Twinkle Little Star

I Can't Believe I Have Two One-Year-Olds

Tomorrow, probably today if you are reading this on Wednesday, is my kid's first birthday. I'm in shock. A year ago tonight I was laying on D's couch, with no vision, with two babies skulls slammed up against my pelvis, contractions and high blood pressure, members of D's family totally treating us like we were incompetent, idiot teenage fools that had stupidly gotten ourselves knocked-up with no clue of what we were in for and no hope for taking care of ourselves much less children. The pain was so bad from the pg I could barely walk, so I was looking forward to having the babies taken out of me the next day, but also nervous and fearful of how immediate and how fast my life was going to change in that one second. The morning of December 7th was a rainy cold morning, it was an eerie ride to the hospital, but it was bright and happy in the OR.

We all made it through the year without killing each other, only about 17 or so to go!

My little five pound guys are now almost 20 pounds. They were about 18 inches long and now they are about 28 inches. Getting 5 milligrams of formula down Naim was a major accomplishment, and now he easily takes 8 ounces and then eats around six to eight more ounces of fruit, vegetables and cereal. Today, they ate a banana for the first time without me mushing it and adding formula and spoon feeding it to them, I just broke off regular sized slices and they shoved them happily into their mouths. Today I also gave them each a pencil and a piece of paper and although Naim was more interested in using the pencil as a drumstick, Aaron happily drew his first masterpiece. It took an eternity for them to become mobile from just laying on their backs, but now they are everywhere, crawling, walking along furniture, walking with a push wagon. Except when we had to force them awake to feed them, they slept almost the entirety of their first preemie month. They startled easily and cried, but then fell right back to sleep. They were too overstimulated back then to even look at a toy or a simple black and white painting. Music was too much for them, too. Now they go over to the CD player and try to turn it on themselves, they "ask" for music. I don't let them watch much TV, but they enjoy a good Baby Bach DVD (which has a Turkey that says "Bach! Bach! Bach!" that Naim imitates.) They are so much more aware now. They know what is going on and how it is supposed to be. They can tell me when they are "all done" with their milk. They turn the pages of books and point to the same pictures I point out to them. They clap to music. They have a sense of humor and they know when they are being teased. They are very familiar with cats and know what I mean when I say "Gently" after catching them yanking on the cats tails. I remember when Aaron cried when he saw Scrapper for  the first time. Now he follows the cats everywhere. They know how to ask for my affection and know they can also say they want to be on their own. They watch and listen to everything now.

It has been both extremely difficult and easy this past year. The work to keep them growing and try to catch them up from preemie-hood and help them to learn and develop has been constant. I've forced my body to go further than I ever thought it would take me, especially in the early months. But, I know this is cliche, it is the best job ever. The rewards are unlike anything else. To work so hard to create a loving, healthy, safe and rich environment for these guys and get to see every little tiny step they make everyday has just been amazing. I don't want to be one of those people that pushes parenthood on those that don't want to be parents, because I think that is a perfectly acceptable life choice, but sometimes I just want to say to childless people, "You are crazy if you want to go through life and miss this."

Having children is the one constant dream I've had for as long as I can remember. I don't ever remember not KNOWING that I would have children. I grew up thinking it would be easy. I would go to college, meet some guy, get married, get jobs, buy a house, have a white picket fence, have babies. I continually tried to go down that path, and it seemed like every turn I made was wrong. I had to contemplate the idea of not ever having children. Once I stopped trying to live by society's expectations of what a normal family is, and I made the choices that worked for MY life, everything opened up and new possibilities became reality.

All this is to say that at least every few days, I stop mid track in my house and think, I can't believe I have these kids. It is better than winning the lottery, or an Olympic gold medal, or becoming president or anything else I could have dreamed of. I know it is just an ordinary thing. Having children. But for me, I just can't believe my luck and my good fortune. It is hard to remember life before motherhood. The hours I spent planning and strategizing and budgeting and figuring out alternatives to whatever I can't do and wishing and hoping. We're talking years and years of this. And now here I am. I'm a mother of two wonderful little squirmy, giggly, cuddly humans.

I've had a few detractors, but we are all doing so well that I don't care. I KNEW I could do it and I TOLD YOU SO!!!! Bwa ha ha ha! Cackle Cackle! Having these kids was the best decision I have ever made and probably the best work I have ever done.

And my second best decision was saying yes when D asked to be on the birth certificate and be the father. The kids are a motivator for him, I'm seeing new parts of him blossom that I don't even think he even knew he had, the kids love him, I feel like I have been allowed to give him a great gift, an opportunity he might not have had. He is growing and changing everyday as well after being a bit stagnant for a few years, its like the pause button was on and now he's pushed play again.

