Update: Baby on the outside! All 9 lbs, 7 oz of him, as of 7:22 pm PST, Thursday January 18th, 2007! Sunny side up, the little bugger! Ma and jumbo baby both radiant and eating like horses! Stand by for pictures and stories, in that order, in due time!
Amor vincit omnia.
[Amanuenses: annz & KIABIL]
Miracle of childbirth ongoing, followed by appropriate period of reverential quiet. Regularly scheduled programming will resume in about a week, presuming all went well. Brace for yet more baby pictures and breathless enthusiasm about how incredible birth is, and how in awe I am of my beloved for doing it two times, on purpose.
‘Cause it’s all interlude these days, ’til the little brother exits the barcalounger to end all barcaloungers, his ma’s cushy, plush, fuzzy dice-bedecked womb.
Herewith, the lil’ monkey’s monolog yesterday, for the indulgent parents that find a way to enjoy the Dadaist, stream-of-consciousness ramblings of toddlers:
We’re going in the rain.
It comes down.
And you can swim in it.
And you can sprinkle on it.
And you put little jackets on it.
And you put little sprinkles and the –
You put little –
And you put little socks on your feet. Like this. [As pictured above.]
And you put some blocks in your hand. Like this.
And you put hair on your head.
Ma asks: Does your hair get wet?
Lil’ monkey says: No.
Ma: Your hair doesn’t get wet?
Lil’ monkey: You have to put on a rain hat. And you put on a sweater. Like this. [Again, as pictured above.]
Ma: What do you put on your feet?
Lil monkey: Lotion. You rub it in.
And you put some stain mover on your sweatshirt.
Like this. [See image above.]
And you squeeze it.
You put little –
You swim.
You put little ice cream on your frozen yogurt.
And a little –
And you buy frozen yogurt like this. [Look. Up there.]
I’m done talkin’.
[Can't find a toddler around the house, but jonesin' for some more surrealist fun? Get yourself a copy of A Book of Surrealist Games, compiled by Alastair Brotchie.]
Bayard Rustin in 1965, by Stanley Wolfson for the World Telegram and Sun, from Rustin’s Wikipedia page.
[Warning! Another jumbo post alert!]
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day
Oh deep in my heart
I do belive
That we shall overcome some day
Thus go the lyrics to the single most emblematic spiritual of the Black Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. It provides the opening soundtrack to this video of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s best known speech. (The page includes audio, video, and the text of the speech.) On the day finally set aside to celebrate Dr. King, his stirring “I Have A Dream” speech in front of over 250,000 that day usually symbolizes the apogee of his life and work.
But as any student of both King and the Civil Righs Movement will tell you, his oratory and activism spanned a vast range of issues, anti-war and anti-poverty among the most readily overlooked by those who would white-wash his contribution to American social justice struggles. Often overlooked as well, and not accidentally, was the contribution of the Gay African American man who was the Deputy Director and chief organizer for the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Bayard Rustin.
In a September, 2003 Nation piece entitled “From Protest to Patronage,” Randall Kennedy reviewed historian John D’Emilio’s just published Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin. Preceeding the review is a thoughtful survey of Rustin’s contributions over the years, from his early work with A. Phillip Randolph to his advising of a young Dr. King in Ghandian strategies, to his being ostracized from movement work by “sexual blackmail” on the part of Adam Clayton Powell, to his reemergence as the principal architect of the historic 1963 March on Washington:
He lined up the support of the major civil rights organizations, many unions, an ecumenical roster of prominent religious leaders and scores of celebrities (including Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, Joan Baez, Sammy Davis Jr., Joanne Woodward, Sidney Poitier and, yes, Charlton Heston). Rustin methodically addressed nitty-gritty details involving transportation, policing, toilets, housing, food, medical care, trash disposal, entertainment, etc. He calmed the jittery nerves of supporters who feared failure, overcame the objections of President Kennedy, who feared disorder, and mollified egotistical civil rights leaders who suspected that rivals would reap greater benefits than themselves. Bringing to bear skills he had honed for decades, Rustin set the stage for a massive display of support for the civil rights movement as some 250,000 people converged on Washington on a workday–Wednesday, August 28, 1963.
