A Vas Difference

The Appointment

2011-12-17T19:29:00.001-08:00

Since Cyrus is my first time at being a mom, I don't really know anything. Mindy doesn't either. The truth is, you probably don't want us babysitting your kid unless he's fed by a tube. I have no clue about what regular babies or toddlers eat. I wouldn't know how to feed your kid. Seriously.

We met with a dietician yesterday to discuss "Blenderized Food." It's just regular food stuck in a blender and then stuck in his tube. It's easy. Right. Except I have no idea how much to put in his tube. I don't know how many calories he needs. I learned just yesterday that one teaspoon of oil is 45 calories. Sweet.

But on Monday we're traveling to St. Louis to see a pediatric GI doctor. Yeah, we've seen one here in Columbia, but he was a douche. Just threw some medicine at Cyrus' retching disorder.

And that's the reason I picked up the 'ol computer tonight. I have no idea, once again, how regular toddlers sleep. Ours sleeps fitfully. He coughs, gags, and cries. I hear his crying about 4 times a night. We still have to give him medicine at 1:00 in the morning, every night. Because he is fed by a tube, we sometimes have to feed him after he goes to bed. There is nothing worse than feeding a kid with a tube in the dark. Sometimes he coughs and the food shoots back up in our faces. Then he cries because he has coughed, so he tries to roll to get comfortable, all the while a tube still hooked to his button. Then he gags on his coughing. Then he cries.

So right now Mindy is holding Cyrus because he was just fed and starting crying and coughing and gagging a little. Mindy says she doesn't hear him at night, all the noises he makes, but I do.

We're tired. We've been getting up in the middle of the night for at least 6 months now. We've been taking turns sleeping on the couch for 18 months. At first we had to feed him every three hours, I guess the way normal parents would, but we'd have to hook him up to his pump at night. We'd hold him while he "ate" because that's what regular babies do. You hold your babies while they eat, be it bottle or nipple. So we tried. We wanted him to feel comforted while his stomach filled up.

Then we started pumping him over night because we figured after all the shit we'd been through, it was time to sleep a little. That was okay, but if something weird would happen to the pump it would make this horrible, high-pitched siren noise and wake us up. All of us. Some nights his tube would pop open (it would take too long to describe what I mean) and his food would leak all over him. When we would wake up in the morning, we'd roll over to cuddle him and find him freezing, sleeping in a huge puddle of cold milk stuff. Other times it would leak out all over the hardwood or the carpet.

I'm sure that our coming to medicate him in in the middle of the night was horrifying for him at first. Could you imagine being roused from sleep to find someone pawing at your pajamas? He sleeps through it now, for the most part. We still don't get to.

For the record, he is sleeping on Mindy in our little rocking chair. He has cried and moved five times since I started writing this.

This exhaustion is mind-numbing. I don't write. I don't work out. I'm lucky to make it through the day. Mindy and I crash around 9:30. And even though we sometimes sleep until 6:30 or 7:00, it doesn't matter. It doesn't feel like sleep. We are not rested.

I know you've heard this from me before. I'm sorry you have to hear it again. The doctors haven't listened so far, so my hope is that you will.

I'm not getting excited about our appointment on Monday. I'm sure a doctor will barely touch him and wave his hands around and say the same shit we've heard before. I want to believe that he'll know exactly what to do. That he'll laugh and a give a solution and Cyrus will be normal.

Whatever it is that toddlers eat, and however much they do, I want my son to do it, too.

Sleep-Waking

2011-11-02T19:06:00.000-07:00

It's been a long while since we talked. You might think that everything is going smashingly, I guess compared to last year at this time, we're fucking living at Disneyland.

Cyrus is healthy and incredibly charming. He can wave and blow kisses. He can kind of say words. He stands on his own, reaches his arms high above his head and waits for you to say "Sooo big." He likes to play with bouncy balls. He loves the cat, Remy, and when he's not pulling at his fur, he's looking at his face saying, "gung-gung." He loves his moms. I look forward to the day we have conversations, but for now, I accept his open mouth kisses and teeny baby hugs.

He's nineteen months, but should be 16 months. He's behind, for sure, but he's doing it. And he will do it. One day he took two wobbly steps. I snatched him off his feet, pulled him to my kisses, and cried. At one time, you'll remember, we didn't know, you know...

If you're not close to us in a geographical sense, you might be totally alarmed to know he still eats nothing with his mouth. That's right; all of his calories come from a feeding tube and a hole in his stomach. Now, here you go, saying things like, "Well, you should feel soooooo lucky that that is all that he has wrong with him." And you know, we are very, very lucky. But that doesn't mean it's alright that we feed our child with a tube.

The doctors seem to think so, though. They don't give a fuck. In the 16 months that Cyrus has been home, we've asked doctor after doctor why our son won't eat. They mumble something, send us to someone else, and we never hear from them again. There have been a few tests a few answers, but it all turned out to be bullshit.

Once our awesome pediatrician left, we had to find another. He seemed nice enough, even told us he had a tube fed son. We sat in his office and said, "No one will listen to us," and he gave the impression of listening. We said we wanted to find the real answer to why Cyrus gags and retches and won't eat. He sent us to St. Louis to a feeding clinic. We took our Speech Pathologist, the only person in the world who seems to care this is happening, and the results were just as I suspected: nothing. They basically said, well, we are a speech pathologist and an OT and you guys have all that at home. I cussed.

Parenthood is isolating, frustrating, and exhausting. The small moments of joy are overshadowed by doctors who won't listen and others who don't understand. We are still tired, as I imagine most parents are, but we were exhausted before we even began. We take turns getting up around 2:30 every night to give the little man his quit-retching drug. Since he started daycare in August, he's been sick a lot. And when Cyrus is sick, he coughs. When he coughs he gags on his own mucous. Then he retches. And screams. Screaming makes him cough... We never seem to sleep.

Even if it's not my night, I wake up. When it is my night, I give the drug and then lie awake for an hour, sometimes two. Just as I slip back to sleep, he coughs or cries or makes some noise to wake me, and the process starts again. I don't know why I try to sleep anymore. I fantasize, as I toss and grunt in bed, that I could get up and start writing. That the middle of the night should be my writing time. I imagine that I'm some machine. That sleep is a stupid excuse that lazy people need to justify not doing anything. But I don't have the strength to get up. So I stare off into the nothingness on the verge of tears. They never come.

Just the other night Mindy woke me up saying she was going to call the doctor. He had a fever of 104.1. While we sat up, looking to see if the tylenol would help, I suggested we turn on the t.v. The over head light was low and we watched some documentary about Pompeii. It was about 2:00 a.m., so my body was used to being awake. It was nice. It was time we spent together. In that hour, I was convinced yet again, that I could live without sleep. That I could stay awake all night catching up on all the films I've neglected to watch, reading all the books I don't make time for in the daylight, writing and revising all of this fucking blog. All of everything I've ever written.

I've heard it too many times: "Having a baby is hard work, but I wouldn't trade him/her for the world." Well, of course you wouldn't, that would make you a horrible parent and human being. But you're all lying. You'd trade money for some time alone, for some time out with your friends, for some time out with your loved one. You'd trade lots of shit if someone watched him while you took a vacation. Somewhere with a beach, even though you hate sand. Somewhere that looked nothing like work, home, or a doctor's office. You'd trade him, not forever, but for a while, for some sleep. Some sanity.

November Spawned a Monster

2011-05-25T17:11:00.000-07:00

It was in the fall that I started watching "Obsessed" through my Netflix account. You see, I normally dig those kind of shows. Mindy and I went through 10 seasons of "The First 48" in a month or two. I can't get enough real death in my t.v. show watching. It's like exposure therapy for me; the more I see, the more I can come to accept the fact that I, too, could be gunned downed at any moment. Or more importantly, really, we all must die. And this might seem strange to you if you know anything about my career(s). I love skeletons because I fear them. I love dead people because it is the only truth that every creature has. No matter what and who, we all rot. The end.

Obsessed appealed to me because I got to watch people acting totally crazy: washing their hands a million times a day or guzzling vodka and barfing vodka. At first I laughed at the people with their anxieties and thought how I could really keep my shit together compared to most people. How, after all we'd been through, I was really holding up well. One woman wouldn't drive the highway because it reminded her of the route to her parents' graves. Her double digit kids had never been to the zoo because the only way there was that highway. One man lived in a sterile house of stainless steel and white couches. Some other woman was afraid of the dark, especially looking at her face in a mirror, in the dark. The therapist's cure was for her to sit and stare at her shadowy self. I smirked at the first few episodes, but I started to find myself imaging doing what they were doing. I could starve myself to gain back the control I'd lost. I could exercise 10 times a day like that other guy, just to take my mind off things. Eventually, just seeing the next episode listed on the screen was enough to get my heart racing, anxiously, like all of them.

One day in November I was sitting at my desk trying to grade papers, trying to prepare for the two classes I had later that afternoon. My head started pounding. I never had headaches. I was listening to music, but it all sounded like it was on a turntable at the wrong speed. Slowing and speeding at the most undesired times. I pulled out my ear buds and stared out of my window towards Lincoln's library. It's a fabulous building which is built to be reminiscent of a castle. It even has a moat (swimming with only Koi). It was too much to handle. My heart was pounding. I put my head in my hands between my knees, trying to center myself. I couldn't be there any more. I had to leave. I had to think of a place to go to feel better. I considered the library, too many books I hadn't read. I'd feel inferior. I'd drive down to the river there in Jeff. No, even though the river is my friend, there wasn't a familiar place I could go to talk to it. Home. I considered driving to Portland to mom and dad's. Yes. I'd just sit down where it was comfortable, down where I'd been nearly every night of my childhood. NO. I couldn't. I wasn't sure I could stand the 30 minute drive only to have to leave and drive 60 minutes back to Columbia. My obvious choice was home. Home was where I lived. But it was where I lived with my preemie son who was still on house arrest. Where I lived with my exhausted wife. Where I lived with my teenage daughter. Where I came home to cook dinner for them, and sometimes my mother-in-law. Where every three hours my son must be hooked up to a machine to eat. Where I was existing, but thinly. Silly putty stretched to breaking, those hair-like tendrils wafting in the wind. But my only choice was to go home. So I did.

The Vodka Swilling Twenty Something episode really had me jealous. If only I were an alcoholic, I could go to rehab where all I had to do was worry about myself. There'd be discipline and food provided for me. In my spare time, I could go to therapy or whatever. I could read and write. I'd live in a nice place in the woods. If only I could become an alcoholic. There wouldn't be 80 students bothering me about essays they don't even care to write. I wouldn't have to deal with opening that measly check eight months a year. What could I do to get myself into one of those rehabs? What could I do to still my brain and have time to think and heal? I've never been suicidal, but I had a strong notion that I could pretend. That I'd be a perfect candidate.

I wondered if I was an alcoholic, anyway. Two to three drinks a night was my standard (more than most people drink I guess). But it wasn't affecting my relationship, my job, my son. I still argue that I had to, to put my mind away from all the horrors I'd seen in the spring. Even if it was my unhealthy coping mechanism, it wasn't enough to get me into one of those places. Those drinks helped me get to sleep with my snoring wife and my mind always wondering when my son might walk, speak, eat with his mouth. When we'd feel like we were a normal family. When would that happen? I let the drinks rock me to sleep, half consciously dreaming of the days when I had only to worry about myself. Then the days when I worried about Mindy. Those days, years in the future when Cyrus will have grown into a man. A chiseled jaw and bouncy blonde curls. Those blue eyes. All he'd have left of it would be a linear scar on his torso, a small hole healed (like a piercing straight through to his stomach!), and he'd wear contacts or glasses. And this is how I spent most of last year.

But now it's May. School is out. I'm working on a friend's farm. I spend about thirty hours a week working outside with my friendly boss (or alone when she must leave). I sing to any song on the radio as I seed, weed, paint, whatever. I don't care. The nearest neighbor is more than a mile away. I don't mind doing much of anything when I'm outside and there is music and nary an essay to grade. Cyrus is allowed to go out in the world, too. It looks like he'll walk sooner rather than later. He has baby glasses. The helmet will be history in about a month. He still doesn't eat with his mouth, but he will. We all have faith that he will, or that he can. And if he never does, at least he will speak. At least, it seems, he's all there. And I'll say that again because I'm not sure everyone understands how fucking amazing that will be. My son, who was less than two pounds, had seizures 13 weeks before he was supposed to have been born. As far as we can see, he is all there. My son is a whole.

I've tried to quit watching those fucked up shows about drugs and addicts and anxiety. Because sometimes, I guess, reality shows hang in that gray space between what is real and what isn't, like staring at yourself in the mirror in the middle of a really long, dark night.

The Sun King

2011-01-23T07:06:00.000-08:00

It's January. It's so January it's almost February. So far this year has gone off okay, save for the fungus growth on my hand and Mindy's and my bout with food poisoning/flu. I have turned 31. I find it to be a sexy number. Everything about it feels more solid than 30. Thirty is so round and loopy. Sure, it looks nice, but I nearly slipped off. Thirty-one, though, I feel safe just to the left of the one, hidden in the overhang of the three. I could fit there and not feel so exposed. It would give me time to gain back the strength I lost clinging to last year.

It's almost February. And February means it's almost March. I don't care if there is an Alaskan load of snow on the ground; the sun has changed, the earth is moving. We're all careening into spring.

Mindy claims that a few weeks ago she had a whiff of something which reminded her of spring. Something smelt earthy. Her heart stopped and she broke into tears. You see, last spring was no good. No good at all.

But I'm ready for this one. Our little man's speech pathologist has told us she expects him to be done with the tube feeding in four months. In four months, he'll also be done with the helmet. In less than four months, RSV season will be over and he'll be free from the shackles of home, from the death threats of every stranger's hand, of every doorknob and pen.

I plan to accept the smells and sights of spring. As I plant my garden I will make myself remember that last year at the same time I was wondering if I would get to be a parent for more than a few weeks. You see, I planted tomatoes, all the dirt and compost on my fingers, and I wondered if those plants would live longer than Cyrus. I also gave meaning to every one and in my head it went for every one I plant, Cyrus lives. Cyrus lives.

***
A lot of our friends had babies around the same time Cyrus was born. Facebook is filled with updates of sitting up, rolling over, standing, crawling... all the stuff that babies do. Cyrus cannot do those things. He does like to stand, but you have to put him there. He can almost sit up without falling, but he can't sit himself up. He's never even acted like he wants to roll over. His days are filled with exercises: a big ball, a green foam thing he sits in, we have to spin him in circles so many times a day, he practices sitting on his knees. We do a lot.

There are pictures of babies with food smeared on their faces. Cyrus gets to eat with his mouth once a day, and if he takes two teaspoons, we rejoice. I feel like crying every time he swallows the tiniest amount. I can't believe babies eat with their mouths. I can't believe my son.

He has a lot of appointments with 10 different doctors, but those have become fewer. We've even weened him off of one seizure medication.

***
I am ready for spring. I'm ready to let the snow saturate the ground, to revive the smell of the soil. I'll drive around town with the windows down, but I'll do it before it's really warm enough. I'll listen to the music that has been put away for a year. I promise to let myself feel all of the things that last year I tried to drink away.

And when the flowers start blooming, and the birds come back, and the snakes start poking their heads up in our yard, I will take my son out into a bright world for the first time and we will enjoy the little things as if we've never seen them before. As if we'd never seen the sun.

I Take My Chances

2010-12-20T10:02:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I decided to drink less and workout a helluva lot more. It wasn't a new year's resolution, but just something I had to do for myself. On top of that I had decided a few weeks ago, after coming up from the bottom, to quit feeling sorry for myself. Boohoo, I have a preemie baby who requires food through a tube in his stomach, three different kinds of therapists a week, a million fucking doctor appointments. I told myself to shut the hell up, suck it up, Holzhauser, at least he's healthy and he's normal.

Then we went to the neurologist this morning for a normal appointment. Mindy and I were happy and laughing; Cyrus was too. First a resident met with us, and we bragged about how awesome our son was. He said Cyrus looked much better than the last time he saw him ( Seizing in the NICU) 5 months ago.

Then the attending came in and played with our little man. He turned to us, with no warning, and started saying how small his head is. How your brain grows the most in the first 6 months of your life. How he was nearly 6 months corrected age and his head was at about 4. How he had these reflexes that should've gone away by now. His brain will never be the right size.

And then it went something like, "He may not walk until he's 3 or 4, it's hard to say." Mindy and I were sitting beside each other looking at the nurse, the doctor, and the resident. Their faces were solemn and stiff. I didn't look at Mindy because I didn't wanna lose it right then. Cyrus played on Mindy's lap. Then all I heard was " ."

They all left the room. Mindy and I didn't speak for while. We were both on the verge. We packed up our little man and his things and then the tears came. We waited, composed ourselves, and went out of the room. Mindy told me to take Cyrus to the car while she made his next appointment. I pushed the stroller into the hall and saw, from behind, a seven year old boy walking stiff-legged with his parents on either side, his head tilted to the left. And through the doors to the lobby I saw woman who could've been my age in a wheel-chair, sitting at awkward angles, her mouth gaping open. It hit me then, there was a reason why we had appointments there; the same reason those other people had appointments.

I pushed harder now, trying to get outside, trying not to let the people see me. Mindy and I cried in the parking lot. I'd never heard my wife cry like that. It was the cry of grief, of losing someone.

We tried to talk about what we'd heard. I mean, was it really new information? Didn't we know months ago that this was probably going to happen? Had we really slipped into happiness under a fucking cloud of normality?

And all you assholes out there let us. Didn't you? You saw something was wrong, was off, but you didn't have the heart to tell us, right? Because you saw that we were finally happy, that we were so proud of him. That we were seeing through that fucking parent lens you all talked about.

Or maybe you didn't know. Maybe, like us, you let the optimism blind you. Maybe his cute smile we all translated into a handsome, intelligent young man. Maybe we all saw him running and playing like a normal fucking kid.

But here's the reality again: Cyrus can't eat through his mouth. Cyrus can't roll over. Cyrus was born 3.5 months early. Cyrus had seizures and surgeries before he was technically 40 weeks of gestation. The chances of him surviving were less than 50%. The chances of him being "normal" were 33%.

Just days ago I was smiling again and counting down the days until 2010 had gone away. This year we lost our 2 cats, our son was born and all this shit happened, Mindy's grandpa is critically sick, my boss and friend died, a couple friend of our has suffered through their own baby issues and deaths in the family, Mindy's mom is going through a divorce, we have been trying to help a teenager friend of ours (she's lived with us 2 months this year)...pick up where her mom left off, I've had to deal with my 80 students per semester, I've tried to play rugby and be a real part of the team, Mindy tries to fit in at work.

