Cleaning Out My Closet

Please excuse this image of me in a culturally insensitive costume in 1984. Somehow it's the only picture I have of me as a child! 

I remember the first time I was ever ashamed of my body. I was five years old, and one night at dinner, which we ate all around the table, I was looking forward to dessert. We always had dessert, just a small, usually home-baked treat served on plates with silverware. That night we had a Pepperidge Farms coconut cake that, to me, was exciting and exotic because it was so pretty in its glossy white box in the freezer. But that night, my mother told me that I couldn't have dessert. I was confused. The cake was cut, and everyone else was eating a piece, even my closest sister Heather who was three years older than me. "Why can't I have any?" I asked. I don't remember what answer I was given, but I immediately filled in the blanks.

I was not ok and, therefore, did not deserve a piece of cake. I was unacceptable. Over the next few months, I paid attention to what I was given to eat compared to others and the conversations my parents had with my siblings about food. Yep, that was it. I remember worriedly stepping on the bathroom scale in my mother's bathroom and seeing the number "50" reflected in digital numbers. I didn't know what that number meant, but I guessed it was not the right one. My mother, who never weighed more than 115 pounds except when pregnant, always monitored her weight. I remember her telling people that she could "eat whatever I want, I never gain an ounce!".  When I asked her if I weighed the right amount, she told me that she hadn't weighed 50 pounds until 5th grade. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t like her. I have one picture of us together, taken when I was 2 or 3 years old. It looks like my head is the same size as hers and we couldn’t look less alike if she had picked up a child at random on the way into Olan Mills.

Soon after, I was washing in the shower, and looked down and saw my rounded belly and my convex ribcage and thinking that it was not right for it to stick out like that. I had an outfit at that time which I hated, jeans and a Hawaiian shirt under which I was supposed to wear a white t-shirt. I remember thinking that my rounded torso in my white t-shirt made me look like "the Dad" from the TV show, "The Munster's," which was on reruns and I used to watch on TV. Yes, six-year-old me likened myself to a Herman Munster.  I wanted to wear prairie dresses every day like Laura Ingalls Wilder (I still do!). I had a closet full of frilly 80’s dresses and I loved the “twirly” ones the best. I would have happily worn them 24/7. My parents explained that dresses were only for special occasions and for church on Sundays and that I had to wear pants for everyday. I didn’t feel like myself in jeans and pants and complained whenever possible about them.

The summer I turned six, I was sexually abused on multiple occasions by a trusted family friend. Like most children, I had a sense that something "bad" had happened, but I immediately blamed myself and was too afraid to tell anyone. I started becoming overly emotional, once bursting into tears when I came down for breakfast and my brother said "morning" in a perfectly reasonable tone. I spent a lot of time crying that summer. So much so that my exasperated parents started sending me to my room when the waterworks began.  I also kept telling my parents that something was hurting when I went to the bathroom. I remember being taken to the pediatrician, who said I didn't have any visible signs of irritation or infection and told my mother to change the laundry detergent just in case. I became obsessed with being "clean," wiping myself with dry toilet paper until I bled. These are textbook sexual abuse signs, but in my parents' defense, it was the 1980's, and this was a subject that most people knew nothing about. What I cannot defend is how my mother reacted when I finally told her. As the singer/songwriter Kesha sang, “there are some things only God can forgive." Needless to say, these experiences cemented to me that my body was wrong. I had a deep shame about my body that I’ve never quite conquered.

One day when I was about seven,  I tried to put on a pair of corduroy pants and couldn't button them. When I brought this to my mom's attention, she chided me for outgrowing them and told me that I needed to stop snacking. I will always remember those children's size 6X pants. They were a hand-me-down from my much slimmer older sister, burgundy color and made a swishing sound when I walked and my thighs rubbed together. After that, I asked my mother how many calories people should eat every day. She was doing something and said offhandedly, "a thousand." That answer became my reality. A few years later, when I developed a restrictive eating disorder, I allowed myself to eat no more than 1,000 calories per day. Years later, I realized that she probably thought I was asking how many calories a CHILD should eat, but I should point out that that number is low even for a child! I do not want to portray my eating disorders as if they were caused by my mother; they weren't. Eating disorders are very genetic, and looking back, I realize that my mother had a very disordered relationship with food. I know that she didn't purposely put her own issues onto me, but it happened.

