Twin throwback! Waaaaay back!

As I have expressed before, I have twin daughters. What some may not know, however, is the fact that I myself am a twin sister, and on top of that have twin brothers (a mere 21 months older than us). I'll write more on the "twin thing" at some point. But, for now, enjoy this gem that my brother, Marshall, dug up not too long ago.

Michele and me. God knows when!

Happy TBT!

Melissa

Gross- Part 1

Isn’t it amazing just how much can change in a year’s time?

12 months of unforeseeable happenings.

365 days of unpredictability.

525,949 minutes of new memories.

The blink of an eye.

In the beginning of 2009 I was finishing up my last quarter at the University of Washington, and by the start of 2010, I was living in Barcelona, working as an English teacher, and gallivanting around Spain with the amazing, thoughtful man who would later become my husband. I never could’ve imagined that that’s where I would be in my life when I woke up on the morning (or maybe afternoon) of January 1, 2009...

Likewise, in January of 2013 I was deeply entrenched in a bilingual elementary education teaching credentialing program (say that 10 times fast) at San Francisco State University when, a mere twelve days into the year, my future was altered with the appearance of an oh-so-faint pink line. Now, here I sit, nearly one year later, in our Berkeley apartment, contemplating and reflecting on these very significant, permanent, petrifying, miraculous changes that have happened in my life.

The obvious I’ll state first. I am now a mother. A mother of twins. I have two children. Holy shit. How in the world is that allowed to happen so quickly?!

The orca whale carries its offspring for nearly double the time of humans.

Elephants remain pregnant for nearly two years before giving birth.

Not that I am not grateful at the fact that my daughters grew very healthy within the 37.5 weeks inside of me. But, if “the wait” were proportionate to the incredible responsibility and great reverence I have for motherhood in-and-of itself, these girls would still be baking.

On a daily basis I am both mesmerized by how incredibly fortunate I am and mesmerized by the fact that I don’t topple over from deep, pure, utter exhaustion. But, that’s beside the point of this post.

Something that I was completely side-swiped by was, simply put, the physical pain of motherhood. And, not so much that, but where and when the pain struck. Let me explain.

When I was student teaching in my 5th grade classroom last year, I conducted a mini-lesson for writers’ workshop on different ways that, for the students’ final writing projects, they could brainstorm their specific, self-assigned topics and produce rich, juicy vocabulary to enhance their assignments.  As a class we created a simple graphic organizer in which we connected words that related to the topic at hand. This would be a way to explore vocabulary as well as exemplify how to delve deeper into a specific topic in a manageable, less anxiety-producing way. Anyway, being that I was about 6 months pregnant, I chose to explore the topic of “motherhood,” as it was something that my students had been fascinated with since the moment that I announced I was having the girls. I was also interested to see the varied responses they would come up. Many of the students had babies in their homes, so I knew they might have some insights I could glean (ulterior motives mixed into lessons are okay, right?). So, I wrote the word “motherhood” in the center of the graphic organizer, encircled it, drew a line connecting it to another circle, and asked for raised hands to start articulating the plethora of glorious, wondrous words they associated with motherhood.

Three hands up:

“love!”

“child!”

“happiness!”

Couple more hands:

“baby... no, babies!” (chuckles)

“birth...”

With the utterance of this term several hands shot up

“Awesome!” I thought, “we’re on a roll!”

“pain!”

“hormones!” (this was one they particularly liked)

“gross!”

“horrible!”

“torture!”

Oh. My. God. What was happening? As if my anxiety about the birth was not high enough!

At home I reflected on what my expectations were for that lesson and what, as usual, the completely different lesson I took from it was. I was anxious for the birth (at that point still planning on a vaginal delivery) and, other than the health of the girls, my main concern was that I would be entering the unknown; a world of (physical) pain that I had never experienced and very well may never experience again. The lesson made me realize that, even to 10 and 11-year-olds, pain was such a dominant factor in the birth of a human being. Perhaps I should have questioned them deeper. Did they, in fact, mean the pain of birth or the pain of motherhood itself?

To know then what I know now.

Back in 2008, Barack Obama did an interview with Rolling Stone magazine about his victorious presidential campaign. In response to the question “What have you learned about yourself during the campaign?,” Obama said, “... the older I get, the less important feeding my vanity becomes.” These words captivated me. I longed to truly, truly know what it feels like to say that and mean it.

At this moment in my life, I have never comprehended this more.

The birth of Ruby and Vera was through caesarean section. It was extremely uncomfortable. In many ways I would compare it to what I imagine an alien abduction might feel like. But, pain-wise, for me, nothing about the birth compared to what a natural, vaginal delivery has always been touted to be in my mind, nor the experiences that I have heard first-hand. The real physical pain that I experienced, and continue to experience, came after the day we officially welcomed Ru and Vee to our family. A few things in particular made me say to myself, “this, THIS must be what (mostly) mothers are talking about when they refer to the ‘stuff people just don’t talk about’ during pregnancy and early motherhood.”

