Kittymomma's Adventures

Since Lucy died, several people have told me that this experience will “break me open”. I hope that’s true. I am not very good at letting people in. I build up walls and believe I have to put up a strong front.

So many people, including some I consider to be dear friends, have repeatedly told me they are here for me anytime. For a cup of coffee, to talk, anything. And I believe they really mean it. I would absolutely love to take all of them up on it. But I wonder if I will.

I am an introvert. I only became more so in college. I had some very dear friends in grad school. But then, they all moved away for one reason or another and I was left behind. I had a nervous breakdown before the second year of my Masters program. I recovered, but the experience and the meds I needed to dig myself out of it, left me rudderless. Ambitionless. All I wanted to do was rest. I let everything and everyone drift away. I was angry at the world and I sometimes didn’t even care enough to feel that emotion. I felt like I had probably ruined those friendships.

Then, I moved to Austin. I made more friends. Then, I got my heart broken and went into another depression. And pushed away/neglected those friends, too.

Now I have my mama friends. And some of those wonderful friends from my past have come back to me thanks to Facebook. In the past week, I have felt so much love. I want so badly to return it. I promised my daughter I would live more fully in her memory. But I am afraid I will fall into old, bad habits once we settle into a new normal. I want so much to let people in. Some days, I just plain don’t think about contacting anyone. I think that’s fairly normal for a mother of young children, but I have years of being a loner behind me to make it even more of an entrenched habit.

Please know I love you all. I promised my daughter I would be the person I am meant to be. I will do my damnedest to reach out. And, please, even if it seems like I am too busy or uninterested, please keep reaching out to me. I often assume people have enough friends or that I’m just not that remarkable. I’ve been reminded this week that others want friends and they really do love me for me. And others probably feel the same. We all seem so confident to each other. And we all need each other so desperately.

I am not going to retreat into myself this time. Thank goodness, I have Chris and Max and my cats right here in this house. But, please, all of you dear, lovely people, who love me and my family more than I realized or hoped – please keep reaching. I promise to reach back. I think you are remarkable. I am proud you are my friends. And I am always happy to have more.

Dear Lucy,

It’s been two days since you left us.

I thought about calling this my last letter to you, but it isn’t. I will never stop writing to you, just like I will never stop loving or missing or talking to you.

We planned your funeral today and picked everything out. You know how Mommy loves to plan, but even I was hard put to enjoy this one. But I hope you will like what we’ve planned for you.

I missed you so much last night. Nights are always the hardest. I wanted to hold you so bad. I just ached to feel your little body in my arms and to kiss your cheeks and your temple and your silky, soft hair. I ended up sleeping with the afghan Grandma made for me over me and one of your sleepers snuggled next to me, just like you used to snuggle next to me. It wasn’t enough, but it helped.

Today, I got my wish. I got to see you and hold you after we planned everything. I was apprehensive at first, but when I saw you lying there, I rushed to you. And you looked so beautiful. And I could not stop touching you and crying and talking to you. I held you as long as I could. And it was wonderful. I got my wish. I held you. I touched and kissed you like I always did and traced every feature. I did my best to memorize it all. I didn’t want to ever put you down, but I finally did.

Motherhood is such a physical thing, especially when children are little. You carry them in your body. You give birth to them. You nurse them. You feed and clean and dress them and carry them everywhere. They are constantly physically close to you. I am so accustomed to holding you. I need you in my arms.

I am so glad that I was the first and last person to hold you in this life. I wish I had been holding you when it happened. I hope they are right that you just went to sleep. I am so sorry you were alone. If you had to take your last breath while I was living, I wanted to be there for it.

I feel so guilty about not taking you to the doctor that last day. I actually dreamed about you dying the night before it happened and I was so sad and worried the next morning. But I thought it was just a dream. I thought my gut was screaming at me that you needed to see a doctor sooner, because of the dream. I really thought the next morning was soon enough for the doctor.  We talked to the transplant coordinator and Dr. Wright and they thought it was ok to wait. But it wasn’t.

It might not have made a difference if I had taken you to the ER that day, but I would have known I did everything I could. I go back and forth between thinking this was inevitable and it was better you weren’t in the hospital when you died and thinking you would be alive and farther up on the transplant list if I had just listened to my gut. Maybe this was your time and it’s good you had a fun weekend at home with your family going to birthday parties and museums instead of spending your last days hooked up to machines in a hospital.

