Uppercase Woman

Circus of Grief

I’m torn today between anger and sadness. As someone commented to me here (I’m   sorry I can’t remember who), they need to invent a word bigger than sadness to explain how this all feels.

One of the gifts of being pregnant for a while is that my world stopped being full of sharp edges. When you struggle with infertility, the whole world can feel like it’s conspiring to make you feel miserable. Babies are everywhere, everyone seems to get pregnant with ease, and you are left in the cold, defective and broken. I spent too much time in that place.

However, where I am now is so, so, so much worse.

I haven’t left the house since I got home from the hospital. But seeing a father and son walking by the house, or a commercial on TV, makes me weep. I’m terrified about how much worse this pain will be when I leave the house (something I’m going to attempt today, to go with Sarah to the opera. It’s a comedy. It should be fine, right? It's a matinee. Everyone there is old.).

Grief is awkward for me. I learned to set aside the most painful emotions. When I first got into therapy as a relatively sane and sober adult, one of the first things I had to do was begin dealing with unprocessed grief. You can imagine my husband’s shock at finding me weeping inconsolably one day over the cat we moved away and left behind when I was six.

I didn’t want to be like that in this grief process, so while I was still in the hospital I prayed and asked God to help me not avoid my feelings, to make me stay still enough to feel them.

Asked and answered, unfortunately.

Now I’m feeling all edgy and  irritated, wanting desperately to run away and stop the feelings. I don’t want to be here. It hurts too much. But I can’t stop thinking, I can’t stop feeling. I don’t want to kill myself or use drugs (which in my case would be the same thing) but I want it to STOP.

I find myself fixated on several things. This is going to be rambly and disjointed, I’m afraid. I’m not real clear on this stuff myself.

I can’t stop thinking about the doctor that came in to discharge me, the one that looked at me like I was insane when I said we were going to try again. The one that said I had a 30-50% chance of having the same problem in another pregnancy. I was alone when he told me, so I had no barriers to what he said.

Thanks to the info I’ve learned from preeclamsia.org (I’m sorry, I can’t seem to link here at home on my Mac), I feel a little more sympathetic toward him. He’s coming from the place of not wanting to have to be the doctor fighting to save my life. I understand that. But I wish he hadn’t told me while I was alone in a hospital bed.

I also can’t stop thinking about my last morning in the hospital. Throughout most of my stay, I was in the labor and delivery ward, and the entire time the nurses worked overtime to keep me from being aware of the babies being born around me. They were so sweet and kind, I can’t even tell you.

The last night I was there they moved me into the postpartum unit. The nurse I had overnight was the same one I threw up on my first night there--and she still managed to be kind and gentle with me.

But that last morning, they dug up the only nasty nurse they had. At 7am, she greeted me with a scowl, took my blood pressure, and then shut off the machines in my room and said, “You’re going home today, and now I can clear you off my board.” She then promptly ignored me for the next six hours I was there. Until she brought my discharge papers.

At that point, I was weeping from my encounter with the doctor. Charlie was there, green and unsteady. She ignored my tears entirely. It was awful. It was almost bad enough that it made the kindness of the rest of the nurses seem unreal.

I tried to pull myself together to leave the hospital, but as I waited at the entrance for Charlie to bring the car around, I saw a man come in, grinning ear to ear, carrying an infant car seat. You know he was coming to take his partner and baby home. I lost it, there in the lobby.

Grief just sucks.

I’m also absolutely furious that no one at the hospital told me that my milk would try to come in. Someone mentioned it here on my blog, and gave me tips to deal with it. I didn’t take it to heart because I assumed that I was too early in the pregnancy to have to worry about that. But on Saturday morning I called my doctor’s answering service with some questions, mentioned that my breasts were sore, and asked the midwife who called me back if I needed to worry about the milk and she said I did. And sure enough, my breasts began aching in earnest, and I’ve had to put bandaids over my nipples (to help prevent nipple stimulation) and cabbage in my bra to ease the achiness. I understand the body is built to release milk after the placenta is removed, but jesusfuckingchrist, don’t you think it could also be built to make some exceptions?

I’m angry, too, finally, at God.

Right after having to make the decision to terminate the pregnancy, Charlie and I talked at length about how both of us had never had a clear picture of what our boys would look like (unlike the VERY clear image I have in my head of what our daughter would look like). We’d also had a difficult time actually picturing our life with the boys. We speculated that maybe we were being protected, in some small way. I felt at peace with God, and at peace with what we’d had to decide to do.

Then my hormones crached.

I can’t help but find myself wondering what in the hell I’m supposed to think from all of this. Is it possible, as many people surely believe, that God is trying to tell us to not have our own children?

