Delivering when there is no baby.

I am sitting here in the maternity ward as we speak. Striped out of my clothes like all the other times I came to birth my girls. In a room that I am pretty sure I birthed one of my daughters previously.

Husband is in the lounger beside me and we can hear a new born crying in another room. It’s gut wrenching. I want to run to that room and hold that baby. Tell that mom her blessing made it. It’s a miracle.

They’ve put meds inside of me to weaken my cervix. And we now wait… she thinks I will unfortunately be here 8 hours til my cervix has fully let go….

And then it took me 3 days to come here and finish this story.

My best friend messaged me as I was writing and while she said I am thinking of you do you need anything; I typed do you think you could come here.

Here we were the 3 of us, Mike sitting now on the window ledge, Cindy my best friend and I journeying into the abyss that I learned was called Birthing a still birth. 4 hours came and went and I needed another dose. To be honest the whole thing was so insane, it had become comical. Our nurse kept saying vaginally wrong which annoyed and entertained us feverishly. We laughed more than any other person in the ward.

My doctor told us she purposefully put us in the more quiet room on the floor, we could hear the newborns whimper which hurt. I couldn’t tell you which room it was coming from or who the parents were; but I can promise you I uttered the words to my husband: that I would happily go to pick up that baby if the mother didn’t want to.

The aches from the meds progressed, it was strange not at all like the past few times, the pains were dull and long, eventually I got some Ibuprofen. All the nurses and the doctor laughed at me because I didn’t want anything stronger.  Then just before we did the 3rd set of the meds, I was in enough pain to ask to be put on some Percocet. The pain a bit more annoying. Continue reading “Delivering when there is no baby.” →

Mourning and Miscarriages.

I had this fun post about the new season and the new year that some cultures celebrate… but then tragedy struck our family.

We had our 20 week prenatal appointment, not much was thought to happen, we’d go and hear the heartbeat, talk about the dreaded glucose test and I waited to chat with her before I called in my 19 week ultrasound.

I went and waited my turn patiently got on the scale, 2 pounds up from the last 4 weeks, makes sense the girls were home for March Break so we were eating way more junk, staying up late watching movies and just being goofballs around the house. We chatted, I said is my belly huge, because everyone keeps saying it looks huge, she measured and said not at all… this is where it should be at this point. So she took out the audio monitor after doing my blood pressure. And she couldn’t find anything, we talked about how I hadn’t felt any movement yet, she said not a huge deal since I had scar tissue and by placenta had landed anteriorly (which I didn’t know what a thing til she checked my last Ultrasound)… and we couldn’t hear baby. She said man this baby won’t stay still… even told me to stop talking to see if baby would calm down.

Nothing much happened, she said listen can you just go for a ultrasound down the hall I just want a heartbeat confirmation. She didn’t seem much worried at all… why would she be, I was feeling fine, growing fine and I have 4 normal pregnancies before yesterday. 2 hours after being squeezed into an ultrasound, a tech saw me. She looked around put a ton of gel on my tummy and said I just need to call in the radiologist to confirm findings with you. He came in… stoic looking and said any bleeding, I said no. I looked at him and said:

“Just tell me, do you see a heartbeat, I’ll be fine.

He responded:

“I am sorry we don’t see a heartbeat.

I didn’t miss a beat, I had a follow up question like a robot who had never dealt with trauma and said:

“Ok, can you give a size measurement and I can figure out when?”

He obliged and continued with some more imagery and measured the baby’s femur. He seemed sad. I guess he didn’t feel like seeing a dead baby inside a human either yesterday. He measured and measured and said:

“I’m getting a 17 week measurement.”

I thanked him for being so open and honest with me. The tech had to take some more pictures to send to my OB, so I sat there as she finished the work she did. She was at a loss for words, I said: – do you see this often? Her response was: -Not often this far along.

I wiped myself off and walked out to the waiting room which luckily my husband had returned to because he had to grab our girls from school and drop them off at my mom’s since we weren’t too sure how soon my ultrasound would occur and I nodded No to him. He looked perplexed, I said No heartbeat, and walked out of the room.