Which brings me to 2019. After six sons, I had my only daughter in 2017. When I was pregnant with her, I failed my glucose tolerance test. I chose to move forward with treatment rather than taking the longer 3-hour test. I wanted to be proactive because having high blood sugar can have all sorts of effects on the fetus later in life. I was scrupulous with my treatment plan, and my blood sugar was so well controlled, my daughter was my smallest baby by over 2 pounds. From the beginning, she's grown quickly. She has been over the 95th percentile in height and weight since she was two months old. But because of my own body image issues and the unresolved pain and trauma with my mother, it has been my worst fear that I will pass my issues onto her. Having a daughter that is big for her age has been surprisingly hard for me. I suppose because it reminds me of....well me. I have to fight against the idea that she's "too big" and that she, as a girl, should be smaller.

Yesterday she was very sick and had to go to the doctor for a breathing treatment. The scale registered a decent weight gain since her last checkup, and I am ashamed to say, THAT is what upset me about that visit. The rest of the day while I gave her breathing treatments, I was googling different weight charts in an attempt to reassure me that her size is "ok." How messed up is that? She's beautiful and brilliant. She correctly uses words like "actually" and "probably," and at age 2.5, she knows all her colors, shapes, and many of her letters. Every morning she tells me all about her dreams, but since she doesn't know what a dream is, she excitedly tells me about her adventures. She loves vegetables and playing outside with her brother. A "normal" parent without all my baggage would probably be more mindful about the example they're setting and make more of an effort to offer healthy food and cut down on snacking. Modeling healthy eating and an active lifestyle is the responsible thing to do.  But there I was, panicking. I must do better for her, she deserves it. I deserved it too. I can't change my past, but I am determined to change my future. No more secrets, no more shame. That blonde little girl with the big head was ok. She deserved love and acceptance. And my brilliant daughter does too. Even while I recognize the flaws in myself and my mothering, I need to show compassion for both that little girl and the almost 40-year-old she became. My daughter looks up to me, and I feel that responsibility heavily.  When I was pregnant with her, I saw a registered dietician who specializes in disordered eating and had twice-a-week therapy. I always thought that the universe was telling me I couldn’t be a good mother to a daughter and that’s why I had six boys in a row. But maybe the universe was just waiting for me to be ready to shed the effects of my trauma in order to become the mother she needs me to be?

I think I can, I think I can...

The Push

My very first Christmas tree. 

"I can't do this anymore. It's killing me." 

Those words, uttered by my husband, changed everything. You see, at the time we were still Jehovah's Witnesses. We had been having a conversation where I was trying to convince him to make more of an effort to participate. What else could I do, believing as I did, that the everlasting lives of us and our children depended upon it? I was scared for him, for me, and most of all, for our children.

We were married in our church (called a Kingdom Hall) and from the beginning, we tried to be "good" Jehovah's Witnesses. But every year it got harder and harder to go through the motions. Both of us were suffering from depression by this point, and our marriage was in trouble. In our religion, we believed the husband had to be the "spiritual head," and I tried every weapon in my arsenal to try to make that happen. I was encouraging and nagging and even insulting and cruel.  I tried not bringing it up and then bringing it up regularly. I prayed for him and asked others to do so. I could see that his belief in God was slipping away.

Finally, it came to a head one night at date night at our usual restaurant when he looked in my eyes and told me that our religion was killing him. It took the wind out of my sails. Over the next few weeks, I knew I had to make a decision. My religion dictated that my role would be to tell on him to the congregation elders so that they could reprimand him for his lack of faith and try to convince him to do his duty to his family and our congregation. If he didn't, I could patiently martyr myself as a long-suffering wife with an "unbelieving husband." But I couldn't do that to him. I knew what he had been through already and besides, I had been having doubts myself.