If so, I'm fucking pissed off. At God, for being so difficult, and at myself for putting us through all the shit we’ve already gone through to get here. If it’s true, why do I have to be so stubborn and keep on pushing? If it’s not true, why am I sitting here in emotional agony instead of feeling contentedly pregnant?

I was JUST barely there too--contentedly pregnant, I mean. I really was beginning to enjoy the pregnancy, and beginning to really love the boys. I hate the emptiness inside me now. I hate it.

God! This fucking sucks. I don’t want to cry anymore!!!

Lastly, I’m pissed off because other than my milk coming in and the new complete absence of any nausea, my body hasn’t changed. I’m still holding on to all the fluid in my legs and abdomen, including the 20 lbs of it I gained in the last week before my surgery. The midwife insists it should happen “any minute now” but I haven’t begun to release it, and it pisses me off. If I’m not pregnant anymore, I don’t want any fucking symptoms.

I’m also pissed off because the extremely high dose of blood pressure/beta blockers I’m on make me feel like I’m trying to swim upstream through mud.

ARG!

.
.
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I guess what I’m really feeling is impatient. I want to be through the grief process and through the healing process already. I want to be on the other side of this pain. I want to be feeling well enough to begin the plan Charlie and I have come up with.

God damn it.

I know that there ain’t no way out but through. I know I’ll be an even better person when all this is over, because as I’ve learned in recovery, “pain is the touchstone of all spiritual growth.”

But right now, I’m sick of fucking growing. I’m sick of accepting life on life’s terms, cause life’s terms currently suck ass. I want to smash things.

And more than anything else, I want the last five days of my life to have been someone else’s nightmare and not mine. I want my babies back. More than anything.

Home

It's me. I'm home. I'm pretty wiped, so forgive me if this rambles a bit.

Today is a rough day--the chemical side of things, I think, is definitely hitting me. Hormones are crashing all about. Poor Charlie got food poisioning from the hospital cafeteria and is sick as a dog, and crashed into another car in the hospital parking lot when coming to pick me up (don't worry, it was just a minor biff, he left a note), so it's been tough for him too.

My head, and heart, are so full of thoughts--at the moment, I'm overwhelmed because the doctor who released me from the hospital this morning was considerably less optimistic than Dr. Mama about our future chances--he looked at me like I'd sprouted two heads when I said we were going to try again. He feels our chances of the same thing happening are 30-50%. While this may be true (thanks, Grrl, for sending similar info to Sarah), I'm not going to process it right now. We have a plan, which I'll tell you about another day, and the very first thing on that list is to get my body healthy. After all the infertility treatments, the OHSS, weight gain, etc, there is no doubt in my mind that my body was not healthy at the start of this pregnancy. So perhaps our odds will be better if we begin from a different starting point.

What I'm not ready for, at the moment, is to accept the idea that this is the end for us.

I have a couple of things I really want to say.

Thank you, Sarah, for telling everyone so I didn't have to. You've been by my side in this whole process, sharing the joy and the pain. You've held me up when I couldn't hold myself up. Knowing I could just hop back into posting today without having to explain everything is a great gift, as is the clean house I came home to today, thanks to you. I love you so much, and I'm so, so, so thankful each and every day that you are in my life. There are few women who've been through together the shit we've been through together. God bless you--I love you so much, and I'm so glad my blogging friends got to know you a little bit (everyone, convince this woman to start her own blog--she's a great writer in the midst of an incredibly fantastic romance, a mother, and starting her own business--she'll write a great one!). Thank you, thank you, thank you. I know you were looking forward to being an aunt and you are grieving as much as we are.

Thank you, Charlie, for being my husband, for posting what you posted, and for coming when I called, and listening when I cried. I'd forgotten that you could cry, too, when we got the news--it was good to share the tears with you, good to not be alone. I love you so much, and I'm so glad to be home with you.

Thank you, my in-person-friends, who follow this blog to keep updated-- both your comments and your help have been invaluable. Thanks for visiting me in the hospital, for taking care of the dog, for crying on our behalf.

Thank you to my new on-line friends, the women I email regularly that I've met through this blog that have been great friends and have left such wonderful comments.

Thank you, you crazy, wonderful other infertile bloggers who have circled the wagons and directed so many people to our pain to help in this time of need. Thanks, especially, to Tertia, who unwittingly helped prepare me for this by sharing her own story.

Thank you to all you folks who delurked to tell me how sorry you are. You have no idea how touched I am. Stay delurked, please. I want to get to know you.

A special thanks to Moxie who helped prepare me for the hormone crash and helped me remember to keep my mother away from me for the next week or two.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I will write about the whole experience later, because I have to, it's become how I live. But for now, I want to end this by saying just one other thing.