Doctor was in clinic all day, I walked back into her office and I got to see her next, not sure if I got bumped ahead of the line, all I remember was leaving her office it was full, I wanted to keep it together, all these beautifully pregnant women in there waiting to talk about their babies, didn’t need to see the face of a woman who just found out she is pregnant still with a baby with no heart beat.

You want to know how hard it is to talk to your OB, the OB who has been the doctor to walk you through all your pregnancies, who helped force all your babies out because they were happy to stay in my womb for so long, my doctor called my womb club med. She joked at my Uterus genetic numbers, and said come on you still have a uterus of a 17 year old. She looked at me like, oh good, everything ok… and I nodded NO for the second time in less than 5 minutes. I didn’t want to utter words. I didn’t want to say it out loud, I just wanted people to know without me having to say it.

We walked into the room, discussed, I said:

Can you go in and just take it out of me?

She quickly responded:

No, you are too far along, baby has dense bones, and will need to be birthed.

Those might be the ugliest words ever said to me. I, who has a very hard time birthing, my body who doesn’t enjoy participating in my births will have to coax it to participate in a birth of a baby I will never get to hold in my arms, I will never get to bring home, I will never get to share with my girls.

I left with an appointment, an appointment to birth my dead baby. Like WTF? That’s a thing, it’s a thing some women have to do. Like we don’t deal with enough shit, add this to the list of things. This was my reality… this is what I will begin to process for the next 24 hours. Like somehow anyone can prepare to wrap around their heads on this matter.

It’s shit, it’s shit watching your husband become bewildered, it’s really shit watching your 11 year old and 10 year old just ball and ball. And feeling, well ok, you have to be strong for them, they need you now. I jump into that roll easily, always have. ME mourn, me feel sad, me feel an emotion other than just get it done; Rarely. But man I should. But I feel NUMB. I say that, because my tummy is in knots, my head aches and I feel absent of tears, because I feel like I am on the outside walking my body through this time. I want to punch someone, I want to kick myself, I want to hurt and I want to yell at myself for hurting.

Who am I to complain about miscarrying, I have 4 beautiful healthy children at home, safe, educated, smiling, loved. Why should I be lucky enough to have never lost a child in womb? Why would those be my cards? Others go a lifetime with never making one successful live birth, others have miscarriages between children.

But here I am still carrying a baby in my womb, with no heartbeat, I feel I have lost my heartbeat in the process. I feel like baby took my heartbeat with it. I may have been spoiled, but today I feel loss.

 

 

We are growing.

So by now many people are privy to the idea that our family is having a baby. Now lots of people have babies, not many already have 4 not so small babies at home when it happens.

We were a settled family of 6, we had 4 girls, a nice round number my husband use to say, as the many Chinese old ladies in my mother’s retirement building have informed me is a very lucky endeavor, 4 girls. We assumed that this was all it was going to be for us and we were happy. No boys, 4 beautiful girls who keep us on our toes.

And then like that SURPRISE.

Continue reading “We are growing.” →

Love, Valentine’s and all that matters.

Happy Valentine’s Day my friends.

Let’s talk about LOVE.

This is another hard one for me.

What do I tell you, how to be in a relationship for almost 22 years and married for 14 with 4 kids? How to weed out a bad suitor? How to keep the flame alive? What happens when you hit a love low? How to love your partner when you feel exhausted loving your children? How do I still have sex with the same person after all these years? How do we spice things up? How do I show my children healthy loving relationships between parents?

Truth is all those would make great topics but I would feel terribly disingenuous. Because no matter how contrived or heck, how perfect, I might answer those questions the truth is NONE of those matter.

I spent the majority of my life showing others a ton of love, making sure they felt loved so they could blossom and grow. And while I still do this mostly for a handful of loved ones and beautiful friendships. I have started to learn to love myself…

Women don’t often love themselves. And honestly I don’t think a lot of men love themselves either. But we spend so much time fluffing everyone’s pillow around us assuming the feeling will be reciprocated only to notice your cup has runneth dried.  Why do we as humans not feel like loving ourselves. And I don’t mean self-love like buying yourself a new pair of shoes, laying in a bathtub with a face mask… I am saying self loving.

