To Blog or Not to Blog...

Nature's Way

                              xxxviii
It is said that Nature’s Way is the best.
Whether with childbirth or green vegetables,
One hundred percent natural is the test
That all things must pass or we’re in trouble.
Man-made creations cause dreaded cancer.
Avoid microwaves, hot dogs, and cell phones.
Return to the Garden; that’s the answer.
Or so it’s said in the most reverent tones.
Yet, Nature gave man knowledge and reason
Just as She drew white stars across heaven.
Who knows, but She, if we commit treason
By eating lunch at 7-Eleven?
   Following Nature’s Way seems fantastic;
   But, what if that means: man making plastic?

Breastfeeding is the ultimate natural act, but I have to wonder why it’s so damn hard.

Many newborns lack the sucking instinct making the so-called natural way impossibly difficult because milk production is based on sucking power. That’s why there exist special Haberman plastic nipples to teach proper sucking technique, vacuum cleaner-like pumps that make women into cows to increase milk flow, silicon shields to protect raw and chapped nipples, and even synthetic chemicals that will jump start lactation.

It’s a wonder more people don’t use formula because the sheer number of contraptions to aid the breastfeeding mother seems rather unnatural.

Perhaps man's purpose
Is to make plastic pieces
For God's new chess set

The Space between Leaves

                              xxxvii
When we were young, Time flowed like a river
Of dark molasses pooling in sweet ponds.
There, lilies rippled just as boys shiver,
Surprised by cool breeze from the great beyond.
Beneath those pads, turtles drifted to sleep.
Then, terrapins shatter their wat’ry shells,
Dimpling further youthful Time’s honeyed deep
With sudden movement—breaking childhood’s spell.
All action brings responsibility,
And before long, time is gone; the pond drains,
Leaving the eggs of our fertility
To find their own ponds, flooded by new rain.
   Perhaps, it’s true—that for no man, Time waits—
   But, that’s why all turtles seek their shell mates.

Time flies.

What else is there to say?

A passing minute turns to an hour...then a day...a week...a month...then years. Life is but pearls on a string—balls of clouded white moments lighting the chain of our individual memories.

I look back and remember hunting turtles as a kid. I smell the spring grass of my youth. I hear the rustle of the huge oak spreading its limbs in my front yard. It was goalie to my soccer balls. It was catcher to my pitching. That oak was my partner in youthful crime. I don’t see the leaves, however, but rather the space between them.

That is what time has become...the space between leaves.

Shapes paint the mind’s eye
With memories of what was:
Turtles, leaves, a pond

Pressing Wine

                              xxxvi
Where, O Muse, has all the poetry fled?
Ripe words hang from my tongue as grapes on vines.
Yet, without your breath blowing through my head,
Our fruits—unpicked—rot, soaking soil with sour wine.
As thoughts without reason or sublime rhyme
Plump and swell within my dry mouth’s vineyard,
I dream what might be penned if plucked in time:
Songs sugared by the brix beneath peeled words.
But, the rains come too soon, spoiling the crop;
Still, I hope for your gift of passion’s heat,
Changing pressed grape—aged under the corked top
Of my oak jaw—into a vintage sweet.
   Yet, ‘til the barrel is cracked, who can know
   Whether will pour vinegar or Pinot.

Since Ella Bella was born, words have come my mind in clusters, ripe and purple, ready to be harvested and pressed into a sonnet or haiku or general prose. I want to immortalize her newness, paint a picture of a young face twisting with first-time expressions: the frown, the grin, the cocked eyebrow.

Yet, when I sit down to scribble something to paper, I realize that these phrases will not sustain the fourteen lines of a sonnet or even the fourteen syllables of a haiku.

Of course, I could simply discard my self-imposed rule of beginning and ending each post with a poem, allowing my grape-like words to burst free from my mouth. But, who knows what I might write?

There would be no form, no meter, no reason, behind the posts, and I would surely wind up jumping from topic to topic in the same way I flick from channel to channel when watching TV. For me, that is the difference between a diarist and the activity I’m striving for: crushing my free flowing prose with the discipline and patience of a writer making wine.

Ripe words swell in Spring
With such speed and vigor that
My tongue trips, a drunk

The Lost Sonnet

                              xxxiv
Many miles from the last telephone poles
Lies an overgrown grotto safe from view;
Nestled between rounded hills and humped knolls,
Here silence reigns with the softness of dew.
Overhead, not a single plane trips the sky
With unnaturally reflected sunlight.
Rather a bowl of unbroken blue ties
Earth to Heaven—the horizon sealed tight.
Nature’s calm radiates from grass to bloom,
Pregnant with what frenetic progress lacks:
A peaceful moment like a mother’s womb
Protecting from our brave new world’s attacks.
   In naked Nature is the peace we seek;
   Yet, she is being clothed by hi-tech freaks.

