Musings

I'm looking forward to the M.aya Ma.ssage appointment tomorrow. I found the resource through Vegetarian Mom. I hope it brings me balance and even more hope.
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Lunch with two friends yesterday was a little stressful because of the one friend. She is going through relationship issues and was absent-minded enough to tell me that I should be grateful that I don't have to do the whole dating thing. I had the presence to mind to tell her that she should be grateful that she didn't have two babies die on her. Next time, lunch is going to include wine.
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While programming a phone, wannabe dad asked me "honey, what's the time?" So naturally, I told him it was time to get ill. "Oh shit, I walked into that one" he said.
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I can't remember when it started, when I was pregnant with the twins that I had to eat 6 small meals a day to avoid the unbearable bloating I felt after eating. I remember seeing women who were further along in their pregnancies eating like there was no tomorrow, plates piled high. I carried Cerina (baby a) literally between my hip bones, which half explains the pants thing, and possibly explains the feeling of super-fullness even after just half a sandwich. Was she perhaps too low? I also had to use a binder clip to keep my seatbelt loose around my belly. What a sight.
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The banana tree has little "fingers" of fruit but those kids don't look like they are maturing. Is this a theme in my house or what? Except the kittens, of course, who are getting big. Pretty soon we'll have 3 chubby kitties running around here.
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My mom had a hys.ter.ectomy when she was 46. She had me at 38, my brother at 37. He was the miracle baby, as docs told her she wouldn't be able to have children because she had clots (I'm thinking end.ometr.iosis?) and a D.&C to clean them out. Previous to that she was in a car accident which may have jarred things up. She is also looking into the M.aya Mas.sage as is my Dad with his funky pro.state issues.
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I hope this week isn't too crazy.

Found

Just returned from the Farmers' Market with my weekly bouquet of flowers for the girls. The flowers were wrapped in newspaper and I couldn't help but read, and share.

*Edited to add: I'm sure her parents had their reasons for not telling her. I don't think it's necessarily her right to know. Perhaps if the parents had grief counseling at the time of their loss, they would have been better equipped to deal with how to tell their youngest daughter. Not telling her also put pressure on the other siblings and didn't let them talk about or connect with the memory of their angel brother.

Contrast

Unlike what I just found out about my paternal grandmother, I always knew about the daughter that my maternal grandmother had, who died (stillbirth). I don't exactly remember when my Mom told me about her, but all my cousins know about her and my aunts and uncles bring up her name from time to time. She would be in her 60s today, no doubt as warm and as loving as the rest of the family. Years ago (ok, just 2.5) a few days before my wedding, my uncle debuted a big banner of our family tree. After he pointed out where wannabe dad's rightful place was on the banner (cue the happiness tears!), I scanned the rest of the family members and saw Aunt Gloria's name. She was and is still remembered.

My maternal grandmother has been in a care home since early November following a hip fracture and surgery. At 94 she is sometimes lucid, and others she is downright hilarious. ("Ma, do you know who I am?" "Why, don't you know who you are?") I am positive that she thinks about her lost daughter even after all these long years.

9 months since our daughters left this world. They are in our hearts, maybe even reincarnated in Kika and Limu. We always said that we were blessed with our twins because we lost a baby and Mr. Elvis died. So who the heck is Kaleo?

Revealed

I first met my paternal grandmother when I was 12. She and my grandfather moved to H.aw.aii from the Phi.lippi.nes in the '80s. I never got that close to her, I think it was because I didn't know her as a younger child, and also because she's not that kind of grandmother. I learned how to use a sewing machine watching her for hours sew squares upon squares of scraps to create pillowcases and crooked, batting-less square blankets. She was always henpecking my grandfather, watching her money closely, and grumbling about something. She bought me and my brother small gifts for the holidays, and as a spoiled Ame.ric.an teen I don't remember being very thankful.

She and my mother have never gotten along. Rumor says my grandmother wanted my dad to marry another classmate instead of my mom. I remember vividly my Mom being in tears as she recalled how she bought my grandmother a beautiful H.awai.ian ring as a gift. My grandmother slipped it on her finger and in the same motion she brought the newly ringed finger up to her mouth and proceeded to pull the ring off her finger with her teeth! Horrified, my Mom left the room and immediately told my Dad. He stormed over to my grandmother and chewed her out. That was probably over 10 years ago. After repeated attempts to get close to her, my mom has finally learned to keep her distance.

In June when my parents were in town, I had the good, rare fortune of spending hours with my Dad. It was pretty cool, although I didn't mean for him to pay for lunch b/c I really had to use the restroom. After a day of errands we were preparing dinner and I asked him if he knew anyone whose babies died. Yes, he said, your grandmother, my mother. What! I was incredulous. In the '40s after the war, she had two babies, a boy and a girl, die about two years apart, a few days after birth. My dad was about 6 (or younger?) and he remembers that she cried a lot. In the '60s another daughter passed away from an infection due to retained placenta a few days after giving birth.