No one, ever, should have to choose between their own life and the life of their child. I have to say I am so grateful that I live in a state where I didn't have to choose to deliver the surviving baby. I was able to have a dilation and extraction instead. I'm not sure I would have had the strength to meet the surviving baby only to watch it die. In fact, I'm sure I don't have that strength.

Before you vote next Tuesday--and you'd better vote--remember this. If George Bush had his way, I would have been forced to deliver the surviving baby and the doctors would have been forced to try to save him. I won't lie--there's a teeny part of my deeply pro-choice heart that wonders if that's what I should have done, just in case there was the slightlest, teeniest chance of survival... but in my head I know that instead my son ended his too-brief life painlessly in the safety of my womb instead of in the cold, harsh light of the world, away from me.

Grief is difficult for me--I'm much better at moving on than I am at processing. I hope you can all bear with me as I try to sit still and feel these feelings.

And again---thank you, thank you, thank you.

Status Report

Hello, it's Sarah. This will be the last post from me, I hope! I just felt like I should give you one last update before Cecily can post herself.

She had a rough night, emotionally. Grief tends to hit you in waves, and a tidal wave got her last night when she was alone in her room, I think. Being strong, she managed to keep her head above water and called a friend to help her through.

She had no real cramping or pain after the epidural wore completely off, something that shocked us both, but thank God.

This afternoon she was taken off the magnesium sulfate IV and had the catheter removed. Her urine is clean and her pressure is still a bit high--though much better--and so they gave her oral blood pressure medicine. She feels a LOT better since having the mag. sulfate taken away. That was really making her groggy and feel like shit.

They are keeping her one more night, but only monitoring her pressure every 2 hours, so they are getting more optimistic. They have moved her to another room, in a regular part of the hospital. Cecily became acutely aware this morning that there were babies being born around her, so she was feeling pretty ancy to move. She should be home by this time tomorrow (fingers crossed), and I know she will post as soon as she is able. She misses you all very much, she said she is going through blog withdrawl!

I know I can't wait to read her posts on here again, and I get to speak with her all the time!

Thanks again for the outpouring of love and support, it has meant so much to Cec and Charlie and to me as well. I don't think I've ever been as scared as I was yesterday, waiting to hear that Cecily was ok. It helped me to know you were all out there pulling for her.

My love goes out to all of you strong, beautiful women who give me strength every single day.
Thank you.

Sarah

Hard Times

Hello everyone.  I'm Charlie.

First I want to thank all of you who have shared your prayers, thoughts, and good wishes for Cecily, myself, and our boys.  Your words of encouragement and support have been invaluable, and we are deeply and truly grateful for your generosity.

The events of the past 34 hours, as you may well imagine, have shaken us to the bone.  What began as a routine 22-week ultrasound for healthy mom and twins rapidly cascaded into a series of unforeseen tragedies.  I thank Sarah for keeping all of you updated as the details were revealed. 

With growing concern for Cecily's health and having received confirmation of her severe pre-eclamptic symptoms from our doctor and his colleagues, it became clear around dawn this morning that the time for difficult choices had arrived.  We were told in compassionate but firm language that keeping Cecily both alive and pregnant for the next 4-6 weeks, in hopes of reaching viability for the surviving fetus, was not a possibility.  We were also confronted with a staggering array of potential outcomes facing Cecily if we chose to attempt the impossible...ranging from liver damage and kidney failure to stroke and brain damage. 

With Cecily's health as our primary concern we reluctantly agreed to allow our doctor to terminate the pregnancy. 

* * *

Cecily emerged from the procedure this afternoon, but before I was allowed to see her I had a chance to meet with our doctor.  The idea of losing her, as well as our boys, was beyond my imagination, as was my relief when our doctor informed me that she is expected to make a full and complete recovery.  He believes that, although the specific cause of this tragedy may never be known, it was likely an isolated incident, and not predictive of future pre-eclampsia or other pregnancy-related problems for Cecily. 

* * *

I finally had a chance to see Cec, looking remarkably well, considering the circumstances.  They'd used an epidural to numb her lower body and thus avoided intubating her.  She is alert, talking, and hungry (a good sign).  Sarah printed out pages and pages of your good wishes and brought them to Cecily this afternoon.  Reading them has been perhaps the best medicine she could possibly receive at this time.

I'm sure she can convey her feelings far better than I can...and I'm sure she will when she returns home for a much needed week of R 'n' R.  As for the future, I can't say.  Grief, I have learned, is a strange beast.  And we both will need to take some time to say goodbye to our dear boys in our hearts.

Thank you all again.
-Charlie

The End...

It's Sarah yet again.

I am so very sorry to have to let you all know that I just got off the phone with Cecily, and they are going to have to terminate this pregnancy.

She had a very bad night, with throwing up and a severe headache that wouldn't go away and is a very bad sign.