I just wish you were still here. I wish I knew this wasn’t my fault. But the hospital might have just prolonged the inevitable and Daddy and I never wanted that for you. We never wanted you to live your life in the hospital. All through your last hospital stay, all we wanted was to have a chance to bring you home and give you a normal, happy life for as long as we could. And it seems like we ended up doing that. When I think about it that way, I don’t feel so bad. But if the hospital could have saved your life and gotten you to transplant and a longer life, I don’t know if I can forgive myself. And I might never know for sure. But I can’t be selfish.  What matters is that we had a beautiful last two months with you and you are free. We experienced normalcy and happiness. You are no longer struggling in a body that isn’t strong enough for you. You are no longer taking medicines everyday and being poked and prodded and examined.

In honor of you, my girl, I am going to live more fully. That is part of the reason I am writing today. I have always wanted to write and I have never given it a real chance. But I will now. I am making that promise to you now and hopefully that will be enough to finally make me keep it.  I have had the gift of 34 years and I will hopefully have many more. I want to make them count. I want to live for the both of us. I am going to be the best I can be. I am going to do the things I am meant to do.

Once again, you are teaching me and making me a better person. Honestly, I would rather be a shitty person and have you still here, but this is the road I am on. And I am going to embrace it and live every day grateful that I had you and grateful I am here.

I envisioned you last night in heaven with all of the great-grandparents you never got to meet. They were passing you around, so happy to be with you and you were giving them the biggest smile. I hope you are with them. I hope you feel happy and strong and can run and walk and never stop. I hope you never feel too tired and sick to smile and laugh. Be free and happy, baby girl. You deserve it. And I will do my best to do the same.

I love you so much. Please know how much I love you and that I tried so hard to do my best. I am sorry for all the times I let you down. You never, ever let me down. You were the perfect daughter of my dreams. Probably too perfect for this world.

I will talk to you again soon, lady baby. I will make you proud. I will learn and live the lessons you taught me. Thank you for being my baby.

All my love, Mama

Holding Lucy’s hand today.

Dear Lucy,

Baby girl, I love you. You are the daughter I always dreamed of. In some ways, you are so like me. You have my eyes and my hair (although you were born with yours!) and my long fingers and toes. But you are so much more.

You are so many things I want to be and you are only a year old. You are feisty and sweet and strong. You are loud and have been since the beginning. You let people know when you need something or are not happy with something. You know how to stand up for yourself. I hope you never lose that. Your first night at home, your father and I just kept saying, “She’s so LOUD”. We secretly loved it.

You are so sweet and dear. You have the sweetest smile that chubs up your cheeks and shows off your one dimple (again, like mine) and lights up your eyes. It shows all of your teeth. You don’t give away the smiles or laughs. People have to earn them, but you’re not snotty about it. It just makes people feel good when they do make you smile or laugh.

You have such a funny, unique laugh. It didn’t even sound like a laugh at first, but I was sure that was what it was. No one believed me, but I turned out to be right. I’m sorry to make this comparison, but it is somewhat reminiscent of Pee-Wee Herman’s laugh. It sounds like it’s being forced out of you. You don’t always smile at the same time. One can never be sure whether you’re really happy or about to burst into tears. But that’s just you. You’ve kept us guessing since the beginning.

You are an Aquarius and a Dragon baby. My friend and acupuncturist Dixie was thrilled when she found out you were going to be a Dragon baby and even more thrilled to find out that your Daddy is one, too. You came 11 days after your due date. Even though everyone thought you looked like a perfect, forty-week baby, I like to believe you chose to be a Dragon baby. You are going to need all of those Dragon and Aquarius traits and all of the Lucy feistiness we have seen so far. You’ve had some really unfair challenges thrown at you. But you will be fine. You will rise to every challenge. I know it. And I will be with you every step of the way. We are learning and becoming stronger together, even if somewhat against our will (against mine anyway), but we are going to be better and stronger and closer because of it. We will appreciate everything we have all the more.

You say three words – “mama”, “dada”, and “no”. Your “no” is very strong and determined. And adorable. I can’t help laughing every time you do it and egging you on. You make the cutest face when you say it. You pull such a long face and round your mouth. Sometimes, you also cross your arms across your chest when you say it. You’re already a little diva. J

You don’t crawl or walk yet, but it seems like you might skip crawling altogether. You try very hard to pull up and can take steps behind a push-toy with help.