Kennedy continues to describe Rustin’s move to the political center in the years following the March, and his taking up, in the final decades of his life and with some reservations, the cause of gay and lesbian liberation. In a much-repeated 1986 statement during a talk to Black and White Men Together (or BWMT), he said that “the barometer for social change is measured by selecting the group which is most mistreated,” and that now “the new ‘n_ gg _rs’ are gays.” This statement may sound validating to some, betraying to others.
I myself am disinclined to make direct comparison between oppressions, finding analogy is as close as one ought to venture, and then primarily as a means of comprehension. But when comparison is what one’s up to, the genocidal Middle Passage of Africans to America, two hundred fifty years of chattel slavery, and another hundred years of de jure discrimination stand alone in North American history. Yet for better or worse, a sanitized version of the BWMT statement now sits near the top of the Wikipedia entry on Ruskin, and for those whose knowledge of the man derives from E-Z online searching, it will become a defining statement. At least he is not alone among civil rights figures in drawing some connection between the two struggles: Coretta Scott King has been outspoken for quite some time (Mombian notes as much here; here’s another compendium on hatecrime.org). Dolores Huerta and Julian Bond are present and accounted for as well:
Solmonese: How do you see our fight for equality — whether it’s in the workplace or in our everyday lives — as compared with the great civil rights movement that you and others ushered through in this country?
Bond: Well, I think with minor, minor exceptions, it is an exact parallel. A couple of years ago, I was in Seattle and this white guy came up to me and identified himself as a steel worker and said he was so grateful to the NAACP. I said, “Why?†He said [it was] because the NAACP had filed a suit against restrictive seniority rules that privileged white workers, and it dis-privileged him. He was denied the chance to promotion on his job. But the black NAACP fought the fight for black workers, and the benefits were felt by white workers like him. When the black civil rights movement wins an advance, it isn’t a black advance. It is an advance for all people. Everyone moves forward. Everyone takes another step. That’s true with gays and lesbians; it’s true with Hispanics; it’s true with women. It’s true with all of us.
——————
In the spring of 1993, nearly thirty years after Rustin’s triumphant March on Washington, I visited the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for the first time. It was the Friday night before what would be the largest all-lesbian March on Washington, an event which itself preceeded the huge April 25 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. (The smallest crowd estimate for that march, by the National Park Service, clocked in at 50,000 more than the historic 1963 march. Attendees knew it was something like three times as many.) An ad hoc planning meeting of Lesbian Avengers from various cities had just finished, and I needed to make a pilgrimmage to the site of King’s speech in the quiet of the night. In college I had found myself by working with an interracial student group which sought to continue King’s legacy, and had steeped myself in study of the Movement.
I am not a weeper, generally speaking, and as of then — before my mother died, which she would do that fall — I had never been moved to weep by something as abstract as a place, symbolizing a thing. But in the chill of the evening, when most of the visitors in town were at parties or planning meetings or both, I walked half-way up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, turned to face the Washington Mall, and could not help but weep. I wept for the collective power of so much hope, of so much determination, so much love, all expressed together. Wept to think — no, to feel — that I might be able to be a part of that, in some kind of way, in my own lifetime.
At the time, my field of vision encompassed racial justice, gender justice and, now LGBT civil rights. I was over a decade away from my parenthood. Had no idea who would be dying in my life, who would hold my hand through those deaths, who was yet to be born. Didn’t realize how much more powerful my own hope and determination and love could be, when turned toward the bright light of young lives in my care. I do believe however that that night, I realized — or felt, finally — that Ghandi was right:
It is the law of love that rules mankind… Whether humanity will consciously follow the law of love, I do not know. But that need not disturb me. The law will work just as the law of gravitation works, whether we accept it or not. The person who discovered the law of love was a far greater scientist than any of our modern scientists. Only our explorations have not gone far enough and so it is not possible for everyone to see all its workings.
