My Body is a Castle

I have no time to write a whole blog, though I have much to write about, but I wanted to get the news out there - baby Davis in my belly is a little baby girl!  It took a long time for her to reveal herself - already a diva!  In this pictutre, we are doing "toe touches" to get her to move so that we could see that she is a "she."  Congrats, my friends.   There's a princess in the castle...

A Standing Ovation Fixes Everything

Wednesday night Tim and I were laying in bed talking when somehow, our conversation turned to the topic of reality shows. We are faithful Survivor watchers and I was thinking of adding another reality game show to our repertoire. “We should start watching The Amazing Race,” I said.

“I don’t want to watch The Amazing Race,” he replied.

“But, what if I get the chance to be on the show someday?” I said. “I need to know what it’s about.”

A few months ago, at the Amputee Coalition of America Annual Meeting, I was talking to my friend Katy, who also works with me in the prosthetic field for Hanger Prosthetics. In addition to being a patient advocate for lower extremity patients (she was born without both of her legs above her knees), she’s also an amazingly talented actress, having just wrapped a run on stage in Chicago in The Long Red Road, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.


She lives in L.A. and is also a working actress, currently in the process of filming a reality series pilot about her life with her husband, who is a paraplegic and stand up comic. Over cocktails one evening, we were talking about the series and she mentioned she was friends with the one of the producers or executives from The Amazing Race. Sara Reinerstein, the first female, lower extremity amputee Iron Woman was a contestant one year on the show and my other friend, John, an above knee amputee was a finalist in the selection process, but didn’t make it.


“You always see lower extremity patients on these shows,” I said. “Survivor had Chad, The Amazing Race had Sara, but you never see Wingers (aka upper extremity patients). We need some representation!”


“Oh, with your surrogacy story and your arm, I could probably help you get in front of the people at The Amazing Race,” she said. “I couldn’t promise anything, of course, but you’d be great on the show – totally what they’re looking for.”


“Well, maybe when this baby thing is all worked out, we can talk about it,” I said. At that very moment in June, I was in the middle of working the ACA trade show booth in Atlanta, simultaneously miscarrying Max and Bob’s baby.


The stress of traveling, putting on a happy face for the Hanger Booth, the melt down of hormones that comes with the shedding of a pregnancy and the fear of starting over (which I had agreed to do) produced a giant, painful weeping and oozing cold sore in the corner of my lip that left a scar that is still here today.


To say I was a hot mess is an understatement, but this little nugget of potentially being considered a valuable contestant with an interesting story on The Amazing Race as my reward for all I’d put myself through was a little ray of hope in what felt like a dismal place.


“You can’t go on The Amazing Race,” said Tim. “That’s crazy.”


“Are you saying you wouldn’t support me if I was accepted on the show? It’s like thirty days,” I whined. “It’s not that long.”


“Yeah. Thirty days that you’d be away from the boys, thirty days that I wouldn’t get to see them. Sorry, but I’m not in support of that. You’re going to consider leaving the boys for thirty days in the midst of the biggest turmoil you’ve ever experienced with their dad?” he said.


“Well, it wouldn’t be right now,” I said, suddenly feeling very defeated and powerless. I got quiet and thought about it for a while. Even though this is my life to live, that really isn’t true. Though I signed up to carry this baby, I never knew how much it would dominate my life. And then, once you have kids, everything that you thought was "your life" really isn't.


In the last fifteen months of my life, I have done things to my body that I would have never imagined; seventy needles in my ass, countless shots in my belly, estrogen patches and rashes and a stroke-like incident that led to CT Scans, weight gain, fear, pressure, anxiety. I’ve felt like everything is regimented, planned and scripted, in addition to trying to maintain my sanity and not let this affect my family's life and while I lay there fanaticizing about a great escape and a wild adventure, I’m faced with the reality that my life isn’t yet mine. My life belongs to my kids, my guy, my mortgage, college funds, retirement plans, responsibilities etc. And I know now is not the time to be flitting off to other parts of the world, but I also know that there may never be a time that’s right.


“What if I could win a million dollars?” I said.


“You’re ridiculous,” he said, and rolled over and went to sleep.


I laid there for a long time, feeling very trapped, until sleep took me out of my somber state. My alarm went off at 4:00am and I rose to get ready to catch my 6:00am flight to San Jose. I had presentations scheduled for Thursday and Friday to the Niles and Saratoga Rotary Clubs, hoping to get those men and women to open their pocketbooks and assist the Inner Wheel Foundation to fund the Myoelectric Arm Project; a philanthropic project to purchase myoelectric arms for kids whose parents cannot afford them. Hanger partners with this organization and prosthetists volunteer their time to assist. Since 2004, the partnership with Inner Wheel has provided over $600,000.00 worth of prosthetic devices to kids in need.


When I got off the plane in San Jose, I inhaled the “smell of California” in the spring. Every time I arrive in California, I get a little nostalgic about the life I lived there. The scent of the pink jasmine in bloom always takes me back to the days in Rancho Santa Margarita, in a cookie cutter neighborhood called Castile that was my life for so many years.


