i see them in my mind's eye, playing over the strings, just like all those years ago, and everything has changed, but nothing has changed, and i remember. please, please god, my head swims ... to put one foot in front of the other, to continue, with this redyelloworange flame, i can't even imagine it, ludicrous. that kind of mask is bullshit, i know, by now, at least i know, but all the same, the 1993 version runs past. It's not what i want, but it is, but it isn't.

Labels: drama

It's so, so gossamer light when it's being laid down. You don't even notice, when it's being laid down, it's just one tiny invisible thread at a time - but i don't even know how far it goes back. It's so light, so delicate, and so fucking binding, i have no idea when it began. When i consider, when i consider x and y and z, i am nearly certain it goes back all the way to the beginning. That first summer, for example, and what he told me about it long afterwards; and the way it sheds light on how i was treated down south, in general - that's not an accident. It wasn't my imagination and i wasn't being overly sensitive and i wasn't crazy - that was the pattern. I rather think it was always there. (That's pretty fucking dark, that is.)

This is going to keep popping up, isn't it, unexpectedly, like this? Less and less often, as i identify more and more pattern, how wide and how deep and how long, and how all-encompassing, like some horrible, corrosive lace laid over an entire decade. I'll just stumble into some raw stub of history and be numb and angry for a week or two. Even now, I know enough to go, Oh, That old thing again. I know that one, i was expecting it.

(I met someone who told me something i had suspected about what now by all rights ought to be ancient history but i that had not known for absolute certain until just that moment. So. You know. I was expecting it. Still. Ow.)

I am also not sure what i can say.

Labels: blogging, drama

(or, rather, i may have skipped several chapters, i can't ... have that conversation, over and over and over, i can't. i'm done. i won't.)

i think maybe something in me is whole that wasn't before.

but that isn't it - that isn't it at all. those are entirely the wrong words, it's

maybe i should learn tibetan. maybe hindu. aramaic, even. i don't think it would go any better in german. but i

i was thinking about it and i think i may have been raptured. maybe this is it. and the funny thing is

i knew this would come, i found my path to this moment, i

How boring, though, to read about a happy medium, when Candide has been around for centuries.

and i can't put the sordid details up, it'd all be so very Page Six. i won't. but without the bones of the story it won't make sense: M left; he took the dog and i kept E; i worked, and i waited, and i healed; and then i met Y, and of course M has been with A since before the beginning of it all, and now my life is alphabet soup on a very complicated schedule. Nobody plans that.

i mean for this to sound happy. i am not sure i am communicating in an effective manner. every time someone new hears what happened they go oh how awful, my god, you poor thing if they know how to react at all, and a lot of people don't, even remotely, and yes of course that is all true, objectively, it was hideous. But it's not the point.

I will have a balcony, a real live balcony, facing south to the sun and the grass and the trees, i will have a whole new apartment to find things to hang on the walls, a new kitchen to organize, breakfast and dinner every day, with my family that is growing again to include this new other grownup person. That, that is what i mean, right there.

Labels: drama, family, writing

I waited and waited and waited and waited, i did nothing - nothing - without reflection, without deliberation. And i took a hundred thousand tiny, paused steps, and i looked and watched and saw it all. Of course i did - perspective, i am always so thirsty for perspective.

Labels: drama, family, reflection, separation

the sun is shining, now, in november. E asks if it is summer, points out the little white clouds, the big white clouds, moving fast against each other. I feel the wind in my hair, distantly, and i can hardly remember what it is to be cold. I feel like a great bear with the heart of a hummingbird, lost and found in the same moment. Flying time is glacial-still, running and notmoving, interminable, and i know, i know this will echo, i know this.

Labels: drama

please


please don't






please

Labels: drama

can't hit publish. not like this.

bad day. Again and again and again and again and again and.

Labels: drama

This is good coffee.

I have been getting fantastic reviews at work.

My daughter is smart and strong and healthy and beautiful.

Tomorrow i am going to a chocolate factory.

People exist who love me.

With no dog i can finally get my house clean.

With no husband ... i ... can ... live like this. I can live like this.

Labels: drama, random

honey, you don't deserve this.

you are so exuberant, so vital. And i feel like your life and your future is crumbling and i can't stop it and you can't either, of course.