Lil’ monkey observes our Walking Goddess midwife in action with the electronic fetal monitor. “Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!” goes the heartbeat!
[Warning! Jumbo post alert!]
For all the phenomenal work of the birth mum, it really does take a heap of loving people to help a baby into the world. In our case, Team Baby has consisted of equal parts midwife, doula, loving family, and friends. And since we are still circling the proverbial airport, I have some time to show my gratitude by trumpeting their fabulousness below.
Meet the midwife.
Based on our felicitous experience, everyone needs a midwife. I’d almost say everyone needs our midwife, but I get the feeling she’d probably not relish a national / international workload. Too bad, though. Because if, during active labor, she told my beloved to get on all fours and bark like a dog, not only would my beloved do it, but so would I. So would anyone who overheard the directive as they passed by the birthing room.
It’s not because she’s a pro domme (none of my business if she is!); it’s just that she knows her midwifery, and that know-how radiates from her, becalming everything within a block’s radius, including rabid dogs and parking meter-readers. She’s like a wizzened ship captain who’s been around the horn more times than the sailors on the boat have been around their favorite bordello. (Where the heck did that come from?! Well, it can’t be helped. I’m in a pre-birth tizzy fit that is unlikely to abate ’til Junior makes his appearance).
Lindy began her practice over twenty years ago as a home birth midwife, aka a Direct Entry Midwife, or DEM (a term I gleaned from Pregnancy Today’s glossary, a useful reference for the arcane birth-related vocab one encounters along this journey). Then she was among a small group who pioneered midwife-assisted hospital births at our local hospital, making her a Certified Professional Midwife, or CPM. Berkeley midwife Peggy Vincent wrote about this milestone of midwifery in her memoir Baby Catcher, a must read for anyone planning to pop one out. Spiritual Midwifery is a favorite of many, too; either book provides rich descriptions of scores of births, some easy, some hard, all captivating. Lindy stopped counting the number of babies she’d caught at a thousand, and reckons by now the total is in the range of about 1,200. Yow.
We met with Lindy monthly at the outset of the pregnancy, and then weekly as of the eighth month. As a result, when we go into the Big Event, we all know each other, and most important, my beloved trusts her. The strongest belief Lindy has is that the female body knows what it’s doing. So, in yet another demonstration of the grace and omnipresence of paradox in the world, her trust in my beloved is nearly as important as my beloved’s trust in her.
Meet the doula.
For the first birth, in addition to working with the most awe-inspiring midwife in the Pacific Standard Timezone, we were fortunate enough to have received the support an incredible doula, who has since become a friend. My beloved’s brother and his wife paid for her services as a gift to us, and I highly recommend this as the number one most indispensable shower gift anyone can bestow upon first-time birthing folks — well worth coordinating the multiple sponsoring parties it ordinarily would take, since they are a tad costlier than a pastel-colored onsie. Basically invite forty people to the shower, focus them all on this one gift, and all will be well. [Here's something on doula.com about the range their fees can run, and what they do.]
Candace came to our house, explained to us all about the kinds of things to expect from childbirth, physically, emotionally, even procedurally at the hopsital. She asked us what kinds of experiences we wanted to have, and advocated for them each step of the way. She was on the other end of a phone in the days leading up to the Big Day, helping us distinguish between productive but not active labor contractions. When the time came, she was at our house and kept not just the laboring mum, but more importantly me from hypervenhilating and fainting, before driving us to the hospital and our midwife.
While my beloved wanted to go it sans doula this time, we did have her come by and give me a pep-talk, and she’s willing to be called for any last-minute phone-based advice (me: “Heeeeeeeeeelp!”, her: “Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!”)
Meet the family.
This time around, Team Baby includes the beloved’s mum, the storied lesbian feminist she-wolf I lovingly refer to as my mother out-law (owing to the fact that her relationship to me at this point is not legally visible, and in the course of her lifetime she has probably broken as many laws as she’s observed). Support staff on the night shift of Team Baby are our downstairs neighbors the Know-It-All-Brother-In-Law, aka the KIABIL, and his wife. He drives their van; she stays home with their kids + our baby monitor and/or our kid. En route, I attend the birthing mum; mother out-law attends us both. My sister, visiting from Norway, is crowding close behind as back-up on kiddle care.