I began writing this sonnet before Ella was born, and reading it now, I can’t recall where my words were carrying me. Talk of peace and quiet is impossible as my sleep-deprived mind is awash with fatherly concerns: how much weight has Ella gained? Does her diaper need changing? Has she pooped? Is her leaky eye a cause for concern? Why does she seem hungry all the time?

The problem with parenthood is that there is nothing to measure it against. Sure, you can talk to friends or parents or doctors, but this strange insatiable uncertainty found in every cough and every whimper is impossible to quench.

Secret gardens and hidden grottos are hazy in the distance, clouded by that curse of first-time parenthood: inadequacy.

Should we try this or
Will our child be as tarnished
As Eden trampled?

The Storm Swept Stork

                              xxxv
Crimson-fingered Dawn paints fresh skin maroon—
As red as o’er-whelming passion’s hue
Mixed with blue streaming from Night’s naked moon;
With a shriek, such color proclaims life new.
Then a snip...the shade shifts to petaled rose
And fades to pink as Summer blanches Spring—
This vibrant blush like the wind as it blows
Before a storm and settles—stillness king.
From that quiet, green fear becomes alive;
For, sickly yellow spreads from head to toe,
Dying mustard a body milk-deprived
With jaundiced flesh, stealing a young soul’s glow.
   Yet, beneath violet lights, her light rebounds,
   And within her eyes is a rainbow found.

Looking back at the seventeen hours of labor it took to push you into the world, Miss Ella, I have to marvel. I gaze at you now, curled in a sling around my chest, and am amazed that such a beautiful girl wiggled her way from Mary’s womb.

That is not to suggest that we doubted in anyway your perfect cuteness (for all parents must feel and see their child as the ideal combination of their better selves). Rather, I am flabbergasted by the whole process—it’s like watching summer clouds gather to burst open in rain; if the rain wasn’t landing on your nose, you wouldn’t believe that these delicate-seeming puffs could produce such fierce streams of water.

I stare at your goofy faces—your huge yawns, your gassy smiles, your sideways open-mouthed rooting maneuver, your frustrated frowns, your furrowed brow as you contemplate the divide between crying or curiosity—and am captivated. You are my daughter—Mary’s daughter—our child.

Nevertheless, the work and pain of labor does not correlate with your soft skin, your finger-like toes, your big lips—this new mystery that is your life. I now understand the fable of finding babies under cabbage leaves and the myth of storks carrying infants home—swaddled tight and ready to nurse. In some ways, these images seem more appropriate, more genuine, closer to the miracle that seems so unreal at this moment.

Labor did occur, however, and despite the tiny stork bites above your eyebrow and at your nape, your mom, my wife, pushed you into the light. It began in the dark, Ella, as all labors should...

March 20, 2005. Palm Sunday. The Vernal Equinox. The day you were born.

Originally, I had predicted that your mom would go into labor while we were watching Le nozza di Figaro (Marriage of Figaro) at the Lyric Opera House. I imagined Mozart filling you with such overwhelming passion for life that you would leap from the womb and sing—or at least shriek. Before this occurred, though, I would have the opportunity to jump from my seat, interrupting Cherubino before he dives from the Countess’s boudoir, and shout: “Is there a doctor in the house?”

But, alas! Such a fantasy did not come true and you decided to wait a few days. After the opera, I told your mom that I thought you’d be coming on the Equinox. During your gestation, we (your parents and their wacky friends) made all sorts of forecasts about your future. As time passes, those grand predictions have begun to fade from memory: that you’d be a boy named Wallace (Allen’s choice) or that you’d be born with teeth ready to eat steak or that because you were so active in the womb and carrying low, you’d be a future sports star (of course, that may yet come to pass).

Needless to say, everyone we know had a theory explaining your arrival—whether derived from a supposedly prophetic dream, proverbs from their long dead great grandmother, a feeling boiling in their guts, or simply a beer-induced vision. But, no one could have predicted what began at 3:53 early Sunday morning...

