Recently in A Full Quiver Category

Remembering your limbs
wet with fluids from my body
slipping against my thighs
your hair plastered to your head
in cornicopias and curls of moisture
leaving wet notes on my chest
your wail only a courtesy
attesting to your life
subsiding into a silence
your pink lips
latching onto my breast
taking in your first meal
in tugs and sighs
your life still reserved
by my body

Still
I long to feel you at my breast
I cannot forget the feeling of your
warmth against my thighs
reminding me that I am so much more
than just sex
even my vagina and
especially my womb
were so perfectly designed
by a 'man' God

For now I taste you
your smell still holding
the residue of your creation by Him
you who was in the presence of God
so much more recently than all of us.

Mason is my dream baby. He deserves this writing because I did not want him when he was kicking around in my womb. How cold and horrible?!? No, just reality. My twin boys were nine months old when I found out that Mason was growing from a single sperm and egg. I was already a mom of three. And I stayed at home. A stay at home mom. Suzy-Home-Maker. It seems that more often than not it is the stay at home part that defines me much more than the mom part. How was I supposed to have another baby and care for it? I was filled with pain a lonliness. As much as I love my children I don't much like being home alone with them. Birth control doesn't work for us: we had the twins while on the pill, and we like sex

Mason, O Baby.

“How we treasure and cherish the peaceful occasions, too few in number, when we gaze upon something without evaluating its cost or its usefulness: without evaluating it at all, only gaze upon it.”
Rick Bass “The Green Hours” from A Year in Place.

Mason was three weeks old when I first met him. I don’t call babies sweet and mean it. Not often, anyway. But this baby is sweet, I could eat him. He rarely cries—just occasionally waa-aas in a husky little voice like a duck. He nurses text-book perfect: “opening wide, baby must grasp entire nipple including aerola and suck,” and my, does he. He never burps, never spits up, hasn’t had a bath in two days, and yet he smells fresh, like lilies, new grass, sunny air.

He cost a lot, I think. He took more dollars and physical energy than was on-hand. He’s not of much use. He only lies in your arms to receive—milk, the warmth of a touch, the slow beat of your heart. Stroking his cheek with one finger, cupping his silken black head in the palm of your hand, you can smell the sweetness of his tiny breaths. He’s an occasion. A treasure not to be evaluated, only gazed upon.

Anonymously,
A Friend

Mason entered the world at 5:20pm on July 7, 2004. Not only did God grant my prayer for a miracle birth that would brand Mason straight into my heart, He also spoke to us loudly through the events that occurred in our delivery room that day.

My water had already broken and was trying to escape in large quantities every time I moved. We were led to a curtained room and I was instructed to put on one of the many lovely gowns (the kind of clothing that makes you seriously contemplate going home to deal with the pain on your own rather than don that hideous thing). A nurse whisked in and using a tiny slip of paper checked to see if my water truly broke. She sweetly informed me that it was not changing the appropriate color to indicate amniotic fluid. “Are you sure, honey?” she asked in even sweeter tones, “This is your first baby, right?” No. It’s my fourth. Giving me a shcoked look she quickly left the room, perhaps to consult the ‘How to Know Your Fluids Properly’ book. I started to worry. I wasn’t too fond of the prospect of going through such an intense time with a nurse that didn’t trust me and didn’t seem too experienced.

To my relief a different nurse showed up. She informed me that she had my room ready and that she would be taking care of us. It was not possible for me to dream up a nicer nurse. As her only patients that day, she gave us her full attention. We walked into a room with an entire wall of windows and a beautiful view of the mountains. We spent the morning watching the clouds float by and pointing out hawks and eagles circling and diving above the peaks.

Often at night Shaun would curl up behind me in bed and lay his hands on my belly. We would wait. The baby would stir...a hand...a foot. Shaun would run his hands around until he could cup part of the head. The amniotic fluid forcing my belly taught only allowed the feeling in glimpses. This same fluid now fled my body in currents. My belly normally round and hard like a watermelon became slack around his small form. Shaun and I felt and saw his body as a whole being. Once a baby is in my arms my brain works over time to convince me that there is no way this eight-pound child was living in my womb. Not so with Mason. I will always remember seeing him completely before his birth.

The loss of fluid was also causing complications. My wonderful nurse watched as Mason’s heart rate leaped all over the place every time I had a contraction. My uterus was squeezing him and his umbilical cord without mercy. There was concern. My blood pressure dropped; I needed oxygen. They propped me in every position possible. And then God walked into my room in the form of my doctor, Dr. Seeber, holding a plastic piece of technology...an IV. Attaching it to the internal monitor that was tracking my contractions and flipping a switch, it began to pump fluid back in. Masons’ tiny form slowly disappeared along with his erratic heart rate. The nurse checked my progress and felt his head. He kicked me in response as she tickled his head to discover hair.

Time passed and labor became more and more difficult. I accepted the offer for an epidural. As the pain melted away, I was able to once again relax with my husband. Dr. Seeber was known for his willingness to allow hands on participation and when the time came I told him that Shaun would be thrilled to be involved.. As I pushed and Masons head appeared his father was there to catch him. Shaun in his eagerness to embrace his son began to pull and I heard the doctor say “No, no, no! We don’t pull!” One more push and the doctor directed my hands to Masons armpits. I pulled him up and onto my chest as he wailed only once, and immediately snuggled into my breast. I loved him more than I could ever say. The gift of an epidural was so beautiful to me. Drugs that gave me rest after all we had been through and allowed me to enjoy my son in unhuman ways. He is my gift from God. And God is the gift that put love in my heart for my son.

Silly Sammy Slick,
Sipped six sodas and got
sick
sick
sick!
Dr. Seuss

We are sick! It didn't involve soda, more a feeling like glass shards and a nursing baby. Thank you for checking back here (if there is any one!?!). I promise that we are on the mend and have ideas in the works. By Saturday, I promise. Oh no! what have I committed to. Well, I am going back to my solitude to endure my glass shards in peace.

So, If you have any sympathy for a sick woman with four kids (three under age two), send me a dollar and maybe by the time I mend I will have enough to hire a sitter and take my husband out on a hot date!
Blessings.