We are lousy with family on this, and we know it. And why not? It’s just too wonderful an event for them not to crowd around and help out on. The more the word gets out on all this fun, the quicker familial homophobia has got to wither. Really. I have to believe that this chapter of the LGBT civil rights battle will be characterized by a new motto, “An army of loving grandmothers (and uncles and aunts & etc.) cannot fail.”
But I digress.
My beloved and I had elected that our first birth be between just us, our midwife, our doula, and attendant sprites from the sweet hereafter. But the mother out-law wanted to be there so bad I was sure she was there anyhow. My memory of the periphery around the birthing bed was hazy, but I could swear there was a suspicious looking orderly mopping up the corner of the room when our lil’ monkey was crowning. Had I been less riveted on the miracle of bloody, vernix-slathered life coming out of my beloved, I would have been tipped off by the surgical mask hiked up to here, and the wool socked-, Birkenstock-shod feet peeping out from below the baggy green scrubs. Some nice chap was probably thrashing around in a broom closet somewhere, duck tape over his mouth, in his skivvies. Poor schmuck. Another hapless male victim of second wave radical feminists.
This time she’s along for the ride the whole way. A longtime Buddhist practitioner, she has pledged to step back and do tonglen whenever the going gets dicey. Otherwise it’s hot towels and shaved ice and back massages. Plus whatever the birth mum might need, too.
Meet the friends.
Friends and well-wishers from afar, both old and new, both corporeal and virtual, have shared this process with us. In so doing they — and this includes you, gentle reader — have made the “us” a far richer “us” than the tiny one described by our (not so) nuclear family. I might have guessed this before, but now I know: writing about extended family and love and community online actually does ricochet back in the form of an online community of extended family love. Wow. And thank you.
After we return home from the Big Event, we will be showered with chow for nearly two weeks by members of our extended family of local friends. Loving attention will be vital to our lil’ monkey during the immediate wake of her brother’s arrival, and when the beloved or I have to spend what we have on him, these people will be heaven-sent.
It should not go without being said, finally, that it was a friend’s generous contribution of that loving cup o’ sugar, as it were, that got each of our kids jump-started in the first place. For this (and this sumptuously beautiful account of it) we are blessed beyond belief. A good seven years before we conceived our first lil’ monkey, my beloved and I knew our ideal included her birthing one, maybe two kids, using a known donor. Ideally a friend. Ideally one who was already a father and therefore contented with an avuncular, rather than paternal, connection to our bairns. The only thing sweeter would be if such a person came to us via my friendship network (thereby making my role a vital one). Oh, wait: sweeter still would be if such a person came to us as a volunteer. Which, via one of my oldest and dearest friends, he did.
What a tidal wave of love carrying us. What an ocean of love. This is what everyone who pursues this kind of birth journey deserves. We who are blessed with it savor every droplet, and wish like droplets to rain upon whosomever is thirsting for ‘em.
… and speed-vacuums everything you just vacuumed last night.
Original photo credit: The Windgrove Center, Tasmania, AU.
In celebration of the 100th post, part seven in a ten-part series.
Around here, we answer the phone with the preface “Baby on the inside.†Thus, in a sing-song: “Baby on the inside; hello.†Not that friends and family wouldn’t expect to have been informed somehow or another that the baby got himself on the outside. But for some reason, since he dropped into ready position several weeks ago, and he’s already way bigger than the biggest bowling ball any amateur would want to bowl with, it is a matter of widespread bamboozlement that he’s still snacking on the inside. But I’d be doing that if I were him. It’s a Caddy in there.
