All prepared to begin with a l’il Eric B. and Rakim, but I recalled that in my new profession post-babies (and post-wild-toddler stage) we say there are no “shoulds.”
So, instead of being away for so long, perhaps I wish I would’ve found the time to keep you updated on the brown eggs that became Rufus and Reefus then the Double Blessings and occasionally the Twin Terrors. Given my spouse’s Guyanese heritage, we like to call them bunga tuffies. They’ll be 5 years old this year. And so will that one frozen embryo fertilized at the same time …
Like Forrest Gump, that’s all I have to say about that — for now.
Because I’m (kinda) back with likely shorter posts than before because of that whole working-every-day-I’m-hustling-mom thing, we can get reacquainted with another round of 20 questions. Ask away on whatever related to mybrowneggs.com and life after delivery, and I’ll answer. Fire away!
This must be a couple days after I gave birth. I’m apparently off bed rest and taking a quiet moment as Baby Girl sleeps nearby. I didn’t know Big Daddy took this photo until recently.
Even though I’m exhausted, this weekend couldn’t have been better. C&C seemed to have had a wonderful time at the play café on their actual birthday, and Sunday’s gathering of friends was just beautiful. It even ended with our place nearly spotless.
And yet the awesomeness that God has allowed in my life continues. Big Daddy, who normally takes the night shift with the babies, is doing a sleep study (apparently with all the comforts of a fancy hotel). I told him I was jealous. But despite my error in blasting my latest guilty-pleasure song in the car after dropping him off, both babies are still fast asleep from the ride. I’ve gotten to use the bathroom without rushing, I washed and moisturized my face, put on pajamas and ate a birthday cupcake with both hands. Forget pedicures and massages; these are the new luxuries of life after you become a mother.
And for me, it’s about doggone time.
I’m past it chronologically but finally facing it emotionally to a point where I’m able to say (and write) it: The first few days (months) postpartum sucked. Royally sucked. (Exhale) The details are endless, but the broad strokes are enough to paint the picture.
1) I gave birth via C-section in the 29th hour of labor, having progressed to barely 3 cm and finally developing preeclampsia. My blood pressure was already dangerously high — systolic and diastolic at this point — despite meds, and the magnesium sulfate made me feel more nauseated than I had my whole pregnancy. Granted, all the juice I’d nicely convinced the nurses to let me have through the day didn’t help. As much as I’d wanted a vaginal delivery, I was so sick and still itchy from PUPPPs that I’d decided the sooner I could deliver the better. And this was despite not paying any previous attention to anything anybody said about being prepared for a C-section just in case. Mistake, BTW.
2) So, like, baby or no baby, it’s major surgery to be sliced open and sewn back up again. So much so that they tested the effectiveness of my epidural before wheeling me to the OR. They did it by placing ice on each thigh. That’s how we all realized that the contraction pain I felt during labor wasn’t pressure. That was actually pain. Twenty-nine hours. Pain. Contractions. Epidural working only on my left side. Cue a second epidural in the bright, cold operating room for major abdominal surgery, which requires major recovery. For me, that meant hours in the recovery room with a still-high BP needing extra delaudid plus a spinal block that I could barely consent to. Whatever was happening — I was in and out — had Big Daddy angrily bargaining with God for my life. But there was more than my life to consider …
3) Baby girl was just fine; baby boy, born at 4 lbs., was whisked away without me being able to see him. Except for about 5 minutes before I was moved to my hospital room around 4 a.m., I didn’t see him again for a couple days. I was on bed rest with a pain pump and a catheter. Knowing that your child in intensive care and that you can’t see him is torture. It’s worse when you still have another child to care for and no idea what you’re doing. I thought it would be great when we’d all be home and family would come to visit …
4) In short, family came, and it didn’t go well. On three separate visits, the number of diapers changed by people who showed up equals zero. I should’ve taken the hint from the first phone call I accidentally took thinking it was Big Daddy the day after coming home with only Baby Girl. From delivery on, I wasn’t answering calls; I wasn’t making calls. I was sending messages through my husband, and most people seemed OK with that. Most people, except my mother-in-law. She holds this, among other things of which I’ve lost count, against me. Our first full day at home, Big Daddy had just talked with her, mentioning that he was en route to Baby Boy, still in the NICU. She ended that call and promptly call our home number. Her first question to me, verbatim: “So, how does it feel to have one baby home and the other still in the hospital?” I can’t remember how long it was before I answered the phone after that.
