O Pioneers

For most of my friends here (whether peers or younger than I), 20 years ago was still a time of carefree youth. Peter and I were among only a handful of people in our group of friends/family who made the decision to marry and procreate whilst in our early 20s. We were the youngest sibs in our families, but we birthed the first grandchild on both sides. Peter was literally fresh out of college...he was by far the first in his class to become a father.

These decisions were not made by us momentously--that is to say, we were still carefree enough to see our marriage and life together as a flow, and we just went with it. We started out with the proverbial nothing, and added to our early days of frugality was the sudden responsibility of caring for my grampy, who came to live with us two months after the wedding. We learned as we went along in every way, because we really didn't know anyone else dealing with the circumstances we faced. Grampy was experiencing physical hardships that required a lot of supervision; Peter had to bathe him and help him get up from a sitting position at times, while I had to cut his nails and hair, clean his dentures, feed him, clothe him, entertain him (a lot of "Golden Girls" and "Murder, She Wrote"), and generally help him understand why our roles were suddenly tipped over after decades of the reverse. His mind was impaired in unpredictable ways--he knew who I was, and who Peter was, but he couldn't recall why he had had to come live with us, and was mortified that his handwriting had been impaired enough that I had to pay his bills for him. I would be writing the check for his Blue Cross payment, and he would be sitting alongside me saying, "Here, now, what are you doing that for??" and I would say, "Grampy, you can't write just yet, remember?"

(As if I knew anything about Blue Cross, back then. Talk about baptism by fire. Don't even get me started about the Medicare snarls, the hospitalizations, the desperate attempts to keep psychotropic drugs off his doctors' prescription pads...)

But let's go to the happy place of that retro era. The place where, at age 25 and juggling this brand-new hybrid household, I was surprised to find myself pregnant. Only surprised, in hindsight, because I'd staved it off so well during my wild college years, yet when Peter and I thought we'd experiment with not staving...well, kerwango. I stood alone in the kitchen with the telltale stick, Pete's laughter echoing on the porch as he left for work, and Grampy still waiting for his breakfast (not to mention, an explanation...that was delicate). I had no other family within a 500-mile radius. In fact, we had only lived in that house--our first real rental--for a month-and-a-half. After getting Grampy situated, I went across the lawn to my next-door neighbor's house. Her name was Fran, and she was a 60-something mom of 4 boys who had the least flappable demeanor you can imagine. An oasis of no-nonsense womanhood, and none too fussy about housework, all of which endeared me to her.

Fran and I sat down at her '50s metal kitchen table and perused the Ellsworth phone book to try and figure out who the OB/GYNs were nowadays. We chose a doctor and I made the appointment right there, on Fran's rotary wall phone. Having Fran's company and advice on that bewildering day was everything. I stumbled home in a daze to call my mom and deal with reality.

No Internets, my pets...we are talking retro days. In my usual way, I obsessed about what the heck was going to happen to my body, myself. Lacking health sites to peruse on a glowing screen late at night, I was left to take long walks to the local bookstore, where I ruminated on all the books on pregnancy and childbirth as I stood in the aisle. This was an extravagant purchase for us back then, so I had to be choosy. Ultimately, I decided on three books:

--Dr. Spock, mais oui (and did that ever get a workout).
--Sheila Kitzinger's Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth--because she had given birth five times without drugs, and she said labor felt like standing in front of an oven door and having sudden whooshes of heat and sensation come over you. Plus, her week-by-week descriptions of gestation were stellar.
--some 1980s-era, first-person motherhood narrative that was like having a knowledgeable older friend whose writing style you liked.

I needed so desperately to know what all of this was going to feel like, what were the potential complications, was I going to be able to breastfeed, and how could I make sure I wouldn't get drugs during labor (in 1989, midwifery and natural childbirth were still not the norm). Those books were companions that I read, reread, and read again for months.