Perhaps, you were upset at the spicy, orange beef and curried shrimp your mom had for dinner and you decided to kick with extreme feistiness. Maybe, the alignment of Earth with Orion caused you to punch too vigorously. Whatever the case, though, you broke the bag of waters protecting from the jostling world outside the womb, causing that fluid shield to flow from your mom like an April rain. At this point, I believe your mom’s contractions were spaced eleven minutes apart.

I can’t say for sure, however, because—as you will soon learn, Ella—I love sleep and was out like Casey as he swung for the fences. But, that is neither here nor there. What is important is that you were ready to taste air.

Before I continue, Ella, there are a few things you need to know about labor so that you can understand our state-of-mind at 3:53 in the morning. First, labor has many stages, and each phase has certain emotional signposts. In the first stage, for example, many expectant moms get an uncontrollable urge to bake bread or clean the entire house. Sometimes during first-stage labor, these soon-to-be moms are so washed with adrenaline that they put on their fanciest maternity wear, apply a bit of lipstick and rouge, and demand to go to the hospital immediately. This first period of contractions, however, can last for days, depending on whether the laboring woman is a speedster or a putterer.

Being a first pregnancy, your mom and I supposed that she would be a putterer, with at least twelve hours (but more likely an entire day) of contractions ten to twenty minutes apart. She planned to bake a cake—angel food, I think. Instead she cleaned the bathroom in about twenty minutes, and soon contractions clinched her womb every ten. Then eight. Then six. And then five.

Damn, this was happening fast.

By 7 AM, the contractions had been 5 minutes apart for an hour; so I called our Special Beginnings midwife, Jessica from Minnesota. Because she didn’t want us to arrive at the birth center too early, she said call back in 45 minutes.

To this point, these were the most excruciating 45 minutes of my life; the only thing I can compare it to is being stranded on my bike somewhere in the middle of Illinois on a melting highway with hot tar creeping up my legs and the hot sun beating my brow. The main difference, however, was that I had some semblance of control in Illinois. As your were squished and squeezed in your mom’s womb, I could do nothing. I was helpless. Each moan jabbed my heart. Each gasp for breath ignited my frustration.

But, your mom, she had this mantra: “Okay. Okay. Ooookay. Ooookaaaaaaayyyy!” which she repeated as the pain increased. It was a shortened form, I think, of “I’m okay, despite the agony. I am okay. This will end. I’m okay.” As the contractions increased in frequency (coming every 4 minutes), visions of delivering you along Route 2 in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot clouded the dial of our clock.

Time seemed to speed up and slow down simultaneously. While I measured the minutes between the contractions, ever-fleet Chronos sprinted; it seemed as if some devious miscreant widened the neck of the Universe’s hourglass, causing the sands to tumble free like a Californian mudslide. At the same time, however, 7:45 seemed and eternity away—like Achilles throwing a spear at Hector that must travel half the distance to the target and half again and again ad infinitum, never to strike. Yet, your mom’s contractions still pulsed at 4-minute intervals, despite our perception, and the clock did flip to 7:45.

By 8:16, we and all our birthing gear had piled into the car, heading south to Annapolis.

Why Annapolis, you ask, when Baltimore is overflowing with hospitals?

Well, Ella, the short answer is that neither your mother nor I much care for hospitals—they’re for sick people, dying people. And despite what some may say, pregnancy is not a handicap or disease; it’s a natural process. Why at the very beginning of life should you be so close to death and illness? Why shouldn’t you squirm your way from the womb in a place that feels more like home?

For months, I dreaded the drive to Annapolis. The heaved Baltimore streets would exacerbate labor, increasing your mom’s misery. Our car would run out of gas. I’d make a wrong turn. We’d be forced to deliver you on a gravel shoulder in the ‘Hood, or even worse Dundalk. All these worries concealed my real fear: the car drive meant there was no turning back. I would be a father. And according to everyone, my life would be changed forever. Birth is one of the few events that, once started, cannot be stopped. And the car drive south, for me, signaled the beginning of your birth.

There was no speeding, no squealing tires, no wild left turns. Our final ride as an unencumbered married couple was subdued. Even your mom’s contractions lessened in intensity. To me, the trip was like the expectant pause just before the sun rises with a riot of color and bird song. But just as Dawn snaps into a new day, so must labor progress...

We arrived at Special Beginnings Birth Center at about 9 AM, and your mom immediately discovered the joy of the wooden, birthing rocking chair. She settled into that chair like molasses into the well of a spoon. Relaxation, once an impossible dream, seemed right around the bend, albeit an incredibly long and curvy bend.