When was the last time you praised yourself. When was the last time you stopped for a moment and said—-“I did good this week, I really cared for myself. I allowed myself to go further, to try harder, to sweat more. I am proud of myself. Good job you!” Maybe you do.  But do you mean it, do you try to convince yourself that you did good.

There are 2 versions of myself, the one who is a fierce lion and will rip you apart if you hurt someone I love or a concept I find truthful and fair. I like to defend the fair. But then if you talk to me about me I am the meek mouse who while I don’t blush feels a horrible sense of awkwardness. She is Humble Angie. I was raised to be humble Angie, it was important to my mom not to make waves, just to do without bringing much attention to yourself. So when big bad opinionated Angie comes out, most people see her and think wow she must be so confident. Humble Angie will laugh at you.

But then one day you offer yourself for Career day at school…. and your daughter wonders why you are coming, and you aren’t a big deal. Clearly because I don’t tell her I am a big deal, she barely knows what I do because even to my 6 year old daughter I don’t share my wins. She told me about the Librarian, the Janitor who came… and I had painted a picture of myself that was less than.

And then I did the presentation, and my daughters friends in class were in awe. My also meek don’t make waves daughter said nothing the whole time I was in the class and then we came home and she was now in awe. She was in awe because her friends in awe, she fell under the trap that she needed others opinions to see her mommy as pretty darn cool. I understand that most kids don’t register parents coolness until they are older, but her reaction taught me about how I love myself period.

I am still that 6yo. I never learned to love myself. I never knew how to toot my own horn for anything from how deep I love to how cool my job might be. Now I am not saying letting your ego get in the way, because when you wait for ego to kick in, the truth is you don’t like yourself enough that the Ego comes in and compensates and makes others uncomfortable making you feel superior.

I am talking about the pride, the pat on the back, the indulgence in the accomplishment.

When was the last time you did those for yourself? I ask because all the love you give, all the space you fill with your love will never feel like much success if you aren’t filling your own pot. And others can adorn you, and wine and dine you… but if you aren’t loving yourself or allowing yourself to be loved by yourself all that loves gets lost somewhere.

So today, on Valentine’s day… I want to remind you that no matter your circumstance and if your house is full of love, or not, none of that matters if you aren’t loving yourself to the fullest. Go love yourself a bit today.

P.S. I also recommend you following a crazy idea or dream you have in your head, because when you listen to your dreams, which come from deep inside your heart and you try to accomplish them; you tell yourself I see you, I hear you and I love you and your crazy ideas. Let’s go do this.

 

 

 

Stop Hating Me. – girls

I have had to calm the hell down before writing this and man will it be long, but I am not going to sugar coat this. But as a girl, a mother of girls… I just had enough. And honestly enough is enough. And while I usually don’t like to give parental advice because I am just a mom trying to do my best… this is NOT your best.1

In the last week I cannot tell you how many women I have heard complain about their daughters, complain about how hard it is to raise daughters, or how difficult daughters can be. I want to snap.

I don’t have any sons, so I cannot speak to ease that “sons” might bring to the table, but I watch the news, tell me what makes life easier to being a mom of sons. In light of stories that show up, boys are more likely to perform mass shootings in North American, men are having a hard time in sexual relationships because they have spent hours on hours watching porn as teens that they are suffering from erectile dysfunction in college, they spend hours playing War like video games and suffer from anger or onset PTSD behaviours. Also girls have a higher rate of graduating with a post second degree… but I digress.

But I am sitting in the hair salon and you paint having a daughter a problem because she wants to get her nails done or her hair done. You hypocrite you are sitting in the chair at the hair salon doing exactly what you are complaining about your daughter wants to do. How does that make her difficult? They are moody… no really!?!?!? Do you have a menstrual cycle, are you a peach during that time?

Let’s get honest about this. My daughters are varied in ages, I have 2 in the throws of puberty, I have a shy yet loud 7 year old and I have a socially awkward 4 year old who hates meeting new adults… like completely hates it. Do they take work? Of course they do. Do I think they are more work than boys? — hell NAW! Why; because what I think is women want their daughters to be easier than they were. And you don’t worry about your sons because he isn’t making much noise, so that to you, is a sigh of relief. Where your daughter is a chatty Cathy and you find it exhausting. But let’s be honest the only person who is off in this situation is you.