Aside from these concerns, Peter and I were faced with clothing a baby and setting up our household on a single starter-level salary. That was the era when credit cards were fairly easy to come by, so we began our lifelong tango with debt and repayment. Nevertheless, money was still very tight, so we became connoisseurs of rummage and yard sales. Every Thursday we snagged the Ellsworth American and the Bar Harbor Times, heading straight for the classifieds. Our objectives were actually trifold:

--check to see if we could find a better house rental
--check to see if there were any jobs for book editors or writers (ummmm, no)
--review the listings of yard sales

This latter exercise was the sole means by which we became familiar with downeast Maine. Starting out first thing on a Saturday morning (and without GPS), we would clutch a map and compare it to the two-line sales ads, plotting out a logical circuit from one sale to the next. Obviously, we sought sales that specified baby clothes and goods; fortunately, there were many of those. Those early spring forays are burned into my memory...meeting other families, sorting through cardboard boxes or pawing over long tables in a church basement, and assembling everything we could have needed for our baby-to-be. I can still remember where I bought well-loved items that went on to be worn by all four Reifsnyder babies. I was (and am) firmly of the belief that a good hot water washing and drying will take care of almost anything and make it wearable, and most of the sellers had taken good care of the stuff, anyway. Pete and I also benefitted from generous friends and co-workers who shared bags of clothes with us--not just for our first baby, but the ones to follow. We were blessed in every way.

I look back on that era and recall that my overriding emotion was wonderment. Peter and I found ourselves in the land of New, as surely as if we had taken a covered wagon to get there. Behind us were urban childhoods, elite high schools and a prestigious college. I swear to you that neither of us regretted pushing forward into this spousal, parental, semi-rural lifestyle, and though we never discussed it as such, we fashioned our own way of living and parenting that has endured for 20 years.

When Zoë arrived, the light in our lives got brighter. We never stopped venturing out and learning; we just added another passenger who was just as curious as we were. Both Pete and I adapted to baby tasks in that flow-going way, and Zoë helped immensely by being about as even-tempered and manageable as a baby can be.

I Expected

I'm at work on a winter Saturday, which means I'm basically alone and idle. Additionally, this means that I am Web-surfing like a fiend. I just had a sojourn at people.com where I stumbled onto a photo gallery of pregnant stars, starlets, and unknown star-spouses. (The title hook: "Who's Next to Deliver?") Click the mouse: new photo, another sideways-view of a magnificently rounded womb belonging to a beaming celeb (very few of whom seem to have gained the kind of poundage I did at that juncture).

Prior to the People pregnancy parade, I'd been at cnn.com reading up on the famed octuplets lady of California (who now finds herself a single mother of 14, living at her parents' house. My mind boggles.) That article prompted me to check the Duggars' website--in case you haven't heard of them, their 18th was born in December, in a televised special. They rushed that birth show to broadcast, and I'd noticed that Michelle Duggar--the indefatigable mumma, whose spirit and serenity I admire--seemed in physical distress during and after the C-section that brought her and Jim their ninth daughter. I've been wondering if all is well, but their website lacks updates since that time.

Soooo, motherhood's on my brain again. Specifically, the contrast between starlet pregnancies (conceived in households of too much plenty, with mumma's tummy concealed in designer cling, and baby's togs similarly priced out-of-reach) and the regular-Jane pregnancies of the rest of us. People does a disservice, perhaps. Pregnancy is hard work. Sometimes dangerous, and possibly even ill-advised. Don't even start me about the economic repercussions.

Issues of pregnancy still feel immediate and urgent to me for a reason: I got pregnant in September. I know, what are the odds, right? Just launched an all-consuming business, with four kids (one of whom we had just sent off to college), and seriously, I'm 44 years old. Saturated with changes already. Nevertheless, just after Zoë left home, some teasing symptoms arrived, unmistakable and strong. I am pretty much an expert when it comes to the subtle shifts and signs that nudge my brain into counting back and wondering if something might have, um, happened.

When I saw that diagnostic second pink line on the test stick--assertive and sure--I was impressed that my middle-aged physiology could piece together the logic of pregnancy, assembling the hormones and rallying the troops, as it were. Truly, I'd been convinced I was deep into perimenopause, well beyond the fertility gate. But along with the amazement, I was wrapped in a muted bewilderment, a veil of disbelief that did not clear up until mid-November. That was when the OB--a kindly, encouraging man--wielded an ultrasound wand and showed us on a flickering black-and-white screen that my egg--see the sac, there?--was not actually viable. The sac was a tiny, empty space...a vestige. Not a surprising circumstance for a woman of my age and in the early weeks, so my response was, basically, "Mmmm, uh-huh. Yes, I see. Yes. Um, thank you."