We were totally living a lie, but we were in a place that was so warm, sunny and inviting that it almost made it bearable. A lot of Southern California is a lie, just look at the collagen puffer fish lips, the gigantic taut tits, the people mortgaged to the hilt to keep up with the neighbors’ and all their plush toys. It’s a different mindset in Orange County. All of our neighbors had incredibly dysfunctional marriages, but the women of our group formed strong survival bonds that we still have today. All of us are divorced and living in different places now, but ironically, I still miss parts of that crazy life; well, just the women and the weather, really.


My presentation Thursday went off without a hitch and the Rotary Members we very surprised when I twisted my left hand off of my forearm and held it in my right. I love getting their attention this way. It blows their minds that I don’t have an arm, which is a perfect segue to why this myoelectric project is so important. It allows kids to be anonymous; to walk into a room and rather than being noticed for what they’re missing, to be seen for who they are.


Thursday night I went to dinner with Tim’s sister Melissa and her boyfriend, Brian, and had a wonderful time. We went to a beautiful little brewery in Los Gatos, and enjoyed the food, the atmosphere and each other’s company. On the ride home, Melissa shared with me her story of how a young girl from Rock Creek, Montana packed up her car and hit the road, knowing that she was destined for bigger things than Rock Creek could offer. I admire her for her courage and independence and thought about this as I faded off to sleep that night.  What would it be like to pack up my car and head south?


Friday morning, I sat outside on the patio by the pool at the Airport Holiday Inn and continued thinking. “If I could,” I thought, “I’d head out to someplace warmer.” The “stuck feeling” was becoming oppressive, as I thought more about how my life really isn’t my own. Just then, I got a text from Max. “We put $300 into your account, but I think we might owe you more. How are you feeling?”


I began my reply, “Thanks. I think you’ll owe more but we’ll figure it out Friday. I got another bill from Inland Imaging. I feel like I’m on a runaway train speeding toward a mid-life crisis.” Send.


The phone rings, “What’s going on?” he asks. “I’m just on my way to Starbucks to get a piece of pumpkin bread.”


And so I invite him to my pity party and give him a pointy party hat with the elastic rubber band strap that pulls all your little chin hairs out as it rolls along the underside of your face. I hand him a Woe is Me balloon and offer up all kinds of venom spitting from my tongue. “My life isn’t really my life,” I say. “Seriously, dude, once you have kids, it’s over. Forget about making decisions for yourself, forget about freedom, forget about choice. It’s over once this kid gets here.”


“It seems like that now, I’m sure, but it’ll get better,” he says. His optimism drives me crazy sometimes, especially when I’m in the throws of a full fledged Debbie Downer moment.


“I know. Listen, if I were you, I’d buy a whole pumpkin loaf and go park on the side of the road and just down it. That would be irresponsible and you should capitalize on these opportunities to be irresponsible before everything about you belongs to somebody else – mortgage payments, car payments, overwhelming responsibilities of providing for a child. It would behoove you to start liquidating and downsizing now, before this kid gets here. It’s gonna fall through those frickin’ stairs at your house.”


Stunned silence. Which makes us both crack up. We begin the tirade of doomsday scenarios, each one-upping the other’s and I am crying with laughter over how incredibly stupid I’m being. Of course I can’t run off and do what I want right this moment. I was getting all pissed off over a game show that I haven’t been offered a spot on – whose producers don’t know I exist. (Yet.)


I’m fat, pregnant, hormonal, feeling like I need a vacation or an escape, feeling like I need a HUGE freakin’ vodka martini, but after talking to Max and laughing til my sides hurt, I realize how grateful I am to be stuck in this moment. I love that guy, I love my guy, I love my kids, my family, my friends – I am truly blessed – Amazing Race or not.


Hell, I am in an amazing race right now. I have no idea what the finish line looks like or where it is, but I know all of the people who will be there when I arrive. I don’t need a million bucks or sunny, sweet smelling California. I just need them.


Later that afternoon, concluding my presentation to sixty or so Rotarians, I got a standing ovation. Looking around the room at all of those smiling, encouraging people who were clapping for me I thought, “I’m really so lucky.” Afterwards, a frail, hunched over man, supported by a walker, shuffled up to me to shake my hand. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ve been coming to these weekly meetings for years and your presentation was the very best that I have seen.”


With genuine gratitude, I placed my hand on his shoulder and looked into his eyes that held years of experience and stories of his own. “Thank you for that, Sir. That means so much to me. You have no idea. Thank you.” He nodded, touched the top of my hand, smiled, then reached for the handles on his walker to make his way out of the room.


At the airport, I texted Max. “There is nothing that a standing ovation won’t cure” was all I wrote.


“How did you know I was standing up and clapping for you right now?” he replied.  This made me smile.


“Because you always are,” I thought to myself.

Swimmin'

Last week, I was the Guest of Honor at Annie Farley's Girl Scout Meeting.  I was there to talk about what it was like growing up without an arm and being different from everyone else.  I shared the following story with them that I wrote last year.  It's called Swimmin'.


“So like, do you swim in circles?” he asked, through suspicious eyes.