My father did this thing to me when I was 13, that plagued our relationship for years, he trusted someone who was family to believe I was not a good girl. And let me tell you I was a good girl with a ton of confidence and personal opinion. It took me over a year to shake the affect this opinion had my sense of myself and personally I hated my father for that whole year.

Your daughters know if you call them difficult, they don’t like to hear that. They don’t. And you are women, what is wrong with you, you are raising a woman, who needs to feel good about her personality, her characteristics, her qualms and her moods.

Do you know how many times I have heard “Ohhh I feel sorry for your husband during the teenage years.” I want to jump across the table and throat punch people who utter those words. Because Why? My daughters might have sex? My daughters will like clothing? My daughters will have opinions that vary from my own? My daughters will learn boundaries by trying to push them? — So tell me what your sons will do that will be different? Will your sons have sex? Will your sons want to own the things they think are cool that the other boys have like new game consoles or new Jordans? Will your son learn boundaries outside the home by pushing envelopes they don’t bring home for you to see?

silly girls

By all means, my girls are open books, I know every detail of their day, they come home excited to talk my ear off. 4 girls so that is a ton of talking may I add. But they tell me about boys, kids in their grade watching Pornhub, Grade 6s have sex pacts, Grade 5 girls who have come out as lesbians, grade 1 boys are loud and crazy obnoxious or the silly thing the little girl or boy did at the table during Junior Kindergarten class (I think this might only be an Ontario, Canada thing; Pre-K in the US). How is this hard? It’s not hard it just happens to be the reality to raising kids in this generation.

It has nothing to do with their gender either, they are not spared by the realities out in the world… my favorite is the non parents telling me what they feel it’s like raising a daughter. I will tell you something it is no better or worse that raising a son. I don’t believe my daughters are hard, and mothers who tell you they are is because they don’t want to deal. And maybe that statement will get me a ton of flack, but ladies if you think raising your daughter is hard it’s either because you don’t want to try or you ignorantly fashioned your own childhood into a figment of your imagination.

But I can promise you this, when you tell other women girls are hard they start to believe it. If your daughters hear you say they are hard to deal with, they hear you aren’t willing to try and trust me when you start acting like your daughter is hard work, she knows it. These are future women, they are their own futures and yours, and when you don’t give your relationship a fighting chance because you superimposed a belief system that your daughter was a doll you propped into position and there was no emotional work required it is you who came to this relationship blindly. (Also you better be feeding your sons emotional needs to, emotionally drained sons show signs of aggression or join new shit like Incels… please google it.) But most of all… don’t teach your daughters that women are against them, raise them up. Show them that you have their backs, no matter how frustrating their opinions are on certain subjects, you aren’t going to get along about everything, hey you may not get along about anything at all. But it’s your job to make her feel comfortable in her skin, make her not feel insecure or wonder if she is always wrong. She needs to come to you with decisions you may not agree on and know that at the end of the day she won’t be too hard to handle, because she won’t be coming to you if she feels that you feel that way.

So ladies do me a favour, stop calling daughters hard. Kids are hardwork, being a parent is hard work. Trying to do right by our kids is hard work. But the gender your child miraculously came out of the womb with IS NOT HARD WORK.

Worthy!

worthyI had a friend in high school who was much younger than me. We became friends for our mutual love and adoration for Catcher in the Rye. Now that my seem silly and mundane, but there are different people in this world, and those of us who love this book to a fault are a unique breed.

We stopped talking when I left high school, I found out he left too… he pursued other learning opportunities and I found him by fluke on Twitter eons later, whilst he moved to DC because he wanted to be in the stratosphere the White House with the first President of colour. We chatted and then he moved back to Toronto. And we talked all the time. He left and became so worldly, and his writing was so lovely, he became the friend you beamed with pride that you had in your inner circle, because he was so smart.

Well, my friend Sameer taught me 1 thing so long ago about the New Year, that resolutions and intentions need a grounded space. They need to come from a word perhaps. And every year I allow myself a word.

This year that word is Worthy. It’s a complex word. From a person who likes to give, I am the world’s best gift giver and yet I suck at receiving gifts… because I struggle with my own self worth. — Crazy but true, how does a loud mouth like me feel anything she is worthy of all the things that come out of her mouth.

