Letter #9

Dear Veronica,

In about two weeks, I'll know for sure (well, almost sure) what gender you are and that seems to be a monumental event to everyone but me.

In some ways, I've already known you as Veronica, but you could be Isaiah, and I'm wondering how that will change if I find you are a boy, or girl, or whatever.

I wish I could be more eloquent about this issue, Love, but the truth of the matter is, I don't give a damn what GENDER you are. I just want you here safe, secure, alive, well, and breathing in my ear.

Nearly everyone but you is irritating me these days and I attribute that to my hormones. The hormones that is making my body grow hair like a gorilla, the hormones that are making me want to make love every night at least once, the hormones that make me feel depressed then ecstatic. In other words, the hormones that are making me crazy.

Having a baby seems like the most natural thing in the world. Billions of women have done this well and have survived and yet I feel like I'm the only one feeling like this. Supported, yet, deep down, I feel abandoned. I look at your father and feel this chemical dependency on him that scares me. I never knew I'd feel this way. Other days I feel like I am falling in love with him all over again as I see how his unfolding fatherhood is shaping him and his thoughts. He and I agree on so many things, it scares me. I thought we'd be in disagreement.

My parents are in town this weekend and they keep staring at my stomach, where you are, and smiling, excited for this new life to come roaring out of me. Sometimes, even though you are inside me, I feel very alone. More eyes are fixated on my stomach than on my eyes. So many people ask, "how are you feeling," rather than, "how are you?" and I feel the difference in my sense of isolation. It's as if people don't see me, and only see you.

You matter. I matter. I just don't know how it all meshes together when it feels like the only reason I matter is because you are in me, growing in matter.

I hope you can see through my jumbled thoughts, Love, and know that you are the most important thing in my life. I love you more than you or I can possibly fathom and not even my confusion and attitude can overshadow the earthquake of love I have ready to share with you. I'm human, you'll see, full of imperfections and selfishness and stupid thoughts. It's good that you know that upfront so you'll understand when I screw up but will always come back and remind you that I love you.

Some days when I walk around by myself, I wish I could hear your voice. I wish we could already have a conversation. Your soul is wise, I can tell, and I know I will learn much from you.

I hope I don't let you down as a mother. These days, my insecurities seem to be getting the best of me.

But you ARE the best of me and worth more than any fear I can harbor in my bones.

Let's keep each other strong these next few months.

Love,
Mom

It Will Feel All That You Feel

My mother told me that the baby will feel all that I will feel.

In relation to a high sodium/sugar diet warning, or a lesson about high blood pressure, it seems like an appropriate lesson to understand about the effect I have on the fire growing inside me.

And then I wondereed if my baby can feel my sadness, my anger, my joy, and laughs when I laugh.

I've never had anything grow - alive - inside me before and that statement just shot a syringe of terrifying responsibility through my veins.

In my dreams last night, I dreamt I drank alcohol, fully knowing I was pregnant. I dreamt I was indulging in behaviors I never had before -- sorrid love affairs, whole loaves of bread and muffins, and cigarettes. I wake up, sighing a relief that it was just a dream.

But where is this terror coming from?

As a soon to be new mother, I am just beginning to glimpse this new world of responsibility. The world that I've heard stories about, but never stepped into. I think this is the world where I've heard so many womyn judge and compare at the highest stakes of criticism: motherhood.

I don't have much in excess. I don't have a lot of savings. I'm not in therapy. I can't buy organic. I sure as hell don't have a mini-van or buy new clothes and sandals from a name brand store. I don't know how to sew, have changed about 3 diapers in my life, and can't stand doing the laundry.

I do believe that the memory of my mother's rearing will guide me in what I need to do.

My mother entered the United States when she was 20 years old, determined to make money for her family in the Philippines. Over the course of 43 years, she's managed to raise four children with no college degree or a lick of luxury to speak of. She raised us without lollipops or ice cream trucks. She hid, literally, from her children, when the ice cream truck music sounded on our street and pressed herself into a wall because she didn't even have a quarter to spare for a popsicle.

My mother fought her way through high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep deprivation, heel spikes, thyroid problems, and bitter racism in the midwest.

