Isaiah is half naked with a broom in his hand. The warm weather we had this weekend revived all the flies in Siloam Springs and they are currently living in my front room. Isaiah responded to this by taking off his pants and diaper and grabbing a broom to destroy them…. he gets that from his father.

My son is a wonderment. I see so much graciousness in him, more so than what Garrett and I have. When I see things that I know I couldn’t have possibly done, but they are so good and wonderful that someone has to take credit, I usually just blame it on God. I think Isaiah is who he is because of God. I haven’t completely worked out that line of reasoning, but I know he is so pure and good that I couldn’t take credit for that.

Yesterday Isaiah was baptized. It took less than five minuets but, I am certain, changed my life forever. For our family, Isaiah’s baptism was a recognition of his membership into the church and the acknowledgement that God redeems us to Himself even before we can acknowledge it through faith. Something about that baptism flipped a switch and reminded me that, “WHOA! This is a human life!” His soul has assigned value in Creation, he is a member in the Kingdom of God, he matters, and I am in charge of his care. THAT was a bit overwhelming. I can say, though, I am thankful that I was given this child, and this assignment, but it isn’t to be completed alone. I have Garrett. Garrett is BEYOND awesome as a father and friend. We also have our community. Our church. Our friends. All these people who are willing to link arms with us and help guide Isaiah, in love, toward a life that is his to live…

Stupid tears

This weekend reminded me, in SO many ways, to hold fast to those who are willing to not take the easy way out. Hold fast to those who will confront the hard stuff with you. Hold fast to those who will affirm that there is good in your despite your shortcomings. Hold fast to the piece of innocence in all of us….

It is that mix of dirt and deity. That innocence and love that shows on my son’s face (even when he half naked annihilating flies).

Happy Monday Y’all.

As a child I was very concerned with other people. I still am.  I see the same trait in Isaiah and it freaks me out. I tend to take up my grandmother’s mentality as my own: “I am happy as long as those I love are happy.”  She taught me that you just take care of people, and therein lies the will of God. I think she is right about that. There is something good about seeking to meet the needs of others. This has meant many years of asking others what they want/need and working very hard to make that happen for them. I don’t do this begrudgingly… I truly find contentment in helping other people get what they need.  Just like anything other life maxim, though, this has to be tempered with balance.  Balancing this characteristic hasn’t been something I am good at. It has created a really uncomfortable trait in me. It is the same trait my grandma has too. She will make a plate  for everyone and forget to eat, buy other’s new clothes and ignore the holes in her own, and things of that sort.  I have watched as my grandmother was exploited by folks who didn’t mind taking from her, but wouldn’t pour into her- and, today, I have to safeguard myself from those same kinds of people.

So when it came time to figure out this whole home birth system I had to come to a rock and a hard place. With the medical model of birth you just do what hospital protocol is or what the doctor wants. Although you can make choices on if you receive drugs or not and things like that, you are still put through a system… when I signed up for home birth I found that  my midwife and her apprentice started asking me nonsense: “Jasmine- what do you want to make you comfortable…” I swear I answered, “whatever is easiest for you.” She chuffed at me and calmly patted my hand. She explained, “Jasmine. This is ALL about you. Every moment is about what is happening to your body and what you need to facilitate that.” Can I admit that it freaks me the hell out that something is ALL about me? I am not OK with that. Lets talk about YOUR problems, what YOU need, how YOU are doing. My best friends have annoying habits of asking me what I need from them and I rarely have answers. “Uhhhh? Friendship? Make me goulash? I dunno!” Like my grandma, IF I answer their questions I have to admit that I NEED something. This translates into I need other people and can’t do it all by myself! But who has time to admit that! Certainly not ME!

