Lydia said to me, before I was engaged, that if Jeff and I wrote our own vows, they would be the most eloquent vows ever. I laughed and said that's why I can't write them. I'd never be able to live up to that.
Now, I guess I'm trying. What is the best way to frame, in terms of a series of promises, some explanation for how I love this man?
The comical stuff comes easily. I've been thinking of it as "Truth In Wedding Vows." I don't think they'd work in a real wedding, but they're the truth. I can do better, but when I think of all the things that make a life, it's the little things that pile up most.
1. I promise to become only marginally crazier than I already am.
2. While I know my body image issues will never go away, I promise I will get naked with you every chance I get.
3. We're both kind of hopeless when it comes to housework, but I'll always volunteer to clean the toilets if you promise to stop making that face when I parallel park.
4. I miss you every second we're apart, but I will never make you feel guilty because you have to work late. You're working to support our family, and bosses tend to be less understanding than women who love you.
5. I promise to tell you when I'm upset and why. It's not a pleasant thing, and it's hard. But I'd rather suffer those small moments of discomfort than allow them to grow into something that could threaten the best thing that's ever happened in my life.
6. We will have vacations and adventures. We will continue to discover new things together.
7. If I am home before you, I will spring up off the couch when you get home, because I want you to know everyday that no matter how many times you walk through that door, it's still one of the most exciting parts of my day.
8. I will strive to keep my own life and my own interests, so that you will always have a partner who has something to talk about with you, who is interesting for all the years we have together. Likewise, I will give you space and time to pursue your art and your dreams, and support those endeavors in every way I can.
9. I will never smear cake on your face. Not today. Not any day.
10. I will love you. No matter what happens, I will love you fiercely and will for the rest of my life.
It's the first time I've ever truly had a partner in every way. I knew for the first time when we'd only been dating a few months. My car died in Rancho Cucamonga just a few blocks from my apartment. I called a colleague to help me out, and Jeff got upset I didn't ask him. "You're not letting me keep up my side of the bargain," he said.
It would be more than a year from that time when he'd finally get the guts to tell me he loved me, but I already knew. I really, really wanted and needed to hear the words, but I had to know. Because there was already a promise between us, unspoken or not, that if one of us was in any kind of trouble, the other would be the one to take care of it. Even late at night. Even 50 miles away.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
My first lesson in parenting
Jeff and I had just learned we were parents. It was a Tuesday night, and we'd just finished working out with our trainer. I took a pregnancy test as a formality before starting my pills again. It was positive.
I traded my RX for birth control for an RX for prenatal vitamins. I picked an OB-GYN and made an appointment. Jeff hadn't formally proposed, but he'd asked my dad's permission, and we knew we were getting married. Jumping the gun, I went shopping with Anna and Lydia at David's Bridal. I tried on one dress, and it was the one.
It was the perfect moment. At last, I had my magic bridal moment. I was having a baby with the love of my life. I was surrounded by close friends. Everything was coming together the way I always hoped it would. After giving up hope when I turned 34 that I'd ever have a baby or be married, I was certain to have both before I turned 35.
After the dress shopping, we were at an Indian restaurant for a late celebratory dinner. Jeff was out with Greg, drinking beers and talking about fatherhood, being a husband, growing up and whatever else men talk about over cold beers.
That's when the bleeding happened. The toilet tissue was bright crimson, like my period had just started.
Or my new beginning had just ended.
I shouted for Anna, and on-lookers must have thought I was crazy -- tearful, with a wad of toilet paper summoning my friend to the bathroom. She came, and I showed her, already crying. In that moment, I was so scared that the miracle that had been the catalyst for all this other good was gone. She and Lydia said all the right things. We could leave. We could go to a hospital. We could do whatever I wanted. I paged my new doctor, who had never even met me. I was just a name on her appointment book. It was past 10 p.m. on a Friday night. She called me within 10 minutes.
