July 28, 2017

Oh My Goodness

This the face of one seriously relieved mother.

I’ve watched the heath care legislation being volleyed across Capitol Hill in Washington, DC for the past several months with what one might call significant personal interest. I’ve refreshed APNews, The Guardian, Fox News, CNN, and Twitter more often than any other moment in my life, trying to get a sense for what might happen next, tracing the path of my family’s future as it zipped past us, back and forth. Protections that allowed me to focus on the moment with my daughter as we unravelled her mysterious health challenges over the first nine years of her life have spent the last few months in question, threatened by elected officials who seemed to favor the interests of huge insurance companies over those of children like mine.

Last night, it seemed that compassion tipped the ball over the net, just barely. Continue Reading…

June 16, 2017

They’re Not Here Anymore

It is early 2006. The woman holding the camera — a small digital camera with a flash, the only camera she has — is taking what someday will be known as a “mirror selfie,” and people will take them with their smart phones, which, in 2006, almost no one owns.

The baby in the photo is being held securely in a ring-sling, a native-style baby carrier that holds her snug against the woman’s chest. She is asleep, making a raspy, wheezing, wet sound which precludes the woman from doing the following:

talking on the phone
hearing anything on the tv
coping with anything but the most crucial, immediate needs
thinking

June 9, 2017

Raspberries, Mushrooms, Garlic, Plums, Peace

For ten summers, with varying frequency, I’ve been taking my daughters to the Saturday Farmers’ Market. In more ways than I could have ever expected, it has saved our sanity.

We began going to the Farmers’ Market as a way to preserve the parenting energy my husband and I needed. He and I made a pact after our second child was born: each of us would ensure the other got to sleep “late” (read: 8 am) one day a week. He slept “late” on Saturdays and I claimed Sundays. On Sunday mornings, he packed our squealing, chattering daughters quickly into the car — sometimes in their pajamas — to go to Home Depot, which was sometimes the only place open on Sundays. There, he handed them paint sample cards to carry and let them touch all the doorknobs while he mused over the varying bolts and power tools that just might be required for his next renovation project in our old townhouse.

On Saturdays, I took the girls to the Farmers’ Market. It opened at 7:30 am, and some Sundays, we parked our car in the tall parking garage overlooking the Market and watched as the farmers set up their stands. Had we stayed home, I would have been aggressively shushing them, desperately trying to give their father the sleep he’d earned yesterday in the dawn at Home Depot. Out of the house, I somehow discovered the reserves to be patient.

“Look,” I’d say. “Look at all the flowers in that truck!” Continue Reading…

February 9, 2017

Nevertheless, We Persisted

February is American Heart Month. My social media feed is currently split between political postings and photographs of babies and children with scars I recognize all too well — across the shoulder blade in back or right down the middle in front. Parents and grandparents I’ve met online through our shared journey are posting information about their children’s experiences, their families’ grief or triumph, and ways that their communities can contribute toward better outcomes for anyone born with a congenital heart defect, like my vibrant, finally-healthy daughter Sammi.

These images are unrelenting. They drag me back, every time, away from the image of the grinning, singing girl I kissed goodbye this morning and closer to the sick baby covered in wires and tubes. I negotiate the difference in leaps, then think back on what to say to the parents still in the thick of it. How will they make it to my present-day?

Of course, the other half of my social media feeds are the political posts — assaults on freedom and confusing conflicts everywhere I turn. Truth is under attack there just as it was when I fought for Sammi’s care. Out of the mess tangling over and over itself in the news, however, came a surprise rallying cry intended to shut down a woman’s resolute message. To anyone who has followed US politics, the censure of Senator Elizabeth Warren by Senator Mitch McConnell is likely memorized by now, but for emphasis and clarity, it’s worth repeating:

“She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

It’s easy to turn this into a rallying cry for women, in general. So often, this is our only path to success, whether we’re discussing the fight for suffrage, land ownership, birth control, or just a seat at the board room table. What many women don’t know, however, is that infuriating as those indignities are, when what is at stake is our children’s lives, persisting is not a choice. It is an instinct. Continue Reading…

February 2, 2017

When Being Right Doesn’t Matter, or Does

Something was wrong with my baby daughter.

I said it to her pediatrician when she was just a few weeks old. He laughed at me, told me she was fine.

I said it in the emergency room when her chest and throat were retracting with her rapid breath. They gave her meds, watched her for a few days, sent her home with me.

I said it to her new pediatrician. She looked more closely, waited, told me to sleep-train her.

I said it again when everything failed, when she wouldn’t eat solid food, wouldn’t sleep through the night, couldn’t make it through a cold without hospitalization. And finally, finally, someone found the something. When they did, nobody said, “oops.” They fixed her congenital heart defect, the source of every problem.

I was right, but it didn’t matter.