Chillax, Will Ya?

Oprah’s 10th Anniversary Special Edition of her magazine was dedicated to “Living in the Moment.” Oprah magazines are perfect for airplane rides, and I picked up a copy in the Denver airport on my way to Savannah a couple weeks ago. I was actually looking for a book to read, but nothing was jumping off the shelves.


Two flight attendants were standing nearby, discussing the titles on the shelves and some of their favorite reads. I had to jump in, because David Sedaris’s book, Me Talk Pretty One Day, was on the shelf. I grabbed a copy and turned to one of them and asked, “Have you read this? It's my favorite book.”

“I've heard him speak on NPR,” the tall, blonde one said. “He seems pretty funny.”

“He's life changing,” I replied, with a touch of drama. “I'd like to be the female version of David Sedaris, at least in the literary world I mean.”

A few years ago I went to one of David's readings at the Met Theatre in Spokane and stood in line to have him sign my book. I approached the table, handed him my copy, and said, “I've sold many of these books for you. I kind of lurk around in airport bookstores between flights and peddle them on your behalf.”

“That's very generous,” he said. “I'm glad you're doing that.”

He took my book and scribbled on the inside cover and handed it back to me. I opened it and read his inscription as I made my way into the theater. “Carrie, Thank you for making me rich. –David.”

“Are you a writer?” the blonde flight attendants asked. “You look like you have a very interesting job, whatever it is.”

That caught me slightly off-guard. “No. But, I'd love to be a writer,” I replied. “I have all kinds of jobs, really. I'm a patient advocate in prosthetics, I like to do public speaking now and again, I write to entertain myself, I’m a mother to two boys and I'm a surrogate mom, currently,” I say as I pat my big, round belly.

“Wow,” the other girl said. “You do have an interesting job.”

“Have you read this?” said the blonde, handing me a copy of Eat, Pray, Love.

“I tried,” I replied, “But…”

“I know!” the other girl interrupted with a look of disgust on her face. “It's nauseating, right? Like who can get divorced and pack all their stuff and head to Bali to find herself and meditate with Yogis and live in an Ashram and stuff? I started reading it and I was like, ‘Oh lucky for you Elizabeth Gilbert’ but that's not reality.”

“Yeah I guess that's true,” I said. “When I got divorced, I didn't know how I was going to work, raise my sons, pay the heat bill, maintain my sanity… I suppose if I could've gone to Bali that would've been nice, but…”

“Oh we gotta go,” the blonde said to the other as she looked at her watch. “Good luck to you with everything” she said to me. With that they took their roller bags and clip clopped away in their high heels. (Sorry David - I missed the sale).

With none of the books grabbing me, I plucked an ‘O’ Magazine off the rack. Interestingly enough, it was one article, “Failure Is the Only Option,” by Elizabeth Gilbert that resonated with me.

Her premise was that women are “stressing themselves sick over the pathological fear that they simply aren't doing enough with their lives.” I find myself falling into this fear pattern regularly. I chronically create lists of things I want to do, like learn to play guitar, travel, learn to speak Italian, write a book, create a motivational speech and go on tour, but then I also fill that same list with things I have to do like, fix the boys bathroom toilet, replace the fence boards on the fence, clean out the garage, and fill the holes that the dog dug in the backyard.

My list of tedious “have to tasks” grows, and it's those that get picked off first, maybe because they’re easier and there is less chance of failing at fence board replacement than there is at learning a foreign language. Learn to play the guitar has been on my list for five years. I even had a special prosthetic device made in order to strum with my left arm, but it hangs on the stand where the guitar sits and has sat quietly for years collecting dust. Sometimes, I’ll pass by it and look at it and think, “I’m such a failure.” Why, knowing that it’s something that I really want to do, have I not just done it already? Because someone might twist their ankle in the backyard in the dog gone holes?

Somehow I think if I don't get all of the little things done, everything will collapse around me. If I'm not the perfect mom, the perfect friend, the perfect volunteer, with a perfect body, I am somehow failing. Elizabeth Berg's point that failure is the only option, rings true; especially when you set yourself up, the way that I do.