There are so many cliches i could use. So many. And the world is spinning, dancing like lights, swirling like vultures or sharks. Like a hurricane. Killer bees. and here i am at the eye, the center, the vortex, the nadir, where nothing ever changes and nothing is ever surprising if i expect the worst and i can see the thought hanging there, in people's heads, from thousands and thousands and thousands of miles away, and they breathe and don't say it but it comes out anyway, i can feel it in the air.

Anyway.

This is the cake i am making for you, from here - half of this recipe makes one Bear-Shaped Silicone Cake Pan:

Servings: Makes 3 loaf cakes or 1 bundt or tube cake

Comments:
Rosh Hashanah-Jewish New Year
Celebrated this year (2004) from sundown September 15th to sundown September 17th.

I created this recipe for Rosh Hashanah Honey Cake after searching "high and low" for an easy yet scrumptious dessert to serve at our Rosh Hashanah dinner this year. I finally gave up on all of the honey cake recipes I looked at (and there are a zillion of them out there!!) and decided to create my own Moist and Tender Honey-Applesauce Cake recipe from scratch. Since apples and honey are such a big part of the Jewish New Year meal, what better type of dessert to make than a cake that incorporates both of these wonderful "sweet" foods.

My husband Kenny says, "the cake is sweet, but not too sweet, and has just the perfect texture and is moist and just a little bit spongey", which he likes in a cake. He also says to mention that it goes so well with a nice cup of coffee.

I have to agree with him, taking a bite of the cake and then a sip of coffee is heaven. I am sure you'll love this cake too. It will definitely make your New Year start off on a "sweet" note.

One word of advice though, do NOT leave out the applesauce as this is what makes this cake so moist and delicious.

L' Shanah Tovah, ("for a good New Year")....Diana

Ingredients:
Dry Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light or dark brown sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tbsp. ground cinnamon
2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground allspice

Liquid Ingredients:
1 cup clear honey
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup strongly brewed tea, cooled to room temperature
3 large eggs
1/4 cup orange liqueur or orange juice
1 1/3 cups unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Optional Ingredients:
1/2 cup raisins, golden or dark
1/2 to 3/4 cup chopped almonds or walnuts (or other nuts of your choice)

Topping: (optional)
Confectioners' sugar
Sliced or slivered almonds or chopped walnuts

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 C). Lightly grease or spray a 9 or 10-inch tube, angel food or bundt cake pan, or three (8 x 4-inch) loaf pans. If you are using an angel food, tube or loaf pans, line the pan (s) with parchment paper and lightly grease or spray parchment paper also. (Note: Because of the design of a bundt style pan, it cannot be lined with parchment, so this type of pan MUST be lightly greased with butter or shortening, or sprayed with a non-stick cooking spray).

In a large mixing bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients. Mix well.

In a small bowl, combine honey with oil. Add honey/oil mixture to dry ingredients and whisk in the remaining liquid ingredients in the order stated above. Add raisins and chopped nuts if using. Combine thoroughly.

Pour batter into prepared cake pan (s) and bake in preheated 350 degree F (180 C) oven for 60 to 70 minutes if using a tube, angel food or bundt pan. If using three loaf pans, bake cakes for 45 to 55 minutes. Cake (s) should spring back when lightly pressed when done and when cake tester inserted in cake comes out clean.

Remove cake (s) from oven and leave in pan (s) for 10 minutes before inverting onto wire rack (removing parchment paper) to cool completely. For best flavor, make the cake (s) the day before you are going to eat them. Wrap cake (s) in aluminum foil or plastic wrap and store at room temperature for up to 3 days.

When ready to serve, transfer cake to serving plate and dust top with confectioners' sugar and sprinkle with sliced or slivered almonds or chopped walnuts, if desired.

Makes one (9 or 10-inch) tube or bundt cake, or three (8 x 4-inch) loaf cakes.

Note: Cake may also be made in a rectangular 9 x 13-inch baking pan. If making in this size pan, bake cake for 40 to 45 minutes.

Freezing:
Although this cake tastes best a day or two after baking, it also tastes very nice after being frozen and thawed. This is a cake that freezes well. To freeze, wrap cooled cake (s) in aluminum foil and then wrap in plastic wrap and place in a zip-loc bag; seal, label and date. Cake will keep 4 to 6 months in the freezer.

