Happy families are all alike

I think my eyes were bigger than my eyes.  This is not the book pile of a non-traveling parent, but I will do my best.

So far, I've read Heaven is Here by Stephanie Neilson, who has the NieNie Dialogues blog. I enjoyed this book, but it would be better as a novel.  Sweet, shallow, pretty girl has the perfect childhood, marries the handsome love of her life, bears four lovely children, and then has a tragic accident that threatens to steal everything that she valued in life.  How good would that story be in the hands of a novelist, who would take care not to create the unbelievably perfect early life that Neilson describes.

As a reader, I feel free to critique Emma Bovary, Elizabeth Bennett, and Harriet the Spy.  They don't care if I look for their flaws and discuss them with the world.  Stephanie Neilson is a real person with thoughts and feelings, and ownership over her life story.  As a reader, this first-person age of memoirists, diarists, and bloggers is problematic.  Can you read a strangers life story in a way that is both compassionate and analytic?  Can you say anything to someone like Neilson about her own story beyond the equivalent of a gif hang-in-there kitten?

There is so much interesting material in Neilson's story about body image and gender roles.  She reports that after coming out of a months-long coma, her overwhelming emotion was guilt.  Not just guilt about choosing to get in a plane that then crashed, but guilt that she was burned and no longer pretty (she is still a very attractive person) and no longer normal.  A fictional piece would be able to dig into this idea of the burdens of perfection, while Neilson can't quite go there-and it's her story, so she doesn't owe us any feminist analysis.

I'm also reading The Magician King by Lev Grossman right now, and honestly, his fantastical world of Fillory is more familiar to me than Neilson's world of happy families.  It's interesting to read Neilson's blog alongside the blog of her sister Courtney Kendrick.  Kendrick tells stories of family joy, but also one of family pressures and constraint.  While Kendrick's writing is more understandable to me, I'm not sure that it's more honest.  It does seem to me that Neilson represents her own psyche, her own worldview, as authentically as possible, although the world she describes is barely comprehensible to me.  Shortly before reading Heaven is Here, I heard this speech by Elizabeth Smart about human trafficking and the lesson that will help young people survive and save themselves.

Interesting stuff.

Proust's Goddamn Madeleine

My professional niche mean that I encounter the story of Proust and his madeleine often, or maybe I've just become oversensitized to Proust and his madeleine, so whenever a reference pops up I notice it.  In Proust's telling, he bites into a madeleine as an adult and it leads to an overwhelming sense memory of childhood, a memory mostly of feelings rather than words.  After reading a bunch of references, I actually went to the library and read some Proust, which I did not enjoy.  I suspect most of those people who reference Proust and his madeleine haven't read Proust, and wouldn't like him if they did.

Nevertheless, the senses do provoke amazing memories.  For me, the smell of sauteing onions and garlic combined with the sound of a vinyl record popping and hissing brings me straight back to childhood, sitting in the living room in front of the stereo while my dad cooked dinner.  A certain smell of damp woods in summer brings me back to summer camp and I can almost feel my bare feet running along dirt paths.  I can't even remember what old school phones sounded like, but I'm sure the sound would bring me back to my childhood kitchen standing in front of our one yellow rotary phone.

I wonder what will trigger LB's memories?

Austerity Plan

This post was supposed to be a virtuous one.  As I walked to Whole Foods (and I know they are kind of evil, but I can walk there with only minimal risking of life), I planned to buy some sweet potatoes and make sweet potato fries for only pennies a portion (or dimes).  But, as it turns out, sweet potatoes, and all other sweet potato type flora, were $2.49/lb!  Unfrickenbelievable.  Are these sweet potatoes hand fed dishes of milk like Almanzo's pumpkin?  Do they wear little sweaters spun from gold thread?  In my world, sweet potatoes cost 79 cents/lb, which mean about 99 cents at Whole Foods prices.  Apparently I'm as in touch with the price of groceries as your average president (love ya' Barack).

So instead of my unsullied sweet potatoes, I bought a bag of frozen sweet potato fries for $3.39/15oz.  More expensive per lb, but when you consider the wastage that occurs when a sweet potato is peeled at home, and applications of olive oil and spices, and the fact that homemade sweet potato fries taste virtuous, by which I mean soggy, I calculated that the bag of prepared fries cost me only a few cents more, and I also cursed less while preparing them.  The frozen fries were much tastier than my home version, but likely decidedly less healthy.  I know the bagged fries had more tapioca starch, but then my eyes glazed over as I kept reading the ingredient list.  I just requested Michael Moss's Salt, Sugar, Fat from the library.  Hopefully it will make me hate myself into a love of healthy food.

It's always hard to know what's worth spending money on when you're on the austerity plan.  Our budget is already pretty lean, and our tastes reasonable.  That means that we don't have much latte factor to cut.  We already got rid of our car and cable.  We mostly eat a home.  We mostly don't buy stuff for the sake of stuff.  Still, there are those zipcar trips and loaves of bread from the good bakery.  I've seen people become so frugal that they neglect their own health and wellness (fresh fruit!) and are unable to maintain even a minimal social life.  Sometimes desperate times call, but since we are only in austere times I suppose we can still indulge in a bag of sweet potatoes fries or any sweet potato at all.