Sean, my classmate and third grade nemesis, stood before me with his hands on his hips, waiting for my response. “Another recess ruined,” I thought to myself. Just moments ago, I was pushing my friend on the tire swing when Sean and his band o’ buddies sauntered up looking for a target. Like most days, I was the easy bull’s eye.

“Hey, did you hear me? Or are you deaf, too? Do you swim in circles are not?” This time he was much louder. He had my attention, as well as a few bystanders’. His voice was rough and mean and I could tell he hated me, but I wasn't sure why. I wasn't going to back down though.

I bowed my head and scanned the ground, searching for my girlfriend’s tennis shoes, trying to gauge how close she was to me, so that we can take them all on together. I was terrified when I couldn't find them, and glanced up briefly to see her casually chatting with some other girls and wandering off toward the other side of the field.

I pulled the sleeve of my sweatshirt down, past the two metal prongs and cables and rubber bands that were my left hand, opened my hook and tucked my sleeve inside, covering up as best I could.

“Because, with only one arm, I bet you just go round and round in the pool, huh?” he said with his minions snickering behind him. They were standing, like a wall, before me. I was trapped in a mean-boy cage. I’d have to face him alone. I took a deep breath, puffed up my chest a bit, raised my head, and looked Sean dead in the eye. I began to speak to firmly, showing no emotion at all to him. Telepathically.

It was a technique I'd seen demonstrated on my favorite show, That's Incredible. Funny, that show baffled me and terrified me at the same time. In one segment, an old man was bending metal spoons with only his brain power. He was also able to send lengthy telepathic messages to his cousin in Albuquerque. The camera zoomed in on the long-distance cousin, with the split screen of the old guy feverishly concentrating, and miraculously, the cousin recounted the message exactly. Incredible!

In the next segment, a frizzy haired woman told of her experiences with an alien abduction. How she’d noticed the flash of the aliens’glowing eyes in the corner of her bedroom and the flashing lights outside her window and she’d known they were there for her, AGAIN.

This show was both interesting and horrifying for me as an eight year old, but I watched it religiously and spent many nights sleeping at the foot of my parents’ bed, convinced that aliens were trying to take me, too.

“Leave me ALONE and Sean! Find someone else to pick on today, you ASS!” I said very firmly in my head. I was still staring him down.

“What? Now you can't talk, too? You got a hook for a hand, your deaf, and you can't speak?” he said.

Oh, I was speaking. “Idiot! You jackass!” I shouted in my head. “You're fat faced jerk!” I screamed, and my brain started to pound. And then, when he didn't show that he had heard me, my telepathic voice in my head became pathetic. “Please?” I whimpered. Then softer, “Please?” My face was hard and stoic. “Dead eyes,” I thought. “Dead eyes don't cry.” From the outside, you'd never know that there were tears behind my eyes.

“You're obviously the death of one, ASS” I said, wondering if he could hear my telepathic slam. I assumed he would've reacted to my responses, had he been in tune with his Extra Sensory Perception. Since he wasn’t phased, I knew I was speaking with someone who had not recognized his psychic potential like I'd seen on TV.

“Was your dad Capt. Hook?” he continued. His wall of follower friends snickered and whispered. My blank face showed him that I was not riled by his questions, though if my hair were not long he can see the burning rage, hatred and bitterness I had for him in my red hot ears.

“Oh holy crap!” I thought. I had also seen a segment on Spontaneous Human Combustion on That's Incredible. One minute a person is just fine, minding his own business, maybe eating a TV dinner in his living room and the next, he has burst into a ball of flames leaving only smoldering shoes and scraps of crisp clothing behind. “Is this how it starts? In the ears?” I wondered. I could hear my heart pounding. My body was talking, along with my head.

“He's a jerk!” said my ears.

“But he's scary, too,” said my throbbing heart.

“Don't let him see. Don't let him know he has any power,” said my head.

Feigning apathy I waited for the next question. “I think I might buckle,” said my knees. “I'm not sure how much longer I can stand here.”

“Give her a minute,” said my head. “She will find her voice.”

This battle and my body raged on. My jaw twitched. My teeth were clenched hard. “Oh my God! I think she's trying to break me,” said my molars.

Ever so seriously in my last ditch effort at ESP I said in my head, “Come closer Sean. Let's find out what my daddy, Captain Hook, taught me about war.”

Suddenly, I heard my mom's voice. “Ignore them, Honey” she told me. She always said, “They don't know what they're saying. If they are teasing you, it's because they don't like themselves. Just ignore them.”

“It's so hard, Mom,” I said in my head.

I didn’t need Sean to use me to learn that he didn't like himself. Ironically, I desperately wanted him to like me, though. If he didn’t know what he was saying, why did I believe him when he made me feel sub-human? Why did I cover my hook in his presence? I hated me as much as he did, I think. I was the mutant offspring of Lindsay Wagner, the Bionic Woman, and the feared and loathed Captain Hook.

I shoved my hook further into the pocket of my painter pants, a genius multi-pocketed fashion movement perfect for the girl who wanted to hide her hands. I was looking down at my pocket, when I saw him lunge at me from the corner of my eye.

