Boundaries

Greetings, Naked and Clothed Ones!

Thank you, world, for your overwhelmingly positive and supportive response to my Pocahontas-Traipsing-Around-The-Wilderness gallery. I should go in there on Photo Shop and draw myself a bathing suit made of twigs and mud. It's really how I felt: as though I were living some primitive fantasy in which K and I are cave dwellers, hunting fish from the lake with our bare hands and sleeping on a bed of pine needles (ouch).

There were a few mildly-raised eyebrows that resulted from the photos posted there, as best characterized best by a good friend of mine: "I can't beLIEVE you posted NAked PICtures of yourself on the INternet! You better save them in a secret file in case your PARents find them on your comPUTer!"

Ahhh, a shocked and cautionary reaction that only those closest to you - your mother and your best friends - can comfortably express. Where would we be without those sorts of friends? Kind of like one of those, "your nipple is showing, my dear" comments. As with a lot of things, that particular post - and my friend's goodhearted remark - did get me thinking about deeper philosophical things.

Allow me to explain. But first, put on your scuba diving gear, folks, or pull up a chair at your favorite French cafe with a philosophical beret on your head, and get yourself a strong espresso. THIS IS DEEP, man. Deep.

To me, my friend's reaction was a reminder of two things:

1) The deep thread of moral conservatism that runs through America (seriously! It's everywhere!) and that I tend to forget about; and

2) The fixation our society has on rules, on constructs, on expectations that we live within those boundaries we've been taught to believe in. I say that not in a bad way (well, sometimes-sort-of), just in a way-it-is kind of way. Ours is a rules-hungry culture, with long-held beliefs about what men and women should and shouldn't do.

And yes - when you push those boundaries, you're going to raise some eyebrows.

One thing I've come to realize about myself is that I am not a person who hungers for rules. For better or worse, I like to push the envelope, bang against the glass walls of expectation - the "rules" - that hover around in certain social settings, and I don't have much of a problem with raising eyebrows when I do it. It's a trait that has also colored the way I've dealt with watching my parenthood-dreams melt away down the drain-pipe over the last three years.

At the time when Kevin and I begin thinking of having children, we were living entirely within what I refer to as "the boundaries." That is, we were doing precisely what everyone around us – our families, our friends, society at large – expected: married. Solvent. Master's degrees. Progressive-minded. Great jobs supposedly doing good things for the world. Fun, loving relationship. Attempting to multiply - which EVERYONE approves of. Our sex life was what I imagine the vast majority of American married couples have: neither rip-roaringly adventurous nor achingly dull. Conventional, predictable, and sometimes repetitive, but not bad.

And you know what? Life within this reality felt unquestionably fine.

But when the baby prospects disappeared, suddenly here we were - sitting gloomily and shell-shocked within the construct of marriage and financial stability that we'd worked so hard to build around ourselves. And for what? For whom? If not for raising a brood of equally progressive-minded and educated children like ourselves, devoting our lives to them from this point forward, then why?

It's this sense of being inside of an empty tee-pee, a perfectly stable construction of baby-happy reality with no baby to show for it, that's led me to fill that space with other things in life (like this blog, and the pictures on it). It's one of the common empty feelings felt, I would imagine, by KuKd and infertility-fighting mommas around the world, I would bet. This experience has showed me that the ever-touted marriage/parenthood/solvency equation doesn't always equal eternal satisfaction, no matter how fervently and religiously our world tells says it does. I also discovered how little control we really have over biological forces, and how bad things can happen to anyone - even supposedly "good" people who live within the boundaries our society has set up.

More important, from my KuKd experience I took away a more deeply resonating message that I carry with me still: that our lives are short and precious, and that every day of life should be lived as one's last. That - despite the losses of my past - it is up to me to make the most of what I have, seeking joy and vitality where I can, shedding my own fears for the sake of living. It's this principle of living life to its fullest - even when that means taking risks - that guided my initially reluctant decision to: 1) get naked; 2) get photographed; and 3) post my arse-crack online.

Who's going to come after me for that? Jesus? My grandmother? I doubt it. Morally conservative people who believe that a naked woman is something to get squeamish about? Maybe. I'll keep a look-out for them.

Posting arse-pics on the Internet is a risk. It's a risk that I accept, because it feels good - and because getting comfortable with my own body and sexuality has been part of what's filled that empty "tee-pee" I mentioned earlier. I could give you a long list of big and small examples of this anti-conventional-behavior pattern of mine has both helped and hurt me over the years. In this case, I'm going with it.

Now, for the record - I DO have a job, and it's a job that I love, with people that I love. I have mixed feelings about people at my workplace seeing my arse-crack online. Not a complete and terrifying concern, but enough of a kernel of risk-awareness to know not to leave that particular post up forever. So I'll let it sit there and soak up the sun for a bit longer, and then take it down for a while, perhaps letting it reemerge in a year or so. ;-)

Now, off to see what other boundaries I can tinker with.

Nudity Alert!

Greetings, Sexies!

Now approaching the three-year anniversary of my thrilling initiation into the KuKd club, I've lately been in the mood to...shall we say...rediscover my sensuality. Not that there ever was much to speak of. We crunchy Peace Corps women don't DO sensuality. No, no, no. We wear comfortable and economical Hanes briefs that mercifully swallow up our love handles, and Birkenstock sandals on our feet. We don't shave our bodies; what on earth for? We are hairy women; hear us roar! We clunk around the world and do practical, organic, non-sexual things.

And when your body then becomes the equivalent of a dead-baby factory, when a roomful of people (including your husband - yeah, that guy who was initially attracted to you for SOMEthing) then witness a six-pound stillborn infant and all of this infant's liquidy accoutrements emerge from your vagina, you REALLY drift away from any notion of yourself as something of or related to...well...sex.

This past month, though, I've taken some baby-steps toward feeling non-dead-baby-factory-ish. First, I tried out something that struck me as a pleasantly balanced mix of Peace-Corps-Crunchy-Practical and GIRLY: an OLIVE OIL BATH. A few of you may have seen this on my Facebook page already, and if so, I suggest you skip this part and scroll down the juicier segment of this post.

Now, I had heard through the grapevine: a mere TEASPOON of extra-virgin olive oil would do the trick for sensual skin. That seemed a bit woosy to me, so I added several. As Kevin grumpily predicted, the oil initially formed little floating blobs on the surface.



Not very appealing. But I braved it and jumped in, swirling my limbs around to create a warm, oily, sufficiently integrated "soup" - which our dog Tebow took great pleasure in sipping:



Needless to say, everything was slicked with oil afterward - towels, the tub, the floor, walls, Tebow's nose, my body, everything. But still, it gave me a taste of what it's like to do something frivolous for the sake of supple, sensual skin!

* * *

NOW, BE WARNED: The next part of this post involves nakedness. I'm serious. Nothing serious, just a bit of ass-crack here and there. So if you can't handle nakedness, as in - if you are seriously made uncomfortable by the sight of an inch or two of ass-crack, you should click out of this post right now. Steer your children away. Go do something comfy and familiar and wholesome. Make a cup of decaf tea and munch on a scone while knitting a scarf for your neighbor.

On the other hand, if you're OK with nakedness, keep reading.

Let me start by saying, I AM NOT A PERSON WHO IS COMFORTABLE (yet) in a naked state. I'm just not. You know, you always have those 5-10 pounds you wish you could lose. Nakedness is usually neither practical nor appropriate in our stuffy, boundary-filled society.

But this past week, as part of our 2-week road trip, Kevin and I did a hot, grueling hike to a remote alpine lake. This hike sucked balls. It was one of those never-ending uphill deals where you keep praying the purported lake is right around the next ridge or corner or whatever, and it never is. By the time we finally reached this lake after 4 hours of uphill, I was in a semi-delirious state of relief and exhaustion. For reasons unbeknownst to man, I did something I'd never done before: I yanked off all of my clothes and jumped right in. The lake was frigidly cold, and when I jumped out, I felt totally rejuvenated and alive, and I started doing a little naked dance right there on the banks of this lake.

Sure, there might have been some campers or hunters or whatever roaming around (highly unlikely) Sure, I was technically in a public place. Sure, some horny deer or elk could be watching us from a clump of shrubbery. But you know what? I DIDN'T GIVE A DAMN! And Kevin, with his characteristic military caution, initially reacted by glancing furtively around. When he didn't see any fat orange-capped hunters pointing their rifles at us, he took out the camera instead, and started taking pictures.

OF ME! NAKED!

Again: something I would normally never, ever allow - but this time, once again - I DIDN'T GIVE A DAMN! It was liberating, just throwing caution to the wind like this.

Now, I did crop out some of the racier bits of these photos, of course. If Zachary is watching from the Stillborn Babe Penthouse up above, I wouldn't want him to think is mommy is some kind of porn star. But I would want him to know that sometimes it feels good to just live and let go of fear - which is something that's been so hard for me to do these past few years.

So here ya go. Oh, and KuKd Folk Music Series Tracks 2-3 (there will be 4 total) are shittily recorded and ready go go. Coming later this week!

Weaving a Story

Greetings, Coffee-Sippers!

This is Monica, thoroughly buzzed and reporting to you live from a cozy coffee shop in McCall, Idaho. Kevin and I are in the midst of road-tripping to various mountainous locales - some of which have - gasp! - no Internet connection. This is proving to be a source of faux-frustration. Not only does it prevent me from jumping online at every whim to Google pointless things like "sexy cowboys" and "cupcakes" - but also it forces me to do this thing called "living my life free of distractions" - something Kevin and I used to do all the time.

Last night, for example, we played Scrabble. There are way too many vowel tiles in Scrabble - especially the letter "i." Our balcony overlooks a turquoise blue lake fringed with pine trees. The people next door argue all the time. I have a hangnail on my toe. Kevin looks good when he doesn't shave for a week. I might not have noticed any of these things had I been Googling "sexy cowboys" and "cupcakes."

Oh, there is one big distraction I have that doesn't involve the Internet, and that's putting together the next issue of Exhale. You know, I realized this past week that one of these days, sometime over the next year or so, I won't be suitable for Exhale anymore. I'm already wondering if I'm still suitable for it.

Let me explain. Here's a big part of what "putting together Exhale" involves: kicking back with a cup of tea, reading through the heaps of submissions in my e-mail inbox, and doing something with them. That means either accepting them to publish, or rejecting them. Now, I love that people write things and send them in to Exhale. I believe in writing as a cathartic and teaching tool, and it always makes me feel thoroughly honored and glowing inside that anybody feels compelled to write about such personal things in their lives and allow me to read them. It takes such courage and involves huge risk; I know this because - in my search to put my OWN dead-baby story out there, I've had my share of rejection.

Yet, what I'm finding lately is that I'm having trouble...well...feeling anything anymore when I read these incredibly poignant and sad stories. They don't move me like they used to. More and more of these submissions end up in the "rejection" pile as time goes on, and this makes me feel sometimes like a bad person. I guess when I started Exhale, I didn't realize that accepting and rejecting sad stories would be a part of my job as editor. Not that I knew who on earth would be doing that if not me; it just didn't dawn on me that any rejection would be required.

When I do get a piece that brings tears to my eyes - which in fact happened just a few days ago (and you can bet this piece is going into the next issue) - here's what it has that the others don't: a deeper story.

What I mean is this: they don't just narrate the event in a minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour description, without any greater meaning or underlying theme (first I started bleeding, then I started cramping, then the doctor told me, then I started crying. the end.) They don't just tell me exactly what happened and assume that their story is naturally so different from the others, so dramatically and unusually poignant that it will stand out in a readers' mind as particularly enlightening and unique. They dig deeper than that, and look for some great greater meaning or lesson. Or, they provide such a strong voice that they convey that event in a way that moves me, simply by the way that it's told.

The truth is that pregnancy and infant losses - and even infertility journeys - happen in more-or-less the same way. Sure, there are medical and personal details that set one person's story apart from someone else's. But by and large, the physical and biological event itself is not a unique story. Which makes it especially challenging to write about it in a way that's unique and compelling, that teaches us something, that truly makes a mark on the world.

Really, isn't that what we look for in all good writing? Writing about anything? Take describing a battle, a death of a loved one, a bad break-up, a dining experience at a new restaurant. What draws you in as a reader and impacts you is the deeper story you can weave from it, and/or the voice with which you tell it.

That's what I look for in Exhale. The submission that brought tears to my eyes began like this:

One night not too long ago, my brother Dean and I were helping my mother up my front steps in the darkness, jockeying her suitcases, a get-well balloon, and her walker. She had endured a lengthy surgery to correct severe spinal stenosis, a condition that had caused her chronic pain, and would be staying with me for a couple weeks to convalesce. As a Vietnamese woman, she has always been petite, but I was shocked to see that the surgery had diminished her still. She seemed vulnerable and small, curled up on herself like a fern before dawn. I was tired too, nearly 12 weeks into my first trimester of pregnancy, and looked forward to the end of what had been a long ordeal of visits and consultations related to my mother’s care.

Inside my tiny kitchen, my father—my mother’s ex-husband, who had fallen for her when he was a soldier fighting the war—was helping out by preparing dinner. It was the kind of bachelor meal he was always preparing: store-bought rotisserie chicken, canned green beans, and instant rice. We sat and ate, silently. It occurred to me that this was the first time my family had been in the same room in more than 20 years.

Now, I wont tell you the rest. You'll have to read this issue to find out. But I will say that as I began reading this, right away I was drawn in, and compelled to keep reading. That's because - although I knew this story is about miscarriage - notice the total lack of anything miscarriage-related in the entire beginning of this story. That already told me this particular miscarriage story would be couched in something greater and universal. Something about family, about tradition, about food.

And sure enough, by the end of this piece, I was snivelling in the passenger seat of our car going 60 miles an hour down a mountain road as Kevin drove, wiping my nose on my wrist. Kevin reached over and touched my knee. He knew I was reading a doozy of an Exhale submission; didn't have to ask.

I don't know. Maybe I'm getting jaded and cranky in my ripe old age of 33. Maybe I'm reading too many sad stories and they're losing their meaning. If I were a person who really had clout in the world, like a political pundit or a world famous author, I'd put out some sort of "call to action" to all of the writers and talkers and thinkers out there: look deeper than the surface of the thing that happened, and ask yourself what more universal meaning you can draw from it. Spin that story out, because that's what will make a mark on the world. If bad things happen for a reason, there must be something we can learn from it. Find that thing and tell it well.

But, who the hell am I to boss people around - especially given that I'm about the furthest person from a "writing expert" (or an anything-expert, for that matter) on the face of the planet. Actually, I take that back. I do consider myself an expert on HUNKS. Knocked down hunks, that is.

If you haven't voted yet, get over there and do it! The hunk voting deadline looms large! Better yet, get me your picture for the next gallery.

Ask a Dead Baby Momma: Sugar Egg Sensation

Dear Dead-Baby Momma,

Yesterday I was out with a bunch of people and slipped into a total dead-baby funk. Why didn't everybody sense that, drop what they were doing, and come over to give me a group hug, those insensitive fuckers?

Funked Out Amid Insensitive Fuckers


Dear Funked Out Amid Insensitive Fuckers:

Dead Baby Mommas understands. You, alone and funked-out inside your head while the rest of the world spins convivially and unaware. I call that the Sugar-Egg Sensation.

Remember sugar eggs?



A hard decorated sugar-shell surrounding an edible panoramic scene made of hardened frosting, usually involving something juvenile like bunnies or ducks (how often I have tried unsuccessfully to explain to others what sugar eggs are and why they are cool!). The Sugar-Egg Sensation is simply when the outside of your body is like a hard sugar shell, and the inside is a totally different hidden scene that few people can detect. And your inner scene isn't a pleasant one of ducks and bunnies either: more like grumpy little trolls eating handfuls of mud and glaring at one another.

And yes, Funked-Out: few people can - or will - detect that unsavory inner scene.

But there is hope!

Let me digress into a brief, related anecdote. Not long ago, I was at a happy hour gathering with friends from work. One guy's mucho-prego wife came along, her belly popping out at the seams. We were all drinking sangria and munching on Spanish tapas while sunlight poured through the tall open windows. From the corner of my eye, I kept noticing the mucho-prego wife having these contemplative, intimate moments that I recognized: those miraculous instances of feeling your baby kick you hard on the insides. She was in her own sugar-egg world, the mommy-baby-connection-world that nobody else has access to, stroking her tummy and gazing out the window with a slight smile on her face. I got that, remembered it.

When the entire group conversation suddenly drifted toward this woman's belly and the subject of "what it feels like to have a baby move inside you," everybody was instantly excited, because blossoming babies are a community interest, an intriguing and much-loved subject by all. The mucho-prego wife's eyes lit up as she explained the sensation, imitating it, punching someone on the upper arm to show what a foot or a knee or an elbow feels like against your inner walls. Again, I got that, and I couldn't bear to look in her direction, the reminder too visceral, sudden sadness too intense. I could almost feel a baby moving inside me, the magical "whoosh" that I'd felt so often during my drive to work that summer, two years ago, or standing up in front of students. A shadow cast itself instantly across my mood, consuming me with the barren sense of being alone inside my sugar-egg world. And yeah, my little funk went unnoticed to *most* people at the table (*most* is a key word here; keep reading).

Now back to you, Funked-Out. What to do about it?

Let's start with what NOT to do about it: expect those "insensitve fuckers" to change, or resent them for not seeing into your world. In their defense, allow Dead Baby Momma to gently point out: most people in the world are neither "fuckers" nor "insensitive" in the truest sense (and if they are, you shouldn't be hanging out with them anyway). Most people are rightfully too busy tending to their own psychological worlds to notice your internal (and totally valid) shit-storm, and quite plausibly may be wrestling with their OWN Sugar-Egg Sensations to which others are equally blind. So forget that.

Instead, let's focus on what you CAN do. Dead Baby Momma recommends a patent-pending, two-step strategy.

STEP 1:

The first step is the hard part - akin to swallowing a vegetable that you hate while singing the Chinese national anthem: respect your internal world, while respecting others' internal worlds at the same time. That is: as you peer out at the world from your lonely hidden sugar-egg scene, you embrace your dead-baby funk (for fuck's sake, you lost a baby - or a baby-like entity- and funks are to be expected! If you didn't have funks, Dead Baby Momma would be concerned for your psychological health!) and - at the same time - be a gracious member of the human community, one with dignity, wisdom, and empathy for others' conditions. Say something nice to the prego woman at the table, even if it hurts. Fake a smile if you have to, or politely excuse yourself to use the restroom.

By practicing this skill, you learn to let go of the things you can't change; namely the fact that the world moves on, even as you still get stuck in your Sugar-Egg scene. Plus, you take your traumatic past and channel it in a positive and outward manner (okay, Dead Baby Momma has no idea what that second part means, but it sure sounds good).


STEP 2:

This is a very important step, so listen up, Funked-Out. There are very likely one or two (or more!) keenly perceptive people who know you, who get it, whose sensitivity and ability to understand things beyond their own worlds far transcend what others are capable of. They sense your retreat into your Sugar-Egg world and try to reach you there (even despite potentially grappling with their own internal turmoil), letting you know you aren't alone. Once you know who they are, cull them deeper into your life and don't let them go, and be sure to let them know in clear, blunt terms how grateful you to have them nearby. They're a rarity, and they will help keep you safe and sound as you continue down this strange, lonely, funk-laden road of grief.

Dead Baby Momma recognizes steps 1 and 2 aren't always easy. Quick return to my happy-hour funk at the Spanish tapas bar, just to illustrate. I would give myself...oh...about a C+ in achieving Step 1. I tried to be a good sport - man, did I try - but this particular funk was more of a doozy than what I was used to, blindsiding me. Next time I'll do better. As for Step 2, I was lucky to have two such friends at the table - M and S - sensing my funky little retreat into my own head, and just being there for me in a subtle, real way: a knowing kick under the table, a hand on my forearm, a glance into my eyes, an abrupt and strategic attempt to change the subject. They got it, and they were with me in my universe when I most needed help. Although I couldn't bring myself react or jump all over their presence, being too consumed by my own self, I am ever-grateful to have such friends in my life. They're those hoard-worthy types you never want to let go of. I don't think I ever mentioned to either of them how much those gestures meant to me (which would lead to a grade of about B-), but I will.

So there's what you do, Funked Out. Oh, and there's a Step 3, too: go out and find a sugar egg and buy one, so that you can revel in the pleasure of breaking apart the outside, eating it and getting your face all sticky with pure sugar residue, and then biting the ass off the bunny on the inside. Zany pleasure!

The Hunks are Up!

Good Morning, Caffeinators!

I'm heading to our not-very-exciting state capitol today to sit at a table with a bunch of people in suits and talk about our college education system. Then I'm coming home to continue working diligently on tracks 2-3 of the KuKd Folk Series...coming very soon.

If you didn't just fall backwards out of your chair from pure envy, check out Knocked-Down Hunk Gallery #2 and vote for your fave! Next hunk-submission deadline is September 1st.

A Tocophobia Sandwich

Greetings, Fellow Travelers on the Road of Life!

Today, this sunny Saturday in Seattle, I had a specific plan to take control of a specific fear in my life. But that original fear got trumped by another fear - fear of the plan itself - so I ditched the plan altogether.

Regarding this fear, have I mentioned my post-KuKd Tocophobia? Surely I've alluded to it, and of course know that that word means. But in case you don't, let me explain:

Tocophobia is simply another word for Maleusiophobia, which - as anybody with first-grade-or-higher vocabulary level understands - is a synonym for Parturiphobia, which - as even your Amish grandmother living in a rural cave with no TV or Internet will inform you - is no different from Lockiophobia. Which - as indexed in the bible of all bibles of phobia lists - means: "fear of childbirth or pregnancy."

Ahhhh, pregnancy. Remember the days when it looked like this?



Just a lovely ten-month journey fringed with foliage, a hopeful springtime breeze caressing your ears, a shining light at the end of the tunnel beckoning you. Come, Fertile Princess of Motherly Nectar! it said. Come to the Land of Ever-Flowing Breast Milk and Shimmering Sense of Purposefulness, Warm Rosy-Cheeked Child Awaits the Love Pressing Against the Walls of Your Soul! It looked like that for me the first time, and even the second time.

Then came my third stint at being knocked up. Gone was serene foliage, the peaceful silence, the safe and inviting passageway calling my name. Nuh-nuh-no. For me, pregnancy kind of looked like this:



Yes: like a strange acid trip, swirling with hallucinations and spinning unknowns, where nothing was as it seems. And in fact, it wasn't. Just a blighted ovum (Mother Nature's greatest mind-fuck).

So where does that leave me? It leaves me as a bona fide Tocophobe, certifiably and nail-chompingly afraid of looking up (or down at that pink plus-sign) and seeing yet ANOTHER ten-month pregnancy tunnel stretching out before my eyes, looking more or less like this:



That would be me, flailing around in the air, propelled through this shadowy tunnel of horrors with the evil Dead Baby Goddess's face floating in the background. And each of those doors off to the side represents a potential danger - a radiologist jumping out with a clipboard and a grim expression, relaying some awful news:

your baby has five heads and webbed feet!


Or: there is no baby!

Or: the baby is dead and seeping into your bloodstream, which has already caused widespread gangrene, which means we will immediately have to amputate all four of your limbs!

Or: you're pregnant with a thriving fetus, but it's not a human fetus; it's some genetic cross between a flying Mexican wombat, a platypus, a Tazmanian devil, and an ear of corn.

Aggghhhhh!!!

You think I must be kidding, but I'm not. I know it sounds crazy, and it is. But nobody ever said that phobias are normal and rational things.

* * *

ANYWAY.

Kevin and I both decided last week that my haphazard shrieks of "PULL OUT! MAKE A MAP OF HAWAII ON MY STOMACH FOR ALL I CARE! JUST PULL OUT! NOW!" would not be an effective long-term way to deal with this gnawing, nagging fear of pregnancy. No, no. The real way, the best way, the grown-up way, the responsible way, was to go on the pill. Not forever, ya know. Just for the next year or so, while I sorted things out in my head. Just a way to bide myself some time for deciding if I really want to embark down that tunnel again.

So, I told my doctor I really needed this drug to maintain sanity, and she wrote up a prescription for a few months' worth of low-dose birth control pills, the name of which I've already pushed violently out of my mind (keep reading). I was told to start them this Sunday. Today is Saturday. The pharmacy closes at 1pm. And the one, single meaningful errand I had to run today was to pick up my first pill pack.

But then, I made the mistake of Googling this particular pill, which - according to drug-review blogs apparently filled with ranty, hormonal women - comes with some side effects that made me pause:

-weight gain of 10 to 15 pounds
-sharp mood swings and depression
-acne outbreaks

Hmmmmmm.

Now, am I the only person who finds it difficult to justify popping a pill (one pill a day, actually) that could potentially turn me into fat, zitty person with an attitude problem? Believe me, I already have days when I perceive myself as such. So why would I want to inch myself even closer - quite literally- to that unwanted physical and mental state?

So I paced back and forth a bit, asking Kevin what he thought, feeling wholly unsatisfied with the polite, respectful-of-my-female-power vagueness of his answers that civilized modern-day men are trained to give ("It's your body, honey - totally up to you! I'll go along with whatever.") Seriously, sometimes I wish I had a dominant, caveman-like husband who bossed me around: "YOU WILL GO ON THE PILL." or "YOU WILL NOT GO ON THE PILL." God, that would make life so much easier sometimes. (Actually, "YOU WILL TAKE OFF YOUR BRA" might be something I could get into...hmmm.) Anyway, I digress.

So, tocophobia then got trumped by...what...Dysmorphophobia (fear of deformity or unattractive body image)? Badmoodophobia (OK, I made that one up). Whatever. I was caught in a conundrum, trapped between phobias. A "fear sandwich" of sorts!



In the end, Fat-Zitty-Bitch-O-Phobia took over, and I skipped the pill, opting instead to do something totally unrelated to fears: ride my bike to the market with Kevin. We sat out in the sunshine and gorged ourselves on stuffed cabbage rolls from the Russian ladies and strong Americanos with lots of cream. I also made some loud obnoxious animal noises that caused Kevin to glance around nervously to see if people were staring (I LOVE getting him to react that way!) Let me tell you, this was much more fun than taking the responsible path of dealing with my tocophobia. Just don't tell any BOGS I said that.

In the end, although Kevin doesn't know this yet (as an intelligent human, however, he probably senses it coming like a dark thundercloud on the horizon): the new Tocophobia-busting plan will probably end up involving the help of you know who:



Not that Kevin remembers what one of those looks like, or how to use one. My gut tells me he'll catch on pretty fast. Which means that the only risk involved would really be



Hey, I can handle that over the other "side effects" any old day.

KuKd Folk Music Series, Track 1

Hello, Janis Joplins and Bob Dylans!

I've always liked to sing in the shower, but I've never been a songwriter. At least, I wasn't until I got embroiled in the KuKd shit storm of 2006-2007, when I finally had something to write songs about.

One day, I began writing folk songs in my head. I don't even like folk music that much - I'm more of a bass-thumping-booty-shaking-hip-hop kind of person. Still, the words came to me during my long drive to work, gelling in my brain without much thought, as though propelled by some sort of cosmic force of nature. As green freeway signs and Mount Rainier and shiny Mini Coopers whizzed by, I began belting these songs out to myself while going 70 miles an hour - mouth wide open and eyebrows scrunched together - not caring if the person in the lane beside me thought I looked like was having a solo orgasm in the car.

Then, a few weeks ago, Kevin and I were in Portland, Oregon for a spades-playing-and-beer-drinking excursion with friends, when we passed by this:



Standing there outside the store window, I suddenly remembered my folk songs. I could see those songs hovering inside my head like dusty little blobs of music notes, bored and wishing somebody would pay attention to them. I had this fleeting image of myself as Janis Joplin, sitting up on stage with a spotlight on me, singing my little ditties with Zachary applauding wildly from the MTV Realworld Penthouse for Bitchin' Stillborn Babes up above. I knew right then and there: I had to buy a guitar.

Not that I had any freakin' clue about HOW to play a guitar, but still. That was a minor detail that I figured would work itself out later. So I dragged Kevin into that store and asked if they had any lefty guitars on sale, and they did. So out came the credit card, and boom - suddenly I owned this instrument that I had no idea how to play.

Now, I should say that I did take piano lessons growing up and sang in school choir on and off, and lord knows I love to talk and yell (loudly), so I felt that turning myself into an overnight Dead Baby folk sensation wasn't nearly as implausible as it might seem.

So far, I've learned three chords. And - surprise, surprise - it is those exact three chords (whatever they are) that I decided do turn into the accompaniment for my very first song, "For Sure." I'm going to give you a sneak peek of my song, which I'm calling this Track 1 in the Knocked Up Knocked Down Folk Series.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMERS: PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE GOING ANY FARTHER! IF YOU DO NOT READ THESE DISCLAIMERS LISTED BELOW, YOUR SHOES WILL CATCH ON FIRE IN FIVE MINUTES!

1) I just have to make clear that in real life, I don't have a lisp. NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT; I'm just saying that I personally don't have one. Because I made this video using not a video camera but a crappy regular old digital camera that happens to have a video feature, it sounds a little fucked up. I wouldn't even have put forth this disclaimer if Kevin hadn't burst out laughing while watching the video, that adorable jerk.

2) I suck at guitar. Seriously, I do - especially the rhythm of it. I'm taking lessons and working on it, okay? So cut this Dead Baby Momma some slack. Even if it's just because I'm a Dead Baby Momma (that is, under ordinary circumstances you wouldn't feel sorry for me at all but rather admonish me for daring to put my twangy, out-of-tune chords out there for the public to be embarrassed by), feel sorry for me and forgive the twang. If I ever get to use my KuKd Sympathy Card for some...yeah, sympathy (ding ding ding! I sense a new word for our Knocktionary!), it's now.

3) Apologies in advance for dropping the F-bomb. To all you stillborn babes listening from up there, it's only okay to do that if you're a grown-up, and only under appropriate circumstances. Got that?