It is in our failures, where we learn our true way. “This is how maps get charted,” she writes, “by taking wrong turns that lead to surprising passageways that open into spectacularly unexpected new worlds.” This is how we map our lives.

If I had stayed married, today would be my 15th wedding anniversary. Fifteen years ago today, I walked down the aisle and pledged my love and loyalty to someone that I shouldn't have. But I wanted to be the perfect daughter, hosting a perfect ceremony, for my perfect friends, all the while knowing that I was making a perfectly huge mistake. But in that failure, was my only option to receive the most wonderful gifts of my life; Davis and Chester.

Though, my marriage was a failure, by taking that wrong turn, I opened a passageway to learning who I am and what I'm about. I still try to be too many things to too many people and I focus too much on my list of things to do versus my list of things I want for me, but I'm working on it.

Right now, I need to stop feeling like my life is on hold. I am guilty of doing this with the surrogacy. I need to start being better at living in the moment, and appreciating these moments more. But, for cryin’ out loud, it's hard to appreciate heartburn, gas, exhaustion, and cellulite. There’s not much I can do about it right now, so I need to just figure out a way to relax into this a little bit.

At my doctor's appointment last Monday the nurse who weighed me in asked me, “So are you enjoying this pregnancy?”

“Ummm, I enjoy my boat in the summer and cold beer and bikinis more,” I said.

She half smiled and looked at my chart. “Oh, you are due right in the middle of August. Your summer will be kind of…”

“You can say it,” I replied. “Screwed?”


“I was going to say, ‘short lived,’” she said.

“Yeah. That too,” I replied.

I feel like I want time to move by faster right now so that I can get back to “my life” but the reality is, being a surrogate and being pregnant right now is my life and I just need to find the content space to allow myself just to be in this moment, without thinking what this moment could be if I weren’t pregnant. It’s hard though. It goes back to “I want to be the perfect surrogate” that doesn’t complain, that is happy to be pregnant, etc. and I try to tell myself to feel that way, but it’s not how I feel and I feel guilty for that. Ugh.

And so I call Busse, the one person I can complain to because she knows exactly what this is like. “I’m trying to enjoy this moment and embrace the experience,” I tell her dryly.

“Dude, when you’re walking through fire, you don’t stop to smell the roses, do you? It’s OK to not like being pregnant. You’ve worked harder and longer at this than you did your own kids. I HATED being pregnant. It’s OK to admit you’re not enjoying it sometimes,” she says. “We get so wrapped up in this cosmic notion of finding the lesson in everything, but sometimes, the lessons don’t come until much later. So, go ahead and complain, dude. You’re so hard on yourself!”

She is a great one, my best friend, because she can speak to me in a way that gives me permission to be me; more permission than I give myself sometimes. She absolutely knows me better than I do and it is very refreshing that she can bring me back into my skin and tell me it’s going to be alright if I just let my guard down now and again.

“You gotta let yourself relax and just be OK with not being OK sometimes,” she says.

I know this is true because I put so much pressure on myself to be everyone’s everything that it’s exhausting to keep a happy face on all the time. I feel like I can’t talk to Max and Bob about my “woe is me” moments because I volunteered to do this! And, when I complain to Max, his stress level and anxiety goes through the roof and it makes me feel worse. I can’t complain to Tim, because I have taken him along on this ride whether he likes it or not and for me to admit that some days, I want off this ride seems so selfish because he can’t get off either, and he never wanted on in the first place.

I have to have a conscious attitude adjustment and talk myself off the ledge multiple times a day. I want nothing more to be the strong, admirable woman who sacrifices her own needs for others’, but damn it, sometimes, I just want my life back. And, here we come full circle back to the point that there is no “getting my life back” because this is my life now. I’m charting the plot as I write this.

There have been so many comical and heartbreaking turning points and so much uncharted territory that we've traveled, that not only is this helping to create the map of my life, but its mapping all of our lives, as well.

I think of Chester, who comes home after school and greets my belly with a shake, placing both of his hands on either side and pushing his forehead against my stomach. “Hello little baby! Hello you fat, fat mama,” he says looking up at me. “I love this belly!” he says as he pats it and wiggles it around in his hands. It was just two months ago that he was navigating through his feelings and anxieties about this pregnancy and now, he’s in a very good space, happily poking and patting my stomach and smacking my big behind.