I really don’t know how to express how amazing you are. You have such a sweet, resilient spirit. You are so beautiful and smart and funny and strong. You make us all laugh. It is wonderful to watch you grow and interact with you more. I can’t wait to see more of the person you’re becoming.

I’ve been dancing around the most shocking development in your life this year. I wasn’t sure I wanted it to be part of this letter. I didn’t know if it needed to be. Hopefully, whenever you read this, you’ll nod your head and think, “Oh, yeah. I had a serious heart condition as a baby. Thank goodness that went away/is under control with medication. Really dodged a bullet there.” The truth is, I don’t know where you’ll be with that when you read this. I believe you still have a very good chance of getting better. I believe it will, at the very least, be a condition fairly easily controlled, so you can live a normal life.

There have been some developments since I first started writing this letter. You ended up spending three weeks in two different hospitals, Dell and Dallas Children’s, and we were terrified we were going to lose you. You showed signs of a dangerous arrhythmia the night before you were to be discharged from Dell and you and I took a helicopter ride to downtown Dallas the next morning.

I never thought I would have to stand there and hear doctors repeatedly tell me my daughter could die at any moment. I never thought I would be in a situation where I would go to sleep at night and be afraid you wouldn’t be there in the morning. I never thought I would be sitting next to a bed in the cardiac ICU of a children’s hospital, crying over all of the clothing I bought for you in bigger sizes that I was afraid you would never get to wear. I never thought I would have a daughter on the heart transplant list.

A new rhythm doctor finally came to us and told us she didn’t think you were likely to have a serious episode. I still can’t believe that really happened. I hadn’t even dared to hope that would happen. I was just hoping you wouldn’t have a serious episode. To be told suddenly that the situation probably wasn’t dangerous after all … I was stunned and then more grateful than I have ever been in my life.

I go back and forth between feeling cursed and blessed by this situation. I have been forced to be ok with uncertainty and to live in the now. Those things are gifts. But I don’t want the price to be your health or your life. But I’ve started to think that this was your destiny. And God or Fate or whatever you want to call it, knew we had the resources to make sure you got the best medical care. He knew that I’m OCD and detail-oriented and have a great memory. He knew I find medicine fascinating. He knew I would be crazy enough to sometimes think getting a heart transplant could be a big adventure. I don’t want it, but if it has to happen, we will embrace it. We will rock the shit out of this life and this adventure and these obstacles. We will sometimes collapse and cry, but we will get back up together. I want to be your mother. If being your mother means medicines and endless doctor appointments and paperwork, then that is a dream come true. I just want you.

Right now, you are stable. You’ve had a fever this week. A low one, off and on. But we’ve managed to sidestep the hospital so far. We are all tired and under the weather. I’ve felt low at times. But I look at your face and it makes it all better. We are all alive and at home and together in this moment. That is really all that matters. I truly feel that way. We are winning our way through to an amazing future and our troubles are allowing us to appreciate what truly matters. In a way, we are the luckiest family in the world.

I love you so much. You have made life richer and helped me to be stronger. I will strive everyday to be the mother you deserve. Happy birthday, sweet girl.

Love, Mama (or Uuuuh-ma, as you say it sometimes)

I keep thinking about his mother.

How she must be beating herself up. Wondering where she went wrong. Perhaps even resenting her son for ending his life after she worked so hard to give it to him.

I keep thinking about a city I love and the University that is beloved by practically everyone in it. A University I’ve come to respect and appreciate.

I keep thinking about how I’d been planning to go to that library with my 1-year-old son to get a book these past few weeks. How I might have gone this week if I hadn’t been out of town visiting my own mother.

I keep thinking about the rage I would feel if anyone ever tried to take my son from me. The rage I would feel if he ever endangered or took someone else’s precious life.

And this is probably a weird point to dwell on, but the fact that it all ended in a library – Libraries have always been sanctuaries for me. Books were a safe world for me to escape to. School was safe. It still should be.

I’m angry at him and I feel sorry for him. And I am just so, so grateful no one else was hurt.

I almost bought one of the new “Formula Powered” onesies at Old Navy today. I am that disgusted by the uproar and the threats to boycott Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Piperlime over it. Can you say “overreaction”?