To Thaw and Serve:
Thaw cake at room temperature, covered, 3 to 4 hours.

Honey Tips:
When making either cakes or cookies with honey, first mix the honey with the fat or the liquid in the recipe. Then mix it thoroughly with the other ingredients. If this is not done, a soggy layer will form on the top of your cookies or cakes.

Desserts or other goodies made with honey brown faster than foods made with other sweeteners. So when you bake desserts made with honey, set the oven temperature 25 degrees F lower than what is indicated in the recipe.

Source: Diana Baker Woodall© 2004
Date: August 31, 2004

i have it in the oven. I have raised the motivation i needed to make it: i'm not a baker, it was hard. Mommy is sad, sweetheart. And it's not your fault, and you make me so happy, which in turn makes me so angry that someone could do this to you, could consider doing this to you. Your statistical possibilities will plummet, your probabilities of doing all the things which are not so nice will rise ...

You are two. And I will always, always, always love you, and now at least, at last, I know that when I say that I mean it, come what may.

I will do all that I can to keep a home for you in which you are loved and safe and don't have to worry about things children shouldn't have to worry about. I will keep it together for you when I can because when Mommy cries it scares you.

You have stacks and stacks of presents and since I am writing this before we have opened them all I don't even know what they all are yet: you have girly flowery headbands and a shiny princess tiara with pink rhinestones and marabou feathers, you have a lot of new Duplos so i don't think more will fit in your big Duplo storage box (or at least not very many more), you have a trumpet and a cute in-tune xylophone and we brought out the drum again, you have sticker books about bugs and potty-going and fish and dinosaurs, you have a hobby-horse that neighs when you push a button, you have clothes and shoes and boots, balloons, colorful band-aids, and our neighbor gave you your first Twinkies, full of globby cream and preservatives. My big girl!

You are so tall, now, and you talk all the time, with sentences in English and sentences in German, and you know who speaks which language, and you can run run run and walk all the way back from the tagesmutter's, you can kick things and throw things and climb things, you can build real things with the Duplos and claim that what you have drawn is representative of something, and you can do so much and know so much and understand so much. (Which makes it all worse, somehow.)

E, i love you, baby. It's all that keeps me going, some days, but i'm doing my best.

Labels: drama, milestones

a deliberately empty post

Labels: drama

i'd rather not talk about it. Yet.

Dog no. 2 is going to be leaving us shortly.

Also, i cut bangs, and while they are very cute and reminiscent of that lady with the high pony tail on the old Emme makeover show (i LOVED that old Emme makeover show), they look awful with a red puffy nose from crying, so no pictures. This morning, i was a stone fox. Now, not so much.

Labels: dogs, drama

I was not very much involved; I was a 9-year old kid in a small town near Budapest. There's a picture of my brother, T, and my cousin, M. They're paddling with this homemade oar on the Danube in an inner tube, a bucolic country life, as far as we could tell. There's another picture of me and T and the chickens. The adults did their best to protect the children. We just got kind of second, or third hand news.

I was nine, and we lived in Felsogod, north of Budapest, on the eastern bank of the Danube. Fifteen miles north of Budapest on a main highway. One day when I was going to school, instead of the usual haywagon or truck, I had to watch a hundred and twenty-five tanks go by. This was after the revolution.

During the revolution, a kid who always used to get into trouble was cheered on by all the teachers, and kids, as he climbed the obelisk memorial next to my school to the "Heroic Russian Army" that had "rescued us from fascism." He went up and tore down the red star.

The revoultion began on October 23rd. Everybody was all excited, and talking about stuff I didn't understand - I couldn't really get what was happening. I was a very protected child. I knew that there were a lot of family secrets I couldn't talk to people about, like when my friend's father asked me if we listened to Radio Free Europe I wasn't supposed to tell, or that I wasn't supposed to tell what my parents talked about after dark. One of my classmates' father always asked me when I was playing at their house whether my family listened to RFE; lying about it was an absolute rule for me, because my classmate's father seemed to be an informer. I had known other people who had disappeared, and I didn't want my parents or grandfather to disappear. This was just one of many family secrets we had to keep. Another was, what did my parents talk to each other about, after they turned out the lights? Or around the dinner table?