All right, boys and girls. CLICK HERE for the video.

Oh, and in case you're the type of person who likes to read the lyrics on the CD cover and sing along, here you go.

"For Sure"

You might have been a bratty toddler,
Screamin' and throwin' your food.
You might have been a horrible speller,
With bad punctuation too.
You might have been a high school drop-out,
thinking school was only a bore.
You might have turned into a druggie,
living dirty and jobless and poor.

But I don't care what you might have been...
I just wish I could've known for sure.

You might have been obsessive compulsive,
counting every step that you took.
You might have been a Bill O'Reilly fan,
reading every one of his books.
You might have had issues with anger,
getting pissed off and slammin' the door,
You might have been a cleptomanic
stealin' money from my drawer.

But I don't care what you might have been...
I just wish I could've known for sure.

You might have been valedictorian,
president of your school.
You might have been a hottie like your dad,
making all the girlies drool.
You might have been a famous scientist,
discovering all kinds of cures,
You might have been idealistic,
Running off to join the Peace Corps.

But I don't care what you might have been
I'm tired of imaging what you might have been
I don't give a fuck what you might have been

I just wish I could've known for sure.

Pollyanna Versus the Bitch

Greetings, Cheerfuls and Grumpies Alike! All are welcome here.

It's 2:04 AM as I begin this post - time hit the sack. But my brain and belly are full of chilled Sauvignon Blanc, a few sips of coffee, and lots and lots of handfuls of Fritos corn chips. So once again, Kevin snoozes while Tebow and I remain awake, the living room windows looking out over nighttime blackness and the occasional whoosh of a car going by. It's OK though. Right now, I'm in the mood to spew forth a stream of honest pieces of thought.

Don't get all excited; I don't have any over-the-top, shocking things for you today that will make your jaw drop. I am not knocked up with septuplets, nor did I suddenly discover that I have a penis tucked up inside my body (I do have a small third nipple, my proudest biological achievement, but that's a separate post), nor am I becoming a vegan, nor am I about to slit my wrists because my hunk didn't win first place (DAMN YOU, SNOWDUDE!). No, no, and no.

This is more like a general observation about different ways to think about death and life, and about how blogging can symbolize which conscious-thinking route we choose to take. I should warn you, before I explain myself further, that I'm going to have to take up the persona of



for a few minutes here. But don't worry; before long, I'll alternate back to



That's right: if KuKd doesn't lead to an identity crisis, I don't know what does.

Anyway, I remember at various points in my KuKd journey coming into a conversation, a situation, where I had a choice of two paths to take. First, there was what I imagined as the Low Path, the one in which I would turn into a big ball of pissed-off sentiment, a pregnant-woman-bashing, nobody-understands-me-and-my-wretched-problems, fuck-you-for-having-a-baby-without-me-and/or-not-asking-me-enough-times-in-quick-succession-how-I'm-doing kind of person. You know, just the kind of person you want to have over for tea.

Then, there was the High Path (the more difficult one, of course), which was the route of...well...civility, I guess. Grace, calm under pressure, strength, good things, forgiveness, Mother Theresa-esque. From the very beginning I saw this High Path - literally, I could picture it in the reddish blackness behind my closed eyelids as I was lying on the futon one day, feeling pinpricks of resentment toward certain friends for ridiculously petty things like not saying EXACTLY what I wanted to hear EXACTLY when I wanted it (how dare they not predict my needs with precision, showing utmost empathy for a circumstance they knew nothing about! Assholes!). I knew I wanted to somehow get to this path, escape the dreadful self-pity and anger that was lapping at my ankles, threatening to swallow me up (can you picture it? Like dark maple syrup, but with a nasty taste).

Brace yourself - here she comes:



So I had a conscious choice to make: high path or low path. It didn't necessarily have to do with what I said or how I acted around other people. Well, that was part of it. But it more a way of thinking about the world, about death in general, and about my place in the fabric of humanity.

Taking the High Path meant forgiving the people in my life for not achieving the impossible (ie: climbing inside my brain and going through this with me). It meant viewing my losses not even really as "losses," as "unfair" versus "fair," but as just a neutral part of the great cycle of Mother Nature. Death happens. Things don't work out. I'm no less deserving of this fate than anyone else. That was part of how I viewed this High Path thinking.

Here's another part of thinking along that High Path, the part that is perhaps the weirdest: accepting that my KuKd experiences have been good for me. I know how obnoxiously Pollyanna that sounds, so if you want to smack me right now, feel free. It's taken me a while to get to where I believe this: that as we go through shit in life, the stronger and more seasoned human beings we become, and the more we can therefore contribute to the greater good. We have more to say to others who face loss themselves. We get to feel something. There are a lot of people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s who never GET to experience real, hardcore sadness over something meaningful. They don't know what it's all about. And DUDE! Just admit now satisfying it is to have a good, hard cry over something meaningful, to have the world look at you and think: this person went through something and survived, and is therefore mad cool. They're so cool, I want to do shots of tequila with them right now. If they can go through a shit storm like that, I can too.

Arright, time to go back to:



Let me clarify: I'm not saying that I am Miss Queen of High Path Thinking. God no. There will be no preachy self-help book filled with bulleted Pollyanna points, my obnoxious smiling lipsticked face on the cover, with some overly long title like "Taking the High Path: A Positive Thinking Guide for People Who Have Been Bitch-Slapped By Mother Nature," or worse: "Time to Get High: A Fucked-Up Person's Guide to Making Your Thoughts Soar."

It's just something I strive for, sort of like losing five or more pounds, or eating more vegetables, or maintaining a clean car. Walking this "High Path" has been a constant, obsessive effort for me, and it hasn't come without a price. In my attempts to remain ultimately optimistic, I think I overreached - maintaining this forced wall of bravado that felt really fake sometimes. I swear, I told more dead baby jokes and dropped more F-bombs during the days and weeks after the stillbirth than I ever have in my life. I probably should have taken more time to actively confront my own pain. I should have blasted that one Aerosmith song I can never remember the name of ("don't know what it takes to let you goooooooooo") and had more emotional moments. But I was a late bloomer in that regard. It took me a long time to deal with my losses in a deeper psychological sense, to accept Zach's death as something involving a real human being, to give him a name other than "that baby."

To this day still, if somebody asks me how I am - not in a superficial way, but a deeper, "no REALLY, how ARE you?" sort of way with their eyes boring into mine, I tend to clam up and get nervous, stuttering "fine!" in a fake tone. I have trouble peeling back the layers of my own self and offering a deeply truthful answer.

* * *

All of this points to the difficulty of blogging about dead babies. A treacherous job, this is! I do write this blog - sometimes, anyway - readers in mind (that is, when I'm not just randomly, selfishly entertaining myself here with my own musings on what spooge smells like). I mean, it's about me (of course), but it's also about the people who bother to read this. When you put your thoughts out in public space, you have to have a wee bit of audience awareness; I think this just comes naturally.

So, knowing my audience, I understand that people come here at various stages of grief, at times in their lives when the last thing they need to hear is the hippy-dippy, Pollyanna shit described above. HIGH PATH MY ASS! That's what I would say if I were you. Sometimes, what you need to hear is not that somebody is doing oh-so-irritatingly-well, all lofty and sitting pretty on their High Path (or even trying to be), but that someone is just as down in the shit-filled trenches as you are. I was there for a looonnggg time, seeking out the gloomiest, doomiest, bitchiest blogs and books in the universe. Seriously, I wanted to start a KuKd goth club where we all wear black eyeliner and black KuKd t-shirts, pierce our tongues and labia and go around chanting some message of muddled negativity: "Screw you, world! You don't understand our problems, and we didn't want babies anyway!"

(Still looking into that - not sure it would fly)

Anyway. So on this blog, and in my life, and in the people I surround myself with, I'm aiming for balance. That is: balance between



and

And the Reigning Champion Is...

SNOWDUDE!

Everybody reach toward the computer screen and give Snowdude a congratulatory stroke on the lovely, morning-shadow-sandpapery cheek! As the first place winner of our prestigious debut gallery of Knocked Down Hunks, he deserves it.



It was a riveting race up until the very end! With earlier doubts about his hunky stamina squashed (drug tests during training showed no measurable quantity of hunk steroid Real Bean in his blood), Snowdude started off strong and hopeful. As his wife cheered him on from the sideline, he scored a slew of votes within minutes of taking off from the starting line. But despite this momentum, victory wasn't quite in reach - not with opponents Sleepyhead and Scout lapping hunkily and hungrily at his heels. Alas, Snowdude pulled in enough votes close to the finish line to keep him in the lead, clocking in at first place!

CONGRATULATIONS, SNOWDUDE!

To view the runners up and all nominees for this gallery, or to submit your own hunk for Gallery #2 by the June 15th deadline, visit the Hunk Gallery.

Insomnia Thoughts

Greetings, Sleeping Beauties!



Ahhhhh...a loopy, insomnia-spurred, 2:59 am post. Sitting in the living room in T-shirt, undies and moose slippers, hair piled on top of my head, a half-eaten bowl of ice cream on balanced on one armrest. I must look like a woman who just underwent a bad break-up. Which I sort of did, actually: a break-up from sleep. The dim corner lamp is on and Tebow is glaring at me, wondering why I'm typing loudly and disturbing his sleep. Sorry, dog. You'll survive.

Why am I awake right now?

Perhaps it's because K, about an hour after we had crawled into bed at 11:30 (and just as I was entering the throes of sleep), randomly and abruptly turned toward me and asked if I wanted to have sex.

I suppose this must be some remnant of his 13-year-old self, or whatever age it is when boys wake up at night with hard-ons? Who knows. I thought it polite of him to ask, though, and - although a bit half-asleep - was up for some midnight action nonetheless. So aforementioned action took place, and I did my customary shriek of "PULL OUT!" - my current preferred (and highly scientific!) method of birth control. The whole event - from brief foreplay, to sex itself, to panicked shouting, to post-sex clean-up with a t-shirt (not the t-shirt I'm wearing now, thank you very much) - successfully kicked me out of sleep mode, leaving me wide awake and staring grumpily into the darkness.

K, his spooge happily released into the wild, fell instantly - and irritatingly - back to sleep. Fine, whatever. I'm happy for him, glad to know he's now in the bedroom breathing rhythmically and dreaming of sugar plums while I sit here in my moose slippers, the clock ticking agonizingly toward the time when I'm supposed to get up.

Fucker.


* * *

Can I just say: why is middle-of-the-night TV so unilaterally awful? Denture and sleep aide commercials, mostly. Reruns of bad sitcoms, like Full House. It's disturbing, because it gives me a glimpse into what the world must be like for certain people out there, awake like me at this very moment, yet way worse off. Like, people in hospitals, for example. People in the cancer ward, up at night while somebody comes in to replenish their anti-nausea pills. People in old folks homes. People losing their minds. People without any friends. I remember reading somewhere that "the unhappier people are, the more TV they watch." There were scientific studies to show this, of course, as there are studies to show (and not show) everything that matters.

I honestly hope I don't become a frail 90-year-old lady sitting alone in a rocking chair in a single wide trailer, eating mushy food straight from a can, awake at night with the soft blue light of the TV casting a haunting glow on my face, Kevin long gone because the men usually seem to go first, no grown children checking in on me to make sure I've taken my medications. I hope I've got some well-cemented friendships to keep me alive during those elder years, people to drink martinis with and play bridge.

Tonight, I hereby make a pact with myself: I'm going to look out for my friends, and not let anybody grow old alone. I'm going to start an old folks commune where we all move in together and eat meals and a bit wooden table with candles and a checkered tablecloth, play jazz music, and sleep in a pile on the living room floor.


* * *

Another possible reason for my awakeness. Tonight (I guess I should be calling it last night, actually) I had drinks and N and C, my Baby Lady friends. That is, the gals who were pregnant with me, and whose babies are now nearly two years old. N is preggers again with a girl, due in a month or so. I always enjoy my time with them, because we connect. We laughed and cussed and ate bacon cheeseburgers. We talked about men and sex and just nonsensical things, normal girl-talky things.

Still, it always produces in me a wave of dark unsettledness, usually somewhere in the middle of our conversation, a combination of craving pregnancy once again, combined with insane longing for bygone days. I get annoyed with myself for carrying around this "thing" that won't dissipate, an ever-present cloud of something. It makes me feel self-conscious and high-maintenance, self-pitying, not the kind of person I want to be.

Afterward, I met K at the tavern. As I always do after my get-togethers with N and C, downed half a glass of wine in one gulp and launched into the dull pang of sadness that had settled down onto my insides, about how perhaps we SHOULD get knocked up again, because that would bring back the life that once was, erasing all of the crud in my system. Pregnancy: the answer to everything! Riiiight.

He always listens and nods because he loves me, but I stop after a few sentences, tired of hearing myself talk about this dull subject, and remembering what I already know: there's only so much a person can hear the same thing over and over again, so much giving & listening & sympathizing that one person in a relationship can do. That's what KuKd does to a woman, or at least what it did to me: turned me into a taker, needer, over-thinker, talker. Well, it's probably the case that I was those things already - stillbirth only magnified those (not so great) qualities.


* * *

Going back to the communal old-folks house one last time: when we start this thing, however-many-years from now, let's treat ourselves to a Clapper for the dining room. The Clapper is one of those products that has always intrigued me, yet that seems like something you're not supposed to buy until you're a senior citizen. We'll use our house Clapper to celebrate our oldness, and to entertain ourselves by clapping stuff on and off.

* * *

Attempt to carve out a hour or two of sleep before waking-up time? Or just brew a pot of coffee and head in early, pausing for a mid-day nap on my office floor? Decisions, decisions. It's getting light out. Insomnia sucks nuts.

Abundant Bible Madness

Greetings, KuKd Strong Mommas/Daddas and Inquisitive Guests!

See this link?

http://www.knockedupknockeddown.blogpsot.com/

See it? It's the link to this blog, right? Right? Isn't it? Well, click on it to find out for sure. Go ahead, do it and see where it takes you. DON'T GET SUCKED IN, THOUGH! I expect you to return here right away, so that I can finish my story! You're MY FRIEND, not theirs! Got it?

Okay. Did you click on it?

And, I mean, wasn't it fucking WEIRD?

(Let's see who's really smart! Anyone who can tell me the difference between that website address and MY blog address gets two smart points!)

So, this morning I went over there and clicked on the "Contact Us" form. I just couldn't help myself. Here is exactly what I wrote, copied and pasted:

Greetings, Abundant Bible!

My name is Monica, and I am founder of the stillbirth and miscarriage blog, Knocked-Up-Knocked-Down, which lives at the URL http://www.knockedupknockeddown.blogspot.com/.

Several of my astute readers have recently brought it to my attention that if you accidentally type "blogpsot" instead of "blogspot" when trying to visit my blog,
you arrive here instead: http://www.knockedupknockeddown.blogpsot.com/,
which is THIS site - Abundant Bible! Isn't that amazing? What a serendipitous and perplexing discovery, a puzzling phenomenon!

I simply couldn't help but write to you and ask you how and why this occurs - if you have any insight on that. Is it simply sheer coincidence? Or is it intentional? If intentional, what compelled you to make http://www.knockedupknockeddown.blogpsot.com/ one of your URL addresses? Or was it I, perhaps, who somehow - acting subconsciously through the will of God, naming MY blog after YOU? Was it my destiny, maybe?

I did take the liberty of perusing your site for a few minutes, just to see if there WAS - in fact - any connection (even a tenuous one) between Abundant Bible and my blog content, so that I could perhaps steer my readers to your highly informative website. Unfortunately, I was not able to find anything on your site regarding pregnancy or pregnacy loss (other than abortion), at least not that I could tell. Is there something here that I might be missing, something that could be useful to me or my blog readers? If so, please do let me know! Even something on medical termination might be related - that is, abortion when done for medical purposes.

(I did read up on the "Drinking, Swearing, and Drugs" section, but mostly for myself, since I am certainly guilty of the first two. And the drugs, if Claritin counts. There was a bit of Mary Jane, but that was when I was young and stupid. My readers aren't the types to drink or swear, and would never go near mind-altering substances, so I won't bother referring them to that section. Thank you though - I do feel enlightened after reading it.)

ANYWAY, going back to the original purpose of this message, please let me know if you have any thoughts on wny our URL addresses are so uncannily similar. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Peace and Sunshine,
Monica L., Founder/EditorKnocked Up, Knocked Down
http://www.knockedupknockeddown.blogspot.com/

After clicking "Submit," I was instantly swept over to a screen that said this:

Dear Visitor,

Thank you for contacting us. We enjoy hearing from our visitors, but regret that we may not be able to reply, though we try to read all correspondence. The Bible says in Mt 9:37,38-THE HARVEST TRULY IS PLENTEOUS, BUT THE LABOURERS ARE FEW. PRAY YE THEREFORE THE LORD OF THE HARVEST, THAT HE WILL SEND FORTH LABOURERS INTO HIS HARVEST. We apologize—we do not have enough helpers to be able to respond to most emails.

If you have repented and asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior as a result of this
website, please tell us and ask for the free booklet to help you get started in the right direction. To do this, we will need your postal address. For those looking for additional information on Bible prophecy, we recommend http://www.whatliesahead.com/.

The Bible Desk Staff

OK, I'll admit I was mildly disappointed to learn that I might not get a response AT ALL. Who knew that there were so many people contacting Abundant Bible! At least they promise to *try* to read my message, and provided what seems like a valid excuse for not always being able to reply. Nobody is going to argue with Mt 9:37,38. Certainly not me, anyway. (I was thinking, though, if somebody DID ask Jesus to be their Lord and Savior as a result of that website, and they requested their free booklet to get them started, it would kind of suck to be ignored altogether. I think I would feel cheated somehow, and be like, where the fuck is my booklet!)

I'll keep you posted on whether I ever hear back. Don't cross your fingers, though.

Pipeline of Healing

Greetings, KuKd Strong Mommas and Inquisitive Guests!

Okay, all you visual learners out there! This one's for you.

A couple of months ago, I went out for a drink with a momma - let's call her Susan - whose daughter had just been stillborn. Susan needed to talk to somebody who "gets it." And boy - if stillbirth isn't something I at least sort of "get" by now, well, I may as well throw in the towel and give up trying to understand anything in life.

We got connected through a variety of circumstances that aren't important. At the time, I was knocked up x3. I did not divulge to Susan my reasons for ordering a gin-and-tonic-without-the-gin, because I didn't feel it prudent or sensitive to tell this to a woman whose baby-loss was still so fresh and hurtful. Nobody needs that, thank you very much.

She talked, and I listened. I preferred it this way, because I'm generally bad at knowing what to say, even when it involves something that hits so close to my heart. It was surreal, hearing my former self reflected in Susan's words, recognizing her perception of reality as the EXACT WAY in which I saw the world during that dark and brutal time in my own life, just weeks and months after losing my son. Still in shock, hypersensitive to others' comments, crushingly disappointed. At one point, she asked me if I ever had trouble "feeling." She said she felt this strange sensation of numbness, and was waiting on edge for the inevitible tidalwave of emotion and sadness to hit. All I could do was just nod my head and mumble heartfelt-but-not-very-helpful responses, things like: "Yeah, I felt that, and still feel it sometimes. So yeah, you have lots of numbness to look forward to." or: "Yeah, your life pretty much sucks right now."

I'm sure those are the exact kind of uplifting things she needed to hear. See? I told you it was better to just kick back and listen.

During our conversation, and on the drive home, I had this sudden, strange image of myself being in a very different place than she. Her: just a few weeks after her loss. Me: about a year-and-a-half after mine, and knocked up again. It was one of those moments where you don't quite know where/how/who you are, until you see yourself juxtaposed against somebody else. Sitting across that table from Susan made me see how far I've come since 1.5 years ago. And I don't mean it in a bragging and obnoxious, "look how I have my shit together!" kind of way. It's more just a, "look how much my perception of reality has changed since then" kind of way.

This led to my newfound mental picture of what I call the Tunnel of Recovery, where KuKd mommas/daddas - and even our infertility-fighting counterparts - coexist.

It looks like this:



Way up front, in the closer (and therefore bigger-looking) part of the tunnel, is the event itself - the loss. The loss of a baby, of a fetus, of a vision of oneself as a parent at all. As time goes by, you start to heal, and you move along that pipeline - off into the distance. You're still there, in that same tunnel, and you can still communicate with people in different segments of that tunnel - just like Susan and I were conversing. It's just that your own segment - wherever in that tunnel you happen to be- looks and feels totally different from how it used to feel, back when you were in a different place.

(Being a classic visual learner, these are just the sorts of bizarre things that pop into my brain on long car rides, so just indulge me and roll with it, dawg)

I'd say that Susan was way up there toward the front, in that close-up part of the tunnel. As for me, well, I'm off in the distance, over that first little bunny hill you see in the picture, where the tunnel turns small and squiggly and faint. I'm not saying there's a light at the end of that tunnel, either, as in a definite way out of it for good. I gave up hope for that a long time ago, kids. It's just that time really is the thing that heals, pushing you along, up and over various obstacles, to where everything gets easier.

I should also point out this blog as a solid example. This blog was started...oh...almost a year after Zach's death, somewhere in the middle of that pipeline. There's no way I could have started it any sooner, found anything remotely interesting or tongue-n-cheeky to say about the death of a baby. No way, Jose. I was too busy looking down at my empty body, feeling pissed off at the world. It's taken lots of time and hindsight for me to get to where I am today, looking back, analyzing what happened, drawing out truths and laughs where I can see them. It's like picking up rocks in a forest, looking for cool bugs underneath them. Susan will get to that point too.

To finish up this bit of philosophizing, I leave you with one of the few pictures I have of myself when I was in Susan's place - WAAAAY up at that godawful front of the pipeline - a month or so after Zach's death. Acquiring Tebow the Westi-poodle was a very conscious and deliberate move - I needed something to mother, and damn it, I needed it NOW!! Kevin certainly wasn't going to argue.

God, I looked like crap back then - I probably hadn't showered in days when this picture was taken (why didn't anybody offer me a comb, at the very least?), and my smile the fake and brittle kind, because even though I liked this small furry mammal okay, he wasn't the real deal. Oh, and I was always wearing Kevin's sweatshirt, because it mercifully swallowed up my body and smelled like Kevin.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I really hope I was at least wearing deodorant.

Something from Nothing

Greetings, KuKd Strong'uns and Inquisitive Guests!

A few oh-so-important updates before my real post: 

FIRST, the lingerie saga. Scroll down to my last post if you aren't in on this...shall we say...little mishap.  For the record, the lingerie did eventually get worn again, utlized in a snot-free manner, appreciated in a way that Victoria herself would approve of.  I just had to make sure the world knew that the ending to that chapter was a happy and delectable one. 

(KuKd Mommas, get out there and buy something sexylicious if you haven't already! My current sense is that your man will like you in it, no matter how theatrical/self-conscious/fat/ridiculous it makes you feel, and no matter how far from a Maxim supermodel you consider yourself to be. This comes from a person who is very, very far from being a Maxim supermodel. If I can do it, you can do it! And of course, I expect a full report afterward.)

SECOND, regarding the lovely, spine-tingling, mouthwatering KuKd HUNK GALLERY: Because the Blogger poll is silly, I cannot simply add new KuKd Hunks to the gallery at random, and then add those lucious Hunks' names to the poll to be voted upon in droves. I had hoped that this would be something I could do, but alas, it is not.

SO.....

Every month or two, I'll announce the winner of the current gallery - which should not be a surprise, since anyone can see on the righthand side of this blog who is the current reigning champion. Note the number of days you have left to vote. (Listen up, SNOWDUDE! On the one hand, I hate you for beating my own Hunk thus far. On the other hand, I love you for being such a scrumptious, snowy, snuggleworthy ball of knocked-down sexiness. Truly, you are an achingly mysterious man who draws out a conflicting array of emotions in this poor girl's troubled heart.)

Once the current gallery closes and winner announced (damn you, Snowdude!), I will then start a new gallery with a new deadline to submit your Hunk, and I will make that announcement. As soon as I have at least THREE (3) Hunk submissions, the new gallery and accompanying poll will begin. You can - AND SHOULD! - resubmit your Hunk each time! Don't feel shy or vain or weird for doing this. You can bet that I'll be submitting MY personal Hunk each time. My only request is that it be a different photo. Seriously, let's get some variety here. Send your hunk-o-picture with a caption and a nickname to monica@exhalezine.com.  

With that, let me set JUNE 15th as the next Hunk deadline, giving us all a bit of time to scramble around and dig up those hot pictures of you-know-who. Don't worry, I'll remind you of this later.

Moving on.

* * *

Have you read Eat, Pray, Love like everybody else and their grandmother has? I remember tossing it begrudgingly into my backpack just as K and I were leaving for Ecuador, four months after Zachary's stillbirth. It was one of those books that I had refused to read for the longest time, similar to refusing to watch Titanic, because everybody was buzzing about it. Which meant it couldn't possibly be any good. Finally, I succumbed to the hype, toting it along as a mindless "beach read."

If you haven't read it, here is what I recall being the gist, from the sandy/beachy/sunny/cocktaily cobwebs of my memory: it's a memoir, written by heroine Elizabeth Gilbert, chronicling her own traveling around the world in order to heal from a nasty divorce. She is an obnoxiously pretty, blond, rich, talented person who gets paid lots of money to embark on this culinary, spiritual, and romantic journey self-discovery (and write about it), which makes me insanely jealous. But anyway.

I read most of it, skimmed through the boring parts, neither loving nor hating it, finding certain parts compelling. There was one part in particular that I felt was compelling, and that has stuck with me ever since. I was pretty sure I loved this little gem of insight so profoundly that I e-mailed a friend about it from a guesthouse in Quito (certainly with Kevin's hand on my bare knee and one or two or three rum-n-Cokes in my system). Sifting through my old e-mails, trying to remember what exactly that little bit of wisdom was and why I loved it, here is what I found, excerpted from a December 2007 e-mail:

There's a book called "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert, and I speed-read it during our week on the coast.  The book annoyed me on some levels but one important message I carried away is how the Italians worship the art of doing nothing - or, of taking some very simple ingredients or circumstances and making fun, festive merriment out of it. That is, of being in the moment, being where you are, not constantly planning and worrying. I really want to make sure I achieve this, which I think I can do and have done before, but I want to keep doing it. So, when we get back, I want to have a handful of close friends including you over, put out a red checkered table cloth and lots of wine, make pasta and just ¨make merriment out of nothing¨- that is, out of just a handful of friends, simple food, and wine. Can we do that?

xoxo, Monica

That was it.  I was thinking of that now, because...well...this past month or two have been characterized by my own attempts to do just that: make merriment out of nothing.  Lately, I've gotten totally obsessed with taking this childfree life, and doing things with it that I wouldn't ordinary be able to do.  A shrink would probably tell me there is some psychological term for this - Stage 12 of the Grieving Process.  Who knows. 

It's not even a bitter, begrudging, brittle sensation.  It's a real, vibrating, life-filled feeling of just enjoying the moment (apologies for sounding so cliche), not longing or hoping or yearning for something better, but rather creating happy moments in the spaces that would otherwise have been taken up by babies #1, 2, or 3.   Let me illustrate with some examples:

• Lingerie in a hotel room (snot or no snot).  Sipping wine in bed with sunlight slanting in and a finelooking man by my side. 
• Dinner parties with friends - several of them.  Setting the table with placemats, candles, and silverware!  Bringing out food arranged on plates: meat, vegetable, starch, in perfect symmetry. 
• Collecting good people in dark taverns for drinking beers and talking about our personal lives.  
• Sitting barefoot on a piece of driftwood at the beach with Kevin, each sipping a chilled Corona with lime.  Getting sunburned but not caring so much.  It'll peel off. 
• BBQed pork ribs for dinner, juices dripping down my forearms. 
• Wearing sundresses.  Haven't worn those in a while.  
• Taking a bath with lavender-scented salts.  Soooo girly, but soooo nice. 
• Coffee with lots of milk and sugar on the balcony. 
• Breakfast with friends before work: once a week, yummy social-ness.  
• Writing folksongs in my head during my drive to work, and belting them out in the car.

There are other things.  This is just a sampling.   Yes, I'll say it: I'm valuing the little bit of philosophy that blond Elizabeth Gilbert picked up in Italy (while she was getting paid to travel, eat procuttio, and take Italian lessons with hot men, let me remind you.   I'll bet she's the type that would vote for SNOWDUDE, too!  That beeyatch!). 

Oh, don't worry: it's not as though I'm Polyanna-cheerful all the time.  You can still count on me to be your partner-in-gloom.  For fuck's sake, we all know a KuKd momma can't act TOO happy, or society will get suspicious of you for getting over your losses too quickly!  It's just that right now, at this time in my life, I'm liking the kid-free-ness, and the moments and feelings that spring from that.  

I'll even end on a reassuringly gloomy note: all of this happy-go-lucky-reveling-in-kidfree-life doesn't come without consequence.  I've got a crimson sunburn on my shoulders and chest right now from baseball and beach-combing in the sun today, and a mild headache still from last night's wine.  

(Zachary: please send Mommy a care package from the Realworld Penthouse for Bitchin' Stillborn Babes ASAP containing heavenly elixirs for the sun/booze combo hangover.   Eagerly waiting to hear from you, my wise son!)

Snot and Lingerie

Greetings, KuKd'ers, TTC'ers, and Inquisitive Guests!

Woo-hoo! It's Mother's Day.

A day that brings lots of emotional gloppity-gloop to lots of KuKd mommas and TTC'ers out there. I respect that fact, and I do think it's nice to have a specially sanctioned day for giving thanks to the chronically under-thanked.

This is my second or third Mother's Day (I've lost track) as a knocked down momma. For me, though - unlike a lot of women I know in the Kukd blog-o-sphere and real-o-sphere - this day usually passes without even the faintest sentimental flutter of my heart. I think it's because it feels more like a contrived, Hallmark-Greeting-Card-and-FTD-Floral-Company-Money-Making-Day than anything else, not remotely connected to the actual fact of being a KuKd momma or any other type of momma, for that matter. A meaningless fleck of commercial, profit-driven dust attatched to my sweater, easily brushed aside.