I thought that in a few days it would all be over, that next year we'd all have a fresh start. A new chance.

Back by Popular Demand: My Feelings

2010-10-16T14:49:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday night Mindy and I had sex for the fourth time since the middle of February. That's right, 8 months. It's not really any of your business, but I thought you should know, so I could show you how rough that whole preemie baby thing was.

Monday, October 18, will be our 2 year wedding anniversary (we've been together 5 years and some change). Last year we went to Oktoberfest in Hermann and speculated about Mindy being pregnant while I drank red wine. We can't make it to Oktoberfest this year (or any other types of fests, really) because of Cyrus. He's not really supposed to leave the house very much until March because of RSV season.

I love October. And I just realized it's already halfway over. I love October because of the crumbly leaves, apple butter, the way the wind feels, the way the sun sets, the equal amount of light and dark; it's a perfectly balanced season. I love pumpkins, and Halloween is really the only holiday I care about. This are all reasons I wanted to get married in October.

Something about the balance makes sense.

People like to say that marriage has its ups and downs, "You'll go through hard times and good times" All of those damn things people say.

As far as our love for each other, our trust and laughter, Mindy and I have never trembled. But Cyrus, our symbol of love, has been the hardest on our relationship:

Besides our sex life crumbling the minute Mindy went into the hospital in March (who feels like having sex when your wife's cervix can't contain the amniotic sac?). And then, who feel sexy after seeing a tiny baby in a plastic cage? Sex was the last thing on my mind after hours spent staring at our 2 pound baby with tubes running out of him. And after he came home, there was really no time for it...though we did it once while he was sleeping beside us. I know you've all done it.

Wednesday night was awkward. We made sure Cyrus was in another room, though, while the baby monitor was on. We had planned it, you see; we had to. We kinda sat there a while, waiting for something to happen. Like a first date without all the questions, but still the nervousness. There wasn't much foreplay since it was so late. I had papers to grade and a midterm to proctor. I finally said we should just get naked. So, we got naked.

You know, it was only a week ago last year that Mindy was inseminated, that I wrote that there are risks to having a baby, that I wasn't sure if parenthood was for me. I never thought she'd get pregnant on the first try. I thought I had a year, at least, to reconsider. But Cy-guy was ready. He was so ready to meet us, he came way too soon. But he is beautiful. Besides eating from a bottle, he seems to do everything other babies do. He head's flat on one side, but the helmet should fix that.

In the past few weeks I've started to feel normal again. I mean, our son is home and safe; we've established our routine. Though we actually get about 8 hours of sleep a night, we're still always exhausted. I've learned to write while he's sleeping (right now).

The only fights Mindy and I have had have to do with Cyrus, but only indirectly. We're exhausted; we say things in a tired voice that the other misinterprets. It's nothing horrible. I wonder though, if this is one of those downs that the old folk speak of. We've been through an experience that I can only described as "totally fucked up," but we've made it out alive. All of us. We've even made it out still in love.

Right now my wife is at work. Our son is snoozing on the floor under his gym; he's wearing a glow-in-the-dark skeleton outfit that my mom bought him. I have more papers to grade. I'm always busy. But this is our life now.

I've learned to ignore things, too. Petty things that might have bothered me last year. I don't have time for your bullshit because my son was born 15 weeks prematurely Oh, I know, some day I won't be a victim. Some day I will have forgotten, the day I'm trying to tell Cyrus what happened, why he's so special. Why his torso has a huge scar. Why why why...

If you know me, or you've read anything I've written before, you know I don't believe in true love. I think every person out there is capable of falling in love with millions of people, of loving that person completely. I still think marriage is a choice. Two years ago I chose one of the many that I've loved. Together we chose to have a baby. We choose every day to love each other, despite our exhaustion and trauma. I know it's cheesy, but our love is. Sometimes I want to barf when I think of how we love each other. See, I can't even write about how and how much I love Mindy because you'd throw up. I have to stop here.

We work because we are different in the right ways: she is tired when I'm peppy. I'm exhausted and drunk when she wants to cuddle Cyrus. In the same respect, we are alike in the right ways, always knowing what the other wants for dinner, what she's feeling. While one is hating on the world, the other listens. When one is too tired to make the first move, the other steps up to the plate. We're a good balance, the light and the dark.

The End/The Beginning

2010-08-21T05:26:00.000-07:00

I just realized that Cyrus has been home 4 weeks. I also just realized, seriously, just now, that today is his five month birthday.

I want to tell you that it's over, and I hope that is the case.

The minute Cy-guy was brought into our house, we've been much saner people. Lots of people kept saying, like, "now you'll never sleep again!" and "you'll just watch him breathe all night!" hahaha, you people. I don't give a fuck. I mean, I woke up only once the first night home to see if he was breathing. After the four months in the hospital, I figured the doctors wouldn't have sent him home if they thought that was an issue. As far as sleeping less, well, that's what I signed up for so many months ago. And I don't care. We don't care. The stress of less sleep and feeding the crying baby is nothing compared to what we've been through. I laugh in the face of a leaky diaper or a quivering mouth. Hahaha!

Except for the feeding tube sticking out of his stomach, and a slightly lopsided head, Cyrus J. is a normal baby. He's performing at a 2 month old level, which is what his age should be. He loves to kick on his floor gym and coo and gurgle. He's starting to smile, but he doesn't wanna wear it out. He's got us figured out, and though I know he's not old enough to manipulate, I feel like he can...and does.

So far, he is not the burden that everyone made him out to be. "You can't leave at the drop of a hat, anymore!" they all said. Well, cliches aside, it doesn't take that long to get us all in order. The hardest part is the moms finding time alone. We can't go anywhere together without him because we'd have to teach a baby sitter how to use the machine. And no, it's not that hard, but it just seems like people would be freaked out by it. Because of his surgeries and seizures, he qualifies to have an in home nurse come. We've decided we need her only 4 hours a week. This Wednesday my wife and I had a date at Les Bourgeois: the first time we'd been out together without the little fat man.

We have a sleep schedule that seems to work well. One of us stays with him while the other one sleep on the couch. Then we switch. In the day time, we just take turns. If Mindy has had enough of him, I take over. And that goes the other way, too. But school is starting on Monday, and with all of my schedule switching, I'm way behind where I'd like to be. So, the past few days Mindy has watched him while I work on school stuff. You see, everything is equal and that makes it very easy.

And maybe that's one of the advantages of gay parenting. You see, we have no roles to fulfill. Mindy doesn't always feed him or change his diaper...the way I've been told it usually works. You know, the mom gets up all night and does, well, mostly everything. We're both moms, so we both act like moms.

Life is good. There are times when I wish I could go have a beer with friends without worrying if Mindy's getting mad at having to watch him while I'm drinking. When she leaves, I think she feels the same guilt.

He has a swallow study on Thursday and we hope it will show that he can start taking a bottle. If that were the case, we'd be able to leave him with people and feel more confident about his care.

So, gentle reader, I will leave you here.

I started this blog in hopes to tell people the struggles of two women trying to get pregnant, of the looks and stares and hatred. But, as you know, this was a story of something much more meaningful. It has been just over a year that our story began. You might wonder how the whirlwind of drama has changed me. Let me think...

I have not found God. Not for one moment during all of this did I hope there was a higher power, or feel that a higher power was doing this to me/us. I did find faith, though, in people. For the past 6 months we've been given so many gifts...even from a church I've never heard of (though I'm pretty sure they didn't know we were gay).

People love babies, especially tiny, horrifying, helpless babies.

I like babies more than I thought I did. I used to tell Mindy that I'd take a toddler any day, because they can talk and all that. But Cyrus has a personality. He has a huge personality. I think he's smarter and cooler than I can ever try to be.

I feel like an expert on preemies. I've always had an interest in things medical, but I preferred dead people. Now I know more than I ever cared to know about little, teeny babies.

We are lucky. Or if you don't believe in luck, we just got the better end of a percentage. Actually, all of the numbers fell our way: we got pregnant on the first try, Cyrus survived, Cyrus' brain is all there.

As I write this, he is beside me on the floor in his bouncy seat. He's laughing in his sleep, at what, I don't know, but I imagine it's fate.

He is tough.

He is stubborn

He is beautiful.

He is absolutely alive.

Circumvention

2010-07-19T18:47:00.000-07:00

It wasn't until Mindy was pregnant that we wondered what sex our baby would be. We both worried that having a boy would be a little unnerving because, well, we're not boys and we don't have penises. I think I was the one to wonder about circumcision. I asked Mindy what we'd do. We discussed over a matter of weeks and months. We asked your opinions, we asked medical opinions.

The questions were simple, "Why did you circumcise your son?" Most people answered this questions with either a blank look or something like, "because his dad is."

This didn't seem like a good enough reason for us. Considering 80% of the world doesn't practice this genital mutilation, it seemed horrible and barbaric.

Oh, there you go, saying something like, "It's healthier!!!! It's cleaner!!!!" Sorry, but most of the things I've read (and doctors I've talked to) say there's no evidence of this. I mean, yeah, you have to wash it, but it doesn't cause any other problems.

Of course, we worried at our decision because our poor son would already have 2 moms, like he needed some assholes in the locker room making fun of his manhood. We weighed this.

But, I feel like I'm fighting for him. Male circumcision seems no different than female circumcision. Would you alter your little girl's genitals? Would you make your tiny baby go through plastic surgery because you didn't like the way his nose looked? It's cruel.

For the longest time, everyone left Cyrus alone. Or rather, they left us alone. We'd told several nurses in passing conversation that we weren't interested in cutting off part of his penis. I think it wasn't until his latest surgery that the surgeon's nurse came out of the suite to see if we wanted him circumcised because, "it was best to do it while he was out." Mindy and I said, "NO" very loudly and in sync. Actually, I think the surgeon had already asked us before the procedure. A few times.

Today a nurse who's never taken care of our little man (and his proud manhood) said, "Uh, did you want him circumcised?" I waved his hand in the air and did that annoying thing where you make a baby voice and said, "please don't cut my genitals." She said she just wanted to make sure.

Listen up. We may be lesbians, but we know what penises look like. We know the difference between cut and uncut. It's not like we've been changing his diapers for months wondering what birth defect he had; it's not like we were too embarrassed to ask. We're not clueless. We're not Jewish, either.

Since he's leaving soon, it just seems like the question has been coming up a lot. I figured, in the beginning, that they didn't bother people with it unless they asked.

I think we've made the right decision. If Cy wants to be circumcised, he can make that decision. But there's no way I can bring myself to eliminate part of his body when it's not necessary. I don't want him to look at me when he's 14 and accuse me of genital mutilation.

There was a while when Cy had a baby neighbor who weighed only 3 pounds. I saw the doctor come out with a measuring tape... it had to be so big before they could do it. The baby was wheeled away. Minutes later I heard crying down the hallway and the baby was wheeled back in. The parents looked anxiously at the doctor. When he told them it was done, they sighed in relief . And then the doctor smiled and said, "That's the smallest one I've ever done."

Crescendo

2010-07-14T13:57:00.000-07:00

It's on. Cy's surgery starts at 9:30 in the morning. It should last only 1.5 hours. After which he will be pumped full of morphine for pain. The doctors said his recovery time is 5-7 days. In 5-7 days he could be home with us. You could be invited to our house for dinner and just happen to meet our son.

Yesterday I was really stoked, thinking that he could be home so soon, that his problems might be solved. Today, though, I'm nervous and crazy again. The last time he had surgery he had seizures and stayed on the vent for days and days. The doctors have been loading him up with seizure medication.

The fear I have about his surgery all revolves around those fucking seizures. But now I'm starting to think about his little belly. The surgeon likes to do it "old school," so he'll make an incision in his little, precious stomach. Again, here comes the education...I can see the clamps holding his little stomach open. I wonder how big the scar will be. I hope the pain meds are enough to keep him comfortable until it's healed. He'll never know his own body without those scars. He'll think he was born with them, and in a way, he will be.

I've read that preemie parents celebrate two birthdays for their kids: the day they were born, and the day they come home from the hospital. March 21 is still too painful for me to want to remember. I'm not sure that next year at that time we'll be able to say "it's our son's birthday!" And I wonder, as he grows up, if I can mask the trauma and the horror in my voice when he asks about the day he was born.

Well, Cyrus, it went like this:

After 2 and a half weeks in the hospital, your mom and I were really starting to think we'd make it far, maybe to the end. But she started having some pains in her stomach, and when she realized it had nothing to do with having to go to the bathroom, and after she'd fretted for a while, she asked me to lift up the sheet and look between her legs. I saw blood. Lots of very red blood. And then we called the nurses and in seconds the doctors came and speculumed her and actually stepped back as more (much more) blood ran out of her body.

She was wheeled across the hospital to the delivery side where she had nurses put those straps on her...the ones that show contractions. And I saw her stomach contracting, turning into a hard ball. And it was snowing outside; the roof was covered in snow. I was dressed in my rugby practice clothes but had decided not to go because it was too cold to handle. My stomach turned over and I hoped it would be a c-section because the thought of watching your mom give birth to you at 25 weeks and 1 and a half pounds would be enough to kill me. Rot me from the inside out.

The doctors said you were were coming out feet first, in fact, your legs were already making their way out. And in 5 minutes, your mom was in the E.R. and a nurse handed me a blue gown. And there went your mom down the hallway, pale, scared. And I stood with my gown on and tried not to cry because your grandparents were there. They took a picture.

I didn't see any of the gore of the surgery, but I heard your tiny squeak when they pulled you out. I hoped it wouldn't be the only time I ever heard your voice. The nurses took you to a small room attached to the surgery suite. I couldn't go there until you were stabilized. When it was time, I walked into the room, the doctors all looking at me. One said congratulations and shook my hand. I peered at you in a plastic cube, with a little hat on your little head and I left.

We didn't really meet you until 7 hours later. You squeezed our pinkies, but we were afraid to touch you too much. I was afraid. I was nauseous. I wished we'd never wanted a baby.

* * *

But the day of him leaving the hospital will be joyous, but we're afraid to get excited, to be hopeful. Every time we get comfortable and think that we're almost done, ready to wipe away the last 5 months, something happens. We're reminded we're human.

I'm shaking right now and crying, too. His birth rips me up. So does the idea that he's ours. He's beautiful. And I'm starting to feel like we've gotten away with something, that our lives can return to normal. No. Don't you dare say our lives will never be the same again. We will be the same again. Mindy and I will slowly become ourselves, the love in our house will grow (just like it used to), we'll see our friends again. We'll live. We'll all be alive, little man.

Cause and Effect

2010-07-11T20:22:00.000-07:00

As Mindy and I were waiting for Mom and Dad to meet us at a restaurant, I saw a 10 (14?) year old boy walking in, holding his mom's hand. He walked stiffly, like a robot, like a person who wasn't in control of his muscles. He smiled the whole time and made a noise which I could only understand as contentment or slight anxiety. His head was titled to one side.

I looked at Mindy and said, "That won't be him."

* * *

While I was visiting the Little Man yesterday, I looked at his nurse and said, "I'm 75% serious when I say this, 'give us the fucking syringe pump and send us home.'" She said she'd talk to the doctors about it.

You see, Cyrus is still in the hospital because he breathes too fast. He breathes too fast because he has reflux. He has reflux because he's a preemie. The reflux causes micro-aspiration. That causes him to breathe too fast. I hope you see the horrible cycle.

Mindy and I have noticed that the past few days he's started to become more agitated. All of the nurses have agreed that Cy-Guy is the coolest, most laid back baby of all time. Ever. But not recently. He gags, pukes, and squirms. He has even cried a few times. He never cries. It's obvious he's in pain. Imagine having heartburn all the time. Then puking. Then having more heartburn. He never gets a break.

So, he's got this tube that runs from his nose to his stomach; this keeps his reflux alive...his esophageal sphincter can't close completely...which causes more aspiration...which causes fast breathing...which causes him to not be able to eat...which causes him to need the tube that runs from his nose into his stomach...which exacerbates the reflux...which...

* * *
One option the nurse gave us, and today the doctor mentioned is a nissen and g-tube. As a relatively intelligent person, I realize this procedure is easy. But as Cyrus' mom, I remember the last time he was entubated and he seized and seized... Seizures can cause brain damage. And you know what brain damage means.

You're wondering why this seems like the best thing to do? Well, it would take that NG tube out, which would help his sphincter close, which would mean his reflux would get better, which would mean that he wouldn't aspirate on his food, which means his breathing would become regulated, which means he could learn how to love his bottle (without huffing and puffing while eating) and give his lungs time to grow and heal.

What Mindy and I wanted was to just bring him home on the NG tube. We could pump his food through it every 3 hours like the nurses do. We could do what they do...they agreed we could. But it seems that he'd still have the reflux and all the pain.

* * *

Like I said, we haven't had "the talk" with the doctors. It seems certain we will in the next few days, though. They'll say it's all "routine" and I'll try not to cry in front of them. That means I'll just cuss a little more when I'm asking questions.

If you've ever seen your preemie baby seize, raise your hand...It's horrible. And now I watch him gag and turn bright red. Then he frowns, like he's wondering why I'd do that to him. We'd rather him gag a thousand times than lose half a brain...than lose any part of his brain.

So it looks like we have another decision to make. And don't say, "that's just like a parent" or "now you know what it's like to be a new parent." Shut up. I'm at the stage now where I'll punch you. I will fucking punch you.

* * *

I've been through some traumatic things in my life: watching a black trash bag of puppies drown when I was 5 (that's another blog. you'll understand if you're from a small town), learning of my uncle's tragic car wreck when I was 6, watching my grandpa breathe his last breath when I was 17, coming out in a small town at the same age. And of course, all of the small things we all go through but can't remember.

They were always explained away with a small phrase, "because." When my Oklahoman friend and I told our fellow grad students that we'd drowned puppies their eyes were wide and mouths opened, "Why!?" they asked. "Because...it's what happens where we're from." When anyone died in my family, besides religion, the reason mom told me was "because things happen." When my parents questioned me about why I was gay, all I could say was, "because."

When my beautiful son asks why he was born so early, why he has so many scars on his stomach, why he wears glasses when most kids don't, why we wanted a baby in the first place, I'm afraid that old, tired expression is all I'll have to give him. That expression that's used to sedate children so they won't ask more, so they don't hurt more..."because."

Because things just happen.

Love

2010-07-06T06:45:00.000-07:00

I'm in love with two people at the same time. One is my wife, one is my son. Or maybe I just have a crush on him.

Since I'm unemployed, I've got nothing to do but clean the house, play with my turntable, and see the little man.