I chose to take a leap of faith, into what I believed was an abyss of no faith. Once I had made that decision, I started to explore my fondest dream. From a child, I always secretly loved Christmas decorations and would imagine what kind of a tree I would have if I ever celebrated Christmas. Of course, I believed these thoughts were wrong, so I always felt adequately guilty. However, I was going to celebrate Christmas that year, if it was the last thing I did. And I really thought it might be. In the whole lead-up to Christmas, I was so scared that what Jehovah's Witnesses call "Armageddon" might come before I got to celebrate Christmas. That's where my mind was at the time, I was in the in-between of still believing but not wanting to be a part of my faith. I wasn't ready yet to think that it wasn't true, that took longer.

But oh, that year, I decorated for Christmas! In my long-ago guilt-ridden fantasies, I had already decided that I would not have a monochromatic tree of all silver or all gold ornaments. I thought they were striking but too elegant. I wanted an old-timey tree with colorful decorations. I haunted thrift shops and bought enough ornaments to decorate a real tree because my dream Christmases had always involved a real tree. The very day that Zamzow's started selling fresh Christmas trees that year, we put one up. In a way, that simple act, celebrating a holiday that many people in their 30's are already tired of, it healed me.

I still love Christmas, I always say that I haven't had time yet to be jaded and I had been starved of that and so many other things for the first 33 years of my life. In one of my favorite books, Outlander, when the heroine had been accused of witchcraft and nearly sent to the stake, her husband defends her. When she asks what he would have done if she had been convicted of witchcraft, he answers, "I would have gone to the stake with you and hell beyond, if I must." I'm thrilled that my leap of faith involved neither being burned at the stake nor hellfire, but at the time, it really felt that frightening and dramatic. Cult beliefs are hard to challenge. Thankfully, when I went to the "dark side," I only found Christmas...and freedom.

Anesthesia Thoughts. My LSH Hysterectomy Recovery.

10 days after my surgery, I did my first full 2.5 mile walk, it felt great! 

When I became aware of anything after my hysterectomy, I was waking up from anesthesia and my first thought was how thirsty I was. My post-op nurse brought me no less than 3 cups of ice water and I drank them right down. I wasn't in pain, I felt pretty great, though groggy. I heard the nurse telling somebody that I was ready to go to the second floor and all I could think was that L&D at St. Luke's was on the second floor and did I have to have another baby?? My groggy brain couldn't remember being pregnant and I really didn't feel up to giving birth at that moment, thank you!

I vaguely remember saying "Not the second floor!" to the nurse and him assuring me that they actually have a surgical observation department there. I was so relieved! No baby! I had four of my children at that hospital so I was wheeled up to the second floor for the fifth time but for a different reason. When I got to my room, they asked me if I wanted to walk from the door to the bed and I did. I felt a little bit shaky and couldn't quite stand up straight because of my incision pain but I did it! They put boots on my legs that squeezed them to prevent blood clots, it was kind of relaxing, like a massage. The only thing that bothered me was having a catheter, I have had them before, in labor, but only when I also had an epidural. It's not a pleasant feeling when you're not numb.

Once I was settled into the hospital room, I called my husband, who was at work. After his procedure in October, there was very little I could do for him so we decided that it was better for him to be at work rather than sitting around in the hospital. I was tired and not really up to visitors anyway. I immediately started plotting to get the nurses to agree to let me get up and have my catheter out, but they explained that I needed it so my bladder could heal after the trauma of the surgery. I was on a clear diet but got to have black coffee which was heaven after having to skip my coffee that morning. I rested and watched classic TV and the nurses were absolutely great! My tendency to downplay everything caught up with me though. I hadn't asked for any pain medication since I got out of surgery and around 9 that evening, the pain became unbearable. I learned my lesson about trying to be a hero, and that surgery is not like childbirth! I've never been in the hospital except to have a baby, and sometimes, not even then. When I gave birth to Dori, for example, I made lasagna that morning while in the early stages of labor, had him an hour after arriving at the birth center,  and came home in time for dinner. James used to say that my births are so quick that it's like a trip to the "baby store". So recovery from anything is new to me and I wasn't quite sure how to handle it. My instinct is to push myself but in this case, it's not a good instinct.

