Mommy Dearest...

I had Bekah young. I was a married adult, but I was still young. Before she came I was a complete and total slob. I thought life was about fun, the next sensation, the next adventure, the next friend, cheeseburger, mall visit, restaurant. I was a person who was on the go all the time...unless I was in bed. Those were my two states of being - moving at a frantic pace, or not moving at all.

Then Bekah was conceived and our life changed. Rich joined the army so we would have medical insurance for her birth, and left when I was four months pregnant. I was left to be pregnant alone. I had family....Rich's parents living upstairs and My parents and aunts and cousins and Meme and my friends at college. I wasnt alone alone, but I did miss Rich being there to share with me the first time she really kicked, and the growing stomach and the eternal vomiting which I did for nine months. Then she was born....after 20 hours of hellacious labor...but that fades the moment that precious baby is placed in your arms. I looked at her and from that moment my life changed. I was responsible for her. All of the possibilities of her life depended on me doing the right thing....loving her enough, loving her dad enough...being strong and dependable and keeping things clean and my life structured and orderly. I read book after book on raising a child. Making lists and plans for how to raise her, not just through infancy but forever. A plan so that she would always feel I was consistent and constant and not a flibberty gibbet which is my natural life tendency. Suddenly the apartment was clean. Not just sometimes, all the time. I washed her clothes in nothing but ivory snow. She was clean and bathed always. She was held, and loved, and sung to... not just by me but by an army of people who loved her.

I will never forget the first time Rich saw his little Ms. Magoo...she had that friar tuck baldish thing going on for a very long time. I put her in his arms and they just looked at each other, neither of them moving. It was like their souls connected. For her whole growing up Bekah was such a Daddy's girl from that moment on. She smiled and laughed so often, and she was inquisitive and loved to explore the world. She was the most well behaved baby. I could take her anywhere. If it was naptime and we were at the mall, she would lie down in her stroller and take her nap. Noise didnt bother her, she just slept. She went to restaurants, art galleries, movies, everywhere and didnt ever cause a ruckus...she was peaceful. I loved dressing her up. She had the coolest clothes thanks to her grandmother and aunt janice who loved to visit Rochelles and buy the cutest things at the biggest bargains. She and I took infant swimming at the Y when she was just 3 months old..and she was a little fish. She loved her days with Aunt Lenore while I went to college and loved her weekends..every other weekend alternating with her grandparents so I could work. She smiled and laughed with my room mate Jane. (Jane was a godsend that year Rich was away and I was still in Massachusetts trying to finish college)
When Bekah had just turned a year old we moved to Georgia. Her life changed, and she changed in subtle ways. The first year of her life had been full of constant love and attention from so many people all the time. Suddenly it was just me and her Dad. The army doesnt have a forgiving schedule and Rich worked all the time. I was alone in the apartment with Bekah. We got a routine going. We would mousercize first thing in the morning, then have our breakfast, then sesame street and fraggles, then reading time, then free play time while i picked up, then Eureka's Castle which led us into lunch, then nap time while i cleaned the house from end to end, stripped beds, bleached, washed sheets, dusted, and vacuumed the carpet in three directions ....the whole house..every day. In the afternoon we would go to the pool, and read, and often in the late afternoon Rich's army buddies would come by...even thought Rich was at work...to see what I was making for dinner. We had dinner company almost every night on a grocery budget of only $100! After dinner there was always a bath, and a book and bedtime. A routine, the same thing day after day after day. I had read that routine was important, and I was determined to do the right thing with this awesome responsibility I had been given.

Money was tight, so I started watching other children at the house. The routine helped, we just eased each new kid into the routine with us. At one point I was watching six children in a small apartment ranging from newborn to 2 years old. Still cleaning the apartment every day and cooking for Rich and his friends. Still trying to give Bekah all the love and attention she deserved. I was lonely, but I loved being a Mom more than anything. On Rich's days off we would go to the park and throw balls, and swing and picnic. We couldnt afford anything else, but we always went out on those days. I remember our outings to Chuck E Cheese where Rich and I and Bekah would split one salad bar and a basket of breadsticks and call that our splurge because it was all we could afford. What we were really affording on those excursions was the fun of watching Bekah play in the ball pit with the other kids, and watch the animatronic show. She loved it, and we loved watching her love it.

Then I discovered I was pregnant and things were tense for a bit. There was no way we were going to be able to afford two children in diapers, we were barely making it with one. I doubled my efforts to potty train Bekah and luckily she potty trained very easily and when Laura was born when Bekah was fifteen months old, Bekah was already potty trained. The pregnancy wasnt easy. There were complications. I was on bed rest and only allowed to get up to go to the bathroom. We set up the sleeper sofa and that was my home. I tried to stay to the routine as much as possible, but Bekah got more tv time than I would have liked because I couldnt get up to take her anywhere. The house was not clean, the company no longer came for dinner since I couldnt get up to cook, Rich still worked long hours - he was working two jobs - and I was so lonely and trapped in a sofa bed for over a month. Bekah was starting to be independent, but thankfully the terrible two's had not hit - yet.