A few days after we learned that he has an ASD, we were able to feed him. The doctors gave him lasix to help remove some fluid from his lungs; he breathes slower now. Because of his nearly normal breathing we started feeding him a bottle. Every day he's gotten exponentially better. Yesterday he ate 25 ml at noon and 35 at 6:00. He at the 35 in 20 minutes. That's crazy. (however, I've just received a text from Mindy saying his breathing is fast today--that could mean bad things, or that we can't give him a bottle today)

Anyway, I'm not working. I've forgotten how to write. Sometimes I read. Other than that, the only thing that occupies my brain is Cy-guy. When I'm not with him I think about him. When I go to sleep, I see the NICU. I remember his smell. His name is in my head all day. I've lost myself. It's exactly the same as when I met Mindy. Holding him makes me feel less crazy, and I do everything to please him so he won't leave me.

Last night I dreamt that we got to take him home for the night. We checked him out like a library book. I dreamt that my own son lived in our house.

It's been 15 weeks and 2 days since his birth. For that long we've gone to the hospital once or twice (or more) a day. Now that he's bigger it's harder to leave and stay away. When he lived in the cube we weren't allowed to touch him or anything, so we stayed just an hour or less. Now that we can hold him whenever and kiss all over him, and feed him, well, leaving sucks. But life goes on outside of the NICU. Kindof. In between holding him I think about holding him while I scoop the litter, wash clothes, clean the bathroom and kitchen, play on facebook, blog...

I hope he's home soon, but I have a feeling it won't be until August. That bums me out because I wanted to spend 6 solid weeks with him at home, with Mindy, too, of course. School starts August 24th (I forgot that I teach...I could be working on my fall syllabus). So, that would be only 2 weeks with him before life would begin again.

I guess I've come to the last stage of grief: acceptance. I accept the fact that my baby lives in a hospital crib, that I have to get buzzed into the doors, that I have to sign in to see him, that my temperature must be taken once a day, that I can't see him between the hours of 6:45-7:45 in the morning and evening, that sometimes those hours are stretched and manipulated because of the doctors doing rounds, that the nurses know more about him that we do, that he will need more surgeries, that he can't really meet any of you for months, that he'll be in and out of the hospital. That I love him.

Home is Where the Baby Is

2010-06-29T06:40:00.000-07:00

I bet you're wondering how Utah was. Let me put it to you straight: I don't like the southwest. I was in St. George, a town of 80,000 with one bar called, "the one and only." They only sold beer. And no, I didn't actually get around to going there.

If you google this town, you'll see that their big tourist attraction is a huge, white, mormon temple. With that being said, I don't have to explain to you too much that everyone there was blonde, and all kinda looked the same, and all of them were not attractive. Humans prefer diverse features in faces.

I dug a square hole for the first time in two years. I was warned that it would be very hot and dry and horrible. But you know what, digging in the southwest at a 100 degrees is a billion times more comfortable than diggin in Missouri at 100 degrees. I didn't sweat, because it's too dry. In contrast, you can't get dry in Missouri; you walk outside and start sweating. So, it wasn't nearly as horrible as it could've been. I made a chunk of change for the family, and that was the point of going.

But there were other points to going, too:

1. to get the hell outta dodge. before the dig, the last time i'd been on a plane was 2007. The last time I left missouri was, well, i can't remember, but excluding a couple of rugby matches, I've been to Ohio to see Mindy's family.

2. to feel like a human again. since march 4 I feel like all I've been is Mindy's wife and Cyrus' mom. I was still teaching, but hardly there. I had a month off after that of cleaning the house and going to the hospital twice a day. that's all i did.

So, being out there in the heat, working hard, well, it felt like me. All I did was wake up, work, eat, and go to sleep. There were no trips to the hospital, no grocery shopping, no cleaning the bathroom. In a way, it was a vacation. In another way, it totally wasn't since I was working 10 hours a day.

I expected Cyrus to come home this past weekend. I figured after his horrible seizures and eye surgery the only thing to happen was for him to learn to eat. But he hasn't been able to eat because of his rapid breathing. Imagine running up several flights of steps and then trying to drink a milk shake.

Yesterday we learned that Cy has an ASD. The doctors think that because of this there may be extra fluid getting into his lungs. They put him on Lasix yesterday in an attempt to get rid of some of the fluid. In a few days they'll check again. When I asked what happened after that, the doctor said more medicine. And after that? Maybe surgery.

Mindy saw the little man this morning and said his breathing looked better. I hope it wasn't wishful thinking.

I'm guessing it'll be another month before he comes home. His due date is Thursday, July 1.

* * *

We're mad now. Really mad. We're tired of of people asking how we are and having to answer, "fine." You don't really want to know how we are. We're crazed and exhausted. We're pissed and temperamental. We're always busy but getting nothing done.

When Cyrus gets home we'll fight more than shitty diapers and crying all night; we'll deal with sickness. He'll go into the hospital a lot for the first few years. We don't get to take him home and say, "well, that's over." He'll be confined to the house for months. You'll have to wash your hands before you come in, and we'll probably tell you not to touch him.

* * *

I can't handle Cyrus having another surgery. I feel like I have PTSD. Seeing him on the vent gives me flashbacks of the night he was born, of the months he lived in the cube and you all were horrified by his pictures. How have I coped? By blocking it out. And then later writing about it. All this typing has helped in the short term, but what about when it is all finally over? I'm not even sure when that'll be. There will be no definite end, but a gradual fade into family life.

Out of the Wilderness

2010-06-10T19:31:00.000-07:00

This morning as my wife was snoring and I was tossing and turning and kicking her to get her to stop, I had this idea.

I call it an idea because I don't want to call it a vision. I pictured Mindy and myself sitting in the waiting room and some goddamned doctor saying, like, some bullshit about how a normally "routine" procedure had gone wrong. I shoved it out of my head because those things just aren't even worth thinking about these days.

It was just last night that we were bathing Cyrus and he was peeing in the water and enjoying getting his white-boy 'fro scrubbed. It was last night that Mindy and I stayed up late watching several episodes of a show about surviving in the Alaskan wilderness. In a way, we'd done that together already. In another way, we're still trying to lug our heavy Yukon packs through those annoying alders. In a way, I'm melodramatic.

We went to see Cyrus today, before his scheduled eye surgery, to find him seizing. We told the nurse, a few doctors came in, then another, then some more. Then they shoved 4 or 5 drugs into the i.v. placed in his head. He kept doing it. Mindy asked if this would affect his brain. The doctor said it could if it went on for 30 minutes. We watched him seize for 45.

I sobbed into Mindy's shoulder I hate it here while our awesome lesbian nurse worked on Cyrus and tried not to pay attention. I think I heard her sniffle.

Once again, I had gotten comfortable; he has been breathing on his own and learning to take a bottle. We thought he'd be home in a matter of days...until they said he had retinopathy of prematurity. They said he'd have to go back on the ventilator for surgery and he'd probably be on it 36 hours. And after that he'd be back on the flow-pap. And so on.

I was trying to convince myself that this surgery would be easy and "routine." I was ready to accept that he would lose 30-40 degrees of peripheral vision.

And then I see him having seizures and now I have to turn my brain to another channel. I have to picture him with thick glasses, epilepsy, and possibly mental handicaps.

And now that his surgery is postponed, I have to worry that he'll be completely blind.

* * *

I know parents have expectations for their kids. I know this because I couldn't possibly meet all of the goals my parents set for me. Well, I accomplished everything but marring some macho dude who hunted and wore camo. I watched their dreams collapse in one afternoon.

So, yes, I've dreamed things for my own son:

At first I hoped he'd be smart, sexy, loving, caring, understanding and respectful.

Then I wished he'd stay where he belonged.

I wished that he would die quickly.

I wished him alive. Again and again.

I've wished that he'd be the next Holzhauser to play baseball.

I've hoped that his loss of vision wouldn't impede on his ability to play sports...or dance... or drive a car.

But now I'm somewhere else.

If he's blind, he still has music. I hope his passion to play and listen and feel it far exceeds my own.

If his brain is injured, I hope I'm able to deal with it all without falling apart. I want him to be happy.

* * *

It's been a long day, here in the Alaskan wilderness. Mindy and I have battled hunger, depression, loneliness, and, of course, the uncertainty of what's out there, just beyond the horizon.

What Now

2010-05-28T12:08:00.000-07:00

Cyrus weighed in at five pounds. In 5 more weeks he will be born. Which means, he could be set free. He could come home and live with us, his parents, in a house. We wouldn't have to drive to the hospital several times a day. We wouldn't have to ask permission to hold him, kiss him, touch him. He might start to recognize our voices, instead of his nurses'. He might have that chance at being "normal" that we all did when we were born.

It's been three months since this whole thing started. Mindy and I have watched a fetus grow inside a plastic container. We've watched as the nurses change their hair styles, their cologne. We've seen the wrinkles grow deeper around our eyes. At times we've cried, or pretended this wasn't happening. We've caught a glimpse of pictures of Lady and Snot and broken down. Absolutely. They are now symbols of something so much bigger and deeper than themselves.

We've kissed each other goodnight and wondered, what now.

* * *

Mindy is amazing. She lay completely still for two and a half weeks, willing our son to stay inside, thinking tight thoughts so her cervix would close. All the while, the nurses praised her for being so great at bed rest. She couldn't understand how it would be so hard for someone, if she knew her child was at risk. Would someone really get up and walk around? But then, we heard a story of a 14 year old who was having her second baby. She took her i.v. pole and carried it down 3 flights of steps to sell her food stamps to get cash to get high. We've learned that this is what those nurses normally deal with. I don't even want to get into it. So, my wife never once complained. She was determined to keep Cyrus where he belonged. She was relaxed, too, for his sake.

During the c-section, as 3/4 of her body was tugged and wiggled behind the blue sheet, she was able to smile at my stupid stories and jokes.

But now, for 9 weeks, she has pumped her boobs every 2 hours during the day, and twice at night because we know the benefits of breast milk. I can count only 3 nights where she slept 8 hours. Even when it looked like she wouldn't produce milk, she kept going when most women would stop.

Four weeks after her surgery, after Cyrus was born, she went back to work. Most people take 6 weeks. And most people spend those 6 weeks learning to love and care for their child. Of course, Mindy didn't have that opportunity since her baby was living in a hospital and she on the couch at home.

When Cyrus comes home, she'll have only 1 week of paid vacation built up. She'll have only one week to spend with him at home until she has to go back to work to support the three of us for the summer. She has to go back to work where I think her skills and intelligence are overlooked. Where no one has experienced what she has.

* * *

I've been letting myself imagine the day we bring home our baby. He'll be under 6 pounds, I think. Small for a "newborn." We'll put him in a car seat, awkwardly since we've never used one. We'll load up the toys he's had by his bassinet. We'll probably hug some nurses and try not to cry. And just when we feel like driving off into the sunset, we'll have to exit the highway, because it's only 10 minutes away. We'll pull into the driveway, smiling or stunned. We'll carry him through the door and set his seat down in the middle of the living room floor and stare. The cats will sniff him. We'll keep staring. We'll cry. We'll bawl. We'll laugh. I'll drink. Then we'll look at each other, kiss, and say now what?

Gird Up My Loins

2010-05-05T19:50:00.000-07:00

My first semester of college I took a course called "The Human Situation." Basically, it was a world literature/philosophy course, or something like that. We read Nietzsche, Primo Levi, other stuff I didn't care about at the time, and the book of Job from the Bible. When I saw it on the syllabus, at first I was offended. I'd never seen the Bible as literature. I mean, I had just come out, but I still hadn't realized I wasn't Christian. I thought I was supposed to be upset that we were reading it as a story and not the word of God.

If you haven't read Job, or you don't know the story, it's pretty simple. Satan and God have a bet: Satan says if God fucks with someone enough, he'll turn on God. God picks Job, saying that he's, like, the best follower of all time ever. Satan kills his kids, burns his sheep, blows his house apart and does something to his oxen and camel and she-asses. Through it all, even his friends telling him that he must've done something wrong to piss off God, Job is faithful. In the end, God gives Job a lot more kids, sheep, oxen, all that.

* * *

Tonight Mindy put our cat, Sinatra "Snot" to sleep. I didn't watch like I did with Lady. We'd already had that discussion. You see, Lady and Snot were the same age, around 17, and they'd been together their whole lives. I had to put Lady to sleep just days after Mindy went into the hospital; it was less than 2 months ago. Like Lady, Snot just started walking funny and sitting very still. She declined in a few days. Mindy brought home an i.v. pump from work and she was getting fluids for three days. She didn't get better.

So, Mindy brought home the juice. I cried over Snot and left the room. I sat on the porch, the breeze blowing my tears and I read, for the first time since I was 18, the Bible.

* * *

I've mentioned many times that I'm not Christian. That is, I don't believe in God and I don't believe Jesus was the son of God. I don't believe that Mary was a virgin. However, I do believe Jesus was a guy, probably a super cool BLACK man.

People have said to me, since March 4, that you know, "God tests our faith sometimes." I try not to be sarcastic when I respond, but I can't help it. I don't believe that someone or thing is in charge, up there pulling my strings. If there was, he'd be a real dick.

You might wonder what I do believe in. I believe in love and kindness or at least, leaving people the hell alone to do what they want. I believe faith is not worth warring over. No one is right.

So, once again, we have offered up a life for a life. So far, the universe has required two beloved pets in exchange for our son. Our family has been destroyed, but it will be rebuilt. For those of you who kept saying that having a baby would change our lives forever, boy, do you feel silly.

* * *

I told Mindy tonight, while we inhaled our margaritas over dinner, that I suddenly felt old today. She said I was probably old when I was eight. It's true. It's like there's this feeling in my body. Did you ever stand in the doorways, pressing your hands to the frame, then step forward? It's like, all that pressure, and then suddenly, your arms are weightless and floating. Towards the heavens.

* * *

When I did believe in God, I couldn't imagine him being mean. I still can't wrap my mind around why people would believe he'd actually make this wager with Satan, to see if the most righteous servant could handle the boils and terrors. I get it, though. The writers of the Bible were fond of hyperbole. Job was probably a real guy. He probably had some bad shit happen. His friends probably told him that he must've deserved it (why else would horrible things happen to good people?). In the end, he was probably, like, "Can you fuckin believe it?"

* * *

I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I've lost weight and then gained more back. I've slept in and not slept. I've drunk too much and sometimes nothing. I have cried and I've stared into nothingness. Sometimes I just smile and laugh.

* * *

I believe that old people die when their loved ones have already passed. I've heard those stories, after a month or two, the other person goes. Dies of loneliness, they say. Snot and Lady were born a week apart and they died less than two months apart. Tomorrow I will drive to Portland, the first time I will have been home in months, since before the trials, and I will dig a hole beside Lady. I will put Snot in that hole. Ashes to Ashes and all that. Then Mom and I will walk to the bar, across the road, and eat greasy cheeseburgers. I will drink a PBR.

I will start walking to the river and it'll turn into a sprint. Right up to the the goddamn banks. And I'll stop. I will want to scream, but I'll just stare into the currents.

"Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up."
Job 6:2-3

Adaptation/Adoption

2010-05-02T05:48:00.000-07:00

Last week my grandma got to meet Cy, if only for a few minutes. It was not her first great-grandchild, but her smile was goofy enough, her eyes bright enough, he could've been.

My dad has nearly cried over our little man and called him "precious" and "perfect" on several different occasions.

I have never once worried that I wouldn't feel attached to him because I didn't carry him, or because he wasn't a part of me.

You see, when Grandma left his side that day she kept repeating how he was a Holzhauser. In fact, the first male Holzhauser since her own sons were born. I mean, she has grandsons, but none has the name. The name.

I guess I was surprised at Grandma's awesome response. Cyrus is, technically, not at all related to Grandma. I am adopted, married to a woman, and that woman had a baby with some random guy's sperm. That's how not related we all are. But she was overwhelmed with happiness and awe. I could tell.

I can only attribute all of these great responses to my own adoption. Mom and Dad have had 30 years to learn what it means to love a child that didn't have their DNA. Actually, my whole extended family is awesome that way. No one ever treated me differently because I was adopted (they did treat me differently when I started dying my hair green and dating girls...). In fact, there's a family secret I can't reveal, but let's say, the Holzhausers have had their share of calling someone else's kid their own.

* * *

This is all feeling overwhelming because of my recent subscription to Ancestry.com. This spring there have been two genealogy shows on tv: Faces of America on PBS and Who Do You Think You Are? on NBC. I was addicted to both. It's because of my adoption that I want to know where I came from, why ancestry is so cool, why it was important that I find my biological parents. Spike Lee found out that his Great x3 grandfather might have been his greatx3 grandmother's owner. Master and Slave. It's hard to know.

If I'm researching correctly, I've traced several of my own lineages back to England in the 1500s and Ireland in the 1600s. No, I'm not kidding. Of course, when we trace our lines, we're assuming that both partners in every marriage were faithful, that what is written is absolutely true. C'mon, ancestors, I know there were adoptions and illegitimate children all over the place. Babies left at churches, babies sent to other families and assimilated. So, why do we even bother to learn our family's past?

Are we searching for a social history or biological one? I have always worn my name proudly, but now I'm finding that biologically, it seems I'm barely German. I'm 6th, 7th, and 8th generation American. I'm American as Jazz, as Rap, as saggy pants, as fanny packs. And maybe it's strictly an American thing to trace ourselves back, to naively believe that those names and dates tell a full history of a person.

* * *

My son will grow up with a piece of himself missing, like I felt. His half adoption could turn into teenage angst and curiosity. He could not care at all.

I've struggled in the past years to really understand what it means to be a Holzhauser. My Grandma was teary-eyed saying the name over and over. Obviously, that's her married name. Does she consider herself a Holzhauser, too?

I've only known the family I've grown up in, and I'm still trying to figure it all out, trying to see us/them from the outside. We are a loud, stubborn, obnoxious, competitive, talkative, resilient bunch.

So far, Cyrus, you act just like a Holzhauser.

Mommy Meltdown

2010-04-18T08:37:00.000-07:00

Rugby I understand. On Saturday mornings I stand out on a field in short shorts, just begging the other team to try to catch me and knock me down, daring them to try to get by me. I do this with the understanding that it will hurt: my muscles, my lungs. I do this knowing I am smaller than most, and much, much smaller than I feel.

But the pain is real and tangible. And that is something I can wrap my throbbing head around.