Just Tell Me I'm Not Lazy

Today I tried to replace the batteries in our flock of SleepSheep, and successfully got one of the flock running again (I know the battery casing needs to be childproof, but, seriously SleepSheep Corp., you are killing me).

I also did five loads of laundry, folded dish towels, did dishes, unloaded the dish washer, weeded a small patch of the backyard, watered some non-weedy looking plants, carried the dog outside and inside three time, swiffered under the bed, made the bed, threw out some old New Yorkers, sent a bunch of emails, prepared to grade papers that I did not actually grade, put documents sitting on the computer in folders, wrote a letter I've been meaning to write, made a list, went to the library, did daycare drop-off and pick-up (that's five miles walking if you're counting), and made soup and popovers for dinner.

And I'm pretty sure that no one cares about any of that stuff except for me and B., maybe the people who received some communication from me after a long period of radio silence, and the couple people I flipped off while walking back and forth to daycare (stop signs, traffic rules people).  So I'm writing this list to remind my almost unemployed self that I am not lazy.  Hopefully my house will be spotless by the time I stop overcompensating.

Review: Andrew Solomon's Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

First off, I borrowed this book from the library.  I read this book for free!  How amazing is that?  I am really loving the library and trying to get in the habit of requesting books online as soon as I see something interesting.

I was telling someone how much I "enjoyed" this book, and he expressed surprise that I would use that particular word to describe my experience of a book that is about, among other things, children with severe disabilities, children conceived during rape, and children who become criminals.  The topics covered in the book are challenging, but Solomon has a thoughtful approach.  One of his central points, is the diversity and complexity of parental response to atypical kids.  While many parents go through a period of mourning and/or experience day-to-day hardships, they also find joy and meaning in their lives with their children.  He also explores atypical identities that bring individuals pride and joy, and those that bring burden, suffering, or shame.

This book is 702 pages of narrative, with another couple hundred pages of notes, which made me incredibly happy.  Usually non-fiction is just too short and I'm left with a million questions.  Solomon does a great job including multiple stories that illustrate his point about the diversity of experience.  However, I'd be very surprised if his editor didn't try to make him cut it down and tighten it up.  Solomon opens with the overarching theme of the book--the idea of horizontal identities, that is, identities not inherited vertically from a parent and instead tie the child to another identity group to which his/her parents don't belong.  At various points in the book, this theoretical center slips away, overwhelmed by the power of individual stories.  I was fine with that slippage, I love big, messy books, but I could imagine some readers finding in frustratingly meandering, particularly in the second section of the book.

Solomon is a gay man and a gay dad.  At the beginning and end of the book he talks about how these identities shaped his own life.  On pages 692-693 (if you're reading on a Kindle you're SOL) he describes so many of the feelings I had as a lesbian-mom to be (regret at not being able to have a child that was genetically related to both me and B, uneasiness with the fertility industry) that I would like to just photocopy those two pages and hand them out to anyone starting the process or asking me nosy questions on the bus.

If you are someone who likes non-fiction, particularly medical non-fiction, and enjoys a mix of personal stories and theory, I highly recommend this book.

Preeclampsia Awareness: Preeclampsia and Denial

May is National Preeclampsia Awareness Month, yay!  I've already done posts on my personal experience with preeclampsia, so this time, in honor of Preeclampsia Awareness, I thought I'd write about "Preeclampsia: The Disease Nobody Wants to Have."

The Preeclampsia Foundation describes the symptoms of preeclampsia as follows:

No Symptoms
Hypertension
Proteinuria
Edema (Swelling)
Sudden Weight Gain
Nausea or Vomiting
Abdominal (stomach area) and/or Shoulder Pain
Lower back pain
Headache
Changes in Vision
Hyperreflexia

Racing pulse, mental confusion, heightened sense of anxiety, shortness of breath or chest pain, sense of impending doom

Some women have no symptoms, and others have atypical symptoms like liver pain that presents in an unusual place.  Women like myself always have an impending sense of doom, so a sense of impending doom isn't really helpful as a diagnostic clue.  All of these symptoms are also experienced by some women who go on to have uneventful pregnancies.

The ordinariness, vagueness, and inconsistencies of preeclampsia symptoms present a lot of problems for pregnant women and health care providers.  When my blood pressure first started rising around week 24, my providers took notice, but they also suspected because it was so early in my pregnancy that I likely had PIH rather than preeclampsia.  They told me to take it easy, eat calcium-rich foods, and monitor my blood pressure at home.  They also ran a pre-e blood work panel, which came back fine.  In retrospect, I think I received good care, but I wish that they had had me come in for an office blood pressure check once a week.  It was too easy to explain away my high BP readings at home (I had the cuff too tight, I just walked up the stairs), and when at 27 weeks, I had an in-office reading of 160/100 I had absolutely no idea that I was doing so poorly.