Laura was born, two and a half months early. I woke up one morning and got up to go to the bathroom and there was a sea of blood. In the most horrible day ever...Rich got somebody to watch Bekah and raced me to Martin Army Hospital on Ft Benning where the idiots put me in a room for six hours and wouldnt do anything. I wasnt bleeding anymore. They had lost my ultrasound results ...I had been hospitalized for bleeding once already prior to being put on bed rest...and had weekly ultrasounds. Suddenly the records were gone and the Dr was trying to claim that I was full term based on my stomach measurements and that we needed to just let things progress naturally. Rich was beside himself and went home collecting up a portion of the 'evidence' of the blood flood of the morning. Finally after 6 hours of complete incompetence the Dr sent me by ambulance to the medical center where there was a neonatal icu. In that late hour decision they saved my life and Lauras. When I got to the medical center the doctor ordered an immediate ultrasound and they were alarmed. The placenta had separated from the uterus, the baby was breech and things were dire. They rushed me into emergency surgery. They put me under, no time for an epideural or a spinal or other fancy birth options..this was a life or death situation. They put me under...but not enough. I couldnt move, but I felt every single cut and was paralyzed so I couldnt let anybody know the pain I was in. Blessedly at some point in the surgery I 'went under' and from that point didnt know anything that went on until the recovery room when a nurse told me I had given birth to a son. As they rolled me out of the recovery room to the room I would be in for almost a week Rich told me that we had a daughter. I was really confused. I asked to see my baby and they explained that I couldnt, that she was in neonatal icu and that I couldnt go there because of my own medical condition. I got out of bed and started to take out the IV's etc...I told them I WAS going to see my baby. It didnt take long for them to acquiesce and get me a wheelchair and take me to the neonatal icu. She was so tiny. She was so fragile, still covered in blood because they didnt dare lower her temperature to clean her off...she had tubes going into her all over and monitors and she was in a full incubator without any way to touch her. They explained that she had been dead at birth, but that they had revived her. They also explained that the odds of her survival were only 50/50. I sat there, just letting her grasp my pinky finger for as many hours as they would let me stay. I talked to her, I sang to her. I couldnt hold her, or feed her, or change her...but I was determined to let her know that her Mommy loved her. Thrive she did, at a rate that surprised the neonatal staff. I was there for every feeding they allowed, determined that I wanted to be there as often as I could when she was taken from that incubator to be held. As much as possible it would be me holding her and caring for her, not some stranger. They do not like to let preemies go until they reach 5 lbs, but they let Laura come home when she hit 4 lbs. They said they werent worried about her care since I had been there doing all of her care anyway. She was so tiny when we brought her home. I had to make a surround for the carseat so she wouldnt fall over. (at that time, you couldnt buy such things, now everybody has them for newborns) She couldnt wear even preemie clothing - everything was too big. My mother asked her students for cabbage patch doll clothes, and she shipped them to me. They fix my little laura doll. She was very cute in her doll clothes. Her entire head fit in the palm of my hand and I have never felt so protective of anyone in my entire life as I felt of my precious little baby girl. My mother would tell you that I held on to that protective feeling far too long and babied Laura, I would tell you that whatever I did was just right because she turned out to be an amazing woman.

The first month she was home from the hospital was incredibly difficult for me. Laura had to eat every two hours, and they said she had to take at least an ounce. It took an hour to coerce her to take an ounce. So...all night long...I had to set an alarm every two hours and be awake for an hour to feed, then try to sleep an hour before repeating. This might be fine, but Bekah was 15 months old and I could not sleep during the day. Rich would have helped, but he was working two jobs to try to make ends meet and he was seldom home. All day long I had to spend those non feeding hours making sure Bekah didnt feel usurped by her new sister and that our routine would be very much like it had been instead of catching those naps I craved. It was a crazy hard time of my life...but I had two beautiful girls to show for it. I wouldnt trade it for anything.

We moved onto post quarters not too long after Laura was born. Having a second child bumped us closer to the top of the list. It was SO nice to have the house to ourself. Our house, no room mate to help with the expenses. A home for my family with three bedrooms two baths, kitchen, dining room, living room and a small backyard. There was a playground down the street that I could walk to...and my neighbor was incredibly wonderful and friendly and fell in love with Bekah right away. She had a swing in her front yard, and she and Bekah would sit and swing and talk and talk and talk. We didnt have a lot of money, but with what we did have I decorated our little house so that it would be a home Rich could be proud of. Finally we could have company again, and not just Rich's army buddies, we had a spare room so we could have our friends from home come visit and stay. Scott Libby came, and Jane Norton, and Donna Bouchard....we had a really good time. It was nice to have a home. One of Jeff's buddies was getting married so we hosted the reception in our quarters and I did all of the cooking for it. Jeff's new wife Amy and I became great friends. Bekah hit the terrible twos, and suddenly my incredibly peaceful little girl became a little beast. She had tantrums the likes of which I thought would cause her to injure herself. I was baffled, totally baffled. I did not understand why my sweet girl had gone Linda Blair on me. I went back to the baby books to read what to do for tantrums. I targeted on one solution.....hold her, hold her tight and tell her over and over that you love her while she thrashes and screams and wails. I did that. Omg she hated it. So....when she was about to tantrum she would look at me and pee...knowing that I wasnt going to hold her if she was pee soaked. It was a horrible time. She was also rather precocious. At two years old she would tell me "Mother, do not wear those shoes they dont match". They probably didnt. I sure wasnt spending what little money we had on clothes for me. Everything went to our girls. Between their grandparents, great aunts and us..they had everything any child could dream of. Rich was working animal control for the army at this time, so he brought home twin black cocker spaniels we named 'Danny' and 'Danielle' They were so cute and I had been wanting pets so badly.


to be continued.....