on being ok

today, it happened again.

one of those moments; a dead baby moment. a moment where i feel like a freak, not because my baby died, but because i'm the only one that can laugh about it.

(i know, right?)

we were at my sister's house, planning my nephew's 1st birthday party.

(we should have been planning for paige's 2nd at the same time, their birthdays only 8 days apart.)

elle, who was sitting on my sister's lap, threw her head back and said, "I DIED! I'M DEAD!"

(why is it always elle?)

i sat on the other side of the table and just responsively played in. "OHHHH NOOOO! MY BABY IS DEAD!"

when i realized what i said, i said, "AGAIN!"

and then started laughing hysterically.

my two sisters and brother-in-law sat there with their widest eyes. they had no idea what to say or do, which made me laugh even harder. i didn't know what to say either. all i could really think at that moment was

THIS IS MY FUCKING LIFE.

and i was ok with it.

she already is

i finally got my period again after two months. since the complete failure of the first IUD, i've been questioning the necessity of birth control. i mean, i can't get pregnant...but i did once. since the failed IVFs, i've felt released from the obligation to try, actually more like torn free from the possibility of having another baby. i tried everything, and none of it worked. i don't have to think about me, years from now, wishing i'd tried, because i would have assumed it would have worked (considering the awesome success of our first IVF) and i would have imagined the baby i would have had. i don't have to anymore.

that said, i still had thoughts of just letting it be. just living and whatever, without totally closing the door. the baby thoughts came back, the wondering, the undercurrent of will-it-or-won't-it-ever-happen anxiety...just in the space of the past two months.

i just can't do it; i can't live my life with that door cracked a hair. i imagine sending the kids off to kindergarten, going back to school, being satisfied with things again...and getting totally derailed by another *miracle.* it makes me feel like a complete control freak, like i only want another baby on my own terms...but really, fuck that. a girl can only take so much in this goddamned life, a girl can only control so much. me? i need to be finished. i am finished. i have triplets and a dead baby and nothing and no one is going to change that. i am done.

::::

to celebrate our ninth married year and the official end of our reproductive life, my period arrived just in time to get another IUD yesterday.

as far as i know, this one went in just fine and is, until further notice (ie: until i stick a finger up the ole puss) in place for pregnancy prevention. now we only need wait for this blood to stop flowing for some totally non-reproductive hanky panky!! (if you've ever experienced infertility, you know EXACTLY what i mean...)

::::

after the IUD was in place, the doctor (who is helping with the case against the m!dwife), told me there was another woman. there was another pregnant woman, at term, who presented at the same local ER that i did. she had bleeding, and the doc on call (unfortunately not my doc) performed an emergency c-section; it was placenta previa. she was under the care of the same m!dwife i was.

i know that the m!dwife does not send her clients for ultrasound unless the mom insists. did she know about the placenta previa? would that mom and baby have died at home if she went into labor BEFORE the bleeding?

i told the doc that she will soon have her license suspended as a result of the investigation i initiated. i told him that i wasn't happy with just a suspension, but hopefully the civil case will cause her malpractice insurance to drop her, causing her to either STOP TAKING ON CLIENTS or BECOME A CRIMINAL.

"she already is," he said.

she already is.

nine years

there are extremely few digital pictures; those were the days of the scanner. my cousin, who was studying biorobotics, had a digital camera. we were married by the mayor of the town, who died three months later. my youngest sister, who was to be my maid of honor, was in the psych ward for slashing her wrists three days prior. my very dear friend (the violinist), was pregnant at the time and had the baby at 32 weeks, spending weeks in the NICU. my nonna and nonno (grandparents) were visibly ill with colon cancer (BOTH, same cancer) and died a year later (5 months apart); they were diagnosed two months later. my mother-in-law, who had a tittie attack when we told her we were eloping to vegas to be married by elvis, HATED the wedding and complained about it until she friggin dropped dead (LITERALLY). we were planning a garden ceremony, it rained. i think more FUCK ITs flew out of my mouth that day than ever before (maybe not since). the objective, however, was met: we became husband and wife, for better or worse.

