Sonia Sotomayor , President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, has Type 1 diabetes.

I've been running around all day and busy at my mom's, so I just found out tonight when Marc told me. I got chills.

As usual, Amy at Diabetes Mine has a great post up about using this as a "teachable moment." Already there's a lot of press, a lot of questions, a lot of misconceptions to be cleared up.

I'm really excited to tell Olivia tomorrow. The whole Supreme Court thing won't mean much to her at this point, but I think that my excitement will rub off.

Overheard in Chattanooga

but I would like to un-hear it...

"So, were ya'll having any of that trouble down there with, you know, the immigrants?"

"Oh, I don't know. I mean it's there, but we don't see it."

"Uh huh."

"It's like in New Orleans. It's not really a problem, because it's all, you know, in the ghetto."

On Tuesday, Olivia and I spent the better part of the day at her doctor's office trying to find out why she couldn't pee. The morning started off rough with me edgy and impatient, just wanting the election over and in the bag, and then moved straight into Really, Really Bad with her having to be catheterized after the doctor was unable to get any urine to test for infection. By the time we got back to my mom's house - in what was my smartest move of the day, I had picked my mom up and taken her with us to the pediatrician's - Olivia was worn out and I was weepy. My step-father was - how shall I say? - less than excited or gracious about the turn the election was taking and very vocal about his feelings. It was not exactly what I had in mind for Election Night. By the time we got home and got the kids to sleep, I was done. I stayed up (of course), but it was more of a relieved "whew!" than an ecstatic "WOO HOO!!!"

Tonight, I found this link and as I watched, I felt tears come to my eyes and I got excited all over again. This video, of course, led me to many others similar in spirit and I spent about 15 minutes watching people in Seattle, California and Kenya celebrate a new beginning.



Olivia has been feeling much better and the pediatrician called on Thursday. She doesn't have an infection.

President-Elect Obama's new website.

November 4, 2008

I keep sitting down to try and write something about yesterday, but I am distracted by the remnants of dinner on the table, a pile of laundry on the couch and a baby who will.not.sleep. Real life goes on.

I am excited, though, and hopeful and it feels so good to be able to say that. It's been a long time coming.

Go vote!

Image by Callie Shell. More here.

holding my breath

Super Tuesday

It took me the better part of Sunday to get through this story and the accompanying videos. The time that wasn't spent reading and watching was spent thinking about Walker, the author's son who was born with an extremely rare and singularly devastating genetic disorder. I then spent the better part of yesterday trying to express how this story, these people made me feel.



There is strength and grace and courage like nothing I have ever seen in the way these children and their families live and in the way this father tells his child's story. If you only have time for part of it, watch the video in Part 3, Chapter 1: Blink of Light.

Reading something this month besides child development stuff or one of The New Yorkers from the pile by my bed:

Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the
ward and city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors,
old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real of fancied indifference of some man or woman I
love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing
or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exhaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful
news, the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, uni-
tary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable
certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come
next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering
at it.

from "Song of Myself," Walt Whitman

So I was keeping a secret from the blog. Trying to decide how much to disclose and when. Writing and rewriting posts in my head. I wanted to talk about ambivalence and what goes into making life-changing decisions and then how it feels to have made one. I wanted to talk about plans and hopes and fears and more ambivalence. And I wanted to talk about the future, about just letting go and having faith and moving forward. I still want to talk about those things, but now I have to talk about something else too.

When O was diagnosed in February, I thought that I might be pregnant. Marc and I had been talking about having a baby. Or I had been talking about having a baby. Marc had put in his two cents ("Let's do it!") and then listened patiently while I went through my pro and con lists ad nauseam. I was concerned about Olivia. She is a very hands-on little girl. She is at my side an average of 20 hours out of any day. She wants to be where I am when I am there and wants all of my attention on her. I lay down with her for naps, I lay down to get her to sleep at night, and now I get up several times a night to check her blood sugar. She still prefers to be carried. Just typing that makes me feel tired and I feared that I would not have the energy for another baby now. I know that we could wait awhile, wait until O is a bit older, but I am 36. I don't want to be pregnant at 37 or 38 and then start over with a baby when I have just gotten O out of diapers and fully into her pre-school years. I was also concerned about our resources. We carry some fairly massive debt from Marc's student loans. I didn't want to take on the responsibility of another child if we could not afford it.