* * *

On Tuesday I had a panic attack. Or something that sounds like what a panic attack is. It started in the morning with me knowing I had 30 papers to grade. Actually, now that I'm trying to tell you about it, I can't really remember how things went down. I'll just say that on my days off from school I get nothing done. My days off go like this: get up around 8 or 9 (I try to sleep in). Mindy gets up around 10. She pumps her boobs. I drink coffee. It's 11 by the time that's done. Mindy's mom comes to the house. I've made breakfast once or twice. We get to the NICU by 11:30 or 12. Then it's time for lunch. We go out because I haven't been very good about grocery shopping lately and people keep asking us to lunch or dinner. Lunch is done by 2:00 or 2:30. We come home. Mindy pumps some more. We return phone calls and emails. I go to rugby practice or I make dinner or we go out to eat. Then it's 7:00 and we sit and watch shitty t.v. then it's time for bed.

On the days I teach I get up at 6 and don't get home until 4. Then it's time for dinner and then bed.

* * *
A scrawny knee flying into my crotch caused it to be bruised and swollen; my ear got smacked when I got tackled. I'm even wondering if I have slightly bruised ribs from running into my own teammate. My knees are scraped, of course. I played rugby Saturday.

Every part of me hurts. Finally. It's a relief for the pain to take over my muscles now, and not just my brain. This kind of pain is what I'm used to. It's familiar, it means that I had a good time, it means I'm still alive.

* * *

Another thing that made me freak out is people. They're everywhere: calling, texting, emailing, showing up to my house. Mindy went into the hospital March 4. In the hospital nurses come in every two hours to check on you or give meds or whatever. Even through the night. Mindy and I are used to quiet. We're used to sitting on our couch, surrounded by cats, watching PBS. So, the 2.5 weeks in the hospital were annoying, with all the people.

Then she was out of the hospital and her mom was here. I love my mother-in-law, but to always have someone around drives me crazy. I'm an only child who needs a lot of alone time. She was gone for less than a week, and for less than a week Mindy and I enjoyed each others' company. I made dinner. We cuddled. We cried and laughed and planned.

Then my mother-in-law came back and is just in the process of leaving as we speak. So, another reason I freaked out last Tuesday was because of the the people. 5 weeks of having other people in our relationship.

Another reason? Platitudes. Tons of them, well meaning but ultimately mind numbing, crazy making or too dramatic.

1. Just take it day by day
2. god gives special babies to special people
3. god only gives you what you can handle
4. miracles happen every day
5. you're going through hell
6. having a baby changes your life forever
7. you don't know what love is until you've had a child
8. think positive thoughts

you get the idea. I know, I know, everyone just means well and everyone wishes he could help in his own way. You're wondering what I might say to someone in this same situation? It's exactly what a good friend said to me, "This shit is fucked up." And that is the truest and most helpful thing anyone has said.

A friend drove in from Texas to give me beer, bread pockets stuffed with meat and onions, and roughly 4 hours of a listening ear. Then she left. It was perfect.

* * *

Saturday, when I saw the knee coming toward my crotch, there was nothing I could do to avoid it. I mean, I saw it coming, but it was all so fast, and no, it wasn't on purpose. I tackled her. We fell to the ground. There is a moment in a rugby tackle, if you do it correctly, where you are lying with your head on her hip, your arms still wrapped around her legs, several people standing over you fighting for the ball. It was in that moment that I lay still, letting the pain wash over me until it burned my ears.

Not one person on the other team felt sorry for me. It was a beautiful, perfect day.

Die, Die My Darling

2010-04-07T20:04:00.000-07:00

You know what, people? I'm fucking pissed. I've made it to that point. Ok? Are you happy?

Today I felt for some reason that I should see Cyrus on the way home from work. He kept jerking and I was like, looking for a nurse. And I was like, "I think he's having seizures" And she was like, "no." Then she leaves and comes back with the resident and the attending. So, they give him more drugs.

Not just an hour ago they called us and said he'd been seizing since then and kinda hinted we should come in (read as, "your baby could die"). They still don't know the cause. His organs are still in good shape. So, once we got there, he seemed alright. But, oh , the drugs and the waiting. The fucking waiting.

I just told Mindy that I've imagined putting my fist through several things today. I've stared at several objects and envisioned a) if my fist could go all the way through b) what it would feel like when my knuckles hit said object c) if my fist would be able to be pulled out without being damaged further.

Here is a list of things I considered:
1. The dashboard of the car (instead, i squeezed the life out of the steering wheel)
2. The brick wall in my office
3. The woman who hovered over the toilet and obviously peed on the seat which would cause people to have to hover. (Quit fucking hovering you assholes--you're the source of the problem you seek to avoid.)
4. The dashboard again
5. My laptop screen
6. Every mother yelling at her kid (a lot walk by my house)

I didn't hit anything. Even at rugby practice, I didn't really hit people because they're my friends. And I like them.

I could cry, but it doesn't help; it only causes me to get a headache.

I did kick a rugby ball a few times, but the impact wasn't satisfying enough.

There are things I want to scream:
1. It's not fucking fair
2. Are you fucking kidding me?
3. FUCK

Again, I know we got ourselves into this. But, you know, like, I've been a good person. I love people, I do, even though I sound sarcastic and I don't show it by hugging and kissing. I love my family and friends. I give homeless people money. I pick up litter. I yell at people who throw cigarette butts out of their cars. I give old people my seat. I open the door for just about everyone. I'm thankful for every fucking awesome thing that's ever happened to me. I've learned from every single fucking mistake I've made. I try to be open minded. I don't speed. I try not to take anything for granted.

So, is it too much to ask that we have a healthy baby? Just one? Can't the universe give us one of the millions?

Oh, I know. There are no answers. There's nothing you can say to make it better. And I don't want you to. Don't tell me that "God only gives us what we can handle." I don't believe in God. I haven't in a long time. And if that were true, then people wouldn't kill themselves. Obviously, things become too hard to handle. (no, i would never kill myself, if you're wondering. I'm terrified of death)

I don't know why I'm angry. I'm trying to reason why all of this so hard. If Cyrus died, it would suck. Mindy worked so hard while she was pregnant. I mean, he was made from love. I'm not sure how many people can say that. Mindy quit drinking coffee months in advance; she took Tylenol once or twice; we changed our cleaning products; Mindy made reusable baby wipes; we were gonna use cloth diapers.

I can't tell you why I wanted to be a parent. I keep asking why I did it to myself, and if it's been worth it.

It hasn't. I'm not sure what made me decide that being a mom would be alright. I guess I love Mindy so much, and we thought it might be nice to bring a kid into that--to show that kid how to love the way we do. Just one kid.

But so far, this is stupid. There's no logical reason for Mindy to have an incompetent cervix. But maybe trying to be logical is my problem.

I've said in one of the blogs about Cyrus' conception that I had to pretend that our situation was normal (you know, getting pregnant in some doctor's office)--that this is how everyone has done it.

I stick by that.

Before we started all of this I found pregnancy scary and gross. I was hoping that seeing it first hand would change those feelings. What a fucking joke.

It's worse. Everything is worse. I don't know how any of us turned out with all our limbs in the right spot and enough brain cells to reason.

I'm mad. Mad at nothing but myself. Seeing Cyrus in is little plastic cage makes me sad for Mindy. I mean, I don't like seeing him like that, but Mindy, my wife, my beautiful, much more significant half, worked hard and felt him in her womb.

The reason I cry and get angry is because Cyrus is love. He is the embodiment of our love and future and dreams. If he dies, then so does a part of us. So does our innocence, our naivete, our youth. The light in our eyes.

Easter Parade

2010-04-04T14:06:00.000-07:00

I've never been fond of Easter.

It was on this day in 1986 that my uncle was killed in a car wreck. It was on this day in 1996 when I flipped my car into a ditch with my 11 year old cousin in the seat. We made it out unharmed, but we probably shouldn't have.

So, it wasn't much of a surprise when we got a phone call at 5:00 this morning from the NICU telling us that Cyrus was having seizures. As we lay in bed (the first night that Mindy allowed herself to sleep straight through without pumping milk every 4 hours) with the phone on speaker, we listened as the young resident told us he was back on the ventilator, that he was given phenobarbital, adavan, that he wasn't getting any milk, that he'd be put back on the TPN, that he might have a brain bleed, that he might have an infection, that he might just be too tiny to handle everything that's been happening to him.

We went to visit him around 10:00 this morning. His blood pressure was low, so they gave him a bolus. We learned that the preliminary results of the head ultrasound showed everything was normal. Mindy signed a paper allowing them to do a lumbar puncture, leaving the line for "Father" blank, as we've been doing at the Social Security Office, on his Birth Certificate, on the Medicaid paperwork. I am less than a ghost in his life. And I feel badly for Mindy because she's had to make all of the phone calls as well as sign everything.

It was only a few minutes ago that the NICU called again to tell us his blood pressure is still too low. They've given him dopamine. He's on two or three antibiotics, one that would help Meningitis (if he happened to have it--we can't know yet because that's what the lumbar puncture tells us and they can't too it because of his blood pressure). He is still under two pounds. I can't even begin to imagine what all of those drugs will do to his body.

When we were staring into his isolet this morning I asked the resident, "Like, when do you tell us we're being too extreme?" She smiled at me, confused. "I mean, if he should die and we're not letting him." She assured me that they were very honest in those situations. I begged her to be blunt at all times; it's all I can handle. I can't stand someone dancing around a subject and using too many words.

I want to be mad at someone or something, but as I've written before, we've done this to ourselves. We made the choice to have a baby and we accepted all of those risks. I guess I was more ready for a miscarriage at 10 weeks than this. I never thought of this.

My tears stopped weeks ago. It's Spring. Magnolias and daffodils. I've grilled twice. I bought new clothes. Mindy and I haven't made love in at least two months.

10% of babies in America are born premature. 1% of women have an incompetent cervix. I can't even tell you the percentage of women who have that plus a placental abruption. With those odds, all I can hope is that this luck stays with us, these tiny chances we seem to be hitting.

If it keeps going, the numbers, then Cyrus will make it out alive and well and just as normal as anyone.

If it doesn't: it's still spring. I'm still in love. And it will have been just another long, dark winter.

An Education

2010-03-24T18:20:00.000-07:00

I got my first real job when I was 22. I had just moved from Houston to Columbia with my B.S. in Physical Anthropology. Setting my sights on graduate school, I was still aching to be a forensic anthropologist. When I stumbled across a job in the Columbia Tribune for a histology technician (hours 5:30-2:30) I mailed my application. It didn't matter that I didn't know what histology was, exactly, but I couldn't resist the job's description: human specimen processing, microscope slide staining, embedding specimens.

Making 9.20 and hour and getting health insurance, I spent my early mornings at work listening to music and learning how to put colon polyps, breast lumps, moles, and pieces of cervix into melted wax to harden...and then be cut into slides by someone else. The precise, quick movements took skill, say, to get 10 colon polyps into wax before it hardened. I felt like I was doing something, really doing something at that job.

The best part, though, came in the afternoons. Our lab would get in its daily shipment of specimens. Though most of them were the above mentioned items, we sometimes got more exciting things: foreskins, fingers, gangrenous legs, placentas, and fetuses. My job was to line them for the pathologist to cut. Big things went last, so sometimes there were two fetuses a day. They came in plastic, Central Dairy ice cream tubs. Tiny babies floating and rocking in formalin. I found them the most fascinating. In fact, in my free time, I'd sneak into the back room (where we stored the fetuses for up to a month--in case the doctors wanted more tests run), pop the lid on the bucket, and just stare.

* * *

The past three weeks have been numbing. I have no other way to describe them yet. When we went into the hospital, I kept picturing Mindy having to give birth to one of those fetuses. It was horrifying to the point of absurdity. My mind just kept playing that scene over and over: Mindy crying and a teeny, tiny baby just slipping out and lying still. The problem is, we knew and understood too much.

On Sunday, when things were just hazy and Mindy went into labor after blood just spilling out of her, I kept hoping that Cyrus would be gotten by c-section. I couldn't bear to think of his birth. He was complete breech, and within 10 minutes of the doctor saying this, I was sitting on a stool in a surgery suite, behind a blue sheet, talking to Mindy about the stupid idea we had about getting pregnant. "This is the worst decision we've ever made," I said to her. Through her teeth chattering from cold and hormone surges, she smiled.

Minutes before entering the surgery, a nurse had shoved a disposable camera in my hand with my hat, mask, booties, and gown. I stared at the camera. What in the hell did she think I'd like to have pictures of?

I waited at Mindy's head, watching her body shift as they cut her and pulled her uterus onto her stomach...though I didn't see any of that. I just saw her shoulders being moved and knew what was happening behind the curtain.

When they pulled him out, I heard a little squawk. Numb. Numb. Numb.

The only way I can explain the feeling is relief. I was relieved that that part of the journey was over. I was elated because I knew that no matter what happened, Mindy would be coming home in a few days. I imagined, while she tried to keep her teeth from chattering, us having a drink and eating out. Us sitting on the couch watching SVU.

* * *

You see, in college I took a human osteology class. I loved it more than anything I'd ever learned. After that class I signed up for an osteology lab. I spent 120 hours that semester trying to glue 3,000 year old bones back together. At one point my teacher gave me a bag full of dirt and asked me to "find the baby." I thought she was joking.

After I dumped the dirt into a mesh kitchen colander, I saw what she meant. A fetus. It was probably 5 inches long...at the most. It had a tiny penis and it's head wasn't attached. I spent the next couple of hours trying to get the skin off the bones.

* * *

Nearing the end of the c-section, I was summoned to a small room off of the surgery suite where Cyrus was whisked away. I walked in and 10 people stood staring at me. One doctor put out his hand and said, "Congratulations." Thanks. I peered into the incubator for only a moment; I didn't want to leave Mindy on the table like that, all alone. I saw a small baby with a small hat. The doctors stood frozen in mid-stride, waiting for me to stay or leave. "Did you see him?" someone asked. He was 14.5 weeks early, ripped from his mother's womb. And I just kept picturing Lady, our cat, decomposing under the pine tree in Mom and Dad's yard. I opened the door, nodded, and walked back to Mindy's head.

That was 7:32 p.m. We weren't allowed to see him until 1:00 a.m. That was after an hour of two neonatologists talking at us about all of the things that could go wrong. As if we didn't know. As if we hadn't read. As if I hadn't already numbed myself to it all.

I rolled Mindy up beside his little table. She touched his tiny, red hand and he squeezed it. Reflexes, you know. I was afraid to touch him; he was smaller than some of the fetuses I'd seen in the histology lab. I did though. I put my pinky into his palm and started when he squeezed my hand, too. You can see all the veins in his body, the little muscles, the smallest toenails. I swore I could see all of the four sections of his fetal skull.

Our baby is a live fetus living in plastic womb.

I'm still numb. He could die any second. We could bring him home as healthy as any kid in three months. Until one of those happens, we'll stare into his incubator. I'll keep being amazed at how he has Mindy's nose and toes. We'll speculate over his hair color.

I'll watch as my wife becomes a mother and I slip into another skin.

It feels like my heart is made of pure steel; It's just so heavy all the time.

25

2010-03-18T20:30:00.000-07:00

If you know me at all, or if you've read anything I've written, you know that the number 25 means a lot to me; it is the baseball jersey number of nearly 5 generations of Holzhausers.

Today marks the beginning of Mindy's 25th week of pregnancy. At 25 weeks the survival rate of our little man is roughly 54-60% depending on what and where you're reading. On top of that, the chance for disabilities is 50%. It sounds bleak, but compared to our odds and chances when we got here two weeks ago, it seems magical.

Mindy had a morphology ultrasound today. It has been 5 weeks since we saw him. He looked bigger on the screen, his bones whiter and denser, his head absolutely huge. But, really, he's only 1 pound 11 ounces. From what I've read, he's a little above average. We'll take it. We'd take a fat ass baby right now.

If I'm understanding correctly, he's all there. I mean, he has all of the parts he needs: arms, legs, brain, kidneys. All that. However, his lungs and brain aren't developed. Did you know that fetuses "breathe" the amniotic fluid to help their lungs grow? I mean, they breathe their own pee. It totally makes sense, but I had never thought about it until recently.

* * *

Perhaps one of the best parts about being with Mindy in the hospital is getting to know him better. Last week I could feel him moving through her belly. It felt like gas...at least the kind of gas I have. He has a sleeping pattern; he moves around about the same time every day. Because Mindy has little to no other sensory stimulation, she lies around all day feeling his every move. He's all she has to worry about right now, while I have to worry about the both of them, my students, the house, our cats, the mortgage.

She has been in this bed for 15 days. Surprisingly, she hasn't really gotten bored. Yet. We've watched just a couple of movies. She has a book to read, but she hasn't. We've watched much less t.v. than I thought we would. So, what do we do? We talk. People stream through the room and make us laugh (though Mindy gets nervous after too much laughing; we don't want him coming out, you know). She hasn't really complained, though she didn't feel well when they did the magnesium sulfate iv. But that was only 24 hours of 15 days.

She lies with her ass above her head as often as she can (even though there is no evidence that this helps), she says it's all she can do. And there really isn't much of an option.

She is teaching me a lesson in patience. I've always known she's more patient than I, but now I really see it at work. I shave her legs and she pretends it's normal, acts like it doesn't bother her that she can't.

I guess it's all an odd routine, but I wouldn't mind if it lasted for months. In fact, we can only hope that it does.

So, week 25 is here. Every day is better. Every day our son grows his lungs and his brain. Every day I kiss Mindy and tell her I love her.

And every day we grow.

Babies

2010-03-11T10:35:00.000-08:00

If you've ever been to our house (or cabin in Alaska) you noticed that we had four cats. Three of them are tabbies, so it was always a shock, a good surprise, when Lady would introduce herself. She was a blonde, always trim, always a hit because of her unusual color.

One of Lady's favorite things to do was bring us socks. Rugby socks. Sometimes she'd bring small stuffed animals. She have them in her mouth and she'd make this howl that sounded like she was in pain. Sometimes she'd drag our bras out into the living room. Mindy called them her "babies"-- I think because the habit started with small stuffed animals (the rugby sock babies came later in her life). Lady would drag out several babies a day; we'd come home from work, the dinning room littered with purple socks, yellow and black striped socks, a pirate from a McDonald's happy meal.

In the past months Lady started to lose a lot of weight. She went to the doctor in December and they said all the tests showed nothing unusual. She kept getting skinnier. We fed her calorie-rich wet food and some prescription wet food from the vet hospital. She didn't gain weight.

Of course, the past week I've spent most of my time at the hospital. But I noticed when I would go home, that Lady would sit in spots she didn't normally like: on the floor, in the clothes basket. She didn't bring babies; she didn't meow at me in the mornings for her wet food. Just Sunday I reached down to pet her and she nearly fell over. Mindy made an appointment for Tuesday.