THIS Mother's Day weekend, however, was a tad bit different. Uncharacteristic of the others, THIS one involved...you guessed it...snot and lingerie. And that snot did, in fact, come from not just a "sentimental flutter of the heart," but a virtual tsunami of emotional intensity.

Let me explain.

Last night, Kevin and I did what now try to do once a month: a spontaneous, one-night "urban getaway." We put in a low Priceline bid for a fancy-shmancy 4-star hotel in downtown Seattle for a night, stock up on wine, splurge on a sinfully vegetable-less, butter-infused dinner at a French restaurant, and...well...you know the rest. We chose this particular weekend for our "May getaway" not because it was Mother's Day or anything else of cosmic significance, but because it worked out schedule-wise.

A bit of background: I am not a lingerie-wearing type of person. I'm just not. Buying some expensive, impractical, lacey little thing made out of silk (that HAS to be dry cleaned, of course) is not something that would ever normally cross my mind, especially not in recent years. I don't know about you, but I had positively ZERO libido for the months before and after Zachary's stillbirth. Delivering a dead baby is about the most unsexy thing you can possibly do. Poor Kevin went months and months without getting laid. I felt sorry for him, sort of. But not that sorry.

Then, not long ago, Kevin hinted semi-jokingly that he thought it would be lovely if he came home from work to find me - AND I QUOTE: "wearing lingerie and scrubbing the kitchen floor." Later, he added: "...or doing dishes."

Let me repeat that, in case you didn't read it correctly: "wearing lingerie and scrubbing the kitchen floor...or doing dishes."

Literally, that's what he said.

I laughed at first, of course. We both did. What an absurdly stereotypical, male-dominant, anti-feminist, caveman-like fantasy to have! Coming home to find your highly independent, boldly headstrong, reasonably intelligent wife (who has a Master's degree!!) doing something as subservient as scrubbing the floor? In lingerie? And ME, of all people, doing such a thing? I am about the biggest slob-o-phile that ever existed, hardly noticing or caring if we go five years without washing the bedsheets or vacuuming. Dirt doesn't bother me, so I wouldn't be caught dead scrubbing the floor.

But yesterday morning, I woke up feeling strangly inspired to run over to Victoria's Secret, which I knew was situated somewhere in the bowels of the crowded shopping mall down the street, to at least see if anything there was on sale. No harm in doing that. And, since we were planning on doing our May getaway that night (which was last night) - although scrubbing the floors in lingerie would just be too, too ridiculous for words - I could at least maybe, maybe, surprise Kevin in BED. You know, he emerges from the shower and - BOOM - I'm wearing something outrageously sexy. Or I send him out to look for coffee, and BOOM - he returns to find me waiting for him in something slinky.

That, I thought, I could maybe handle without dying from embarassment.

So I told Kevin I was off to run some boring errands, and drove to the mall instead, my heart going pitter-patter. I felt oddly as though I were doing something illegal, something that might land me in hell, something my prune-faced 4th grade teacher Sister Estelle would surely frown upon.

I guarantee you, she would give me a hard whack with her rule if she knew what I tried on. I only did it because it was on the sales rack, and because I overheard another woman raving about how comfortable it was (for the record, she looked like a normal human being, which made me feel like a normal human being, which made the whole shopping experience instantly seem less scary).

It looked like this:



Black bustier. Made in Italy. On sale. Attached to something like these:

Lacy thigh-high panty hose. Minus the shoes (permanent foot problems were not a part of the agreement when Kevin and I got married).

Now, does anybody else find it more than a litte bit awkward to go to a suburban shopping mall filled with innocent people, walk into a brightly lit chain store, and browse the racks for slinky, lacey articles of "clothing" designed to be worn before (or while) doing the wild thing? It's like this bizarre fusion of two opposite worlds: wholesome-shopping-mall-filled-with-strollers-and-old-people world, and kinky-sex-acts-in-the-laundry-room world. Weird. I felt weird, just being in that place.

But I also felt strangely excited, trying on these foxy items, as though doing something sinful and anti-jesus - like gorging myself on peanutbutter cookies before dinner, spoiling my appetite. I'm pretty sure that grown-ups aren't supposed to purchase things like what you see pictured above. No, no. Grown-ups buy practical things, like frumpy flannel pajamas.

But, seeing myself in the mirror, I suddenly decided: I was sick of being a grown-up, a feminist, a flannel pajamas-wearing prude! Screw grown-up-ness! So I bought it - the entire ensemble - and one other thing - something white and simple and less over-the-top, just in case I decided later that the black get-up was too, too much.

ANYWAY, back to our hotel. Here is where the snot comes in, so brace yourself.

That evening, we drank wine and had a lovely dinner of roasted chicken, then met up with some buddies from work for an apertif in the hotel lobby. Good times. I wore the bustier underneath my dress, which I only felt brave enough to do because of the nearly full bottle of wine we had shared before leaving our room. The plan was that later, when we returned and Kevin was taking a shower or his usual post-beer piss in the bathroom, I would quickly pull on the panty hose and snap everything together (the sales associate gave me a quick lesson on how to do that in ten seconds flat), yank my dress over my head, and be lying there seductively in bed in my Victoria's Secret ensemble when he emerged (not scrubbing the floor, but at least meeting HALF of his fantasy criteria!).

Perfect plan, right?

It would have been perfect if, on our way back up to our room after drinks with my work-buddies in the lobby, we didn't run practically head-on into the LAST group of people I expected to see. It was a giggling gaggle of ladies from the Seattle Urban Expecting Parents Meet-Up Group, the group of which I was THE original founder almost two years ago, which has now exploded to include hundreds of members. I was the social queen-beeyatch of this group back in the day, head organizer of prego-lady parties and potlucks and trips to the market and prego-massages. Of course, when the shit hit the fan, I dropped out, passing the organizing torch over to this gal named C.

C was there, amidst this gaggle of mommies, some of whom I recognized from that time when we were all comparing belly sizes and drinking virgin cocktails together. They all kept hanging out, and still do - their kids growing older in sync. They were there for an overnight "girl's stay" at our hotel for Mother's Day - a little Mother's Day splurge for themselves.

"MONICA! Hiiiiiiii!" they said, and we did the small talk thing for a few minutes, the hugs and smiles and "how are yous" and "how's the baby" and "you're pregnant again? wow!" That was it - just a brief conversation before Kevin and I heard the merciful "ding" of the elevator, and we high-tailed it out of there, up to our floor. Kevin did jump in the shower right away, as I thought he would, and I carried out my plan as best I could, determined not to let disorienting melancholy settle in, keeping me from carrying out my big surprise. I sat on the edge of the bed and pulling off my dress, snapping those gartery-strappy thingies in place.

When he came out, I had the outfit on, but not lying seductively anywhere. Instead, I was sitting on the floor in the corner bawling my eyes out, getting snot on my lingerie and not caring. Kevin silded up next to me because he knew what was going on, and we stayed there for what felt like hours.

So much for my surprise "sexy evening." Of all the nights to have a crying fit - and I really don't cry that often.

* * *

You know, it was one of those situations that just hurts, and there isn't any rational reason for it, or way to explain what it WAS exactly, that I felt. Was it sadness? Jealously? Anger? Resentment? Longing? What was it? I have no idea - a swirling mix of all of those things, terribly, terribly strong. I couldn't escape it or suppress it or anything, not even with a kick-ass black bustier and thigh-high panty hose on my side. Maybe it was the wine in my system, or the sheer unexpectedness of it. Like, one past life colliding with this one, interrupting my plan for a sexy, surprising evening. Remembering suddenly, viscerally, what it was like to hang out with those gals, what the world and the future looked like back then, so different from what reality is to me now. Associating, perhaps, their voices and faces with movement in the tummy, joyful imaginings of good things to come.

All I know is that it ruined my entire plan, resulted in snot on my lingerie, and caused me to wake up this morning looking like a puffed-up sea monster, the way people look when they cry really hard for a long time and the go directly to bed. Oh, and I had a slight sore throat from breathing only through my mouth all night, my nasal passages incurably blocked with snot. For a moment, I thought I might have swine flu, but now I'm pretty sure it's not that.

ARGH!

Ah, well. All is not lost. Kevin WAS pleasantly shocked by the outfit, and said all the right things, assuring me several times over that it looked good, even with the puffy face and snot and all. It's kind of nice that my lingerie has now been "christened" with my own snot. Somehow it feels more "mine" than it was yesterday morning when I first brought it home. I'm keeping the black bustier and its strappy, lacy accoutrements for another evening when I'm more in the mood.

(I've already told Kevin he shouldn't hold his breath for the floor-scrubbing thing, the poor guy).

Hunks! Hunks! Everywhere, Hunks!

Greetings, KuKd Strong Mommas and Inquisitive Guests!

Today is your day! No matter what other less savory things might be going on in your life, good things await you starting right now. That's because you are about to witness one of the FINEST SELECTIONS OF HUNKS on the planet. Thought Cosmo's 2008 list brought you hotness? Think Patrick Swayze looked good shirtless, back in his Dirty Dancing days? Think President Obama is drool-worthy enough to drool over?

Well, you ain't seen nothin' yet!

Introducing the first and only Knocked-Down Hunk Gallery. Check it out, show these beautiful male specimens some love, cast your vote, and then get back over here and tell me how ridiculously awesome it is, to have our very own Knocked-Down Hunk Gallery.

One logistical matter - in honor of legitimacy, I've set the poll to where you can only vote for ONE HUNK. Is this okay? I could set it to where you can vote for multiple hunks. In fact, I could see it becoming problematic to be forced to choose just ONE HUNK from such a fine, hunky selection. If you have an opinion, please do share it in the comment section. This is a democracy, after all, and I take my duty as purveyor of fine hunk-age and electoral captain VERY SERIOUSLY!!

And of course, if you've been too shy to submit your man's photo yet, NOW IS THE TIME to embrace the hunkiness! It's not too late! Photo with caption can be sent to monica@exhalezine.com.

Life is good! xoxo

Coming Up for Air!

Greetings, KuKd Mommas-n-Hunks and Inquisitive Guests!

I've slacked on the blog this week - naughty me! But it hasn't been without good reason.

First, there's the May/June issue of Exhale, which essentially took over my waking life for the past several days in a row. One would think it would be easy to put that thing together - it's just a cutsey little online zine, after all! Not even a REAL magazine you can hold in your hands! But somehow, it always takes up more brain power, time power, hand power, coffee power, food power, and wine power than I think it will, especially when I wait until the very last second to get started on it like I did this time. Little snags just crop up all the time; I'll be cruising along, thinking it's done, and boom - I'll find a comma splice. Or boom, a "they're" instead of a "their." Or boom - a broken link. Or boom - something else that just looks like crap.

So yeah, there was Exhale.

Then there was my book project. Some of you know, I've been working on a memoir for a year or so, also titled Knocked Up, Knocked Down. Not that anything in my life is more memoir-worthy than anything in anyone ELSE'S life out there. It's just that this is how I decided to channel some of my pent up grieving and profanity-spewing energy, which I never quite figured what to do with. For the record, I think we should ALL write memoirs, because weaving a story from your own life is, I'm finding out, about the most cathartic thing you can do (second only to taking a Calgon bath).

I hesitate to go on and on and on about my book project here, because it just feels kind of tacky to keep mentioning it. But it has taken up about 80% of my brain space these past few weeks, jostling for attention along with Exhale, so I feel compelled to bring it up JUST THIS ONCE. And then I swear, you won't hear about it again until I publish it, okay? Can we agree to that? Okay, good. Here I go:

Last weekend, I finally finished making big, final edits to my manuscript, deleting all of the gratuitous "fucks" and "shits" that I'd been meaning to get rid of (as my mother wisely suggested, that kind of potty-mouthed approach won't get you anywhere with the sixty-something Midwestern reader who knits and makes cookies for church bake sales). She's right, of course.

The other thing I did, after much torturous writing and rewriting and waking up at ungodly hours in the middle of the night grinding my teeth, was write a synopsis telling what my book is about. As some of you know, the synopsis is essentially your book's entire plot distilled down into one or two little paragraphs, and this is what potential publishers and agents get to see first. And boy, they'd better like it. As in, they'd better want to jump right through the computer screen and gobble up those words. They'd better instantly love you enough to invite you out to a cozy diner and treat you to pie and coffee. If they don't, you won't even get a tiny glimpse at your manuscript, and then you'll get so depressed that you blast that sappy Aerosmith song that I can never remember the name of, sit around in your pajamas and cry all afternoon, eating Almond Roca straight from the container (I speak from experience).

Anyway, the synopsis. Another thing which - like Exhale - I thought would be easy. Just a little paragraph you whip out while you're eating your morning flax flakes! Easy! But no - of COURSE it's not easy. It's like, the hardest thing I've ever had to write, because it forced me to think painstakingly about this sprawling, 70,000-word manuscript that I've already spent WAY too much time looking at and thinking about, and ask myself: what the hell IS this about? And how do I put it into words that might make an agent want to come out for pie and coffee with me?

I finally came up with something. Which again, is why I've slacked on the blog this week. Kevin helped me write it, I'll admit that outright. We went back and forth about it for days on end, e-mailing each other revised drafts. You can tell he helped me write it because he used the word "mirth," which I had to look up on dictionary.com. For a brief instant, I wondered if it might be unethical for me to include a word whose meaning I had to look up. In the end, I decided to keep it, because I think that "mirth" is one of those words that makes people look good if they can use it correctly, kind of like "quinoa" and "uptick." And besides, NOW I know what "mirth" means, so if anybody questions it, I can tell them.

I'm going to show you my synopsis, but only if you promise not to laugh or run away in horror. You'd better like it, because I've already sent it out to some agents, today in fact! So you've no choice but to like it:

Knocked Up, Knocked Down

Ever since Monica LeMoine fled overseas to escape her deadbeat college boyfriend, she has prided herself on her ability to seek, find, and embrace whatever makes her feel alive, even when that means literally stuffing suitcases and dashing toward something better. Now happily married and racing into her early thirties, Monica starts a blissfully ignorant new journey toward motherhood with the help of a magical pair of g-string underwear. Over the next thirteen months, however, Monica's infectious vitality is put to the test with the abrupt deaths of her fully formed fetus and subsequent unborn baby boy. As she wanders into a disorienting world of paranoia and mourning for real and imagined lives lost, Monica gropes frantically for normalcy and renewed aliveness, often missing the mark in ways that are alternately agonizing and side-splittingly funny. When traditional grief literature and support groups fail to do any good, Monica luckily finds help in other, unexpected places – from the Speed Stick smell of her husband’s t-shirts, to a hunky Ecuadorian salsa instructor who communicates through undulating hips, to those almost-forgotten pink g-string panties.

Knocked Up, Knocked Down is about what happens when “a shitty news bomb gets dropped suddenly on your head,” as Monica puts it, making life suddenly seem un-navigable. Infused with an undercurrent of mirth that hints at Monica's enduring optimism, it is a classic story of hope's triumph over grief, life over death, with which every parent can sympathize and the legions of struggling un-parents will empathize. We cry with Monica, laugh at her episodes of temporary insanity, and cheer her on to a new beginning.

So there it is, the fruits of my labor this week. Imagine yourself picking up a book and reading the back of it, and finding that there, then settling into one of those big comfy chairs and flipping open to a random page. If you're lucky, you might even open it to the term "hard-on," which is in there somewhere. I won't tell you were. And, as I said, the last you'll hear from me about the book project until something major happens!

Oh, and I almost forgot: THE KNOCKED DOWN HUNK GALLERY!

Yes, that's happening! I'm working on it - getting little voting thingy-dingies as I promised we would. Coming this week, so check back soon! It's not too late to send me your knocked down hunk's picture - send it to monica at exhalezine dot com (why do people do that? put "monica at exhalezine dot com," I mean? I just do it because it's fun to write it that way. I suppose it's to discourage spam e-mail, but I wonder if it really works.)

'Till next time!

Ask a Dead Baby Momma: Column 2

Dear Dead Baby Momma:

I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be afflicted with a deadly illness. Any thoughts?

-Deathaphobic in Suburbia


Dear Deathaphobic in Suburbia,


Did you just ask me if I have any thoughts on deadly illnesses? Boy, do I ever. You've come to the right place, my friend.

There are two routes I can take in responding to your concern. One is the bad-friend route, and the other is the good-friend route. I'm going to take the good-friend route, because I could never live with myself if I didn't. But first, let me give you a glimpse of the bad-friend route, so you can see what that would have been like.

There used to be a controversial website floating around out there - it might even still exist - called Butterfly-Something or Something-Butterfly. The goal of this website was essentially to help anorexic women become better anorexics. Yes, you read that correctly. A clearinghouse for resources not meant to cure anorexia, but to augment it. Things like: recipes for soup made of water, cabbage, and air; tips for hiding one's protruding hipbones; methods for outsmarting scrutinizing doctors and mental health counselors. I read about it in the paper, and thought to myself: wowsers. Amazing! That's like angst-igating on steroids!

I bring this up as a way to illustrate the bad-friend route. If you ENJOY your deathaphobia - that is, if you take sadistic pleasure in it - you might like the bad-friend response to your request for my "thoughts." Such a response would go something like this:

YOU ARE RIGHT TO BE AFRAID! You very well could be afflicted with a deadly illness anytime. In fact, it could be happening now. Better start doing something to analyze it, avoid it, legitimize it, feed it - BEFORE IT KILLS YOU!

Mathematically, the odds of a deadly illness are low, of course, unless you have a genetic history of deadly disease or have obvious increased risk factors (drinking, smoking, snorting crack, living above a nuclear waste dump). Any sane person with a medical degree would tell you so. But for someone like YOU, as a person who has likely experienced the improbable scenario of getting KuKdx1, 2, 3, or even more, the entire concept of "odds" goes out the window. "You're probably fine" loses its meaning after a while.

Which means that YES - that pelvic pain you're feeling? Your ovaries are probably rotting, cervical cancer cells colonizing your entire abdominal area. Go get checked out. Chest pains? Screw the antacids! That's a heart attack! Get thee to the emergency ward! That slight tremble in your fingertips? Parkinson's. Definitely Parkinson's. The fact that you aren't pregnant, although you've been trying for five months? Fatal fallopian blockage for sure. Go request immediate surgery before the blockage travels up to your lungs, impeding all air flow. The fact that a lot of people you know are suddenly coming down with the cancer bug? Yes, it's likely contagious in a cosmic sense (albeit not a medical sense), so go ask your doctor to test you for every kind of cancer on the market.

Oh, and to prevent modern-era-induced death, don't do ANY of the following: 1) eat food microwaved under plastic wrap; 2) use any soaps or lotions that aren't natural enough to eat directly out of the tube; 3) eat white foods; 4) touch anything not made of wood, stone, water, air, or fire. 5) eat anything other than organic vegetables from your grandma's garden.

BUT NO. Let Dead Baby Momma give you the good-friend response instead, the right response, the responsible response. As an advice columnist, this is my obligation. It goes like this:

Difficult as it may seem, there is one - and only one - way to confront your fears, not just of deadly illness, but of anything. Of infertility, of troubles at work or at home, of knocked-downage. That is: to let go of your bananas. Best put by this favorite prayer to whatever sadistic - but good at heart - asshole is controlling the gears up there:

Dear Sadistic - But Good At Heart - Asshole Controlling the Gears Up There:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Isn't it lovely in its concise brilliance, this one? Yes, whoever said this is right, and whoever can do this deserves full admiration, for it grates directly against human nature and tendencies more than any other thing. It's why frantically worried women marry people like Kevin, who are "wise enough to know the difference."

Disease: you can't control it. My suggestion would be to take a middle-of-the-road approach, hovering between good-friend and bad-friend. Be educated and proactive, yet not obsessive. Choose three obvious anti-deadly-disease habits to implement regularly, just to make yourself feel better, and give yourself a semblance of control. This might include not licking plastic, not smoking, and not inhaling gasoline, for instance. It will feel like being on a diet, and allowing yourself the occasional chocolate. It will feel good.

Yet on the inside, keep harvesting knowledge of what you can and can't control, for this is what allows you to move forward without fear. Write it down in a notebook. Two columns: "CAN CONTROL," and "CAN'T." Once you think about it, you'll see that disease - deadly and otherwise - ultimately fall into the "CAN'T" category. So does knocked down-age, for the record.

And then you can let it go, like an overripe banana, using all of that controlling energy for other, more productive life projects, like writing a column like this, or looking up cupcake recipes and trying them out, or going out to buy new sexy underwear and seducing your honey, or hosting a cocktail party, or taking a Calgon bath, or sitting at the park with a bag of cherries from the farmers market and spitting seeds on innocent pedestrians. All perfectly valid uses of that leftover energy.

In fact, Dead Baby Momma says: let's all make this our personal project, shall we? And report back on our progress? Go forth fearlessly, Deathaphobic in Suburbia! Thou shalt find your way!

Send your Dead Baby Momma questions to: monica at exhalezine dot com.

Knocktionary

Greetings, Guests and Mommas!

First, thanks for the great Knocked Down Hunk pics so far (see previous post) - keep'em coming! SOOO many cuties out there. We've got a lovely one of a man fixing a pipe underneath the kitchen sink. Now, if that's not hot, I don't know what is. Our Knocked Down Hunk gallery will be coming soon, and I'll be glowing with pride when it happens.

OK, I've been admittedly so busy going nuts with blog design that I forgot: on yeah! I'm actually supposed to POST on this blog! So here I go, posting again. It's a busy, relatively stable time these days. Thinking about babies, not thinking about babies. Thinking about my babies, not thinking about them. Wishing for a baby, not wishing for a baby. People are pregnant. Happy about it, weird about it.

There's just no way to define a knocked down momma.

I thought I'd do a vocabulary round-up to show off a year's worth of made-up words. These will go into our official Knocktionary. This is like, the lamest glossary EVER, because:

1) there really aren't that many words. When I say "a year's worth," it sounds like a lot, but it really isn't. Words come up once every few months or so, that's it. Don't worry, this list will grow. Linguistic revolutions take time.

2) It's not in alphabetical order. Truthfully, I'm at the tavern with Kevin on my second glass of white zinfandel right now, and simply haven't the mental stamina or wherewithal (god, does anyone except old ladies actually use that word anymore?) to alphabetize. If anybody feels like alphabetizing, let me know and we can work out a deal.

Oh, Kevin is sitting here beside me, beer in hand, and says "hi."


And now, the words:


Cancernoia - irrational fear of getting (and dying!) from cancer. Related to documented "fear of personal extinction" stemming from miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death.

BOGS - acronym-ish acronym standing for Books, Grief Counselors, and Social Workers (oh my!). You know: the smart people who tell you what to do, how to act, and how to feel. They know best, so you'd better do what they say. Otherwise, they might write "FAILED GRIEVING 101" in red ink in your permanent file.

Googlinate (Googlination, Googlinator, Googlinatory): Google + procrastinate. Excellent for avoiding grading essays, doing house chores, and calling your mother.

Halluci-knock: Hallucinate + knocked. The act of being completely convinced that one is knocked up, even though one isn't. Halluciknock (v), halluciknocktion (n), halluciknocktional (adj

Angstigator: Instigator of angst. That is, a person who tries to drag you down to their own level of sadness/dejectedness/anger, possibly in a subconscious attempt to make themselves feel better. Otherwise known as a gloomy groupie, a joy blocker, depresstigagor, a sadness starter (angstigational, angstigationatory, angstigate, angstigationally).

Melanrageous - The feeling that you feel when you're around happy pregnant women, and/or happy women with cherub-cheeked infants in tow. As coined by Pamela: "the combination of melancholgy, rage and nauseous -- not at them per se, but at the unfairness of why some women are denied the opportunity for the same joy."

The Ughlies - Another term, this one coined by Heather, for that feeling when you are around happy pregnant women or happy women with cherub-cheeked infants in tow.

Dirthday - Birth + Death. Same thing as stillbirth, basically. "Happy Dirthday, Zach."

Knocked-Down Hunk Contest!

UPDATE: The Knocked-Down Hunk Gallery is now available! Click here.

* * *

Greetings KuKd Homegirls/Boys and Inquisitive Guests!

Let's do something totally warped and wacky to temper the foul mood of a few posts ago, shall we? Yes, we shall!

Let me first say that if this idea is, in fact, completely warped and wacky, I take full responsibility for its warpedness and wackiness. For those of you who are new here, I'm sorry if I've given you the impression that I'm a normal person - frankly, I've forgotten what "normal" even means. But that's another post, or perhaps a suitable chapter in a Philosophy 101 textbook.

Here it is - are you ready? Are you sitting down? Is your mug of coffee firmly ensconced in your hands lest you drop it out of sheer surprise and delight? Are you firmly bracing yourself, both physically and mentally? Drum roll please:

It's the First International Knocked Down Hunk Contest! WOO-HOO! I know, I know. Isn't it astounding to think that a man whose penis produced sperm resulting in knocked-down offspring could POSSIBLY be sexy? No, not astounding at all. In fact, just like losing a baby/fetus automatically makes a woman much wiser and cooler than before, the same is true for oft-forgotten Knocked Down Hunks.

Here are the contest rules.

HOW IT WORKS: E-mail a photograph of the nominee, along with an optional 3-sentence explanation of why this particular Knocked Down Daddy-o should be voted for the Hunkiest Knocked Down Hunk in the World, to Monica, Contest Coordinator at monica@exhalezine.com by FRIDAY, MAY 1st. Put "Knocked Down Hunk Contest" in the subject line.

All entrants will be posted in a Knocked Down Hunk gallery - yes, eye candy galore - for everyone to vote on democratically. The winning HUNK will get something wonderful! I can't tell you what that wonderful thing is, because I haven't thought of it yet, but trust me - it's going to be wonderful!

You are welcome and encouraged to spread the word to your KuKd friends and show off your Knocked Down Hunkiness (or your man's knocked down hunkiness) by adding this image to your blog or website with a link back to this post:



WHO QUALIFIES: Any knocked down daddy qualifies to nominate himself, or be nominated by someone else. To qualify, you must have participated actively (sperm-shootingly) in the co-production of a baby-esque entity that got knocked down via anything. That includes blighted ovum, miscarriage, stillbirth, infant death, and anything else I'm forgetting. It doesn't matter how long ago it occurred, or how many children you do/don't have now, how "over it" you are or think you are, how many subsequent successful pregnancies you co-produced. If you EVER fathered a knocked down baby-esque entity, you qualify.

OTHER GENERAL GUIDELINES: Any kind of picture is fine, just no cock-shots, please! I do still have an ounce of class in me, people. It can be a picture of his cute face, or - if you're not comfortable posting his face proudly - a neck-down shot highlighting, perhaps, his lovely six-pack and white-toothed smile. It could be a representative shot, like a picture of those excellent scones he knows how to bake (although, just to warn you, I probably won't vote for him as Hottest Hunk Alive based on scones alone). WhatEVer. Be creative and convey his knocked-down hunkiness in words and pictures. Make us vote for him!

And remember: the deadline is FRIDAY, MAY 1st - so spread the word!

OMIGOD this is so exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Clouds already dissipated, replaced by fleeting imaginings of sunlight casting shadows on KuKd men's pectorals!

Oh, and let me just tag a few unsuspecting blog-o-folks now to follow through on this:

http://ellenmoore08.blogspot.com/
http://buildingheavenlybridges.blogspot.com/
http://bodhi-ekah.blogspot.com/
http://barbaraboucher.blogspot.com/
http://lunardreams.net/baby/
http://sharonvw.wordpress.com/
http://theunluckylottery.blogspot.com/
http://elmcitydad.wordpress.com/
http://lifewithoutmybaby.wordpress.com/
http://tuesdayshope.blogspot.com/
http://fulltimemumma.blogspot.com/
http://bottomsoffandonthetable.blogspot.com/

Three Quick Things

1) Everyone start taking flattering pictures of your Knocked Down Baby-Daddy! That is: the male whose penis participated in the production of the sperm which participated in the production of a cell/ovum/zygote/embryo/fetus/baby that was eventually blighted/miscarried/stillborn. Or, if YOU are a Knocked Down Baby-Daddy and you're reading this, start taking sexy pictures of yourself, or ask your Knocked Down Baby-Momma counterpart to do so. I'll tell you why in my next post.

2) Bacon makes everything taste better. I mean that in all seriousness.

3) How can a small Westie-poodle mix have such enormous bowel movements? Just wondering.

Fragments

The world likes you better when you're perpetually happy and optimistic, when you have a good life, when you like your life. I'd say that overall, honest-to-god, I fit that bill. Still, there are a few little things that get to me. I can handle them one at a time, a little thorn pricking my side here and there, like a single dark cloud way off to the side of the sky.

But once in a while the vectors of all of them come together at the exact same time, forming one gray mass over head, weighing me down. Yesterday and today, thoughts have come to me in fragments like this, forming a stress ball inside my stomach:

*

I dry-swallowed a Claritin pill on the bus this morning, and I swear I can still feel it lodged in my throat, way down deep before it hits my stomach. That was six hours ago. I hope it's not burrowing into my flesh down there.

*

I'm overly busy, overly tired, overly caffeinated. I do it to myself, and really ought to stop and just live. It feels sometimes like I'm scrambling to keep myself from thinking too hard about painful things.

*

Sometimes I feel the urge to get "Zachary" tattooed somewhere discreet, like on my left butt cheek. But what for? Just because I get there weird cravings for motherhood, longings for what used to be, and it's the only tangible thing I can think of to reinforce that mother/son connection that now seems so frail and tenuous? A tattoo seems like a dumb substitute. I wish there was another way.

*

I don't really cry anymore, and sometimes wish I could/would. I've sort of forgotten how.

*

Why are babies so much more welcome than dogs in this world? Why is it $150 each way to shove your small, half-sedated dog under the airplane seat in front of you, but free to bring a screaming baby on your lap? It makes me feel like the one outlet I have for channeling pent-up motherly energy is somehow inferior or invalid.

