We Had a Time

We did; we had a time.*

Thank you, Ocean.

* A huge smile for anyone who can place the origins of this quoted line.

Family Trip

It's 10:30 on Tuesday morning and our minivan--"Ollie Rainbow"--is stuffed to the gills. All that's left to pack are our darling children, and after stopping in town to buy flashlights, we'll be getting on the interstate and driving east, destination: the ocean. We, like hundreds of other queer families this week, are heading to Cape Cod for the 15th annual Family Week, the largest gathering of LGBTPQ families in the United States.

We've never been to Family Week before--our schedules have never allowed it--and our decision to go this summer was very last-minute (I just faxed our camping registration in on Saturday). We're generally off-season kind of Cape Cod vacationers, but we're excited to get to be there when the ocean is warm and in the company of so many families (though, notably, we're also a little anxious about just how crowded it will be). We managed to snag the very last campsite at a campground we've never stayed at before, and will be spending the next three nights sleeping very much all together in what once seemed like a giant tent (and now? hopefully just big enough). Fingers crossed that Leo is exactly the kind of pro-camping baby we'll need him to be.

If you see us in P-town this week, please introduce yourselves! We'll be the ones with the loud, rambunctious children. We'll be back on Friday with lots of photos and stories to share!

***Thanks to our fabulous new neighbors Sarah and Gabe for looking after our house and chickens while we're gone!***

River Baby

Last week after camp one day, I took the kids to play in a little river not far from our house. The water was quite shallow--what a dry summer we've had!--but it proved quite entertaining nonetheless. Leo was especially enchanted and would have climbed among the rocks for hours if I'd let him (as it was, we couldn't stay long before needing to head home for dinner). I was struck by Leo's confidence and ability; even on the slimy, moss-covered rocks, he never slipped, lost his balance, or seemed the least bit frightened.


He was all trust and zero hesitation. He never questioned whether or not he should be in the river. He simply immersed himself fully in the bliss of it all.


And I wished, as I watched him, and photographed him, that I could have been just as trusting of this process of becoming his mother. That I could have found myself suddenly placed in the river of non-gestational parenthood, and just instantly made myself at home, purely thrilled to be experiencing something so new and exciting. I wished that I could have been confident from the start in my ability to be this baby's mom.


I have doubted so much in the last year, it has become a pattern for me: to doubt. I struggle to let myself trust fully, without holding back. Still I catch myself, rejoicing in any small sign from Leo that he knows me, and likes me, and wants me. And the grown-ups who are witness to my surprise always say, "well of course he does!" But the truth of this attachment--that Leo and I share--has been so hard for me to believe, that even when it's glaringly obvious I find myself tempted to question it. He looks up at me with his breathtaking blue eyes, full of trust and love, and I think to myself, "really? Me? I get to be your mom?"


But it is real. This love, and attachment and connection is beautiful and strong and enduring. I am so grateful to my baby for taking me on this journey, and for not giving up on me, not even when I have felt ready to give up on myself.

The Big Test

Tomorrow morning I am going to wake up early--to the sound of an alarm clock--and be out the door by 6:45 in order to drive an hour, and then, if all goes according to plan, take a five-hour test.

I have been working towards this goal--taking this test--for 6 years. I hope I don't mess up (as in, get lost on the way there, or forget to bring my photo ID, or, perhaps most significantly: fail the test). I would really like for this all to end with 5 new letters after my name: IBCLC. Tomorrow, I am taking a test, and if I pass it, I'll be an internationally board certified lactation consultant. I will be able to build a career out of supporting breastfeeding mothers and babies.

For several weeks now (and really, I should have started months ago), I've been cramming: trying to flood my brain with as much breastfeeding-relevant information as I possibly can. There is just so much to learn, there's no way I could know it all. I just have to hope that I know enough, that the information I've actually absorbed is the critical information, that I will be able to, after studying images for many hours, recognize the appearance of a nipple damaged by a breast pump and distinguish it from a nipple damaged by a baby with ankyloglossia (half of the questions on the multiple-choice test reference photographs).

I won't find out if I pass the exam or not until mid-October, which is actually kind of a relief. I am looking forward to taking the test and then not thinking about it at all anymore for a couple of months. It has been a huge source of anxiety as of late. There are so many things I want to do--namely finish the kitchen/dining room remodeling project that I began a couple months ago and then abandoned, abruptly and only half-started, leaving us to live in a state of shambles since then--and it will feel great to not have this looming test weighing heavy on my mind.