Garrett and I sat down and thought about what we wanted (with the most weight going to what I wanted) and made a game plan. During this time of planning I’ve had to chant to myself, “I will not feel bad about wanting things my way, I will not feel bad about wanting things my way, it is okay that this is about me, it is ok that this is about me.” I don’t know if I will get used to this fact. I don’t know if I will ever get to the point where I can unabashedly proclaim, “Stick sucka! I am doing things how IIIIIIII want them, forget how you feel…” Because the truth is, I care about how people feel (a little too much sometimes), and frequently when I do what I want I second guess myself for weeks afterward. I do the whole, “geez Jasmine, you are selfish and bratty” lecture in my head. But  this home birth experience is teaching me how to take care of my personal needs, how to fill myself emotionally so I can better give to others (like Isaiah and Garrett) without being totally drained, and how to receive love and care without feeling guilt.

Pssh! And I thought I was  JUST signing up to have my baby at home *guffaw* things are NEVER that simple in my world!

So I have this issue with coffee. I love coffee. I love thinking about coffee, smelling coffee, reading about coffee, and drinking coffee. The problem with all this is, I am terrible at actually making coffee. I just cannot seem to get the ratio of water to coffee work out. You can try all you want to give me your formula, like my Aunt Nancy did (1 1/2 teaspoons of coffee for 2 cups of water) but I promise you it won’t be right. So I spend all this time thinking about how lovely a cup of coffee would be, I can taste it in my mouth and imagine its reviving power coursing through my veins, but then when I get up and make myself a cup, I am met with a foul liquid that tastes like crunched up garden mulch and sugar.

Jasmine does not make this any easier on me, as she has the ability to make amazingly good coffee with cinnamon and just the right composition of coffee, milk, and sugar. Sure sure, I could ask her to bring me a cup every morning, and she would maybe do it. But something in me feels bad about saying “Hey. I know you are all 9 months pregnant and about to have a human come crashing out between your legs, but would you mind driving over to my house with a steaming cup of joe? Mm’Kay thanks.”

Through my pregnancy I have had some relief from the cruel juxtaposition of my dreams about coffee and what I actually make at home. In the beginning I was all “Blahhhajchuir! Death liquid! The urine of Satan!” and then in the middle I was all “Mmmm…I just really love some tea. I am not a frail enough human to need coffee” but now I am 31 weeks along and find myself indeed a frail human who has an incredibly vicious want of the drink. The want is bad enough that I have been willing to drink the coffee I make and just pretend it is as good as I have dreamed.

This was all good and fine except that something like 20 minutes after the desire for coffee kicked in, Norah broke my coffee pot. Its my own fault really, because I am the dummy that lets her play inside the cabinet where my coffee pot lives. That was a little over a week ago, and I have been surviving on coffee from the cafe downtown, Jasmine’s house, an amazing cup of vanilla nut coffee from Atlanta Bread Company, and yesterday, some wretched tar from Sonic.

This morning Norah and I woke at a leisurely 9:30am, and after taking a shower, the coffee craving hit me. But I really didn’t want to drive to the cafe, nor did I want to pester Jasmine. So in a moment of desperation, I rigged my coffee pot to work again. I measured out some haphazard amount of grounds and used my Pyrex measuring cup to measure out some haphazard amount of water. Then I put the Pyrex where the pot should go and used a spoon to depress the thingy at the spout where the coffee comes out. I was rewarded with a half-decent cup of coffee.

There was much rejoicing in the land of Sadie. And I don’t really know why I felt compelled to tell this story, except to point out the fact that in the face of adversity I don’t just roll over and give up. No no! I am industrious and unconventional! I also have an unhealthy love of coffee.

Have a good day, friends.

Throughout this pregnancy I have been in the unfortunate position that NO ONE can figure out my due date. I have had several different ultrasounds by several different OB’s and none of them can actually give me a good estimate. It isn’t an exact science, I know that much… but I would still like to know when I SHOULD expect our bundle of screaming joy to arrive. Here are the dates I have been given:  March 17th, March 23rd, March 27th, April 1st.   So Dr. Crownover, my OB, went with April 1st because that gives us more time before the state of Arkansas forces a C-section. Even so, all fetal measurements have been a week or two larger than they were “supposed” to be… so I was under the strong suspicion that April 1st was the wrong date.