*

We bought our house at the peak of its value, thinking a baby was on the way, believing - of COURSE - that a cute house with a cute yard was an integral part of our baby-having life.

If Kevin loses his job, we're screwed.

*

My parents are perfectly set up to have grandchildren. It feels like the big unspoken thing that everyone is aware of: if a grandchild were here, Mom would retire, Dad would be rejuvenated, and family gatherings would have a new element of delight. Holidays make me feel responsible for facilitating that. I wish I had a sister to share in this self-imposed burden. In fact, I wish I had a sister to do ALL of the girly things my mom likes to do - like shop and get mani-pedicures at the mall and watch Sex and the City and play Bunko with the ladies. I've never enjoyed those things, and sometimes I feel like an old scrooge for not going along with them just to indulge my mother.

Oh, this fantasy sister of mine would also crank out babies, so I could relax a bit.

*

Baby announcements are pouring into our mailbox. Must be baby-making season. That's all I'm going to say about that.

*

I figured out where to get birth control pills, determined to start them this month. Then I panicked and started questioning myself. Putting that idea on hold until I have a sense of what I really want out of my 33-year-old life.

Certificate of Birth/Death/Whatever

Greetings, KuKd Mommas and Inquisitive Guests!

I don't like to get into politics here, but I'm just going to say this because it's bugging me. You've probably heard about the recent controversy surrounding birth certificates for knocked down babies - specifically, for stillborn.

And there's a somewhat heated debate going on here, for example.

Physicians for Life brings forth some recent stillbirth stories:

"The 'devastated' couple got some 'stunning" news.' 'We could get a death certificate, but no birth certificate. It was like something out of an absurd dream. How can you have a death without a birth?'

Another bereaved mother from Arizona phoned the Bureau of Vital Statistics to request a birth certificate but, 'The woman on the other end said, 'You didn't have a baby, you had a fetus.'

Pro-abortion organizations, while professing sympathy for such mothers (of stillborns), nevertheless oppose the issuing of such a birth certificate, for it might inadvertently lend support to the right to life lobby.

Another view:

"The concept of stillborn birth certificates are not new; it's only new as a government issued document. Certainly couples are free to memorialize their lost child any way they wish, but are people so fragile that they require emotional assistance from the government? If a stillborn baby can get a birth certificate, can an aborted fetus get a death certificate?"

I don't know. For whatever reason, I just haven't been very interested in this debate. I can't help but wonder if this is something that a lot of people honestly care about. Is it? Seriously, is it?

Is it something everyone feels angry and upset about now, and I've been somehow left out of the loop? Or am I just turning into an old, apathetic, quiet person who has lost all interest in politics?

I tried to muster up some interest by looking up "birth" on dictionary.com, hoping to shed some light on whether stillbirth actually IS birth. That seems, to me, like a rational starting point for figuring out if stillborn babes should receive birth certificates. The unhelpful definition provided for "birth" was:

"the act of being born."

So I looked up "born," which was equally unhelpfully defined as:

"brought forth by birth."

Gee thanks, dictinary.com. Smug bastards.

If I were pressed to partake in this debate, that is if somebody cornered me and demanded that I issue an opinion on the matter, I'd have to say that I really can't imagine stillbirth being the same thing as birth. Can you? Really now. It's totally not the same. And if it's totally not the same, then a "birth certificate" seems hardly appropriate.

I suppose it's the same in that there's a roughly six-pound infant lookalike coming out of your body, and your boobs kick into dairy mode, and you bend over to look at your "down there" region in the mirror and wonder what the hell just happened to your vagina. It's the same in that your man stands by your side, holding your hand and looking at you with grave concern and intense love. It's the same in that you lose a lot of weight in a short period of time, but the belly flab stays cruelly in place.

But other than that, how is it the same?

This is precisely why I refer to my own son's stillbirth as his "dirth" (death + birth). It's seems more like death than birth to me. I could understand the argument of "how can you have a death without a birth," if it weren't for my own mental picture of what "birth" really means. Birth, to me, means more than the sperm and egg colliding and a clump of cells forming. It means more than a fetus growing into an unborn baby. It means: A LIVING BABY CREATURE COMING OUT OF THE MOTHER'S BODY, HATCHING FROM AN EGG, OR DROPPING FROM A STORK'S MOUTH.

I know that sounds like a simplistic view of things, but it's honestly what I think of when I think of the word "birth." And stillbirth is none of those three things.

The real point I'm getting at, though, is that I don't feel strongly enough about this issue to actually ARGUE about it, to write letters to the state of Washington to profess myself for against birth certifcates for stillborn babes. Heck - if a KuKd couple wants a birth certificate, sure - give 'em one.

In fact, I admire any KuKd mommy or daddy who has/had the energy and enthusiasm to pursue such a thing. It's the kind of I might have cared about more if this swirling controversy were happening closer to my son's DIRTHday, but nowadays I see this kind of story, read the first few lines, stifle a yawn, and meander off to sit on the edge of the bathtub and clip my toenails.

Even back in the throes of my knocked downage, I don't think I would have cared, because I was so fixated on surviving, on making sure Kevin survived, that I'm fairly sure I hadn't the brain power left to write a letter to my congressional representative. The baby was gone, and a little piece of paper with an official stamp certainly wasn't going to make it any better.

All of that said, I can tell you when I will start caring about this issue. I'll start caring if any anti-abortion groups try to obviously, obnoxiously, publicly spin the birth-certificate-for-stillborns concept into hateful anti-abortion rhetoric and use crumpled stillborn birth certificates to construct makeshift bombs parts for abortion clincs. THEN I'll start cranking out letters to congress.

But fortunately so far, those groups seem to have been on their best behavior, so I'll just keep being my cautiously apathetic self about this.

Easter, tomorrow! It's all about eating spiral-sliced, honey glazed ham at my parents' house. A nice reward for the hours I wasted messing with my blog design this week, when I should have been grading student essays and Windexing the glass coffee table.

Ask a Dead Baby Momma: Debut Column!

April 9th, 2009

Dear Slightly Disgruntled Dead Baby Momma,

How much longer am I allowed to openly grieve for my dead baby among friends, family members, and other people in my life? I'm updating my Outlook calendar right now, and want to make sure I mark that grieving cut-off date with a red flag.

-Trying to Stay Organized in Seattle


Dear Trying to Stay Organized,

Ancient scholars have been studying this perplexing question since the very first human pregnancy loss in the world. The current, commonly accepted answer is perhaps best stated by Deborah Davis, author of Empty Cradle, Broken Heart: "there is no established length of time for the (grieving) process." This implies that it is socially acceptable to keep talking about your dead baby in public forever and ever.

Have you ever seen the cartoon movie Bambi? Remember the part where Bambi's mother is shot and killed, and Bambi runs away scared? And wasn't it depressing and disturbing to witness that scene as a young viewer? But then mother, or some other caring adult, probably told you something soothing like, "it's okay, honey. That wasn't a gunshot. That was a drumbeat of love from the happy fairy, and Bambi's mother didn't just fall to the ground bleeding, she collapsed in a fit of joy. The red stuff is, um, actually a pile of cherry Lifesavers that fell out of the Lifesaver delivery truck."

You felt better when she told you that. The world seemed okay.

That's what Deborah Davis is doing: telling you that to sooth your soul. What she's not telling you is the unspoken secret: there is a cut-off point. That is, not a time line for your actual internal grieving, but a rough period of time after which other people in your life will expect you to have internalized and moved on. They won't ever tell you this outright; that's why we call it the unspoken secret of our society. It is safe to say that if you push the boundaries of these cultural and societal expectations, people will think you're a self-pitying, unstable, self-centered ball of yuck. I know that seems harsh and unfair, and it is.

The good news is that there's an easy way to calculate your own PGCU-Date (Public Grieving Cut-Off Date)!

Simply follow the steps below.

First, ask yourself: did I have what others perceive as a miscarriage, or what others perceive as a stillbirth? Then, look at list below. "Miscarriage" answers will be first, "stillbirth" will be second:

LEVEL 4 PEOPLE (acquaintances, distant Facebook buddies, the man behind the counter at the deli, colleagues who hardly know you): 1 Week / 2 Weeks. Note: longer is possible, with risk of having people suddenly, mysteriously drop you from their Facebook friends list, tired of reading your depressing status updates.

LEVEL 3 PEOPLE (guys in general; friends who you hang out with regularly but rarely discuss emotions; close-but-not-too-close family members like in-law and cousins, the 1-2 colleagues who know some detail about your personal life): 3 Weeks / 2 Months. Note: longer is possible, with a risk of a sudden decrease in invitations to cocktail parties.

LEVEL 2 PEOPLE (Really, really good friends that you see every day; people who you vent and emote to on a regular basis; most likely to be female; closer family members, like parents and siblings): 2 months/6 months. Note: longer is possible, with risk being given a pep talk, a loving plea to move on with your life, a subtle push to find out if you're suicidal, a gentle prod to find out if/when you're planning to try again, because it might be a good idea.

LEVEL 1 PERSON (your spouse or boy/girlfriend, also known as the Other Person Who Helped Make This Baby): 6 1-2 Years. Note: longer is possible, with risk of possible relationship erosion and loss of libido, so be careful.

LEVEL 0 PEOPLE(women who have gone through your exact situation, or men who have gone through your exact situation, more or less the same amount of time ago; that one best, best, best friend who still lets you vent about it and asks how you are; your mother; your dog; maybe even your spouse): Eternity. Note: longer is not possible, because there is no such thing as longer than eternity. Not even in the cartoon movie Bambi.

My recommendation is that you print this handy guide, Scotch tape it to your refrigerator with your own PGCU-Date highlighted in yellow. This way, you can always refer back to it.

Thank you for your question, Trying to Stay Organized in Seattle! I am pleased to open up my fountain of knowledge on your behalf, and hope I've cleared things up for you.

Stay tuned for next week's column!

A Brief Rant on Fetus-Holding and Other Things

Greetings, Inquisitive Guests and KuKd/TTCers!

I'm pushing my debut Ask a Disgruntled Dead Baby Momma column back a bit (yes, notice the subtle title change) to get this other thing off my chest first.

The inspiration for today's musing - a rant, actually - comes from The Dude (who, I'm pleased to report, has now amassed an even GREATER tribe of hens to cluck and coo about his Dead Baby Daddy woes and related drama!).

For those of you who don't worship The Dude like I do and therefore might not be aware of his KuKd background, allow me to enlighten you: his wife delivered their fetus/baby/something-in-between at four months gestation. Ah, the familiar and perplexing horror of the late miscarriage, sometimes called (bizarrely) a "spontaneous abortion."

There was one thing the Dude said a while ago that really stuck with me. Here is a slightly shortened version:

"Why in the hell were we put into the same wing as all of the other mothers that just gave birth. I understand for the delivery but not once we were transferred to another room for the night. All night I stared ad posters of babies on the wall and heard babies crying in other rooms. It was torture.

The part about it that's the hardest is when they put the baby in my arms before I was sure if I was ready for that. The image of a dead body that is so underdeveloped is more disturbing than I can describe. That image will be locked in my head till I die. In case I ever did forget, they gave us pictures as a reminder."

As someone whose experience almost precisely mirrors what The Dude is describing (except that we dodged the fetus-holding after lots of pleading and bribing the doctor with promises of beer after this ordeal was finished), his words produced a rather visceral reaction, almost making me spew my morning coffee across the living room in a milky-brown stream.

Man-oh-man, was I pissed.

Here's what I've come to believe about the medical and social work community, particularly the religion-infused medical and social work community: they all think they know what's best, and they like to plow blindly ahead and adhere to what they "know," without pausing to consider if it's really the right thing for the patient. Of course, they probably DO know more than we do, what with their advanced degrees and, in some cases, apparently frequent consultations with Jesus on how to handle sensitive matters such as KuKd.

Sometimes I feel like facilitating an informational conference call for doctors, nurses, and social workers involved with KuKd situations. Here are some things I would say:

1) Please don't assume that just because I got knocked down five minutes ago, I automatically turn into a hysterical retard without any thinking capabilities or opinions of my own. This is a confusing and horrible time in my and my husband's lives, but trust me, we'll get through it. You may be calmer than we are, but that doesn't make you smarter or more morally correct. If you have any suggested coping strategies, you are welcome to gently and objectively put them out there as possibilities, but if we say "no," which we probably will, deal with it.

*

2) As an example: do not set my 16-week fetus into my arms just because you believe it's the right thing to do, or because that's what normal mommies and daddies do when normal babies are born. THIS IS NOT A NORMAL, LIVING-BABY-DELIVERING SITUATION, in case you didn't get the memo. Not only does holding the fetus not help everyone, it actually HURTS some people, like The Dude (NOBODY messes with The Dude without talking to me first. Ka-peesh?).

I'm not saying that there aren't some KuKders who WANT to hold the fetus, or that there's anything wrong with holding the fetus. Some might want to, but some might not. Neither way is better than the other. I'm simply saying that KuKders should get temporary elevated status, simply for being suddenly up a shit's creek with no paddle, and not pressured to do things that make us uncomfortable. I almost couldn't beLIEVE that amount of pressure we got to hold the fetus.

I wanted to ask the nurses and doctors: do you see anyone throwing confetti on us and handing out foil-wrapped chocolate cigars in blue or pink pastel color, or hoards of friends and relatives showing up to congratulate us? No, you don't. You're thinking of something else, an entirely different scenario. I do not want to hold the fetus. So sue me.

(I know, I know. If I don't hold the fetus, I'll regret it for the rest of my life, and possibly even roast on a stick in hell after I die. As I said, I'm not stupid. So, you're allowed to ask me one time, but be willing to accept "no" for an answer without further discussion. In your world, it might seem like I'm rejecting my baby. But in my world, it's not my baby. It's a fetus who never became a baby. And even if he/she DID become a baby, what's left is merely the under-developed SHELL of that baby - an empty symbol that means nothing to me.

So quit insisting that your view of reality trumps mine. This is a situation where I get to be right. I'm the star of the pity-show here, not you. BOO-YA.)

*

3)On a similar note, do not sequester me and my husband in the regular labor/delivery ward for a week, ostensibly because we are *real parents* who just delivered a *real baby* (unless you have asked very politely and gotten permission). What the hell is UP with that! Whoever thought of that idea is clearly on crack. It's like sending the world's poorest man to the Emerald Palace with fifty-dollar bills hanging down from the ceiling. You can look, but don't touch!

As I said, I think you're confusing us with somebody else. Sarah Palin's daughter, perhaps? She just a baby right? Yeah. Nope - that's not me. Stop doing NY Times crossword puzzles at the triage desk and pay attention!

*

4) Please stock up on orange Popsicles for patient consumption. You always seem to have plenty of the not-tart-enough grape and cherry, but a shortage of tart-n-tangy orange. And get rid of green and blue altogether; people don't really go for those after age twelve or so. Oh, and a better DVD selection would also be nice - Shaun of the Dead, Team America, Raising Arizona and the entire season of the British Office would all be welcome titles for this KuKd momma.

Some FAQS-n-Things

Boy oh boy, Readers!


Wait 'till my next post - I cooked up a lovely idea during my sopping wet bike ride to downtown. I'm dying to tell you about it now, but I'll control myself and let it be a surprise.

(During this aforementioned bike ride, by the way, my white socks got utterly drenched AND this nasty gash on my big toe got overly jostled and started bleeding again, which I didn't realize until I got to work to peel off my drenched, now massively bloodstained socks. I hung up my drenched and massively bloodstained socks on my file cabinet handle to air-dry before class, since those were the only socks I had to get me through the work day. Forgot they were hanging there, of course, as a group of innocent students came in to talk to me. I only remembered when I caught them staring wide-eyed right past me at that file cabinet, at my bloody dripping socks, which looked like used Maxi-pads, judging by the shape and color combination. Which means my students must have thought for a fleeting moment that I, their esteemed professor, was a bloody Maxi-pad hanging freak.)


ANYWAY.

Never mind, I can't hold it in any longer. Here's my idea:

I'm going to try my hand at being an advice columnist, with the pen name of Dead Baby Momma. The column will be called Dear Dead Baby Momma. I'll do it every week or every other week, whenever Dead Baby Momma gets inspired. Might be just a one-time deal, might last longer. In preparation for my first one, you are welcome and encouraged to e-mail me your questions to: monica at exhalezine dot com.

They can be KuKd-related or not, funny or serious, general or specific, whatever. Just know that your answer will be filtered through the wacked-out mind of Dead Baby Momma. No question is too small or big, too relevant or irrelevant, too ridiculous or non-ridiculous. This is just something I've always thought would be interesting, and since I was so troubled by my drenched and bloody bike ride, I was glad to have a happy-making idea emerge from the dreariness of my mind. I reserve the right to make questions up, of course, but nobody has to know that.

In the meantime, I thought I'd spout off a few FAQs about this blog, for the sake of any newbies making their way over here. Someday, I'll be bold and put up a "FAQS" page. But until then, this will have to suffice. This will also give me some practice in answering questions for my Dear Dead Baby Momma column (OMIGOD I'M SO EXCITED!!!). Here I go:


What's KuKd?

KuKd stands for Knocked Up, Knocked Down. It is used an adjective to describe the experience of losing a pregnancy, a pregnancy-like thing, a baby-like cell, a mass of baby-like cells, a zygote (what IS a "zygote," anyhow?), an embryo, a fetus, a baby. I pronounce it by simply stating the letters: kay-you-kay-dee. Others say "kooked," but if they said that in my presence, I probably wouldn't know what they were talking about (not that the Kukd experience doesn't leave your brain a little kooked-out).


Where did the term KuKd come from?

My own twisted brain, during one of those pinnacle-of-creativity moments when your brain is on both coffee and booze simultaneously. Yeah, like an Irish coffee. Just like that.


Why do you bother doing this blog? What makes you think anyone gives a rat's arse about you or your life or your ideas? Blogging is stupid.

I oftentimes ask myself that very string of questions. I started this blog for me, not for anyone else, about ten months after Zach's dirth. I had some lingering dead-baby-related thoughts that I needed to express, and blogging provided a space to do that. Then, I realized that through this blog, I was gathering a little community of supporters - readers, listeners, people who "get it." Or might not "get it" personally, but don't mind hearing me blather about it. Blathering is fun. Being listened to is fun. It makes me feel more normal during the alienating and insanity-producing experience of losing a baby. It still does.

I'm sorry. Did you just say "dirth?"

Yes. Dirth = death+birth. Dirth, dirthday, dirthing ceremony.


Not that anybody cares, but what do you do besides blog? Anything? Anything at all?

Well, I do have a real job. I teach writing at a community college. I go to lots of meetings in jeans and sweaters. I spend too much time Google-imaging pictures of cupcakes, perusing Facebook, and chatting online with one person in particular. I'm a happy-hour fiend, and spend lots of time schmoozing and boozing. I drink too much coffee and not enough water. I go for long walks with my husband and dog, and oftentimes like with my feet in his lap and a glass of wine in my hand. He makes me laugh, and he's fun to French kiss. I fantasize about being a real writer someday, living in a cabin in the mountains, or on a dairy farm. To that end, I spend lots of time thinking of books to write, and starting to write those books, and then getting distracted and forgetting about them. The one I'm working on now, though, I really am going to finish, I swear. If I don't, my friends and family are going to give me a lot of shit.


Are you religious?

Nope.


Got kids?

Nope.


Want kids?

Nope. Not at the moment. Don't ask me why not, because I have no fucking idea.


Why did the Google search terms "bloody nose during fellatio" bring me to this blog?

That's for me to know, and you to find out.

The Mysterious Male

Greetings, KuKd Mommas and Inquisitive Guests!

There's this KuKd blog that Heather, one of my cool cat readers, alerted me to. It's written exclusively by - get this - a DUDE! I'm talking a real live DUDE with pectorals and all (presumably). I've gotten rather addicted to it, this blog. I love all of its dude-like qualities: the dude-like font. The dude-like color scheme. The minimalistic design.

Even the words themselves are minimalistic in a dude-like way - not high-end literature or anything - but just saying with brutal and concise honesty what needs to be said, not adding extra fluffy details. Meticulously including the details that matter. Unlike many of the men I know, this is a dude who openly and expressively FEELS! By that, I mean he is experiencing lasting ramifications of his wife's knocked-downage a year or so ago, and putting that experience into very dude-like words. Not so many words to make it a female blog, where things are so often expressed using as many adjectives and needless repetitions and circuitous routes as possible. No no, much more economical than that.

Right now this blog has four followers, all women. I'm one of those, of course, and there's Heather and Sarah too, both blog readers-o-mine. Anytime there are comments on this KuKd dude's posts, they're usually from one or more of the four of us, responding not just to him but to each other, clucking and cooing around him like nosy and nurturing hens. He's like our own personal pet male project: a KuKd man in need of comfort!

You see, I've never really been able to cluck and coo around Kevin. Just doesn't happen. I mean I do over little things, like if it sounds like he's getting a cold or something, but just so terribly much over the Kukd. There's a chapter in my manuscript where I discuss the mysteriousness of ordinary, Pabst-drinking, Sports-Center-watching guys when they're hit with something as traumatic as stillbirth. How do those ordinary, Pabst-drinking, Sports-Center-watching guys grieve when a shit-bomb gets dropped on their heads? How do they feel? How do they express what they feel? They don't cry very much, that's for sure. At least, Kevin did a few times, but none of the all-out, blowing-your-nose-on-the-pillow-case-while-cussing-out-jesus kind that I did.

Kevin is what I would consider an "ordinary dude" by most measures (except kinder, gentler, smarter, and more into Harry Potter than most "ordinary dudes"). I distinctly recall having this type of conversation frequently after our Shitty Event:

Me: "How ya doing?"
"Doin' arright."
"Sure?"
"Yup."
"But I mean, are you really really sure?"
"Yup. What else do you want me to say?"

He sort of got that cornered-rabbit look about him, like I was digging and prying and pressing for just..MORE. There had to be more, damn it! More female emotional complexity layered under that tough exterior! After lots of conversations like that, I was left to assume that he was - in fact - fine. Or at least, as fine as I was ever going to know. My parents and friends would pry me for more information (no really, how IS Kevin??), as though I had some kind of secret spousal access to his brain that nobody else had. But I didn't. All I could say was, Kevin seems pretty much fine.

It's not that he didn't grieve in his own way. He did. I think there were other things he was grieving besides just the loss of the baby. There was the fact that he suddenly had no control over anything, no devices to really help me or himself or anyone else. All of his conventional and pragmatic wisdom about how to contribute to the relationship, how to protect me and the burgeoning baby, no longer were relevant. He's a guy. A straight-up, son-of-a-Marine-Corps-colonel, beer drinking, sports-watching, boxers-wearing, boob-loving guy. Not the type to ever do a blog or sit and talk to me for hours about his feelings. I always wanted to wrest more emotion out of him - more deep and poignant thoughts - than I was ever able to do. Which perhaps is why I gobble up this KuKd dude's blog like one gigantic In-and-Out burger.

I should add that those are the very qualities I love about my husband. They are some of the things that drew me to him in the first place. God, if he talked and emoted as profusely as I do, I'd probably feel closed in and die. It's the exact kind of guy I'm drawn to - all of my guy friends except this one anomaly at work are that way. Aggravatingly-yet-endearingly practical, pragmatic, economical with words and ways, always on an even keel, chilled out. There's something just awesomely sexy about that, in my opinion.

Anyway...not that this aforementioned blogger isn't sexy in his own way. He is. It's because the things he says, the word he uses, are the things and words that would be used by the kind of guy I just described. Someone who doesn't say much in person, keeps those roller-coaster emotions in check, but rants about it anonymously online.

Speaking of which, the anonymousness brings a whole new element of mystery. Who knows, really, if this guy is really a guy at all? Maybe it's a housewife named Marge, or a famous chef named Maryama, or a teen girl skipping school and making up a new persona. It sort of got me thinking: it would actually be oddly cathartic to start a totally anonymous blog, and rant and rave about stuff on it, without caring what people say or think.

I could promote it on this blog, posting something about this "awesome, ranty new blog I just discovered..," not letting on that it was really mine! How cool would that be! It would be like Clark Kent and Superman! Interestingly, I know of one other dude with an anonymous ranty-ravey blog (well, not anonymous to me, obviously) - and he's just the type. Cool as a cucumber in his everyday real life, ever-reasonable and rational, and then unleashing his dramatic fury in a safe and disguised setting (and yes, he does fall into the "awesomely sexy" category too, for all of the things I just described. I wonder how HE'D handle stillbirth).

Anyway.

I probably shouldn't be talking about stillbirth, miscarriage, awesome sexiness, and ranti-raviness all in the same post. This just feels wrong somehow. I think jesus might be hovering over and watching me with disapproving eyes.

In conclusion, I've successfully figured out nothing about how ordinary-Pabst-drinking-Sports-Center-watching dudes grieve, not unraveled the mystery of the elusive Dead Baby Daddy perspective a single inch. So if you have anything useful to add, bring it baby, bring it!

Off to crank up the electric blanket to the highest level and go night-night.

Barf, Barf! Everywhere, Barf!

Greetings, KuKd/TTC Homegirls and Inquisitive Guests!

For the longest time, I've resisted the urge to pepper this blog with non-KuKd-related snippets of my personal life. I cave in and do it sometimes, but not too often. It's kind of like, what would be the point of that? Chances are, you're not here to read about the status of that hangnail on my left index finger, or which new recipe I screwed up horribly yesterday evening, or how I would rank my most recent bowel movement. Nuh-nuh-no, not you.

You're here to read about DEAD BABIES!

That is, you're here because you lost a baby or a fetus or a clump of baby-like cells, or because you have trouble getting knocked up, or because you've given up on getting knocked up, or because you're just oddly fascinated by dead-baby-related musings, or because you're a friend or family member who pops over to check out my online persona, or because you stumbled over here on accident after Googling "miscarrying hamster" or "does semen smell like brie cheese," as other poor innocents have in the past. For the most part,

you're here to read about DEAD BABIES!

Besides, rambling aimlessly about life in general was never the point of this blog. The purpose was, and still is, to write about - you guessed it -

DEAD BABIES!

and various aspects thereof.


All of that said, I've decided to allow myself a TEENSY-WEENSY bit more wiggle room to write about non-dead-baby-related topics from time to time - at least to include such things when they're on my mind. As some of you know, when you move along down that pipeline of time - away from when an event comprised about 110% of your total identity - it starts to comprise less of who you are. Which makes the urge to write about other non-KuKd topics more pronounced.

To put it differently (and I'd better switch to first-person pronouns here, for who am I to make general "truthy" statements about humanity): whereas stillbirth used to weigh down on my soul like a thick and heavy layer of cream on top of, larger than any other part of who I was, it's now sunk down and broken up, homogenizing itself into the rest of me. Which means that in real life, outside of Blog-i-stan, I am just as likely to talk about...oh...that awesome new thift store that just opened down the street, as I am to talk about my knocked-downage (for a more detailed discuss on where loss lives, click here or here.)

Anyway.

As you probably guessed, in the spirit of homogenization of loss, I'm going to focus on a personal snippet this morning, and hope that you'll indulge me, understand, and forgive. It does relate to your favorite topic

(DEAD BABIES!)

in a roundabout way, I suppose.

Last night, Tebow - my dog, aka Cheap Baby Substitute (see the connection?) - ate half of a tennis ball. That is: he chewed it into dime-sized bits and swallowed those bits, with a naively happy look in his scruff-fringed eyes. Now, I won't say I didn't know he was chewing on a tennis ball. He's a terrier, and terriers chew on things. What I didn't realize was that he was actually retarded enough to swallow those bits like a classic short-bus retard dog.

Honestly, I thought I knew my son. Um, I mean my dog. We brought him on this road trip from Seattle, specifically assuring Kevin's family that Tebow is SO WELL BEHAVED that you hardly know he's there. I thought he knew better than to swallow bits of chewed tennis ball, that he had some self-control, some survival instinct - like believing your teenage kid knows when to stop drinking, so you go ahead and let him keep that six-pack under the bed, just to allow him to practice being a responsible adult. Tebow has never done that before - or if he has, he's always shat out those foreign bits in an inconspicious way, not making an issue out of it.

Anyway.

Hours later, when everyone else was asleep (by "everyone else," I'm talking about Kevin and his parents, as we are currently on an in-law visiting trip in Phoenix) and I was awake like a caffeinated author-wannabe typing madwoman on speed, Tebow began to puke. Not just a little bit of heave-ho-ing, not a mere few tablespoons of fluffy-and-easily-cleanable-pet-vomit on the kitchen floor. No no. This was LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of wet, nasty, puke on Kevin's mom's carpet - here and there and everywhere. He was like this unstoppable vomiting machine: everytime I heard him barfing in one corner, I'd race over to grab him and set him in different room, and I'd hear him barfing again. Piles of doggy puke, here and there and everywhere!

I couldn't keep up, but was determined to handle this on my own, without rousting Kevin from sleep.

I should add that Tebow's vomit, not surprisingly, was full of little fragments of rubber tennis ball. Which - just to give you a clear image here - I only discovered by closely scrutinizing my dog's vomit from half-an-inch away.

Exactly what I wanted to be doing on my drinking-screwing-writing vacation: examining someone else's barf.

For the record, I hate barf. I really, really hate it - seeing it, smelling it, imagining it, stepping in it, sensing its nearness. Other bodily fluids I can handle - blood, puss, what have you - but when I see a puddle of someone else's throw up on the sidewalk, it haunts me for days and weeks, sometimes ruining my appetite. My worst fear is that someone might barf into my lap or directly into my face - it's like this weird phobia I can't explain. I actually thought for a while that the Person Controlling the Gears Up There (known to some people as God, but I call him the Big Asshole) decided not to let me have any babies, because He knew I couldn't handle people's throw up, and would therefore be an unfit mother (if that's true, then he does have a point).