In Felsogod on the day of the revolution, I was home, and everyone was very excited, and the adults tried to keep all the kids, boys especially, at home. People were more open, more friendly, a lot more polite. I was living on the edge of a village, away from any media, so I only saw what was going on around me. After the revolution the trains werent running right, all the services were disrupted. My father couldn't get to work reliably, he was a lawyer, commuting to Budapest back and forth every day. IT didnt disturb him too much because theere were very few cases, in his cooperative there were thirty lawyers with fifteen desks and one secretary, so he coudln't do much for working in his office anyway. So he stayed home for part of that time. He would go and see if there was a train and wait a while, two or three hours, and if there was no train that day hed come home.

My grandfather came over every afternoon. I remember my grandfater listening to RAdio Free Europe with all the interference played over it, on the contraband Grundig radio that was buried during WWII, because having it would have been a death sentence. It was the only radio we knew of that pulled in Radio Free Europe. The signal wandered, and there was a lot of interference broadcast on the same frequency. It was mostly news with a very American slant, religious services. A lot of encouragement to the Hungarians to continue their valorous fight, that the West would be totally supportive. We were leafleted from the air that the west supports us, but there was never any material aid - I picked up multiple leaflets in my yard, that said the US specifically supported us, but there was never any material aid.

When the revolution appeared to be successful they threw out the hammer and sickle seal and put up the Kossuth seal - he was a hero of the 1848 revolution to become an independent, autonomous nation from Austria - in newspapers, in papers that were published. They were trying to establish a new constitution, to establish a new government, and so for a few days this Kossuth sign was used. IT was put on tanks that were captured. The symbol of the revolution was a Hungarian flag with the communist seal ripped out from the middle. So the reestablished flag had the hammer and sickle back in it afterwards.

Movement was even more restricted than usual - you weren't allowed to travel. That affected me when we were escaping to Austria in December, that you weren't allowed to go anywhere without a permit. Slowly I guess things went back the way they were, somewhat, but services were still not really regular. Even in December when we were starting to leave it was somewhat unusual to have a train in the morning. When they brought the wagonload of bread to the store they just distributed it, they didn't even bother to take money for it, but they couldnt come every day. It was kind of like a pall over everything, everyone was just sad. People began to leave, to try to get out of Hungary. So as far as i know about one out of ten people left.

I was not directly involved in the revolt; my brothers and cousins were. One of those days my cousin J was supposed to be going to school in Vacs, five miles up the road, by bicycle. He was sixteen or seventeen. And instead he went with his friend fifteen miles south to Budapest to look at the statue of Stalin that had been pulled down, since it was such a big symbol of the communists, to seeit for himself. Like when they pulled down the Saddam Hussein statue, it was something like that. Very reminiscent. They were trying to chip pieces off the bronze statue. They heard tanks rolling towards them on the cobblestones, and so they dropped thier books and ran for cover and the closest cover they could find was inside Stalin's head. The tanks came by spraying bullets, and when it was quiet J and his friend came out and their books were crushed. They managed to get a few small pieces of the statue and rode their bikes home, real fast. My mother had a piece of that statue and every time she got homesick, she took that piece out, to remind her of why she dragged our family out of Hungary, why she'd uprooted us.

My brother T was thirteen and one day he went to the bank to pretend to shoot at the tanks. Of course the russians wouldn't have known that he and my cousin didn't have real rifles. They pretended to have Molotov cocktails too. They were hidden in the tall grass by the side of the highway and the tanks didnt see them, that was all. In Budapest thirteen-year old boys were blowing up tanks, they could have been shot. The rest of the time, the adults just about tied my brothers to chairs. I can't remember L getting out, he was sixteen.

The revolution was successful for about a week. One Sunday morning at about 4 am. the Russian tanks came in past our place toward Budapest. There was lots of stuff on the radio about Imre Nagy trying to organize a government and appealing to Western countries to help us. I remember hearing Nagy on the radio, begging for help before we were beaten down again. The adults had been very hopeful and optimistic sounding.