5) Already unsupported at the most basic level, I was also alone in figuring out the whole breastfeeding thing. I learned some things the hard way with occasional input at my pediatrician’s office, but being in a community of formula feeders — and family members who would put words to the babies’ cries “Mommy, please give me a bottle” — made it a difficult road. But, 12 months in, we’re still going strong. Now, I have to figure out this weaning thing. Like everything else, it’s all a cycle of trial and triumph.
So much craziness happened in addition to the normal chaos of a shiny new set of twins that’s hard to believe it was only within the past 12 months. And even though I hear the beginning cries of somebody waking up, I’m grateful to report, after a series of storms, relative calm.
As it was before, feel free to ask questions about anything. I’ll answer them via the same way you ask. — mbe
Here’s Baby Girl and Baby Boy at four days old. She was dressed to go home with us, while he stayed in the NICU for a few more days.
I’m not one for spoilers, but even in the midst of my retrospectives, it’d be weird not to acknowledge that our miracle babies are a year old today. I’m so excited that I don’t know what to do with myself. We’ve gone from “Are we pregnant?” to “We’re actually pregnant” to “We’ve got two kids?” to “Hey, we’ve got two kids.” And, we owe it all to the Almighty God.
As irreverent as I can be, I cannot deny the power and presence of God even in our struggle to become parents and to be our best as parents in the face of familial estrangement and, frankly, some foul behavior directed our way that would make life hard for anybody — not just new parents. So as we celebrate the lives of our twins, we celebrate the Life Giver above all. We’ve got a low-key party planned today for the four of us at a play café before the Mr. — now known as Big Daddy (chosen from Blanche’s dad on “Golden Girls”) — goes to work.
You can celebrate with us, if you want, by praying prayers of thanksgiving at 8:59 and 9 p.m. for the babies’ journey to us. As a recap, we prayed, fasted twice for 21 days, enlisted others to pray and endured two years of trying with three IUIs, a canceled IUI cycle and one successful IVF. Many people suffer so much more than we did. My heart remains heavy for them. I don’t know what their next steps will be in the quest to bear children, but I do know that regardless of what He does, God is still able.
Last year this time, I was in New York with a fresh needle wound from the first shot of my in-vitro fertilization cycle. I was trying to be thankful for a wonderful husband, a promising job that fit my talents and general happiness with life despite the ache of not yet being pregnant and having to endure IVF at all. That was a difficult balance. It was even worse to battle such inner turmoil while wearing the permanent smile-face of holidays with in-laws who didn’t know or necessarily understand anything about me or anything I might be feeling. Empathy from outside of the infertility circle is hard to come by even after the explanations of why and how.
But. I. Survived.
And I came out with a story to tell happily ending with a real live Rufus and Reefus, born exactly three months, two weeks and three days ago. Even as I listen to them sleep in their cribs (for only the third freaking day ever FINALLY), it’s unbelievable that they actually exist way beyond a couple groups of dividing cells, a collection of heartbeats captured in a whirlwind doctor’s visit or even the invisible sources of discomfort in the late hours of labor. Ready or not (with emphasis on the NOT), they’re here.
Their presence means:
– I’m up at 5:43 a.m., having just nursed the boy for the third time this hour with him now wanting to play. (Grrr, boy, go to sleep!)