He reached for my arm, pulled it out of my pocket, and swiped his hand across my hook. He took that hand and smeared it across the shoulder of one of the boys behind him.

“Carrie’s germs, no returns!” he called as he ran in the opposite direction. The stunned victim, the one who had been plagued with my germs, looked at me with disgust and wiped his own hand across his shoulder, effectively removing my germs from his shirt.

The crowd of boys scattered and the infected boy chased after them, palm outstretched, far away from his body, looking for someone else to pollute.

My feet were glued to the playground. All around me, kids were running and screaming, laughing and playing. The band of boys made their way across the field.

“Whew, that was a close call,” said my ears. “For a minute there…well, you don’t want to know. Knees? You OK down there?

My body started to relax a bit, having been set free from the human cage. Still though, I was ashamed. “I hate myself,” said my head. “I hate my body. I hate this hook. I hate being different.”

“We know,” my body replied in unison.

“I’m aching,” said my heart.

“I know what to do,” said my head and with that, I took the whole experience and bundled it up in a tight little package in my mind’s eye and bent a big ol’ metal spoon around it with my brain.

Call it magic, call it special powers, call it what you will; I was able to erase that experience. I shoved that bundle of pain and anxiety so far down in me, past my heart, past my voice, past all the things that made me feel it, and put it in a place that felt nothing.

Over time, that place grew larger and wider and occupied a very deep space in me. I became so accustomed to not feeling pain, that for many years in my life, I felt nothing at all. I just stop feeling all of it; pain, joy, love, fun because it became easier.

And it was later in my life that I realized that yes, in fact, I did swim in circles. I was stuck in a cyclical pattern of feeling pain, getting angry, worrying about what others thought of me, hating myself for not speaking up, and then very neatly packaging all that up and stuffing it away until the next time.

At times, I felt like I'd never break out of that vortex. But, I had to remember that I was a bionic bad ass. And, I was really good at ESP - at least in my own mind and body. My heart heard every word I said; the truth and the lies.

The truth was, I was mad at myself for hating myself. I was sad that I was incapable of letting my true voice speak up. I had to start liking the body that I came in and start talking to myself differently. “You are strong! You are powerful! You are destined for great things,” I told myself, even though I didn't always believe it. In fact, sometimes I was lying to myself just to get by - living by the motto, “You gotta fake it, to make it.”

Are these my lives or my truths? It doesn't matter, really. Let them be my life preserver that pulled me out of the failure funnel that tried to suck me down when I was a child.

I can hear the audience in my head now, from that old show I used to watch. They've seen the segment on the girl whose telepathic talks to herself changed the entire course of her life; taking her from a place of fear and self-doubt, of approval seeking and pain, to a place of pure internal strength and power. On cue, they shout, “THAT’S INCREDIBLE!”

And I believe it. With my whole body and being. Yes. I believe it.

A Pain in the Back

Chronic pain is depressing. Last Monday night, I was hit in the back by a bolt of lightning (AKA pinched Sciatic nerve) and I’ve been yowling out in pain at random times for a week. I swear, it’s the worst pain in the ass (which is a true statement as my ass seems to have spread out to the lower part of my back) that I have ever experienced.

Tuesday evening, I was sitting at the dining room table working on a project on my computer with Chet quietly sitting next to me working on his homework when suddenly, I shifted my weight in my chair ever so slightly to my right and this flash of piercing pain shot through my lower back and down my right leg.

“Aaaahhh – OH MY GOD, oh my God!” I screamed. Chet jumped out of his seat, screamed and threw his pencil across the kitchen. I held on to the side of the table with my head bowed, breathing heavily and trying to “blow away the pain.”

“Jeez Mom! Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?” Chet said, gasping to catch his own breath.

“Chester, if you knew the intensity of the pain I’m in, you’d never be asking me that! It’s like daggers, like burning swords plunging into my spine and then spreading pain poison with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns all through my back!” I said. In other words, “No, I’m not being dramatic.”

This pain has been piercing me for days and it’s making everything that involves movement very scary. The pain has me rather paralyzed with dread and that is getting really depressing. I went to lunch with my friends on Wednesday and I must have shrieked out loud and jumped six times during our conversation.

“You know, that’s my chiropractor over there across the restaurant,” said Maggie. “Maybe you should call him?”

“No. It should go away,” I said.

When I was pregnant with Chet, I had sciatica around 16-17 weeks. It was my first indication that I might be pregnant again. At the time, Davis was nine months old and I was teaching school full time. I was constantly exhausted, but just figured it was the first time mom drowsies.

I was a zombie passing through my days, really. I’d be up with Davis during the night nursing him, then I’d get up at 5:00am to get ready for school, nurse and feed Davis again, then head off to work. During the midmorning break at school, I’d close my windows and lock the door, set up my “Medela Pump-In-Style” breast pump and express milk for 10 minutes or so, pop it in the cooler, then open the doors to my classroom to teach two more classes before lunch. At lunch, I’d jump in my car, drive home and nurse Davis, drop my expressed milk in the freezer, then haul back to school as fast as I could to teach two more classes.