But it is true. And this year, I will focus on my worth. I always felt if you felt any sort of worth your EGO was getting in your way. And how can one be humble if they feel they are worth much more than the next person. You’d think this was a hard lesson in religious upbringing but it’s not… my guilt is not Christian guilt… it’s poor Greek girl guilt but that’s for another post.

But owning a business and getting accolades and headlines printed with our name made me feel not worthy. Like no big deal, anyone could do it.

People will say:

“You have smart and kind children.” — in my head, oh stop I am sure all other kids are the same.

“You make gorgeous pieces of jewelry”— in my head, I don’t know. It’s just what I came up with

“Your design aesthetic is awesome”— in my head, ohhh anybody could do it, it’s not that complicated.

Why? Because I don’t accept my worth. But this year I am going to own my worth, I am going to toot my own horn in the most humbling way of course but nonetheless I will toot it. I will learn to be a gracious receiver and say Thank you and not be uncomfortable when passed a compliment. I will push myself to do things I don’t usually do and do it with grace and worthiness.

I am I will believe myself WORTHY because life is short and I believe we are all here for a reason, God, the Universe, Science, brought us here at the exact moment we came with the unique genetic make up that makes us our unique selves for a purpose and what that fruits is worthy of feeling pretty darn proud of.

So maybe my word will give you pause, maybe you too can join the WORD train. Do you have a word, if so share. I hope my word gives you reflection and direction if you don’t. But I’d love to hear your words.

 

New Year, new outlook!

Happy New Year!

Where does one start, 2018 was a mental excursion of pushing thoughts I may have ignored or didn’t want to come to terms with. I say this as a place of taking onus of all the things that occurred to me last year.

While my girls, grew and changed as well, all my girls are currently at school, which is new and different. We have no kids at home anymore… Woohoo! And they had birthdays and a bunch of firsts and tried new things, and so on. Watching them expand was not enough to push me out of the emotional state I was in.

Perhaps I was depressed, I wasn’t in the mind frame to call it that and never seeked any external help for it. I started the new year last year freshly healed from a huge surgery that changed my physicality in ways I could never imagine. I was optimistic. But it was a bad year for me, where I wanted to look at the positive the noise kept drowning all positivity out of me. The people I kept close ties with drowned me, I felt not good enough, I felt like I needed to be more, I felt judged, I allowed myself to feel judged. I gave all of my power away.

I was weak from things that happened, and I knew it. But I allowed the noise that others brought into my life to cloud my judgment, I wanted to be saved to the point I allowed others opinions and comments destroy me.

It has been 4 or so months now, that I have been grappling with my noise. I call it my own because there has been a ton of isolation on my end. And the noise is how I feel affected by other people’s actions. It’s noise that I allow to play in my head, I let it feed my soul in negativity. And I have talked at nauseum with it with various people. I have had people tell me to just let it go… which let’s be honest I am not a let it go person, I am a fix it person. I am here to fix it all, fix the problems, rationalize them to death, leading with a compass that good is better than evil. But this GOOD did me no good.

And then my birthday came, which it always does before Christmas, I didn’t want to do anything or want anyone around. I wanted to just be me and my thoughts and my girls. And my thoughts spoke to me.

Who am I but not a person of get back up and try again? Who am I but the girl who sees change as natural and human? Why do I not let myself be me? I like doing the unknown, I like testing myself, I am the girl most people say you have balls. You are brave. I watch you do things I would never have the courage to do the stuff you do. And the truth is I do it not because of some courage syndrome but because I have always been taught you make do with change, it’s not scary, it’s just change.

So 2019, bring it. I already have so much happening already that might be insane to people, or might make others ponder for years to come. But I have done this.

  • I ran for City Council.
  • I started a business while pregnant with baby #3
  • I flipped a whole house pregnant, then with a newborn in tow.
  • I took my 4 babes across North America, lived the California dream for a short time

I have done stuff, lots of stuff. I was not scared. I am no longer scared. I am unafraid. I am unabashed. I see 2019. I see it with all it’s might. I see that it could make or break me and I say bring it. There is a light and if it is not in that tunnel… I will be the light I need to light my own path.

