It's May Day. Lei Day here in Hawaii.
Today was also the day of an anniversary, a celebration, and a big announcement.
I woke up early, cotton mouthed, reeking of tequila and hairspray, with a faint outline of my red lipstick hanging on for dear life, barely visible from the night before. I sat up slowly, and looked around the room with one eye cautiously open, assessing the situation. My party dress (which I am 95% sure is actually a shirt - but I wore it as a dress, so we'll call it a dress. Humor me.) was in a ball at the end of my bed. My strapless push up bra was only pushing up one side - the other cup was empty, it's contents having migrated to my armpit at some point as I slept. I tucked the escaped chesticle back into place, ran my hands through my hair and glanced at the clock.
6:08 am. May 1st.
May 1st.....what was significant about that date. May 1st. Hm. Oh. Wait. Yeah.
May 1st.
10 years ago at 6am on May 1st we were packing up the car and heading to Children's Hospital in Boston, to have Max's right kidney removed. He was 4 months old. It was, to be blunt, a terrible time for us. I have written about it before, and I am not in the mood to revisit it this evening - but it was certainly on my mind at 6:08 am this morning. Since I was still feeling woozy, and now I had the memories of that awful day running through my mind on repeat, I brushed my teeth and climbed back in bed.
Sami poked his head into our room sometime......later. "Hey, don't you have to be somewhere at 9?"
I opened my eyes - both of them, this time - and tried to bring the clock into focus. I blinked and rubbed my eyes and looked again.
8:42.
Fuck. Today? This day? Was already kicking my ass. AND I WAS STILL IN BED.
I made my way down the hall to the kitchen, wrapped up the tiniest pair of pink cowboy boots you could imagine, cleaned myself up, assesed whether I was sober enough to drive, and headed out the door to see my girlfriend and celebrate her rapidly approaching due date.
In general, I have a rule about baby showers.
I don't do baby showers.
I stick my toe in the baby water every now and again, to see if I can handle it. And at this point, all I can say is this: I'm getting better. But I still shy away from anything related to pregnancy. It's not jealousy, it's just....it's hard. Having a hysterectomy at 30 is hard. I am thrilled for my friends who are able to get pregnant. And I love me some babies. But seeing pregnancy in action still makes me sad. However, today I had not a moment of sadness - I was thrilled to be on the guestlist, and relieved that I had been asked, since the honoree knows how I feel about baby showers and pregnant women. My girlfriend has made a tremendous effort to be sensitive to my sensitivity. Her generosity in the face of my self-centeredness is honestly something that I cannot explain without feeling like a total asshole. She is the one who understands how many pieces my heart broke into when I was told that I was a fertility failure. She is like the Olympic medalist of motherhood, and while she is out there channeling her beautiful, powerful earthmother self, making it all looks so easy and beautiful, she somehow simultaneously makes me feels less crazy, and forgives my distance. Before sending the invitation, she took the time to call, and ask me if I was up for it. Her kindness is something I don't think I can ever repay. So you can bet your ass I went to her baby shower, which was the most low-key baby shower ever. A lovely breakfast under a gnarled old tree in a courtyard, with the sun filtering through the leaves onto the lacy tablecloths, and beautifully wrapped boxes of sweet pink outfits all stacked up, to be opened and passed around and admired. I was able to relax and visit with my friend, grateful to be there, and excited about a new baby to snuggle.
I sipped my tea, drank some juice, and I was feeling so gosh darn good, I even attempted to eat the eggs benedict. Beautiful, delicious, fresh, lovely...but 10 hours after binging on tequila, I probably should have stuck with toast.
A point that was made clear when I clapped my hand over my mouth and ran for the restroom at the beach a few hours later.
So unfortunate.
But immediately afterwards, I Felt Awesome.
I went home, changed, and headed off to a fashion show - feeling very fancy INDEED. I steered cear of the bar and also the food, and wandered the studio after the models had shown off the latest designs. And I looked down at my phone to see a message that said "Osama is dead."
I headed home to get the scoop. Sam was fixing dinner and as I walked by I said "They killed Obama."
"WHAT!?" he shouted from the other room, rushing in to peer over my shoulder.
Whoops.
I corrected myself, and then showed him the headline so he would believe me. Not Obama the president, Osama the guy in the
After seeing the headlines, he believes me, but he just can't believe what a moron I am. I honestly don't know which I prefer - to have someone believe I am telling the truth, or have someone believe I am a total idiot.
And so here we are. My boy is strong and healthy. A baby is coming soon. And ding dong, Osama-not-Obama is dead. Not a bad Sunday.
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1 comment:
I am de-lurking to say I have been there with the "big ultrasound" kidney freak-out. Talk about stripping all the joy out of the pregnancy - suddenly there are doubts, a ton of stress....uggh!
Our son was born with one kidney functioning and one was a big ball of cysts. He was also born almost 6 weeks early, so needless to say the first 2 weeks of his life were in the hospital with all the scary tests, little sleep and lots of stress (fueled with wonky hormone levels).
Now we see his nephrologist every 2 years, his non-functioning kidney has been re-absorbed by his body (talk about freaky!), and the other side is functioning perfectly. So no surgery for kidneys, but at one year old he had to have surgery for an undecended testicle, which apparently sometimes is part and parcel of the whole kidney deal.
He is now almost 8, so your story hits pretty darn close to home!
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