The other day I was nesting like a psycho womancleaning out a couple of drawers and I found our old calendar. Turns out that I wrote down that Garrett and I had sex (I wrote it down because I had previously been taking fertility meds) on June 30th. For all you conception gurus out there, it means that IF I conceived on or around that date, then Addison should be born on or around the 23rd of March! Hooray! At least some kind of direction and clarity, right?!

In the mean time, my body is telling me it is full term and I am getting anxious. In a week in a half Addison will be considered medically viable (no complications if she was born)… which is a really bad thing. It is a bad thing because I am notoriously BAD about delaying gratification, especially when I have planned and scheduled and worked so hard for it. Last year I picked tomatoes too early (knowingly) because I decided that I waited long enough for them to do their damn job! Silly aren’t I! I am very patient with children (unless they live inside me) and family and friends (for the most part)… but any projects I have initiated better get themselves DONE by golly or there will be some issues.

So my little in-utero project, Addison, is quickly wearing out her welcome. Janessa, my midwife, is doing the smart thing, reminding me: “Jasmine… all things come in season- she won’t stay in their forever, but let her grow as long as she needs to.” Excuse me Janessa! Do you KNOW who you are talking to…. I want her! I want her NOW!  My OB knows this about me. He told me I could be induced when I wanted. I think this is a dangerous idea and I turned it down, but its appeal grows everyday that my hip pops out of place and I almost pee on myself when I sneeze.

Help me friends. Remind me it is okay to wait, that I will make it, and that all things come in season (even though I will most likely ignore you and drink and ungodly amount of Castor oil).

I’ve been unable to write for some time. It is a combination of the weather, more projects than a human should ever have, and being in the process of making some decisions. I am the type of person that when a decision is put in my lap to make I do a heinous amount of research, I poll friends, I read tea leaves, and I stop writing and thinking about anything BUT that decision. I am not compulsive, I Swear. I have been like this since, well… my birth. My mom explained to me that I was a very intentioned little girl. When someone asked me if I wanted a piece of candy… I weighed the options. I just tell myself I bestowed with this damn annoying habit gift to use for something great someday… I will keep holding my breath.

So the decision in question has been about how Addison should arrive into this world. What, you ask, are you saying, “Jasmine! There is one way to have babies… drugged up and in the hospital so you don’t feel pain and if anything goes wrong you have medical professionals around you.” Readers, truly, I thought so too.  IN FACT my refrain used to be, “why in the HELL would someone NOT want drugs… that HURT!!!” However, after my birth experience with Isaiah there was a sneaking suspicion in me that what happened to me at that hospital was NOT how it was supposed to be. I had always been taught, by my beautiful and wise Momma, that birth was something women could do… because we were made that way. She had no strong opinions about meds or no med or where you have the baby, but she always reminded me that women were created capable.  My hospital experience left me feeling like I was broken; pregnancy was to be treated, and that I couldn’t give birth, and my baby had to be delivered. The suspicion that maybe a women’s labor shouldn’t be stopped when it wants to starts urged some seriously uneasy choices in front of me. Here is the quick and dirty birth tale so you can understand (enjoy the run on sentences):

I went into the OB unit after a whole day of back labor. My contractions were 1 min. a part. When I arrived they checked me and saw I was dilated to 4 cms. My doc was out of town and I was only 37.5 weeks and so the attending was not happy about delivering a “premature” baby. So they gave me shots in my belly every four hours to stop the labor until Friday night when my doc arrived. My OB arrived and my labor had stopped and Isaiah’s heart readings were in distress so they decided to induce. I was given pain meds, Pitocin, epidural, Cervidil, and told to hold on tight this baby would be here. I finally was able to push on Saturday. Isaiah was born blue and unresponsive (because of the drugs he had absorbed) until they pinched him really hard. Isaiah was 6 lbs 5oz and CLEARLY not premature. I was hallucinating (from the drugs) and semi-unconscious most of the experience. That delivery followed a long stint with Postpartum Depression and Psychosis. This followed a year of attempted bonding with my son.