But I do want another child and so does Marc. I want to raise siblings and I hope for Olivia to have another close family member who is invested in helping her take care of herself. I know that sounds like I want to have another child just so that she or he can be of assistance to O, but I don't mean that. I just want there to be more people to love and care about each other in our family.

Thankfully, I was not pregnant in February. It could not have been a worse time. But once we got O home and started to get back on our feet as a family in our new world, I started thinking again about a baby. Now in addition to my initial concerns, I felt ashamed at wanting to have another. What if this baby also developed type 1? How could I live with myself? How could I take the chance? How would I explain to that child that I knew he or she was at risk, but I went ahead just because I really wanted another baby? I wound myself around and around with worry. Constant ambivalence. I talked with our nurse practitioner whose husband has type 1 and with whom she has two children. I talked with some other D bloggers (thanks!). Marc and I eventually had genetic counseling through a diabetes research study and were told that any future children of ours were low-risk. We talked more, talked with our families. And finally I just decided to lay all the worry down, relax and see what happened.

And I got pregnant, just like that. We were going to wait to tell people, but I told my mom and Alish and Marc told his family and it just snowballed. I was still nervous, still having cold sweats just thinking about the constant worry that I will have over whether or not this child will be diagnosed. But I was excited, too. And I was excited for O, looking forward to telling her about the baby in Mommy's tummy, looking forward to seeing my two children together.

But something wasn't right. I felt crampy too often. I didn't really feel any other symptoms. I got nervous about the pregnancy. And Sunday morning, I woke up in pain and bleeding. By afternoon, it was over. I had miscarried at seven weeks.

So where am I now? Ambivalent. It wasn't meant to be. Do we try again? Do I leave it alone? I'm still too numb to start making decisions. But I wonder if being back at square one is an opportunity to make a different choice this time.

We now return to our Lifetime Special after an extended commercial break...

There was no way we could afford to have a baby in New York City and I don't know why it took us months to finally admit it. Well, I do know. Marc was in school and could not transfer. What could we possibly do other than have me return to work and leave O with a nanny or in daycare? Except that we couldn't afford it - our least favorite option was going to be about $17K a year. And I hated the idea of leaving her. HATED IT. So O and I returned to Chattanooga to stay with my mom and step-father while Marc finished his program in the city, following us months later. I was still going to need to work, but O would be with my mom and I thought that I could handle that.

Except that I couldn't find a job in what I considered "my field." I went on some great informational interviews and met some interesting people, but where there were countless foundations and non-profits with Officer positions in New York, in Chattanooga, those great positions were filled and I got the feeling that when they did open there would be a short list of folks considered for them. I eventually took a position in the for-profit sector and it turned out to be a good thing for me. I worked on my public speaking; I dealt with independent contractors; I met some great people; I learned.

But I chafed at being away from Olivia and was constantly reviewing our options. Marc soon got his license and started applying for positions here in town. My mom told us that she was wearing out with full-time child care. The Parent's Day Out program we tried didn't agree with O. We thought we could make it on one salary. I turned in my notice.

It was weeks before I finally stop feeling a pang of guilt each day, like I was playing hooky and bound to get caught by my boss on my way to the zoo in my flip-flops. But I got over it for the most part. I love being at home with my daughter and I relish being able to spend all this time with her, to teach her so much, and experience so much of her babyhood. I feel that she needs this kind of time and attention from me, especially since her diagnosis. I also feel that my home life would suffer if both Marc and I worked full-time and out of the house. Our organizational skills are barely strong enough to keep us all in clean clothes as it is; if we both worked, things would be too stretched.

But there is still ambivalence. I look back at the lines I just wrote and I think about how easily Marc and I have fallen into traditional roles of breadwinner and homemaker. He has more earning power than I do. I am more comfortable being at home. He still does a lot of the cooking - it's not as though he comes home to me in an apron with a nice martini waiting - but he is out and I am here, so I end up doing most of the cleaning and laundry and "housework." I sometimes resent the fact that I don't have as much definition between work and home. There are times when I feel uncomfortable when we share our "What did you do today?" stories. He saved a life. I mopped the bathroom and then went to the park. Neither of us devalue what I do here with O, but I am conscious of the demotion that I have undergone in the world at large. I don't like to think of myself as a soldier in the "Mommy Wars," as in moms who stay home vs moms who work, but there is so much more to the concept than that. It is about power and value and rights. What if something were to happen to my husband or my marriage? Would I be able to support myself and my child? Will there be a job for me in my field when I decide to and am able to go back to work? Will I ever be able to attain the level of success or income that I might have had I not left work? And how is my decision to leave the professional world affecting those issues for women in general? Many of the gains made by women in recent decades will not keep themselves made without women there to defend them. Will there be enough professional role models for the next generation?