This became my life. On weekends, I’d try to catch up on as much time with Davis as I could, playing on the floor, going for walks, and exploring our surroundings. I remember kneeling down to take his picture one afternoon and I had this intense pain shoot down my leg. I fell to the floor and Doug looked at me like I was crazy. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“My leg gave out,” was my reply, but I knew that this pain was too familiar, as I had the exact same pain when I was pregnant with Davis. I started thinking about it and I realized that I could possibly be pregnant again. I had, after all, been working out religiously trying to lose my baby weight, but I was at a standstill. In fact, my pants seemed to be getting tighter.

A few days later, I snatched up an old pregnancy test from Davis’s pregnancy and took it. After holding it in my “urine stream” for 5-10 seconds, I placed the cap on the collection space, set it on the back of the toilet and walked away. Some time later, I went into the bathroom to check it and was horrified to see two blue lines. I called my friend Knicole immediately. “So,” I said, “Is it possible to have a positive pregnancy test, like when you are nursing, because your hormones are all messed up?”

“OH MY GOD, NO!” she squealed. “You’re pregnant! Congratulations!”

I broke down in tears.

The following day, I went to have an ultrasound. “How far along do you think you are?” asked Dr. Stadler.

“Quite honestly, I have no idea,” I said. “I can’t quite believe that I am actually pregnant again. Maybe a few weeks? I don’t know. I haven’t had a period since I delivered Davis.”

“Well, let’s get you in the ultrasound exam room and have a look,” he said.

(*Readers, note here – no matter what you may have heard - you CAN get pregnant while you are nursing. Chester Joe is proof.)

The ultrasound tech inserted the wand and began probing around, searching for what I expected would be that little kidney bean shape you see at about five weeks gestation – complete with it’s blinking little heartbeat, its tiny little yolk sack inside an itty bitty amniotic sac.

“Oh my God! What is that?” I exclaimed, knowing full well that I was looking at a giant head.

“We’re not going to need this,” she said as she pulled the wand from between my legs. “We can just go right over your belly.”

The minute the probe hit my belly, I could see all of Chet; his arms, legs, hands and feet. He had a big ol’ head and a round belly and he was a perfect little person. “Looks like you’re going to have this baby in about five months,” said Dr. Stadler. I broke down crying again.

This time, the tears were more happy tears than scared tears – or maybe they were an equal combination of both. Five moths later, after a really intense and difficult labor, Chet joined the planet – all 8 pounds 13 ounces of him. I birthed a monster baby – one that periodically kicked me in the spine and sent shooting sciatic pain through my back and down my leg. I forgave him. Eventually.

The shooting pain in my sciatic nerve with Chet was never constant, like it is with this baby. I called to talk to a nurse at Northwest OB/GYN to see if there was anything I could do. “Did you have this with your other pregnancies?” she asked.

“Yes, but it wasn’t like this. I can hardly move without pain. I can’t bend over, I can’t sit down, I can’t get up, I can’t twist. I’m totally incapacitated with pain,” I said, trying to hold back tears.

“Oooohh,” she said. “Looks like this is going to be a loooong pregnancy.”

She obviously didn’t get the memo entitled “What Not to Say to Carrie” that Max consults before calling me. This was not what I wanted to hear. “Can I take anything for the pain?” I asked. “I haven’t slept in two nights and I have anxiety when I go to bed because I’m exhausted, but I can’t sleep.”

“Well, you can have Tylenol,” she said.

“K. Thanks,” I said, feeling helpless and defeated. I hung up and called Maggie’s chiropractor. When I arrived at his office, my palm and feet started to sweat. The thought of someone touching me, let alone reefing on my back filled me with panic.

He touched my back in a few places, causing me to wince and gasp. “Wow,” he said. “This might take some time to get this pain under control. Your baby is pushing right on this nerve here and all we can do is try to get the compression in your spine relaxed and open again.”

He commenced cracking and I commenced screaming and puffing out a bunch of “Oh my Gods.” Ironically, the Christian Radio station was playing over the speakers in the office and I thought of the irony; the religious zealot types saying that me surrogating a baby for my gay friends would send me to hell, my ex-husband trying to tell my kids that the Bible says it’s wrong, the pain in my back and the “Jesus loves me” music playing as I pray for this pain to go away.

It’s Monday, and I’m still hurting and it makes me sad. I have two appointments a day, every other day with the chiropractor this week. I’m hoping that this pain will play out like it did when I was pregnant with Chet, though that was ten years ago and I’m a lot creakier than I used to be.

“Our baby is being a bad baby,” texted Max.

“It is!” I texted back. “And for its punishment, it will get only one Oreo McFlurry today.”

The Fart in First Grade

The following story was written by my nine year old son, Chester.  He and I share a very similar sense of humor.  I think he's got a gift for writing and I look forward to watching him grow through words.  He's a funny lil nugget, and this piece was written for a fourth grade personal essay assignment where the students were asked to write about a small moment in time that stands out for them.  It's really funny whe he reads it aloud. You

The Fart in First Grade

I had chili for breakfast that day and from the start of eating that chili, I knew something would be wrong.  I was in first grade and my teacher was passing out our grades.  She called my name.  She had to walk over to me because she was clear across the room. I held the fart in.