Cecily is trying to be strong. I said 'If prayers were enough you would be fine right now...everyone is praying for you', and you know what she said?

She said "The thing about that is...it really helps me to know that everyone is praying for me."

So from her, thank you.

And from me, thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your prayers and wishes and please keep them coming for Cec and Charlie...I know so many of you sadly understand exactly how she feels right now because of your own experiences.

I am waiting to find out what time surgery will be, and am going to try to go be there for Charlie. I will post tonight to let you all know how things went.

Sarah

Oh God

Hello Everyone again...Sarah here with an update.

Thank you all for your good thoughts and wishes...we need them even more. Charlie just phoned and they've admitted Cec to the hospital. She appears to have severe preclampsia...protein in her urine is 3+. They are doing a 24-hr urine test to see if it drops and checking her pressure, which is hovering around 160/84.
The meds they would give to prevent seizures are too dangerous this early in the pg, apparently.

They may be faced with terminating this pregnancy.

Cecily asks for all your prayers, talismans, whatever you can bring, bring it on. She needs you now.

Thanks again for the support, and I'll let you all know tomorrow what is happening.

I can't believe this is happening. I know I'm in a state of shock still...I can't imagine how C and C are feeling.

Sarah

Houston: We Have a Problem

Hello Everyone. This is Sarah, Cecily's best friend, and she asked that I post for her today.

I accompanied her and her husband to an ultrasound appt. this morning--I've been wanting to go and finally arranged that I could--and we got some sad news, folks.

One of the boys has passed away.

The tech had trouble at first, and moved us into another room with 'better equipment', and we all got a bit nervous. Then when she had told us the heart rate of Twin A, and before answering Cec about Twin B said "I'm going to get the doctor now"--well, we all swallowed pretty hard.

The doctor was lovely, very sweet and concerned but blunt: I have to tell you, this one has no heartbeat, no good fluid around the sac. It looks like he passed over a week ago.

FUCK.
Cecily, for anyone who has been graced to know her, was typically stoic at first. Very matter of fact. In a way, I think all the horror stories you all share had part of her preparing for this from the beginning. Charlie's mind raced with a million questions to ask, and he got some of them out right there.

Then they sent us over to see Cec's regular Dr.---yes, Dr. Mama--who had agreed to see her as soon as he could fit her in. He was also very sweet and blunt, went over all the same things and Charlie managed to get the other half of his questions out, and Dr. was very patient and understanding. He then sent her over to another building for more testing...serial blood pressure checks because her pressure was extremely high (though could obviously be stress-related), a DIC test to see that her blood won't get too thin, as well as a preclampsia panel, because of the high pressure, large weight gain in the past 3 weeks, and something in the urine that was postive...didn't catch what that meant.

So after the testing, assuming it shows these other factors are ok, we WAIT. And oh how we all love that waiting game. She is 22 weeks tomorrow, so the Dr. said the next two weeks are crucial, to make it past the magical line of 'viable'. After that it will be close checking on the live baby, and seeing that the one that passed is absorbed back in. They had seperate sacks and placentas, so the passing of the one theoretically should not harm the other, but of course there are all sorts of 1% chances of this, that, and the other thing.

This is very fucking scary, and I am so sad for the loss of that one little boy. Please send your love and prayers her way and to the little boy hanging in there, that he keeps growing and gets stronger. They need all the positive thoughts you can muster. Charlie and I are very worried not only about the baby who is left, but about Cecily's health--about her life. We are scared.

I'm sure Cec will update herself in another day or two. How does one "process" something like this?? You just fucking can't. That's what Charlie said. You just fucking can't.

Sarah

Mind if I whine a bit?

I am tired. TIRED.

No—you don’t know what I mean, unless you’ve been pregnant with twins. So there. Hmmmph.

Seriously. If I don’t sleep at least 14 hours a night, I cannot get up.

I don’t go into work until 11am. And guess what? I’m late most days (I must blame this on my serious celebrity crush on Jon Stewart—I cannot miss the Daily Show and it’s not on until 11. Did you see him on Crossfire? Go Jon Go!). I cannot get up in the mornings. I cannot function when I do get up. I drop things. I put the sausage in the toaster and the waffles in the microwave. I pour juice into the glass that already has milk in it.

At work, I forget things moments after someone tells me. I don’t make sense when I speak, because I forget what I was saying. Or I repeat myself. A lot.

This sucks. Worse is the smugness of all those women that told me that they just LOVED the second trimester, it was so awesome, they had boundless energy and the sex drive! Wow! It was awesome. I hate all those women.

I’m here at 21 weeks and I seriously need a wheelbarrow to carry my ass around in.

I’m tired people. TIRED.