Another reason why these kids are a blessing is because they are bringing family together. I have gotten to know D's sister better because of these kids. My father was still mourning the loss of my mother when I told him I was pregnant just a few short months after she died. My father gets an F in knowledge of child development, but seeing him with these guys is like seeing the father that I don't remember having. He was so excited when they were born. I'll never forget him saying, "I never thought I'd be a grandfather."

We have found new church friends and friends in the community because of the kids. Ms. Wendy the Wonder Nanny, and my county health nurse, Pat, who renewed my faith in social services. A dietitian from WIC came over on her own time over Christmas last year to help with ideas on how to feed Naim. My mother's sister keeps in contact with me now, as well as a cousin on my dad's side. I've met some wonderful Internet people through being a mom. Children bring people together. It's been amazing.

Sometimes people don't know what to do about D and I. They are uncomfortable around us or whatnot. When you start talking about children, other parents can identify. They remember when their kid couldn't sleep through the night or had a poop explosion. It makes us seem more human to people. I don't want to seem like we are using the kids to build a social life, it just sort of happened. But it is good for the kids as well, because the last thing I want is for them to be isolated because people isolate us. It seems that they are helping create a bridge.

This is a one day at a time thing. I remember when it was a one hour or even one minute at a time thing. A year has gone by already of little minutes, hours and days. I don't look forward to the years rushing by but I know they will and always have to remind myself that these little guys are never "mine." I don't own them, I'm just holding their hands on the way to them becoming their own people.

Happy Birthday, ONE YEAR OLD Aaron and ONE YEAR OLD Naim. Thank you for letting me be the one to hold your hands and for letting me be your mommy!

Yeah, This Whole Post is TMI.

D does not consider himself Catholic, but he has what can be referred to as "Catholic roots." He is comforted by the occasional communion when the hospital Chaplin comes to see him. He will go to Mass with his mom on occasion, he always calls our Unitarian Church Services, "Mass."

I tease him a little because I assume he's had years of CCD and Sunday School and he was an alter boy so he should be well versed in Catholicism. But whenever I ask him, "What do Catholics believe about X?" He usually never knows.

Granted, I'm asking him some tough ones, sometimes. I question everything. Any religion has its quirky beliefs and contradictions, but I find Catholicism especially entertaining. For the record, I don't mean any disrespect to Catholics with this post, your beliefs are yours and I have no problems respecting that you will make your own life decisions based on those beliefs. I just don't necessarily like my decisions being judged through another person's belief system without respecting my own. Actually, I wouldn't even go as far as to say I don't like it when people judge my decisions; it's more that I just don't care. But I don't means to be disrespectful in the fact that I don't care. Does that make any sense?

Tonight we got on the subject of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), Contraception, and Immaculate Conception. For example, I didn't know that Catholics believe that Mary was born free of sin by immaculate conception. I asked if that meant that Mary was the daughter of God and thus her and Jesus were both mother and son and brother and sister. He didn't think so, but couldn't explain why. He also said that no where in the bible does it mention Mary's unique conception, but that Catholics just wanted Mary to somehow be born without sin.

"So someone just made that up?"

"I guess," says D. "So then you can pray to Mary."

"Why did they want to also pray to Mary?"

"Because she can influence Jesus."

This struck me as funny. You can pray to Mary so that over the Heavenly Dinner Table she can say "Son, I heard a prayer from a little 14 year old in Wisconsin today. He needs some help in his science class. Do you think you could put a little crib sheet in his mind for his test tomorrow? Do it for your mother. Your mother who had to give birth to you in a BARN!" I didn't know that this was the root for Catholic children's mother guilt.

Eventually we got on the subject of what Catholics believe about ART. He said he had no idea what they believed. I said, "You agreed to father our children conceived with ART without knowing what Catholics believed about it?"

"Yes," he said, "because I don't care what Catholics believe about it."

But we got curious, so we looked it up on the Internet. We looked at several sources, and some were a little different than others, but this is the gist of it:

1. Couples need to be married to conceive. (No surprise there.)
2. Conception must occur through the union of husband and wife. (Intercourse.)
3. Conception must occur within the female reproductive system. (The egg and sperm must join within the woman, not in a test tube.)
4. Any third party involvement in conception is equivalent to adultery. (Donor egg or sperm, surrogacy. Makes me wonder how adoption factors in here.)
5. And, as an aside...you can't do sperm testing or husband inseminated sperm that has been obtained through masterbation. It has to be through intercourse with sample collected in an unlubricated(??) condom.