The next day I finally got the hated catheter out and walked laps around my room to prove my legs worked and got to eat for the first time in 48 hours. James came to pick me up and I was able to walk out of the hospital on my own steam.

The physical recovery, for me, was- nothing. It is easy for me to forget anything happened. I haven't had much pain at all and almost no bleeding. Emotionally? Not so much. It isn't so much that I'm sad that I had to lose my uterus, I am completely happy not being able to have more children. But apparently, a surgery like that causes your ovaries to become traumatized and go on hiatus for a bit. So I have symptoms that are similar to sudden menopause, but temporary. I find myself crying over everything lately. Feeling sad but about nothing in particular. I can be a little short and testy with my family. I'm also very tired in the afternoon which I'm told is normal.

So almost 3 weeks later I feel....unsettled? Every once in a while, I get a feeling like you have when you're on vacation and it hits you that you forgot some important thing at home. I'll be doing something else and get this thought, "my uterus is gone!" and have a wave of panic. I'm sure I'll get used to it, I mean, they can't put it back so I guess I have to!

Overall, it's been a roller-coaster. I went back to my normal routine very quickly and definitely experience some more pain and swelling when I overdo things. Some days I feel like nothing happened and other days I feel really tired and emotional. I know that's all normal but I feel like I'm stuck in a weird in-between stage, not quite in recovery mode but not quite back to normal.

In a lot of ways, I feel so much better than I did before surgery. My asthma immediately improved. My resting heart rate, which had been creeping up over the preceding year is back to my normal 60's. I know once I'm fully recovered and my ovaries "wake up", I'll feel like myself again. But for now, I am having occasional hot flashes and a weird empty ache feeling. I'm looking forward to spring and better days ahead!

The Lump of Coal

The Lump of Coal

I don't feel well.

It feels like there's a lump of hot coal in my belly, just to the right of my belly button.

Sometimes I feel an odd tugging as if something is pulling my internal organs every so slightly over to the right.

Sometimes I'm doubled over as the hot coal inside my belly smolders and burns.

It's been like boiling a frog.

At first, it was "just" heavy bleeding. Bleeding so much and so quickly that no tampon, cup, or pad could contain it. Sleeping strategically, with both a cup and a giant pad, I would be careful even in my sleep so that I wouldn't shift enough to bleed through the pad when the cup overfloweth (as it always did) so I wouldn’t bleed on my white sheets. I’ve been menstruating for a long time, 26 years, and it was the first time it seemed feasible to wear an adult diaper or put one of those Chux on the bed that they use when you give birth.

Then it was the dull ache that wasn't menstrual cramps, wasn't a stomachache, was just...there.

Then I noticed that my digestion was impacted, as my uterus burgeoned up out of my pelvis to a size that rivals that of a four-month pregnancy. Except I'm not pregnant, and the hormones that women have in pregnancy that allows their uterus to expand without resistance are not present. So my stomach is being pushed upward by my uterus, and this creates bloating and heartburn that used to be a pregnancy symptom.

I toss and turn, hugging a pillow to my stomach and curling around it, hoping to contain the pain.

My toddlers have to sit next to me instead of on my lap because I can't stand any pressure on my lower abdomen. Even their elbows and knees as they squirm around make me wince.

When the doctor probed my belly before my ultrasound, I flinched. It hurts. It's tender and hard below my seven-kids-bread-dough belly, like a painful, overinflated balloon with a lump of hot coal inside.

I've never taken naps, not in 18 years of raising children. In the last two weeks, I have desperately needed naps. By the afternoon, I'm so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open.

I was bleeding for 3 weeks straight in June and for 2 weeks again in December. I wear a pantiliner or a pad more than I don’t.