Meanwhile we try hard not to devolve into staring alternately at the clock and the belly, lunging for the hospital bag every time another “Braxton Hicks†passive labor contraction comes along. Instead, I try to keep focussed on these
Ten things to do whilst waiting the sweet eternity for baby #2 to emerge:
1. Anything the obscenely pregnant mum wants; anything at all. Repeat when necessary. Mutter passive-aggressively under your breath if the request seems unreasonable, but do it anyway. Because being this pregnant is unreasonable. She is within a stone’s throw of a nine month-long ascent of Everest, and you can’t blame her if the thin air is making her brain do funny things. You may find yourself hallucinating, too. Be kind to yourself, and then SNAP OUT OF IT! Look at her! She hasn’t been capable of seeing anything south of her belly button for months!
2. Arrange care for kid #1 for the duration of your time away at the birth and afterward. But work to make peace with the inevitability that no matter how seamlessly you try to ensure that her routine will be undisturbed, bringing home a whole new person – who, much to her dismay, will not be returned after a trial period – is going to be anything but routine. Adjust your seatbelt and enjoy the ride.
3. Attempt to do absolutely every backed up repair job (a.k.a. “honey do†jobs) around the house. Call in every favor you can with every handy friend you have, if you got ‘em (both favors and handy friends, that is). Then give up on fixing everything and settle for the three things your sweetie is most likely to notice over the next few months.
4. Arrange for food delivery from friends and family for at least a week, maybe two following the birth. The upside of this is, you have the opportunity to introduce your fresh baby to friends and family, but not all of them on the same day. We had “latching issues†with kid #1, and were so stressed out about it that we really could only handle an hour at a time of anyone’s company after we left the safe haven of the hospital.
The idea of a self-imposed house arrest was an idea we got from the childbirth education class we took in anticipation of our first little monkey; we did it then and were massively grateful for every hour of peace we had as a new trio. For a body recovering from the major event of childbirth, it’s a medical necessity. For anyone properly in awe of the arrival of a new life, however it finds its way into your home, it’s an emotional necessity.
5. Rummage around and find all the little bitty fresh newborn paraphernalia that you packed away when kid #1 outgrew it, get all teary and nostalgic and hum “Sunrise, Sunset†from Fiddler on the Roof as you slowly unpack it. [Thanks to The Heavenly Harpist for her rendition of this classic.]
6. Arrange for the first supply of diaper deliveries if you’re doing cloth, or go get a bunch of the disposable kind if you really despise Mother Earth and want her to die a slow, miserable death smothered under tons and tons of non-biodegradable diapers. If you are going the cloth route, try to conceal from your eco-chums that on kid #1 you threw cloth overboard after a year and a half, opting instead for chlorine-free, bio-degradable, free-range paper diapers simply because they’re so gosh darn convenient.
7. Write down the phone numbers of everyone you’re going to call from the hospital with the good news (presuming it’s a hospital birth, and of course presuming it’s good news). Before you put the list in your wallet, laminate it if at all possible, just so’s not to leave any obsessive-compulsive stones unturned. Because what if you forget your cell phone (presuming you have one)? Or what if you remember your cell phone and it forgets all the numbers? Anything can happen, people. You may even forget your fingers so be prepared to dial with your nose or a pencil held in your teeth.
8. Go get a double stroller on Craigslist, or eBay [oops! never mind! check this out], or some place sensible. Whatever you do, don’t go to some bourgeois baby boutique and pay retail, just because it’s more expedient and you and the Big Missus are going stir-crazy waiting for the kid to come out. You’ll totally regret it. That is, unless you get an orange Phil & Ted’s baby buggie that pops into a dozen different two-kid configurations and drives like a Beemer, man. Meep meep!
9. Get a haircut, dude! Because you are soooo not doing anything but wall-to-wall childcare for six weeks after the birth, and by then your hair will be all huge and Shaun Cassidy-like, at which point no matter how adorable your newborn is, you will pray not to be seen by friends out on the street.
10. Appreciate your remaining time together as a trio. This first kid has been gently drawing your parenthood out of you for the past two plus years, and nothing — aside from coming out, or falling in love, or living through the deaths of loved ones — has changed you so profoundly. Look into her eyes, and the eyes of your beloved, and give thanks.
Voting open 'til Feb 19, 2012.
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