The good and bad news was that there was nothing I could do. If the pregnancy ended, at that phase, there was nothing that could be done. Sometimes, though, bleeding was perfectly normal. It could be nothing. She wanted to see me first thing Monday morning, and advised me to lay low for the weekend.
I went home. I told Jeff as calmly as possible. We promised to go forward with our plans to marry, no matter what. We worried. I spent much of the weekend napping, and spotting. "Stay with me, baby," I kept saying to myself, and to the little life I hoped was still there.
Monday finally came. We saw the doctor, and as is her custom, first we had a consultation. We sat in an office - a regular office with a big desk, and family pictures and flowers. She gave me lots of information, and asked me if I had any questions. I only had one, and I was afraid to ask it: Am I still pregnant?
We'd find out by ultrasound. Holding on to Jeff's hand, we watched the screen, and there was our baby. At that point, a bundle of cells - a little gray smudge stuck to the side of my uterus. But in the middle of the little ball was a distinct heartbeat. Only six and a half weeks old. Just about the first thing we do in life is grow a heart. Everything else comes after. (I will try to remember this in the moments my heart fights with my head - one of them is older and wiser than the other.)
There was our baby. Real. Listening to the heartbeat, we were relieved and elated and sure that nothing would be the same - in the best possible way.
All weekend long, I fretted and worried. I was scared to death. It was the first time that my child kept me awake at night with fear and worry and anxiety. It was the first time I was overwhelmed by wanting nothing more than the health and safety of my child.
It will not be the last. It will not be the last time I'm scared to death over what turns out to be absolutely nothing. This is what I will count as my first weekend as a parent. I don't feel like a parent every single day of my pregnancy, at least not so sharply as this first lesson. But the first big scare is out of the way.
I have experience now.
I traded my RX for birth control for an RX for prenatal vitamins. I picked an OB-GYN and made an appointment. Jeff hadn't formally proposed, but he'd asked my dad's permission, and we knew we were getting married. Jumping the gun, I went shopping with Anna and Lydia at David's Bridal. I tried on one dress, and it was the one.
It was the perfect moment. At last, I had my magic bridal moment. I was having a baby with the love of my life. I was surrounded by close friends. Everything was coming together the way I always hoped it would. After giving up hope when I turned 34 that I'd ever have a baby or be married, I was certain to have both before I turned 35.
After the dress shopping, we were at an Indian restaurant for a late celebratory dinner. Jeff was out with Greg, drinking beers and talking about fatherhood, being a husband, growing up and whatever else men talk about over cold beers.
That's when the bleeding happened. The toilet tissue was bright crimson, like my period had just started.
Or my new beginning had just ended.
I shouted for Anna, and on-lookers must have thought I was crazy -- tearful, with a wad of toilet paper summoning my friend to the bathroom. She came, and I showed her, already crying. In that moment, I was so scared that the miracle that had been the catalyst for all this other good was gone. She and Lydia said all the right things. We could leave. We could go to a hospital. We could do whatever I wanted. I paged my new doctor, who had never even met me. I was just a name on her appointment book. It was past 10 p.m. on a Friday night. She called me within 10 minutes.
The good and bad news was that there was nothing I could do. If the pregnancy ended, at that phase, there was nothing that could be done. Sometimes, though, bleeding was perfectly normal. It could be nothing. She wanted to see me first thing Monday morning, and advised me to lay low for the weekend.
I went home. I told Jeff as calmly as possible. We promised to go forward with our plans to marry, no matter what. We worried. I spent much of the weekend napping, and spotting. "Stay with me, baby," I kept saying to myself, and to the little life I hoped was still there.
Monday finally came. We saw the doctor, and as is her custom, first we had a consultation. We sat in an office - a regular office with a big desk, and family pictures and flowers. She gave me lots of information, and asked me if I had any questions. I only had one, and I was afraid to ask it: Am I still pregnant?