In between the pink line and the vestige, I will admit that I had plunged into this experience far more enthusiastically than I'd expected (and, truthfully, more than I knew was prudent). My pregnancy seemed to repudiate the recent losses I've suffered--namely, Mom and my best friend, D.J. I felt triumphant to have unwittingly generated a new life with Pete, exactly nineteen years after we had done so with Zoë. It was like an oh-ho! to (and from) the universe. Moreover, now that my genealogical family tree is completely filled in--with a passel of ancestors who bore children in their forties, I might add--I felt like my lost loved ones were alongside me, awaiting news.

Physically, I recognized the shifts instantly, and basked in them. Craved cereal and oatmeal and milk, saw my figure boosted (ahem), indulged my tiredness as much as possible, and started changing out the tight jeans on my shelf for the ultra-comfort ones. Queasiness and digestive sluggishness plagued me, but I could live with that ::: braaaaap ::: . Been there, done that plenty. I adjusted my sleeping position for heartburn and started silent communications with the fetus inside, willing it to be strong, welcoming it to my inner world.

Before I saw the OB in November, I'd been impatiently 'net-searching on a stream of keywords: midlife, pregnancy, perimenopause, spotting, progesterone, levels, 5 weeks. Let me tell you, the Web is jammed with voices of moms experiencing every possible symptom and the accompanying waves of emotion and fear. They pose vexing, plaintive questions and other moms find their messages somehow, answer them, or share similar experiences in fellowship and comfort. I never posted anywhere or interacted with anyone, but it helped me immeasurably to visit those cyber rooms and eavesdrop on scores of conversations. I learned a lot about what can go wrong with a middle-aged pregnancy, and about the daily hurdles that many women surmount to bring a new life into the world. 

I knew full well that a 44-year-old pregnancy was practically miraculous, so feeling it coming to an end was a little less poignant than it might have been if I wasn't so blindsided in the first place. Of course, I already have four sweet children--with four birth stories to match. And I never had such doubts shadowing me during any of those pregnancies. This time, I couldn't throw off the black cloak of worry--until I miscarried.

It took awhile after the OB's diagnosis for the actual miscarriage to happen. I'd been spotting pretty much the whole time, but our childbearing machinery must be hardwired to hold on for success against all odds...it was blunted to the signals of non-viability for much longer than I would have anticipated. But I was equally fascinated by the unceremonious reversal of those familiar symptoms that caused me to reach for the home pregnancy test in the first place. One day you're subconsciously guarding a bump as you squeeze between a chair and a bookshelf; the next day your jeans fit better than they did before, and so does your bra. Just: over. 

I miscarried without complications. I went into an odd mini-labor at dinnertime, a few days before Thanksgiving. I found myself restless and irritable, and even a shower did not warm my clammy skin. And then I had a few stark contractions, which felt very strange: reminiscent of earlier pregnancies, and yet totally alien. One of the labor pains made me grip a chair as I stood in the kitchen. In hindsight, why was I so surprised? Well, the answer to that is simple: I had no idea what to expect. All the reading, all the worrying...I just didn't know. The OB had no advice for me, because it's different for every woman.

About an hour into the mini-labor, I delivered my non-viable egg intact, as well as the tiny placenta, then provided those to my doc for analysis. (The pathologist deliberated over some possible complications suggested by the samples...finally, a few weeks ago, those issues were ruled out. More Web-cramming, followed by a bigtime whew!)

As December began, I walked around emotionally numb for awhile, and then as the holidays cranked up, pulled myself into now. For awhile, my usual tears about Mom's unfair absence (typically prompted by music, which squeezes me in a vise of nostalgia and regret) mingled with spasms of mourning for a tiny almost-life, and for a cascade of emotions that I never expected to have again.

Today's Web deliberations signaled to me that I haven't lost that insistent inner voice that was really pretty excited about another child, another new experience. All the rounded stomachs I saw online made me keen, a little, with wishing and hoping. (Call it uterus envy.) But the realist in me read each of those celeb captions from a distance, and paused at the mom's ages. Read them, absorbed them. They are each younger than I am. 

I don't envy them their youth; I am happy with the stage I've reached. But I feel a funny tug, knowing that for a little window of time, I stepped back into their realm of fertility. Perimenopause has not overspread me yet. Regardless, as Peter said to me with evident relief as we drove away from the OB's office, "We're not going to do that again."

His cloak of worry had been cast aside, too.