On the night you were born
the moon smiled with such wonder
that the stars peeked in to see you
and the night wind whispered
'Life will never be the same.'
August 29th, 2005
On the night of August 29, 2005, I sat on my couch and watched in disbelief the horror that was Hurricane Katrina. It was hard to imagine that such widespread devastation could have been wreaked on North American soil let alone in relation to an iconic, historic American city such as New Orleans. The images that were being broadcast were of a type that we were used to seeing in faraway places on the other side of the world. Never in my lifetime had such devastation hit so close to home. I was numb.
I had spent that entire summer in a state of numbness. *We* had spent that summer in a state of numbness. It was truly the summer of our discontent.
At that time, I was still married to my first husband. We had been involved a serious relationship for almost seven years and had been married for two. We met at a criminal law conference when we were law students. As couples do in most "starter marriages", we advanced through the stereotypical stages of life, careers and marriage. We survived the tremendous strains and stresses of of finishing law school, articling, being called to the Bar and establishing our demanding practices as criminal lawyers. We bought our first house. We eloped to an exotic Carribean island and got married. We bought our second house. We got a dog. After my very dysfunctional, tumultuous child and young adulthood, I thought I had succeeded in building for myself a normal life with a wonderful man with whom I believed I shared a healthy, loving relationship. Like any other couple, our years together held their challenges, their ups and downs but with him I felt a sense of security and a feeling of home that I had never felt before. I believed that we were strong enough to weather anything life would throw our way.
It was the desire to start a family that would break us.
It was on a girls' shopping trip to Buffalo that my biological clock started tick, tick, ticking. Literally. All it took was a visit to the Pottery Barns kids store and one glance at the Moses baby basket and the desire to have a baby was overwhelming. We discussed it when I got home and decided that yes, this was something we both wanted to do, this was something we were ready to do, it was time to start trying to have a baby.
So we tried. We tried. And we tried. And we tried. Nothing happened. I began charting my basal body temperature, noting my cervical mucous, contorting my body into awkward post coital poses. Nothing happened. Notwithstanding the lack of success, in anticipation of our eventual success, we sold small house number one and bought bigger house number two. After several months of trying still without success, my then boss urged us to seek medical attention to see if there was some sort of physical issue at play. Our family doctor referred us to a fertility clinic where we were each sent for physiological testing. Being female, I of course assumed that *I* was the problem. I recalled a pelvic infection I'd suffered when I first became sexually active with my first boyfriend. I had sought medical attention but the drug that had been prescribed was so strong, so nauseating, that I ceased taking the medicine. As I endured the agony of having water flushed through my fallopian tubes to check for blockages, I convinced myself that my teenage stupidity had rendered me sterile.
You cannot imagine my surprise when I received the call from my husband advising me that it was not my fertility but rather *his* that was the obstacle to me getting pregnant. Apparently the doctor had called him on his cell phone while he was driving to court. Just like that. Our lives would never be the same.
As we would learn, when the fertility issue rests with the woman, the situation is much more easily rectified. When the obstacle rests with the man, it is much more difficult. There is no easy cure. We were referred to the pre-eminent Canadian male fertility specialist. If the experience of attending at that office was demoralizing to me, I can only imagine the humiliating impact on my husband and his psyche. But we went through the soul destroying process hoping that at the end our wish to become parents would be fulfilled. Our lives that summer came to a depressing standstill as we fretted over what we termed "the Subject". Despite the beautiful house with the gorgeous yard, the dog who needed exercise and attention, the gorgeous summer weather, our post-work lives consisted of sitting stunned on the couch like lumps on a bump. We were numb. Little did I know that the days left in that marriage were numbered, that our union was not and would not be strong enough to withstand the challenges that infertility had thrown at us. Little did I know that the demise of that relationship would lead to the best thing ever to happen in my life.
August 29th, 2007
I had been in labour for sixteen hours when she was finally born at 7:29 p.m. While the actual labour itself was, thanks to the wonders of drugs, surprisingly easy, the process of pushing her into the world was sheer agony. When I was a child, I had once seen a hamster giving birth. I watched amazed as the hamster ran around in circles in its cage, eventually expelling its babies one by one. As I struggled to push my daughter out, I understood for the first time how that hamster felt. Had I not been tethered by the IV and the epidural, I would have pulled a hamster, jumped off the bed and ran around the room until the baby fell out of me. As my mother admonished my poor manners, I screamed at the doctor to "get this f*@#ing baby *OUT* of me!!!!!" Exhibiting the penultimate grace under pressure, the doctor calmly asked me if I had taken prenatal classes. I replied that I had. He explained that he wanted to use the assistance of a vacuum to pull the baby out. He told me that it would be just one more push and the baby would be here. All I heard were the words "one more push". I asked him if it would really be just one more push, as if I had the option of ceasing pushing and just calling the whole thing off.
I pushed. And then, in a moment that was analogous to something out of the TLC show "A Baby Story", a baby, my baby, my daughter, emerged and landed on my chest. I could hear my mom excitedly exclaiming, "She's here! She's here! She's here!" I looked down at her, I held her, and I sobbed uncontrollably in a way that I had never sobbed before. I cried from the deepest recesses of my being because for the first time ever Life, my Life and my loss of that marriage, made complete and perfect sense.
* * * * *
Every parent fetes their child on the anniversary of their birth. As each year passes, my heart aches at the passage of time and swells with the pride of all that she has accomplished. Mothering her is an experience unlike any other. But the day carries with it other significant connotations. The Dragon and I never set out on our journey together intending to be parents. For the longest while, especially in light of what had happened with my first marriage and the way in which it had met such an unexpectedly disastrous end, I felt uncertain as to whether the voyage of parenthood was one I would be taking solo or with a partner by my side. The Dragon has more than risen to the occasion of fatherhood. Although parenthood was not an adventure I ever have expected to take with him, I could not ask for a better father for our children. And so every year, August 29th is not just a memorialization of our daughter's miraculous birth, it is a celebration of all that we have achieved as a couple, as parents and as a family.
Happy 3rd Birthday Baby Chicken.