*Inhale*

That is the skinny. I don’t want to repeat that experience as anyone, who has given birth under extremely stressful circumstances, could understand why.  I am an emotional introvert and even before the birth of my son the idea of so many people fussing over me or not being in a comfortable environment made me feel all panic stricken and nervous. So I began researching what options I had. This was really difficult because I am a big fan of the medical field (since I will be working in it) and modern technology. Most of the birthing stories I heard where from my crazy Hippy friends, who I was convinced had some sort of Patchouli induced power to withstand pain and stuffing. I was very uneasy about all of it. What I found most interesting during my period of research (6 whole months of it) was that IF you are educated about what ACTUALLY happens during birth and what is SUPPOSED to happen via natural processes, the story changes significantly. I didn’t just watch hyped up pro home/un-medicated birth documentaries and read biased books. I logged on to EBSCO search elite and whipped out my ole researcher hat (hope I make you proud Dr. Froman) and even ran Pearson correlations on medical findings. See… ya’ll think I was joking! Just wait till I have to help my son make a decision. I am going to make the process so damned difficult, I am sure, that I render him emotionally incapable of making a decision.

What yielded after my research and conferring with my OB and my primary care physician was that a home birth (for me: an experienced low risk mom) was extremely safe and favorable. My OB is very close to me and was very sad to see me go, but soon admitted he was excited for me and knew all would be well. My primary care physician joked that his wife would hate having the mess and bustle in her home, but that he felt I was a great candidate and medically, barring freakish emergencies (which I will discuss later), it was a safe choice. So Garrett and I joined hands and made a big decision to have Addison at home, with a midwife, doula, select friends and family, and no meds or interventions. We have chosen our midwife (she has been caring for me for some time now) and we are preparing to meet Addison soon.

Damn those Hippy weirdos! They DO know something about something after all!

Part 2 coming soon……

We’ve been MIA for awhile, haven’t we? It seems that you get to certain stage in pregnancy where eating, sleeping, and nesting are the only real activities of your life. I have been decorating and redecorating and organizing and cleaning. Addison’s nursery still isn’t done, but we are very close.

As we’ve begun to prepare for this big change, we’ve attempted to transition Isaiah the best we know how. He is very fond of my belly and loves to say ‘good morning’ to it. He also loves to rub lotion on it and talk with Addison (who he has randomly started calling “Ernie”). We like the nickname Ernie… we are gonna call her that.  I digress. As we’ve attempted to explain that this room is where she will live, these diapers are what she will wear, etc, he has seemed to understand. He knows babies grow in bellies and that they come out one day. I have this underlying fear that although he seems to understand he will completely freak out when she arrives. THEN I will have that mommy guilt moment where I cry and wonder why I chose to destroy my little boy’s life…. weird, I know.

So I am reading and researching and attempting to figure out how to make this the easiest transition possible.

Where have I been?! Lordy! When you actually have a child that is cognizant enough to realize that holidays are actually happening… you have to figure out what traditions you’ll actually keep and what ones you’ll actually pass on… we are still working on that.This is a hard choice for me (since my DNA looks like a meeting at the United Nations).

Isaiah survived. He came out pretty well actually. The Guppy and PopPop (my in-laws) managed to find and purchase the one toy that would induce panic in the lives of my dogs. Noelle and Zoe now run from Isaiah as he screams at them from his Hot Wheels Jeep.

Because what an amped up toddler needs is a motorized something to run into mommy as she attempts to keep balance. Let me tell you, there is nothing better than being 29 weeks pregnant and getting rammed in the back of  the knee by a tiny hard-plastic Jeep. It is awesome beyond awesome. So awesome that I tend to call out the name of the Lord after each lovely encounter (I have been informed that God’s last name doesn’t start with a “D”).

Holidays make me miss my brother (who passed away in 2006) and very nostalgic. With Addsion’s arrival on the horizon I find my mind meandering back to days when Isaiah was tiny (and not  accosting me with Chinese made toys, THANKS A LOT CHINA!!!). For your viewing pleasure: My little bambino with his daddy, during his first snow (he was about 6 months old!):

 Hope your Holidays were filled with peace, joy, great memories, and (most of all) LOVE!