I knew she was sick. Blood tests showed that she had kidney failure, and not just the beginnings. She was 16 years old. I left her at the hospital while I came back to talk Mindy. I didn't really talked. We just cried all over each other, as if anything else horrible could happen. Mindy called the vet.

Mom went with me. I was there for it all. Normally, that's not my job. I don't deal well with death, as most of you know. I especially don't deal well with animals dying. And not my Lady Fluff Pants. Lady who loved to be brushed just a little...then she'd bite the bristles and go crazy. Lady loved to have her belly rubbed, but only if you put your hand between her legs. She was our little slut. She and I were lovers in a past life. Or something like that. I'm lucky I'm not home right now; they house is empty enough.

* * *

When I came back after, well, after we put her to sleep I cried all over Mindy. I wanted to throw something out of the window. When I was younger and pissed, I'd take a basketball outside and kick it as far as I could. Then I'd get angrier because I'd have to chase it before it fell in the creek. Then I'd fucking sprint after it and kick it harder. This made me feel better.

I haven't kicked anything yet, though there is a rugby game on Saturday. I don't really feel like hitting anyone, but maybe it will help.

Last night we had a scare, some blood. We're only at 24 weeks. The doctors say 25 is a real turning point. Luckily nothing happened.

I hope the universe accepts our sacrifice of Lady. I'm not this big of a hippy, but I like to think that Lady loved babies so much, she soaked up all the negativity. I think she would do that for us. She took the bullet for us, maybe. As she went to sleep, she gave a soft little meow, like she did when she would lay socks at our feet, beside our bed, or cry for us at night time before cuddling up to sleep.

So, last night when we had the scare, I prayed to Lady. Oh, I know, praying to a cat seems silly, but it's the only thing that feels good right now, in my descent into numbness, nothingness, depression and anxiety. I asked Lady to hold on at least another week, another few weeks.

Not yet, Lady. Please, not yet.

Chasing Cars

2010-03-08T10:33:00.000-08:00

I went back to teach today, even after a horrible morning.

You see, the doctors come in around 8 every day to do an ultrasound on Mindy. They're checking to see if her cervix and sac have gone back where they need to be. This morning, the head doctor told her to fill her bladder and then we'd have a look. (Yesterday when this happened, it gave the appearance that everything was normal. she peed, and then it wasn't) She drank a lot of water, they did the ultrasound. I looked at the screen only to find that her cervix was open 2.8cm (the most it's been so far). The doctors didn't say this to us. They told us it was "the same," but I've heard that before.

It was at this point that the other doctor started talking about resuscitation, what we'd like to do if he's delivered soon. I couldn't handle it, not what he was saying, just everything.

I don't do well when I'm tired. I'm also PMSing. These things combined with the image of her open cervix on the screen were enough to set me off.

I cried. It came on so fast. The older doctor (who looks like santa) held me tightly in his white jacket while I apologized...the kind of apologies people give when they cry, for no real reason. The younger doctor said maybe he should come back to talk about what "measures" we'd like to take should the baby be born.

Through my tears I just said that I didn't want him to suffer. Once again, the doctors said we were enlightened for making the decision we have. We know he's too young to survive. If he did, he'd be severely handicapped.

So, it was with this whole scene in my head that I drove to Jefferson City. I heard that damn Snow Patrol song, like, "If I lay here, if I just lay here...would you lie with me and just forget the world?...show me a garden that's bursting into life."

I cried most of the way to Lincoln.

I had only a few minutes to get my shit together before class, so it was no surprise that I totally cried when I tried to explain to my class why I wasn't at school on Friday. I saw at least three people tear up. And I felt like such a weak asshole.

For my second class, I gave the same spiel. Something about my wife being 23 weeks pregnant, in the hospital, things aren't looking good for us. One student asked, after I'd said this, "who da baby daddy?"

Another student came to argue the grade she received on her last paper. She wanted to cry about the grade (she got an F because it was late; that's my policy), but I just fucking rolled over and said I'd grade it. Then she thought about asking me how my weekend was. I asked, "do you really want to know?" She said she did. I told her. She looked at me and asked, "Did you have to pay to get the baby?"

Not knowing how to answer that I said yes.

"Well, just pray. You believe in God, don't you?"

"No," I answered.

"Oh," she said.

But, you know, other students hung around after class to say they were sorry and they hoped things would work out. When I tried to explain it to one student, he stared blankly at me.

"Do you know what a cervix is?" I asked

He waved his hand around his stomach, "Somewhere down there."

One student emailed to say she was really sorry and that she'd lost two kids this way. It's amazing how open and wonderful people are if you open up first. I guess that's one reason why I write nonfiction. It's like, people are itching to tell their stories, they just don't wanna be the first to do it.

When I got back from work I walked into the new room (mindy had been moved) to find the social worker and the pediatrics dr. talking to Mindy and her mom. The first thing anyone said to me was "Oh, thank God you're here." Like I needed to hear that after a bad day anyway...I forgot to tell you that I called Mindy to check in around noon. She told me then that she'd had some contractions. I almost pissed my pants.

Anyway, the doc was here with a skinny social worker making sure they knew what we wanted to do in case he was born tonight...or any moment. In case you're wondering, we'd make sure he was comfortable for the time he was on earth.

Mindy says he's kicking away; I'm still not able to feel him. I'm not sure if I want to.

So, it was a rough day. Now Mindy's sleeping, her ass as high in the air as she can get it, the blood draining into her face. She's beautiful, though, even with those air pressure things on her legs, her greasy hair, the catheter sticking out of her hand. Her mom brought new hospital gowns that she had made while she awaited a flight from Fairbanks. Mindy's wearing a green one right now, with lady bugs. She is my wife, and I love her.

They only thing that keeps me sane right now is knowing she'll be there after this is over. Even if it turns out terribly, my wife will be there with me, even if she's scarred and depressed. Even if we're both in therapy. Even if I'm drinking to numb the memories of my son, dead before he was born.

She'll be right beside me.

We'll do it all, everything, on our own
We don't need anything or anyone

3 weeks, she sleeps, through the rain

2010-03-06T18:38:00.000-08:00

In high school, I'd go to school in the mornings with my eyelids swollen from crying all night. Life at home was full of fights with my parents about being gay, them accusing me of smoking weed in my bedroom, of being unnatural. I'd sneak into my closet late at night and call Lacey, who lived in Houston; she felt worlds and years away. So, I'd cry all night. And my eyelids would still look like that when I got to band class for first hour. All I remember of my senior year were those burning, swollen eyelids, the constant rising of a lump in my throat.

I hadn't felt that weight, that burden, until Thursday.

I've only been changing Mindy's bedpan for three days. It's only been three days of me worrying. I don't know if I can make it three months.

I can't remember if I've told you that Mindy has what one doctor called a "typical incompetent cervix." That's not a joke. I'd never heard of it. How naive was I to believe that after week 12, everything just got better and safer? It was just Monday that we bought a crib and changing table, breast pump, boppy, and got free clothes from a friend. In fact, this coming Monday we were supposed to have a wall installed in our back room to make the nursery for our baby.

Again, Mindy's at 23 weeks. Survival rate is 3%, not to mention the severe disabilities. With every week of gestation, the survival rate goes up quite a bit. By week 25 the survival rate is about 54% and half of those babies have a disability. If we make it to week 26, then we can worry much less; survival rate soars and the disabilities become less and less severe. If the cervix and sac would go back right now they could do that damn cerclage, then we could worry much, much less.

Realistically, I know the chances of this turning out the way we want are very small. Mathematically, small. Ratios and percentages are not on our side. The bulging amniotic sac and the way the nurses talk to us tell me that they've seen this before, and they know what happens.

I'm thankful that I gave up on religion the same year of the swollen eyelids. If I would have believed in God now, I would be asking why me, why us, why now. But my beliefs are simpler than that. We live. We die. Shit happens in between, some good, some bad. This is some of the shit we've been dealt.

A friend told me tonight that no matter what happens, it will be okay. I know that, but I can't feel that right now.

It's weird, throughout this pregnancy, Mindy and I have had, like, feelings about things. We both knew that she was pregnant before she was, and we kept talking about how we thought he'd be born early. I even had a vision of Mindy being laid up in the hospital, but I figured it would only be for a few days, somewhere around week 38.

Before we decided to have a baby, we had a lot of talks. My biggest fear was, and still is, having a special needs baby. I'm not sure I could handle it. No, let me say, I don't want to handle it. I've told a lot of people I'd take a physical deformity over mental disabilities any day; you can always buy a limb, you know. Oh, I know, that probably sounds really horrible and selfish of me. You're right. But I'm honest.

I asked Mindy yesterday how she felt about the outcome of this whole thing. She said she thought it would be good. I agreed. Our notions have been right so far.

But now I'm wondering what exactly good means.

Week 23, Shit Hits the Fan

2010-03-04T13:51:00.000-08:00

Mindy and I have agreed all during this pregnancy that the baby would come early.

Today, though, is way too early.

Mindy noticed something unusual yesterday and called the doctor, a nurse, and finally triage at the hospital. Everyone said it was probably ok, but to make an appointment for today.

After getting out of a deparment meeting at 12:14 I check my phone to find that she's called me 5 times. I called back as soon as I could only to her saying, "they're putting me in the hospital."

Apparently she suffers from "incompetent cervix." It basically means that her cervix was totally cool until the baby's weight was too much for it to handle, so it dilated to 1.5 cm. This is bad. On top of that, the amniotic sac is trying to escape.

We're supposed to wait here for a few days, Mindy in the bed, not moving, hoping the sac will go back where it belongs. If it does, they'll sew her cervix shut and she'll live in the hospital until the baby is delivered.

If something else happens to the sac, well, we lose a baby.

We've already had a neonatalogist come to explain that at this point, they really don't do much to revive the baby. I mean, his lungs aren't even developed and even with aggressive help, he'd have a lot of problems...if he survived at all. The chances are very slim. I can't imagine anything worse than Mindy delivering a 1 pound baby right now. The doctor said we could hold him a while.

I asked Mindy if she would like to hold him, if that's what happened. She said she would. I'm not sure if I would...or could. That feels like that would be worse. Like I'd just have that image to think about the rest of my life.

Boy/Girl/Boy/Girl Part 2

2010-02-28T08:05:00.000-08:00

Mindy and I went in for the "big ultrasound" two weeks ago. I haven't told you guys yet because things have been busy around the house and school.

The big ultrasound was amazing, of course. We saw the widget moving and kicking at the probe. I probably could've popped a beer and camped out in that room all day and just watched widgie move, but you know, I guess they had other appointments to get to.

They call this the big ultrasound because it's at week 20. During that time, people find out if the baby is a boy or a girl. As I ranted earlier, we didn't want to find out because we didn't want gendered clothes and attitudes.

But in that room, with the baby on the screen, all I could stare at was the crotch. The tech. kept moving the wand around and taking pictures and here was our baby, all of its limbs, its brain the size it's supposed to be, and all I could do was try to see what was or wasn't between the legs.

It was killing me. So, Mindy and I exchanged several grunts and eye flourishes before deciding that we did want to know what was between the legs, not because it would make a difference, but because the pressure and suspense was too much to handle. We pinky swore and then asked the tech. to tell us.

She moved the wand, the slightest of movements. "It's a jimmy!" I said. Mindy made a surprised noise. The tech confirmed it is a boy.

We didn't know if we should tell anyone that we caved. So, we went to TGIFridays. I know, I know, but somehow we got into this routine after major appointments, we'd go have a snack at the bar. So, we're at this horrible place and our server asks how are day is going. Mindy blurts out, "It's a boy. We have to tell someone." She was genuinely excited and then we showed her the huge roll of pictures we'd gotten.

Since then, I've let this news slip here and there. It's not a secret, but I didn't wanna scream it out, either.

When I happen to tell people, their first response is, "I bet your dad is really excited."

It's hard for me to say how this makes me feel. I wonder why they say that, but then, I know why they say it. Ultimately, I leave feeling upset.

I hunted, played sports, learned to change oil, helped haul wood, buck hay, cut up squirrels, hose out deer carcasses, cussed, had a Holzhauser sense of humor, worked hard at everything I did.

Wasn't I the best kid a dad could want? What need could a boy fill that I couldn't? How is it so obvious that everyone has to point it out?

And I have to wonder if this one exclamation, about Dad being so happy, is the answer to the question of nature vs. nurture.

I Could Throw Up, Too

2010-01-28T06:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was an emotional ride in an old pick-up through the rolling hills of Missouri while trying to hold a full glass of red wine while wearing an expensive white pant suit.

Mindy and I went to our OB appointment on Tuesday. The doctor was friendly, even when Mindy said she had a list of questions. Dr. Winkelmann actually turned around to face her and listened intently without ever hinting that she was in any hurry. She was supportive. Actually, she had walked into the room when Mindy and I were bitching about our days, about the student loan repayment and about how frustrating work is. The doctor asked how we were doing to which we both replied, "Ugh."

"Well, I can't get a deferment on my student loans because I'm single (I nod toward Mindy) and I don't have any dependents (I point to Mindy's stomach)."

The doctor, whether she meant it or not said, "I wish there was something I could do." And then we hit her with our questions about natural childbirth and episiotomies and the like.

Mindy also said that I was afraid she'd die and leave me with the baby. The doc turned to me, on her swivel stool, and said, "Not on my watch."

I like her.

Then she told us to come back in two weeks for "the big ultrasound." And, instead of handing Mindy the appointment slip, she handed it to me. That small gesture almost made the student loans worth it.

So, yesterday we had scheduled a tour of the birthing center here in Columbia. Last week we checked out Fulton. Yes, Fulton, because we'd heard a doctor there does natural childbirth and all that, so we decided to check out the facilities. The nurse on duty was busy and kept getting phone calls, but overall, she seemed no nonsense. Mindy even said, "We're gay. Is that a problem?" And the nurse, in between picking up the phone (ob, this is shelly), shook her head and told us one of the night nurses was a lesbian and she'd (O.B., this is shelly) be thrilled.

Anyway, we went to our appointment last night. In the waiting room for the tour was: a white couple with kid and a pregnant mom, a black couple with a kid and a pregnant mom, a single white woman with a huge stomach, and us.

A white nurse came out, her tiny, gold cross necklace (jesus included), bouncing as she checked our names off of the list. When she got to the white couple, the mom pointed to her son and said, "He's here for the big brother class." The nurse got all fake excited and asked the kid his name, what he did in school that day...all that. She turned to walk away when the black woman asked what that class was for. The nurse, ignoring the black kid, told the mom about the class.

When the nurse got to the pregnant white woman who was alone, she asked if anyone would be joining her for the tour. The woman said, "No, he's deployed." The nurse apologized and was fake sympathetic.

Then the tour began.

We walked in a silent, awkward group through halls and into rooms where the nurse explained this or that.

When we reached the first elevator she asked the white kid if he'd push #3 and then said, "thank you, sir." It was then that she finally turned to the black kid and asked what grade he was in. Then we got out of the elevator.

Finally we reached the labor and delivery room. It was big and nice. The nurse told us this and that while we stood staring at the delivery table/bed. It looked like a normal hospital bed until she twisted some things around, pushed some buttons and voila! stirrups flew up and this is where you have your baby! She walked to a wall and flipped a switch. LIGHTS! There was a harsh, bright light shining down on the empty bed with the empty stirrups. We stared. The light was only made worse by the whiteness of the sheets. I squinted and had to look away.

I pictured my beautiful wife there on that table, that light right on her business, her legs spread wide and nurse all standing around. She was sweating and screaming and all eyes would be right on her vagina, lit up like it was with those LIGHTS! All the world's a stage.

I zoned out as the nurse said stupid stuff and talked to us in a voice like we were kids. Finally she asked if there were questions. I asked if they had a birthing chair. She said, "No." But then she played with the switches on the bed, putting it at different angles and saying, "it'll kindof move..."

We made it to the postpartum room where she called the white man "Dad." And said nothing of the sort to the black man.

It was here that she went on about the menu you could order from after you give birth, because you'll be very hungry. You just pick up the phone and say, "This is Mrs. Smith" and you can have anything you want.

The white "Mom" asked if the babies get wristbands. The nurse explained that they wore several to indicate who they were.

Dad gets a wristband, too, she told us while looking at the white couple.

I didn't like this nurse to begin with, but at this point, I despised her. The single lady had already told you that her husband's deployed. Obviously, Mindy and I are two huge lesbians. It seems like she's assumed the black man probably isn't the baby daddy. So, who is she talking to when she says, 'Dad gets a wristband, too."

I understand that Mindy and I are the minority, that maybe she's never given the tour to gay people...or black people by the way she's acting. But, a considerate person might have thought...you know, that woman said her husband is in a foreign country fighting a war, so maybe I won't say "Dad" because it might upset her. You know, since her husband won't be here for the birth of their baby.

Now, wait for it...

Then she said that the babies wore a security device on their umbilical stumps. In fact, if a baby goes any where near an elevator or one of the hundreds of locked doors, the doors freeze and the elevators don't work and the alarm goes off. She's very pleased as she says this. My mouth hangs open.

"So, the babies are micro chipped in their umbilical cord?" I asked.

"Yes. Isn't that great!?"

"No," I said, "It's totally creepy."

The last stop on the tour was the nursery. We looked in the window at two babies off in the distance. By that time I was ready for a drink. She says, almost under her breath, "I'm gonna get those babies closer to the window."

She goes into the nursery, pushes them up close, then unswaddles and baby (causing it to cry) and holds it up to us. The white MOM coos. The rest of us look around. Then, she grabs the security tag and flips it up with her fingers; it's the size of the baby's shin. (Imagine wearing a tag the size of your own shin. Now, try to sleep comfortably.

While she was doing all this the baby spit up. The extremely pregnant single woman jumped back and made a terrified noise. "You can tell I don't have kids...yet."

Add it Up.

2010-01-26T12:23:00.000-08:00

My friend Amy, showed me this New York Time's article back in October. Since then, I've thought much more about "The Cost of Being Gay."

I think people (my family) assume that because I'm a professor, I make a lot of money. I don't. I make less being Professor Holzhauser than I did counting and weighing artifacts, digging holes, and drinking too much in cheap hotel rooms.

I make about 11.50 and hour. Before taxes. Yes, this is what I earn teaching English to college freshmen, our country's future leaders. Since Mindy isn't here, I'm not going to tell you how much she makes, but I'll hint that it's not very much more than what I make.

We have a nice house, but didn't overpay. We didn't take out one of those huge loans we couldn't afford (we bought our house just seconds before wall street fell). We have a budget and we're usually close to sticking to it. We don't buy much. What we do spend money on is beer, eating out and scrapbooking. But, really, we only eat out about 4 times a month. For a European that might sound like a lot, but to an American, I'm sure we're way under average.