Luckily, animal barf is nowhere NEAR as god-awful as human barf, so I was able to maintain relative composure as I raced from room to room, frantically scraping/sopping/sponging up puke puddles from my in-law's carpeted floors.

It soon got to where Tebow was dry heaving up nothingness - just air and a bit of that biley, yellowish nastiness that's left in the dredges of the stomach when everything else has been projected outward by force. I had a sudden image of my cheap-baby--substitute dog dying of over-vomiting, if that can really happen. Puking up an intestine or a spleen, or popping out an eyeball with the sheer force of his heaves, or - worse - of there still being shards of tennis ball lodged in his gut, festering, slowly releasing toxins of the modern industrial age into his bloodstream.

So, blinking back panicked tears, I rousted Kevin. That is: I conceded that I could not, would not, handle this by myself, while my feminist foremothers glared at me from heaven, condemning me for effectively undoing all they had fought for. We would have dealt with this on our own, without a man's help, because WE were stronger and more independent than you, Monica. But you know what? Screw it -it was late at night, I was tired and cranky and not making any headway on my book project, surrounded by vomit stains and a trembling, whimpering dog who was throughly confused and horrified by what was happening to his own body, and just not in the mood to play the military-wife-who-handles-every-catastrophe-on-earth-singlehandedly, like Kevin's mom always did.

(By the way, have you ever noticed the look that crosses a dog's face after he vomits? It's a look of, "can somebody please help me interpret this event for me?" and "what the crappity-crap is that mildly dinner-scented mass that just appeared before me, seemingly from nowhere?")

Parenthood is a shared duty, so I felt justified in seeking Kevin's manly help (as my friend George would say, what did I expect Kevin to do about any of this? use his penis as a vomit-vacuumer?). To make long story a bit less long: two hours of driving around Phoenix in the middle of the night with Tebow throwing up onto my lap (yes, my worst nightmare coming to fruition!), sitting in the 24-hour emergency vet and $250 later, Tebow pumped full of hydration and happy-tummy-meds, we all made it home and got to sleep around 3am.

I sort of wonder if this is practice for real parenthood, if the Big Asshole up there is testing me to see how I handle things, if I might be ready for making a baby someday. I'd rate myself...oh...a C+.

Our Waitress is Carrying a Child

Hello, Wordsmiths!

It looks like we've got some nice vocabulary to work with - I'm going to let that post sit there and fester for a few more days before I return to it and recap what new words we learned/created. This KuKd cool cat (who, like me, has also experienced the infamous Blight of the Ovum, which - contrary to popular belief - is not a World War II battle or wrecked alien spaceship), is also on a vocabulary creation journey of her own. Be sure to check out her new contribution to our lexicon, BFA, which also includes a nifty graphic.

Moving on...

Have I mentioned that I'm on a road trip right now?

That's right - Kevin, Tebow and I are coasting along the freeway corridor connecting Washington to Arizona, via Idaho and Utah. Tebow is our dog, by the way, for those of you who are popping in for the first time. This is our spring break, and since realizing how easily and terrifyingly bad shit can happen, we've decided to not waste a single week of work-free life by sitting on our arses eating Cup-o-Noodles.

Here's how we do it: stock the back seat with food in a cooler, so that we don't spend any money on breakfast and lunch, and fill the trunk with beer and wine, so that we don't have to spend any money on drinks. After all, we all know that money spent at the grocery store, unlike at a bar or restaurant, isn't REAL money (Kevin doesn't totally agree with me on this, but hey).

Then, while Kevin drives (as the son of a Marine Corps colonel who flew those huge helicopter-like monstrosities in the Gulf War, Kevin is more genetically inclined to operate a motor vehicle successfully than I am), I wear my anti-nausea wristbands and type frenetically on my laptop, reminding Kevin to stop if he sees a nice-looking truck stop. I love exploring truck stops. To keep myself from projectile vomiting all over the keyboard, I drape a t-shirt over my head and the dashboard to make a little tent, blocking out the puke-inducing scenery whizzing by. Screw the pretty mountains and rolling farmland: this KuKd momma has a book to write, a blog post to churn out! Life is too short to look at the mountains!

Last night, we pulled into Boise, Idaho, which is where I am now. Boise's okay and all, but what I REALLY liked was checking into our anti-septic smelling motel room (I LOVE MOTELS!) and enjoying our own little low-budget happy hour, complete with cheap wine out of styrofoam cups and cans of beer, good conversation, and dinner at an Eye-Talian restaurant across the street. I told Kevin I wanted checkered table clothes, candles, a dark wood interior, and a humongous plate of spaghetti that we could share, using our mouths to play tug-of-war with one long noodle (does anyone else remember that scene from "Lady and the Tramp?"). It wasn't quite like that, but close enough.

Our waitress was carrying a child. Her belly protruded far enough to nearly hit me in the face as she lean over to refill my water. She was young and blond, with braces on her teeth and clear blue eyes. I looked at Kevin as she walked away and said, in my slightly tipsy-slurred voice, "Our waitress is carrying a child." He nodded and said "yeah."

That was it.

I don't know when it happens, at what point men and women start to veer off onto separate tracks with this whole KuKd thing. It just does. I'm not saying it's bad; I'm simply remarking that, at some point, the woman continues on with lasting issues of identity and self-worth that the man doesn't have. Or doesn't seem to have, anyway. Or maybe has, but in a different form that isn't expressed.

For me, the thought process goes like this:

I was there once, right where you are, waitress with protruding belly. Seen it, done it, got the t-shirt. I was even PAST where you are, even MORE protruding. My belly wouldn't have merely ALMOST hit a customer in the face. It would have knocked over the table with its hulking, honking presence, sending both customers flying across the room simultaneously! It would have made meatballs fall off their mountains of spaghetti with the forceful wind it created as I whizzed by. It would have made customers whip their heads around and stare, gaping at the sheer enormous wonderfulness of my pregnant belly! I could have served wine carafes on that belly, balanced this basket of rosemary foccacia bread on it, deflected bullets with it!

What IS it with this inexplicable desire to stand up and shout, "I WAS PREGNANT TOO, WORLD! I WAS PREGNANT I WAS PREGNANT I WAS PREGNANT!" Is it the same thing that an elderly war veteran in plain clothes must feel when he sees a young, freshly scrubbed soldier in fatigues walk by? Does he get the urge to shout, "I DID WHAT YOU'RE DOING, ONLY WAY WORSE AND MORE INTENSE. BOO-YA."

For the record, I did not stand up and shout anything at the Eye-Talian restaurant. I was a big person, a normal person with reasonable behavior. After Kevin said "yeah" instead of the "yeah, and I can totally see how that would bother you in an illogical way, you poor misunderstood thing!!" as I was secretly hoping he would, I let it go. The truth is: no total stranger is going to give a rat's ass about my past, my pregnancies, KuKd status. They can't, don't, won't.

I know that, but I reserve the right to remain pissed off about it.

The good news is that the dinner was delicious, and cheap - since we only ordered water. No need for wine at dinner, when an entire motel-fridge-full is awaiting us across the street.

Vocabulary Brainstorming Session

Good Morning, Flax Flakes!

With mind and colon both in a good mood, let me begin the day with a totally random thought, because I'm a human being and I have such thoughts frequently. Then, it's time to put on our linguistic thinking caps.

Here's the random thought: I understand why Kevin likes to leave the bathroom door wide open and the vent turned on while we're taking hot showers (I'm not necessarily talking about hot showers TOGETHER, although that would be included in this scenario). I just don't like to do it.

When I'm taking a hot shower, I like the water to be really, really hot. And when I step out of the shower, I like it to be a seamless experience in terms of temperature. That is: I like the dry space that I step into to be relatively warm as well, so that my body doesn't go into instant hypothermia and break out into goosebumps all over, negating all of the positive happy warming effects of the hot shower I just took.

I don't like it when, unless the shower curtain is pressed against the white ceramic tile wall on both ends to create an airless seal, there is a draft of cold air interrupting my hot shower experience. I don't like it when the shower curtain blows slightly inward from the draft, touching my blissfully hot, wet, naked body (can't wait to see the Google search terms that lead people to THIS post). I don't like stepping out of the shower into a cold, drafty space and having to mummify myself in a towel in order to stay reasonably warm.

That's why I like to keep the door shut, vent off. I know it's a bad thing to do, but I don't care if spots of mold form on the ceiling! I don't care if the paint on the door starts to peel! I don't care if moisture from my shower seeps into all of the cracks and crevices and pores of the bathroom walls, turning the entire bathroom into a cube of rotting, termite-infested wood! When I step out of the shower, I want to step into a warm, non-drafty space, period.

Just had to put that out there.

Moving on.

*

Here we go: thinking caps, everyone! Thinking caps!

Here's what we know:

The official name for loss, once no longer in its rawest acute form at the forefront of your mind, is Quinoa, aka Milo. Glad we've ironed that out.

Now, I need your suggestions for the following terms, which apparently don't have suitable names. Let's start with the obvious ones:

1) Stillbirth. Why does that sound so medieval to me? Sorry, but "still" doesn't quite cut it, doesn't exactly capture the essence of what's going on. I'd go so far as to say the term "stillbirth" gives me the creeps, reminding me of a porcelain baby statue, sitting still and dust-coated on an old lady's fireplace mantel. A dead baby is much more than a "still baby." So we need a new word for "stillbirth."

I've thought of things like Dirth (my son's/daughter's Dirth - death + birth); Shot Down Stork (get it? if you don't get it, just ask, and an astute reader or myself will explain it); Rude Awakening (as in: pregnancy like a beautiful dream, and then someone shakes you in the middle of the night, forcing you up and out of that reverie); Target Returns (as in: that baby gear you bought now gets to be sadly, emotionally returned - unless you figure out something else to do with hit); Abrupt Halt; Card Collapse (someone likened it to "collapse of a house of cards); ASS ("Awful Shitty Surprise" or "Abruptly Stopped Sneeze); USO (Unexpected Shitty Outcome); UFO (Unexpected Fuckity-Fuck Outcome); SANU (So Awful, Nobody Understands), etc.

Any others?

2) Due Date. I'm talking, of course, about that day when the knocked-down baby was supposed to be due. I'm drawing a blank here. Maybe something like: Chocolate-n-Kleenex Day? Ball Point Pen Day (the day you had circled on your calendar)? Smudged Ink Day (now smudged)?

3) That thing that you feel whenever you're around happy pregnant women, or happy women with babies. What the hell IS that feeling? To me, it's like throwing whole bunch of emotional tidbits into a big cauldron and letting it simmer for a while: jealousy, wistfulness, disappointment, resentment, some joy and happiness thrown in too (we're not a bunch of heartless monsters, after all!), sudden urges to sprint in the opposite direction and squeeze one of those squeezy stress balls...it's just this slate-gray ball of something in the stomach.

What IS it?

I'll stop there with the word creation. Let me know your thoughts - no new vocabulary word is too ridiculous. No experience with KuKd is necessary.

Here's to community brainstorming!

More on Perspectives

Greetings, KuKd Tribe Members and Inquisitive Guests!

I apologize for slipping under the covers for a moment - my brain has been thoroughly taken up by getting issue #4 of Exhale "to press." One would think that it would be easy, putting together an online magazine on a subject you care about! I surely thought it would be. People send you good stuff. You mindlessly copy and paste that good stuff into a website with a glass of wine balanced on your armrest, mess around with fonts and colors (the best part!), click "publish," and boom - you're done.

Not so, I'm finding out.

I won't bore you with all the nitty-gritty 'zine-editing details that somehow act as a great big time-sucking vacuum. Just trust me: such details exist. Not that I'm complaining about this fact; I'm just covering my own ass in case anyone ever thinks I'm slacking in the blogging arena due to lesser affairs, such as experimenting with different hair-dos, or perusing Cosmo's 2008 list again with great hopes for one - JUST ONE - decent looking male (I gave up on that many moons ago).

What's more, I did waste about three precious minutes of my morning peeing on a stick (my piss smelled delightfully like an espresso-urine cocktail!), watching the one blue line show up, but not the other blue line, feeling an unbalanced mixture of things, and tossing the stick into the trash.

Not that I really, honestly thought I was knocked up. Do we ever really dare to think such a thing anymore? Truthfully, I have no idea where I am in my cycle right now. Anyone who has forcibly expelled the entire contents of her uterus (including what looks like about three cups of blood) by shoving some magical pills up there will attest: all sense of cyclical normalcy, connection with Mother Nature, just goes away. Right down the toilet, along with those three cups of blood and that godforsaken ovum. My body is a mystery to me now, a temporary slave to Western medicine.

I just needed to know for sure. Because if I WERE knocked up, that would mean I would be spending my entire day feeling horribly paranoid and guilty for that undisclosed number of whiskey shots I downed at our dance party on Friday, chasing them gleefully with cold milk straight from the gallon, as well as the ungodly amount of caffeine I've been infusing myself with lately.

I'm a writer, not a mother, dammit! I'm trying to finish a book! We writers treat our bodies like shit. It's how we produce our best work. We drink a lot of coffee and booze. We eat Fritos from the bag in unchecked handfuls. I've done all of the above these past few weeks. If I smoked, I would do that too. But I don't smoke, thank god.

Anyway.

So there was relief that the line didn't show up. But there was something else: a bit of I'm not sure what, just a flutter. Maybe a twinge of disappointment? How could that be! As I said, I'm afraid of children these days!

Here is what it was, actually: a fleeting glimpse of an Irish-looking boy with dark brown hair and a big smile, freckles on his nose, a composite male child representing those lost, some children I created but never knew, randomly showing up to haunt me, as he does at the oddest times. A searing little edge of frustration at not knowing him, or them, or whoever they are (what IS a four-month fetus? an 8-month baby in utero? a blighted ovum?), frustration at having nothing but my imagination to connect me him/them. Imagination can be such a lame-ass substitute sometimes. He might have been blond. Could have been a total shithead with a drooling problem and a bad attitude.

Why would the mere sight of a single blue line evoke his image without warning? What's that got to do with a pee stick, months and months and months later? And why wouldn't his image stick around, but disappear into the crunch-crunch sound of my morning cereal, the busy-ness of my day, not to be thought of again for some time?

What the fuck is UP with that?

I never claimed to UNDERSTAND the psychology of KuKd, I can only attest to its overall weirdness and randomness. So don't quote me in any scientific journals, please.

Anyway.

Those are the things took my day, my week. Exhale completed, the image of that strange composite boy evaporated, the morning cereal digested, the pee stick safely ensconced in the bathroom waste basket for a nosy house-guest to rummage through and discover (surely there are people who do that...), or perhaps for an archeologist to discover a thousand years from now, wondering why our earth is so littered with pee-and-coffee-infused plastic sticks...

Now that I'm FINALLY HERE, after all of the above, I suppose I should get to the point of this post, or at least make you believe that I do, in fact, have a point. By now, though, I think I've probably spent so much time building up to my main point (whatever that was going to be) that I may as well save that main point for my next post! Yay me - successfully dodging the task of saying something concise and clearly meaningful!

Let me wrap this up with a bit of meaning anyway, for those of you who need some closure:

In my last post, I indulged you in a couple of post-KuKd reality checks: life inside the head of a dead baby momma, 1.5 years after the event. To summarize: I concluded that "Ultimate Shitty Event," although a seemingly appropriate name at the time, somehow doesn't seem to fit this event anymore. "Stillbirth" won't work either of course, this flat and gray compound word, so medical textbook-ish, boring and blah, hardly conveying the rip roaring excitement of delivering one's deceased offspring! I will continue to work on finding some new terminology, and am ever-open to suggestions. In fact, let's do a blog-versation soon that very topic, shall we?

Also in my last post, I conveyed (I hope) my post-KuKd propensity to over-think, over-worry, over-freak-out about various things.

What I WAS going to do this time was continue a bit further down that road of pointing out some less obvious aspects of post-KuKd life. I think I've touched on that a little bit here - the strangeness of something as simple as a pee stick, the conflicting desire to both be a mother, again, and be a writer. Just a plain old writer, living on the edge, putting myself out there. Over-analyzing things, again.
Hallucinating sometimes, not knowing what to do with those hallucinations, what to make of them.

Wishing I knew.

Signing off now as your ever-confused, KuKd blog-o-babbler! Start getting your vocabulary strategies lined up for our upcoming quest to find better words for some key KuKd terms: stillbirth, miscarriage, and -yes- infertility. Down with scientific jargon!

Perspectives

Greetings, Guests and KuKd Strong Mommas!

First, a quick news update:

Some of you may recall my post from a few weeks back, where I questioned where loss lives once it's not just below the surface of your skin, when you're one-or-more years down the pipeline of time after losing someone or something you love.

After some very scientific research and careful consideration of others' feedback, I've concluded that loss is a grapefruit-sized, dark blue-gray blob named Quinoa, sometimes going by the nickname "Milo." Quinoa, aka Milo, oftentimes breaks into a series of smaller, disconnected blobs that float around in your body - similar to what you'd find in a lava lamp - existing in the shadowy cavities of your head and trunk. Sometimes Quinoa, aka Milo, coagulates into a singular, larger blob that drifts toward the surface. It's during that coming-together period that you become acutely aware of its presence, and start feeling like physical and emotional crapola, possibly even breaking into sobs over silly things like a Pampers commercial.

Damn Quinoa, aka Milo. I'm going to call it Quinoa, for the sake of simplicity.

Anyway, this very week marks the 1.5-year anniversary of that which, in the past, I've referred to as the Ultimate Shitty Event. I like to take stock at times like these points of chronological significance: step back and look around, peer down at myself from above, and assess the situation.

A word about the term, "Ultimate Shitty Event," which - even as I say/write it now - seems somehow obsolete, inappropriate, just plain inaccurate. I recall feeling, 1.5 years ago, that stillbirth was just about the cruelest torture that Mother Nature could ever put a person through. It felt just plain wretchedly raw and hurtful, even shameful, the hugest black dot weighing down my time line of life. Stillbirth so surpassed my earlier mishaps in the suckiness department, and was so much grander and more grown-up than anything I'd ever had to face (aside from the trauma of falling into an Uzbek pit toilet, but that's another story), that for me - at the time, and many months thereafter - it was THE most "ultimate shitty event" in the galaxy.

In the context of my basically damn good life, it was.

But let's be honest, and I hope I don't ruffle too many feathers by saying this: the great big stillbirth dot on my time line has grown smaller, more manageable somehow. 1.5 years later, I'm pretty darn sure that shittier things than the miscarriage-stillbirth-miscarriage combo can happen. That this, shittier things have happened to people, are happening to people, and will inevitably happen to me or you or anyone else.

This certainly isn't something I would have said even six months ago, but I'm just far enough down that pipeline of time to where I can say it now with moderate certainty, Quinoa the Loss Blob having dissipated into marble-sized blob-lets in my arteries.

Someday, I'll have to deal with some truly grown-up things that test my survival limits, like burying an adult loved one before me. Somebody like Kevin, my parents, my brother. A child I haven't had yet, but who passes away before me. Or my dog, even (don't laugh). I'm not saying we should all sit around and fret about future horrific events (I do this sometimes, and trust me, it really doesn't get you anywhere).

So now, with the perspective of a wee bit of time behind me, I'd say "Ultimate Shitty Event" is no longer the best term for my son's stillbirth. It just doesn't account for all of the other crappy things going on around the world. Perhaps I'll go back to call it "Zach's Dirth" - that is, his death-and-birth at once, or "Ultimate Shitty Event for Me," which grounds this dramatic term a bit more in truth, without making this grandiose claim that my loss is somehow worse than anyone elses' on this godforsaken planet.

Or I could just not worry about it and call it what it is: "the stillbirth." That's what Kevin would advise if he were lying here on the living room floor beside me, instead of snoozing in the bedroom.

Which brings me to my second "perspective" of the day:

KuKdx3 has turned me into an over-thinker. It just has. I worry too much, I think about things that aren't worth thinking about, I imagine shit that isn't there. So abrupt and surreal is shattering of reality that takes place with a stillbirth, that I still haven't totally figured out what's real and what isn't.

Take the fact that I still, STILL, get convinced every once in a while that there's a lump in my breast, or a tumor lodged in my pelvis, or that one eye looks smaller than the other, or that one bowel movement felt strangely different from the one preceding it. I have no evidence of anything being wrong, other than my own paranoid thoughts swirling around my brain and colliding into one another. It's not as bad as it used to be, back in the days of the frantic late-night calls to the consulting nurse with Kevin looking on, waiting for my bout of panic to pass. Like this one:

"Thank you for calling Group Health. May I have your Group Health ID Number?

"YEAH BUT HANG ON: I'M POOPING BLOOD! I SWEAR, I JUST TOOK MY MORNING DUMP, AND THE WATER IS TOTALLY RED! LIKE BRIGHT CRIMSON! I'M PRETTY SURE IT'S COLON CANCER, BECAUSE - "

"M'am? Did you eat beets with dinner last night?"

"Beets? Actually yeah, I did eat beets."

Silence on the other end.

"Oh, so that's it. Well, never mind then. Do you still need my Group Health ID Number?"

Those kinds of calls haven't happened in a while, to my credit.

More recently, take my sudden, irrational fear of getting pregnant, which crept up on me for really no good reason last month: Kevin and I were happily engaging in you know what (some people call it the Humpty Dance), when I suddenly burst out with: "Pull out. Pull out! PULL OOOUUUUUUUTT!"

I don't know where it came from, this weird fear of pregnancy. And I don't mean to make light of my infertility-fighting sisters' situations. It's just that, I don't get where anything has come from these past few years - the losses themselves, the foreign and confusing emotions that followed them, the cancernoia, the longing for a puppy, the obsessive quest to adopt a baby from Uzbekistan (that idea sort of fizzled, once I saw all the zeros in the adoption fee), the anything. I'm pretty sure I used to have a basic understanding of how the world worked, but everything I thought I knew before has gone out the window. I'm pretty sure I used to think logically about things like whether I wanted children, whether I wanted a pregnancy, but all of that logic has spread like Quinoa the Blob of Loss, and I can't seem to access it.

Oh well.

Coming soon - a third 1.5-year-time-line-perspective relating to my recent tavern date with the Baby Ladies. That is: N and C, my pre-stillbirth prego buddies, the lucky bee-yatches that went on to have their babies after Zach was gone. I learned something new about myself that night.

But you'll have to wait 'till next time.

Dead-Baby-Daddies: Lemme Hear You Say Ho!!!

Greetings, Guests and Mommas!

Somebody asked me recently how Kevin dealt with losing babies. Actually, a lot of people have asked me that over the years - but this particular question came from a gal whose daughter was stillborn just a few months ago, and who wanted some coping advice for that man-o-hers.

Of course I thought to myself, me? Give coping advice? Kevin? Give male-coping advice? Uh, right. That's like asking us for help with putting up drywall, in which case our simultaneous answer would be: grab your checkbook and find a good contractor. Still, I decided to indulge her and give it some thought, tapping Kevin briefly for advice.

His response was: "Hmmm. I'll think about it after I'm done watching ESPN Sports Center."

Needless to say, that was a dead-end conversation.

So here's some totally unscientific dead-baby-daddy advice I thought I'd put out there, dredged from the depths of my brain, without any help whatsoever from Kevin himself (which says something about how men deal with shit like this), based purely on observation and instinct:

First, congratulations, Dead Baby Daddy! You failed to produce a living baby, which makes you automatically less manly than...say...John McCain, who effortlessly spread his strong and viable seed with a quick flick of the dick (or several flicks, as the case may be). John McCain, whose reproductive powers are a true sign of biological and cosmic superiority.

You, on the other hand, have testicles like little flecks of useless dust; a penis the size and strength of a small hair Scrunchy; sperm the quality and robustness of a dying slug; a testosterone level that barely registers under a microscope. You've no choice, now, but to channel your masculine, seed-spreading energies into other, hopefully more successful directions.

Here are some steps to get you started:

1) Have a home-remodeling side project on hand, not yet completed, and money in the bank to pour into that project, for when dead-baby-disaster strikes (which it will, because - as mentioned above - you ain't no John McCain). The second the news comes in, your primal urge to fix up the house will kick in, so be ready for it. Have your toolbox accessible, plans drawn up, paint colors selected, mallet ready for bashing in walls, spray washer for eliminating cobwebs from the basement.

Don't think about whether this home project actually NEEDS to be done right now, if it's an efficient use of your time and money. None of that matters. What's important is that you are actually doing something constructive, building something, smashing something, bashing something, sanding something, painting something, scrubbing something, hammering something. It is, in fact, the only route back to real manhood.

As you do this, your Dead-Baby-Momma wife/girlfriend/partner will look at you with undying love in her eyes, your inadequacy as a sperm-shooting offspring-producer erased from her mind as she marvels adoringly at your newly acquired handyman skills. You'll enjoy it when she looks at you this way, when she tells her friends and family, "YES! He did that all by himself!"

And you'll feel like a man again. A useful, productive, actively contributing member of the household and of society at large.

2) Plan a romantic getaway with your Dead Baby Mommma (that is: your wife/girlfriend/partner/friend-with-benefits), about four or five months after the Shitty Event. That's long enough for her to not accuse you of trying to make light of the situation, but short enough to where she still really needs you to pay attention to her. She also needs some reassurance that life without this baby is a life worth living. So make that happen.

Go someplace warm and tropical, even foreign - Central/South American are both good bets, as is the Caribbean, and splurge on the room with the ocean view. Tell her often that you love her, even when her face looks like that of a puffed-up sea monster from bawling all night. Buy her some g-string undies for the trip, and assure her that she looks hot in them, even if she doesn't. She feels totally unsexy right now, depressed and disappointed and hateful of how her body looks. Your extra kind words will get extra mileage during this trying time in your lives.

And who knows; you might even get laid (no guarantees, though).

Although this piece of advice seems more about her, it's really about you, because you'll be happier if she's happier.

Trust me on that.


3) Get used to giving and listening a lot, and not getting much in return. Sorry dude, but that's just the way it's going to be for a while. Dead Baby Momma is going to blather and sob and express strings of profanity, even at times when you aren't feeling the punch. Your job will be to listen and take the brunt of all that, even when you're not in the mood for it, so develop some good listening strategies. Even fake-listening strategies are okay; try thinking about basketball tournaments coming up, or aforementioned home remodel projects, if you aren't "feeling it" when your wife/girlfriend/partner/friend-with-benefits is.

Also, get used to fielding phone calls, running errands, pouring through medical bills, making dinner, etc. Many of those things will become your job.

You'll handle them fine, because you're a man, and because you'll appreciate those abundant opportunities to be busy, to make valuable contributions where other chances to contribute seem few and far between.

4) If you manage to go to a support group, be prepared to come away wondering why you just wasted a perfectly good evening sitting around with a bunch of weepy women and less-manly men than yourself, everyone talking and sharing and caring like some sort of elementary school story time. Ask your Dead-Baby-Momma partner, gently but with conviction, if she wouldn't mind instead going out for steaks and beers next time, promising that the two of you can talk about stillbirth to her heart's content. She might even say yes, and feel flattered that you're taking her on a meat-and-booze date.

5) At times, your nose might feel prickly, and hot water might gather behind your eyeballs. This is called "crying," and you should be ready for it. It will probably happen to you at least once (indeed, perhaps ONLY once) during this ordeal. When it does, it will shock you to all hell, because it might not be something you've ever done in your adult life.

You'll see yourself doing it in the mirror, hear your own voice trembling, feel your lower lip quivering, and you reach frantically for a wad of Kleenex. Embrace this sensation, and just go with it. It won't come as naturally or as often as for your Dead Baby Momma counterpart, but when it happens, she will love you more than she ever has before, hurt by the sight of your tears (she'll get over it, though). She'll tell her friends and family members proudly about how you cried, and they will all secretly commend you for your ability to emote in the face of tragedy. You will have proven yourself to be a real, feeling, quality man - the kind of man that Salt-n-Peppa discuss in that song, "What a Man, What a Man, What a Mighty Good Man."


There's more, but those are a few strategies to get you started. You'll just have to wait until my next book comes out, "Knocked Down, but Not Out: The KuKd Man's Man's Guide to Getting Through Stillbirth."

Randomness

Greetings, KuKd Mommas and Inquisitive Guests!

Two nights ago, I awoke at 2am after initially closing my eyes at 11:30, and never went back to sleep. The rest of the night was spent frittering away the hours, dipping into my book project, Googling useless things like "dude ranches" and "Ryan Gosling," rearranging house plants, and poking in and out of Facebook while Kevin slept with obnoxious ease. Which resulted in one of those completely surreal, achingly tired and spacey, sleep-deprivation-hangovers that you get after pulling an all-nighter in college.

Remember those days? Back when pull an all-nighter to plow through ten zoology chapters, perhaps punctuated by a midnight run to Denny's for pancakes, was considered a novel and cool idea? Well, screw that. I need my sleep. It was only through infusing my body with a series of stimulants yesterday that I was able to prop up my brain and function with relative normalcy: plenty of Dark Elixir, of course, including a large mug in the morning and a triple-shot latte before our staff meeting, followed by a fair amount of beer and wine later that evening. Tonight I slept fine, and am feeling caught up, praise sweet jesus.

This prompted me to write a Dark Elixir-related post that I've been meaning to for a while.

Every once in a while, somebody posts a comment to this blog that seems to come out of left field. Nothing hateful or overtly disturbing (yet...knock on wood); just something that make me scratch my head and wonder if the commenter actually bothered to READ any part of this blog before speaking up.

The best example is one that was posted in response to There's a Brick On My Brain, in which I was lamenting my own self-imposed ban on coffee consumption, for the sake of making a baby (for the record, I'm currently going through an "I don't want a god-damned baby" stage, so just try to follow along without getting as confused as I perpetually feel). My rationalization in giving up something I loved being addicted to was my sense that:

Caffeine coats a woman's ovaries in some kind of anti-pregnancy, pro-miscarriage film of slime and makes us forever infertile.