Davis constantly jokes about my weight and yesterday, he hid a pan of brownies from me before he went to school because he knew if he didn’t, they’d be gone when he got home. He also taped a note to the fridge that said, “No Ma!” and taped a bag of Doritos to the door that I could eat instead of his brownies. I later found the brownie pan in the linen closet upstairs, but I didn’t touch them. But he and I laugh together about my belly and my butt and my “eating habits” and it has brought us into this funny bantering phase that offers an entertaining element to our relationship. Maybe going through this with me will make my boys more understanding and patient as their wives go through bearing their babies.

And Tim. Talk about uncharted territory. I could not be more grateful for this amazingly generous man that I have. About five years ago, we talked about having a baby together. He would be an incredible father, as kids just gravitate to him. He’s this giant, kind hearted, sweet man with a knack for engaging children. At night, he places his hand on my belly as we lay next to each other in bed and tells me how proud he is of me. I wonder if it hurts him that this baby isn’t his. He doesn’t show it, if it does. He is absolutely my rock. Our lives have completely done a 180 degree turn because of this. He takes it in stride and I try to stay strong for him so he doesn’t have to carry me all the time, though he does willingly and without hesitation, always concerned for my happiness and state of mind.

We’ve all taken a detour and the detour that will hit Max and Bob in four months will change the course of everything for them forever, as kids will do. They are anxious for time to pass so they can hold their daughter and I am anxious for time to pass so I can return to my routine, though if we all just take a step back for a moment, we can see that we need this time together to transition into the next phase of our lives.

So, maybe my map will take me on some exotic vacation when this 22 month pregnancy comes to an end and my feet have cooled from walking through this fire, like it did for Elizabeth Gilbert when her marriage was over. Or maybe it will take me to a publisher who will help me write and share my stories one day, or to a musician that will help me learn to play Moon Shadow on my guitar. Or maybe, I could just relax a little bit and see what this moment holds and not punish myself for wanting time to pass while at the same time, not losing the moment entirely by wishing it away. I need to just “chillax” as my sons would say.

It’s a very fine line, but it sounds good for now. And, you know what else sounds good?

Brownies.

Eleven

Whenever anyone asks me what my favorite number is, I always reply three, seven, 13 or 31.  My birthday is 7/31, Davis’s is 3/31, and Chester’s is 7/13. Combinations of those numbers are acceptable as my favorites, too – like anything with the 1, 3 or 7 - like 33, or 17, or 37 - but never 11.  Eleven is a number I've stayed away from for years.

On the 11th day of October, 2001, the boys and I woke to big plans for that morning.  I was going to take to the Dallas Children's Museum and spend the afternoon doing arts and crafts, playing grocery store and doctor’s office, dress up, hide and seek - you name it and it was on the agenda.

Both boys had taken a bath in my master bathroom, and as was our routine, once they were out, dried off and diapered, they jumped up on my bed to roll around and play.  I remember talking about all the things that we have to look forward to that day as they scrambled atop the mattress tossing pillows to the floor and scrunching up the covers. We had just purchased a new sleigh bed, and they loved how high up they were.  Though they were still such little babies, I think they felt like big boys in such a big bed.

I was sitting at the head of the bed, putting on my socks, when out the corner of my eye I saw Davis go off of the end. I didn't see him hit the ground, but I was up and running for the foot of the bed before he started to cry.  I lifted him in my arms, pulled him close, and sat back down on the bed with him soothe and calm him.  He was howling a strange cry like I'd never heard before, and I thought he may have broken a bone.  His head fell backwards as he screamed and cried and I ran my hands up and down his arms and legs trying to find the source of his pain.

One thing that always calmed Davis was his blanket, which was in the dryer right down the hall. “I'll go get your Frane, baby.” (He called his blanket “Frane” which I think was his version of “Friend.”) “I’m just gonna lay you down here and I'll be right back, okay Dae Dae?  Mommy will be right back.”  He was crying when I hurried out of the room.