Happy 2019!

lea
Lea on this date 2 years ago. Living our fullest before heading back to Toronto

Social Girl lost… now found!

I get a ton of flack from people I know about how much time I spend on social media. How much emphasis I give my social media accounts like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Today I have been on Twitter 10 years.

What people never understood is how much I owe to the power of the internet and the social media landscape. When I decided to try and understand why I wasn’t getting pregnant I found like minded women on Babycenter; these women now 12 years later are some of my best friends in the whole wide world.

Then it became Facebook. Which was fun, because I was connecting with the people I already knew but had lost touch with. All my school peers started creeping up and everyone became a click away.

And then I had 2 babies within a year of each other and most people don’t seem to understand the emotional or physical stress “Irish Twins” have on a person. I signed on to Twitter… I lingered for months and then I broke my arm with 2 babies in tow and could barely move and felt very alone. And one late night I logged into my twitter and I have been quoted saying it but…

Twitter changed my life!

But I was severely depressed, exhausted and lacking a decent shower. I got on and I finally was home. I made friends, tons of them. They encouraged meet ups, lunches, buttertart adventures and so much more.

A group of us became the Toronto Twitter scene, but I was now making friends in Vancouver, California and everywhere else. I had conversations with celebrities and start my blog Mommydoings. I was now being invited to parties, launches, meeting fashion designers and such.

And then I started my label and got off Twitter, didn’t think my big mouth was good for business which seemed so insane as I met my PR agent on Twitter. But I believed a narrative that didn’t meld with who I was and turned myself off.

Since returning to Toronto I felt alone again and needed to connect… and Twitter came calling. It was fast, so many people not as connected as the first time I was on there but slowly and surely I started finding others who were also slowly creeping back to the most conversational platform out there.

While Instagram is fun, I don’t get to be concerned about my neighbours, my fellow humans… not talking Politics or having open conversations. I needed like minded people engaged and communicating. Sure there is a heavily troll presence on Twitter but I am a pretty big loud mouth who doesn’t get intimidated much.

So today on my Twitterversary! I just want to say; find people who make you engaged, who don’t need to sugarcoat life for you and hey, get a bit uncomfortable meeting new people can be scary but can be so satisfying.

Long hair diaries…

I loved my long hair as a teen, as a child my parents very much encouraged me to cut my hair. I sported a bob many years.

But hair in our home is always up to the beholder. I don’t recommend, force or coerce any kind of hair cuts. One year my second wanted short… we chopped it off. But long hair is the norm and it has caused us unnecessary anxiety.

Every year we have dealt with lice since my first 2 entered school. It has been the bane of my existence. Treatments, special nit combs, tea tree oils and so on… it has been a study in patience.

This year is the first year we had 4 heads at school… 4 heads that might bring lice home. It’s only December there have been a few instances at the school and not just a specific grade.20181203_152412181276050.jpg

I no longer wanted to deal with it. We spent the last week getting our “lice on” at our local lice squad; been checked a few times to guarantee we are lice free. And while we have been going to lice squad for education on lice and a very specific lice brush; it was nice to learn so fun new tidbits.

Here are some Myths on lice I want to debunk:

  1. Lice jump. (This is not true, lice only slow crawl looking for warm shelter and food sources.)
  2. Dirty people have lice. (Nothing can be further from the truth, lice like an unobstructed hair shaft clean and easier to eat.)
  3. Lice eggs off the head will breed a lice. (Wrong!!! Lice eggs which are called nits must be on a hair shaft to grow, it feeds off the proteins so leaving it means it can no longer grow and hatch.)
  4. Over the counter treatments work. (Maybe in other parts of the world, but the pesticides in Canadian pharmacy counters no longer work on North American lice.)
  5. Dying your hair kills lice. (False… the only thing that gets rid of lice is picking out.)
  6. Children carry lice. (Big fat No! Teens are the most common culprits as of late, no one checks their heads, they don’t know what to look for also teens are far more affectionate than their younger counterparts.)

So if your kids get lice find a local lice removal company, speak to them about ridding your family of these pests and don’t feel guilt ridden. You are definitely not alone and don’t let me to make you feel that way.  And funnily enough… welcome to the club.

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