I would very much appreciate any calm, confident and hopeful vibes you feel willing to send my way as I attempt to make this long-term goal a reality!

me, at the start of this journey:

tandem nursing Luke and Jaz in the park

UPDATE: Thank you so much for your well wishes! The test wasn't nearly as difficult as I feared it might be, and the time allotted was way longer than necessary (in reality, it was more like a two-hour test than a five-hour test). There were a couple of questions that I really didn't know the answers to, but for the most part I felt like I was well-prepared to take the test simply for having been working with breastfeeding mothers and babies for the past several years. I definitely encourage anyone who qualifies to sit for the exam next year to plan to do so, and not to stress about memorizing anatomical structures or terms, but instead to focus on acquiring practical knowledge, and studying photographs related to breastfeeding and babies, such as those in The Breastfeeding Atlas.

Sharing Sleep

I love sharing sleep with our children.

I more than love it. I believe in it, deeply. I am grateful for our decision to make our bed a family bed nearly every day*. I am absolutely certain that our children are happier and more secure for the time they've spent sleeping with us, and that I am a happier and more confident mother for having listened to my instincts in this regard (which is not to imply that children who don't sleep with their parents, or parents who don't sleep with their children, are necessarily any less happy or less secure/confident; I'm only referencing my own kids and my own experience). I would make the same choice again, if I had it to do over (and, notably: Lena would, too).

When I implied in my last post, somewhat facetiously, that having our kids in our bed might not have been the wisest choice, I knew that I would later have to write this post: about how even though choosing to have a family bed might seem like a sure-fire way to send one's marriage (and sex life) directly into the doldrums, that's not what happened for us.

It would be easy to assume that co-sleeping might result in reduced physical intimacy, romance, and connection in a marriage. But I think that doing so would be to "not see the forest for the trees." A truly strong physical, romantic and emotional connection would not suffer for the parents in a marriage choosing to share sleep with their kids. The reality for us is that as lesbians in a long-term relationship, as parents of small children, as lactating mothers, Lena and I have had to overcome a lot of obstacles, stacked against us in the bedroom. Did adding babies to our bed serve to compound those other potential issues? I suppose it could have, but I don't think it did. Co-sleeping has done so many positive things for us--as a family, as co-parents, as partners--that I think the benefits of our family bed have far outweighed any potentially negative side-effects.

First of all, we've gotten a lot more sleep as bed-sharers than we otherwise would have, and any marriage benefits from well-rested participants. Beyond that, we've gained self-esteem (for having trusted our instincts), we've suffered less anxiety (because I honestly cannot imagine how I ever would have not slept with our babies; I would have been in a state of panic), we've respected each other and each other's innate mothering skills, and we've gotten to appreciate each other as the nurturing people who we are (I still melt when I happen upon a scene of Lena snuggled around one--or more--of our kids). Waking up together as a family is intimate and cozy. It feels natural and genuine and invigorating. And it's some of the only snuggling time that we get with our bigger kids.

But, so, then, what is the solution? If we can't blame the family bed for our relationship struggles, what can we blame? What can we do differently as we begin the difficult work of trying to repair and rebuild our marriage? I think that the main reason why things began to deteriorate for us is because we failed to prioritize our marriage, forgetting that it wasn't something that would just automatically receive attention in our busy, busy lives. We were prioritizing a lot of things: the kids, our community and social life, laughter, our love of the natural world, our jobs, keeping the house in relatively good shape . . . and we somehow took for granted that our marital connection was intact and along for the ride. But, of course, this is a rather simplistic way of looking at it all, and in truth there were many different factors that all contributed to Lena and I losing each other in the way that we did.

We are not going to stop sharing sleep with our children. We hope to let them self-wean from the family bed, and we hope that they don't choose to do that all together for a long, long time. But we are changing some bad habits that we'd gotten into in relation to the ways that Lena and I had been choosing to spend our (limited) alone time together. And we are absolutely going to be prioritizing our need for intimacy--of all kinds--as we move forward.

This is a really hard time, still. We are struggling, daily, sometimes hourly, to see each other and to feel connected. But as I reflect over the choices that I've made, and that we've made as a couple, I find it helpful to point out not only the places where we tripped, or messed up, but also the things that we got right. And I think that the creation of our family bed extraordinaire falls into the latter category. Our bed has not failed us. If anything, our bed has been a kind of glue, keeping us together in the face of all so many challenges, reminding us every morning of what we want this life to be: soft, warm, colorful, welcoming, cozy, and with lots of room to spare.

*yes, definitely, there are days (or, more specifically: mornings, post restless nights) when I fantasize about sleeping 10 hours without anyone small touching me, breathing next to me, or tossing and turning beside me.