I ran down the hall to the dryer, grabbed his blanket, and went racing back to the room, noticing that I was not hearing him cry.  When I burst through the door, I found my baby boy lying on his side, his eyes open in an empty gaze, taking sporadic and labored breaths.  “Davis? Baby?! What's wrong? Davis? Listen! It's Mommy. Baby?”  I held his little face in my hand and tapped his cheek.  “DAVIS?” I cried.

I scooped him into my arms and his head flopped backwards, his eyes still open.  I ran from my room, screaming to Doug to call 911.  He flew out of his office and looked over the catwalk from upstairs to see me laying our son on the dining room floor, his motionless arms and legs splayed out in what looked like such a grotesque, unnatural way for my boy who is just giddily playing on my bed.  He looked like a baby bird that had fallen from a nest.  I tried to right his position and I straightened his body so that I could watch him breathing.  I put my cheek to his nose to feel for his breath, but there was nothing.  He made another horrible gasp for air, his eyes still open and lifeless.

“Baby, wake up!” I screamed, but he was not responding and his breaths were becoming further apart.  Doug ran down the stairs and asked me what was going on; I can't remember how I answered.  I was holding two shaking fingers to the pulse on his neck and watching him randomly gasp for air.  His pulse was slowing and I was preparing to perform CPR, waiting for him to take his last breath on his own.  I heard sirens approaching.  As an impulse, I plugged his nose, wrapped my mouth over his and gave him two resuscitative breaths just as the paramedics arrived.  They pushed through the door carrying medical bags and supplies and I quickly moved out of their way.  They knelt down beside him and began to go to work.  “What happened?” one of them asked me.

“He fell off the foot of my bed,” I answered with a shaking voice.  “I didn't see him hit the ground, but I thought he might've broken something.  What's going on?  Why is this happening? Is he passed out?  Why won’t he wake up?” I screamed.

One of the paramedics began to bag him, and another looked at me and said, “Sometimes, when children fall hard, they can collapse their esophagus and it's difficult for them to breathe.”

Another paramedic, who was listening to his heart with a stethoscope, looked up with fear in his eyes and said, “Call Life Fight!”  The man standing next to me immediately picked up his radio and called for the helicopter.  At that moment, I felt my life falling away.  Why were they calling a helicopter if he just needed to catch his breath?  I could feel my throat closing; I was beginning to lose my ability to breathe.  My knees were weak and I felt like I might faint.  I turned to see Doug holding Chester in his arms who was silently sucking his thumb with his head curled under Doug’s chin, watching his big brother fighting for his life. I realized that Davis might die on the dining room floor.  My life would be over. 

I have never felt as if I had words strong enough to capture the terror, pain, hysteria and dread in that moment - I still don't think I have them.  As I sit here in my kitchen writing this, I am also reliving it. My throat feels as if I'm being choked and I cannot stop the tears from pouring.

They strapped my tiny baby to a huge man-sized board, cinching bands around his forehead, chest and legs, continued to bag him with oxygen, and wheeled him out the front door toward the ambulance.  They wouldn’t let me go near him.  As they rolled down the driveway, I realized that I might never get to hold my boy again.  I might not get to see him grow up.  His life could be ending on that board in that truck at that moment.

I could hear the helicopter in the distance, but I could not believe that it was coming for my son.  Outside my front door there were police cars, fire trucks, an ambulance and a far-off helicopter making its way across the sky to carry my boy away.  It had been raining in Dallas for days, and as I turned back to look at the scene where Davis had been just moments ago, a frantic pattern of muddy footprints was all that remained.  Davis was gone.

Like a scene from a television hospital drama, I tried to push my way past one of the firemen to get to the ambulance that they had put him in.  “You can't go near there, ma'am. We are doing everything we can for your boy. You have to trust us.”

The deep ache was swallowing me.  I have never been more terrified in my entire life.

I called my parents. “Dad, Davis has been hurt. He's in an ambulance right now and they are landing a helicopter in the street. I don't know what happened. I don't know if he's alive. I don't know what to do.”

“We are on her way.  We will be there as soon as we can get there,” he said.  He hung up the phone and my parents were on their way to the airport.