Other fun stuff that’s happening? My nipples have changed. I understand the biological directive for this—darker nipples are easier for weak-eyed newborns to find—but it’s ugly, people. Seriously. I don’t look good in dark shit brown.

Worse, the darkening hasn’t confined itself to just my nipples. It has spread out, fading like dark shit brown freckles, over my entire breasts. Worse, it’s darker along the bottom of my breasts, so I have a line that points toward the center of my chest. It’s ugly, people. They are ugly enough to turn my little boys gay.

Sigh.

And I’m so tired.

And today I thought I’d try on my fabulous motorcycle boots. They’re big on me normally, so I thought perhaps I could wear them now that it’s gotten cool out. To my dismay, my calves are too thick from all the edema buildup. The boots are tight. I think I’m going to end up with stretch marks on my ankles—I’m totally serious—from all the fluid. I still leak after acupuncture—last week I had to tape little pieces of paper towel to my legs to sop up the fluid leaking from the acupuncture sites (a word to acupuncture newbies—no, this is NOT the norm).

And the puking has come back. I’ve thrown up twice in the last three days. First thing in the morning.

Did I mention that I’m tired?

……………………

Is there good news?

Yes. I think, maybe, just maybe, I’m beginning to feel the babies move. I can’t tell for sure. I’m hoping my next ultrasound (scheduled for early next week) will help me identify some of what I’m feeling as movement. I’m really looking forward to it; it will be over five weeks since we’ve had an ultrasound.

I also think I’m feeling some Braxton-Hicks contractions, which are really weird but kind of cool too.

So the pregnancy is progressing, and I couldn’t be more thrilled about that. I’m really looking forward to meeting these boys. So it’s not all bad.

I just needed a little whine.

..............................................

We need your help. We are totally stuck on what to name these boys. We had names picked out—Zachary and Nicholas—but now we don’t like them anymore.

Suggestions??? The names all need to go with an Irish last name that starts with an O’. The more unusual the better!

America, Fuck Yeah!

I’ve tried to avoid politics in my blog of late, but I can’t contain myself any longer.

Friday night I went to see Team America, the loony puppet movie by the creators of South Park (the title of this post if from one of the songs in the movie). While parts of it were funny, parts of it were just so ugly, and so hate-filled, that I left with a really bad taste in my mouth. I understand the points they were trying to make—they believe it’s hypocritical for Hollywood actors to champion peace, but I don’t agree. I think anyone who has a public forum should use it for good, and championing peace, to this soon-to-be-mother, seems to me to be a good thing that should be rewarded, not ridiculed. Perhaps Michael Moore can be a little heavy handed with his political views, but at least he acknowledges that his movies are based on his opinions. Seeing the puppet Michael Moore blow himself up as a suicide bomber wasn’t cute, or funny, or anything other than ugly and violent.

In the light of full disclosure, I probably wouldn’t have found the movie nearly as offensive if I wasn’t a) pregnant, b) pregnant with boys I’m terrified will have to go to war, and c) so wrapped up in this current election.

However, my current mood, combined with some recent press, has prompted me to speak about politics again.

In Sunday’s edition of The New York Times, in the Magazine, Ron Suskind published a lengthy article about George Bush’s “faith-based presidency” called Without a Doubt. I would link you to it, but you have to register to read the Times on line (although registration is free), so just go to www.nytimes.com and you can do so.

I’ve decided to include these two quotes, just to give you a taste. The emphasis added is mine:

A cluster of particularly vivid qualities was shaping George W. Bush's White House through the summer of 2001: a disdain for contemplation or deliberation, an embrace of decisiveness, a retreat from empiricism, a sometimes bullying impatience with doubters and even friendly questioners.

………………………………

In the summer of 2002, after I [Ron Suskind] had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

Who besides guys like me are part of the reality-based community? Many of the other elected officials in Washington, it would seem. A group of Democratic and Republican members of Congress were called in to discuss Iraq sometime before the October 2002 vote authorizing Bush to move forward. A Republican senator recently told Time Magazine that the president walked in and said: ''Look, I want your vote. I'm not going to debate it with you.'' When one of the senators began to ask a question, Bush snapped, ''Look, I'm not going to debate it with you.''

……………………………..

Now, call me crazy, but don’t we all live in a fucking “reality-based community?” Not to mention the fact that having a president who “disdains contemplation or deliberation” fucking terrifies me.

Here’s my fucking reality:

In my reality, I’m not afraid of government-based healthcare, since my doctor isn’t in charge of my care anyway—my HMO is. They, and only they, decide what medications I’m allowed to take, even if they are not the best or most effective ones available (of course, I could pay for them out of pocket, but that isn’t realistic based on my financial reality). They will make the primary decisions about the birth and early care of my children. Not me, not doctors, but money grubbing HMO idiots. Could the government really do any worse?