Well, guess what? I want to share these painful, somewhat gruesome experiences with you. Partially to help come to terms with what is happening to my (new) body, but also to be very explicit in my opinion that these are the types of experiences that should be shared amongst expectant or new parents.

I’ll temper the shock by sharing these one post at a time.

This is the real deal, painful, gross, hormonal, torturous, horrible truth:

The first thing that happened to me (which is all I will share in this post, as it may take a bit of digesting) was what is called, “ Pruritic Urticarial Papules and Plaques of Pregnancy,” or PUPPP. When I first read these terms I thought to myself how polar opposite they seem, the first is a very clinical and precise condition that happens during pregnancy, while PUPPP conjures up visions of a cute little dog (I would say rabid bitch would be more accurate). In any case, both of these terms were misnomers. About three days after the girls were born I, understandably so, was experiencing a lot of breastfeeding anxieties which manifested themselves into high blood pressure. While being seen by the nurses I noticed an uncontrollable itch around my knees. Little bumps had formed as I scratched voraciously. I didn’t really concern myself with them.  I’m sure in another space and time I would have panicked, but all I cared about was breast feeding my daughters and lowering my blood pressure, just so we could finally leave the confines of that damn maternity ward.

We left at noon the next day.

The bumps did not go down. But, the girls were latching well, gaining weight and sleeping (relatively) well. I was content. Enough.

A couple days later the bumps were not only not going down but they were morphing from tiny, itchy red bumps to large, fluid-filled polyps (beware: photo included). Now I was getting anxious. I called the hospital and the nurse who answered told me, not exactly reassuredly, “Oh wow! I haven’t seen a case of postpartum PUPPP in all of my 20 years of working as a nurse. But, yep, that sounds like what you have.” Awesome. After researching it a bit more I found that, although uncomfortable and unsightly (2ND WARNING), there was no long-term risk to my babies (eating from me) or myself.  

I dealt with the extreme pain for several weeks. The swelling that accompanied my pregnancy was nothing compared to this. I can only describe it as fluid trying so intently to get out of me that it forced it’s way through the last fortress of my body: my skin. Working as a barista for several years of my life, I imagined my skin as a cup filled to the brim with a silky, beautiful latte (only a Seattleite would say that) poured perfectly to where the surface tension keeps it in just the the point in which the overpriced beverage can be set before its owner, slurped, and capped.

After many, many homeopathic pastes and solutions --no medication as I was petrified by anything that may interfere with breast feeding-- and many, many weeks filled with itchy, burning, oozing legs, I now have scars to show for those very painful days. Scars that illuminate the most amazing, dream-like, magical days of my entire life. Without a doubt, the very best days of my life. And they just continue to get better.

Would I like to have known that I would experience PUPPP right after giving birth? Sure! But, I know all-too-well that year-by-year, day-by-day, life is simply unpredictable. This may have been my first experience of severe physical pain in motherhood, but it is a blip on the radar of the joyous, miraculous, wondrous journey motherhood has been thus far.

It’s still gross though. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Purposeful Work

When stumbling upon this blog post in the wee hours of the morning as I nursed my daughter, I initially thought, “I must be sleep-reading because this is absolutely backwards and seething with presumptuous, misogynistic undertones.” But, I kept on reading and, much to my chagrin, it was no joke. I sit here even now, several hours later, on the verge of becoming physically ill at reading and re-reading this posting. So, akin to a slow-emerging, piping hot magma just seconds from its eruption point... I must vent!

As a new mother of two precious 5-month-old twin girls, and about 90 days into my stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) status, I am drawn to these “mommy” blogs and tend to easily disregard opinions that I may not find resonate with my family and our existence. But, this, this is a doozy and I truly hurt inside for mothers who feel they should take this advice to heart to be a spectacular mother let alone beautiful, loved, or even adored wife. The blog is called “Pint-sized Treasures: Celebrating Motherhood and Its Treasures” and the article itself is “7 Ways to Thrive as a Stay-At-Home Mom.” And, coincidently, this article was posted the very week that I, indeed, did become a SAHM to my twin girls.

So, let’s get right down to it!

Starting out in typical mommy-blog fashion, this blogger begins by presenting a common “problem” that many SAHMs may face. In this case the “problem,” as it were, that is being addressed is not thriving in the sense that you are grubby and unkempt for your husband (because, naturally, every SAHM must be married, and more so to a man, right?!). The blogger asks the reader, “Are you still in your jammies at noon? Has it been weeks since you shaved your legs?,”, she then explains, “No man likes coming home from work and seeing his wife in her sweats and baby goo on her shirt.” Backing this up by paraphrasing a reader’s (quite unexceptional) husband grumbling that “my wife use to be a stay-at-home. But, I got tired of coming home and seeing her without her hair fixed, make-up on and she was still in her pajamas. I like her working outside the home because she gets dressed and seems to have purpose in her life.” PURPOSE IN HER LIFE?!?! I would wager to assume that raising her child(ren) was considered very purposeful work, to her at least!