– I contemplate daily cutting my hair to a low fade to avoid looking a hot mess. (My stylist’s feelings will be so hurt.)
– I haven’t slept more than four hours at a time since a week before I delivered. (I’m done with the “I’m tired” complaints of my childless friends, BTW.)
– I ate Thanksgiving dinner with a baby on my lap, having cooked a minimal spread with another on my hip.
– I’m incredibly isolated from the civilized world most days and evenings and often lonely because of my husband’s work hours.
– This is life as I now know it with no end in sight.
Yet this year, even with all of that, I’m not superficially thankful with a veneer over the potentially heavy burdens of new motherhood. Instead, I’m overwhelmingly humble for the greatest gifts since salvation and welcoming of the collective discomforts that my babies bring. I can’t say I don’t complain — I do because, well, this crap is hard — but the comfort of this new family is greater than the discomfort of feeling it would never happen. This is true every day all day with baby giggles, smiles and developmental skills that put icing on the cake (which I can eat worry-free with the calorie burning of nursing). And I’m nothing but thankful for that. I’m also thankful for the smallest hope that led me to this point, the prayers of the people around me, those who remain to share in our children’s lives and to God, who made it all possible.
Recognizing that things didn’t have to work out in my favor has made every day with the twins a day of thanksgiving, regardless of what the calendar says. To those whose struggle continues, try to know that my heart is with you. Happy Thanksgiving (give or take four or five days. Sue me; I’ve got twins).
I know it’s been a while. I think in my last post before the tribute to my mother, I felt whiny because my pregnancy woes were all I could focus on. It just seemed unfair to complain after the struggle to get to that point. I may revisit those final months at some point with a fresh perspective.
The “when” of that is uncertain given that it’s finally official: I’m a mother. It’s been six weeks and a day and putting that phrase in writing has me tearing up a little. It’s either that or the fact that it’s 4:14 a.m. and I have Pootie Booty #1 sleeping across my lap and #2 in his baby rocker and it should be Big Daddy — formerly known as the Mr. — on baby duty, not me. Or it could be constipation and freezing from a couple night sweats in the past three hours. I’ll stop there to avoid getting ahead of myself with the postpartum joys.
Just know that the boy-and-girl twins are here and that My Brown Eggs is back — still with infertility as its foundation, happily adding the success of assisted reproductive technology and motherhood! That was the goal, right? And that’s where we are, praise God. And given that I had to quit my job (no maternity leave), that’s all I have to talk about.
Right now, though, it’s sleepy time. Let’s hope it lasts.
This is my mother in her 20s. We definitely looked alike. They didn’t call me “little mama Brown” for nothing.
I’ve been gone a long time, long enough to almost skip my second trimester. I am, praise God, still pregnant and healthily so. Even my mood is in a better place.
But before I get too deep in the details of the past two and a half months, I have to acknowledge what it means to me to be pregnant today — May 3. Having only recently accepted that I’m going to be a mom, I did it just in time for my late mother’s birthday. She would have been 70.
Five years ago, coincidentally a month before she died, I’d written “The Year Mother’s Day Mattered” as a brief reflection on what life was like with my mother and in preparation for her passing. No one predicted she would die, but I just knew it was inevitable. I also knew then somehow that I’d likely have trouble having children — either because I’d remain single forever or because I would have inherited my mother’s ovarian cancer.