My grandmother has 4 living daughters and 1 living son. She has had 3 of her children die. Only recently did I realize that all these years she has carried around this weight. It has shaped her into an ungrandmotherly, unmotherly person. I don't know what her reaction was upon hearing about the twins. She had a minor stroke about 1.5 months ago and my mom told me that she cried when she learned that I asked about her. I do wish that I could talk to her in person. I wonder if she would be open to talking about her babies. (I also want to know so that I can add this information to my next whenever it is genetic counseling appointment.) I also wonder if my babies didn't die, and if I never asked the question, if I would ever have known this about my grandmother. It makes me think of what other bits and pieces are waiting to be revealed.

Passing

After spending 3/4 of Sunday nursing a chardonnay hangover, I couldn't get the guilt out of my head for not being more productive. I could have worked on a client's presentation. I could have done research for a marketing plan. I could have pulled the ankle-high weeds in the yard or fixed the hole that Kaleo dug while he was forgotten about in the backyard while we went out for dinner or redirected the irrigation line that I hear each morning when the sprinklers turn on (it's watering the fence) or clipped the spent canna lilies or dropped a few loads of laundry. But the pounding in my head of I told you not to drink so much was too great to do any of those things with any decorum. The least I did was to go with wannabe dad to Kaleo's training class and afterward stay in the car with my eyes closed while he picked up groceries. I decided this morning that I haven't had a day like that in a long time. Although I would skip the hangover part next time, the lying around part I'd do again just because I should once in a while.


Finally, in the early evening after a shallow nap (thanks to running kitties, neighbor drama or neighbor tv, I couldn't tell) the headache subsided and we watched Th.e Br.idge, a documentary about the '04 Gold.en Ga.te Br.idge sui.cides. It was so incredibly sad. There were moments, however, where human contact made the difference. I remember our 12 25 06 walk across the bridge (foregoing holiday celebrating), and I hadn't seen the movie yet although I did hear about it. I told myself then that even in my state of being 5 weeks po.st-partum-csecti.on if I were to see someone climbing over I would make contact. It would be the least I could do in my sorry state of mourning my girls.


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We are trying to find some alone time. Like an overnight stay somewhere. Just one night or two. Getting busy is difficult when you have three cats roaming and a dog outside the door. Getting busy is difficult when you have deadlines every day, even on the weekend.

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I have found it irritating that people have said to me that they're surprised I'm doing "so well." If it means they're surprised I'm not suicidal, that's a shitty thing to say. If it means they're surprised I can actually laugh on some days, it's still a shitty thing to say. They're not with me every moment of the day, they're not in my head where this morning as I was trying to figure out what to wear while brushing my teeth and staring at my closet (requirements: clean, reasonably unwrinkled, top and bottom reasonably match, cool but not too cool for inside air conditioning, dressy but not too dressy, not baggy, doesn't show gramma panty lines, not tight, goes with a no-makeup face), I thought if letting Cerina and Nadia go was the right thing to do, if just maybe they would have ended up alright but with the usual preemie problems, if maybe we could have saved Nadia since she was baby b and her bag wasn't bulging, if maybe I could have carried her for another 3 months could I just be mourning one baby and raising her sister, if maybe I could be raising Cerina as a preemie and Nadia as a full-term baby, then my mom would have her granddaughters and I would actually be a mommy. These are things I think of constantly; while driving, dressing, writing, working, hell whenever I'm not sleeping.


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Now that I have a dog, I can't watch the tv footage of the recent dog fig.hting controversy. When I finally have a child, I won't be able to leave the house or do anything that would cause her/him harm (like let him/her out of my sight).


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Our sweet girls would be 9 months old. Instead, they are two stars in the sky, two holes in our hearts, two big teardrops on our faces, two black bands on our wrists. I can't believe all this time is continuing to pass.

Shaken

We have family in P.eru (wannabe dad's), thankfully none have been affected by the earthq.uake. Sadly, other families were deeply affected. I offer my sincere condolences and prayers to them all.

Visitors

Growing up, my house was full of visitors. They were either family or international friends of my parents whom they met through their various working and schooling years in the Phi.lippines or the University of H.awaii in the mid-60s. Thankfully we had a guest room, so I didn't have to give up my bed (or clean my room) to make way for guests. My friends thought it was weird that we had a guest room. I thought it was weird that they didn't. "Where do your guests sleep?" "What guests?" (We have a guest room in our home now, but guests are few and far between, especially the international variety.)

I remember once that we had a teenage cousin from the Phili.ppines staying with us for a few months. I guess I was about 12-ish, and I found it odd that he smoked in the bathroom. I complained about this to my mom and her issue wasn't that he was smoking but that he was doing it in the house. Years later, I figured out his fascination. The bathroom had no windows but a vent fan, which he probably thought was strong enough to suck the smoke out from his puffs. Hilarious.

There really isn't a point to this, just that we're all cut from different cloths, that our experiences shape us, and what might make perfect sense to one person makes none to another. I'll write about another incident that made me realize "So that's why she's how she is." Now back to work.