::::

i was 16 and he was 18 when we first dated. i had just turned 16, his last girlfriend was a stripper, and it was the summer before he went away to college. despite the obvious, we "fell in love." it lasted until thanksgiving. HA!

we had many mutual friends and ran into each other at parties occasionally; it always had that intense kind of right-person-wrong-time feel. a few times over the years we went to dinner and/or made out a bit, but ultimately i felt he was a big asshole and i swore i would cut my own throat before ending up with him.

i got married the first time when i was almost 21, and he attended the wedding. i found out years later that he was appropriately crushed...he went back to school to his senior dinner dance that night and escaped his girlfriend with a bottle of jack, not to be seen until the next morning, passed out on a different floor of the hotel.

two years later, he finished graduate school and i was separating. when we met up again, i couldn't believe how much he'd changed. no longer was he the asshole i loved to hate, or more honestly, hated to love (or whatever)...

the rest is history.

::::

when i think about who we were at that wedding, i can't help but laugh. GOD DAMN we had no idea what the FUCK we were getting ourselves into...and me, thinking i had done it before. HA! so naive, so clueless, so cocky.

our history is a treasured gift, the rock i lean on those mornings i'd like to stab his sleeping face. i choose to love him those days, i choose to love the things i don't like...i choose him and everything about him. that, to me, is love.

i can't believe everything we've endured to build this family. i can't BELIEVE we have a dead baby. together. i can't believe we have triplets. together. this is our life.

this is our fucking life and i choose to love it.

heaven

i heard in a movie, "maybe heaven is an instant."

maybe, at the moment of death, you experience the most gratifying feeling ever possible for a being to feel. maybe it's like an orgasm, except deeper and way more meaningful. maybe you die feeling that way.

maybe that instant is an eternity.

i don't believe in heaven in the sense of life after death; i don't believe in people looking down on us and praying and laughing and crying with us. i don't think i even want that...i mean, isn't that what makes life itself so goddamned stressful? death should be peaceful, no? would i love to think i could see *ahem* certain people again? of fucking course...i just can't believe in it.

maybe heaven is an instant.
i just hope they felt it, too.

(for m_o)

lame vindication

i called the investig@tor yesterday and was told that the case should be concluded by the beginning of june.

the midw!fe will be officially reprimanded, and apparently that involves suspending her license to practice.

yay?

why is the only thing that comes to my mind is, suspended means there's an end date. she will practice again.

is she gonna learn her lesson? i mean, wtf?

at the very least she'll have a public scar on her license...not that most people look that shit up, but SHE will know. SHE will remember my dead baby, whether she wants to or not...

AND...maybe...just mayyyyyybe...

she will think about the fact that she may have, possibly, maybe, screwed up
and caused a baby to DIE...

maybe she will not manage any other clients
as she did me
and paige.

mother's day?

i thought about mother's day coming for weeks before today. what would i want to do? mother's day...a day for all the women with kids. yes, i have children. i have three children that are alive, and one that's dead. as i get older and learn the reality of being a woman, and the consequences of reproduction, it's more and more difficult to celebrate all kinds of things. i wonder how i would feel if i didn't have the infertility, triplets, and dead baby.

my mother is in town, and i used my deadbaby pass to totally forgo the mother's day brunch. you know, cause i just can't think about mother's day...forget about the fact that she's completely batshit crazy and makes me want to kill her. so, yay? got out of that one. she sucked ass as a mom, i'm not gonna celebrate her.

about a week ago, i realized that all i really wanted to do was go to my grandmother's grave. she was probably the greatest woman in my family...in my life...and she was kinda stolen from me by my mother. i was 12 when my parents divorced, and when my mother remarried 6 months later (i'm telling you, batshit crazy) she wanted no ex-in-laws in the picture and orchestrated the whole thing. she told us they didn't want to see us, but she lied. she lied about so, so many things.

over the past week, every time i thought about going to the grave, i would break down. there's been a lot of tears this week, for my grandmother who i wish i could have known better, and for my fourth child. thinking about going there was like thinking about paige's birthday, or thinking about any other painful date. the anticipatory pain and anxiety is just so much worse than reality.

i went today to my nonna's grave. i wish she could have seen my children. i wish she could have known that my sisters and i would reunite with my father and her side of the family. i wish i could have known her as i got older and i wish she had a chance to try to advise me. i wonder what she would have told me about becoming a woman...

i wish i believed in life after death, and i wish that i could believe that she's with her fourth great-grand daughter. i wish i had more time; i wish i could have known...i'm telling you, i'm starting to know how people get old.

i think the only thing i'm really sure of is, most statements i thought ended with periods really end with question marks.

funny?

elle: "mom, i was going to have a sister, but she died. her name was book."


i laughed.

i told people that she said something really funny and repeated what she said.

they didn't laugh.

then i felt weird.

this is my life.

oh well, it really was funny.