After November 4th, after the tanks had come in, the mood became very subdued. One day my school started up again, November 7thish. This was the morning with the hundred and twenty-five tanks. There wasnt any school in between, during the revolution, with all the adults jubilant. School started up again afterwards. I remember feeling rooted to the ground, knowing the tanks were going to Budapest to shoot up my people. School was very humdrum and drudgy. Everyone looked like they were carrying tons of weight on their shoulders. The communist principal went around visiting every classroom, throwing his weight around. I guess he was telling us that things were going to be back to normal. I think my teacher cried that day - she looked like she was on the verge of tears the whole day. I can't remember the substance of school at all at that point. We had to start wearing scarves again - when we were inducted to the Pioneers, which was supposed to be an honor but was compulsory, they said the scarves, the red kerchiefs, were a part of the red flag, were as good as wearing a piece of the flag around our necks, and i didn't see why Hungarian kids had to wear part of the Soviet flag. We had to wear the kerchief every day, we'd been inducted to the Pioneers at the beginning of fourth grade, a month before the revolution. A very fat Russian officer gave a brief talk, reminding us that the red kerchief represented the world socialist brotherhood, which was realized in the USSR. If you didn't wear the scarf they'd send you to the principals' office and he'd switch you with whatever his nearest piece of equipment was - a ruler, a paddle, his belt, his shoe, whatever he had. He was a brute. They would slap you across the palm with a meter stick; the teachers could be quite physical. The Pioneers didn't have any activities but every month you had to buy a stupid stamp for your membership book. The membership book had some intersting stuff, like a Boy Scout book, but also a lot of Commnist crap. This was the year that my history book had sixty pages of text missing, starting in September, that they'd changed their version of history again and the first sixty pages were missing. There was a uniform set of textbooks across the country for every grade but they'd printed them before they decided what to teach, so they had every teacher rip out the first sixty pages. After the Revoultion they didn't rip any more pages but there were parts where teh teacher was supposed to say, well, that's not true. They denied having had kings in the past, you know, csars.

On the way to escape from Hungary in early December, after the revolution had been crushed, we first went to Budapest to say goodbye to my aunt's family. Trains were running randomly, whenever an engineer was available, when there were a lot of passengers. In Budapest, I saw a lot of buildings that had been severely damaged, there was rubble in the streets, and there was very little traffic. There was a curfew after dark, which was in midafternoon. My brother snuck out with my younger cousin to hunt for some chocolate; when they returned a good hour after dark, my aunt was hysterical... and then beat them soundly.

From Budapest we took a train to about 35 km from the Austrian border. There was a 30 km restricted zone all along the western border. In fact, people were not allowed to travel more than a few km from their home, and so for every stretch of the train ride, we had to memorize various alibis. We got off the train in the dark, and immediately we were grabbed and dragged away by people in trench coats. My mother was frantic; my father and older brother had gone off to look for lodging for the night. A few blocks from the train station, we were told that someone would go back to get my father and older brother. We were taken to a home, fed hot soup, and put into beds with clean sheets, while the family doubled up in a couple of the beds.

The lady with the trench coat was a nurse in the railroad workers' hospital. She arranged to get us on a special train in the morning. This train left at nine am, and before it entered the restricted zone, two freight "mail" cars were loaded with 60 people each, out in the country; as many more were turned away. At the next station, the passenger cars were removed. Mind you, that much mail was highly unusual; the wagon we were put in had a tractor for delivery. From then on, we had to be extra quiet. A playful little boy was given liquor to put him to sleep.

At every station, a railroad worker greeted the train from the platform, with his hat either on his head or in his hand; one of these gestures meant that there were AVO (secret police) or Russian soldiers near the train. In fact we did have one stop like that. At every stop, the door was slid open, and mail was taken out. At one stop the doors were opened very wide to remove the tractor; the 60 of us were huddled in the dark shadows at the ends of the car.

Finally the train stopped, and the engineer revved up the steam engine. On that brilliant December morning, this created a dense cloud around the train. Fifteen people were let out of the railway car, including the five of us. Once again, we were grabbed and dragged away by strangers; and in that thick cloud, my mother gripped me with an iron clasp in one hand, T with the other. She was frantic again, couln't see my father and L. We were led to a house, through a long strip of back yard. Finally my mother was reassured when she saw the guys coming, too. My father, ever an outdoorsman, offered to chop the wood outside the house, which belonged to an attractive young widow, but they urged him to go right in.