My reality is that if the partial-birth abortion (a hideous, and inaccurate, name) stays in effect, if—God forbid—something went wrong in this pregnancy, and I had to terminate the pregnancy to save my own life or to save my babies from awful pain, my doctor would be forbidden from doing a dilation and extraction procedure. And if the evil, evil John Ashcroft had his way, he’d be able to access my medical records to find out if I did have a d & e, and could then prosecute my doctor and me.

My reality is that my mother-in-law has Alzheimer’s and could benefit from stem-cell research. Who am I to object? I’d gladly donate some of my frozen embryos if I thought it would help her.

My reality is that I have an old friend who has already done three tours in Iraq and he’s in the Reserves. He’s lost his job and nearly lost his house because of the “backdoor draft” you hear John Kerry talking about. He could lose more—his life—if forced to go there again. Even the soldiers in Iraq are beginning to mutiny because they see the futility of this war.

Clearly, I’m voting for John Kerry, and obviously I hope you do as well. Surprisingly enough, The New York Times, that old conservative paper, has endorsed John Kerry. Here is a quote (again, emphasis added is mine:

Senator John Kerry goes toward the election with a base that is built more on opposition to George W. Bush than loyalty to his own candidacy. But over the last year we have come to know Mr. Kerry as more than just an alternative to the status quo. We like what we've seen. He has qualities that could be the basis for a great chief executive, not just a modest improvement on the incumbent.

We have been impressed with Mr. Kerry's wide knowledge and clear thinking - something that became more apparent once he was reined in by that two-minute debate light. He is blessedly willing to re-evaluate decisions when conditions change. And while Mr. Kerry's service in Vietnam was first over-promoted and then over-pilloried, his entire life has been devoted to public service, from the war to a series of elected offices. He strikes us, above all, as a man with a strong moral core.

That’s what I want to see in the White House—a smart man with a strong, moral core. Not a fundamentalist cowboy who uses his faith to justify all kinds of wrong action, and uses the excuse of "God is speaking through me" (oh yes, he's actually said that, more than once) to never change his mind.

There is a touch of good news—for the first time, Slate Magazine has Kerry leading with more Electoral College votes than Bush (they base their info by collecting information from 76 nationwide polls). It’s quite heartening to see Bush’s face under the word “loser.”

The Story

It’s 1987. I’m nineteen years old, and sitting at a dive bar (yes, I looked older than I was) commonly frequented by the students of a nearby art school. I hadn’t really blossomed into a full-blown bar slut yet, but I had managed to achieve just enough arrogance to sit at the bar, drinking my beer, and writing poetry. Alone.

Charlie, at 25 years old, was also at the bar, with a good buddy who’d had the very rare luck (for him) to hook up with a girl. So while Charlie’s buddy swapped spit with this girl, Charlie’s eye roved around the bar and alighted on the chick writing at the bar.

Not too long before this point, maybe a year, Charlie had discovered his own inner writer. He was visiting a friend in NYC and got stuck on the toilet without toilet paper, and while his friend ran to the store to get some, he began reading Post Office by Charles Bukowski. Charlie was immediately smitten by Bukowski’s drunken and witty observations, and began reading Bukowski's poetry. Pretty soon Charlie found his head full of his own poetic thoughts, and began writing poetry.

Taking the bull by the horns, he picked up a copy of the Poet’s Market and found four magazines to send poems to. He only had a handful of poems at this point, and sent the same four poems to each journal. Each journal accepted a different poem. All four were published. Flush with this success, Charlie embarked on the writer’s life, starting in that dive bar.

Charlie came across the bar, introduced himself to me, and we began chatting. What he didn’t remember, and I did, is that we had been briefly introduced a week or so before by one of my roommates. That night, he had just returned from seeing the movie Barfly (which was written by Bukowski) and was too busy trying to figure out how to live the life represented in the movie to notice me.

But that night at the bar, we got to talking. The more we drank, the more we talked. Charlie walked me to the bus stop when it was time to leave, and asked if he could call me. Drunk and giddy, and more than a tad star struck (a published poet!) I told him he could.

Surprisingly enough (to me) he did call. We met up at the bar a couple more times, and met up at some parties. We even made out a few times; well, at least twice, that we remember. He remembers one time, and I remember the other (black out drinkers, unite!). Once time at that same bar (where I lived for the next seven or eight years), he pulled me into the booth he was in and said, dramatically, “Kiss me!” What’s a girl to do? He has no memory of that. The other occasion was at a party at my house—the best party I ever threw (so many people came that I ran out of beer—two kegs!!! by midnight). Charlie dragged me outside, so I’m told, and made out with me against a wall while my high school boyfriend (who happened to be visiting) was passed out in a car facing us.

