elongated minutes of hurling myself around the ring road at destruction speeds, I could see the building. Here was the final test. Pull in to the parking garage. Get a ticket. Maneuver around other scared people in this obscurity -- the dimness of this structure, darkened by the smoked glass of the cars and the people inside could see even less, such was their anguish.

Around and around until I found a hole in which to leave my machine. Find that bridge from the parking structure to the place where some are getting sicker and where others are healed. Cross the bridge, and hurry down the stairs, incision burning, to the hall, to the elevator, up to the floor for very sick children, wait at the call box for admittance, briskly enter, wash my raw hands, ignore the stinging because it is a price and at least I have found one to pay. I want to pay, to make a deal (will you take my limbs?) and that burning is nothing, really, such is the futility of my negotiations.

To your bed and your sweet face. I am useless and this shames me, but I am with you now.

I would have paid but in the matter of your life and death, I had no form of currency.

Too Much Sorrow

In another place, I try to support women who have been through loss in a mono.amniotic twin pregnancy. In most of these cases of loss, the women lose both babies to a cord accident in utero. Then they must deliver. And whenever that happens, I feel my chest constrict for all the women I know who have had to go through labor knowing their babies are dead already. Labor's reward and justification? There is none for these women.

I just think about that and I feel my skin go cold and my eyes sting. and my nose. How could it not? I just have to sit with that every so often. How does one come back from that place of horror?

At other times, the circumstances are less finite. Lately two women have come into our circle who have each lost one of their twins in utero and have each been given such horrendous information, such shoddy care that I want to rage at their incompetent doctors. I want to spit nails. Into their faces. One woman was told to abort her surviving twin because the baby may end up with the same defects that the lost twin has.

The other woman was told that she didn't need to see a specialist because she only had one viable baby now, so it was essentially a singleton pregnancy.

Wait. What??

Yes, yes, pay no attention to the dead baby in the uterus. Don't worry about the extra set of umbilical cords. It's nothing. really.

I have to write this here because there is no other place to express my disgust . I try to remain measured and constructive over "there" but they don't know about this. So, here, I can bubble over with fury at these shitty, dismissive so-called professionals who with their ignorance and neglect alter the trajectory of lives from this point to infinity. Those babies are never coming back. Those mothers are never coming back.

Even from my own small vantage point, I, too, am never coming back. 

Changes and Challenges

One of the many things with which I credit Eva is my modest workout regimen. I am no gym rat, nor am I completely new to exercise, but I value my health in ways I did not before losing her, so I go. And perhaps more importantly, I need that space and the catharsis that I get from channeling my anger constructively. I can't tell how many times I have cried for her on the way back to the office after a workout. I actually do a little running (though perhaps "running" is an overstatement), which in my chubby, misspent youth was nothing short of unthinkable. I was always the penultimate (yeah, cuz I'm about vocabulary) person to come in from a PE-mandated run in high school (I want a paper bag to breathe into just thinking about it). The one person behind me probably had a good 40 or 50 pounds on me. Well, thirty, at least!

Sadly, I get the most movement from the front torso region (more on that later), especially if I get to the bottom of my sports bra stack, like I did a couple of days ago. And lest my reader (no, that's not a typo) think I am utterly hopeless in this endeavor, let me share this: I have a talent, actually, for one part of the whole exercise thing. I am excellent at sweating. I sweat profusely and with abandon. I sweat when I tie my shoes. I turn purple when I reach around to do battle with my bra clasps. I, dear reader, am a world-class perspiration machine. If there was a cost-effective and portable desalination solution, I could irrigate California's Central Valley and solve their problems. No need to thank me.

But it's not all Nobel-worthy. There, too, is the dilemma of undressing and showering at the gym. Books could surely be written about this -- the timing, the strategizing, the order of clothing removal and textile reCOVERy. Angles! As I scurried today from the shower to my locker, I noted mentally that I had a very short window to dress before someone came out of one of the other shower stalls. I had to decide if I should maneuver the dressing-while-toweled approach, which is modest, but clumsy and potentially injurious, versus the dropping the towel and speed-dressing while still damp method, which is riskier but faster. I went with the latter and was yanking my sweater down victoriously just as the other woman emerged. She, incidentally, is a towel-dresser (better balance). The worst part of this for me is changing bras. At the risk of getting too graphic, pregnancy and breast-feeding and yo-yoing weight  have taken their toll on the old ta-tas. Frankly, I need to do a little scooping action when applying the brassiere garment and that's putting it mildly. Sometimes it feels more like origami to tuck the girls in properly. I am a little self-conscious about this, if you must know.

So there you have it, the weepy, the drippy, and the droopy. 