Then we got the good news. Your mom was 6 centimeters dilated. At 1 centimeter an hour, I calculated that by 1 PM your mom would be 10 centimeters and ready to push. The pushing stage of labor can last anywhere from 20 minutes to 5 hours; so using the most conservative estimate, Ella, your mom and I figured we would be home in our own bed by 10 PM and if fortune was smiling, possibly even in time for dinner.

For the next hour or so, your mom labored in the rocking chair while I putzed around, fetching juice or water, getting the bags from the car, and doing whatever else was necessary. Eventually, she made it to the whirlpool and was able to soak in warm water for a bit. At this point, your mom had dilated to 8 centimeters. Things were moving along rather nicely.

From this moment forward, the day begins to get a bit fuzzy.

The first indication that this labor wasn’t going as planned occurred when Jessica said that although the cervix had dilated to 8, your head wasn’t dropping. So, to speed things along, your mom, Aunt Jessica Anduiza (Jessikita is a good friend, Ella; you know, the blonde lass who works at Duke and speaks with a funny Washingtonian accent. Not to be confused with Jessica the Midwife), and I began walking in the rain.

I feel like I should talk a bit about the pain. But, I can’t. I have no compass for the physical sensations your mom suffered. It is beyond anything I know or can relate with words. So, I’ll let your mom tell you all about it when you get pregnant. In forty years. Just know that your mom hurt. Real bad.

But, your mom is incredibly strong and has an absurd tolerance for agony. Every three minutes or so during our stroll, she would grab my shoulder and whisper “Okay...Okay...Okay...” Sometimes, there were tears, sometimes crippling doubts, but your mom fought through it all.

We walked and walked and walked.

We climbed stairs. Your mom did lunges. She tried various acrobatic laboring postures. Our midwife pressed numerous acupressure points, suggested homeopathic herbs, prescribed more walking.

And your mom—well, she became Mary Dealmaker. “Okay,” she would say. “I’ll walk more stairs or contort myself into that extremely excruciating posture, if I can be in the rocker for this one contraction. Please.”

She would always say please...despite being stalled at 8 centimeters for almost 7 hours. Just so you know, Ella, when your mom says please in such a docile tone, she is either terribly sick or in real agony. Seven hours of hard labor—I can’t begin to imagine the pain.

At about 4:30, Jessica the Midwife checked your head position again. Not only had you not dropped but also she couldn’t figure out which direction you were facing. You were jammed in your mom’s pelvis like a Volkswagen Rabbit stuck wheel-well deep in mud during a torrential downpour.

That’s when Jessica called back-up. David, a Navy-trained nurse with ten years midwivery experience, arrived carrying new hope. One of only three male midwives in the state of Maryland, David is the gentlest person I’ve met. If he were Chinese, his name would be Lao-Tzu, and I’d call him Master. He has this Way about him; it radiates like a light bulb in a murky chamber. And by this point, your mom and I felt locked in a dungeon.

“I measure about 7.5 centimeters,” he said, “and the head appears caught.” Or course, he used more complex language like -1 station and left anterior ventricular posterior oppenclasure or some equally obtuse Latin words—basically meaning you hadn’t moved in hours and it didn’t look like were in the mood to wiggle free anytime soon.

At this point, we were given a choice. Your mom could continue laboring for a few more hours and hope the situation changed or take a shot of Staydal, which would supposedly allow both of us to rest and relax. See, Ella, by this point, your mom was precariously close to wearing herself out. Both midwives were concerned that if the time came to actually push, your mom wouldn’t have the energy, which would force us into an ambulance ride and a hospital room.

So, after negotiating for two contractions in the rocking chair, the nurse laid your mom on her side (the position causing her the most pain) and pricked her butt with 2 cc of that sweet narcotic. If you happen to be reading this during a period of intellectual difficulty (like studying for that big final in Non-Euclidian Geometry), please, Ella, don’t be upset with us. It’s highly unlikely that your inability to solve the mystery of how parallel lines meet is due to a little pain-killer during labor. More likely, it is because of all the bizarre experiments your mom and I tried out on you when you were a toddler. Look at it this way, though, both our parents smoked and did who knows what else while we were in utero, and although you may think otherwise now, we turned out mostly normal. Well, at least, your mom did.

And, remember Staydal is a quick acting narcotic that is flushed from the system in only a few hours; supposedly it makes you feel a bit tipsy and takes the edge off the contractions. It’s far less damaging than an epidural. And, we would have done almost anything to stay as far away from the hospital as possible.