With the widget on the way (in 4.5 months) we've been trying to think of ways to save/earn money. I'm applying to be a Census worker: It pays more.

Besides our house payment, one of our biggest bills is our students loans. It totals 500$ a month. That's like another house, you guys.

I called one of my loan places and asked if I could have an economic hardship deferral. I told the guy that my family size is 3 (as defined on the form), but of course, it didn't actually work out that way since 1. I'm single 2. I have no dependents. I explained that I was married (we live together and share the bills), and my wife is pregnant. It's not that he was rude, he just sort of ignored all that, since it doesn't actually matter. He said I wasn't eligible.

I've checked out getting food stamps, but we make too much. Of course, there isn't a section on the form for, like, *very high student loan repayments* so they think we have 500$ more a month than we really do.

Oh, I know, you're judging me. Normally, I wouldn't condone people trying to get food stamps when they don't actually need them. But, I pay the same taxes you do, and I get much less in return.

I can't have Mindy's health insurance.
If I had health insurance through my work, she couldn't be on mine.

This is a total bummer because, well, the widget will always have to be on her insurance. Even if I got a nice paying job and Mindy wanted to stay home, we couldn't do it because the widget needs health insurance.

I get so mad and I just fucking cry sometimes.

My taxable martial status is "Single." In fact, on all legal documents, I have to check single.

At our first OB appointment, Mindy had to write down an emergency contact and her relationship to that person. She put my name on the line that read "Spouse." The next time we went, when the receptionist handed her the paper and said, "Make sure everything on there is right," we saw that my name had been moved down the list to the line that read "Other."

Since my name is long, it looks something like this:

Emergency Contact
Relationship: Other/Christina Holzhau

So, no, receptionist, everything is not right. It's incomplete. In fact, it looks very, very wrong.

Boy/Girl/Boy/Girl

2010-01-17T08:44:00.000-08:00

There isn't a specific time I remember when I thought, "I want to shave my head." It was sort of a natural progression. You may remember that in past writings I've mentioned my spiky blue hair with long blonde bangs. The truth is, that hair style didn't last long (my girlfriend at the time said she didn't really like it). So, it was Sarah who cut those bangs. Not long after, I walked into a Sally Beauty Supply shop and bought electric clippers.

If you're a woman, I encourage you to shave your head once in your life. The feeling of a shaved head is about equal to driving through the expanse of the western u.s. So much freedom and solitude...and the feeling that you might be the only one.

I didn' t have to shampoo for weeks at a time. I just got my head wet and rubbed it a little. I never had to brush it, and of course, there was nothing to style.

Now, believe it or not, I got called "ma'am" more than before I shaved my head. Even in the most liberal parts of Houston, if I wore a baseball hat, I was a sir. At the time I was offended, though I was aware I was slightly gender bending. I had tiny boobs. I was very thin. I wore cargo pants and thrift store t-shirts. I looked like, on more days than not, a 14 year old boy. But I still knew I was a girl and I wanted others to feel it, too.

* * *

Besides Mindy falling asleep as soon as she sits down, the most annoying thing right now is people asking if we're going to find out the "gender" of the baby.

I'm no expert on sexuality, but I do know this: Gender=what you feel like. Sex=What you have. People have sex changes because their brains don't match what their bodies are. I don't have time to educate everyone on all of this, so I hope it makes sense.

Let me clarify: No, all lesbians don't want to be men (but some do). No, all gay men don't want to be women (but some do). Some straight men like to dress as women, but don't want to be a woman. Some straight women hate dresses but still have sex with men. You see, everyone is different. Everyone has her own gender, sliding up and down and all around out of control.

I have boobs and a vagina. That makes me a girl. But, sometimes my characteristics are more masculine...and that makes me...a human being.

Oh, I know people really mean to ask what the sex of the baby is. We don't know and we don't want to find out. When we tell some people that, they get all pissy and say "well, it'll be hard to buy for." What a crock of shit.

It's a baby, you guys. The baby won't care what it's wearing until it gets older and all of the social constraints are put upon it. Every culture decides what is masculine and feminine.

* * *

I started dance lessons when I was 2 and a half. Obviously, I didn't make the decision. My mom had grown my hair to my waist. People told me how pretty I was, how pretty my long blonde hair was. They'd touch it. Several times a year I'd be slathered in make-up, put in a tu-tu, and shoved onto a stage to dance. I never really like it, but it wasn't terrible, either. But I didn't like to play dress-up when I was home, with other girls. I wanted to play army or war or something.

My family kept buying me Barbie dolls. I hated them. But they just kept coming in. I had a huge doll house crammed full of naked barbies. I was pissed when I realized I couldn't fit Ken's shoes on Barbie's unnaturally arched feet. I asked for GI Joes. I got Barbies, My Little Ponies (they weren't so bad), and Cabbage Patch Kids (and I actually didn't mind them, either.)

I asked for football pads and drum sets. I played with my cousin's GI Joes and Ninja Turtles whenever I visited.

The boys in town wouldn't let me play football until I proved myself.

* * *

Right after I shaved my head I visited my cousin at her grandmother's house. My cousin had just had a baby. The year was 2001, I think. Anyway, her grandma had Alzheimer's and so she had to watch her for a while. Her grandma, who had known me my whole life, walked into the living room and JoAnn said, "grandma, remember Christina?" The woman looked at me, horrified. She turned around and said, "boygirlboygirlboygirl." After a few minutes she'd quit and start to do other things in the house. But, when she'd see me, she was reminded, "boy girl boy girl."

* * *

If our baby has a penis but wants dolls, I'll buy them for him. If she has a vagina and wants to only wear baseball shirts, I'll let her.

People want to know so they can categorize, so they can start imagining what he or she will do, how beautiful or handsome the kid will be.

Give my baby a break. Don't start assigning it gender roles. It'll already have enough troubles explaining why he or she has two moms.

The Rope Swing

2010-01-04T20:28:00.000-08:00

It was the year that the final plastic seat broke on my swing set that I begged Mom and Dad to keep the frame in the yard. It still had some use, I figured. It still had the lower, horizontal bars on both sides, the ones bracing the two larger, diagonal poles on each side. Those lower bars I could flip over quite gracefully thanks to gymnastics classes. When I grew tired of that, I'd find new ways to use the long, lonely bar that ran down the center. I mean, sure, I'd pull myself up on one side and pull myself along with my arms, feet dangling, till I reached the other side. A few times I'd try to flip around it, like the smaller bars, but Mom yelled at me that it was too dangerous since it was so high off the ground.

One day, one lonely only child day, I found an old yellow nylon rope in the shed. I tied one end to the swing set. At first I tried to Tarzan swing on it, but it just hurt my hands. After some thinking, I tied a hoop in the rope and put it out in the middle of the set. Satisfied, I climbed one side and shimmied out with my hands. The idea was to put both legs into the hoop and then my ass, you know, a swing. I got my right leg in with no problem. But something happened I hadn't foreseen: the rope slid all the way up to my crotch. My hands, already balmy, great sweatier with the anxiety. I couldn't get my leg out of the hoop and I couldn't get my other leg in. I couldn't hold myself on the bar with one hand because the bar was too fat. I hung there a moment, staring out over the river, trying to plan my next move. I glanced down at the circle of rope stuck between my legs. I had two options: let go, rack myself and fall to the ground OR wait until my little hands grew too tired and sweaty then rack myself and fall to the ground.

The other day Mindy and I bought bottle covers. We're going to use glass bottles, so these rubber covers make them easier to hold and less likely to break. We found them on clearance at Target, super cheap. It was a strange moment in the baby aisle. Mindy and I looked at each other, "we should get them, since they're on sale" I said. Mindy hesitated, the look of disbelief I've grown used to over the past 14 weeks. So, again I said, "Let's just buy them." "How many?" asked Mindy.

We didn't know.

It's really the first thing we've bought for the widget. We've received a few gifts here and there: a skeleton onesie, a hand me down outfit from a friend to get us in the mood.

We strolled around Babies 'R Us (a horrible warehouse of a place). There were diapers, thousands. I didn't realize how expensive they are. There were cleaning products, nail clippers for teeny, tiny hands. They had everything a human would use, except in miniature.

In the clothing section Mindy got a little teary and turned to me, "I'm pregnant." I know, babe. I know.

I found a little baseball jersey that happened to have the number 25 on it. That number means a lot to me, a whole history of Holzhausers and baseball and that number. I couldn't resist. Whatever that means.

So, just a little over 25 weeks to go until...until it all ends and begins.

I held on to that bar as long as I could. It felt like hours, years. I couldn't let go, just in case someone came by to help or something just in case I figured out the solution. I kept imagining how horrible that rope would feel when I slipped and all my weight would land straight on my crotch...and that thin nylon rope. I started to cry a few times, but told myself to shut-up, I'd put myself in that position.

When my fingers finally slipped, it happened. I came straight down on the rope and fell about three feet to the ground. I lay there a moment, assessing the damages. It was just a little rope burn, stinging the tender area of my very upper thigh. My hands were red and smelled like rust. I jumped up, laughed at the rope, pulled it down and went on and on and on.

As far as I know, no one saw me fall.

So This is Christmas...

2009-12-26T19:28:00.000-08:00

Mindy is sleeping beside me.

We're in a hotel in Terre Haute, Indiana. We've actually stayed here before...the Thanksgiving before last. We ate at the same Lone Star Steakhouse. It was better than it should be both times--probably because it feels like a date.

So, anyway, here's Mindy, right here. I wish you could see her: white tank top, bra, underwear. She wears a bra a lot now because her boobs are heavy and hurt her. I read in the pregnancy books that a woman's boobs can go from weighing 7 oz. to 24 oz. Ouch. And no thanks.

Last night I was watching Ghost Adventures on the travel channel while Mindy slept in the other hotel bed. It was around midnight. (we've been sleeping in separate beds and rooms because her snoring is so loud lately). I had an urge to crawl into bed with her. I pictured the peach-sized baby inside of her and felt mushy.

In my half sleep, I dreamt that we were having an ultrasound and we accidentally saw that it was a girl. I felt overwhelmed and warm and happy.

This morning Mindy told me she had a dream too: it was her first time seeing our child. It was a girl who was just old enough to walk. Mindy said she had her eyes and she felt so warm and fuzzy and mushy.

When people are offering advice and opinions to us it usually goes like, "Your life is going to change forever." The next thing we hear is: you don't know what love is until you have a child.

I'm usually annoyed by both of those. Duh. I know my life's going to change in huge, horribly wonderful ways. That's why deciding to have a baby is a big deal. I'll admit that I can't understand those ways yet, but I know they're coming.

And about the love of a child. Gross. And just shut up.

But this past week I've been with Mindy and her family. We see her mom not too often (since she still lives in Alaska). Mindy's relationship with her mom is weird to me. They kiss each other on the mouths. They hug a long time. They touch in ways I've never wanted to touch my family.

Last night I was sitting beside my wife, watching her mom stroke her back and look at her with watery eyes. At first I was like, "sheesh." Then I thought, like, this woman shoved this child out of her body. And for the last 35 years of her life she's had to worry about her. And love her.

This time next year, if things go as planned, we'll have a 5 month old baby.

Mindy will have created inside of her, a small human being. She will have endured heavy boobs, mood swings, nausea, hunger, and horrendous pain.

I'm really trying to ignore the snoring that wakes me every hour. You know, because she's growing a baby. I'm tired. I only know it gets worse after the baby comes along.

Mindy has a peach-sized human inside of her, sucking her energy.

And for all of that, the least the baby could do is have her eyes.

I Love it When You Call Me Big Poppa

2009-12-07T14:55:00.000-08:00

We are more than halfway through Mindy's 10th week of pregnancy.

Last Tuesday we had an appointment with the doctor. The real doctor. The woman who will deliver the baby. Of course, I've been going with Mindy to all appointments. But maybe that's not an "of course."

Every time Mindy goes to the doctor she has to pee in a cup (to check for proteins) and get weighed and blood pressured cuffed. No big deal. Twice now the nurse/doctor/whomever will not look me in the eye until she's asked Mindy, "and who do you have with you today?" Mindy says, "my wife/partner." Then, like a switch, I'm acknowledged, spoken to, though only about 10 percent of the time. Every other question and statement is directed at Mindy.

Last Tuesday was the big day. Or, one of many big days we'll be having. Let's say, one of the biggest so far. We'd heard it from other mothers that the dil-cam ultrasound might be done.

Mindy was directed into a room with a table and stirrups. Of course, there was lube and tubes lying out on the table near the sink. The doctor came in to talk, was very friendly, and then asked when Mindy last had her pap. As is turned out, she needed one.

The doctor left, and I didn't know what to do. I knew we were going to get to see the baby, so I wanted to be there for that. I didn't need to be there for the pap, though, and I had a moment of panic. Should I leave the room? Should I stay and act cool? What did the father usually do?

I stayed, but I took off my coat as it was getting very hot. Mindy said I should leave if I was going to cry like last time, but I promised I'd be tough.

So, I'm at Mindy's head while the doctor did the pap. I made a joke it was the first time I'd ever been in the room for one...when it wasn't mine. We asked the doctor if the husbands usually stayed for that part. She said they normally left the room.

I felt a little stupid.

But then the cool part came (except for the vaginal probing ultrasound). Within in seconds of flipping on the screen Mindy and I saw a little, teeny fetus. "Cool," I said. But when it started moving, and not just moving, but fuckin' doing the robot, that's when I said, "Holy Shit!"

The doctor asked what I did for a living. "I'm a professor...of English." She smiled up from Mindy's spread legs.

* * *

Like a good expectant parent, I've been doing some reading. Every week I get an email from babycenter.com telling me what size the baby is compared to a fruit. This week a kumquat, next a lime. Of course, when I signed up, I checked the box that said, "Father."

When I'm flipping through the baby books, there are little, if any parts directed at the other half of the baby. While at Barnes and Noble looking for books, I found 3 designed for men. One was called, "The Caveman's Guide to Pregnancy." I thumbed through. It was sad. If I were a man, I would've been offended. It had some recipes to cook when mom was feeling tired: pesto and pasta. In the back I found at least 10 drink recipes.

Oh, I know, it's supposed to be funny, and I admit that I smiled once.

Other books address the father like he's a little smarter, but not much. Tips I've read recently are "being nice to her since she's pregnant" and offering to massage her back. It's not until week 16 in one book that this "dad tip" pops up:
Do you have concerns that you haven't shared with anyone? Are you concerned about your partner's health or the baby's? Do you wonder about your role in labor and delivery? Are you worried about being a good father? Share your thoughts with your partner. You won't burden her. In fact, she'll probably be relieved to know she's not alone in feeling a little bit overwhelmed by this monumental life change.

Like it would take anyone 4 months to think of these things and talk about them? Or here's this gem at week 10:

Are you concerned about sex during pregnancy? You both may have questions, so talk about them together and with your partner's doctor. Occasionally during a pregnancy you'll need to avoid intercourse. However, pregnancy is an opportunity for increased closeness and intimacy for you as a couple. Sex can be a positive part of this experience.

Oh ok, here's a tip at week 5: Clean or vacuum the house without being asked.

Oh, and this one Ask your partner which visits to the doctor she'd like you to attend. Some couples attend every visit together, when possible. Ask her to let you know the date and time of each appointment.

Well, thank you pregnancy books, for those enlightening ideas. Men, be offended. Women, be offended. Humans: protest.

Listen, I've mentioned before that I feel like I'm at an advantage over dads. I'm a woman and have female parts. However, this advantage does not apply, nor should it when it comes to general care and maintenance of a relationship. If either man or woman doesn't know when to take over when a partner is feeling shitty, then I just can't see that relationship as working.

* * *

Now, listen up, people. One of the bad things about being a woman and reading these pregnancy books is picturing it all happening inside of you. I'm almost afraid of having an hysterical pregnancy from all of this reading. What I do know is this: it's worth the extra house cleaning to not have to have a human growing inside of me.

But again, another disadvantage is this: sex. As a woman...who (occasionally) performs oral sex on women (one specifically) I probably shouldn't be reading these books. I keep seeing words like, "increased vaginal discharge." Listen up, ladies. As a woman, I know what goes on down there, and because of my attraction to women, well, I don't want to say it again. But, I'm afraid that my giving of such services may be rendered null and void, especially after a baby comes out of there.

Guys, no matter how intimate you are with your ladies, I guarantee it can't get as close as another woman (and I'm only talking about physicalities) Like, you'll never have cramps, breasts (proper ones, not moobs) a vagina or vulva. (of course women don't usually have those things that you have, either)

God, so what I'm trying to say is this: ignorance is bliss. No, I'm trying to say: being a lesbian can be tough. No, what I really want to say is: oral sex should be illegal.

noNoNO, that's all wrong.

My point is this: I'm going to be a parent.

How to be a Lady

2009-11-19T07:29:00.000-08:00

Mindy is still pregnant. 2 months, actually.

The little embryo has already developed a beating heart; (s)he has little webbed hands and feet, the hands resting across his/her chest. (S)he is the size of a kidney bean, but already causing problems.

Mindy hasn't thrown up yet, but she feels like it...all the time. I've had to quit wearing perfume and burning candles around the house because the smell is too overpowering. She's eating less. Apparently, everything looks good and then she gets going and then feels pukey.

She's also really tired and tends to fall asleep around 8:00 on the couch. Though she was already a snorer, it's gotten louder. I'm pretty much setting up camp on the couch. I hope that doesn't last for 7 more months.

Thankfully, I'm off on Tuesday and Thursday, so I clean. I've pretty much been cleaning everything. Mindy's too tired to do anything when she gets home from work.

Other than that, nothing has changed. We haven't bought anything or fixed the house in any way. We haven't discussed names since before the baby was made. Except for the sleeping and nausea, everything feels normal.

Except for the waiting. Last night we just talked in the quiet of our house. The cats lounged around, totally unaware of how their lives will be affected in the coming months. They don't suspect a thing.

I suggested we start up our "date night" again, before we lose each other to the screams and diapers, to no sleep and coffee breath. The only problem is Mindy staying awake long enough for me to take her out.

No one has called us squealing into the phone. I mean, my family knows: all of the Holzhausers. No one has really said anything. Well, that's not entirely true. Last night my aunt Connie asked me to meet her at Hobby Lobby to pick out a baby cross-stitch quilt. When I first saw her, she hugged me and then started talking about her day at work, neighbors, the family, how she hated Wal-Mart for taking out their fabric section. I guess I was expecting more, so I said, "Can you believe that Mindy is pregnant?" She said something like, no, 'cause I thought you said you were going to have the baby...that you wanted a baby. I'm sorry, guys, but I've never said that I wanted to have a baby (come out of my body). I gave her my usual line, "You can't drink beer and play rugby if you're pregnant."