The house had three rooms: the fancy room, the kitchen, and the bedroom. We were in the bedroom, with only a thin lace curtain and a broken pane of glass concealing us. I heard hooves, and I heard the train pulling away. My mother shoved me behind her, to shield me. I tried to push her aside to see what was happening. When I could see, I saw a large horse wheeling in front of the window with a large uniformed man on it; the head was out of sight. As the horse wheeled, the sun glinted on his AK 47, and for one frozen instant, it pointed at me. The others later talked about people from the train, a second group that had gotten out before the train could get away; that group was led past our window. We heard that the train let the other people out in a field somewhere, and they were left to their own devices. We were 500 m from the border.

After dark, the village was searched. We could hear them coming nearer and nearer. They served us some soup, but no one could eat. The tension built, and finally the searchers came to our house, and we were about to give up. But then, for the next hour and a half, our hostess, the 30-something widow, entertained the officer in the fancy room, while the granny in our house ran in every ten minutes or so with her rolling pin all evening crying, "We're lost, we're lost!"; the railroad man that had joined us sent her back out to the kitchen each time. We had brought liquor with us to bribe guards... so the widow plied the officer with many drinks, and threatened never to see him again if he bothered her house. So in the end he and his party departed.

We were to leave as soon as the moon went behind clouds, or nine o'clock came. There was a clear sky when we set out at nine. Scouts from the village had gone across the border and come back; they had memorized an exact path through the minefields, which were re-laid every day. We were to follow silently, exactly where the three guides went, in a narrow line. If there were any flares or shooting, we were to flatten ourselves on the ground. We walked incredibly fast, at times silhouetted on the crest of the hill, our boots clomping on the frozen ground, the moon casting long shadows. In the end there were neither flares nor shooting; we just saw the silhuettes of the guard towers, Sometimes we walked through tall rows, mostly vineyards, that looked like corn in the dark. We heard a church nearby tolling ten o'clock, came through a gap in a sandy hill, and were in front of the church, which was all decorated for Christmas. We were in Austria. We were photographed with little numbered signs; we were about 879th across at that village that night.

From Vienna, we were able to send a coded message via Radio Free Europe; this is how our relatives learned that we had made it to the West safely. RFE was always talking about the United Nations. When I arrived in New York City, just in time for my tenth birthday, my uncle asked me what I wanted to see. I asked him to go to the United Nations, the only place I knew about in NYC. At the United Nations they were just debating "The Hungarian Situation..." I never saw my grandfather again.

Labels: drama, family

October 2nd, 1:36 in the morning, 3.2 kilos/7 lbs, 52 cm/20.5", Erica Renee came into the world after fifty-odd hours of labor and some week and a half overdue......

Oy. So. Saturday morning, the 29th, i had contractions that were Different, being very regular and a bit painful, and i hopefully took the dogs for a good long walk, but they went away when we got back. Le sigh. Around 7:30 or 8:00 PM they started up again, which is where i'm counting from, and we went off to have proper Mexican food, which involved going on the streetcar and walking a pretty long way, again, and slowly, with many stops, and it was really good Mexican and spicy and the bean dip was absolutely delicious and the contrax went on all the way through. I took some Tylenol and tried to go to bed, but couldn't sleep. I started having bloody show (or blood, anyway) around eleven. By midnight the contrax were five minutes apart and lasting about fifty seconds; around two they were lasting a minute, and we obediently called a taxi and went to the hospital. The taxi driver was Turkish and very sweet and excited for us.