So, D and I have violated Catholicism rules 1,2 and 4, and obviously are going straight to Hell. I don't know if the kids get to go or not.

So, you can use Clomid or inject-ables, you can time your cycles and you can do GIFT! (Gamete Inter-Fallopian Transfer). Here is the humorous catch. The only way a couple can use ART that is officially condoned by the Church is to make love using a special condom that catches the man's sperm, immediately join the sperm with a woman's eggs (which were previously retrieved) and then inject the sperm/egg solution immediately back into the woman's fallopian tubes using a laproscopy procedure so that conception both occurs as a result of a sex act AND within the woman's reproductive organs. Wow, now that is being a technically correct practicing Catholic. Can you see the Pope and the Cardinals all sitting around at a meeting and deciding on this stuff? God Bless You if you've done this and succeeded!

Of course, I don't think that marital union is the only loving way to conceive a child. I think that the way we did it was very loving. Why is going to the doctor and having sex in his office while trying to catch your ejaculate into a condom and then having the doctor rush in with the eggs and laproscopically place them into the woman any more or less loving than going to the doctor, having your partner hold your hand and pray over your uterus while the doctor injects sperm. Any situation can become as loving as you want it to be. Any situation can be spiritual.

So D and I were trying to figure out how we could conceive correctly in the eyes of the Catholic Church (we were joking around here.) Of course, we would have to get married. Then, and this is the challenge: we would have to obtain sperm from D while making love. Hmmm.

There are three possible solutions for this (warning: this gets a bit graphic, I'm all for the power of knowledge, though.)

1. The least invasive way, but requiring the most talent on our parts would be to use a specific type of $600, by prescription only vibrator that works on some men with spinal cord injuries to cause them to ejaculate. The talent part comes in when you try to figure out how to use the vibrator while simultaneously making love. Timing is everything there.
2. The next solution would be (wince) something called electro-ejaculation. This is where a probe is placed in the rectum and sends a shock to the prostate that causes ejaculation. The man is usually sedated for this and of course it is done in the doctors office. So in order for us to follow the Catholic rules of engagement, I would, I suppose, have to place myself on top of D while he is sedated and the doctor is standing by with the shocker ready. God, this sounds like a good time.
3. The last option would be for D to undergo a surgical procedure, under anesthesia where they take a small sample of testicular tissue and extract any individual sperm they find in it. Then, I guess I'm in the OR? Having sex with a man whose under general anesthetic? In a sterile environment? Would they have to autoclave me? And then they put the single sperm into me afterword? Sounds both sexy and a good chance for success.

Of course, all these options assume that D would have viable sperm. Many men with SCI don't. The reason is believed to have something to do with lack of circulation and/or the temperature of the testicles always being so close to the body in a seated position.

The most successful way that men with spinal cord injuries conceive children without third party donors is by ICSI, which stands for something that escapes me now. This is when sperm is acquired by one of the means mentioned above (minus me on top, of course!) and eggs are retrieved from the woman. Then, an individual sperm is injected into an individual egg and this fertilized egg is implanted back in the woman. This is a $10-20 thousand dollar procedure. It also violates two of the Catholic beliefs about ART. Conception does not occur during intercourse, nor does it occur within the woman's reproductive system.

I think it is fine for couples who want to conceive in this way, and D and I thought about this and other options for several years. We finally decided on DI because of costs, what we thought we could handle in our lives as far as chances for success and time commitment,  and practical issues involving our health. (He wanted to avoid the potential complications of the medical procedures listed above and I wanted to avoid multiples. HA!) I am extremely lucky to have D in that he did not have any macho hangups about third party reproduction. I know some woman whose husbands agreed to donor insemination, and then when the woman actually got pg, they got all freaked out about it and their failure as a man blah, blah, blah. D was always OK with it. Sometimes even more OK than I was. (At first, I was like, "a stranger's spunk inside of me? Eeew!") For the record, (like somehow this made a difference to us) you don't get the whole spunk, just the sperm and some sugar water. TMI??? I know.  But, hell, D sometimes thinks we were all created by some kind of cosmic dust having to do with string theory, or a planet or comet that brought DNA to earth, or some other kind of Alien, you know...the ones who built the face on Mars and then migrated to earth and built the pyramids?? So a Russian donor was no big issue for him.

Anyway, back to the Catholic thing, it seems like if God has allowed my family to exist, she must approve. You can't look at our kiddos, you can't look at D with our kiddos, and see his love for them and theirs for him and not see God. They were created and nurtured out of the love from both of us, and I really don't think whether Tab A went into Slot B correctly or whether Ingredient X was used  instead of ingredient D is something God is going to be too concerned about.