Journey

This evening, I photographed all four kids eating ice cream on the front steps.

Leo was quite pleased to have been entrusted with his very own (tiny) ice cream cone, and calmly sat beside his brothers, obviously feeling so big.

Leo, 12 years months old

It was just about 12 months ago when I wrote about eating ice cream for dinner. At the time, Leo was just a wee newborn; it was one of our first outings as a family of six. We had no concept of where this first year with our lion baby would take us, of the fact that we would be moving again so soon, saying goodbye to the goats, buying and painting a house, adding and subtracting a puppy, and settling into such a very different life from the one we had been living before our fourth baby was born. One might expect that Lena and I would have known to anticipate how quickly Leo would change and grow, but he seemed to shed his infancy even faster than his brothers before him, so eager to join their pack.

And somehow, amidst all of the excitement and chaos and joy, Lena and I lost sight of each other. We took our love for granted, and forgot to nurture it. We failed to prioritize our relationship. We neglected to even keep it on the list of "things to think about." And suddenly, something that we never imagined could ever be on the line--our marriage--was in question. We began seeing a couples' counselor in March, and at first we seemed to be making progress towards finding each other again. But then I got overwhelmed by the ocean of distance between us, and doubted that Lena and I could ever reclaim what we had once shared. I let myself slip further and further away, until I hardly recognized my wife--or my life--at all anymore.

Everything exploded a few weeks ago, when it became clear that the state of our marriage was such that we could no longer continue living as we were. Lena and Leo went to stay with her extended family for a week, while she and I both faced the full extent of the damage and let our hearts break. We realized that choosing to reconcile would mean choosing to start over anew, that our previous relationship was over, and that it would have to become something completely changed were we to remain married. And ultimately, we concluded that we will move forward together, that we will commit ourselves to the hard work of rebuilding a foundation of trust, and making our marriage stronger, better and more true than it's ever been. While it feels so good to be sharing my days with Lena again, to be seeing her and connecting with her for the first time in months, she and I are both wary of how easy it would be to let ourselves slip back into our old life without really addressing the issues that nearly cost us our marriage and intact family. We want to do this work, and we want to do it well: to be thorough and fully attentive. I hope that people will be respectful of Lena's and my privacy and not ask for details about all that went down between us this spring, but I am planning to write here about our new journey: the quest to really find ourselves and each other again.

"You know this means I'm ALWAYS

going to require my very own cone, right?"

Unabashedly optimistic as I am, I can't help but recognize the blessings that we've been gifted alongside so much pain, loss and devastation. Remembering my love for Lena, truly remembering her most amazing self, and choosing--once again--to commit myself fully to a shared life with her, to our vision of what we want our family to be, feels so inspiring and beautiful. I love Lena so much, and letting myself feel the full weight of that love--that completely crushed me when I thought it had been lost forever--takes my breath away. I am overwhelmed with gratitude to have been given this opportunity to make myself a better, more honest, person and partner. Lena and I get to be falling in love for a third time, now with new-and-improved self-awareness and conviction about what we will demand of each other and our relationship. The knowledge I have learned--and continue to learn--as I have awakened to my own desires and needs, and accepted my faults and failures, is not anything that I will be willing to give up, and is information that will help us to ensure that we don't repeat our past mistakes.

photo by Jaz

Thank you, readers, friends and family members: for continuing to check in here despite my blogging negligence, and for supporting my family and me through this stormy time. It was difficult for me to write--in this place of joy and love--while everything in our home felt so fraught and uncertain. But now I find myself wanting to write more than ever, to hopefully help other families to avoid the path our marriage suddenly took, and to inspire people to hold onto what they believe in--even when it seems that all hope has been lost.

And now, resume

Hello, hello.

I realize that I have been gone from this space for a very long time. There was a computer trouble, and then I think I just got out of the habit of writing and documenting my life here, and I'm struggling to find my way back.

But your sweet notes of encouragement have meant so much to me, and I feel as though I am not ready to give up on this blog all together. So many times in the past few weeks, I have started to write a post, catching up on all that has transpired in my absence (the baby? Totally Walking Now), but always I leave it unfinished, feeling at a loss for words.

Instead, I will start back small. I will share this video from earlier today, of Leo and me: in the bed, post-nap. His birthday is just three days away, and I have been reflecting quite a bit on his birth and all of the ways in which my relationship with him has grown over the past year. Lately, we've been enjoying each other very well indeed.

You will have to double-click on the image and watch the clip on the You Tube site to see the cutest part (that would be the baby, of course).

Thank you for your patience!

I do, truly, hope to find my way back here. I miss it.