I didn't know it then, but in the ambulance Davis had been intibated and connected to a machine that was breathing for him and keeping him alive.  As the copter landed, I watched the rescue personnel wheel him from the ambulance to the awaiting Life Flight helicopter.  He was attached to IVs and machines that were being carted by paramedics and I realized that this might be the last time I ever see my boy.  I collapsed into the arms of one of the firemen. “DAVIS!” I screamed and then broke down crying. 

“He's on his way to Dallas Children's Hospital,” he said.  “You need to go. Now!” The helicopter lifted off the ground and I felt like my head was in a vise.  I couldn’t hear anything and I felt like I was paralyzed.  “God, please help him.  Don’t take my baby.  Please don’t take my baby!”  I felt hopeless.  Why would God listen to me?  I didn’t go to church – for all I knew God had no idea who I was.  Now, when I needed a God the most, I hoped He would be merciful and spare Davis’s life and, if he didn’t, I prayed He would take me, too.  

At Dallas Children’s, I ran to the doors of the emergency room and the receptionist at the desk jumped to her feet and said, “Are you the mother of the little boy who fell?”

I frantically shook my head yes and she whisked me past the desk, through a set of double doors and down a hallway.  At the end of the hall, doctors and nurses are running in an out of a room that I was sure belonged to Davis.  I picked up my pace and started running for the door.  There was a man in a suit standing outside of the door, and as I approached he caught my shoulders with his hands and said, “Are you this boy's mother?”

“Yes,” I said, as I tried to push his hands off of me and move around him to go inside. 

He prevented me from going any further and said, “I need you to come with me. I'm the hospital chaplain.”

I broke away from his grasp, backed away from him pointing my finger at him screaming, “Don't talk to me! Don't come near me! I do want to talk to you! Get away from me!” 

You know that when the chaplain is waiting for you, he's there to tell you that though they tried everything they could, your son has passed. He’s there to tell you that your baby is at peace; in a better place.  “Get AWAY from me!”

“No, Miss.  They're working on him and we need to stay out of their way.  Come with me.  It’s going to be OK.  Please, come with me,” he said calmly.

We were taken to a small room that had a love seat, a chair, a side table, and a small lamp.  The walls were blank and I felt like I was in a dream.  I had to surrender to the expertise of the staff, though every fiber in my body begged to break free and get to Davis any way I could.  The chaplain said he would stay with us until the doctors arrived to tell us about Davis.  We didn’t talk much during that time.  I sat and cried, mostly, envisioning Davis with tubes and IVs, hooked to machines, alone with strangers and barely alive.

When the doctor arrived, he informed us that Davis was stabilized and was trying to pull his tubes out of his throat which was a good sign.  They were moving him to the intensive care unit and we could be with him soon.

How could this happen?  I opted to be a stay-at-home Mom so that I could protect my children from anything like this ever happening to them.  I didn’t trust anyone to care for them, so I quit my job and became a full-time mom.  And, here I was in this hospital room, waiting to know if my boy was going to survive our morning.

By the time he'd been moved to ICU, he no longer needed a breathing tube.  He was breathing on his own, but had suffered terrible head trauma as a result of his fall.  He was heavily sedated and sleeping peacefully when I saw him.  Though his eyes were closed and he was motionless, he looked alive – there was no question in my mind after seeing him at that moment that he would make it through.  His neck was braced and he was sitting at an angle, propped up in a bed.  I touched his arm and kissed his forehead and broke down crying again.

The severe damage to his brain was what they would expect to see from a child who had fallen from a two-story window.  They didn't know what kind of long-term damage he would have and we were living moment by moment.  I guess we really still are, as our experience taught us that life can change in an instant.

My parents had arrived by about 11 PM that night (another 11). Close to midnight, a woman dressed in a business suit, holding charts and clipboards came into our room to check on us. She looked friendly and helpful.  “Hi. I'm the hospital social worker, and I just wanted to come by and check on you to see if you are okay.  You’ve had quite a day.”

I was grateful for her kindness and thanked her for coming into our room. She asked if she could speak with us in the hall and I left my parents to watch over Davis as we stepped out.  I noticed two uniformed police officers to my right and looked at her confused.  “They just have a few questions for you,” she said.

