Enough

I care way too much about what people think of me.  It is a debilitating and life-sucking disease.  I've lost my confidence.  My self worth.  I am not really sure where it went but I can't find it.  And the voices in my head convince me I don't need to.  They tell me I am not good enough.  For anybody or anything.

This happens to me periodically.  I'm stunted and lost for awhile.  I cry a lot and feel very sorry for myself.  I worry and wonder what's wrong with me.  I find it difficult to do things that I know are good for me.  Healthy eating, sleeping, exercising, praying.....living.  My head knows what to do but the voices tell me otherwise.  They convince me these things won't help.  "You've done them before and what good did it do?  You're still here.  You're still stuck in this place."  I make half-hearted attempts to take better care of myself.  I go for a walk or play with my kids, talk to a friend.  I eat a salad for lunch.  But I'm not honest with myself.  I continue to hear: "What's the point?  You're still too fat, too ugly, too stupid to REALLY go all out.  Because you went all out before, several times, and now you are right back where you started."

Yesterday, I had a rough day.  It's really been a rough week.  Month. Year. or maybe Two.  Anyway, I usually feel like I have more bad days than good days.  I feel like I'm spinning wheels.  Yesterday, I tried hard to do the right thing about a hard situation.  But the worry about what people think of me when I stand up for myself and my family, is debilitating and exhausting.  I ended the day crying.  And I woke up this morning, as I do every recent morning, dreading the day.  Another day to go through the motions and feel never good enough.

I've been thinking about going back to the gym for the last three or four months that I haven't been going.  Every day I think about it.  Sometimes, I make the first move; I put my gym bag in the car.  But the voices battle me and they've been winning.  "If you go, people will judge you.  You're fat.  You were doing so good for awhile, but not now.  You'll be right back where you started.  You aren't good enough to go there.  Everyone will feel sorry for you."  I haven't made the second move in a long time.

Today was the same.  I made the first move.  "Are you crazy?  You aren't going to make it there, you never do."   I made the second; I got in my car.  "Ok, maybe you're in here, but you'll probably just drive past the gym.  They'll think you are ridiculous for showing up after such a long time."  I made the third move; I parked at the gym.  "Well, you're here, you might as well go in and prove I'm right.  You can't do this, you'll look so stupid."  I walked in the gym.  My favorite trainer's face lit up like I was 1986 Tom Cruise in Top Gun playing shirtless volleyball on the beach.  She gave me a long, hard hug and the voices spoke "I have so much anxiety about being here."  She pointed to a tattoo on her arm and said "when I start telling myself I'm not good enough, I remind myself that I am enough. You are here and that's enough." Enough.

Enough, Marie.  Enough listening to the voices.  I've had enough.  I am enough.

Tomorrow will be a different day.  But for today, I am enough.

Luca's Birth Journey

My daughter Maya was a c-section in 2006 because she was breech and they thought I had low amniotic fluid. I never went into labor because they took her at 37 weeks. At that time I was told by my OB that my local hospital has a "once a c-section always a c-section" policy.

When my husband and I began thinking about having another baby, I began to mourn the loss of my birth experience with my daughter. I was scared to go through the surgery, recovery, PPD, difficulty breastfeeding and bonding, etc. that I mostly blamed on the cesarean. Ever since I had helped a friend through her labor in college, I had wanted to experience labor and delivery of my own child. I felt that God had created me capable of birthing babies, and I wanted to feel that power through my body.

Miraculously, right around the time I became pregnant, I connected with strong birth advocates on Facebook through my Aunt Robin. These women pointed me towards International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN) and told me that hospital policy didn't have to stop me from having the birth I desired. My husband and I contacted local midwives Laurie and Dzhan and told them our desire to have a VBAC and to do what it took to make it happen. They told us they had just helped another local woman do the same thing in Seattle and they seemed thrilled by our choice and excited to help us. We were so encouraged to encounter so many supportive people.

It was a slightly bumpy journey trying to find a provider due to insurance issues and my location and circumstances. I had decided I wanted a hospital birth with a midwife but I and my midwife here had difficulty getting people to call me back. Finally, my awesome Facebook friends (Megan Miles and Alyson Davis) recommended homebirth midwives in the Seattle area. By that time I had read enough about having a VBAC that I was fully convinced I would have better odds at a good outcome having an out of hospital homebirth. The first midwife I contacted agreed to meet with my husband and I on a Saturday night at 5 pm. She spent almost two hours with us discussing our plans and her philosophies. She would open up her home to us for a homebirth. At 30 weeks we were finally set with a VBAC plan!