But then we finally, finally, managed to go out on a date.

I’m proud to say that I have been on exactly two dates in my whole life. Once with a guy I met through a personal ad (eek, he was scary) and once with Charlie. Every other guy I was with, in the short or long term, was a bar hook-up.

Anyway, Charlie came to my office (I was a receptionist at a travel agency) and took me to lunch. We had Chinese.

It was awful.

We couldn’t figure out what to talk about without booze. I felt like a freak in my little business dress, and he didn’t know what to think. It was just terribly awkward.

So we never closed the deal. After that date, we cooled off, although we still ran into each other quite often at the bar. Over the next year or two, I managed to grow into my role as a bar whore, and Charlie claims I used to grant him brief “audiences” until someone else I wanted to talk to came along. I don’t really remember, although I did consider myself queen of the bar. He came to the bar with other women, one of whom he eventually married, both of which referred to me as “that woman.” I left the bar with boy after boy, ending up in brief and completely sad and dysfunctional relationships.

There was the guy that was apparently a drug addict, and possibly gay (whether or not it was gay by choice or as an avenue to drugs, I don’t know) who called me “cecaLEE” and didn’t have all his teeth (he eventually died from AIDS). There was the big, dumb blond guy from New Jersey who got really jealous and once tried to shake my head off my shoulders (unfortunately for him, he did this at MY bar). There was the hot Italian guy who climbed up the front of my house and serenaded me one night, then took me to the bar the next night and left with another woman (yeah, and I took him back a few months later). There were others—one night stands with various idiots—and then I finally met the guy I thought I could have a real relationship with. We’ll call him Dick—since his first name was Richard (although he actually went by an abbreviation of his last name).

Dick first slept with a girlfriend of mine, but she didn’t really like him (I think—sadly, I was that kind of girl—one who should have had a t-shirt that said “Hold my purse while I kiss your boyfriend”). He and I started chatting a lot at the bar, and eventually went home together. For six months we did this—I didn’t even have his phone number—until I finally, at the advice of my girlfriends, told him I was seeing other people. He said that was fine, but as soon as I actually did go out with someone (a crazy black guy with a Mohawk who slept in a tent inside his apartment), Dick wouldn’t leave me alone. Soon, I not only had his phone number, I’d been to his house (he still lived with his parents—oh lordy, I should have known better) and had met his mother. It seemed like the next thing to do was have him move in with me.

We lived together for three years, even moving to a ranch house on 1.5 acres of land in New Jersey, until the day I came home from work and found out we’d been robbed. After a few frantic moments, I began to realize that only his stuff was gone, and found, written on the back of an envelope, the following: “Cec, I thought about our relationship, and moved—Dick.” We’d been fighting lately, and I’d asked him, that morning, to really think about what he wanted from our relationship.

Meanwhile, Charlie had gotten married. About the time that Dick and I got together, Charlie went with his then-girlfriend to a holiday party at her office (also used to be his office, it’s where they’d met) and they both got pretty drunk. Charlie had left the job to become a freelancer, but this left him without benefits. Jokingly, his girlfriend suggested that they should get married so he could have her benefits. Someone at the table overheard them, and got up and yelled, “Hey, these two are getting married!” Rather than contradict him, they went along with it, and before Charlie knew it, she’d told her parents and big checks were arriving so he decided to go along with it.

Unfortunately, it became clear, at least to Charlie, that the marriage wasn't working out for him. He tried to treat that by drinking even more, but eventually they ended up in counseling, and soon separated. I saw him often during this time, although he spent much of his time going to a go-go (it really was a go-go, more than a strip club). They had just moved back in together when Dick dumped me.

That was a crazy summer.  I’d stopped writing when I was with Dick (because he told me I sucked, and I—naturally--believed him) and I managed to find my voice and start putting pen to paper again. This was in between my flurry of one-night stands and a brief period where I dated two guys at once (one was a teeny guy with beautiful hair that I was afraid I’d hurt during sex, and the other a rather psycho limo driver). Then I began seeing a good friend, also a writer. And I got my first tattoo. I was 23.

It was the night I got that first tattoo that I ended up at a party at Charlie’s house. Charlie and I got to talking about writing again. I told him about the guy I was seeing, and he told me about another friend of his who was writing a lot. We considered starting a writers group, and after I left the party, Charlie apparently considered jumping out the 14th floor window. He listened to jazz instead.

Soon after, fate intervened.