Again, she talked about herself and other random things. Minutes later I tried again, after I picked out the quilt pattern, "I'm nervous," I said. "Oh, you'll be good parents. You'll teach it..." (and here I thought she'd say how to love, how to be open minded, how to care)... "how to play sports, and Mindy'll teach it (and she pauses)...how to be a lady."

Yes, those are the two most important things to teach a child.

So once again, I realized how much my family doesn't get me. I was sad. And hurt. Do they really think that all I have to offer is athletic ability? What about my love of music? Literature? Films? What about my strong sense of self...you know, the reason I was able to get out of town. What about my intelligence? Love of animals? The way I love my wife. I guess sports is the most important trait.

And Mindy has more to offer than her fabulous hair and beauty mark, as you all know. She's smart and funny. Nurturing and tender. Spontaneous and loving.

My family has never taken the time to get to know me, either. No one ever asks me anything. Never my opinion. Never.

When Connie and I parted at the Hobby Lobby, I told her I'd see her on Thanksgiving. Then, I asked who would be cooking (since Grandma will have dialysis). She mumbled some things. I mentioned that I could be handy around the kitchen. That I was the cook in our house. I asked what I could bring. I got a vague answer.

I walked out, the rain spitting and the sky dark. An old man sat up against the building, his face was red from cold or drink. He was dirty. A dog curled on his lap. He was petting him and talking to him. Reaching into my pockets, I found nothing.

So I went my car, closed the door, and started to cry.

For Sale: One Unused Pregnancy Test

2009-11-01T16:39:00.001-08:00

Well, it's been a little over a week since we found out that Mindy is pregnant. Here's a picture I took of myself just minutes after I found out:

So, for a week now, we've known we're going to be parents. Our lives haven't changed much yet. All we've done is buy more fruits and vegetables. Oh, and Mindy quit drinking half decaf and now goes all the way. By doctor standards, Mindy is 5 1/2 weeks pregnant. The fetus (at least I think it's a fetus now) has a heartbeat...kind of. I know this because we've both subscribed to http://www.babycenter.com/ It sends us weekly updates of what's going on inside of Mindy. http://www.babycenter.com/6_your-pregnancy-5-weeks_1094.bc?intcmp=Nav_Global_MyBC_Stagepage&pn=BC%20Homepage That link tells you a lot. Mindy has been complaining about her boobs hurting and feeling heavy and lifting upward...she says. I've noticed that she's tired a little earlier. Oh, and she gets nauseous a couple of times a day.

My life is changing, too. On Thursday, while I was at a rainy rugby practice (with my cell phone tucked safely away in a car) Mindy called from the neighbor's phone to say she'd locked herself out of the house. Two and a half hours later, I check my phone and rush home. She has been sitting on the porch for nearly three hours. I know it wasn't my fault, but I felt badly about it.

And then Friday morning, we're getting ready for work. Mindy kisses me and shuts the door. I hear the engine rev in the truck and then I hear a smack. I'm in the bathroom and I run to the window, knowing what I'll see. The truck pulls forward, away from our car. The hood looks funny.

I run outside, pissed, but calm. "What happened?" I ask. Then, this thing happens, Mindy gets this look on her face, like a three year old, like she can't control herself. Her face contorts, she pulls her hands to her mouth and she starts crying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." And tears are rolling down her face, "I knew it was there. I saw it." I laugh and frown and look at the car, assessing the damage (it doesn't look bad, but it'll probably cost 1,000$). She laughs and cries and then really cries. I gathered her up and convinced her to go back in the house. She keeps saying she can't calm down.

You see, she has baby brain. The only experience I've had with this is a coworker, who, while getting out of our MoDOT truck, stumbled a little, giggled, and then forgot what she was saying. "Are you pregnant?" I asked. She seemed embarrassed, "How did you know?"

And poor Mindy was still crying, her hands to her face, "What if the baby is ditsy like I am?" I laughed and hugged her. She cried a little more.

I got her calmed down and she left for work. It was then that I cried. I stood in the kitchen and let some tears fall. And they fell as I drove to work, sipping my cinnamon coffee and listening to NPR. And they almost fell when I got to work.

I cried because it all hit me. I cried because I felt like I'd lost my best friend. I was devastated at the thought of losing the Mindy I know and love. I realized I had 8 months left and I hoped her brain got back to normal soon. Yes, my wife is sometimes wrapped up in her thoughts and she forgets things, but she's not silly enough to back our Tundra into our car. I kept picturing her crying in the driveway, " I wrecked your car," she had said. And her face again, that three year old deep inside of her, her expression, how crazy she looked. I felt alone, like I would have to deal with this the whole time. Like no one had ever done it before.

* * *

Since Friday, everything seems ok. I graded papers today while Mindy went grocery shopping (normally I do that). When she got home she said she wandered around lost for a little while.

* * *

I've been reading that damn website and parts in the baby book. It says that the "dad" usually feels like he's not really a part of anything yet, that while his wife's body is changing, he feels nothing. That's totally not the case for me. But, I'm not a man.

The other day in the kitchen, my arms around my wife, I told her I thought being a lesbian helped. I am a woman. I have a womb. Though there's no baby growing inside of me, messing with my body and brain, but I still feel closer to Mindy. Closer than what? Than a guy, I guess, though I hate to say it. I know what cramps feel like, I know what it means to have PMS, swollen boobs, the whole thing. You see, chemicals mess with my moods, too.

I hope Mindy doesn't have morning sickness. I also hope this wrecking the car episode is a one time thing. What if she were on the road instead of in the driveway?

I understand that right now the widget is the most important thing in our lives. I knew this would happen, but I didn't realize it would happen before he was born. I've heard everyone say, "Your life won't be about you anymore." I knew that. I still know that. In fact, quit saying that to me.

Mostly, I want my wife back. I am an only child, and I'm used to having her full attention. This little fetus is the size of a sesame seed, and already he's taken my wife and my best friend from me. He gets what he wants already. Mindy said one of her fears about having a baby would be that I'd fall in love with it, and she'd be number two in my life.

I never even though that he could get to her first.

Pee Test Day (#3)

2009-10-24T05:24:00.000-07:00

The truth is, Mindy peed on a stick again a few days ago...just in case. It was negative.

Still, though it was too early to test.

So, we made the decision that we'd test yesterday morning and that would be the first test where it really counted.

Mindy woke me up at 6:00 yesterday because she had to pee. For the ovulation test it's important to pee in the morning or some other time when your pee is more concentrated. Mindy decided to stick with the pee in the morning thing, I guess. Anyway, the light went on in the bathroom and I was still half-alseep, starting to write this blog in my head. It went something like this:

Mindy peed this morning and it was negative, but you know, I'm not too sad. After experiencing all the weird emotions that came with the insemination, it seems like I can handle it from here on out. In fact, it'll be nice to spend more time with just Mindy, maybe we could get a drink to........

"BABY, BABY," this shriek comes from the bathroom, "GET IN HERE NOOOWWW!" I run into the bathroom to find Mindy naked, this look on her face and she's staring at me and then pointing toward the bathroom counter. Still in a dream like stage of early morning writing in my head and sleeping, I look on the counter and see the pee stick. It has one very dark line (as usual), and one other line. The other line is not as dark. Mindy is still standing there, waving her hands around. I grab the instructions to read, "One line may be lighter than the other." I'm naked, too, you should know, hair all over the place. We just stare at each other for a while.Then she smiles. Then I smile. We stumble over words and laugh and get serious and laugh and get serious for what feels like hours. I hug her. She pushes me away and tries to read more of the instructions. I assure her that it is what it says. I say, "Get the camera."

So, there you have it, gentle readers. As far as we know, Mindy is pregnant. There, I said it.

Of course, I should mention that most women don't tell people they're pregnant until 3 months in. Mindy is in a high risk category because of her "advanced maternal age."

But, we're telling you all for a few reasons: 1. I can't keep secrets 2. Mindy will have to wear a special mask at work, so people there will know anyway...and then they'd say stuff on facebook and you'd all know accidentally 3. I wanted people to know how it feels to be gay and wanting to have a baby, to be gay and pregnant, or possibly, to become unpregnant.

Zygote Approves Uterus, Peace Talks Underway

Columbia, MO (AP)-Some time around 6 a.m. Central Standard Time, two lesbians were informed via urine intel that they would be hosting the nine month long meeting of sperm and egg and subsequent mandatory 18 years of economic, intellectual, and emotional support. When asked to comment, the lesbian playing the support role in the matter said, "It's awesome, but it's kind of like the last scene in "The Graduate." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9eIXN6Sp40

Negatory

2009-10-17T06:01:00.000-07:00

We cheated. We tried not to.

After Friday's trauma at the insemination, I couldn't stop thinking about Mindy's uterus. For three days I had trouble focusing on anything but thoughts about babies or no babies. I should add that I was Pms-ing during the insemination and that could be part of the reason I was so emotional. I was emotional all weekend, too, staring at Mindy's stomach, putting my hand on it pretending there was a baby in there.

For three days Mindy and I were certain she was pregnant. And somehow, this idea really turned me on. Normally, my sex drive is like, in neutral (or park), but I mean, she was totally the hottest thing on the planet for three days. (yes, again I realize it was p.ms. and the fact that she is the hottest woman of all time ever)

On the third day, Mindy texted me from work saying she felt crappy: achy, headache, thirsty, cramps. I googled them and found this website: http://www.twoweekwait.com/web/
So, I spent too much time looking at early pregnancy symptoms and convincing myself that was her problem.

On the fourth day, I was still turned on, but I could finally use my brain for thinking again, instead of obsessing. Mindy had a terrible headache. The website said pregnant women experience them when hormone levels change. Again, I knew she was pregnant.

But now it is day 8. If there is a little baby, it's the size of a pin head...and it's still trying to find a cozy spot to park itself for the next 37 weeks. If there is no baby, then Mindy should be drinking with me.

One of Mindy's coworkers told her she looked radiant and she should just pee on the stick now. I encouraged her to do it last night, (Yes, we realize that the hormone levels are usually too low to detect at this point) even though that's technically 9 days earlier than the doctor said to wait, and 3 days earlier than the pregnancy test said.

I was awaken at 6:30 this morning to the sounds of rustling in the bathroom. Then the light came on. I tried to pretend I didn't know what was happening. Five minutes later and Mindy crawled back into bed. "What are you doing?" I asked. "Pee stick." "And?" I said. "Negative."

There are two reasons this could be the result: Mindy is pregnant (the hormone levels are not high enough to detect yet) or Mindy is not pregnant at all. Not even a little bit.

Mindy said last night, "No matter what the stick says we won't believe it." I agreed, but told her to pee on it anyway. Just in case. But just in case what? Just in case...so we'd have an extra 5 days to prepare for a baby? so we'd see two pink lines and obsess about them for 5 more days until we really knew the answer.

I remember, as we left the doctor's office, he said, "If you're pregnant at day 10, you'll still be pregnant at day 17, so wait until then."

Before Christmas day, when I was younger, I'd sit under the tree staring at the presents, trying to lift the corner of the wrapping paper with my mind (though I knew it was wrong and silly) just to see if I'd gotten what I wanted.

Baby Daddy, #3912

2009-10-13T08:08:00.001-07:00

After much internal debate with myself, I paid the extra 17 dollars to see #3912's baby picture. This is him on the left. Yes, I'm serious. I also paid and extra 35$ to read his "long profile." It wasn't much more information than what I already knew, but it felt nice to have it. I printed it...for the baby book, I guess. For the zygote that may or may not be bedding down in Mindy's fluffy uterus.

I thought I'd give you some more information on me in man form. Here's what I know of 3912:

#3912 was born in Rock Springs, WY in November of 1982. He is currently 5'11'' and 160 pounds. He has fair skin with blonde hair and blue eyes. At the time of his donation (2006) he was in graduate school for Film Studies. His high school GPA was 3.7 and his undergrad was 3.8. He majored in Psychology and Film.

He has many strengths, he writes:

Mathmatical ability: Relatively strong
Mechanical ability: Strong
Athletic ability: good (varsity tennis in high school and runner in college)

He's played the viola since 5th grade.

Artistic ability: Extremely strong. He considers himself and exceptional writer/thinker, but only a strong visual artist.

He loves to read, write, and watch films.
He's a vegetarian. His favorite color is blue. He grew up with four dogs.
He studied at Oxford and would love to go back.
He claims to be easy-going, highly intellectual, introspective...and a terrific sense of humor.

His goal in life is to become a highly respected film maker and fiction writer. He says that a donor is purely biological; parents are people who truly nurture the life of the child.

His mother teaches English to Immigrants. She was born in Pennsylvannia.

His father is the VP of an Insurance company. He was born in New Jersey.

His sister is very athletic and is majoring in Neuro-psychology. She was born in Texas.

So, this is the DNA that could be mixing with Mindy's right now. Or, this could be the DNA that couldn't convince Mindy's egg it was worthy.

Bringing Home Maybe

2009-10-09T14:31:00.001-07:00

At three o'clock this afternoon we were in the doctor's office...waiting.

By 3:15 we were in a room, Mindy with her pants off...waiting.

By 3:30 the doctor and an assistant had come into the room, looked at me, the assistant said, "you must be (pause) the other half," (and I said, "the spermless half") spread Mindy's legs, speculumed her, swabbed her cervix with a gauze, and injected 16.9 million sperm into her unterus. She said it hurt. I felt her squeeze my hand.

By 3:32 the assistant and the doctor had left the room and told Mindy to lay there for 15 minutes, "You've come all this way and spent the money, I figure it won't hurt, " he said.

And then it was just us.

So, Mindy got mushy and wanted to hold my hand. It was then that I felt a huge lump in my throat and my eyelids start to burn. I cried, but I wanted to fucking sob. I can't really say why. I cried and Mindy got worried. And at first she probably thought it was a good thing, but soon realized I was not crying out of joy.

And then I felt like an asshole. Here was my wife, her pants still off, lying on some sterile table (a terrible painting of flowers on the wall). "Are you grossed out?" I finally asked. "Kindof," she said.

I tried to compose myself.

The truth is, I cry every time I have to go to the gynecologist. Not because it hurts, because it does slightly, but because...and here's the reason I don't really know. And that's the reason I cried.

When I was 16 I had really bad periods. They'd last for 10 days. Bloody as hell. Curled up on the couch painful. Mom and I talked to the doctor and the only suggestion was birth control. I came out not too long afterward, and then Mom, it seemed, was forcing me to go to the gynecologist.

So, I was 17, a virgin, never planning on having sex with a guy, when some nurse practitioner stuck a cold piece of lubed metal inside of me. I kept my cool then. But the car ride home, Mom driving, I cried, and Mom just kept saying, "Oh, it's not that bad." And that was the only thing she said on the way to the place, too. "It doesn't even hurt." Like, I was just supposed to be ok with the fact that some person I didn't know was going to touch me that way for the first time. Like, any girl is just supposed to be ok with that.

And here's Mindy, my beautiful wife, and some old man I've never met, and some assistant with too much make-up on her leathery sun tanned skin. And he's like,"Is this your first insemenation?" Like, you know, it's just something that everyone does. He said, "I see you work at the vet hospital...have you done inseminations before?" And Mindy joked with him and so did I. I said, "she held the vibrator for the bulls." And we laughed. At the time I thought it was funny. We all did. The assistant piped-up, "We just had a lady in who worked on a farm...she said she felt like a mare." Mindy agreed that she felt like a mare. I looked at the floor and tried not to imagine how a gauze against my cervix would feel, or a long tube pressing into my uterus.

But it was over quickly. I think he said good luck as he left.

I cried on the car ride home; Mindy kept trying to comfort me, but I told her to just leave me alone. I knew she was worrying about me, about if I regreted it already. It had nothing to do with that.

But I thought, as cars rushed by on I-70, how clinical it all was--just like I expected it to be. How I had nothing to do with it. How, not only can I not have a child with the person I love, I can't even marry her. I can't even have rights to the kid without thousands of dollars and paper work. How people sometimes think I'm so tough and all I can do, right now, is just cry and cry about all the unfairness in the world. About how traumatized I still am. About how, at this very moment, Mindy had to go back to work, and some man's sperm (16.9 million) is swimming around inside of her. And we have to pretend that this is how it goes. That this is how you all have done it. That this is what we wanted from our lives. To be excluded and marginalzed. To have to pay $150 dollars up front at the window before the procedure can begin, when we've already spent $1,720 dollars on sperm.

When all some people have to do is make love. Have sex. Fuck. Whatever it is happens to be the moment you do it.

Now, I just sit here on the couch, waiting for my face to unswell, to unredden, to dry. And Mindy works at saving some dog's life while, maybe, just maybe, there's a life growing inside of her.

Because you might be interested in this...

2009-10-07T08:35:00.000-07:00

Mindy started taking Clomid some days ago. Technically, she started it on the first day of her period, because that's what you do. Clomid is a fertility drug and we decided to use it because it has very little side-effects or risks associated with it.

So, we're pretty sure she's ovulating.

Tomorrow afternoon we will go to the doctor. She will do an ultrasound. But, of course, it's not the normal kind. It's more like a probe. It's what our friend nicknamed, "The Dil-Cam." The doctor will check to see if Mindy's folicles are open. If they're at 8cm, it's go time.

While visiting with close friends this weekend, Chris asked me to call him right before the insemination. I was happy to see he's interested and so caring. I sipped by beer, "Will you call me before you and Shannon have sex?" We all laughed.

Yes, I'm blogging about it, but it hasn't happened yet.

And I'm still wondering what that call might sound like:

Dude, ok, we're in the office. Mindy's all up in some stirrups. Ok, the doctor has this tube. Ok, she's looking at me like shutthefuckup, and now Mindy's, like, frowining....Dude. Yeah. Ok. Ok. Thanks. Uhhuh. So, I called. OKOK bye.

Two Weeks, Too Weak

2009-09-28T06:10:00.000-07:00

Well, the sperm has been ordered. In case you're wondering, I'm not even sure if it's our first choice.

While I was away for rugby this weekend, drinking and acting like I was young and single, Mindy was at home buying a book on lesbian pregnancies and ordering sperm.

The sperm will be at our clinic on Thursday. It'll probably be at least 2 weeks until we need to use it.

TWO WEEKS.

In two weeks I could go from a carefree, married rugby chick to a worried, lesbian mom. It's too crazy for me to even comprehend. If Mindy gets pregnant, it's all our fault. I mean, that's a life altering event that we chose. If we aren't prepared, it's our fault; we saw it coming. I can't believe we've made this decision.