Easter Sunday I relocated to my Aunt Robin’s (also my Doula) home in Arlington, about a week and a half before my due date. It was really difficult leaving my family but both my husband and I felt like we were doing the right thing for our family.

Thursday, April 15 at about 2 a.m. I thought my water had broken. I called my husband and he drove over the pass right away. My mom stayed with my kids in Wenatchee and then her and my dad drove them over Thursday morning. We spent all day Thursday trying to kick start labor with no luck. By Friday with no progress I began having visions of having to go to the hospital and have another c-section. I went and saw my midwife and she determined that my water had not broken, I was just having a lot of pre-labor signs. (And no, i didn't just wet my pants!)

Saturday April 17 I began to feel hopeless and thought that I was going to have to say goodbye to my family AGAIN without a baby. I desperately missed my home and my kids and I began to feel guilty about the sacrifices everyone was having to make. I had a really good cry at about 5:30 pm and at 6:10 I had a big contraction. I decided to just sit by myself, watch TV and notice if I had anymore. I was tired of all the fuss about every contraction and I was sick of being a watched pot. After an hour, I had had about 8 contractions and they seemed to be getting closer together. I told my Aunt and my husband and we started walking outside to see if they kept coming. They did and they began getting more intense. My three big labor goals were to stay active, keep my sense of humor and relax my entire body through each contraction (inspired through the birth stories I read in Ina May Gaskin’s Guide to Childbirth). My husband held me through each one and reminded me to relax. Just saying that word helped me remember not to tense my body, but to relax everything. I could actually feel my body opening up as I rode each wave. I kept reminding myself that movement through labor would shorten my labor and I just kept repeating "relax and open" to myself. They were perfect mantras to get me through the pain.

One of my midwives came to my aunt’s house to listen to the baby and watch my contractions. My husband told her that I was anxious about the drive to Seattle and that he thought I would like to leave sooner rather than later. She listened to him and my husband and I got in the car and took off. My midwife told me my contractions would probably slow down on the car ride and I would have to get back in the groove once I got to the house, but she was wrong! I think because I kept accepting every contraction, rather than fighting them or tensing up against the pain, they just kept right on trucking through my body. During the car ride, I actually felt the baby’s head move further down into my pelvis. I was so relieved when we arrived at the midwives house and I still had the baby inside of me! We had made the 50 minute trip in about 40. It was 10 pm, so there was no traffic.

I immediately stripped off my clothes and got in the birth tub. It felt good to hang myself over the side. By this time I was pretty oblivious to time and activity around me, although I could hear everything. At one point I made some joke and someone joked back "she’s still got a sense of humor she must only be at a 4!!" and then I think I started swearing.

My birth team was incredible! They kept telling me I was a Rockstar and telling me how great I was doing. Their encouragement kept me going. My mom came around midnight. I had decided that I really wanted her to be there with me. She had originally thought that she wouldn’t be able to handle it because she gets queasy at the sight of blood and always said she couldn’t even watch her own children be born. But she came and became apart of the birth team! My husband was awesome, he stayed with me almost the whole time and looking back at pictures, he always has a smile on his face. He kept kissing me and followed every direction I gave him!
At one point I said "I can’t" and then remembered that I didn’t want any negative thoughts and immediately began saying "I can do this."

Once I started to feel like I wanted to push, my midwife checked me and said I was complete. I pushed for a little bit in the tub but didn’t like it very much. I pushed on the toilet for a while and liked that a whole lot better. I could feel the baby moving down through me – it was incredible! Then I moved to the bed and laid on my side to push. They told me the tub was ready again because I had thought I wanted to have a waterbirth. But by that time I could feel my baby’s head coming and I didn’t want to move again. I pushed a few more times and out he came straight into my husbands hands at 2:20 am on April 18 after 8 hours of labor! My Aunt/Doula was holding my hand, my mom was holding my leg and my midwives made sure I didn’t tear!
My son was placed right onto my chest. It is the best feeling knowing that my husband and I were the first to touch him and hold him.

Several hours later he weighed in at 9 lbs 12 oz, 14 ½ in head and 21 in long! My mom went back to the hotel and my dad came to visit. We celebrated with champagne at 5 a.m. Then later in the morning they brought our kids to meet their new baby brother!