In 2007, I wrote:
“We tended to celebrate her birthday in an equally understated way, which is always a week a half before Mother’s Day. She usually counted May 3 as two-fold. Three years ago [2004], I made dinner at my apartment. She teased me, calling me uppity for having hors d’oeurves – vegetables I cut myself, made me overcook my tender porterhouses because of the pink and turned her nose up at the portabella mushrooms. I think she even asked for steak sauce. Another year, I took her out to one of my favorite Charlotte restaurants, where the service was unfortunately awful. I guess the server forgot that black people still carried green money. It sucked to be him: I left a dollar tip and gave the rest of the 20 percent to the manager. My mother, meanwhile, braced herself and chastised me in advance of me cursing the poor guy. I didn’t, but she’d already worked my nerves. …
“The woman who produced me was not the mother of poems read aloud. She wasn’t one who you’d turn over to your best friend as Jesus did Mary. I was incensed that the pastor even preached that [as a Mother’s Day sermon]. She wasn’t even Big Mama or Madea, who cooked for the grandkids and maybe she wouldn’t ever be. My mother was at home dying slowly. … I’m sorry that this is the year Mother’s Day matters and that it matters for the wrong reasons.”
The wrong reasons included my rush to appreciate my mother before she would die, fear that motherhood would escape me, and premature nostalgia for the mom I didn’t have. It’s amazing, though, how life uses time to right it own wrongs. I couldn’t have predicted the kinship with my mother that I’d feel just by carrying twins as she did. Nor could I have predicted the peace in our desire to have children contrasted with her initial dread of having us. Mothering from a dark place, she still wanted our lives to be different from hers in the best way possible. I’ll forever be sad that she’s gone, but I’m happy knowing that my happiness in life is what she desired most.
Or maybe it is. I am already starting to cry, after all.
It’s my own fault. I’m home — instead of where I should be — watching “Beaches,” an automatic tearjerker when I’m not carrying two tagalongs that I can’t eat. (I swore off all Girl Scout cookies this year to avoid the chocolate and accompanying caffeine in my favorite ones, Samoas.) Only this time, the movie just started. Cece just ran off in the rental car and in the flashback just met Hillary and my vision is already teary-eyed blurry.
(Sniffle, sniffle)
I’m remembering how I just woke up from a 13-week sleep, having not talked to my best friend enough recently to know her dog died nor a new good friend to hear the potty successes of her new baby nor my “stickgirl” at all. (And she’s got Va. Gov. Bob McDonnell to worry about.) “Beaches” makes me think of all my close friends, and in watching it, I haven’t been a good friend at all. And the friends I’ve made in the Midwest USA aren’t quite close enough to reassure nor understand, but that’s just something else to cry about.
(Sniffle, sniffle)
Instead of weeping to “Beaches,” I should be wading through slush to choir rehearsal just like I should’ve been at work today. But I couldn’t get out of bed. I wish it was because I was asleep. Apparently, pregnancy even at this stage in the game causes the joints in your hips to loosen in preparation for labor, and it hurts like the devil. At a steady decline every morning, my ability to walk is likely something from a dilapidated extra at Shady Pines, the fictitious nursing home in “Golden Girls.” It’s like somebody has replaced the area between my lower back and knees with 90-year-old parts. I’ve been in bed most of the day whining with the Mr. jumping at every groan. Turning from my right side to my left side is a major decision because it requires a commitment to stay there for time worth the pain and struggle. None of this bodes well for frequent bathroom breaks. Lowering myself in the Oval Office then brings a new seat of tears.
(Sniffle, sniffle)
Getting ready for work — and finding something to wear — has been torture. Today’s preparation involved sending a text to my supervisor and having the Mr. bring my laptop to work from home. I typed everything with one hand while trying to keep this new set of girls out of the way. It sounds easier than it actually is. I would’ve just taken a sick day, but I feel guilty for not being able to push past the discomfort like I’d do if I were merely sick. I worked to keep from crying.
This pain has been ongoing for the past three weeks. I’ve tried to stretch, but that doesn’t work for joints, it seems. I tried to put away the flats until I really need them, figuring heels would stretch out my thigh muscles. I was cute — and can still walk in 5-inch platforms, thank you very much — but all that did was made me look like the pregnant woman who wants to be Beyoncé. I don’t.