Admittedly, it was a short lived experiment in torturous self-deprivation for the sake of contributing to the world's overpopulation problem, and I was back on coffee the next day, which I probably bragged about in a twisted "addicted-n-proud" kind of way, as depicted in my very next post, "Devastating News:"

It saddens and embarasses me to report: I caved. It happened fifteen minutes ago. I needed inspiration to write the next chapter of my book, and some energy to get ready for tonight's cocktail party. But that brick on my brain was blocking any sort of motivation to do anything other than sit and stare at the wall. And then, the espresso machine ten steps away started calling my name.

"Monnnnnnnicaaaaaaaaaaa," it said in a deep and womanly voice. Hypnotizing, with undertones of evil, like the witch in Snow White. I ignored it at first. "A double latte...just two little shots...won't hurt you or your uterus. Come here, my pretty!"

Here is what some random dude posted in response:

Caffeine addiction shows up when a person cannot stop consuming caffeine in high amounts, causing his/her body to demand the substance and react negatively if that no caffeine is intake. Some people find it very hard to function well without at least one cup of strong coffee or tea in the morning. The stimulating effects of caffeine are caused by a central nervous reaction, the heart rate increases, blood vessels expand and the brain receives more oxygen. These caffeine effects can last for up to 8 hours, and once they go off then the body feels extremely lazy and slow as a side effect.

Caffeine addiction can cause death, mainly because the abuse of any stimulant can cause high blood pressure or and heart problems, so if you abuse of it chances are you put yourself at the highest risk of a heart attack.

You need to be careful with caffeine withdrawal because it affects your overall health and therefore, you need to control your consumption of caffeinated products to prevent your body reactions to caffeine withdrawals. If you need more information about caffeine effects and caffeine addiction symptoms or prevention, please investigate a little further on this topics. You can find more info at: http://yourcaffeineaddiction.com/

Now, I realize that new people come over to this blog from time to time, and read a post without having any context other than that one isolated post, and then get the wrong impression from reading that post alone. Understandable. But this particular response made me laugh, because it showed such a huge ignorance of not just my attitude toward caffeine, but of the ENTIRE TONE AND STYLE OF THIS BLOG!

Dude, I would have told him if I knew who he was, this is really not that serious of a blog, or some kind of medical forum. I mean it is, but it isn't. Honest to god, do I really sound THAT torn up about going back on coffee, or THAT serious about stopping drinking it in the first place? Going back and re-reading those posts, I was like, is that truly the impression I give - that I'm waiting for somebody to leap in with some scientific information to save me from my self-destructive habit?

Furthermore, do you really think it's a good idea to tell a dead-baby-momma who is already tremendously, irrationally fearful of death and cancer and car accidents, and who is now finally getting away from that mode of thinking, to tell me that coffee causes death?

All I could really think was that this guy is some kind of anti-caffeine-website marketer who Googles things like "weak-ass people who are addicted to coffee" as solid sales targets. What a strange job, to try to get people to stop doing something as silly and benign as drinking coffee. I could see doing this with people who are...I don't know...killing kittens. But drinking coffee?

For the record, according to this very legit website:

Death from a caffeine overdose has usually involved accidental administration by hospital personnel of caffeine by injection or by tablet, or suicide using caffeine-containing tablets. The acute fatal dose of caffeine taken by mouth is at least 5,000 mg-the equivalent of about 40 strong cups of coffee consumed in a very short period of time. Thus, death from a coffee "binge" is unlikely.

Hellooooooo!!! I'm not at 40 cups a day yet. I'll let you know when I get close. And one more zinger for ya:

Caffeine has also been used as an aid to fertility. A major cause of human infertility is sperm that are not mobile enough to reach and fertilize the egg. Studies of nonhuman mammals have shown that when caffeine is added to semen it can increase the mobility of their sperm and enhance fertilization. At least one recent study suggests that, in fact, fertility too is enhanced by caffeine. According to the findings, women are twice as likely to become pregnant if prior to artificial insemination caffeine is added to the semen of their infertile mates.

Take that, random anti-coffee dude who copies and pastes irrelevant, not to mention scientifically inaccurate, information onto other people's blogs! I hope there's more where that came from, something to give me great fodder for amused delight.

:-)

Where It Lives: Part 2

So, Guests and Regulars!

Last time, you were left with the question of where loss lives. At risk of sounding like a) a bad folk singer; or b) one of the dread-locked, pot-smoking, wannabe-poet English majors I used to date in college, let me carve out this question more deeply:

Where does loss live, when time moves forward, and the events of the past move further behind (into aforementioned time-tunnel), losing their acute shape and color? Where does it live, if not just beneath your skin where it used to be, palpably in the pit of your stomach like a festering wound, or just on the surface of your frontal lobe, consuming your thoughts? What happens to loss, when you aren't so intertwined with it anymore that it permeates everything you say and do and think?

What happens to your story when you can no longer remember the precise feeling of holding your child, limp and baby-shaped and wrapped in flannel? And when the memory of the events surrounding his death get hazy, the brightness leading up to it, the angst-fill time following it, when it begins to feel like a story being told about somebody else entirely, where does the story go?

Add to that the fact that our culture fails to give us the proper tools for co-existing pleasantly with our losses. What sanctioned spaces are there, really, for acknowledging our losses in a society where dramatic public meltdowns are frowned upon (I can say that was one of said frowners. Public meltdowns: reserved for the loonies at the downtown bus stops at night, and/or Italian descendants from Long Island), and where most people just aren't comfortable approaching such unsavory topics as human death and dying and deadness?

At the supermarket? No. At the dentist's office? No. At a faculty meeting at work? Hell fucking no. At a happy hour with friends? Possibly, within limits, and sufficient booze to lubricate the conversation. But watch out; your friends - even your good ones - don't want to hear you snivel and wallow about the crap that's gone on in your life, and nor would I expect them to (okay, I'm not saying I'm Mother Theresa here. I USED to expect them to, and then realized how unrealistic that expectation was, and have since lowered my expectations. Got it?) Why should they, after all? They've got their own crap to deal with.

Oh, there were times when I was given an official chance to pause and feel. Just, you know, feel miserable on cue, like a trick pony. It happened whenever a fifty-something social worker or a grief counselor sat beside my hospital bed, clipboard in arm, to tell me what I was supposed to feel, when and where and why. Warning me that if I didn't hold the baby, breath in the baby's aura and wallow in his deadness, I would regret it later. Assuring me that I could cry - really, I could - right here and now, and shoving a box of Kleenex toward me. I felt pressured around these people to act in a certain way, as though if I didn't appear sufficiently depressed, one of them might write something incriminating on my permanent record, like "HIGH-RISK FOR MELTING DOWN LATER INTO INCREDIBLE HULK-LIKE SUICIDAL MONSTER."

I have never quite figured out how to live with my losses, side by side, allowing them to take up their rightful space inside my heart, while hanging onto the attitudes and behaviors that I had before they occurred. Usually, these days, I feel pretty much normal. I do my job, which I love. I hang out. I drink. I write. As time goes by, I've felt increasingly disconnected from that day on the calendar, August 19th, 2007, and days before and after that. It becomes dreamlike. I often realize that so much time has passed since I shut myself in the bedroom to bawl, or slipped into a melancholy mood, that I worry I've forgotten about my lost babies, or that I'm inhuman, or that I'm imagining these events.

Which brings me to...duh duh duh duuuuhhhhhh... Rachel Getting Married. Yes, the movie that Kevin and I saw on our recent date, the very film which fueled this blog post.

I won't say I have the golden be-all-and-end-all answer to the question of where loss lives. I'm still looking for it. But there was a point in the middle of this ho-hum movie where it came to the surface, revealing itself in full force, quite unexpectedly.

This might be a bit of a plot spoiler, but oh well: there is a point in the movie where Rachel announces she's pregnant, right in the midst of a huge family argument. It wasn't the pregnancy itself that struck me. It the way this news calmed the entire family instantaneously, stopping their shouting match in its tracks. It was the way her father's face lit up, her sister calmed down, everyone just came together and forgot their troubles, reaching out to rest their hands on Rachel's still-flat belly, attached to it already. In love with it, this baby. The certainty with which everyone talked about "THE BABY" from that point on, brimming with hope and love and excitement. Not hope, but certainty. "Because when the baby comes..."...you know.

It was this random moment, not at all even the point of the movie, that stirred something deep inside me, and - before I could control it - I lost it, silent sobs erupting. Oh, I could go on describing what it was exactly that was upsetting, but there's never a quick and easy explanation. The sudden sense of what I lost, and will never have again: an innocent and exciting pregnancy where everyone is earnestly hopeful and thrilled. The recollection of my parents losing something too when the babies were lost. It wasn't about just me. The memories of certainty and love, all of the feelings leading up to that due date - pouring back into the front of my brain.

The people sitting nearby likely thought I was laughing, but I wasn't. I contained myself, keeping it on the hush hush, sucking back my snot. But my torso was a tightly wound-up ball of horrible, gut wrenching sadness, dry heaving. And I thought to myself:

There it is.

The loss, I mean. It was in there somewhere, I was relieved to discover - it just needed the right trigger to surface. And that's what happened.

Now Kevin is like a sturdy, strong oak tree in our relationship, and I'm like vine of ivy, taking on a whimsical and passionate, sometimes heady view of reality. He was there instantly, as he always is - not just just physically there, but emotionally, too. Right away he understood, and put his arm around my shoulder, pulling me inward toward him, not ushering me out of the theater or making a huge fuss, just waiting for it to pass, this moment. He knew this is now a rarity, moments like this. They come few and far between.

And it did pass, within a few minutes, and I wiped my snot and tears on my sleeve, and we didn't discuss it later. We would have if I'd brought it up, but I felt no need to. What's there left to discuss?

That's the thing with the loss, though, after enough time has passed for it to get boiled down to simplest terms, and folded back into the core of your being. For me, it's gotten to where it doesn't need discussion - it transcends words and explanations and other earthly things. Just a deep, dark, blob of something in the recesses of my mind, coming up for air at the oddest times.

I should name it. Maybe call him Herman or Fred or something.

Where It Lives: Part 1

Greetings, Guests and Regulars!

PREFACE: In the course of writing this post, which was supposed to be about my dog but ended up going in a different direction entirely, I had to type the words "diarrhea," "scenario," and "mozzarella" about five times apiece before correctly guessing how to spell them. I'm a writing teacher, for fuck's sake! I should know how to spell those words! Alas, I feel like a fraud.

Moving on to the post itself (from which ended up omitting the reference to "diarrhea" - sorry to disappoint you).

* * *

Clouds settling in over Seattle, a warm mug of caffeinated Dark Elixir balanced precariously on my lap, wedged between my belly and the edge of my laptop. If anything out of the ordinary happened - sudden movements, forceful sneezes, earthquakes, hiccups, jolt-worthy telephone rings - this coffee would spill onto the keyboard, with milky-brown rivulets seeping into the crevices between each letter and symbol, which I can't imagine wouldn't cause irreparable damage.

Still, I keep it there, because I enjoy the sick thrill of living on the edge in this way.

Last night, Kevin and I went on a date, as part of our explicit effort to carve out more one-on-one time together. He points out, as he always had, that I tend to get overtaken by my own extrovertedness, planning more gatherings with friends and family than our lives can really hold, cramming our calendar with far too many parties and dinners and happy hours. Part of this stems from my deep-rooted fantasy that life can and should be like an ongoing episode of Cheers or Friends - where everyone is surrounded by a close-knit group of people at all times, woven into your daily life, bringing out each others' best and most friend-worthy sides, co-venting and gossiping about big and small things alike, from current events to bowel movements to what you had for lunch.

The point being: that sort of living-in-a-tornado-of-friends lifestyle isn't exactly conducive to quiet romantic evenings. Hence: last night's date. Our date consisted of driving halfway to Seattle's Lower Queen Anne neighborhood, which is urban and gritty and makes our own street feel like rural Illinois by comparison, and walking the remaining 20 minutes to our destination, the Uptown Cinema.

First, though, we ate at a Greek cafe called something totally Greek-sounding like "Athena" or "Acropolis" or "Baklava." I wore mascara in honor of the occasion, something I don't often do, and made sure I pointed it out to Kevin, who otherwise wouldn't have noticed it (why is it that guys NEVER EVER NOTICE IT WHEN WOMEN WEAR MASCARA, even though mascara is about the coolest and most beauty-enhancing make up product on the face of this earth, requiring great finesse to apply???!?).

Anyway.

It was one of those depressing eating-out scenarios where your eating companion chooses the "right" thing to order, and you, unfortunately, choose the "wrong thing." You are left to begrudgingly force your own flavorless or tough or overly fatty or just plain disgusting meal down your throat, cursing the menu for tricking you into thinking this would be a good selection, and casting jealous sidelong glances over to your dining partner's correspondingly flavorful, tender, perfectly-but-not-overly fatty, superbly delicious plate of food.

You are mildly happy for your lucky and happy dining companion, you guess, yet you bitterly wonder why YOU got the short end of the culinary stick. Down in the darkest place in your heart, where your most evil and unspoken thoughts click around like cockroaches, you wish for a brief and sadistic instant that THEIR food was as bad as YOURS, just so you wouldn't feel alone (not to mention hungry).

Then you realize that you're thinking like an infertile or dead baby momma whose friends keep having babies, and you shove those bad thoughts out of your mind and eat your sub-par food quietly like a good and unselfish person supposedly would, soaking in your own self-pity as the scent of your partner's obnoxiously wonderful food wafts into your nostrils. You do it because you know there are children starving and genocides happening all over the world, so you really should clean your plate without sulking about your bad luck, and because you did pay $8.99 for this flavorless mound of mushy, salt-and-oil-coated peas from a can, which is precisely what I did.

Back in our courtship days, Kevin would have felt sorry for me, or pretended to anyway, letting me graze off his plate and eat half of his smoked-mozzarella-and-eggplant sandwich (which tasted like hot dogs - that's how damn fucking good it was). He would have said, "here, Monica. Have some of mine," knowing that this simple act would fill me with gratitude and leave me feeling full and content, exponentially increasing Kevin's odds of getting laid that night.

Nowadays, though, as we approach our seven-year wedding anniversary, we're more like two siblings or best friends that fight over food, watching each others hands and plates like protective vultures, policing one another for food-stealing. Okay, it's not totally like that, but somewhat. Dude, we're old.

But none of the above, actually, is the point of this post - which, as I said, was supposed to be about my dog, and ended up being about something else entirely. And even that "something else" isn't what I really wanted to talk about here.

What I REALLY wanted to talk about was where loss lives inside of a woman who has lost, particularly a woman like me, who avoids sappy sentiment like the plague. Where does loss go if you aren't the type to brood and wallow and think too hard? And how does it manifest itself, or does it?

And this has to do the movie that Kevin and saw after I had forced down my canned, oil-coated peas while smelling his mysteriously and torturously delicious hot-dog-scented "vegetarian" sandwich: Rachel Getting Married.

But I didn't get to the point this time, as often happens, so stay tuned for "Where It Lives, Part 2" coming soon to a blog near you. This blog, in fact. Just don't eat at Athina Grill (that's what it was really called) beforehand, and if you do, avoid the vegetarian shit platter.

Something Ridiculous

I did something kind of ridiculous several months ago, and have been meaning to share. It's really not a big deal - rather trivial, actually - just kinda funny. The challenge is going to be explaining clearly. In fact, the mere thought of attempting to explain it was giving me so much anxiety that I kept putting it off, but I think I'm ready now. I've sufficiently done breathing exercises and prepared my brain. Are you paying attention? Here we go:

To start, look over to the right-hand side of this blog. You may have to scroll down a wee bit. See that square-shaped smattering of small thumbnail pictures labeled "Followers?" Well, supposedly those thumbnail pictures represent people who come in to read this blog from time to time (not cult worshipers, which is sort of what the word "Followers" might lead one to believe).

Not knowing anything about the term "follower" (other than it sounds like a scary term, worth actively avoiding), I never paid attention to the "follower" feature on my own blog. Hell, I was happy if even ONE person took a look at my blog. I still am that way. Just ONE! And those of you who are bloggers yourselves know, you have a choice of displaying those little thumbnail pictures of your purported "followers," or not.

Are you still with me? Good. Keep reading:

So one day, while I was tinkering with the format of my blog design behind the scenes (I'm talking about going behind the curtain, so to speak, into the deep dark bowels of the blog-o-sphere where only the bloggers themselves lurk, manipulating colors and fonts and props and gadgets so as to enhance the experiences of readers like you), I came across a square-shaped smattering of thumbnail pictures JUST LIKE THE ONE YOU SEE ON THE RIGHT-HAND SIDE OF THIS BLOG. Above it was a label that said something like: "Click here to show your followers on your blog."

I stared in pride and amazement at these pictures of these supposed followers of my blog, which I had never bothered to look at before: mostly fresh-skinned fraternity-looking boys with white teeth and tousled hair, with a few generically ethnic and African-American guys mixed in. Hardly any women - just one or two.

WOW! I thought to myself. Look at ALL THOSE MALE FOLLOWERS I HAVE! Not just male followers, but reasonably good-looking ones at that! Who knew! Here I was thinking all of my readers must be boring ol' white girls like me, but lo' and behold, I'm actually attracting lots and lots of GUYS! And look at the racial diversity of my readers - black to white to everything in between - all reading about dead babies with more than a passing interest. I'm famous!

So I clicked whatever button meant: "Heck yeah, I want to add this! Are you kidding? I want all of my viewers to know just how many cute guys are sitting around reading about stillbirth and miscarriage. Not just reading it, but FOLLOWING it."

And low and behold, BOOM - my list of followers and accompanying representative pictures DID appear on my blog.

Except, the ones that appeared weren't the same faces that I had just seen a few seconds ago. No, no. These faces were more like the people I expect to be reading my blog: women, mostly. A bit of ethnic and racial diversity here and there, but not enough to feel proud about.

Confused, I thought wait, these aren't my followers! What happened to all those cute boys! I went back "behind the scenes" into the blog editing mode, and realized what had happened: those pictures of all the cute boys weren't my REAL followers. They were just fake SAMPLE followers.

I kind of felt like a retard for thinking they were my REAL followers.

Now, this isn't to say that I'm not happy with my real followers. I love my real followers. Anyone who reads this blog is automatically a nice person, in my book. It's just that...well...my audience isn't the total young frat-boy sausage fest that I thought, for a brief instant, that it was.

Did you get the story? Dang, that was hard to explain. Glad I got it off my chest.

Rainy Thoughts

Greetings, KuKd Strong Mommas and Inquisitive Guests!

Rain is coming down in big, gray droplets, and my throat is a tiny bit sore. I'm still in my fluorescent-lit office at 5:10pm, which, as those of you in academia know, is WAY too late to be at work. I ought to be home now, lounging around in K's prison-issued* sweats, which are big and baggy and comfy. And something about the fact that they're prison-issued makes them feel especially interesting.

* For of you who don't know, K teaches adult basic skills at a prison. A real prison, where prisoners live. Real prisoners, the kind who do bad things and therefore end up in prison. They also do crazy things, those prisoners. One of those very prisoners cut his penis off with a razor blade last week; it even made the local news. I tell K he should be thankful to work in a place where such riveting thing happen.

Anyway, I'm thinking of blighted ovums, Krispy Kreme donuts, tall lattes, and Kate Winslet in no particular order. I really should be grading papers or running out to catch my bus home. But the thought of going out into that cold, rain-droppy darkness is sooooo not appealing...

Does anyone else think about time in the shape of a tunnel? When you think about the past and the future, what do you see? I remember my linguistics professor explaining that there are people who think about time - whole years or days or stretches of time - in a pictoral sense, and people who don't. I'm one of the ones that do. There is a word for people like us; I forget what it is. It has to do with being this-brained or that-brained.

What I see when I think about time is a tunnel going in either direction before me and behind me, super-wide right in front of me, and getting narrow in the distance, divided into colored sections that mark either seasons or certain time periods in my life. The colors don't really match typical season-like colors, like gray-ish silver for winter or orange-red for fall. They're more like the colors I associate with what I was feeling during that particular time period.

The past two years of my past-time tunnel are filled with flecks of blue-gray and black. Those colors mark the first time in my life of loving, losing, learning. I know; doesn't that sound so Hallmark greeting card Midwestern? Loving, losing, learning. But that's really what it was. When you get pregnant, you love. When you lose it, you lose. And then you learn: holy shit, this is what real love feels like, and what it feels to lose something or someone. I had never lost anyone or anything before that time, not really.

But it's not all blue and black flecks. There are some warm reds and oranges swirled in, happy and satisfying times, changes in my work and personal life that took place and have been ultimately positive forces in my life. It's just that the colors in this section of tunnel seem more...grown up some how. Aged a little, swirled with wrinkles. Kind of Ralph Lauren's line of autumn paints.

The 4-5 year stretch before THAT - if I look waaaayyyy back down that tunnel into the past - is lit up in rainbow colored sections, like some kind of candy land. Just lights and carefree joys all around - lots of happy trips and sex and parties and booze. Invincibility.

The thing is, I can never tell what the color of my tunnel of time is in the place where I'm actually standing. I mean, I can look ahead and look back, but I just can't seem to ever place where I am. What I can say now, though, is that I'm in a light place - comfortable and happy colors - feeling strong and good and generally okay with my life. I feel as though I've emerged from the blue-gray flecked section of tunnel and landed somewhere else - I'm just not sure where that "else" is exactly.

By the way, I've asked K about how he thinks of time, and he basically pictures words on flat, white planes. Logical: like "this is summer. That was 1995. Those were the Peace Corps days." Isn't that weird? Totally different views of time. His is probably more logical than mine.

Not surprising, for lately it's become apparent that my favorite males on earth are the logical kind who only say what needs to be said.

Okay, out into the rain...

Honest Scraps

Greetings, KuKd Strong Mommas and Inquisitive Guests, from your Now Empty-Wombed, Fully Caffeinated, Slightly Hungover Blog-o-Bee-Yatch!

A bit of background, for those of you who aren't blog-o-sphere regulars (GAWD, I can't believe that word has become a part of my everyday vocabulary): every once in a while, bloggers get these things called "awards" from other bloggers. Flattering and exciting, yes, but it's kind of like someone giving you a surprise puppy for Christmas: it requires, ahem - work - to accept and maintain. When you receive an "award," you can't just kick back and go "yay me." Nuh-nuh-no. Usually you're supposed to do something more with it, like write about a certain something, link back to a certain somewhere, and nominate a a handful of other bloggers for said award.

As for me, I have established myself as one of those bad blog-award receivers who never, ever, ever does what I'm supposed to do with these blog-o-wards. I get them from time to time, and I like it when I get them, because it makes me feel like a worthy human being. Yet, knowing that I will never conjure up the energy to actually do what I'm supposed to do with it, I never bother to even announce that I received it. That would be akin to merely kicking back and going "yay me," which I've already said you're NOT supposed to do.

(Similarly, I've built my own reputation as someone who NEVER remembers friends' birthdays - maybe the general month or season at best - which has let me off the hook, I think, for sending birthday cards at all, even to the friends who always remember mine. Not that I don't feel kinda bad about that, but I do find some self-comfort in knowing that it's "just the way I am," and I hope my friends view it as such, too.)

ANYWAY...

I just got another one from an unsuspecting blogger who obviously is unaware of my bad-blog-award receiver-ness: the Honest Scraps Award. This one involves posting seven honest things, hereby referred to as "scraps," about yourself.

Initially, I ran from this award like a bat out of hell, I think because I've been emotionally scarred by that 25-interesting-things-about-yourself thing infiltrating Facebook for the past month or so. What in fuck's name would make anyone want to read seven - let alone twenty-freakin'-five "interesting things" about me, or anyone else for that matter? Twenty-five things, times the 20-or-so friends that I have on Facebook, equals - well - you do the math: a LOT of "interesting things" to read about a lot of people. Plus a lot of time writing those things, time that could be spent clipping my toenails and making/drinking lattes.

On the other hand, the Honest Scraps Award, the more I think about it, is something I can do. It's a nice baby step; seven is not the same as twenty-five. And I like that "scraps" is such a generic term, meaning they can be honest anythings - not necessarily deep or serious or emotional, or even interesting for that matter.

So here I go.

1) Not an honest thing about myself, but an honest question, one that's been weighing heavily on my heart and mind: is it a common thing to have a FAX MACHINE at home? Seriously, is it? Because in the past few months, I can't tell you how many times I've had someone want to fax me something, asking for my fax number as though it's a given that I have one. The plumbers, faxing an estimate. The remodeling guy (that's REmodeling, ladies, not MODeling) wanting to fax me a drawing. The dentist, wanting to fax me a bill. The editor, wanting to fax me a contract. Um...excuse me, but what gives them the idea that I have a fax machine? Is this something that most people have, and I don't? Should I have one?

What's more, when I tell them I don't have a fax machine, they often wait in silence for me to come up with an alternative fax number to which I have access, as if I have one on the top of my head, which I don't. I suppose there's Kinkos, if I feel like battling Seattle traffic to drive to the nearest one, which isn't very close, and pay a few dollars. I suppose there's my work fax machine, but I hardly think that receiving a plumbing estimate is appropriate use of an office fax machine (is it?) Anyway, this seemingly prevailing assumption that I own a fax machine baffles me to no end.

2) When I was in college, I traveled around France and Switzerland for a month by myself, stumbled across a remote Swiss sheep farm in the Jura Mountains, and demanded in broken French that they let me stay there and herd sheep for the summer. I don't know why; I just really wanted to do this. Remarkably, they told me yes, and I slept in the top of a barn on a dusty mattress on a bed of hay, sneezing and wheezing through the night because of my dust-and-fur allergies, and traipsing through the fields with sheep during the day. I ate breakfasts alone at a wooden table; the farm owner would bring me bread and butter and coffee from the main house. At night, we would all go drink some kind of potent, nasty-tasting fermented liquor with the bearded farmer a few fields away. After a few weeks, I was so tired of being allergic that I left, hitch-hiking back to Geneva with a strange man in a clunky old station wagon, his severely retarded and drooling son in the back seat beside me, staring at me and picking his nose.

It was a surreal experience, and I still found hay and dust and clumps of sheep wool in my luggage and underwear for months to come, the image of that man's drooly, mumbling, nose-picking son forever etched in my mind. It was an image that made me feel deeply afraid and sad about something I could never quite define (but I loved the sheep herding experience).

Okay, I'd better start making these shorter, or it's going to be a long morning.

3) I have a tendency to hugely, passionately love everyone when I first meet them (unless they ignore me, or are so quiet that I have to work too hard to fill the space with conversation), even if we have political differences or whatever. I believe there is always common ground to be found. Usually this is fine. The only time it's not fine is when I realize two or three months later that there is something about them that rubs me the wrong way, like a particular habit, mannerism, or attitude that I find to be bothersome. By that point, if I've already let them into my life and heart, I must then figure out a way to discreetly push away from them, which I'm horrible at doing. Luckily, this doesn't happen very often.

4) I've always wanted to find ways to be more tangibly spiritual, and have been consistently disappointed in organized religion as a way to achieve that, in part because preach-i-ness in any form gets on my nerves (and what is church, other than a place to be preached at?). Even Unitarian Church, which I try once a year or so, leaves me wondering why I wasted a perfectly good morning listening to someone tell me supposedly meaningful things that don't really carry much meaning (to me), instead of sitting at home on my ass eating fried eggs and sausage links and reading the Sunday paper. Maybe some day.


5) For some reason, this one is hard to say out loud. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's hard to frame it without sounding like I'm putting down the lives of my wonderful real-life-friends and blog-o-friends with children. Let me preface this by saying that this is just my own personal, tortured view of myself and my life, my twisted priorities, shaped by my past and my family and the environment I grew up in. It is this: that notion of having a child, although it inspires in me a sense of wonderment and longing, also terrifies me to no end - and always has.

My initial decision to go off the pill, years ago, was itself fraught with reluctance and anxiety on the part of both me and Kevin. We simply didn't know if the obvious compromises involved with raising a child would be compromises either of us could make without becoming depressed. To this day, I am terrified of Motherhood becoming my life and sole identity, of myself becoming a Mother and nothing more. Again, not that being a Mother is nothing. It is something, and something wonderful and important, requiring utmost passion and talent and skill, perhaps more than I myself have. I admire my SAHM friends who pour their all into their children. Even so, I am fearful of my other ambitions and passions (of which I have many) being eclipsed by the responsibilities of parenthood.

Here's what I was fortunate to have grown up hearing from my family:

"Find your passions, Monica, and do something with them."

That is: I was pushed to do more than graduate, find a job, get married, have babies. From an early age, my parents pushed me to study abroad, join sports, do art, spend my high school summers doing volunteer work in the mountains of Idaho and Colorado, submit essays to contests, audition for plays, join the Peace Corps, find and develop my so-called talents, or at least my passions, go after the job I wanted, get published, whatever. It didn't matter what my passions were or how "good at them" I became; it only meant that I had some thing I loved, something I developed a talent in, and that I pursued it with gusto.

So I did, and here I am, passionate about things in my life that have nothing to do with producing babies. I'm an artist, and in fact, once had an art business, and might have one again someday. I'm a writer, and in fact, am striving to finish a book. I love traveling, and in fact, have made it a point to leave the country at least once a year. I'm a college faculty member, and in fact, I'm proud of myself for becoming one. I'm not rich by any means, but I make decent money, and I like bringing money into the household. I am proud of earning half our income, and enabling us to purchase a home. I like having parties, and in fact, I have lots of parties. These things ARE my life, and I can't bear the thought of losing them. And I have even more goals for myself in the future - creative goals, professional goals, life goals, traveling goals. And the thing is: none of them requires or involves a child.

Again, and I have to continue to emphasize this again and again, "being a mom" IS - I believe - an important or tremendously difficult task, one that does require inspiration and passion and skill. What's true is that when I eavesdrop on mommy-conversations at Starbucks at 3pm on a weekday, or conversations of baby-lifting exercise classes at Green Lake in the mornings, their conversations rarely inspire me, or make me wish I could partake. I think I'd be the mom half-listening, staring out the window, getting spring fever, wondering when I would get my break from Motherhood, from these Mothers, from these Motherly conversations. Wondering where on earth I had gone, and if and when I'd ever return.