It isn’t me who has been encouraging Isaiah to pee in the sink…because at least, then, he isn’t peeing on the carpet!

Apparently all you need is a highball glass and a black maid to impress my husband;

Garrett: I think I miss the era of the 50’s and 60’s.

Jasmine: Why? You wouldn’t be able to legally marry me!

Garrett: No just the way they dressed… I watched Mad Men last night.

 I guess I need to NOT let him watch shows or movies later than the 60’s. Next he is gonna want me to call him “Mista”  or “Boss” while bringing him a Mint Julep *YUM* and commanding  me to mop the porch in my Mammy outfit. Garrett and I are not only from intensely different families, we e are different cultures and races that are light years apart. Garrett is a beautiful, kind, and open-minded man… he just…haa a vivid imagination. Movies and TV shows and books, sometimes, get him a little carried away.

(After watching Crooklyn, the movie)

Garrett: Did you ever live on a stoop?

Jasmine: I did grow up in the hood… but I am from OKLAHOMA not BROOKLYN.

Garrett: Well I was just wondering. Sounds like “stoop life” would be fun…

Jasmine: Yeah, I mean, since Brooklyn is the natural habitat of the black person? What the hell Garrett!

(When Isaiah, our son, was born)

Garrett: He has such smooth hair! Will this stuff fall out and then the nappy lamb’s wool stuff grow underneath.

Jasmine: NO Garrett! Jesus! He is PART African American… and “nappy” is a rude word!

Garrett: Well I know it is… but I am talking to my WIFE, and you knew what I meant. I would never say that to someone else.

Jasmine: Uhh yeah, because it is rude.

Garrrett: No, because they would probably have a knife or a gun!

Jasmine:…… I can’t even believe you.

(later)

Jasmine: Children who are biracial usually have smoother hair, but it isn’t a guarantee. White people have different textures of hair also, you know.

Garrett: I guess our different textures just aren’t as noticeable. So I am gonna have to learn how to “grease” his hair?

Jasmine: Yes. And if we ever have a daughter, you’ll have to learn how to braid too.

Garrett: I will leave that up to you, ya’ll are naturally good at corn rows.

Jasmine: WHAT! It isn’t a genetic disposition!

Garrett: Nooooo I was just saying that African Americans all grew up braiding and beading each other’s hair.

Jasmine: *Blank stare*

(After seeing an ethnic hair commercial)

Garrett: Can we Afro Isaiah’s hair! Oh my God! PLEASE! Can we!

Jasmine: Afros are only worn because our hair is so hard to manage. They aren’t REALLY fashion statements anymore! Afros, I think, are only cool to white people….

Garrett: OR we could totally cut his hair short and then cut lines into the back, like Chris Brown or Kanye West!

Jasmine: He is a two year old… he isn’t a performer. I swear! Next you are gonna request him a Gherri Curl!.

Garrett: Why do you ruin all my fun?

Jasmine: Because your fun is stupid- and stereotypical.

(Upon meeting my friend MiMi, who was born in Africa)

Garrett: So do you speak the African clicking language?

MiMi: *Blank Stare*

Garrett: No seriously, you know what I am talking about right? The one where they click to talk *imitates clicking noises*

MiMi: Jasmine! WHAT is he talking about I went to a private school…. WHAT is he talking about?

Jasmine: I guess he assumes everyone from Africa lives in a hut, just ignore him.

Garrett: OH MY GOD YA’LL are RUDE. It is not like that was even a weird question to ask someone from Africa!

Here is a game we can play. You won’t win a prize, a giveaway, or shenanigans like that. You’ll only have the beautiful gift of feeling, for a brief moment, what it is like in my life.

Here are your clues:

1. I couldn’t find Isaiah

2. I found him in the towel closet

3. He piled up blankets

4. He pulled down his pants

5. He took off his diaper

6. When I asked him what he was doing he closed the door on my face and declared, “…..”

Tell me. What do YOU think he declared?

Give up? He screamed, “Close door mom! POTTY!!!”

Uh yes son, what was I thinking… I potty in the towel closet all the time! Someone want to come clean up my towel closet?