“We'd like to speak to you and your husband separately,” said one of the officers.

“Sure,” I said, “Of course.”  I knew what this was about.  I had been in secondary education, my mom was a teacher, and my dad was a former state trooper. I knew they had to rule us out as the reason for the injury, though it really felt like I had to prove my innocence rather than being assumed innocent until proven guilty.   

I was led down the hall into a room.  “Please have a seat,” one of the officers said.  With that, the other began to read me my rights.  “You have the right to remain silent…”  I couldn't believe what was happening.  Was I under arrest?  I stopped them and asked if I could go get my dad.  They agreed and I went back to Davis's room. “Dad. They are reading me my rights,” I said with a shaking voice, as the tears started to flow. “I think they think I did this.”

“Come on,” he said, as we made our way towards the interrogation room again.   

Doug and I were questioned off and on for two hours that evening and eventually had to sign off our parental rights to the boys and sign temporary custody of Chester over to my parents while Child Protective Services did an investigation.  The humiliation of being investigated for child abuse was always in the back of my mind, as I felt that every nurse and doctor suspected that I had done this. 

I didn’t eat or sleep for five days and I never left Davis’s side.  While he slept, I watched him breathe and placed my hand over his heart to feel it beating.  I stroked his head that was so terribly damaged on the inside and I silently prayed to God to heal it and take away his pain. 

While he was awake, I sat in his hospital bed with him, watching cartoons or reading, but mostly just holding him and marveling at my miracle boy.  He was such a beautiful baby, with soft wispy blonde hair and enormous blue eyes.  I could see in his eyes how much his head hurt and sometimes, he’d just roll over onto my chest and weep, holding his tiny hand to the side of his head. I spent a lot of time crying with him, feeling helpless to take his hurt away.  During our time in the hospital, I rarely took my hands off him.  He had come so close to slipping away from me.  I almost didn’t want anyone to come near him.

Though the investigation bothered me and I felt like everyone assumed I was guilty, at that point, I felt I could handle anything that they threw at me.  They could accuse me, investigate me, charge me or put me in jail. It didn't matter.  I could live through any of it, but I could never have lived through burying my son.  My baby was alive, and that was all that I cared about - and it is still all that I care about, today, my sons.

Five days after the start of the investigation, after numerous interrogations and evidence examination, Child Protective Services determined that the evidence was “inconclusive” as to whether or not we caused his head injury.  It turns out that 31 children died at the hands of their parents that year in Dallas, and I understand completely why they investigated us, though it didn’t make it any easier.  It would have been more tolerable if their finding had been “innocent,” but the investigator explained that they never report “innocent” and that “inconclusive” was the best they could do.  It didn’t matter.  I had my boy.

They released Davis from the hospital on October 16^th and we went back to our lives, though nothing has ever been the same since.  I fear head injuries like a lunatic and constantly ride the boys about wearing their helmets for sports.  If I had my way, they’d be in them all the time – for breakfast, for riding the bus to school, for brushing their teeth. 

The brain is such a fragile organ.  One three foot fall almost took Davis’s life.  Imagine crashing on a motorcycle, receiving a powerful hit in football, smashing to the pavement after falling from a skateboard.  All of these can so quickly change life forever.  My boy loves anything with wheels, though, and playing ball with his brother and part of being alive is living, so I must let him do the things he loves. 

Eight and half years later, after the head injury that almost took him from us, Davis is a happy, healthy, loving, wonderful boy that gives me joy and inspiration every day.  He has struggled in school with learning difficulties, but we will never know if that was a result of his traumatic brain injury or if it's just part of being Davis. 

He gets frustrated sometimes because things don’t come easily to him, the way that they do for others, but we work through those frustrations and challenges the best we can.  We can deal with any challenge that comes our way, as long as he is here.  I’m grateful to have the chance to struggle this way.  The alternative scenario would have not only taken Davis on October 11^th, 2001, but I’m quite sure it would have killed me, too.

Six days ago, Davis celebrated his 11th birthday.  And on March 31^st, I thanked God for eleven.