Then she called Elizabeth, so I knew I could let it rip.  Good thing it was silent, but it was very deadly.  Next she called Evan, who sat right next to me.  I got worried, like I had done a crime and I knew I was guilty.
The teacher walked past me to Evan then she sniffed and, trust me, I thought what she did next was wrong.  She said, "Boy! It really stinks over here."

I immediately looked at Evan and pointed at him. The teacher said, "Evan, what have you been eating?"

Evan clearly did not know what was going on. He looked confused.  "What did I do?" he said.
I made a sign to Evan to be quiet. 

"Chet did it!" he said.  So much for him covering for me.  It seemed like he ratted me out.

"Who ever did that can go to the bathroom on the way to recess!" my teacher said.

I do not want anyone to know it was me, so I walked past the boys bathroom and out to the playground.

Please Put It Back, Judy

My favorite place to shop for groceries is Albertson's on 57th Ave. It's less than a mile from my house, the produce department is decent, the pharmacy employees know me by name, and everyone who works there is extremely friendly, especially Judy.

Judy lives in this neighborhood, and back when I was training for triathlons, I would often run past her house. Every time I would go to the grocery store she would say, “I saw you running past my house today. You looked great! Are you training for another race?”

At that time I was and I could bask in my own glory and say, “Well, yes. This next one coming up is the New York City Nautica triathlon. I think I'm ready, but I'll just keep pushing until race day. It’s the national finals for the physically challenged team, so I’m hoping to do well.”

“Wow,” she'd say. “You're such an inspiration.”

By now, the real reason why I shop that Albertson's should be abundantly clear. Judy constantly strokes my ego and makes me feel like a superstar.

Recently, however, I quit running because of the pregnancy and started packing on pounds. Now, exercise for me consists of getting up from my desk, walking to the fridge to make a ham sandwich, and walking back to my desk to sit and eat it. Exercise might also include jumping in my car to drive to Albertson's for more food.

A few days ago, while pushing my cart through the produce section, I got a craving for, you guessed it, a berry filled Hostess pie. All I had in my cart at the time were bananas. The Hostess section of the store was all the way at the other side, and I passed many other tempting aisles as I made my way toward the Twinkies, Ding Dong's, and Snowballs.

What's this? The baking aisle? I took a sharp left, and grabbed a box of Double Fudge Brownie mix off of the shelf and placed it gingerly next to the bananas. A quick U-turn and I was back out into the main aisle, heading right for the Hostess End Cap. Target in sight. But what would it be today? Cherry or Berry? “Go with what you know,” I thought and I snatched up the berry pie and placed it in the baby seat of my shopping cart.

Since I was so close to the freezer section, I figured I better go see what kinds of new creamy and delicious masterpieces Ben & Jerry were putting out. On my way there, I had a little mental conversation with myself about getting my sugar addiction under control AFTER this shopping spree.

In the freezer section, I scanned all of the flavors and realize that I'm not so much a fan of the ice cream, as much as I am of the pastries. I zeroed in on the ice cream sandwiches. Fluffy chocolate pastry, surrounding yummy vanilla goodness – AND a box of 12 was on sale for $2.50. I opened the cooler, reached in, grabbed the box, and placed it at the bottom of my cart, carefully arranging the bananas on top of the box, so as to show my priority for health. With that, I made my way towards the checkout.

Judy was the only cashier working that afternoon. Suddenly I felt ashamed. What would Judy think of me now, with all of this trash in my shopping cart? Only the pharmacists knew that I was pregnant. If they were to see my cart, they would smile approvingly. When Judy sees my cart, she will think I have given up on myself.

I began to unload my items and looked at the back wrapper of the Hostess fruit pie. Twenty grams of fat? Oh my God. I can’t buy this. I placed it on the moving counter, next to the package of brownie mix, ice cream sandwiches, and bananas and scanned the curious look on Judy's face.

“Oh jeez, Judy,” I said. “Will you pull that Hostess pie and brownie mix off of there? Send them back for me, please?”

“Having a sweet tooth attack?” asked Judy.

“I'm pregnant,” I said, relieved that I could give an excuse for my weight gain. "I'm pregnant and I'm bottomless."  It was like going to confession.  Obviously, my weight gain had nothing to do with the thousands and thousands of calories that were making their way toward her on the moving countertop and was really all about pregnancy, instead.

“So, are you still running?” she asked, “Because come to think of it I haven't seen you come by the house lately.”

“I haven't been running,” I admitted with some degree of shame. “I try and walk a lot, though.”

She reached over as my brownie mix and frosted fruit pie made their way down the motorized counter toward her hands, grabbed them, and set them behind her. She probably also saw the look of longing in my eyes, as I stretched my neck to watch her hide them from my gaze behind her body.

“Well, I'll keep an eye out for you and if I see you walking by my house, I'll come out and bring you some water,” she says encouragingly.

“That's sweet of you, Judy,” I say. “But if you see me walking by your house, and if you have it, could you just bring me some pie?”

Useful Boobies

I got an interesting phone call yesterday. At about three o'clock in the afternoon, my cell phone rang. I didn't recognize the caller's number, but it was local, and I had a few things posted on Craigslist recently so I thought maybe it was someone calling on the TV hutch I had for sale.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hello is this Carrie?” an old woman's voice replied.