• I don't want to be a baby about it.  Looking back, my biggest symptom of pre-e was exhaustion, but I kept going.  I'd taken on extra work to build up our savings.  I did multiple weekend of work travel.  I don't think being crazy-busy caused preeclampsia, but I wished I had listened to my body more and rested more.  In the big scheme of things, none of that work stuff really mattered, but at the time, but I didn't want to be a baby and say "I can't do that because I'm pregnant and exhausted."  Note to self: don't lean in.
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• I'm healthy (thin, fit, eat a great diet, eat tons of protein, etc., so I can't have preeclampsia).  Being overweight is a risk factor for preeclampsia.  Many women, particularly in natural birth circles, extrapolate this fact to mean that thin women who eat a natural foods diet can't get preeclampsia, or that preeclampsia can be cured by eating certain healthy foods.  I am a thin, healthy woman, who ate a high-protein natural foods diet before and during pregnancy, and I got preeclampsia.  Any pregnant women can get preeclampsia and all the hard boiled eggs in the world won't change that fact.
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• I don't want to have to change my birth plan.  I did not want to have a c/s.  I did not want to have a medical birth.  Although I planned to birth in a hospital with midwives, I was terrified of the hospital.  And then I got very sick, and much like my worklife, my plans for the birth didn't matter as much as staying alive.  I consider myself very lucky to have been a baby friendly hospital where staff was used to working with women who wanted natural births.  If you are sick and have to change your original plans, do look for the best options in your area for providers and hospitals that respect women.  Don't deny/downplay/ignore your symptoms in hopes that you can stick with your original plan.
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• I don't want to be pushed into a c/section or induction.  As a patient you have the right to know your options and to receive factual evidence about those options.  You should not feel bullied or railroaded (another reason it is important to have a provider and hospital you trust).  There are doctors out there who might jump the gun too soon for minor symptoms of pre-e.  They might do this for understandable reasons-maybe their last preeclamptic case was a bad one, or for self-interested reasons-the classic combo of convenience and defensive medicine.  As patients it's not our job to manage all the complexities of pre-e, so you really, really need a qualified, ethical, and decent provider who will act with your best intentions at heart.  I did not have the birth I had wanted, but I always felt that my providers were acting in my best interest, and that made me feel better about the experience.
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• My doctor says I'm find and I don't want to be a whiner.  This wasn't my experience, but a significant number of women report being ignored or having their symptoms downplayed.  This story is a harrowing example with a happy ending.
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• That blood pressure reading was just a fluke.  Yeah, I said that a lot.  My retrospective advice: keep a log of your BP readings, ask to have an in-office reading at least once a week, and call your provider any time that your reading is over 150/90 (or whatever numbers they give you for your threshold).  Also call in and report any of the symptoms on the big list at the top of this post.  When in doubt, get checked out.
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• I feel fine.  Even though I was exhausted in the days before I ended up on hospital bed rest, I basically felt fine.  In the hospital, I basically felt fine.  I had no swelling, no headaches, just some bad heartburn.  I really don't like to think about how things might have gone, if I had trusted the way I felt rather than my blood pressure readings and blood work.  It was really only in the day before I had LB that I started to feel bad, and even then it was a non-specific bad, likely due to my rapidly dropping platelets.

I wish no one needed this post, and I wish that there were more resources for women with preeclampsia or possible preeclampsia.  The fact that this little blog gets so many hits from people searching for preeclampsia info suggests to me that there is still a dearth of information.  I'm wishing all of you safe passage this May.

Live Free or Die Trying

Last night was the last leg of my last extreme commute.  I find myself relived, very relieved, and sad, and excited, and scared.  I feel like the rest of my life has begun, but I don't quite know what that means.  The rest of my life got off to an inauspicious start today.  I kept LB home from daycare because she had an evaluation.  So we got a mellow start and ate oatmeal and mangos and I even took her to the park (I am supermom).  Then we came home to a smelly, messy house, our slowly dying dog, and a last minute assignment for a potential job.

The evaluation team arrived a hour later to a messy house, a dying dog, a fussy child, and me.  I don't know if I have ever so fully achieved the stereotype of "stressed out working mom."  I spent the evaluation urging LB on while I also frantically trying to compose appropriate emails about arcane matters.  If you've read here for any amount of time, you will know that I have a typo problem, one that should have been beaten out of me during my many, many years of education, but I guess I'm just an overachiever.

I kept it together with only a little fraying at the edges until the evaluators started asking important questions like, "what are some words you would use to describe your family."  I had a mini-freakout and got all quavery as I told them to just write down that I had declined to answer, and please move on BECAUSE I'M CLEARLY STRESSED AND I CAN'T DO THIS RIGHT NOW!.

LB did her stuff and scored similarly to her last evaluation.  This test included a picture of a rotary phone for her to identify.  Even my luddite parents don't have a phone like that.  Ridiculousness.  They gave her a "significant delay" for gross motor, which came as surprise, but she also wouldn't run or climb stairs for them, so we'll get another eval with a PT and see what's up.  Her other problem area was speech, particularly articulation, which we have noticed at home, so she'll also get a speech evaluation.

Meanwhile, in my home state there are conspiracy theories and conservative revolutions.