One late afternoon, as Charlie was walking home, a guy pulled a knife on him and tried to rob him. Charlie told him he didn’t have any money, and the guy looked like he was going to stab him, but Charlie managed to pull away and duck (conveniently) into the bar. Shaking, he managed to convince the bartender to give him a drink on credit, and told her what had happened. She suggested he go home and calm down, and he did. He was surprised to find out (window jumping not withstanding) that he didn't want to die. Back at the bar later that night, he found himself evaluating his life. While speaking with a friend, he realized that he didn’t love his wife anymore, and the friend said something insightful and supportive along the lines of “No shit.” He decided to sleep on this realization, and discuss it further with friends he was planning to meet for breakfast. Friends that cancelled breakfast at the last minute (this is a crucial detail, people).

That same morning, I awoke in a wonderful mood. I finally felt like I’d shaken off the grief of Dick’s leaving, and was ready to start fresh. I called some friends, and we all decided to go get lox and bagels for breakfast at the deli right next to Charlie’s apartment building.

You can guess the next thing, right?

We ran into Charlie, who was also feeling rather giddy after his brush with death the night before, and lacking breakfast companions. So we invited him to join us for breakfast. I’m not sure exactly when we fell in love; for him, it might have been while he watched me re-apply my lipstick after eating. For me, it might have been while I was laughing at his stories.

My friend and I had planned to go shopping after breakfast, at a mall, and Charlie tagged along (hello!). We hung out all day, and then he agreed to meet us (my friend, her boyfriend, and me) that night at a club to hear some music. After just a couple of hours apart, I was so happy to see Charlie that I rushed right past the bouncer at the club (forgetting to pay my cover) to greet him.

I don’t remember anything about the music that night, I just remember Charlie’s bright eyes watching my face while I spoke. Unlike Dick, and most of the others, he listened to me.

My friends went home, and Charlie and I went to the bar, and then it was closing time, and we bought a six-pack and went up to his apartment. Conveniently, his wife was out of town (um, for me, not really for her). After about a thirty-minute pretense, we attacked each other. I wouldn’t sleep with him (I mean, I had SOME standards, and he WAS married) but we made out until 6am. While I was trying to leave, he pushed me up against the wall, where my leather coat (with fringe!) left some lovely scuffmarks. It was all very heady and romantic.

The next day I didn’t know what to think. He was married, for god’s sake! I told the guy I was seeing that I thought I’d fallen in love—you know, with someone else. He took it, uh, well, I think (we’re still friends). Charlie woke up and tried to clean off the scuffmarks.

When his wife got home Sunday, she found my scarf (no, I DID NOT leave it on purpose, please allow me to remind you of how much drinking was involved). Charlie made up a story about a group of people coming over, and then he told her he didn’t want to be married to her anymore. She, also, took it well (Charlie referred to the next few weeks as the “carnival of grief”).

The next day, while I was in surgery at work (I was a vet tech by this point) I glanced up at the lobby monitor and saw Charlie standing in the lobby. The front desk receptionist came back into surgery and told me, “There’s a beautiful man out front with wolf eyes that wants to speak with you.” Charlie's eyes are incredibly--super super pale blue, they pierce right through you. Literally shaking all over, I went out to the lobby. I grabbed my cigarettes, and we went outside.

Charlie said, “What if I told you I’m leaving my wife?”

I said (very dramatically), “I don’t want to know. I’m not going to be the other woman. If you really leave her, you can come find me, but I don’t want to see you until then.”

He solemnly agreed.

That night, or the next night, we ran into each other at the bar. While I kept seeing the other guy, there were still many, many make out sessions in my car with Charlie. One of those nights he said the following to me:

"You know,  I could leave right now, walk out into the street and get hit by a bus and it would be ok. I'd cross that great river, get to the other side, and say to everyone else there, you've all wasted your life checking dixie cups* for leaks, but me--me--I kissed Cecily."

Again, what's a girl to do?

Charlie got his own apartment, I broke it off with the other guy, and Charlie and I finally closed the deal. It was the first time in many years that I’d waited any length of time to be with a man, and boy oh boy, it was worth the wait!

There has never, never been a moment in the last twelve years (twelve! years!) when I haven’t known, beyond any doubt, that Charlie is the man for me. We’ve been through a lot: three years into our relationship, I fell into drugs, and we both stumbled into recovery. Ten months later, we married. Five years later, we faced infertility.

But here we are, eight years into our marriage, still in love, still happy, and—now--finally pregnant. It’s clear that I am the luckiest woman in the world.

Tomorrow night, we’re going to enjoy a birthday present given to Charlie (by my best friend) and eat dinner on a train pulled by a steam engine. It might not be the way I would have envisioned us celebrating, twelve years ago, but it fits us perfectly now. We’ve grown up together, somehow, without ever growing apart. I feel so blessed.

So Happy Anniversary, Charlie. I love you more than I can say.

And that’s the story, people. I’m sticking to it.

*The dixie cups are mentioned specifically because several member of Charlie's family did work at the dixie cup plant checking the cups for leaks.