We are so thrilled to have Luca Thomas Scanlon as the newest member of our family and so grateful for all of the support and encouragement we received from family, friends, and our birth team. We feel that God had his hand on this whole process and orchestrated every detail according to his plan. We have been blessed beyond belief.

the one with lots of capital letters aka a love letter

i have always been attracted to the bad boys. remember the weird-o kid in parenthood? loved him. edward furlong in terminator 2? nick stahl in man without a face? brent ogee in 6th grade. still makes my heart flutter a little bit. i like the bad boys. probably has something to do with the facts that i was known as "the perfect child", my dad was a cop and i didn't rebel in my teenage years. who wouldn't love the sexy, long greasy haired, introverted loners with a reputation like mine?

spring 2004. i meet ted and alan during church softball. those boys were/are CUTE. cute together. cute by themselves. cute. i could tell ted had been a little bit of a bad boy (i have badboydar) so of course i clued in and started paying attention. NOT TO MENTION, that bad boy could run the bases like nobody's business and he had very attractive arms while he was up to bat. what? i'd never cared about arms before. bad boys don't normally have particularly hot arms. but oh man, i always wished ted was up to bat. OR i wished that i would get hurt somehow, so ted would come show me sympathy. my wish came true frequently, because 1. ted is very sympathetic and 2. i got hurt a lot.

it took this bad boy all season to ask me out. that's the beauty of bad boys. they aren't cocky and forward. they are shy, planful and unassuming. during our first date ted invited me on three more in the next three days and he didn't even think i was a loser for not having any plans. pretty good for a first date.

so the next day when ted called me and said he would meet me at the movie theater, i was pretty bummed. meeting is no fun. getting picked up for a date is fun. so when ted called me back 30 seconds later and told me he would pick me up instead, i was thinking that he was the right kind of bad boy for me.

and that is the beginning of our love story.

this is the other beginning of our love story:

ted is not so much a bad boy anymore. sometimes, i have to convince him to be just a little bad and NOT eat healthy. or i have to make him blow off some responsibility for a little fun. other times he makes me do wild and crazy things like jump on the piles of fertilizer bags outside of safeway or chase an ambulance or two. we balance. his bad boy with my good girl.

tonight i was contemplating this man i LOVE.

he started back to school this year to pursue his love of music. he works hard on homework and studies every night and day. he puts a lot of thought and effort into cooking meals for our family. he spends time playing with the kids. once in a while he blows off his homework "just to hang out" with me. he reads hatchet to alan almost every night. he rubs my shoulders when i have a headache. he makes up stories to tell maya before bed. he makes me sit down with him and come up with a chore chart. he always does his chores and sometimes mine.

last night ted was super stressed about his homework and test today. (he has about a million hours of homework a week.) during study breaks he made cookies with the kids. (did I mention they were GOOD cookies??) then he took his test and got an A.

and today when he had the day off from work, what did he do? not the hours of homework he could have. he decided to take maya and alan to the skate park and then hike saddle rock.

this man is a GOOD dad.

he's a GOOD husband.

he's a GOOD student.

he's a GOOD guy.

i love my bad boy turned good guy. and his arms STILL get me. literally and figuratively.

why i don't share magazines with my dad anymore.

i seriously love readers digest. but i realized i was old the other day as i was reading it. i have been reading it forever, like since i was old enough to read (and it was safe because without a "sex and dating" column, i didn't have to anticipate my dad's "discussion" about the "sex and dating" topics). i realized i was old because i have started to pay attention to all the health, heart disease, diabetes articles that i used to skip because they were for the old people. i've always been in denial that its written for geezers and i sing its praises to everyone who cares (pretty much nobody) but i have finally decided to accept the truth, embrace the "studies show..." articles and try to learn more about (and not just eat) the benefits of avocados and how to sit and be fit.

i have always been amazed at rd's ability to bring me to tears and then get me gut laughing at some schmuck's stupid antics or some daily newspaper's misprint. oh boy, those things can crack me up. it is truly a great periodical that can bring you full circle in your emotions and brain function and leave you wanting more. (if i read people, i usually end up feeling ugly and disgusted with myself for caring about trash. i need the week between issues to recover.)