My last period made it so I could not leave the house.  This bleeding involves sudden, huge gushes that come out too fast for the maxi pad to absorb, so the blood runs down my legs, feeling exactly like I've wet my pants, except it is blood.

Last month, when I thought the bleeding was finally over, I got in the shower,  and after I washed my hair, I looked down and saw that I was standing in a puddle of bloody water with blood streaming down my legs like I was Janet Leigh’s character in the Psycho shower scene. It is alarming to have that much blood leave your body, especially when it’s not supposed to happen. I am so tired of bleeding. On that occasion, I sobbed as the blood went down the drain.

I'm ready for surgery.  I need to get my energy back and not feel that a little more of my life force is ebbing away every day. I need to walk up a flight of stairs without becoming short of breath. I need to be able to stop having my period and pain rule my life and determine what I will do on any given day. I need to rid myself of the burning hot coal that is stealing my health and my perception of myself as a young, vibrant woman.

One of my professors once described me as having the energy of five people. Now I would settle for the energy of one regular, 38 year old person. Since I had Gretel my symptoms have gotten so much worse and they are impacting my quality of life more and more by the day. I’m ready to close this chapter of my life.

I'm ready.

***Today I had a hysterectomy! No more lump of hot coal! (though my incisions will be a bit touchy for a while)

One Flew (out of) the Cuckoo's Nest

My oldest son turned 18 in April and went off to Navy boot camp this summer. He has now spent several months thousands of miles from home, and it's been a huge adjustment for everyone. I have six other children at home, including two toddlers. I remember when I was in my 20's and had five small children, imagining that I would be happy and relieved when my children were grown and moved out. It didn't turn out that way!

Of all the things "they" don't tell you about when you bring home a newborn baby, I think this is the most unexpected. I remember the stereotype of moms being sad when they have an empty nest, but my nest is actually quite full. So why am I so sad?

When my son was in boot camp, I found a lot of solace in a military mom group, where us moms dealt with the culture shock of having our children suddenly thousands of miles away and unable to communicate, save via weekly letters. In some way that I can't fully explain, I think the transition would have been gentler if he had gone to college as so many kids do at that age, although I'm sure being a college mom has its own challenges! Having a child embark on their own life has brought about, for me, such an overflow of emotion that it caught me by surprise.

It's not that I want my children to stay home with me forever, God knows that we had our struggles during the teen years, after all! It's just a mixture of immense pride, love, fear of the unknown, and sadness that this phase of my parenting him is over all at once. When I think back over the last 18 years, I have regrets of things I did and didn't do, times I was too quick to anger and too harsh, and times that I wished my days away because of the monotony of parenting a young child. But it's not that I'm stuck in regret, I think that despite everything, I did enjoy his childhood. It is hard for me to believe that so much time has passed. I am as astonished that he is an adult as I would be if I woke up tomorrow and my 20-month-old daughter announced that she was moving out!

Since I was 18 when I got pregnant and 19 when I gave birth, part of it is disbelief that I am old enough to be some adult's mother. Because I started my family so young, and then, after a five-year gap, started over with two babies in my mid-30's, I feel like I don't quite belong in any "mom group." To use a nautical analogy, I feel unmoored. What am I now? How can I be an empty nester with a full-to-bursting nest? How can I be both a teenage and advanced maternal age mom? Am I a new-old mom?

As I write this today, my oldest boy is flying back to his barracks after a week-long visit over the holidays in which we revisited some of our traditions from the years he was home with me. He also showed his out-of-shape and weak-muscled mother how to lift weights! We took him out to dinner, we spent time just hanging out, and I cried a lot. I'm excited that he's going back to his newfound profession and routine. I'm so very proud of the man he's become. But I can't help but see visions of the bright-haired toddler that I used to take on a daily walk in the stroller, while he excitedly pointed out houses and cars and his favorite, the grey horse down the road who would walk over to the fence and say hello.

I think I'm ready to let that boy go on his adventures. I pray he will fly high, but come back down to earth (and us) sometimes.