Despite Our Best Intentions

We recently replaced a very aged Mac and doing so gave me occasion to look through our photo collection as I ported the library of photos over to the new machine. Because I love photography, I couldn't help but pour over the photos. As I moved backward through time marked in images, I anticipated seeing our precious few photographs of Eva. But I didn't get that far because it is a photo that was taken after her death that gave me pause.

***

I didn't take the girls' survival for granted. Before entering the hospital at 24 weeks, I bought 2 preemie outfits to bring them home in. That's it. With MoMo twins, you can't help but be aware that there are no guarantees. Even at viability, even when you're being monitored, losses can happen. Throwing a heart defect into the mix of my already cautious nature and let's just say that I was, at a minimum, guarding against hubris. All this sounds so strange and foreign to me now, but I felt that humility and pragmatism and well-managed expectations required me to wait on the exuberant pink spending orgy.

Nevertheless, during those eleven weeks in a hospital room I had a little time on my hands. In addition to a love of terrible-yet-entertaining VH1 shows, I found a great deal on Craig's List for a double snap n' go and 2 Snug.Ride infant seats. All for $100! That's pragmatic, right? I wasn't tempting anything, was I? It wasn't even pink. My dear friend went and picked up the gear for me.

The day my surviving daughter was discharged from the NICU we brought one of the car seats to the hospital and found that although she met the weight minimum, the straps were nonetheless too loose even at their tightest setting. Par for the NICU course, they sent us on our way in late afternoon and told us that our daughter was discharged and they would not keep her another night. Nor would they let us take her home in our Snug.Ride. We spent that evening going from one store to another until we found a seat that would accommodate her puniness. At that point, we had no fewer than 4 infant seats.

So, when the reality that we would not be needing our double snap n go set in, we paid the deal forward. I took this photo for the post.

A woman brought her young daughter, pregnant with twins, to look at the gear. D handled the transaction, while I sat out of sight, but within earshot, nursing (and you'd be right to wonder what, exactly). Grandma asked why we were selling the gear. Silence, hushed tones and shortly thereafter, I could hear her asking if she could give us more money. It was one of those bewildering/well-meaning/clueless interactions. Seeing the picture brought back a complicated set of emotions (pain... guilt... hopelessness) and the memory of one of those surreal moments -- a clear moment like a splinter in the fog of early grief.

What Your Mother and the Broken Treadmill Have in Common

If the broken treadmill in the gym were on Facebook, I would friend it. And that is saying something.

Today, I rendezvoused with the broken treadmill at 1200 hours for a quickie. At least, the treadmill told me it was a quickie -- sub-7:00 miles at times. That treadmill is like my mother, telling me I'm fast, when all other evidence suggests otherwise. The broken treadmill insists that I am worthy even as it screeches and groans under my ponderous waddle, even as the mirrored wall shivers and the very laws of physics mock us. Like my mother, I go to this treadmill when I want to feel good about myself. But if I want the truth, I have to go elsewhere.

The Mommy Track

Back in the day I used to say, "I'm not motivated by money." You could practically hear me sniffing with self-satisfaction. It was easy to be unconcerned with money at the time. I didn't have kids and I made more than I needed. But there was plenty that work didn't offer me and adhering closely to my normal pattern, I focused on how I was different from my coworkers, how I didn't fit into my work environment rather than what I was getting and how I was similar. In any case, I may not have been motivated by money, but I was sure held in check (ha!) by it. I didn't leave until an acquisition and lay-off ended the wild swings of opinion on whether or not I would grow a pair (of mammaries, sha!) and get out.

When I finally started working again, it was on a contract basis and the "dream" job quickly revealed itself to be notevenremotely serious/career-enhancing/likely to exist for long. So we thought maybe it would be a good time to get on with the second child thing. And voila, 9 months later Eva died. For all the times and ways I've turned those two words over in my mind, I've never before today really thought about the fact that from the time we decided to have our second child to the time we lost our third was nine months. We are so lucky in so many ways. I feel so damned sometimes.

But this was about the outside the house kind of work. After a few months of being at home with my surviving twin, I got to a point where it became essential that I go back to work. I took the first job I was offered. It was a big pay cut and a lot less of a challenge, but in my grief and eagerness to discount myself, I took it. I told myself that I needed a soft place to land and that I couldn't afford to fail. Both were true, but two years later, the place on which I landed feels so soft that I can't quite get my footing. It's starting to feel like quicksand. It neither provides me with the flexibility I would like to be available to the children nor does it reward me in the ways I need now.

But it wasn't until a good friend was effectively jettisoned by her employer after she returned from maternity leave that I realized that she and I had been mommy-tracked, she by her boss and me by, well... me.