But I’m pregnant! It’s an exciting time. I even glow some days. But I’m not the smiling belly-rubbing lass you see in commercials or even the one you see accepting congratulations while dodging presumptuous hands heading for my abdomen. I really am happy we got to this point in the infertility journey, and I read “The Bump” daily to see how many days left until my due date. I marvel at baby things and try not to be taken in by the hype. At the same time, though, this is no walk in the park and I know I’ve had it easier than most.
So, from here on out, whenever you see a pregnant woman in public, know that she probably fought to get out of bed and fought harder to get out of the house with enough food for the day to keep from throwing up. Don’t roll your eyes because she’s late. Don’t question her outfit even if you saw it two days ago. Don’t be mad if you haven’t heard from her. And for God’s sake, don’t be alarmed if she leaves the choir stand in church to go pee. She’s likely been holding it awhile. And if she’s not where she’s supposed to be, know that she’s not milking the whole pregnancy thing. She’s just struggling her way forward and probably on her way somewhere to go cry about it.
Anybody remember the dancing baby from the "Ally McBeal" days? I've got two of 'em just a movin' and groovin' like no one is watching.
Despite fears to the contrary, the babies are still there.
The ghosts of infertility have a habit of popping into my mind, especially in the weeks between doctor visits. Since Februrary of last year, I’d been seeing my reproductive endocrinologist (and associated nurses) once every few days. That’s not an exaggeration.
Consider that one menstrual cycle lasts about a month and that each month, doctors are trying various methods of assisted reproductive technology, or ART, to get you pregnant. To get to this point, we had one attempt at interuterine insemination before another one that was canceled because I ovulated too soon. I then had two more unsuccessful attempts. With each cycle, there’s an initial ultrasound to be sure there are no lingering cysts. Then, there’s another to check the size of any resulting follicles produced from oral medications. (I took Clomid.) If the size isn’t large enough for an ovualation “trigger shot,” you go back to the doctor in a couple days for another ultrasound. If the sizes are right, you get the shot and then return a day or so later for the actual insemination. There’s a two week break in there — time before you can take a pregnancy test. When — as in my case — the test is negative, you go back and start the process over again.
And every time, you expect to be expecting. By the time we were moving ahead with the more invasive in-vitro fertilization, which I cried about having to do, my expectations weren’t as high. And it was a lot to endure for fear of failure yet again.
So now, with two and three weeks between visits, I’ll admit that I’ve been freaking out. What if I’m really just getting fat? What if we go back and there are no babies? What if I’ve done something (or not) to make the pregnancy go away?
It’s possible that those are normal pre-whale questions that everybody has. I’m sure it’s connected to the security I had in constant visits, especially between my third and eighth weeks. We’ve got microscopic and ultrasound pictures at three days before transfer, in utero but pre-implanation, and at four, seven and eight weeks. Internally, the last four weeks were murder until last week’s appointment.
(Because of my “advanced” maternal age of 35, the risk for chromosonal defects is higher. We agreed to recommended genetic testing for information purposes, not to “play God.” Just FYI. We learned a lot worth another educational post for another time. Feel free to ask questions, though …)
Though it was in the geneticist’s office for first trimester screening, we saw both babies active with Rufus face up and Reefus face down. It looked like they were dancing, and clearly, they thought no one was watching.
This is the album cover for the original "Dreamgirls," featuring Jennifer Holliday. I'm a sucker for classics even when the remake is awesome.
“I am changing …”
So, OK, the song from “Dreamgirls” doesn’t really apply beyond those first few words, but things are definitely a-changing. I’m still a day or so away from the end of my first trimester, but I am definitely larger. People tell me they can’t quite see it, while others tease me about my frontal rotundity. Getting dressed every morning is a struggle for pants that fit. If only that was the only thing different.