Maybe these conversations would be interesting if I had a baby. Maybe my entire set of life priorities would happily and naturally shift, guided by the pure and undying love for my child, the pleasure of spending my days home alone with that child. As someone who carried a baby to term, I can say that I DID feel a seismic shift of some sort deep within my soul, a love I had never felt before. But what if I had a baby, and those conversations - that lifestyle - STILL wasn't interesting to me? Then what? Would I feel as alienated from my friends as I sometimes do now?

I realize I could totally be setting myself up for people to say hurtful things like: so, why do you even keep trying to get pregnant at all, you selfishly passionate and un-parentlike person? Or: You brought your losses upon yourself (god, please don't ever say or think that, or my heart will fracture). Or: Why are you putting down the thing that I'm trying so hard to get? I'm not putting it down. I'm just saying, it's complicated. Or: You must not really be sad about your losses, then. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I miss Zachary, especially him, and I deep down I know I would have figured out how to weave Motherhood into my life without losing my sense of self. For him.

(I have to add one more redundant footnote because I'm horribly insecure and sensitive. To avoid Jesus or anyone else coming down on me, I should add, again, that I love and respect all of my friends who chose to have a child and stay at home to raise that child. And to repeat: none of this makes losing a child any less sad or horrible for me, nor does it lessen the love that I felt and feel for my first and second lost ones, nor does it make me less achingly hopeful that my future pregnancies will work out. It only colors the way that I deal with my losses, and compounds the issue of whether to try again, whether to keep pursuing parenthood. And it is a scrap, a very honest scrap, which is the point of this award.)


6) I love meat, speaking of bacon scraps, but I also love animals, and get disgusted by the thought of eating their flesh. Pigs are especially hard for me. I love pigs, but I love bacon. To make myself feel better, whenever I eat meat, I push the fact that it came off an animal's bones out of my mind.

There are only six honest scraps. Since the fifth one was long enough to count for two, AT LEAST, I'm going to say that I wrote seven. Let me think some about who to pass this along to, and get back 'atcha with that.

Off to brunch - yes, involving bacon!

Marvelous Misoprostol!

Greetings, KuKd Strong Mommas and Inquisitive Guests!

Thank you, again, for your brilliantly kind words.

One of my least favorite things about this was having to be faced with options. That is, being forced to THINK about something. It's not that I don't like thinking; it's just that in this case, what I really wanted to do was lie on the sofa, sip wine, let Kevin pull my toes apart (one of the strange things I take pleasure in, although it makes my friend KD cringe in horror), and pretend this whole thing never happened.

If only I lived in a forest tribe or a rural developing part of the world, where I wouldn't HAVE any options to choose from! I would have plodded happily along until one day - boom! - I'd start bleeding, and I'd know right away because that something was wrong, and it would all come out of me, and it would be over. There would be lots of elderly tribal women around to slather me with ancient wisdom about this occurrence, and boil me teas made from special leaves. In the end, I wouldn't be fretting and blogging and philosophizing over it; I would just go on with my life, accepting that there are things beyond my control, lugging buckets of water up from the river and milking cows, and doing other developing-rural-parts-of-the-world types of activities. I'd be kind of sad, but ultimately accepting of Mother Nature's plan and then we'd try again. Wouldn't I?


But not here. No, no, no. Things aren't so easy in the modern Western world. Why should they be easy, when we have Google and forums and websites and -yes- blogs, and fretful (not to mention oh-so-informed) mothers and friends and colleagues and neighbors who read those forums and websites and blogs, plus doctors and nurses and specialists of various sorts, all spewing forth options upon options upon options, reasons upon reasons, questions upon questions, advice upon advice, forcing us to think, and ultimately choose? Nope, there's no just hanging out in the back yard and picking daisies when something like this happens. There's no ignoring the force of the modern advice-and-reasons-and-questions-and-options complex.

My options were,in a nutshell:

1)The Good Person, Earth Loving, Organic Free-Range Method for People of Stellar Character, Astonishing Patience, and a Strong Connection to & Appreciation For the Natural World, Unlike Those Materialistic Orange County Bank CEO Wives Living in McMansions and Driving SUVS and Spending Five Hundred Bucks for Hair Highlights While Impoverished Inner-City Children Kill Each Other Method (sometimes known as the Too Lazy to Make a Decision Method): just let myself miscarry naturally.

My thoughts on this method: well, if I knew it would take a day or two, or even a week, okay. But then you look at stories like this: what if that little innocent-seeming gestational sac grows to melon-sized proportions before your gullible old body figures out it's been had? Sorry dude, but this belly does not need and extra assistance in being...shall we say...rotund.

2) The Knife-Happy, Ultra-Invasive, Quick-n-Easy, Down-n-Dirty Method: the D&C. It's like the miscarriage version of planning a C-section "just because it feels better."

My thoughts on this method: I did think about it briefly, but when the doctor warned me that it could cause things like tearing or scarring or poking or bleeding or other undelightful things, I decided against it. So what if it's "rare" for such bad things to happen. The word "rare" doesn't mean much to me anymore. Stillbirth is "rare." KuKdX3 is "rare." So screw that word.

and finally...

3) The Middle Ground, a Little-Less-Scary-and-Invasive-Seeming-Yet-Not-Totally-
Hippy-Dippy-Natural Method: Marvelous Misoprostol!
Ahh, Misoprostol. Four happy, innocent little octagon-shaped pills with what looks like a Roman emperor's head engraved on the front of each one. All you do is take them in the prescribed method, which I won't divulge here, wait a while for it to kick in, load up on pain meds, and boom: mass exodus of that damn blighted ovum and its peripheral accessory gunk. Easy!

I chose this benign-seeming option, pleased to not be living in a forest tribe so that I actually HAD this option, and happy to have an excuse to stay home in my pajamas, watch movies all day, and be excused from doing any errands or chores. Sort of like having a wicked hangover on Saturday morning. It was even a bit of cold and drizzly day, perfect for cozying up in the TV room with some butter popcorn.

It wasn't until minutes AFTER I took the pills (of course) that I read the instructions packet, which I didn't think needed reading, since my doctor had told me (I thought) all I needed to know. It was then that I read that Misoprostol isn't so innocent after all. The warning packet said something to the effect of, and I'm paraphrasing here:

BY THE WAY, NOW THAT MISOPROSTOL IS INSIDE OF YOUR BODY AND BEING ABSORBED, YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT IT CAN CAUSE HORRIBLY NASTY INFECTIONS, EXPLOSIVE DIARRHEA, PROJECTILE VOMITING, CRAMPS THAT FEEL LIKE DEREK JETER IS WHACKING YOUR PELVIS WITH AN ALUMINUM BASEBALL BAT, AND UTERINE RUPTURE THAT WILL MAKE YOUR INSIDES TO LEAK OUT BETWEEN YOUR LEGS AND PREVENT YOU FROM EVER HAVING CHILDREN EVER IN YOUR LIFE, EVER. IN FACT, YOU'RE AN IDIOT FOR EVEN TAKING THIS STUFF, BUT NOW THAT YOU'VE DONE IT, THERE'S NO GOING BACK. DAMN, I'M SURE GLAD I'M JUST A PAID TECHNICAL WRITER IN THE MEDICAL FIELD, WORKING OUT OF SOME DREARY OFFICE BUILDING IN NEW JERSEY, AND NOT YOU. I'D HATE TO BE YOU, STUCK TAKING MISOPROSTOL LIKE SOME HAPLESS FOOL. YOUR LIFE SUCKS. CALL YOUR DOCTOR IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS.

As of today, everything has been "expelled" as planned, and none of the above has happened, that I know of. See - I told you the odds would swing back in my favor at some point. ;-)

Back and Breathing

Greetings, Guests and Mommas-of-All-Sorts!

Okay, I suppose I should be a big girl here, pull my frazzled head out from under the quilted covers, and reassure the world that I'm okay. Really, I'm okay. Disappointed and frustrated, still disbelieving, yes. But okay. Huge thanks to all of you who left strings of heartfelt, profanity-laden words of sympathy. I needed that, some affirmation that the situation sucks. It made me proud to have spurred what was perhaps the most prolific use of the word "fuck" in the history of blogging.

Several really wonderful things, aside from the aforementioned onslaught of brilliantly naughty language, happened these past few days as a direct result of my earning my KuKdX3 badge of honor. Let me pay tribute to those things first, since the fact that they stemmed from something bad makes them no less good:

First of all, Kevin, in an unprecedented move, scooped up our dog Tebow from the living room sofa, carried him into the bedroom where I was lying in bed and sullenly staring at the ceiling, and set him down on top of my chest. He then lay down next to me, and stroked Tebow's head as he licked my slightly-snotty nose (to clarify: the dog licked my nose, not the husband).

Now, it's important to note that Kevin NEVER lets Tebow into the bedroom. It would not only create the potential for muddy paw prints on the sheets, but it would mean that Tebow is potentially equal to Kevin in status, essentially doubling as another "manly master of the household," otherwise known as "He Who Gets To Sleep With the Woman." No, no. Tebow is a DOG, relegated to the living room, and Kevin is a MAN, with the manly right to the bedroom territory.

But not this time. It was a happy, perfect moment.

Second, at my urgent request, Kevin and Tebow and I walked to the tavern, OUR tavern. We hadn't been there in a while, for somehow the thought of being in a cozy bar and drinking a soda water instead of a beer makes me more than a little unmotivated to go. We tied the dog up outside, went in and each downed a chilled pint of Kiltlifter beer, which - for those you who aren't familiar with this brew - is amber in color (my favorite beer color) and contains twice the alcohol content of most beers. With that warm and buzzy feeling in our shoulders, we set down our empty glasses and continued along to sun-dappled Green Lake, walking around its 2.75-mile circumference with our fingers interlaced.

We don't usually walk with our fingers interlaced, but times like this - not to mention that Kiltlifter beer - bring our hands together, reminding us again that we have each other, and that we have a lovely lake within walking distance.

There were some other things too, but those were my favorites. Moving on to less savory subject material:

The most mind-boggling element of this whole thing (as if it isn't mind-boggling enough that a person can have such shitty godforsaken luck) is not unlike a riddle from the outside of a sugar cereal box: when is a woman pregnant and not pregnant at the same time?

The answer, OF COURSE - doesn't the whole world know this? - is an anembryonic pregnancy, otherwise known as a "blighted ovum." This is what's happened - and what is, in fact, STILL happening - to me.

Now, I'm not going to call it a "blighted ovum," because that sounds too much like either: a) something the a mean old schoolteacher would accuse you of doing or having, and rap your knuckles with a ruler as punishment; or b) some strange illness from the Middle Ages or the old colonial days, like "whooping cough" or "bubonic plague" or "crazy man's voice" (I made up that last one).

No, "anembryonic pregnancy" has a modern and benign ring to it, and what I like is that it legitimizes the experiences as an actual pregnancy, even though - by www.dictionary.com standards - it's not.

What happens is this: the egg gets fertilized and a gestational fluid-filled sac develops around it, just like what's supposed to happen. The fertilized egg, though, never turns into anything more than a little dot, and gets absorbed back into the uterus. Your body doesn't know this, however, and releases a surge of pregnancy hormones and symptoms, hence the plus sign and morning sickness (and, I hope, the cravings - for if I was really just craving cheeseburgers because I'm a glutenous cheeseburger-loving lard-ass, then I'm really going to get depressed). Even the gestational sac keeps growing as though there is a fetus inside it.

But there isn't.

In other words, an anembryonic pregnancy is like nature's greatest trick: you've got this thing growing inside you and all the signs to show it, but there isn't a baby there, or anything that will ever BE a baby. Ha ha! Joke's on you!

Of course, my immediate thought when the doctor confirmed this plight, or "ovum blight," if we're going to use that term, was: why ME of all people? Dude, I (of all people) don't need this kind of mind-screw. But then again, I learned a long time ago not to question or spew forth hatred toward the person or thing controlling the gears up there, deciding who should get screwed over and who shouldn't.

As one of my wisest friends pointed out to me: we all get good fortune coming at us in one way or another. It might not be when or how we expect it, but it comes to us. And as Kevin reminds me time and time again, we've came through life relatively unscathed until July 2006, when we both learned, for the first time, that things don't/won't always go our way. I think we've aged about ten years in the past two, and this third blip etches another crows-feet line in the corner of my eye. This is our share of bad luck, but we've had lots of good to balance it out, and - hopefully - more to come.

GOD, this sounds so irritatingly, Polyanna positive, doesn't it? I'm sorry. A bit more gore to bring this post back down to earth: the absolutely IRRITATING part of this whole dang thing is that I now must somehow expel the fluid-filled, baby-less sac inside my womb, sure to be a bloody and crampy affair like most early miscarriages. So I'm debating making that happen with meds, although I'm sure I could gnaw on some special kind of twig and grass roots to make that happen naturally. Deep down, I'm still a Western-medicine kinda gal.

In a way, it's oddly (or perhaps not-so-oddly) relieving to know that there isn't really a fetus inside that sac. That would mean losing something more than just some non-living tissue, an entity that had potential to be a person. THAT person, the brown-haired-girl who was to be our daughter.

But the biological truth is, she never was, in any form. I was pregnant with her in my mind, but not in my body. Which does make it kind of hard to process this - what I've lost, what I'm sad about, why it still feels like crap. I think for now, I can chalk it up to disillusionment, and confirmation of my now well-rooted fear of radiologists - their offices, their lab-coat-clad assistants, their machines, their darkened rooms, the wands, their switches, their goopy KY jelly, their stoic expressions.

They are like bad-news robots, and I just might have to kick the ass of the next one to serve me a bad-news sundae. I think I could do it; I can almost hold my own with Kevin at mercy and arm-wrestling.

Baboon Balls

Gotta get this off my chest before I go to bed. It looks like an annoying pregnancy-bragging post, but it's not:

Out of bed at 5:30 this morning, awake and energetic. Ran hand instinctively over abdomen. No physical bump yet, just a notion of something in there. No more need for caffeine - totally over it. That's me: super strong coffee-less woman, unfettered by stimulatory vices. Yup, I had my shit together, for the baby.

In the dark morning hours while K slept, I buzzed around the kitchen and made huge Valentine's Day heart-shaped cookies with pink frosting and sprinkles, measuring shortening with Viktoria's "water displacement method." It worked, and I was pleased.

With flour on my hands, sank the silver cookie-cutter into rolled-out dough. Thought fleetingly of the rice grain inside my pelvis, who she would become: a girl, certainly, for it simply HAS to be a girl. A brown-haired girl with a name I already knew, emotional and obnoxious like me, yet sensible and strong like her father. We would make cookies together, and she would want to taste the raw dough. I would say okay, but just one bite, not because I haven't gorged myself time and time again on raw dough and not died as a result, but because you're not supposed to let kids chow down on cookie dough.

Passed those cookies around at work, and everybody smiled. I felt proud to be such a Betty Baker. It was an unusually sunny day for February in Seattle; sunlight soaked in the courtyard, and my students were in a chipper and chatty mood. Next week was to be my thirty-third birthday, with exciting plans to go to the Brazilian steak house and eat lots of bacon-wrapped steak. Protein for the baby.

Later, met K at the clinic, strolled down to radiology, holding hands. 8 week ultrasound, "just to confirm." One room over from where I was exactly 18 months ago, when beads of sweat forming on the balding radiologist's head gave it all away: something's wrong with your baby, from head to scrotum.

A different radio-tech this time, a young rookie with a southern accent. Casual smiles and "this won't take long, just relax." I was kinda relaxed, but kinda not.

Warm goopy gel on belly, machine flipped on. K sat off to the side in the darkness.

"We've lost two before," I said automatically. "As soon as you see it's alive, let me know."

Image popped up, fuzzy to sharp, then back to fuzzy.

"That's your bladder," she said.

"That big black thing the size of Canada?"

"Yes. Nice and full. And that's the gestational sac."

"That peanut-looking thing?"

"Yes."

And then: silence. No "yes it's alive," or "that's its heart beating." Beads of sweat again, not on my face, but on hers: the young radiology tech, ponytail bobbing, probably new at this job, knowing she's not supposed to give away any top secret information on the state of aliveness or deadness of a patient's fetus, yet not well trained on how to keep from spilling the beans. Trying to remember what the green box in her textbook said: "act like you're so involved in taking electronic measurements that you can't be bothered to actually CONVERSE with the patient."

She brushed a strand of hair from her face, glanced not at me but at K across the room, and then back at the screen.

"I'm going to go show these to the head radiologist."

And I knew with sinking certainty:

I got knocked down.

And I did. Which brings me into the KuKdx3 club, a card-carrying member, tossed back over that fragile line into the non-prego side of reality. I can have coffee now, which is good. I guess.

It's a complex thing that happened, more complex than that, and I'll blather on with more detail once I get out of this surreal state of disappointment and confusion and hurt, groping for humor, which is the only way to survive that I know of. Until then, I'll leave you with what my good friend George e-mailed to me upon hearing the news:

"Oh my god. This sucks baboon balls."

Couldn't have said it any better myself: sucks baboon balls.

The Search for Hotness Continues

Greetings, KuKd/TTC Strong Mommas and Inquisitive Guests!

There is something to be said for seeking male hotness, even in the face of traumatic loss. Losing a baby can be so...dehumanizing. At least, I distinctly recall feeling like some sort of freakish subhuman, an embarrassment to the people around me, even the nurses shuffling in and out of my hospital room as I waited for labor to kick in. They didn't quite know what to say to me, and I couldn't blame them. I felt like some kind of otherly, oddly inferior being. Even a few of my friends shied away, probably wondering, what IS she?

For today's post, I am returning to the oh-so-riveting quest for hot men, our earlier conversation having left me with a sour, melancholy sense that there may NOT BE - in fact - any truly beautiful males left anymore. Nonsense! Now it's time to turn it around, to seek and collect hotness, despite Cosmo's dismal 2008 list, and end this discussion once and for all, on a more upbeat note.

In my proactive search for hotness, I had to dig far into the recesses of my brain, asking myself again and again, "WHO'S HOT?" Amazingly, I had trouble thinking of anyone in particular. There aren't any default faces that come to mind, other than old deceased movie stars. What's difficult, I suppose, is that the older I get, the more a person's character seems to become integrated into their physical appearance. I suppose the reason why Cosmo's men don't look so smashing to me is that they all have rather vapid, self-centered, look-at-me-I'm-gorgeous looks in their eyes. Which, ironically, cancels out their decent looks (for the record, I did scroll the Cosmo slide show once more, searching in earnest for someone worth staring at, but came up empty).

I did manage to come up with a few ones here, a rather odd and jumbled collection. And I've added a couple of women, too, to level out the gender playing field, and convince myself that I really can still see beauty where it is.

First, and this is SOOO cliche, but I have to admit that Leonardo DiCaprio is on my A-list. In my defense, it really wasn't until I saw him in a handful of post-Titanic films (including my favorite, "The Departed") that his beauty sank in. It wasn't his boyish Titanic charm that got to me; it was his later showing himself to be a skilled actor. Also, it was the pathetic, sexy character he played in "The Departed" that made my heart melt just a bit. Who WOULDN'T jump into save him and his tortured soul?



Moving on: it's not possible to leave Paul Newman out of the hotness category. I have no idea if this man is alive or dead. I do know that he aged gracefully, and makes decent salad dressing and puppy chow. It's the classically perfect face that I love, and that mouth...



Okay. This guy I KNOW is alive, because I just saw him play a bad, bad man in a bad, bad movie called "In Bruge." The moment I saw Ralph Fiennes, I was head over heels for that face, those smoldering eyes, the perpetual serious look. This guy doesn't smile much, but that's okay. Being a smiley person is not a prerequisite to being hot, as we all know. Remember him in "The English Patient?" I remember thinking, Kristen Scott Thomas, you lucky bee-yatch! Even in the role of King A-Hole Nazi in "Schindler's List," the most depressing of the depressing films, I recall thinking with squeamish, shameful discomfort that he still looked a tad bit hot.



Next, ahhhhh, River Phoenix. Remember him? Now THIS guy was the teen heartthrob of my era. He was the one taped to the inside of my locker, the one I fantasized about bumping into on the street, hoping that when I did, my hair would be flipped in JUST the right way to make me look my prettiest. River's cuteness began when he was just a young'un in "Stand By Me." Later, his hair grew out (um, a little TOO much), and his face remained pristine and perfect. He died of something stupid, drugs or booze or swallowed-up-into-his-own-handsomeness, and I was marginally upset when it happened. It was a superficial feeling of upsetness, for really, what had River ever done for me. Nothing, except grace the inside of my middle school locker. Still, I missed him, and sometimes still do. Zachary, is he up there with you?



Another wistful one would be the Brokeback Mountain guys, Heath Ledger and whatever-the-other-guy's-name-is. Okay, I loved them both the minute I saw them leaning sexily against a pick-up truck, the minute I knew that their characters were gay, and therefore untouchable. That whole movie made me wish I were a gay man, just so I could try to flirt with one or both of these outrageously good-looking, emotionally sensitive, yet rough-n-tough cowboyish specimens. This occurs frequently, this "untouchable" phenomenon, whereby you want something because you cannot have it. And when Heath passed away, it REALLY became untouchable(for the record, I think the brown-haired guy is a tad bit hotter, I must say, but I'm partial to darker looks).



Moving away from the Y and over toward X, I had to add a couple of women in here, because thinking of beautiful women was nowhere NEAR as hard as thinking of beautiful men. Just two, a short sampling. Sadly, though, in both cases the fact of their good looks seems to have gone to their heads, turning them into somewhat make-up laden, self-centered, boob-augmented, Botox-injected types. I have no proof of this; it's just the sense that I get from their paparazzi shots. Which means that they aren't women I would ever want to meet in person; just admire their jaw-dropping prettiness from afar:

First, Catherine Zeta-Jones, who - to me - is about as gorgeous as they come:



Next, I'm sorry to say: Jennifer Lopez, who has about zero talent in the acting and singing departments, but is achingly pretty. I'll give her that:



Finally, going back over to the male side for a moment (and I'll admit being slightly biased here), I have to give props to my main man, K. Again, it's the complete package here: the stellar inside, seeping out into the outside. You'd never know from this photograph what a good and beautiful heart he has, how truly "manly" he is in terms of stepping up to take responsibility for things that I refuse to be responsible for (like dragging the garbage bin out to the curb and balancing the checkbook). He has been by my side through everything scary in my life, and - to me - has that classic Irish look of Irishness.



So there you have it, Monica's humanizing list of hotties. Any others to add? I feel better already, somehow normalized, and ready to get on with my day.

I Love Being Called a Bitch!

Greetings, KuKd/TTC Mommas and Inquisitive Guests!

First of all, thanks - I guess - the many readers who assured me that yes, I will be able to walk the prego/non-prego line. I say "I guess" because now that I'm actually HERE, sitting reluctantly before my laptop with a bowl of milk-soaked Flax Flakes in my lap, after having made all those lofty campaign promises, I find myself wondering with great nervousness what I should actually write about today. Blogging is supposed to be a cathartic and joyful experience (isn't it?), and yet this somehow feels like what Obama must be going through right now: I said I'd fix this wacked-out country, but where on earth to I begin? I think I'll just put the U.S. economy on hold for a while, put my feet up on this ancient presidential desk, and order a whiskey on the rocks from the White House servants.

That's what I'd do, anyway (too bad Flax Flakes are nowhere near as exciting as whiskey on the rocks).

I want to begin my journey along the tightrope by sending a shout-out over to Chicket, who called me a bitch, and is therefore a PERFECT infertility-fighting candidate to meet me halfway along that tightrope.

A bit of background, and then you'll understand how beautiful and perfect her bitch-calling move was. Chicklet is one of those true TTC warriors who has been through the reproductive ringer, so to speak. Or non-reproductive, to put it more accurately. Check out her list of battles, or battle wounds, or failed battle tactics, which I personally think she ought to wear like medals of honor, or tattoo to her forearms:

"01-02/2009: IVF#3 (Menopur) cancelled and converted to IUI#4... still TBD if it's BFN or BFP. 12/2008: Hysteroscopy. 08/2008: FET#1 (Estrace). 04-05/2008: IVF#2 (Repronex & Gonal-F). 11-12/2007: IVF#1 (Bravelle & Repronex). 09/2007: Clomid + IUI#3. 08/2007: Clomid + IUI#2. 07/2007: Clomid + IUI#1. 05/2007: Switch RE's. 04/2007: Clomid#4. 03/2007: Clomid#3. 02/2007: Clomid#2. 01/2007: Clomid#1. 11/2006: Laparoscopy. 10/2006: First (of many) Blood Tests. 09/2006: HSG & Sperm Analysis. 05/2006: Started becoming certifiable. 11/2005: Pulled the Goalie."

All of this, and still no kid. I don't know what half this stuff means (and I'm not saying this in a "lucky me" kind of way), but I do know enough to sense the badness and frustration of it all, the emotional and financial expense. At times, the urgent anger and disappointment in her blog is palpable, which isn't a surprise.

What IS a surprise is how - even in the face of her own reproductive woes, Chicklet manages to maintain a wicked sense of humor, as evidenced in her response to my knocked-up news:

*I will continue to read your blog, "regardless how annoyingly whiny you become:-) Congrats. Really. You bitch;-)"

When I read her remarks, a great epiphany sank down into my brain like a the cloudy top of a lemon meringue pie: THAT'S IT! Right there, what Chicklet just said and the precise tone that she used, is EXACTLY how pregnant women and wannabe pregnant women should talk to one another! Affectionate, yet not sugar-coated. Kinda-sorta-happy. And yet, with cutting edge sarcasm that indicates a deeper closeness and mutual respect, clearly conveying truth of which both parties are painfully aware, not denying it for a second:

You're pregnant and I'm not, bee-yatch.

I only have one potentially similar experience to compare this to. It was when N (who, for those of you who haven't been on this blog since the beginning, was my best-prego-buddy-due-the-same-week-that-Zach-was-due-but-went-on-to-have-her-baby-and-left-me-behind, that-lucky-ass-bitch), announced to me that she was pregnant AGAIN. This announcement came during a weak moment when I myself was semi-attempting, without success, to get knocked up. Not knowing what to say, I sent her an e-mail that read something like this:

"Congrats, I guess. Still two to zero, for now. Don't let it get to your head, dude - I'll catch up eventually!"

This isn't as profoundly cool as Chicklet's remark, though. Absolutely, positively perfect.

Chicklet, you have taught all of us a bit more about the value of humor and profanity when there simply isn't anything else to say.

A Daring Social Experiment

Greetings, KuKd Strong Mommas and Inquisitive Guests!

It's taken me a few days to get the proverbial balls required to write this post, which is difficult to do, since I don't have balls. Somehow, I got 'em though. So ready or not, here I go. First, though, you get to slog through the necessary background information.

When I reluctantly started this blog last summer, I was fortunate to stumble into all kinds of e-friendships, "blogships," if you will, with the infertility fighters of the world. I was allowed inside of their sprawling community of brilliant, witty, brutally honest women who are childless-not-by-choice. Their situations weren't quite like mine, but still, I felt a connection was there. It's the palpable grief that brings us together, I think, the sinking sensation of realizing that you can't have a baby when you want one (and might, in fact, not EVER have a baby). In launching Exhale, my understanding of the TTC/infertility/otherwise-childless-not-by-choice perspective has grown even deeper, even in just these few short months. I have tremendous respect for the columnists that make Exhale the lovely thing that it is. And, as one who certainly doesn't get pregnant at the drop of a hat, I found solace in reading about others' infertility struggles. Perhaps that's awful of me, shamelessly finding joy in someone else's suffering.

Let me cut to the chase:

I'm knocked up for the third time, and due in September.

I don't know why this is so hard to announce. Never mind. Yes, I do. It's because in announcing this fact, by making this abrupt leap from the non-prego side of the line to the prego-side, I dread losing some of my favorite readers and "blogships" from the world of TTC. My persona will be different from this point forward in the eyes of the childless-not-by-choice community, for I will now be viewed as one of those women who get knocked up when you are not, leaving you behind to wish you could feel happy about this news the way that normal people would, and kind-of-sort-of-feeling happy, but kind of feeling like shit at the same time. The mere fact of my pregancy will be a source of hurt for some, and I don't blame them. Statistically speaking, after all, this does leave one less person on the non-prego side of the line, and adds one more person to the prego-side, supposedly not even looking back and remembering life on the non-prego side fondly, but now looking eagerly forward to that shiny day on the calendar, nine months ahead.

Right?

I hope I'm at least 60-70% right. I hope that my description of this composite TTC blog-o-woman isn't too far off the mark, for if it is, then I have vastly misinterpreted the hundreds of blog posts I've read, Exhale submissions I've reviewed, and phone calls I've had with my TTC friends. Besides, I've been there myself in my years (what now feels like decades) of KuKd status.

This is where my Social Experiment comes in. I suppose a better name might be "Social Challenge:" I want to know if it's possible, humanly and emotionally and logistically possible, for me to still find common ground with my TTC homegirls, and with my KuKd Strong Momma readers who have suffered very raw and recent losses and don't want to hear about other people's pregnancies. I want to know if it's possible to straddle both sides of the "prego line," without becoming invisible and irrelevant and hurtful to either world, a notion that's almost more than I can stomach. Can I still post empathetic remarks on others' blogs, and visa versa?

Can I manage to say the right things on this blog about my knocked-up status, things that will be as honest as I like to be, and yet sensitive to the TTC world? This will be my wholehearted effort, although I am sure to occasionally miss the mark.

If I complain, for instance, about the severe coffee-withdrawal-hangover I've been suffering for the past few weeks (worth a novel-length post of class-A bitching), you could rightfully say: "Well, at least you're pregnant. Quit whining about it."

You're right. Touche.

If I eagerly post pictures of the Ralph Lauren "Country Farm Hay Bale" yellow paint I've selected for the baby's room (no part of which will I EVER do), you may just click out of my blog in a fit of disgust.