So I have questions and anxiety, but for our little family, this is working out right now. And that is what I have to base my choices on. I am satisfied with my decision to be at home, grateful to even have the option. And for one who never really had a master plan, I'm glad to have stumbled into this particular kind of job satisfaction.

[WARNING - This post? Long. Also? Long. In an effort to liven things up, I've broken it up into installments. A cliffhanger! Whee.]

Olivia and I spend a good deal of time downtown during the week, on our way to the library or a museum or the riverfront. We weave in and out of the working folks, creating little eddies in their hurry back and forth from lunch or meetings. We are outside the rush, not expected back to an office or a call or a deadline.

I've been thinking a lot lately about working...or not working...or working really hard but not getting paid for it. Let me just state from the beginning that I am so grateful that I am not in a position that necessitates me working outside my home right now; I know that this is a luxury. My daughter needs me and I can be with her. I am thankful every day. But it is occasionally startling to look around and realize that I and so many of my contemporaries have opted out of our careers and are at home while our partners "go out into the world" and then "bring home the bacon." Suddenly, I am my grandmother, without the cooking skills.

I did not anticipate this in my life, but part of that might be because I didn't really have a plan. After college, my jobs were chosen mostly on the basis of what they weren't: I couldn't stomach a corporate job; I wasn't interested in business or computers; I wasn't artistic; there was no family business to run. The criteria really seemed to be that at the end of the day, I had spent some of my working hours doing something that felt personally meaningful. I ended up in Social Services working as a Case Manager for children in mental facilities, children in the foster system, and adults with severe mental illnesses and drug problems. I found this work fascinating and at times fulfilling, but it was also heartbreaking and depressing. And there was always the issue of money and advancement...it will come as a shock to few when I say that finding meaning does not always mean finding a good livelihood.

Not entirely certain that another degree was what I wanted, but knowing that it could only help expand my options (or at least give me time to stall), I went back to school and got my Master's Degree in Counseling. Here's the thing though: by the time I finished, I knew that it wasn't for me. I didn't feel like I was helping any more. I didn't feel like a good counselor. I was no longer sure of my faith in The System. I wanted to do Something Else, so when the opportunity to move to New York immediately presented itself, I started making plans.

If I had known then what I was getting myself into in New York...the fierce competitiveness of the job market, the number of resumes I would send and interviews I would go on, the number of times I would be rejected...I would have really given pause. But I didn't know and so I plunged right in. And just as my money began to dry up and I seriously began to think that I might have to somehow beg or borrow enough to reverse my trek and come home, I found a job. It wasn't a perfect job, only because I had a horrible boss. Everything else about it turned out to be a great fit. I was working for a foundation with substantial assets which were used to support the arts, educational programs, libraries, after-school opportunities, etc. As a Program Officer, I read proposals and reports, made recommendations to the board, and evaluated grant expenditures. Best of all for someone brand new to the city, I had to visit the programs we supported across all five boroughs, giving me an opportunity to get to know the city in a way that I never would have done on my own. It was perfect.

When I was laid off after 9/11, I took a job with UNICEF; this time it was fundraising. This turned out to be the best job I ever had. It was fascinating work and piqued my interest in international politics and conflicts. I really enjoyed working with my boss. I was able to build on my experience and familiarly with grantmaking and was asked to do a lot of writing. In addition, the organization offered major opportunities for advancement and I anticipated that I would be able to actually make a career of that work. And then I got pregnant.

What happens next? Does she quit her job? Is it a boy or a girl?
Oh, never mind. Just come back tomorrow.

This scares the bejeebus out of me.

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." - Albert Einstein

So this is how it's going to end - with neither a bang nor a whimper, but merely an annoying chorus of "Can you hear me now?"

I don't know when Thanksgiving became Black Friday Eve, but here in Atlanta, where we are visiting my dad and step-mom, the news was full of stories last night about people camped out at stores waiting for them to open at 5 this morning. A bit ridiculous.

Much as I look back at the me of ten years ago and ask, "How can you smoke all those cigarettes?", I wonder how I once watched so much TV. Don't get me wrong...I know that there are some shows I could get into if I had the time and didn't feel like a red light and screeching alarm went off right over my sleeping daughter's head every time my butt hit the couch, but so much of what is on television now just makes me anxious. I just saw about 20 seconds of "Prison Break" as I cut through the living room and I swear it was enough to give me nightmares. I have an overactive imagination and enough anxiety about evil and random violence to do me without adding in someone else's Monday night bloodbath, thank you very much. Who needs it?

