The Baby Juggler

Apa is Famous!

Happy Birthday to you, Apa!  I meant to post that yesterday, on your actual birthday but I went off on a tangent and, well, you know me, hon.  You are getting old now, aren't you?  I think you are maybe only three years from your goal of your own children.  Speaking of which, we are in a parenting class and were joking about being ten years younget than we are.  I said, "well, then I'm only 25" and another woman who must have been sleeping during the discussion said in insulting surprise (nee, shock, nee astonishment, nee flabbergastedness) "really!?"  Wow.  I really didn't think it was THAT much of a stretch but...  Well, anyway, here are some parenting things to look forward to...

Mini:

1) If I attempt to either help her onto or help her off (i.e. pick her up cause she takes her own sweet damn time) the bathroom step stool, she insists on starting again FROM THE BEGINNING.  This occurs even if she got herself onto the bottom step and all I did was attempt to pick her up.  She must go all the way back up to the second (top) step and climb back down again.  This applies to any action.  So it may be climbing into her car seat or pulling down her pants.  Lord save me from this child.  I am the least patient person on this earth.  Do you think I'm supposed to learn something from this?

2)  She saw our Chessie puppy trying to pick-up a piece of ice.  The ice slid across the floor and Mini said, "She's ICE SKATING."  The kid is a freaking genius.  She really scares me, sometimes.

Jr.:

1) has reached the apex of the whiny/squealy behavior.  I can only imagine it is downhill from here because it can't get much worse.  Privacy fences are very big around here and our Very Quiet Neighbors suggested that they replace the section between our houses.  They have two small kids and one on the way (very, very soon).  It's getting kind of nice outside and unless I listen very closely I can't even tell they are in their back yard.  Funny that, the fence that the Neighbor Man decided to build is about a foot and a half taller than the average privacy fence.  Although a fence is really not much of a sound barrier, I can only imagine they wanted as much of any kind of barrier between the whining/ screaming/ demanding two and a halfers and their mommy in mother rage AND puppy rage.  Where is my Prozac?  Anyone think I can afford to start now when nursing just twice a day (yes, g-d, I am still nursing twice a day, although some mornings Mini leaves for daycare without asking to nurse and I am NOT offering).

2) Jr. is all about J again.  For a while I had him back but I am the boogieman again.  Could it be my mother rage?  Poor guy.  He wants Mommy on Prozac.

3) Jr. just chats and chats away about any topic that comes into his head, mostly about the cars and trucks and excavators and bulldozers in his life.  He will discuss the finer points of each and also tell stories about them.  He can recite lines from the movie Cars.  He even corrects me if I get the line a leeetle bit wrong.  He is also very social at times, with a ready and resounding "yes" whenever an older child asks him to play.

This afternoon in the yard Mini and Jr. somehow ended up standing next to each other on a one story brick retaining wall singning "The Wheels on the Bus" in freaking UNISON (percisely "the babies on the bus go wah, wah, wah" line).  They were performing!  Oh my god, where was my camera to take a video?

Dwelling

I am still a member of our triplet group.  I still get all of the emails and updates.   I don't want to put a stop to the emails because we can buy many a second-hand baby item through group members selling things.

I have not seen posts from other families who were expecting triplets and lost one baby, either in-utero or after delivery.  We updated everyone on our story, mostly because we blabbed our mouths out a lot and otherwise we might have been uncomfortable, telling people in person. 

One of our group coordinators recently set me up as a contact for another mother who lost one of her triplets, although her son died just after birth.   Not to play the "your pain is worse than my pain" game, but I imagine it would have been infinitely harder for me to come to acceptance had my baby been born, held in my arms, then left this world.  Maybe, maybe not.  It probably doesn't matter, just that I am not sure I can be any kind of support for her.  I do understand her words to me, regarding the inability to share one's true pregnancy story, the invalidation of being a triplet mom, and also invalidating the spirit of the life one held close, in our wombs, in our arms, in our hearts, for so very short a time.

Her name was Sophia.

I wasn't going to ever name her here, mostly because of anonymity, but I find myself wanting to type it, aching to tell a story about her.  While talking about her sister and brother, about my pregnancy, I want to mention her and say her name.  I want to say it out loud, to everyone I meet who asks about my children.  I don't speak it much.

Gravida 3, para 1-0-0-2.  Does she count? 

Somedays I feel this tiny, niggling, guilty relief (I said it!) that I have only (ONLY!) two babies to care for, not three.  I feel what people think they need to remind me of constantly, that three would have been too hard, that "god knows what he's doing."  But would I have given her up earlier, if I had a choice?  No!  Does that lessen my sorrow at her loss?  Am I a horrible person?

Somedays, when I am juggling my two live babies, I feel her at my elbow, needing to nurse alongside her sister, needing my attention, smiling at me in her sleep, giggling at Mama (Nag-ee), cause they ALWAYS giggle at Mama.  I miss her there, like a missing limb, or a frequency of sound not heard, filtered out of my life for good. 

And mostly I miss her for my live daughter's sake.  I feel as if she has lost her best friend.  Lost her before she even realized it, as if she is missing half of her spirit.

Sometimes I wonder if that is why nursing is so important to her.  She might feel her loss and think it's me, because I'm gone.  Maybe right now I am the only person who can fill that space for her, help her to feel complete and whole.

I do want to post about selective reduction another day.  In the meantime, this lady has a lot of important things to read about it.  Things to think about.  Search her site, it won't be hard to find.

I Nearly Cried "Out Loud" at Our Second Parent Adoption

December 14th was our second parent adoption.  It was an unceremonious meeting in judge's chambers for me to answer questions allowing Nag-ee to have full and complete legal "ownership" of our children. 

I nearly cried.  I don't remember the specific questions asked me.  I should ask our lawyer to give me a hard copy.  The questions moved me to near tears. 

Why didn't I let myself cry?  I wish now that I had.  That moment, the moment of surrendering my sole legal claim on our beautiful babies, was the closest I will get (in the near future) of any legal connection between myself and Nag-ee.  A man and a woman marrying under legal circumstances cry.  I am sure gay couples in non-legal wedding ceremonies cry.  But this was my moment, my only moment, to share with Nag-ee a legal binding, something that connects us that we cannot untangle.  It moved me to tears, why did I blink them away?

Looking back, I wish I had let myself go and cried.  I was full of happiness and pride in my partner, confidence in our relationship that is so right and perfect for us that my genetic children didn't EVER feel like they were only mine.  I wish I had cried and cried and cried and cried.  We shared this beautiful gift, these two wonderful human life forms that were never really mine to "give" her as they were hers already.  Yet I "gave" them to her easily, proudly, because she is theirs as much as I am.  She is mine.  I am hers.  We are theirs. 

I love you, honey, you and our two children more than anything on this planet.