We'd find out by ultrasound. Holding on to Jeff's hand, we watched the screen, and there was our baby. At that point, a bundle of cells - a little gray smudge stuck to the side of my uterus. But in the middle of the little ball was a distinct heartbeat. Only six and a half weeks old. Just about the first thing we do in life is grow a heart. Everything else comes after. (I will try to remember this in the moments my heart fights with my head - one of them is older and wiser than the other.)
There was our baby. Real. Listening to the heartbeat, we were relieved and elated and sure that nothing would be the same - in the best possible way.
All weekend long, I fretted and worried. I was scared to death. It was the first time that my child kept me awake at night with fear and worry and anxiety. It was the first time I was overwhelmed by wanting nothing more than the health and safety of my child.
It will not be the last. It will not be the last time I'm scared to death over what turns out to be absolutely nothing. This is what I will count as my first weekend as a parent. I don't feel like a parent every single day of my pregnancy, at least not so sharply as this first lesson. But the first big scare is out of the way.
I have experience now.
Getting everything I want. All at the same time.
A few months ago, I was busting at the seams to write about this. But, the necessity for secrecy made that impossible. Now that all my secrets are just great news that I've shared with everyone - friends, relatives, unsuspecting waiters, strangers in elevators, checkout guys at Trader Joes - I find myself too busy and exhausted to get all of the thoughts down.
There's a baby. And already, barely one ounce heavy, barely a few inches long, still so much a mystery, this baby is changing my life in immeasurable ways. It's a cliche to write about it. I feel like every woman whose ever been pregnant feels at once like it's the first time it's ever happened, while at the same time joining this legion of womanhood, this sorority that she couldn't ever rush before. I'm no different. But like so many things in life, it's partly a self-discovery process. I'm learning so much about who I am, and what I have to give.
We don't know if we're having a boy or a girl. We didn't plan this. It is a wonderful surprise. We thought there would be a long road, a long fight to the chance at parenthood. Instead, it was just a little blunder. Just a few weeks without the usual precautions (things get lost, and there's insurance to fight with, and a million tiny things that get in the way of a trip to the pharmacy). But our baby managed to slip through this tiny window.
So far, so good.
There's a wedding that will happen sooner than I could be ready for it. Everything that I always wanted is coming, is almost here. This little bit of anticipation beforehand, when all of it is still becoming, will go so fast. I wish that I could slow it down, savor it more. But there are a thousand details and questions and decisions, all of them demanding to be addressed immediately.
In the quiet moments, all I can do is give myself a little shake. This is it. This is my life now. When I slip through a yellow light and kiss the ceiling, for weeks I realized that there was nothing left to wish for. Though, now those wishes have become "healthy baby, happy marriage."
I have every reason to be confident those wishes are coming true, too.
There's a baby. And already, barely one ounce heavy, barely a few inches long, still so much a mystery, this baby is changing my life in immeasurable ways. It's a cliche to write about it. I feel like every woman whose ever been pregnant feels at once like it's the first time it's ever happened, while at the same time joining this legion of womanhood, this sorority that she couldn't ever rush before. I'm no different. But like so many things in life, it's partly a self-discovery process. I'm learning so much about who I am, and what I have to give.
We don't know if we're having a boy or a girl. We didn't plan this. It is a wonderful surprise. We thought there would be a long road, a long fight to the chance at parenthood. Instead, it was just a little blunder. Just a few weeks without the usual precautions (things get lost, and there's insurance to fight with, and a million tiny things that get in the way of a trip to the pharmacy). But our baby managed to slip through this tiny window.
So far, so good.
There's a wedding that will happen sooner than I could be ready for it. Everything that I always wanted is coming, is almost here. This little bit of anticipation beforehand, when all of it is still becoming, will go so fast. I wish that I could slow it down, savor it more. But there are a thousand details and questions and decisions, all of them demanding to be addressed immediately.
In the quiet moments, all I can do is give myself a little shake. This is it. This is my life now. When I slip through a yellow light and kiss the ceiling, for weeks I realized that there was nothing left to wish for. Though, now those wishes have become "healthy baby, happy marriage."
I have every reason to be confident those wishes are coming true, too.
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