I wouldn't blame you if you did.

Perhaps a good place to find common ground is for me to offer up some "assurances," if you could call it that, about what it actually MEANS to be pregnant for the third time in a series of previous failures. To put it bluntly, this is not a rainbow-happy-normal pregnancy brimming with optimistic thoughts of strollers and blankets and poop-filled diapers. It's not one for which I've already drawn a red heart in ball-point-pen around September 24th on the calendar, and begun researching baby names. It's not a pregnancy of which anybody should be jealous, not a pregnancy I would wish on anyone, except for maybe that school bully in 5th grade who stuck his bubblegum in my math textbook. I forget his name, but he was an asshole.


Nope, I won't be boasting about this pregnancy. Take these telling truths:


I'm cramping all the time, which people say is normal, but I don't believe anyone. Every time I pee, I check the toilet paper for blood, almost certain I'll see some. In sort, I'm practically waiting to miscarry. I expect it. I can't help it. I feel doomed. Put it this way: Extra-Strength Tums is a part of my daily diet. If this baby becomes a baby, my expectations will be sub-ground low. Just stay alive, get your high school diploma, and stay out of trouble with the law. That's all I ask.

*

Given my track record and relatively high (not high, but relatively high) probability of recurring failure, I enter into this pregnancy with a tremendous fear of growing attached to the tiny blob of fetal material in my pelvis. It's like I'm one of those adopted kids with attachment disorder, and cannot figure out how to love this entity that may or may not turn into a baby. I'd down a shot of strong tequilla to give myself some beer goggles - thereby perhaps helping with the love factor - but neither Jesus nor Kevin would forgive me if I did that. So scrap that idea.

*

If it's a boy, then there will supposedly be a 50% chance of him getting that god-damned-forsaken heart defect again. If I were religious, I'd pray that this was a girl. Of course, no amount of praying would help me now, since the gender has already been determined. So all I can do is kick back and wait. If it's a boy, I'll be stocking up on extra Tums and taking more meditation classes than are probably considered healthy.

*

I have an ultrasound next week to make sure the tiny entity is still alive, and I simply cannot bear the thought of going without Kevin, of ever going to another ultra sound EVER without him, potentially reliving the horror of last time. I hate to be this clingy and demanding, and hope I get over it soon. Let's call it a passing phase for now. I hope our civil rights-era grandmothers and mothers forgive me for ditching my feminist views, for now.

*

Being pregnant again is causing some old sadnesses about Zachary to surface, unresolved grief, I suppose. Not surprising, since I did only get about a C- in Grieving 101. I'm sure some social worker would have predicted this would happen. That's okay, I'll deal.

*

And finally, I'm not reading any pregnancy books or blogs or magazines. This will not become a WOO-HOO! CHECK OUT ME AND MY KNOCKED UP SELF! kind of blog, because my head and heart aren't there. And I'm not joining or starting any groups for knocked-up gals. To do any of this would be to freefall too quickly into eagerness and happiness, which would set myself up for rejection in the end, which is too frightful to bear. I imagine it being why, for example, people who have been married and divorced three times already don't have a huge, expensive wedding the fourth time. Just a quickie at a Las Vegas love chapel with maybe a friend or two in the audience. At some point, skepticism wins out, you know?

*

SO, I'm going at this floating through this in a sea of skepticism and fear of my own, trying to confront these feelings, not relating on this particular issue to my other pregnant friends, nor to friends who have never been pregnant before. That makes for a pretty slim sliver of the friend-population to choose from.

And yes, through the murky waters of all of this anxiety, I'm hoping as hard as I can hope, oftentimes with hot watery tears forming against the backs of my eyeballs but not coming out, that this little potential person inside me stays strong and viable, and makes it to the very end.

Make it, make it, make it.

Any thoughts on this Social Experiment, this joining of the prego- and wannabe-prego minds and souls? What will the results be? Can it be done?

I'm going to assume "yes" for now, and give it a shot.

I Really Don't Like It When...

1) I'm trying to toss a salad in a bowl that's too small. When I toss a salad, I like to do it with gusto, scraping the bottom the bowl to get all of the chopped goodies sufficiently coated in dressing. There's nothing like oil-and-vinegar-coated leaves of lettuce hopping over the sides of the bowl and getting stuck to the counter and floor, ignored by the dog, who doesn't do lettuce.

2) I tell a KuKd sister that I sometimes wish I were a mom, and they insist on assuring me that I AM a mom. It makes me feel pressured to go along with the shenanigans and say the right thing, like: "Oh yes, thanks for reminding me. I'm a mom. Now I feel better." It's not that I never feel like a mom. As I've said before, sometimes I feel like one and sometimes I don't. Being a stillbirth mom so defies our normal cultural definition of "motherhood," that I have trouble jumping on that train without any reservation. It's kind of like living in a wooden shack, and somebody telling me I live in a mansion. These sorts of mental shifts take time.

3) People try to force me to smile when they take my picture. I seriously don't like that. My mom does that all the time - "Smile, honey! Come on, smile!" - and I end up with a wholly unattractive, brittle smile with undertones of irritation. My friend KD has a beautiful, natural smile and perfect teeth. She is smiling in every picture I've ever seen of her, so she must be good at smiling on command. I'm not. My favorite pictures of myself are ones where somebody took the shot while I was already naturally laughing at something.

4) I bite into a mealy apple or nectarine, especially one that I've paid a bunch for at Pike Place Market or Whole Foods. Gross! Who likes mealy fruit? Anyone on this over-populated earth?

5) Measuring out Crisco - vegetable shortening, for those international readers who might not have Crisco - for recipes. What a gloopy, gloppy pain. And so hard to wash measuring cups with Crisco residue, what with the sponge turning into a Crisco-coated rectangle of uselessness.

6) Flipping through the radio stations on my 30-minute drive home from work, and coming across nothing - literally, astoundingly NOTHING - worth listening to. Just some tired classic rock (and not even songs I can get into), a bit of jazz (not the good kind, but the porn-movie background kind with lots of cheezy saxophone), obnoxious talk shows, a Miley Cyrus song here and there, and - on NPR - the Tuesday gardening show. What gives? This happened to me last week.

7) People having too many babies. I won't go into the octuplet thing again - it's a bit over-talked already - but COME ON, PEOPLE!

Any others to add?

Coming soon - the Steel Worker Boyfriend and more.

Disturbing Behavior

Greetings, KuKd Strong Mommas and Inquisitive Guests!

I know, that's just want you wanted to see when you innocently clicked over here: a toilet the size of Italy. The content of this post, "Disturbing Behavior," isn't as scintillating as its title would lead you to believe. No, it's not about some juicy, obsessive-compulsive habit that I've been watching my neighbor do through the window, or my own propensity to talk to myself at length while I'm driving to work. But it does have to do with toilets (or, one particular toilet, I should say).

Moreover, it has to do with my dog.

First, some background. Here's what Tebow likes to do: follow me into the bathroom, sit on the rug by my feet, and just stare up at me while I'm doing the act (he's only allowed in to witness number one, not number two). I suppose this should make me uncomfortable, but it really doesn't. Quite the opposite, it actually makes me feel good that my own act of peeing is interesting enough to generate an audience. (Kevin, on the other hand, feels that this is borderline inappropriate, and kicks Tebow out when he tries to nudge his way in through the doorway. Yes, it's probably bad manners, but Tebow fills such an enormous part of my heart that he can pretty much do anything he wants except poop in the house, and it won't bother me.)

I often wonder what thoughts might be going through Tebow's walnut-sized-brain-of-a-three-year-old:

"How does she make that sparkly, sprinkly, watery sound?"
"This rug feels warm and fuzzy on my bum."
"Mom kind of looks like the Thinking Man statue, sitting like that."
"Mommy, you're the best pee-er EVER!"
"I wonder if we get to go for a walk soon."
"Stop sitting around doing nothing. It's time for you to boil me a beef bone!"

Lately, after I flush, he's started getting all excited. I step back, and he stands up on his hind legs, front paws on the toilet seat, peering with apparent eagerness into the swirling, churning water (usually yellow-tinted, because I never drink those recommended eight classes of water a day), his tail wagging as the water rises and falls, my wad of toilet paper moving in lazy circles, finally making that glug-glug sound as it disappears into the dark, mysterious pit of Never-Never-Land-of-Human-Waste below. He watches for a moment longer, his tail ceasing to wag, and looks up at me and then back down at the now-still water, and then back up at me. Probably wondering what the heck just happened, and if it will happen again if he stares for long enough. But then I leave, and he follows me out and forgets about it - at least until the next time I pee.

I used to think this was amusing, until he did the unthinkable, the unprecedented, the - yes - I daresay, the disturbing:

Just as the swirling, yellow-tinted water reached its swirling peak of height, mere inches from his nose, he suddenly lowered his snout into the toilet and began to drink! Right there, right in front of me! DRINKING THE SWIRLING, PISS-TINGED TOILET WATER!

I gasped, instantly caught off guard, choking on air.

"TEBOW! NOOOOO!," I cried out, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him away, wondering what had gotten into him. He sat back down and looked up at me happily, not guiltily, his tail thumping the floor. Kind of like he'd just done something really awesome, and was proud that his owner had seen him do it. Totally unaware of how bizarre and gross it is to drink water from a used, unflushed (or currently flushing) toilet.

I spent the morning rambling to Kevin about it, psychoanalyzing it, feeling mildly disturbed by Tebow's disturbing behavior. What might have prompted him to stick his lapping tongue in that water this time? It's not like he's never been in that position before, his nose hovering just a short distance above the spinning water. Could the black hole at the bottom have evil hypnotic qualities, beckoning in the soothing voice of the witch with the poisonous apple in Snow White: drink, my dear. Drink from the magical golden water. It won't hurt youuuuuuu.....

I was trying to think of what this might equate to if Tebow were a child, say, if he were Zachary.

Eating his own boogers? Yes, that would probably make me say "ew" and "knock it off."

Picking up a half-eaten slice of pizza on the sidewalk in Manhattan and cramming it into his mouth?

Trying to eat his own corduroy pants from the Good Will, which - yes - I would certainly torture my son into wearing?

Then of course, I began wondering if perhaps I'm overreacting, being that germ-a-phobic, manners-obsessed mother that I people make fun of. Maybe a little pee-tinged water doesn't matter; perhaps it provides some naturopathic benefits to dogs, like some sort of healthy electrolytes that enhance the shininess of the fur.

And maybe, the temptation to drink from a churning bowl of pee-scented water isn't so outrageous after all. Maybe it's a normal canine urge, or perhaps even a human urge. Maybe there are people who do it, or have done it, and can attest that it really isn't all that bad.

All of this is good, I guess, for it gives me something to Google for the next few weeks. Until I get to the bottom of it, though, Tebow can still keep me company while I pee (honestly, I enjoy the company), but the lid is coming down with a "thud" when I'm done. No more tempting calls from the black toilet hole!

Full Circle

Greetings, Inquisitive Guests and KuKd/TTC Mommas!



Can you guess what that's a picture of? Contrary to what you might think, it isn't a silhouette of a gynecologist peering up at Mother Virgin Mary's cervix. Nor is it a gigantic alien-transporting space-bubble. It's actually a random photo of a rare "full circle rainbow" in Malaysia, which caught my attention because it connects to today's posting topic.

This is a story of coming full circle. But you won't understand the full-circle-ness of it until you get to the end of this post. So settle in with a hot toddy, which I think is a somewhat nasty (but relaxing) booze-based beverage that elderly women sip next to fireplaces, enjoy the build-up.

* * *

Last night, I did a reading for a literary performance troupe called "Motherhood from Egg to Zine, And Everything In Between," with me falling into that mysterious "in between" category (I guess). Supposedly, I was one of the "founding organizers" of this wickedly whimsical display of dancing and creative writing mommas and in-between mommas, but that's a big, bold lie.

It really started with a very nice person named Corbin contacting me last autumn, casually suggesting that we "read some writing out loud together at some bookstores." I told her sure, why the heck not. Next thing I knew, there were a bunch of other fine lassies involved, a website and logo created, a press release listing me as one of the "founders," even though I'd had very little part in it.

(You're not at the full-circle part yet. Patience, my dear.)

Holy crapoly, I thought to myself. Caught in a tangled web of illusion! Not only was I a bit nervous about adding one more organizational responsibility to my growing list of creative projects, but I thought I might get anxious, being trapped in a room with limited exit routes with lots of real mommies with real kids*, reading about their motherhood trials and tribulations, pretending that I was one of them. Me? Non-kid*-having, booze-drinking, coffee chugging me? In a group that starts with "Motherhood?" Pretending to have helped organize it?

Still, curiosity and creative ambition got the better of me, and I couldn't help but go along for the ride, showing up at the showtime and location presented to me and taking credit where credit wasn't due. I can only hope that jesus will forgive me.

In the end, I enjoyed the experience to a surprising degree, standing up on a small stage with bright, hot lights in my face before a small-but-respectable crowd, and reading a few written pieces with as much humor and spunk as I could muster, given the grim subject of dead babies. I wore what I felt to be a somewhat literary outfit: a long, body-hugging silver sweater (which - if I keep my stomach sucked in ever-so-slightly - almost hides my beer gut) and a fuzzy blue scarf for color accent. One piece was about my personal crusade to save the dying goldfish in our backyard after my first miscarriage, and the other was about my imaginings of Zachary as a teenage boy, among other things. I didn't feel as out-of-place as I'd feared, nor did I break down and begin weeping like a crumpled, wailing madwoman in the midst of describing L'Event de Shit Ultimate.

(Okay, you're getting closer to the full-circle part.)

A very, very, very prego and teary-eyed gal found me in the back corner after the show, and put one hand on my arm and the other on her rotund belly. She had long blond hair pulled back off her face, and she looked about my age, if not younger.

"God, what happened to you is so sad and scary," she said, rubbing her tummy, her eyes wide. "I really hope it doesn't happen to me. What if it happens to me? Do you think it will? I can't imagine..."

This was a really weird and unprecedented position for me to be in. The poor girl had no idea who she was talking to, a subperfect human still struggling to keep my own shit together inside, failing at Grieving 101 with flying colors, hardly one to give advice or reassuring words. My, how I had fooled her with my on-stage confidence! I'm a teacher, I reminded myself. On stage every day.

I could have said something really sadistic like, "Yup, it just might happen to you, sweetheart. So start imagining it." or "You're never safe! Stillbirth can creep up on even the most innocent wide-eyed people like you! Beware!"

But I didn't, feeling oddly...shall we say...touched by her innocent concern, her approaching me not to comfort me, but to seek comfort of her own.

And there is where I realized that I had - you guessed it:

COME FULL CIRCLE.

That is to say: I had before me an opportunity to take this brutal experience of my own, and - rather than continue to use it as a gigantic vacuum sucking up others' pity and resources and sorrowful thoughts (as is SOOOO easy to do) - use it to give back to the world instead. I mean, turn it around into something potentially helpful instead of hurtful, giving instead of taking, outer instead of inner. Integrate myself into this great fabric of humanity a tad bit more by making this frightened person, her belly nearly touching mine, perhaps less frightened.

"Don't worry," I heard myself say, feeling myself smiling, reaching out to touch her arm. My movements and words felt lightweight and mindless, as though I was a puppet, controlled by strings above. "It won't happen to you. The odds of stillbirth are one in two-hundred. I think you'll be one of the hundred-and-ninety-nine lucky ones, don't you?"

Her face visibly relaxed. "One in two hundred?"

"Yup."

"Okay."

That was it. Just a simple conversation, nothing over the top. And yet, I found myself thinking about it for the rest of the night, and again this morning. How oddly satisfying it was to say those things to her, and see her smile as a result! Yes, call me the seasoned wise one, the tribe elder who's been around the block, stillbirth statistics etched in my brain, ready to be shared with naive youngsters. What a strange, new, wondrous sensation!

Okay, I wouldn't really liken myself to a tribe elder. Forget I said that. Let's just say that I felt something get centered in me, a certain calmness settle in, a peacefulness with my KuKdX2 status, at least temporarily (and hopefully more than temporarily).

*When I say "kid" in the context of myself being a "non-kid-having person" or other women having "real kids," I'm talking about living, breathing children. The kind that poop frequently, occasionally scream for no reason, and have snot barbells coming out of their nostrils. I just know someone's going to come at me with, "but you DO have a kid! A STILLborn kid!" Yeah yeah yeah dude, I get that.

Where Have All the Hot Guys Gone...

Greetings, Inquisitive Guests and Various Shades of Momma!

Can we talk about fluff for a minute? The last two posts have been so...well...dramatic. It's time for something light to bolster the mood. Of course, I wouldn't exactly say the subject of HOT GUYS is "light." This is serious stuff, not "fluff" at all. So forget what I just said.

Normally, looking at "Cosmopolitan's Hottest Guys of Whatever Year" would be pure delight. And yet, I was dismayed to scroll through the TOP THIRTY in the official 2008 list this morning, only to find that NOT ONE DUDE'S FACE caught my eye. Seriously! Is there something wrong with me, or are guys just not that hot anymore? This never happens.

Let's begin with Robert Pattinson, a person I've never heard of before, listed in the number one hotness slot:



Really? To me, he looks like some kind of washed-out Duran Duran backup singer with too much hair product. The look on his face is one of either "bend over and let me spank you" or "I'm so hot, I'm going to wave my Duran-Duran drum stick and cast my spell of hotness over you."

Moving on.



Chace Crawford? Who IS this person, and why am I stuck looking at someone who really belongs on a glossy poster taped inside of a smitten schoolgirl's locker? Okay. He's not as scary as Robert Pattinson, but his face has a botoxy-surgical look to it, and his name is a bit too soap-opera-ish for my tastes.

Ding! Next.



I swear. If I see one more photo of Zac's boyish mug, I think I might hurl. Zac Efron: at least I've heard of the guy, I'll give him that. But by now, his purported hotness has become so cliche that - out of spite - I simply cannot bring myself to agree. It's the same reason why for the longest time I never saw Titanic: everyone and their grandma, shrink, and dog just loved it.

By the way, as an aside, if you imagine Zac Efron wearing a beehive blond hair-doo wig, doesn't he kind of look like a psychotic beauty salon customer? "Frost my hair right now, honey, or I'll shoot."

Ding! The search for True Hotness continues.



Newsflash: just because you're a Bond man, doesn't mean you're automatically hot. Honestly, is this guy hot? I've never quite thought so. He actually kind of looks to be "in character" in this picture, what with that sharp, sleek, spy-like look, as though he never slipped out of Bond mode. His pectorals are noteworthy, I'll concede to that, and I'd take him over that 8-year-old Zac Efron.

Moving down the line...



EVERYone knows who this guy is, right? It's the amazing, the spectacular, ED WESTWICK! Is it me, or does he kind of resemble a ferret or an alley cat, caught in a drain pipe with a flashlight in its eyes?

Let's get out of here and let him slink away into the darkness. Next on Cosmo's list is some purse-lipped man named Penn Badgley.



His supposed claim to fame? "Not even Gossip Girl costar and recent Cosmo cover girl Blake Lively could resist this man in (school) uniform."

God, I can't believe I didn't know that.

Again, I'm sorry, but he is simply not what I would consider a hot man. Even if he were in school uniform, I'm pretty sure I would resist him. I would put a wad of gum under his desk and stick out my tongue in his direction.

And finally:



Ah yes, of course: the infamous Jonas Brothers, whoever they are. Cosmo quotes: "This year, we couldn't have stopped talking about the Jonas Brothers if we tried." Why not? I don't understand. Did they cast their "spell of hotness" over you, Cosmo, like the first guy did? What's so incredibly great about them? I will concede that the kid on the far left - the one in the gray suit and gray tie - might be a looker when he gets older. But the middle one needs some help with his hair, and the one on the right has shoes that look like they're made of smashed Oreo cookies. What's more, they all look like high school seniors at a rich prep school, trying to act grown-up. Personally, I don't think that's very hot.

* * * * *
Maybe in my cranky, crotchety old state of marriedness, I've lost my taste for male hotness. Perhaps I'm morphing into a lesbian. Can that happen? Because it isn't hard to identify hot women.

But that's another post.

Zachary Said

...and I quote:

"Mom, get over yourself and your bad-ittude. That other blogger wasn't even TALKing about you. She's a perfectly decent human being, another babylost momma with an injured heart, and here you are slinging all this dirt in her direction just because you have issues with organized religion, and worry that people don't approve of your grieving methods."

Me: "Honey, if mommy wants advice from baby heaven, she'll ask. Really, since when do our deceased children issue advice? This isn't a Stephen King novel. Where'd you pick up all that vocabulary, by the way?"

Zachary:"From watching C-Span. Mom?"

Me: "Yes?"

Zachary: "I mean it. You should say you're sorry. Dead baby mommas shouldn't be girl-fighting."

Me: Gulp. Peer at computer screen. Feel kind of like a shithead. Knowing my son is right. "Okay. I'm sorry."

* * *

He's right. I'm sorry. Children know things.

* * *

If he were here, I could be talking to him in a conventional manner. God, he would have been such a smart and beautiful boy. This is wholly, maddeningly, cruelly unsatisfying.

* * *

Feeling sad and sorry and just generally kind of heartburny, I washed down Tums with a cup of coffee and tinkered around with my blog design. Goodbye fluttery foliage-filled green, hello simple boyish blue. It was time. Every week or month, I'll rotate in a different picture at the top, and put the explanation of the new photograph at the top right-hand column of this blog. Go on up there and read about it if you're wondering who the hot dude with the surfboard is. Yes, it is a hot dude with a surfboard, someone I know quite well. No - it isn't a religious photo from a greeting card that says "May God bless you with long lasting teeth on your 85th birthday" in cursive font on the inside, even though it kinda looks like that.

* * *

Don't worry - despite the skitzo-autistic nature of this post, I'm fine. I just got kind of disturbed by the onslaught of supportive words I had purposely and knowingly elicited in my last post, as they started to feel like a ganging-up type of situation with me the Queen Bitch at the center. I don't want to ever be that person in my life, and my two kids if present wouldn't want me to be that person either. So I hereby step down.

Puppies and Jesus: A Rant

Greetings KuKd Mommas and Inquisitive Guests!

A bunch of semi-bad-mood things piled up at once. You get to take the brunt of it here. I'm sorry.

The Obnoxious Red-Clad Aunt is on her way, I can sense her coming. Which sparked in me the the sudden urge to breed. Which prompted me to search for puppies online, since good old-fashioned breeding isn't quite working. Yes, another puppy to a add to our roost, and only apricot-colored westie-poodle mixes, which - in my completely biased mind - are the most beautiful and intelligent mixes on earth. Look how cute our Tebow is, and you'll see what I mean:



See?

Of course, blah-blah-doodles are not to be found at the animal shelters, which means the only ones available are from sketchy-ass websites with Canadian post office boxes, shipped next day air for half-a-thousand dollars. Which - if I were to follow through on this - would make me a bad person who patronizes puppy mills, encouraging this purportedly despicable practice out of pure and greedy self-interest. So, I ex'ed out of all those websites before K caught me looking at them, and began catching up on my blog reading instead.

Which takes me to Part 2 of this post, surely the juicier part.

Now, let me preface this by saying: anyone who loses a baby to stillbirth deserves some serious sympathy, if not empathy. I respect and honor women who have lost a baby, and I respect and honor the babies they have lost.

Also, I believe that people can say whatever they want to on their blogs. If people don't like what you say, they shouldn't read your blog. If people go around hunting for controversial quotes on blogs, just to have something to argue about, well - it's their own waste of time.

Still, something on a blog-that-shall-not-be-named - authored by a woman who has had a stillborn child - caught my eye and started to bother me. Like an annoying gnat or a hangnail, it sat there in my brain, festering, until finally - now - I find myself utterly compelled to respond. Or perhaps to defend. Whatever.

Here is what it said:

I've been reading a lot of other blogs lately, mainly blogs about pregnancy loss and stillbirth. I've noticed a push for "sassy" blogs and blogs that bash religious affiliations, faith in God, and pro-life belief systems. I realize I'm opening myself up to criticism here. While I find myself in a fragile state these days, I'm still compelled to make a statement about such blogs: I can't relate.

I don't understand how women can want a child so badly, yet see no connection to God or the sanctity of life. We live in a society that does not value life. What I've learned is that many people reproduce simply to achieve their own goals. Selfish goals...

There was a bit more, but that was the heart of it. Of course, when I read it, I thought with great ego: by george, she must be talking about ME!! After all, in my twisted fantasy world, lots and lots of bored people sit around and talk about me all the time. How could she NOT be talking about me? I do, I would say, "sassily" bash "religious affilations, faith in God, and pro-life belief systems." Or I have at least once(much less than I do in real life, if that makes it better).

There are so many tangled ways in which I profoundly disagree this person's statements that I can hardly sort them out here. I suppose a good starting place is the suggestion that believing in God automatically equals valuing human life, and that lack thereof equals lack thereof. This is such a departure from rational thinking that all I can say in response is:



I hardly have to point out the most obvious case in point: a certain president of a certain country, anti-abortion and "good" Christian, yet quick to start lots of wars. Meaning lots and lots and lots and lots of deaths. Decidedly NOT valuing the sanctity human life, if you reduce this behavior to simplest terms. Unless, of course, you consider Iraqis and American soldiers as sub-humans. Dude, even I - as a non-follower-of-god-and-therefore-human-life-hater - can see the fucked-upness of that.

But let's not discuss politics or war or religion in a broad sense, for it isn't this blogger's political or religious views themselves that bother me. I do - believe it or not - have one or two religiously conservative friends. I'm totally fine with people being religious, and expressing those believes. I'm also fine with people not having abortions. More power to'em.

It is the author's self-proclaimed inability to understand "how women can want a child so badly, yet see no connection to God or the sanctity of life" that gets to me.



If I were to go out for coffee with this woman, here is what I would try to articulate in a calm manner. I would anchor all of my main points with the word "please" to make for a more sane and professional dialogue.

PLEASE DON'T: suggest a causal relationship between "sanctity of life" and "belief in god." Love doesn't always look the way you expect it to look. It comes in many forms, and that's one thing I've learned as a KuKd Momma. Do not suggest that I and my own parents and my many non-religious friends with kids (translate: ALL of them) do not value our/their children. Do not suggest or assume that I am not saddened and traumatized by my losses simply because I am a pro-choice voter and jesus-lover-basher, and because my public grief doesn't resemble yours.

To make such sweeping and unresearched (not to mention highly implausible) generalization makes me very afraid for the world. It is such flawed stereotyping and downright ignorance that leads to death and violence and hatred everywhere - suicide bombing, racial-related violence, you name it. People think: everyone who does X definitely also does Y. So let's bomb the shit out of them.

* * * * *

PLEASE DO: consider the purpose and audience of blogging in general, and of individual people's blogs. Don't presume that a blog reveals every aspect of the author's life and personality, or that a KuKd blogger will fill you in on every aspect of his or her personal grieving (unless, of course, you make what are essentially personal attacks on atheistic dead baby mommas, which you seem to be doing). Blogs are entirely one-sided and done for selfish reasons, usually just to hear ourselves blather about whatever. My blog is no exception. To vomit out and defend my emotions, to make sure that everyone knows I'm sufficiently sad, is neither the purpose of this blog, nor the business of the general public.

There is this thing called a "private life," which - fortunately - I've found that one is able to maintain despite entering the blogosphere. That means I get to do the teary-eyed stuff in the comfort of my own bedroom or car, and use my blog for the very cathartic and healing purpose of cracking myself up. And yes: that means sometimes making occasional fun of jesus-lovers, which - sorry- but a lot of them are pretty much asking for.

* * * * *

PLEASE DON'T: impose your sense of how people "should grieve" on other people, or think that losing a baby automatically turns you into a weepy, wailing jesus-lover. Why should it? Why would it? You come into a pregnancy with your own system of values, your own personality, and all of that colors the way that you deal with trauma. As a Murphy from a beer-drinking, belly-laughing Irish family, that is - of course - the same attitude I employ when dealing with getting knocked down. So stop worrying yourself over how I'm grieving. Trust me: I'm doing it in my own way. Go pour yourself some whiskey on the rocks and relax, my dear. Everything will be okay - it's the luck 'o the Irish.

* * * * *

PLEASE DO: realize that it probably isn't a good idea to bash stillbirth-and-miscarriage mommies, particularly about our grieving methods and loving methods and religious beliefs. We're a sensitive bunch; losing a baby is like constantly being on the rag. Hence the fact that I'm using up a perfectly good morning to crank out this post, for no reason other than to scrape some pissy feelings out of my system.

* * * * *

AS AN ASIDE: I wouldn't say this part at our coffee date unless we really got into shop-talk. But I'll add it here.

A bit of linguistic history about the term "pro-life:" it is a made-up word that's loaded with propaganda, and I wish that fewer people fell for this word and absorbed it into their repertoire of everyday vocabulary. Sometimes people make up words in order to change others' internal beliefs - this is a historic and linguistic fact. "Pro-life" has served that purpose brilliantly, coined by anti-abortion rights activists after the Supreme Court's 1973 decision to protect abortion rights for the purpose of portraying pro-choice people as anti-life. Which is a ridiculous-beyond-all-ridiculousness presumption. Who ISN'T pro-life, other than, say, serial killers and warmongers (not naming any names here)? I won't go deeper into this here, because - speaking of "purposes of blogs" - political ranting isn't the purpose of this one.

* * * * *

THAT'S ALL, I think. I don't know why; I really felt I needed to defend so many people and so many things, including the many women out there who dare to find humor - crass or otherwise - in the face of god-awful loss. Thanks for listening - I feel better already. Whew - I needed that.

Now it's a glorious kid-free day: a greasy diner breakfast, followed by a hike up Mount Si with friend from out of town, husband, and Tebow. Then probably home to do more covert Google-searching for puppies. Yes, I will continue to call them Cheap Baby Substitutes.

Isn't that "sassy?"