Now, I know that when a woman gets pregnant, she's not supposed to tell people for three months because a lot of shit can go down in the first three months. But, since I'm writing this blog for you guys, I promise to tell you as soon as I know and parents and close friends have been notified.

Go ahead and ask If I'm ready. I don't know. I don't fucking know. If Mindy was my age, I imagine we'd wait a few more years. Just a few.

We're in debt. I don't have health insurance. Mindy says our house is too small.

But people have had babies for thousands of years under the same circumstances. But, I guess it was all on accident. If we fail as parents, as providers, we are scum because we made the decision to bring the baby into the world. Jesus. Into a world of war, global warming, hate, hate, hate, pollution, over-crowding, and overeating. Of ipods and text-messaging. Of Brittney Spears and Taylor Swift. Of greed and reality shows.

Of wonder.

What's in a Name?

2009-09-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

Not long after the last update, and not long after Mindy started getting depressed about not ovulating, I received a text right before rugby practice, "The stick is purple." I sent back a smiley face. What else could I say?

With that, the baby name conversation started up again (we both have a favorite name--they're both unisex if we say so--but of course, I like one and she likes one). One of the problems with finding a good name is that this kid will have my last name. Go ahead, try to think of a name that sounds nice with "Holzhauser." No matter what, that name just doesn't roll off the tongue. The kid's middle name will be Jacobs so, by default, that kid may be called (insert letter of first name here). J. Holzhauser. AJ, BJ, CJ, DJ, EJ, FJ?,JJ, KJ, LJ, MJ, NJ? OJ!?, PJ, RJ, TJ, VJ (sounds Indian), ZJ (that sounds cool,right, but then that kid will be named Zelda or Zach or ?)

So, all that stress aside, we had a phone conversation with one of the RNs who works at the sperm lab. It's all part of ordering the sperm. She asked Mindy some question about her health, if she knew how to track her cycle and take her temperature, all that stuff. I listened on speaker phone. The lady, Ingrid, (Ingrid Holzhauser?) was very friendly and really sounded like she lovced her job. I know that sounded sarcastic, but I meant it. She was totally cool.

Part of getting sperm is signing a contract that if, god forbid, we had to do in-virto and Mindy made a lot of eggs, and we donated those eggs, we'd have to let the sperm place know. Apparently, the sperm can only go to 20 different families. That's part of the contract that we must sign. I'm glad there's a limit on how many families can be made with one guy's sperm. I mean, evolutionarily speaking, it's the best way to go to spread your seed, guys. But, again, we have to sign a contract for sperm.

At the end of the conversation, Ingrid asked if we had any questions. We didn't. Then she said something really nice, like, "I really hope everything works out for you and your partner. And please let us know when you get pregnant (part of the contract) and please let us know when you have the baby (part of the contract), and we love when people send pictures so we can hang them up here on our bulletin board. We're always so happy to see those little babies."

With that we hung up the phone. Mindy got mushy and I tried my best to hide all the thoughts I was having about little (X) Jacobs Holzhauser. How (s)he'd look like Mindy and be bitter like me, how (s)he'd look when I put him/her in little rugby shirts and skeleton hoodies, how Mindy and I will be proud, hippy parents, how, like my parents did to me, we'll tell the story that starts with, "We wanted you so badly..."

Sperm, Sperm, Sperm

2009-09-03T13:52:00.000-07:00

We were gonna give it a go this month, but we thought it was too late to order sperm. Instead, we bought an ovulation kit and Mindy's been peeing on a stick for at least two weeks now. So far, it says she's not ovulating. Or, she's not having some hormone surge that usually means ovulation.

Yes. I have picked out sperm. I had to list my top 5 choices. And I should mention that buying sperm isn't that easy. You have to register with some clinics (150$) and then have your physician sign some forms and fax them in. Of course, you can also have sperm sent to your house in some crazy frozen container (there's a deposit on that container and you have to return it within 30 days) with instructions and a syringe. The fine print said if the syringe isn't in the pack, just use a turkey baster.

My top five choices are as follows:
1. #3912 The Irish/Israeli/Ukrainian Guy who has an MFA in Film and wants to make documentaries.
2. #5579 Norwegian/Scottish/Irish athlete who teaches high school and considers himself to be artistic, laid back, calm, and funny.
3. #5761 Australian/Irish/Scottish guy who likes reading, traveling, and world politics.
4. #4072 English/French/Irish loves films, music and traveling
5. #4276 A French Canadian who considers himself to be logical and athletic.

All of these guys have blonde hair (either light or medium) and hazel or green eyes. Again, what does one even look for in sperm from a man she's never met and will never know?

Meanwhile, babies are everywhere. One of my closest friends has a two month old. My very good German friends are 3 months pregnant. Mindy's coworker is being induced today.

Mindy asked what we'd do if she isn't ovulating. I said we'd talk about it when we were sure.

I know. You're all just pointing a finger at me. Yes, I have ovaries and a uterus and as far as I know they do what they're supposed to.

I have tried, in the past months, to picture myself pregnant. Let me say this: Sperm is gross. I shouldn't be so harsh. I'll try again: Sperm is completely foreign to me.

Only in porn have I ever seen sperm. The closest I've been to it is when I'm talking to some guy, but you know, it's still neatly tucked away in his body.

I have never touched sperm, nor have I seen it in real life. I have no concept of its texture, smell, and yes, I'm going to say it: I have never tasted sperm.

By design, I find it gross. It's something that's alive. It shoots out of a man's body. It swims into another body, pecks away at an egg until it finds its way inside. Now, all you ladies out there who prefer guys, even some of you have admitted your disgust, or at least, apprehension of these little swimmers and the fluid that surrounds them.

I find babies in bodies creepy. They are parasites.

So, to picture myself pregnant I have to picture myself with my legs spread wide in a doctor's office. I have to imagine what it feels like to be speculum-ed. I have to picture my uterus and a tube reaching all the way into it. I have to picture millions of wiggling things I've never seen before living in my body. I can't do it.

On top of that, I have no health insurance, so why even toy with that notion?

And here's a gross fact: "unwashed" sperm inserted directly into the uterus causes cramping.

The Aftermath

2009-08-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

We got the rest of the results of Mindy's bloodwork back a week or so ago. Everything is normal, so she was feeling pretty good. So was I.

But then, a few days ago something happened: Mindy did the math.

Now, when we started on this venture I said something like, "I'm not paying tons of money to get a baby when others get them for free." I stick to that. At first I thought this process would cost us 15,000-20,000 dollars. No joke. But after I figured it up, it only turns out to about 2,500. So, these few weeks, I was expecting this amount and envisioning we'd put it on the credit card. No big deal.

Let me show you the costs, though:

$500-$590= Cost of sperm from a man who has a masters degree and is willing to be known. This cost is per widget, per vial, per one visit with porn mag and plastic cup. One insemination.

$190= Cost of shipping widgets of sperm.

$150=Cost of the doctor spreading Mindy's legs in those horrible stirrups and using those medieval devices to put said widget of sperm into Mindy's uterus.

$0-150=Cost of "registering" on some websites so we can pay them more money for sperm.

So, that equals about $1,080 for the first shot. Each month after that would be about, let's see, $740. These are liberal estimates, you know, worst case scenarios. Basically, it's like having two mortgages for however many months it takes for Mindy to get pregnant.

So my wife hadn't considered this until the other day. She got weird and angry. She, at long last, was the bitter one in the relationship. I didn't like the role reversal.

Her plan was to use 1 of the 3 local donors=$200 per widget, no shipping cost, and no registering fee. That does save money, but this guy was not willing to be known. Also, he's 23 and probably goes to Mizzou. eeeewwwww. If we had that baby I'd worry every time I walked downtown, past the Field House, he'd be the one with his khaki shorts, frat shirt, white hat on backwards, beer raised and yelling at passersby. I can't live with that.

Mom and Dad came for lunch today. As we sat on the porch, Mindy asked the hard-hitting questions. "Do you want to be grandparents?" Mom said, "If you want us to be." To which Mindy relplied, "Faye, that's not what we asked. Mom said yes. And then I turned to Dad. "Yes," he said, "I'm gonna be straight with ya." Dad will make an excellent grandpa.

We discussed the cost with them, and of course, Mom said, "Do you need help?" As if they haven't helped me enough. I mentioned that a PhD man's sperm is about $100 more per widget. Dad shifted in his chair, "Well, there's a lot 'a people out there who are book smart, but ain't got no common sense. There's a lot 'a people who are dumb and have smart kids. It doesn't make a goddamn bit'a difference if you shovel horse shit in a tunnel or go to college. You just never know."

Dad imparting his wisdom to our son or daughter= Priceless.

Me, If I Were a Man

2009-07-25T19:10:00.001-07:00

There's not a lot of new stuff to report on the baby front.

Mindy has had her blood drawn several times for what seems like thousands of tests. So far we've learned nothing except that she's not a man, as the doctor hinted, and she's HIV negative. Duh. Ok, the doctor didn't hint that Mindy was a man, what she said, by looking at her arm hair, was that she possibly had too much testosterone and perhaps polycystic ovaries. Since then, I keep asking Mindy if she's found out if she's a man or not. If she was, well, things might be a little easier. She's not. As it turns out, she just has dark hair. Like other women.

As I've mentioned before, we have to pick sperm. Mindy told me it was all my decision. I was a little weirded out, thinking that I'm probably already seen as "the guy" in the relationship by those who don't know us well, and I didn't want to perpetuate that stereotype by doing all the sperm pickin' by myself. But, it's kinda cool/fucked up if you really think about it.

I've always wondered what type of guy goes to the sperm bank and says, "I'd like to donate." It's weird. I've tried to put myself in his position...but I can't. A woman donating an egg is painful and much harder than masturbating and aiming at a cup. In fact, I'm not really sure what the process entails, but I do know that when I touch myself, eggs don't fly out of me. That's one of the reaons I think some guys donate; it's fun and easy.

No, I don't really think that. These banks ask you lots of questions, it seems. These guys have to write an essay, answer medical questions; they're asked to profile themselves. It's not that easy. So why do it? Money. But really, how much money can a guy get?

I've narrowed my choices down to a few...I think. Basically, I'm trying to find a male version of myself. Anyone can search these sperm banks and I encourage you to do so. It's fun. It's weird.

So far I think I'm an Irish/Israeli/Ukranian man with an MFA in film studies who considers himself artistic, extroverted, and emotional (rather than rational). I prefered the German/English/Scotish writer whose essay said, "to be honest, I'm doing this for the money." He checked the boxes that said, "athletic, extroverted, and rational." But he has a medical thing that doesn't jive with Mindy's body...other than his penis, I mean. I should mention that both of these guys are around my age.

I keep having to ask myself the question, "who am I?" I search for blonde hair and hazel eyes. The only other requirement is that the man if WTBK "Willing to be known." This means that if our child was interested, his information would be sent the kid when he or she turned 18. It's perfect (for me) since I'm adopted and I needed the truth. I want my kid to have that option.

But really, how do you narrow yourself down to a few checked boxes? How do pick the other half of Mindy's baby? It's weird, I know.

And I know, even if I pick some athletic dude with blonde hair who loves to write (yes, he exists), the kid might be just like Mindy. And I also know that it wouldn't matter if I pick a 6 feet tall black man who teaches Business. Because I know from experience that whole nature vs. nurture thing. I know my sense of humor and sarcasm and attitude come from Joe Holzhauser. I know my neuroses, silliness, and need to overfeed people comes from Faye Holzhauser. My bad teeth, high metabolism, and blonde hair come from Rhonda, my biological mom. My brains came from her too, but my ability to apply them (or not) came from Mom and Dad.

I can't control anything. You could make a baby with your partner and that kid could look like your great uncle so and so. That kid could be missing an arm, or brain cells. It's all one big risk, right?

So, I'll leave you with this: me, a guy I'll never meet, the possible other half of the baby that will grow in Mindy's body. A mystery. A risk.

http://www.pacrepro.com/index.php?main_page=donor_short_profile&DCode=3912

The First Appointment

2009-07-06T13:35:00.000-07:00

At one this afternoon Mindy and I ventured into the Infertility clinic. Mindy was weighed and measured...including her waist and hips.

We talked with the doctor for quite a while. Or I should say the doctor talked at us, wrote things furiously on the paper and didn't laugh at my jokes.

Here's what made us sad and need drinks:

She said at Mindy's age the chance of getting pregnant every month is 15%. If she takes one form of medication it might move to 20%. If she does something way more drastic it could improve to 40%. But as I understand, those are the drugs that make people have 8 babies. 8 Babies bad.

Then she pointed out that Mindy had dark arm hair and suggested she had elevated male hormone levels. There's a test for that.

Of course, we should probably test to see if her fallopian tubes are open first. That involves spreading your legs, getting speculumed and then injected with stuff and all of this happens under an x-ray machine. The doctor said "invasive" and "intensive." Words I don't like. And I told the doctor.

Then, of course, she asked me my age (29) my family history (i'm adopted) if I'm on medication (nope) and if my periods are regular (I told her the Mayans built their calender based on me). She smiled. Kind of.

She suggested we consider "switching carriers." Something, I assured her, we'd discussed already.

She named so many tests, you guys. So many drugs she could give us to get things going.

But I don't like that. I don't want Mindy pumped full of drugs. I don't want her legs spread every few weeks for weird probings and tests (though she says she doesn't mind). I don't want the doctor to keep looking at me.

So, I came home just now and turned on the t.v. for a little relaxation. Dr. Phil is discussing teenage pregnancy. What should the 16 year old do? Abort? Give for adoption? Keep it?

And now I'll get bitter: I can't fucking stand it that that little girl A. had sex and B. got pregnant. And now she's on a fucking talk show like, "oops."

Mindy and discussed for a moment what happens if she doesn't get pregnant. What if she wants it so badly and I don't? I don't know. I'm not crazy about getting a baby. I told my ladywife that I would put in minimum effort to get pregnant. I guess Mindy took this to mean if we had a baby I'd put in minimum effort.

That's not the case.

Let me tell all of you that if Mindy got pregnant I'd do whatever I had to do plus some. The point I was making is that I don't want to spend millions of dollars on this. I also don't want to invest myself emotionally. What fun is it to come home crying once a month? I don't want it that badly.

But Mindy might.

Right now everything seems bleak.

Simple Math: Two Lesbians + Sex= 0

2009-07-01T18:10:00.000-07:00

I want to share this with you, because it seems, more than anything, it's the one thing in my life that makes me feel the most vulnerable. It's the unspoken word that clouded my late teen years and now haunts me into my late 20s. Over the past 12 years I've watched this word's meaning change. Gay. Before my time it meant happy. When I first used it it meant homosexual. Now my students use it to mean "stupid, " (i.e. "that shirt is so gay").

After twelve years of repeating this word, explaining what it meant to me (and what it didn't mean), I've grown used to it. But now there is one place where I find myself turning red and hiding behind it.

It's the at the doctor.

Let me just come out and say it: Mindy and I are going to try to have a baby.

So far it hasn't worked. I mean, the normal way. We have sex. Nothing except intense pleasure and cuddling. After that, maybe a sandwich or a Popsicle. Never have we gotten pregnant.

Mindy went to her doctor on Monday to say she wanted to get pregnant. The nurse asked, "how long have you been off of birth control?" Mindy replied, "I'm gay." The nurse, not hearing her asked again, to which Mindy said, louder, "I'm gay!"

The doctor was saved the trouble, of course, and read it on the history before she entered the room. Mindy said she would like a referral to someone who specialized in pregnancy.

Today there was a huge letter in the mail from The Center for Reproductive Endocrinology and Fertility. Stuffed inside were two pamphlets, "Evaluating Infertility," and "Treating Infertility." Both pamphlets are a faded blue color, both bear a heterosexual couple: one couple is walking down the beach holing hands, the other couple is staring into space hopeful, yet sad. Like they just realized it was Sunday...still the weekend, but almost a workday.

These pamphlets aren't very helpful unless you don't know what masturbation is or how men have penises that ejaculate semen. It's crazy. Did you know the semen carries the sperm to the cervix!?!?!?! What's a cervix you may ask. Don't fear, it's all there in the pamphlet.

Listed are some of the most common causes for infertility: Problems with ovulation, blocked fallopian tubes, quality of sperm.

But there's one I see missing: Homosexuality.

Ah yes, the 'ole lack of sperm (or in some cases, lack of an egg and uterus). I wonder why the doctor didn't happen to mention to the infertility specialists that our problem might be, well, we're scrotumless.

Also in this fat envelope is a questionnaire for the male and female. Mindy's filled out the female spot. And now I'm left wondering what smart ass thing I could write in for me. We have four pages of family history to fill out, but I know that mine doesn't matter at all, you know, since I won't have any genetic say in the baby. Some questions for the male are, "when you were a child, were both testes descended into the scrotum?", "Do you have any discharge from the penis?", and my favorite, "Do you feel that some of your ejaculate is deposited in the vagina?" I'm not quite sure how to answer those.

I've never wished to be a man. Ever. I have wished that I liked guys enough so I could make a baby with one, but he'd have to have it. I just never saw myself as the maternal type.

I wish that one night Mindy and I could get frisky, one month later she'd notice something that should be there that wasn't, and then we'd tell the family the news, "We had sex and this time it wasn't just fun, it was productive!"

The conservative redneck in me thinks we shouldn't try to have a baby. Not because it's not God's will or whatever, but just because it doesn't happen in nature. I know that some species have same sex couples who try to raise others' kids and eggs, and I might be better with that if I wasn't adopted.

This is where it gets complicated. I can't even imagine a tiny being who looked like Mindy. Or myself. It just occurred to me yesterday that I could have a baby and it would look just like me. Adopted kids just don't think like this. So, I'd like to adopt. But, I'd also like to see a little Mindy. Of course I'd love to see a mix of Mindy and myself, but that's impossible. And even if it was possible, I just couldn't do it. I'm too much of a hippy, a naturalist, I think.

And though not a fan of following the Bible (or any religion) I wonder if I'm supposed to have a kid. I'm gay, maybe I'm one of the lucky ones selected out of the hassle of soccer games and cleaning up puke at 3 in the morning. Maybe I'm one of the chosen. But I think of all the people who can have babies. Like, all those 14 year olds, meth heads, 96% of the people who scream at their kid at Wal-Mart, that fucking octuplet Mom. They can all have babies. Easily. Accidentally. So if they can, by gods, so can we.

And now I'll leave you with this:

Of the four pages of family history we're to fill out there is the column titled, "VI. History of Fertility Therapy." Underneath there's a column for the male and female where one can check the boxes that correspond to tests that've been performed.

-Prolactin
-Testosterone
-Ultrasound
-Endometrial Biopsy
-Hamster Egg Test