I decided not to buy one because Max is no longer on formula and because, while I think there is nothing wrong with feeding your child formula, I guess I don’t want to shout it from the rooftops. I’m not exactly pro-formula. I guess I am pro-breastfeeding, but really I am just pro-FEEDING kids. Which is all that matters.

I am a little ashamed to admit that a desire to avoid possible confrontations with overzealous pro-breastfeeders was another reason I put the onesie back on the rack. I didn’t think I would be brave enough to actually dress Max in it. I am actually afraid that someone will take me to task in public over it. And I don’t want to deal with that, especially in front of my kid. (Not to mention that it cost 10 dollars instead of the 5 quoted online. A little much for something I don’t like that he probably won’t wear.)

The breastfeeding extremists are actually hurting their cause. Extremism always does. What are mothers supposed to do who can’t breastfeed? What about single fathers? Not everyone has access to a milk bank or to a kind, healthy, nursing mother willing to share her milk. I do actually think that breast milk is healthier. But I don’t think formula is bad. Are we supposed to go back to the pre-formula days where babies without access to breast milk just died??

I nursed my son for seven months. I am glad I did. But it was really hard at first. I used to gaze at formula with a mixture of revulsion and longing. I had been so brainwashed to think that formula was evil, that I was a bad mother if I let him have formula for even one feeding when I was capable of nursing.

My son was “formula powered” from 7 months until about a week ago when he started taking just whole milk. Does that make me a bad mother? Hell, no. And the next time I have a child, I will nurse and I will probably pump. However, I will also let my husband give him or her formula occasionally, so that I can get more than three hours of sleep at a time. And I will refuse to feel bad about it.

Breastfeeding is amazing. I was sorry to quit. I still remember the tenderness of the last time when Max fell asleep in my arms while nursing. It breaks my heart that I will never experience that with him again. Mothers should be encouraged to at least think about it, to try it. Mothers should be able to nurse in public without fear of being consigned to a public bathroom (Do YOU want to eat in there? I’m talking to you, IKEA.) or cover up. (It is sweltering and uncomfortable for both mother and baby underneath those covers. Especially in summer.) Americans really need to get over their discomfort. If you want the future of America raised on breast milk, you need to get comfortable with seeing it real quick.

It makes absolutely no sense to say these onesies are “a cruel slap in the face” to nursing moms. How??? Many babies eat formula, for one reason or another. Since when do nursing moms get a voice and formula-feeding moms do not? Censorship and oppression are not going to help the image of breastfeeding. Breastfeeding should not be hidden as if it’s dirty. Neither should formula-feeding. Feeding babies is never dirty. Just feed your kids and let everybody else feed theirs.

Motherhood is wonderful but, as we all well know, there are plenty of aspects to complain about at times. One descriptor I haven’t heard frequently is “boring”. I’m talking boredom for both mother and child here. I don’t know if that’s exactly the right description, but bear with me here. I am going somewhere with this.

I love spending time with my son. However, he is four and a half months old and a boy. He can’t walk or talk and his interests are pretty much still limited to eating, sleeping, pooping, and bright, shiny, sparkly things. (That last one was a relatively recent, very welcome addition.)

Now that he is awake more and more aware of the world, he wants more attention, although he is capable of amusing himself at times. (OK, OK, maybe he amuses himself at times by watching reruns of 7th Heaven that I just happen to want to watch.) This isn’t a problem most of the time. Usually, feeding and dressing him and me and getting him down for his naps takes up plenty of time. Add in some walks around the neighborhood, Itsy Bitsy yoga sessions, or the occasional errand, doctor’s appointment, or weekly visit to my sister’s house, and we have a pretty full schedule.

Lately, we have been having wintry weather (for Austin) and he has been eating faster. What’s a mom to do when she can’t take the baby outside, she doesn’t even want to think about going to the mall, and he doesn’t want to do Itsy Bitsy Yoga or play with his toys? What do you do when you find yourself looking at your baby and thinking, “What am I going to DO with you until your next nap and/or feeding?” Suddenly, you realize that, as a thirty-year-old woman, you really don’t have much in common with a four-month-old baby boy, except for your love for each other and, of course, 7th Heaven.

Thank goodness, I found lists of games by age on Baby Center. Not only do I have new ways to amuse my son, but I have a new idea for a blog entry: “How to Revitalize Your Relationship by Putting Funny Things on Your Head.”