She had religion. She had her faith. She brought us up, surrounding us in a protective circle of love, prayer, and simplicity. Where others had salads and desserts, we had a pot of rice, two fish sticks, and water for dessert. We were a family and didn't need much else. Not until we were told that we needed "more" by our friends and commercials. Then our conversations became more and more westernized, more Americanized.

It's only now I can begin to appreciate the decisions my mother made and how difficult times were for her, but we barely understood the stress she must have been under for so long. She raised a family in a foreign country while supporting her other family back home, sending her siblings to college, supporting her widowed mother.

It's the memories my mother has left me that gives me strength when I feel terror, when I feel I may not have "enough" to bring life into this world. When I wonder how we'll afford a crib, baby seats, strollers, changing tables and food, I remember that my mother never bought baby food, but used her big pots, hot water, an old blender, and tupperware.

It's the memory of my mother that releases any external pressure or worry that I may not "have," or am, enough.

Mother of Fourteen, Nadya Suleman

Nadya Suleman, the mother who recently gave birth to Octuplets, has recently launched her own website. The website which says, "We thank you for the love and good wishes sent to us from around the world. The octuplets arrived on 1/26/09. They are all healthy and growing stronger by the day."

Of course, as indicated by the previous post about this issue, there are many issues to debate and discuss in this woman's choice to undergo invitro fertilization as a single parent with a mother who describes her as a little crazy and "not capable" of taking care of fourteen children.

And so the debate continue, I realized yesterday when I ordered a hot chocolate yesterday at a local Panera Bread and couldn't help but hear an outburst at a nearby table, "And how about that women with fourteen kids? What is she thinking?" It's clear the issue of responsible parenting, class, and race aren't going away. The debates are even going into an Angelina Jolie look-alike frenzy. (Suleman denies this.)

As healthy as it is to debate, I've found the comment sections of sites intriguing. Nadya Suleman is (unconfirmed) a woman a color, possibly of Latino background, without a partner or suffucient resources to raise the kids. Is that the reason why people are "hating?" Becuase they don't see her being able to do this?

But when we see entertainment like (old school) Just the Ten of Us, or reality shows like John and Kate Plus Eight, or Cheaper By the Dozen, as Kenny Darter points out, we think it's pretty hilarious when White families, who have the means, have a busload of kids. But if a person without a reality show or partner chooses to, it's deemed everything but good.

It is entirely understandable to oppose this woman's decision. There are clear reasons why and the safety and well-being of the children are priority. However, without sufficient information, except reports from gossip magazines as to how she is going to move forward, I am hesitant to predict that these children are doomed or are going to undergo profound trauma. I certainly hope she gets on her feet to do the best she can and live beyond her own decision to have fourteen children. She has a mountain to climb, fourteen to be exact, but she has legs.

What I find interesting, though, is that throughout history and the world, there are women exactly like Suleman who raise their multitude of children with much less media and attention than Nadya Suleman. There are women who are neither scorned or criticized for the number of children they have. They are ignored. The reaction our country has had to Nadya Suleman confounds me. On one hand, it's portrayed as a medical miracle, but the backlash is calling her crazy and irresponsible. The majority of those reports came out after her financial and marital status were leaked. When we see "single" and "bankrupt," she's selfish. Focusing soley on Suleman and not the children, would we call her crazy, would we criticize her CHOICE if we found out that she had a millionaire's bank account? Or if she had a husband who was a CEO? Probably not, or at least, the criticism wouldn't be so severe.

So what does that say about who gets to have large families? You can and have the freedom, only if you are financially capable? Is and should there be a parallel relationship between resources (house, job, daycare, health care, partner, family support, etc) and number of offspring? Because if there is some sort of invisible rule about class and birthing, then we need to examine it, not just in context to Nadya Suleman, but how that invisible rule extends to all women and families, including those outside our country's lines. Do we have the same reaction to an unmarried Nicaraguan woman who naturally gave birth to seven? How is your reaction different? How is it similar?

The number of children a woman has - either intentional or not - is a layered issue, and often ethnocentric toward western ideals of a two parent unit with resources and health care. It is an opportunity to delve into your own perceptions of the relationship between freedom, choice, resources, and parenting. I just hope that there remains a space to richly discuss the issues that have surfaced without berating another woman or a population of women in the process.

Cross-posted at Bitch Magazine.