Diminishing Returns

My thinner, neater, and just-generally-better half has been gone all week for mandatory work fun (MWF). I shall hereby take this moment to wax insanely bitter about it... and then I shall get on with the show.

MWF is called "kickoff" and implies a certain organizational collaborative strategory planning orgy of business readiness and profit margin fireworks. In reality, it is drinking, eating, lectures, drinking, eating, lectures, free time, drinking, eating, drinking, fun and games, drinking, eating, lecture, free time, eating, drinking, eating, free time, fun, fun and drinking. I think I have pretty well summarized the week's itinerary. In these winter escapades (note how easily that word turns into escape), I mean "kickoffs," which are always the first week in January (you know, right after the holidays, first week back at work and school, just to keep the whole funness thing happening...for them), activities have included, bowling, deep sea fishing, super long zip fly through a canyon and other distinctly profitless (ad)ventures. In the meantime, we have been at home in sub-freezing temperatures trying to get back into the swing of things. Sniff. He comes home tonight and that's a good thing, cuz the house needs to be cleaned. And he's good at that.

Here's how we have fared without him:

Monday: D leaves and I resolve that we will have a peaceful and unharried week. Nutritious meals will be eaten and voices will not be raised. There will be no occasion for time-outs. The wine in the fridge will not be consumed.
Monday night: Reasonably healthy dinner is consumed, thanks to the spinach I snuck into a tray of baked ziti (with brown rice pasta - thank you Tra.der J.oe's!) made on Sunday. Children are relatively kempt and peace, however tentative, is maintained.

But, sleep is scarce. Son worries loudly to his worry dolls about "villains, sharks, Eva and death" but seems relieved and unburdened thereafter.

Tuesday: Alarm does not go off in the morning for the second day in a row. I thought I fixed this problem (yeah, apparently I did not suspect the pesky volume culprit)! I wake to the sound of the children playing by themselves because they do not want to "bother" me. All, however, is not lost. Nutritious breakfast (organic vanilla yogurt, with lowfat granola and fruit) is still prepared. We manage to rally and work together and we are fed, caffeinated (um, just me) cleaned, dressed, bundled and strapped into our car in under an hour. We are champions and we know this. Son asks, "Is this a record?" Satisfied, I tell him that it just might be.
Tuesday night: Pickup motorcade is a slog. Both children have gotten less than stellar reports from school. Disagreements between the children occur regarding dinner and the right of the other child to continue to exist. Mother compromises by offering a mix of Asian and Italian favorites on the same plate (a state of affairs that WOULD NOT STAND were D present). Hidden spinach is still nobly appearing in the roll of vegetable and I hope against hope that the shu mai has some cabbage or something mixed in there. Mother consumes wine. Highly anxious son ends up in mom and dad's room that night.

Wednesday: Mother is required to appear at place of employment at 7:30 a.m. Breakfast is coffee cake because there is no dilly or dally over delicious baked goods in this house. I think there may have been some bruised fruit also. We three stoicly trudge to the car at an unreasonable hour only to arrive at son's school before the morning care program starts. Trudge back to car and wait with heater on full blast. Daughter tells teacher at dropoff that she had cake for breakfast. Mother avoids eye contact with teacher and scurries away, arriving only 15 minutes late for work.
Wednesday night: Welcome reprieve from normal commute. Son is sullen as always when going to his sibling's school, suspicious and on the lookout for any potential injustice in the distribution of familial resources. Dinner is tater tots and chicken burgers. Vegetable = ketchup. Mother ponders beverage options. Voices may have been slightly elevated but only so as to make my meaning Quite. Clear. My dear friend visits, leaves at midnight.

Thursday: No alarm snafus as children cheerily wake me at 6 a.m. Based on the forensic evidence found later, they were probably fed fruit leather in the car on the way to school, but I can't guarantee that.
Thursday night: Back to the long slog commute. I can't remember what was for dinner other than the terrible Muscat I choked down with seltzer. You can be quite certain there was no vegetable...

Friday: I woke up with a cold and my son sleeping next to me. Saw snow on the ground and skipped the caffeine. Experienced palpable relief on the discovery that schools were open.
But then I got to work and saw an e-mail from my boss in which he indicated that he was going to be late because [the same system as my son's] school was delayed. What? Where is my son? I remember dropping him off! With an adult! I think! A quick check of the appropriate (read: not the one I checked from home) website revealed... PHEWW... we were both right. School was delayed, but the before-school care program was only slightly delayed. My son is probably playing shoot 'em up games on the computer as I type.

All this is to say, we really missed you, better half.