At the hospital they determined that i was a fingertip dilated and not terribly effaced, and said i could spend the night or go home and come back in the morning. Yeah, we live an hour from the hospital and i was starting to think that this was back labor - i stayed. By morning i was 2cm and pretty damn sure that this was back labor; i'd had about an hour and a half of sleep and had a cup of fennel tea and some yogurt for breakfast; they said it was good that i'd stayed, and that i'd have a baby that afternoon. Ha. I was on fetal monitors for twenty minutes every two or three hours throughout but didn't much feel like moving except to try and see if sitting up helped, if bending over helped, if this side helped, et c. Sitting was best at this point (and M was amazingly helpful and completely awesome). My legs kept shaking. Sunday afternoon i was still at 2cm and they gave me some homeopathic pessary to help with pain and, therefore, help me relax - lavender and something else, prostaglandins, maybe. Sunday evening i had an enema (which was unpleasant) and a shower (which was pleasant) followed by cervical massage (which was also not pleasant), but was still at 2cm. I can't remember if i ate anything else, but M said i didn't eat for two days, and i tend to believe him. Around ten p.m. they gave me an injection combo of nabufin and prepetil, neither of which i can spell, to help me sleep and speed cervical ripening, respectively. I slept for about two hours. Monday morning i think i had a banana and some more fennel tea, and was found to be at 3cm and they gave me little round white homeopathic pills to take five of every fifteen minutes: Caulophyllum thalactroides and Gelsemium sempervirens. M copied the names off the bottle. Monday afternoon i had another enema (still unpleasant) and a bath (which didn't help with the pain in the slightest, and was very disappointing) and more lavender suppositories to help with pain and another sleeping-and-cervix injection, but i couldn't sleep. I was loopy and out of it (the nabufin (sp.) was something like morphine), but still very much having very fucking painful back labor, and not sleeping. I was starting to be not able to breathe through things any more and started saying things like "i can't" and "i am pretty sure i am going to want an epidural later." I was on my side in bed most of the time and would get up and try to walk every so often. Sitting started to be worse than laying down. At some point i threw up. We think my water broke with the enema or bath because it wasn't there later, but we hadn't noticed anything new. Monday evening - after the hospital dinner time, which was around 5:30, but hell if i could eat - i was finally at 5 cm and went to the delivery room, which was lovely because i could have an epidural.

So i had the epidural. After they pumped in a liter of saline, at about 6cm, but whatever. Two days of back labor was enough of a natural childbirth for me. It wasn't quite a walking epidural - my right leg I wouldn't have trusted with my weight on it, and they were both still shaking - but I could move on the bed pretty well. The midwife we had on duty was cool and funny and spoke better English than she would admit to if you asked. The epidural was delicious. The pain was almost gone - just almost, and I pushed the button for more relief twice - but I could still feel contrax. Three contractions after it went in, i fell asleep, and essentially slept through transition - the midwife would come in and check how dilated i was every so often, but oh, it was wonderful to sleep. I need to find the patron saint of anaesthesiologists and thank her profusely. The midwife was able to rotate the baby's head into a better position so i didn't need to push the extra-epidural button any more. At about eight (i think) they started me on some form of pitocin, coupled with a belladonna pessary to finish the cervix. At eleven forty-five i was ten centimeters dilated. I don't know if there is a different standard in the States, but here they start a two hour timer when they tell you it's okay to push. An actual, ticking, timer, that you can hear. The baby was slow to descend. The midwife brought in the doctor on duty, who upped the pitocin. I'd met the doctor before. They said i was pushing the right way - it was hard for me to tell with the epidural - but even so, with half an hour to go on the timer, they wanted the baby out. And the doctor came back, and a nurse, and a pediatrician too, so with M and the midwife it was fairly dense. They decided on a vacuum and episiotomy - and with the fetal monitor going, i wasn't about to say no. The midwife did the episotomy and i don't know why but it made me feel a lot better that it was a woman doing it. I saw them holding the scissors and looked away - i couldn't feel it, i couldn't hear it, i could hear the doctor saying things like "maybe angle it a little more" in German. And then they went in with the vaccuum, and I pushed, and they pulled, and the nurse pushed on the top of my belly, too, and the baby finally came out. The cord was wrapped around her neck just once, but it was long. It looked like a plastic-covered bicycle lock. It - and she - were a little purple. It was Tuesday morning.

They put her straight on my chest while the pediatrician suctioned out her lungs. We were a bloody pair. M and i dried her off and put her in a slightly cleaner towel; she nuzzled at my breast and latched on a bit while we waited for the placenta. They took her away for measurements and clothes after the placenta came out and M held her while they stitched me back up. We got to breastfeed and gape at each other in the delivery room for maybe another two hours before Erica and I went upstairs to go to sleep and M went home - there'd been a mini-boom that night and all the private rooms were already filled. We both got this crazy adrenaline high - after being exhausted, after all that long, but the tired went away for an hour or two at the sheer blinding miracle of it. And then the tired came back, and we slept, Erica and I upstairs in the hospital, and M at home.