For the next 90 minutes, I laid beside your mom in our dark room in the birth center listening to the rain. I drifted in an out of sleep. For your mom, though, the contractions worsened. The pain stole her voice. The “okay” mantra caught in her throat. She found little rest.

Part of the problem was that the midwives told her to lie on her right side. This posture caused your mom the most pain. Yet, such a position was necessary to help your head navigate any obstacles in the pelvis that prevented the dropping process. The Staydal should have cut the agony, but it didn’t. After an hour your mom began mumbling about a desire to push.

This was great news. The uncontrollable desire to push meant that the transition phase of labor had passed, her cervix had dilated, and you were finally ready to wiggle home.

I scurried off to get the midwives.

When your mom rolled on her back to be examined, everybody in the room (Nurse Laurel, Midwives Jessica and David, me and Jessica) noticed that you had shifted in your mom’s belly. Everything appeared more in-line, more conducive to dropping. Perhaps, the Staydal, the walking, the homeopathic medicines, the stair climbing, the acupressure points, the lunges—maybe it all had contributed to finally moving your labor forward.

David checked the cervix.

No change.

He felt for the position of your head.

No change. Still wedged at some crazy angle.

“Okay, Mary,” he began, his voice dropping with comfort and concern. “It looks like we’re going to have to go to the hospital.”

“But, I want to stay here. I like it here.”

“We want you to stay here, too, Mary, but we’re a little concerned. You haven’t progressed for 6 hours and if this continues you’re going to be too tired to push. So, we’ll get your medical records copied and prepare everything for you.”

“What will happen at the hospital?”

“Well, first thing is they’ll put you on an IV and give you an epidural. Then maybe a little pitocin. If things still don’t go as planned, you may need a C-section because your baby (this means you Ella) simply isn’t turning as she should.”

All that hope...gone.

At the word hospital, my heart fluttered and shrank. Inside, I began to lose my bearings. It’s not so much that I’m opposed to giving birth at hospitals—for many woman that’s the right path—but I knew that your mom would be crushed by the experience, defeated. She lived through so many horrible moments in hospitals. Your beginning could not—would not—be tainted so.

And, that’s when Mary Dealmaker took charge.

“But, David, I really feel like I can push. I really do. I know you’re not suppose to until fully dilated, but can’t I try without damaging anything important?”

David glanced at Jessica more than a tad dubious.

“Okay, Mary, you can try it. I’ll have keep a hand on your cervix to see if anything’s happening though. Let me know when you having a contraction and push. Push harder than you’ve ever pushed before.”

The contraction came. Your mom pushed. Still no change.

“Mary, I think it’s about time to head—”

“But, that wasn’t a pushing contraction. I didn’t feel like really pushing.”

He shook his head. “Okay, Mary. Just let me know when you have on of those pushing contractions...We’ll see what happens.”

Then your mom pushed. Really pushed. The midwife said your cervix, although still only at about 8 centimeters, felt really stretchy. Then, Ella, your head moved at bit.

The whole room became bright.

At every contraction, we all shouted and encouraged your mom as she pushed you through whatever obstacle blocked your path. In twenty minutes, she dilated to 10, and you continued the journey through the pelvis into the world.

With your mom between my legs, back pressing hard against my chest, she bore down. Jessica the midwife held one leg, Nurse Laurel the other. Friend Jessikita kept a cool cloth on your mom's forehead. By 8:30, both your mom and I had reached down to touch your slimy head as it sought the light.

At 9:13 PM on March 20—the Vernal Equinox, Palm Sunday—you were born.

I even cut the cord. Crazy how life works.

There is more to this story, of course—much more pain and a delirious sort of joy that is hard to describe, the post-birth stitching of your mom, the struggles with you latching on, your vigorous throaty roar as you leaped into the world, your perfect fingers.

And, of course, let’s not forget the trip to the hospital a few days after you came home when your skin turned, first the hue of turmeric, then cheap mustard colored, and finally such a shade of sickly yellow that your mom became nauseous at the sight...The worried faces of doctors as they prepared us for the worst—days in the hospital under Bili lights, possible emergency blood transfusions, and the potential effects of severe jaundice.

But, that is a story for another day—a tale that began on Palm Sunday, reached fevered heights on Maundy Thursday, climaxed on Good Friday, and ended on Easter morn.

And yet, as I look at you sleeping, Ella, I hear more stories hidden within each gassy smirk and hungry frown.

Yellow skin turns pink
As new life’s relentless force
Drags Spring to Summer