but the day readers digest arrives at our house is like Christmas. and for a whole week (i used to be able to finish an issue in a couple hours but kids and family fixed that right up for me) my stomach tingles with excitement. sometimes i forget why i'm excited and then i remember! um, ted, i have to use the bathroom. i'll be right back. and I get two minutes of uninterrupted reading (the perfect amount of time for rd)

then this: (enter maya) maya go find daddy. no this is mommy's. i know it's little and has a ton of cat litter ads, but mommy is trying to read this right now. maya go see if daddy needs help. maya mommy needs some privacy. please. maya. please.

and then my rd disappears with my daughter into the other room. she thinks because it's small it's for her. i might have to start buying the large print edition. (so much of it makes so much more sense now).

oh well, my legs are usually asleep by then anyways.

ps. when seventeen magazine did a "sex and dating" on oral sex, i hid it from my dad. i'm sure you understand.

from the mouths of babes

my mom emailed me at work today:

"mikey says to maya: maya you should talk to your mother about being a pumpkin for halloween. maya says to mikey: i don't have a mother, i have a mommy."

she's so smart and so right. mother's are smarmy.

my contribution to the cultural education of my children

ted and i like to plan things in advance. and then we change our minds. and then ted changes his again. and then i get used to the new plan. and then ted changes his mind again. and then i get mad. and then i don't plan things in advance anymore.

ted wanted to go to barter faire and camp this last weekend. i did not. nothing against barter faire and all, but i was not too keen on subjecting my kids to a place so cold you are drawn to the flame....and that is NOT the place to be drawn to the flame, if you get my drift. so i let him stew on it for a day or two and then said things like"it's too cold" and "i have to grow a baby and it's too cold up there to do that" and "pot smoke is not good for growing babies or children." then he changes his mind. and then he changes it back. and then friday night we decide that maybe it would be ok to just go for the day. and i'm kind of ok with that and i get used to the idea.

saturday morning. t minus 3 minutes until we are going to leave and ted changes his mind (you live with him, you learn to expect it.) i find myself actually talking him into going to barter faire.

what?

driving in cars for long periods of time with maya is not. fun. capitol NOT. i, of course, make the mistake of telling her we will be going through a tunnel (her favorite) and then ted reminds me bebe bridge is open and we, in fact, will not be traveling through any tunnels. i think this is ridiculous and someone should build a tunnel somewhere on that drive. we then spend about 20 minutes convincing maya that it is actually more exciting to cross bridges then go through tunnels. this translates into a commitment to raise our hands and feet and yell like banshees as we travel over all 12 bridges between here and tonasket. we always end with clapping to celebrate. anything with water on both sides of the road qualified as a bridge. alan was the official judge and counter. i have never had so much fun with bridges. you should try it sometime. it's better if you do it on the way to tonasket, where all the people are a little cooky anyway and don't think it out of the ordinary to see a car full of people yelling and doing the wave over a bridge.

once we arrive at barter faire (following charming a cop out of a ticket and spending an hour in the driveway inching our way towards the parking lot) i learned several things. maya is not as bohemian as I thought. not brushing my hair or putting on make-up did not help me fit in. drug dealers do not discriminate against people with kids. or people in tennis shoes. my mother in law makes great pumpkin bread that is best if you just gnaw on it. the kids of free spirited parents are bratty just like other kids. free face painting for kids is an awesome perk. it really meant a lot to my mother in law that we came, seeing as it was her birthday and all. i am thankful and glad that i talked ted into going. maya melts down after two hours of living the bohemian lifestyle.
as we were walking around we walked right past one of the staff at alan's old school. i pointed her out (because it made me feel slightly more normal to be there after seeing her). i say "that was mrs. bull." ted says "oh really?" and alan says "that's unfortunate."

what?

I say "why is that unfortunate?" and he says "that a person like her would be at a place like this."

what?

i say "what about us? we are here." and he shrugs his shoulders.

ever since i have been trying to figure out exactly what goes through that kid's head about our family.

oh and excuse me but it is now called okanogan family faire...to make it more family friendly and less drug dealer friendly. i'm not really sure what to make of that. but thanks for the effort.

part of the family friendly aspect, i assume.

gone too long

i miss my blog and i miss writing in it. i think my new years resolution (what?) should be to start posting again. ok, it's settled. so for those faithful readers who have been biting their nails in anticipation that i would return to the blogging world, you are welcome.