“Yes,” I said.

“Carrie Davis with Hanger?” she inquired.

“Yes it is,” I said. “Who is this please?”

“Well,” she started, “My name is Bessie and I got your phone number from someone at Hanger. They said I should call you with my question.”

Normally, my coworkers in the office do not give out my cell phone number without first letting me know that someone had asked for it. I was surprised when she said she'd been given my number, so I went on to inquire further.

“OK, great,” I said. “Um, who was it that you said suggested you call me with your question?” I asked.

“Well, he said he was your brother-in-law or former brother-in-law or something,” she explained.

This threw me. My prosthetists is a good friend of mine, as are all of the members of the office staff here in town, and I couldn't figure out how she could possibly confuse members of our office staff with members of my family, or vice versa. I thought about my former brothers-in-law and wondered if maybe one of them had given Ms. Bessie my number. That didn’t make sense, either.

“Hmmmm,” I said. “This is quite a mystery. At any rate Bessie, what can I do for you this afternoon?”

“I saw on the news that Hanger was accepting donations of prosthetic parts to be shipped overseas to assist with the terrible tragedy in Haiti,” she said. “I called Hanger to see if they would be interested in my prostheses and the gentleman I spoke with told me to call you.”

In my head I was wondering why they hadn't just given her the information instead of referring her to me. Maybe she was an upper limb patient, like me, and had other questions?

“That's wonderful,” I said. “We are accepting donations of prostheses and they will all be used for a very good cause.”

“Well, I wasn't sure if you'd be interested in my prostheses,” she said “because they are breast prostheses. They are all different shapes and sizes and I have four of them. You know, some years I was bigger than others and my weight kind of went up and down, so we needed to make bigger and smaller breasts year after year to keep up with my good one. Anyway I have four left breasts and I'd like to donate them if you think that they could use them.”

While I doubt that there are many women in Haiti who lost left breasts in the earthquake, I thought her gesture was very sweet and genuine. She had been stockpiling these prosthetic left breasts, waiting for something useful to do with them; something charitable and for the good of women missing various sizes of left breasts. Yes. Very sweet, indeed,

“You know, I'm not sure about whether or not we're taking breast prostheses,” I said. “But, let me give you the number to our local office. You should talk to Jennifer or Shelley and they will know for sure whether or not we're accepting those.”

Suddenly, I realized who had given her my phone number. It was Scott, my boyfriend's brother, who had purchased our bar “Hangar 57” from us last year. To this day, when I meet someone new in town and they ask me where I work and I say “Hanger," they think I'm talking about the bar. I then take a few minutes to explain what Hanger Prosthetics is and that Hanger 57 is no longer ours; that it  now belongs to Scott, my pseudo-brother-in-law from my common law marriage to Tim.

Now, if you were to meet Scott, you would be shaking hands with a guy who embodies the word “country boy.” Scott was raised in Montana and grew up living off the land. Tim has told me many stories of enduring frigid winters along the creek in their humble home heated by a single burning fire and eating only what they could catch. They stood in line for government cheese, went into the woods as kids with guns to hunt for food that would sustain them for the season, snuck booze and smokes from their folks, and drove cars down winding gravel roads for miles and miles all when they were 12 years old or younger.

To say they grew up “hillbilly” is an understatement, but it’s also what endears me to them. It’s like a survival story that I sometimes wish was my own, as I’ve completely romanticized the idea of living along Rock Creek, raising hens and growing a beautiful and bountiful vegetable garden, then canning my crops for the long winter ahead. “Yeah,” says Tim sarcastically. “It was just like that.”

I love their backwoods Montucky tales though, and every time I see Scott I see the “Montana Boy” in him, along with the bloodshot eyes, the sign of too many nights of whiskey and women and the giant wad of Copenhagen smashed into the his lower lip. He’s usually working off a hangover or working on a buzz, and I imagined how the conversation went when Bessie dialed Hanger 57 Sports Bar and Pizzeria yesterday morning, thinking it was Hanger Prosthetics, looking to make her donation.

“Hanger 57, this is Scott,” he’d say, rubbing his hand over his scratchy, stubbly beard and shaking off last night’s closing shift.

“Yes hello,” Bessie would say in her grand-motherly voice. “My name is Bessie and I recently saw the article about Hanger and the work you are doing and I wanted to call because I have four left breasts that I'd like to bring in.”

Without flinching and while rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Scott would say, “Four left boobies, huh?” He’d pick a piece of chewing tobacco from the tip of his tongue, inspect it and wipe it on his jeans. “Well Bessie, that sounds like a real good idea. I think you should bring those in pronto.”

“Would you have any use for them?” she would ask.

With his eyes closed and rubbing his forehead he’d say, “Yup. I think we can find somethin’. You just bring those four left titties in here and flop ‘em up on the counter an’ we’ll figure it all out, darlin'. Don’t matter if ya have one or none or hell, even four – we like all kinds here. We’ll see you an’ all yer mellons real soon, K?”