What the blogger considers to be purposeful (now, brace yourselves) work for a SAHM is for the partner/ mother in question to maintain: a “clean and tidy home, home-cooked meals, [a] kind, sweet [attitude], clean and folded laundry, undivided attention (I assume that means to her partner), and hospitality.” Now, that’s all good and fine, just so long as she make it clear that it is her opinion and not a, as she states, “sad, but true” provisions that some SAHMs “do not provide” that for their “man.” I am shuddering as I type this. In no part of this list, let alone post itself, is there a mention of abandoning these “duties” to shower your children with affection, sing with them (or to them in my case), dance with them, snuggle them in your ever-loving embrace, just have fun with them and enjoy this fleeting time in their and your existence! That, in my opinion, is perhaps some of the most purposeful work a human can do. Mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, grandfathers, neighbors, anyone should set that example, not one of a June Cleaver archetype perpetuated in a pre-women’s liberation era that we should not soon thrive to return to!

Her advice (in the form of seven easy-to-follow actions) to reaching this echelon of purposeful mommy work is to: “Wake up early, get dressed to your shoes, wear an apron (I’m not kidding folks), schedule a break, get out once a week, don’t stay away from home, and stick to a routine or schedule.” Now, some of these suggestions are, at least what I would consider to be, more-or-less obvious and redundant, as far as parenting “advice” goes. For instance, I could not fathom what it would be like to have six children, as this blogger does, and not have some semblance of a regular routine, or break in the middle of the day (during nap time, as she says she does). I even would go so far as to admit that waking up early may, sure, be a sound recommendation for mothers that want to “get a head start,” as she puts it, on their day. I’m not even offended (saddened, not offended) by her suggestion of not taking her children out of the house but once a week, coupled with staying home the rest of the week (because, she is “think[ing] about [her] munchkins too. They need to experience life outside the home as well.” How very thoughtful!). What does, however, really set me on edge is the advice to “get dressed to your shoes,” and (I still can’t believe this isn’t a joke) “wear an apron.” As the blogger explains, “getting dressed to your shoes motivates you to work faster, stay perky and handle each task with a more professional attitude,” and, wearing an apron “will get you in the sweet spirit and busy-mom mind-set. Aprons seem to scream, ‘I need to clean or cook!’ So throw on an apron and get to it!” As I expressed, my definition of purposeful work as a SAHM has much more to do with cultivating a spirit of love and education for my daughters than it does with cultivating “perkiness” or a “professional attitude” (within my home?!) or, dear Lord, a mind-set that screams “I need to clean or cook!” I am proud of my home, as well as proud and very fortunate to be a SAHM, but, I will not devote my energy to setting a damaging example for my daughters that mothers are meant to “throw on an apron... and get to it!”

What credentials, exactly, does this blogger consider to be adequate to give this narrow-minded advice, you might ask? Well (get this!), “many moons ago,” as she puts it, she “gleaned wisdom” from a three-year attendance/ participation in two separate “ladies groups” in which women  “in the [Christian] ministry” would share grains of wisdom and encouragement within their homes. I won’t go into how innately one-sided and distorted this way of thinking is. But, it is through these “ladies groups” discussions that this blogger feels she is equipped to share her vast knowledge of how to thrive as a stay-at-home mother. What. A. Joke.

This post concludes by asking the reader, “remember in Proverbs 31 where it mentions the woman we all desire to be? What does God say about her?” asserting that, “she looketh well on the way of the household.” I took a look myself at f this 31-verse chapter of Proverbs of which the blogger extracted and apparently based her thesis of this post, and it also says, “[the woman] seeks wool and flax... she considers a field and buys it.” I’m not sure about many of you SAHMs out there, but I certainly do not seek wool and flax for my family, nor do I consider a field to purchase and do so. We extract and interpret what resonates for us, and, in taking a deeper look at this biblical passage (which is not something I am necessarily accustomed to) what resonates with me as a mother is, “she dresses herself with strength... [and] strength and dignity are her clothing,” certainly not shoes or an apron.

After writing this, I do feel better. It did take me a couple days, as I took numerous breaks to change diapers, cook barefoot, sleep (a little), did a bit of laundry and, sure, clean up a bit. But, mostly, especially with this post in the back of my mind, I took the time to love on my babies, contemplate the strong, thoughtful women that they are going to be, and truly be grateful for the strong women (and men, for that matter) that envelop them with unconditional support and love. I took the time to dance with my husband, to thank him for adoring and appreciating the work I do, whether or not that entails me sprucing myself up, or being “perky” all the time. While there are many digressions I could take regarding this particular post, I think I have said my peace.

Whew!

*takes deep breath*

Okay, now I’ve got that off my chest. While I would perhaps dissuade this mother for certain aforementioned advisory choices, I also would be remiss to not give her accolades for raising six healthy children. It did get me thinking and I do appreciate that. So now I want to know, especially as a new mother, what do you consider purposeful work? What expectations should be held for SAHMs and, more so,  what expectations do SAHMs have for themselves? Is strength and dignity in motherhood synonymous with the tying up of laces and aprons? Am I asking too much of my family and myself to trust that I can be an excellent mother and partner without a veneer of hair-dos and perkiness?

The rant is over! But, I hope this discussion can begin. Thanks for taking your time to read!