I honestly have no real complaints. By everything you’ve ever heard about pregnancy, I’m coasting. I don’t have morning sickness; I have “it’s time to eat again or else” sickness. I go from normal to starving Sally Struthers style about every two hours. It’s when I don’t answer that call that I get nauseated and struggle even more to find something I feel like eating. I don’t have any weird food aversions or cravings, but there are foods that make me happy. Among them — because it varies from day to day — are Honey Nut Cheerios with or without milk, vanilla milkshakes, tomatoes, pasta in alfredo sauce and baked potatoes heaping with sour cream. Those aren’t that weird, except that I prefer real milk to the vanilla soy I drink normally and have turned my nose up at the chocolate shakes I would order before. And as much as I always loved a good steak, the thought turns my stomach …
Which I’m not sleeping on. Paranoia has me off my back as well. I just turn from side to side, feeling like a fish flailing from side to side all night long. Sleeping is uncomfortable even with the body pillow. Usually, the Mr. rubs my back until I fall asleep. Then, he wakes up when I get up for potty breaks to make sure I don’t bump into anything. Sleepwalking makes a person a little clumsy. Plus, our cool high box spring bed isn’t any more because it makes getting out of it a small challenge that I suspect will only get worse.
One thing I couldn’t have anticipated at this stage is sore hips and thighs. It’s like my joints are on strike. I stiffen quickly as if it will rain any minute. Apparently, my body is already preparing to Rufus and Reefus launching pad. And sleep must be a really big part of the preparation. I’m so sleepy all the time that I feel lazy. And when I’m not sleepy, I’m just plain tired. Every day, it’s like I’m playing catch-up with my fast-moving life.
Though not by choice, I’ve had to slow down. Fortunately, so has my burping before every sentence. Its unmentionable counterpart hasn’t really; the Mr. has been really nice about it. (I have an excuse that he never had. I call it even.) Singing is a challenge, but only to make me breathe the way I should’ve been breathing all along. That’s one thing I’d like to keep doing until I just can’t; though, I’ve read that it is possible that I could sing throughout the entire baby-cooking process barring any calls for a Lyric Opera performance (not gonna happen).
Otherwise, as accepting as I’ve become of actually being pregnant, I’m approaching acceptance that I do need more food, more sleep and to keep taking my prenatal vitamin despite how it now tastes like metal. I will not concede to being more evil. I’m just too tired to be as diplomatic as I normally am. More than not, I’m really just responding to feelings that seem to get hurt a lot more often though I pretend otherwise when it involves friends. I let the tears flow, however, while listening to the NPR story about school truancy in Detroit. Odd, right?
It’s pretty clear that while I’ve got the physical stuff down, I’ve got to work on the emotional side of pregnancy.
Meet babies-to-be Rufus and Reefus, who officially have heartbeats. We saw the hearts beating like two fluttering hummingbirds two days before my birthday. Happy birthday, indeed.
I flew to Nashville on my birthday last Friday to cover the Stellar Awards, something like the Oscars of gospel music, for work. Months ago when I arranged the trip, I was only thinking of the fun of celebrating 35 years of life — not adjusting to carrying new life along with me. The Mr. was a very helpful travel companion, but still I was exhausted and couldn’t throw myself into all of the unoffical Stellar-related activites I’d hoped to attend.
But while resting and missing a free ASCAP breakfast Saturday morning, I started praying quietly then not at all. That’s when the words of this birthday card from God came to mind.
“As insignificant as you’ve felt in your short life, I’ve always seen you. As much as you’ve prayed — sometimes more than others — I’ve always heard you. As much as I’ve done to get to this point in your life, in some cases, I let you rest on your own laurels as if it was all you. We both know that you were aware of that fact more times than you’d say aloud.
That’s why you brought your conception struggles to me in the first place, even though you armed yourself with science. Though you believed that perhaps such a blessing was only for others who lived a less “colorful” life, this blessing was always yours — yours and your husband’s.
So what you saw yesterday on the ultrasound screen is what you asked for, and because I really am able to do things that exceed abundantly above all you ask or think, including your prayer for a child, I answered as specifically as your heart desired.
My Brown Eggs 