And she's here. And she's perfect. And i can't quite believe, yet, that she's mine and I get to keep her. She takes my breath away.

Oh! And, there are pictures.

Labels: baby, drama, family, health, mamadom, people, reflection, writing

standing still and letting strange drunk men beat me with sticks to honor a Czech easter "tradition" without castrating them for it

switching fingers for my wedding ring

apparently, haveing a fully knowledgeable glass of wine

things i can do include:

eating strange things, like, well, for instance, austrian blood sausage, which has a very interesting texture (nearly identical to canned tunafish) and is oddly spicy but one doesn't quite want to know why, but now we don't have to wonder what blunzen is any more, and also, i'm completely not anemic now, thanks

considering the possibility of wearing said wedding ring on a necklace, on a temporary basis

allowing the contents of my uterus to completely do their own thing without telling me, the prospective mama, at all, for three freaking months, which doesn't mean anything except that yes, this is definitely my kid.

i couldn't have posted on april fools' day. but. and also, don't think for a second that this means i like baking now, what with the whole thing-in-the-other-thing. and know that i'm a little disappointed (OH, OH, IT'S THE BLACK LINING) that i can't paint the apartment now because it does really need it. so because, if i squint at the mirror and stand just so and also if i am naked, then i can just pretend that i am almost perceptibly showing. gravida: 1, para: 0. ETA 29-09-07.

Labels: baby, drama, expat, family, health

scrawled @ 19:15

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29.3.07

multiple choice

which is more cruel: to tell people something one is not sure of that will make them sick with worry, or to wait until one knows and maybe hurt them by being silent so long?

why do i always pick the waiting?

Labels: drama

scrawled @ 08:06

0 Comments

13.3.07

and don't come back for five to seven days

is not as funny as it sounds. Or not in the same way, maybe. Or not any more.

Dear Self,

There's nothing you can do about it anyway, one way or the other. it is, somehow, done. it is out of your hands. worrying about it will not accomplish anything. right? so let's chill the fuck out and think about something else. let it go.

Dear Self,

Bitch, you know how i hate being told to hurry up and wait.

Labels: baby, drama, writing

scrawled @ 19:48

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9.3.07

i'm not so good at the deep.

i'm okay with this. i know that my #1 coping mechanism is black, black humor. i kind of like it that way, really. case in point: Every time you try to make a metaphor about Iraq, a little Iraqi baby dies. that's healthy, right?

sorry, sorry. i just really wish i knew what was going on, already. Schrodinger is a rotten bitch to have in one's head.

Labels: drama

scrawled @ 19:33

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2.3.07

mornings

i feel like hemingway, only not at all. The exact opposite. But identical. it's the same. Also the same: one side will make you an iceberg, and one side will make you a volcano. This is iceberg. volcano is only in my head.

Labels: baby, drama

scrawled @ 09:59

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14.12.06

and the moral of the story is

Never sell the Airstream.

Labels: drama

scrawled @ 15:15

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13.5.05

Not my drama, but fun to watch

the little bro is having drama with these people and it's kind of funny. I can keep tabs on it all from their assorted blogs. And they're showing *no* signs of actually reading each other, which i think is hilarious - they're all talking about each other nonstop. The things they might learn on the internet. (Oh the places you'll go.) And, B is such a little drama queen, kid, but i can see why you like him, and by such a little drama queen, i mean such a little drama queen. And M and i agree that L is smokin' hot. Little train-wreck soap-opera. I'm waiting for L to have a secret, insane evil twin (which she might - she goes shopping with somebody) and B to have an illegitimate child with it (because how would he know?). As long as my little bro isn't the one that ends up in the coma, i'm happy. Sorry, kid. i'm not trying to be mean to those involved. but B is being a drama queen, and without further information (how could i miss the season premiere?!?!) i'm pretty well convinced that whatever happened wasn't your fault. (damn scriptwriters.)

Oh, kid, and? Reverse psychology doesn't work on you. Hasn't for almost two decades.

Labels: drama

scrawled @ 14:48

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*not very factual on motorcycles either

:anmut: :annika: :chin: :dooce: :ewok mama: :food: :little frog school: :lj: :longform: :low odysseys: :natalya: :rich: :salon: :slate: :this is how: :unique yn:



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