Though I know the conversation was probably nothing like that, I enjoy imagining this version versus the one they actually might have had which was undoubtably just confusing and awkward. Being a country boy means that Scott was also kissed with southern charm, and he has a very tender way with the ladies.  Terms of endearment like darlin', lil lady, and sweetheart roll off his tongue and I bet he made Bessie feel like a million bucks before their actual conversation was through.  I let Bessie in on my epiphany.

“You know what, Bessie?” I said with a chuckle. “By strange coincidence and circumstance, I just realized how you got my number. You spoke with my boyfriend’s brother who owns a sports bar called Hangar 57. He's the one you who gave you my number. Turns out, that even though you called the wrong Hanger, you got to the right place.”

“Well how about that?” she said. “I just want these old breasts to go to good use, you know?” she asked.

“Yep,” I said, looking down at my own that are now spilling out of my D cups; my right at least 1/3 larger than my left. “I know what you mean.”

The Plan is in Place

On Monday, Max, Bob, Jan and Carrie and I showed up at the Northwest OBGYN anticipating an ultrasound that would tell us the baby’s sex. When we arrived, however, we were told that there must have been a misunderstanding because we were not actually scheduled for an ultrasound that day.

I was very confident, upon checking in, that once in the exam room with the doctor, we could convince him to just sneak us in for a quick peak at the baby. After all, as Max pointed out, they had taken time off work to come to the appointment and Bob had yet to see the baby on ultrasound. Of course Dr. Barrong would understand and move us right into the ultrasound room.

When Dr. Barrong walked into the room he walked right toward me and said, “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about. “When did I see you?” I asked.

He opened the chart and scanned it. “Looks like it was 1997. I performed your DNC.”

“Oh yes, of course! That’s right,” I said, though I didn’t remember his face, nor did I remember that he was the one that performed the operation.

In 1997, in a desperate act to have some reason to stay in my marriage, I decided it was time to start a family. I figured a baby would bring Doug and I together and I went to work planning the best times to conceive so that its birth would fit right into our work schedules. At the time, I was teaching high school, so a summer baby would be just right.

I got pregnant right on schedule and delivered the happy news to my parents on my dad’s 50th birthday with a little picture frame that had sayings engraved all over it about grandparents. “Really?” my dad said. We shook our heads yes and he announced to all the party goers, “I’m going to be a granddad!” Everyone was elated and I could think of nothing more perfect. This baby was conceived in time to be a great “gift” on dad’s birthday, it was going to be born at the right time for me to take maternity leave and then spend the summer caring for it, and it was going to be someone I could focus on that would fill a void in my marriage. Perfect.

All was not perfect, however. At our seven week doctor’s appointment, we could not hear the heartbeat on Doppler. “Not to worry,” said the doctor. “Your uterus is tilted backwards, so I’m not totally surprised. Let’s give it a couple more weeks.”

Two weeks passed, and in that time, I had purchased a crib, painted the baby’s room, bought bedding and started looking at little baby outfits. I arrived at my appointment ready to hear its little heart beating, but we still couldn’t hear it. “Why don’t you just go over to Inland Imaging to get an ultrasound,” said the doctor. “This way, we’ll rule out any problems.”

The ultrasound tech entered the room, turned the lights down, and started searching for the baby. Nothing. It had stopped developing at seven weeks. “Looks like this is not a viable pregnancy,” he said matter-of-factly. I was devastated. I was referred back to my doctor who told me I could let it abort naturally or I could schedule a DNC. I scheduled the DNC and that’s where I first met Dr. Barrong.

The irony, sitting in his office 13 years later, struck me. Thirteen years ago, I “planned” for everything to go smoothly and for a baby to fit perfectly into that plan. Thirteen years ago, I was taught the lesson that babies come on their own terms and to think that you can plan when and how and what it will be like is not only unrealistic, it’s ridiculous.

Sitting there thinking of ways to talk the doctor into letting us see the baby on ultrasound that day because we all had taken time out of our busy schedules to receive the news we wanted to hear was equally ridiculous. The only news that was really important on Monday was that, “Things are looking good.” That’s what we heard, in addition to the heartbeat at 160 beats per minute, and that’s all that matters. And with that, I am reminded that we need to give all of the power and control that we think we have, back to this baby.

I believe that baby’s choose their parents and they choose when it’s time to be born. I miscarried my first baby for a reason. That baby, or that hope of a baby, was meant to be in my life to teach me that I am not in charge of this process. Max and Bob suffered through two miscarriages and this last round of invitro was their last hope.

This baby, in conjunction with Divine guidance and intervention and medical scientific breakthroughs, chose its time to come and we all just need to relax into the knowledge and belief that it knows what it’s doing. One really can’t “plan” for the impact that a child has on everyone around it.

Our lesson on Monday was to surrender to this process that for so long was manipulated and controlled by injections, pills, patches, and forced circumstances. For a while, we seemed to be controlling the outcome, yet even then, we perceived that control. We never really had it. This baby chose Max and Bob and it choose me, too. It is holding the reigns right now.

In the center of my body grows a child that will be the center of the universe to so many people. The plan now is to let things go according to this baby’s plan.