Now that's more like it. It doesn't take away the sting of that other November morning, but waking up to this news was good.

This just in: Tester wins in Montana. OK, Virginia, what you got?

Receding
I have all these thoughts about Katrina swirling through my brain, but I haven't written much of it down until now, so I'm not promising much eloquence. I did want to get it posted tonight, though, so I'll give it a shot. And I recognize that this blog has been a bit of a downer lately and I promise that after this post there will be much hilarity and blowing of kazoos. But for now....

I'm mourning for Katrina's victims, those of too much water and complacency and not enough compassion or forethought. Those trying to re-make some kind of life out of what can be scrounged from the mud or FEMA, and those spread out all over the country wondering how to get back or how to settle into not going back, never going back.

September 11th is still very immediate for me. I can call up that morning and the days and weeks that followed intact at any time. I changed that day, lost and gained a lot of faith and naivete. While I was not directly affected by Katrina, I know better than to think that those people are not me, could just as easily been me. I sat and listened to people here, fellow Southerners and Americans, judge the Katrina victims for their color, their choices, their poverty, acting like the whole thing was a bad made-for-TV movie that went on too long, disturbing regular programming. I am beyond any kind of disappointment in this administration, my expectations were never high to begin with; I was still shocked at how quickly things fell apart at every level, how we seemed to fail as a Government, a Society, a People. But I know that there were and are a lot of everyday heroes down there. Thank god for them. Because every official safety net that I still somehow assumed to be real washed away so quickly. I'll never believe that way again, but I don't know that I know what to do with what I've unlearned.

See, I'm rambling....I should have put this together better. Here, do this instead of listening to me: go here and if you have time, read from the beginning of Siege's blog. I knew of this guy's work when I was in New York. He's an amazing photographer and storyteller with deep roots in New Orleans. His words and pictures are plain and true and he really draws a lot of strength from the people pulling together to help each other down there. Each day I hope to become more like them.

In response to this by Her Bad Mother. Her post on not knowing how to write about her child's physical beauty and her love and response to that beauty is as touching and eloquent as anything I could ever hope to say. I do feel like I have something to add to the discussion...

In the 16 months since O's birth, I have yet to fully wrap my mind around the physical experience that I had bringing her into the world. It was a Journey and was unlike anything I could have imagined it to be. I still don't have the words to express what it meant to me, all that I thought or felt when it was happening. There truly were moments when I felt like a portal, THE portal, like my body was being used for some greater purpose, THE greater purpose. When O was finally here, with her tiny body and big eyes, her silky dark hair and pursed lips, when everything was OK with her and she was in our arms, she felt like magic, the reward at the end of that epic journey. Her physicality was delicious and as perfect as anything I had ever known. Before she became real to me as a person, my child, my daughter, she was a physical manifestation of all that her father and I had hoped for and wondered about during our wait for her. And I felt so physically attached to her, knew her so intimately, it was like seeing a part of myself from a vantage point that I had never had before. I was aware and thankful for my body, her body, bodies in general in a new way.

As she has gotten older, O has shown herself to be very much her own child. She is affectionate and loving, likes to be held and was not so long ago still nursing, so our physical contact is abiding and rewarding and deep, but she has also begun to seperate from me in new ways. She pushes away or asks for me to put her down so that she can explore. I revel in this, her learning how to use her body, move herself through her world. I am touched by the scrapes and bruises she gets from tumbling. No longer a symbol of creation or new life, she is a child now, moving further from the womb and breast every day. I know that the time when I am allowed to nurture her physically, tend to and protect her body, knowing it better than she herself does, is short. I try to memorize her smell, the shape of her jaw or how her hand feels in mine. It's impossible.

HBM writes about the fear of being misinterpreted, the fear that her words about the sensuality of her child and their relationship will be sexualized. And god knows that many people would be quick to do so. Mothers, and even more so fathers, are treading delicate ground in talking about their feelings about their children's bodies. But one of the things that is most powerful and awe-inspiring about the way that I feel about O and our physical relationship is that it is such a passion, such a need to reach and touch and be and feel, but it is pure in a way that no other physical relationship I have ever had has been. It is not tied up with any kind of agenda, no politics, no fear of rejection. It just is, primal and perfect.