Judecorp.

Summer is winding down and going back to work is looming just around the corner. There is one more week of summer life before Labor Day. How is that even possible? We have had a great and busy summer, so I know the time has truly passed but I am not ready. I am clinging to summer kicking and screaming even as the leaves begin to turn and the tomatoes are plentiful on my kitchen counter.

We spent the summer living a simple life, accommodating the baby's naps and just enjoying each other. I treasured the snuggly television watching with my daughter while my son slept in his room for his morning nap. We made crafts and played with water in the sink. We practiced writing letters and completed workbooks. She is falling right into my childhood footsteps - little nerdlet in training.

My son began the summer as a mostly immobile little guy who was content to swat at toys on the play mat and is now a nine month old force of destruction. He can tear apart my clean living room in less than a minute, climbing up and pulling things down, dumping over containers, scattering toys with might and mission. He shrieks and babbles, pulls the cats' tails, and adores his sister ferociously.

We spent a bunch of time this summer watching Punk's BFF, and it was great (and restful) watching the girls interact and watching C grow into an honorary big sister, handing the baby toys and talking to him so sweetly. We took weekly trips to our CSA farm and the big girls picked tomatoes and beans, cut flowers, and helped me choose the plumpest vegetables. We had a number of play dates with school friends and other babies. And kept the living easy.

We are now entering a new chapter in our lives together, me and my two. The baby doesn't remember going to day care and has entered the world of separation anxiety, which is likely to make the next few weeks rough. We switched him from the big day care center to the lovely, cozy home day care that Punk attended when she was two-to-three. I think this will be better for him, to have his own area for sleeping and a mom's touch, not to mention being around the corner from my job so I can fetch him as necessary. Punk is headed back to her Montessori classroom but will add two more days of after-school care since the pick-ups in the afternoon have to shift to accommodate picking up the baby first. She is looking forward to no longer being the youngest child in the classroom and it will be good for her to have some new kids to mentor.

I am not looking forward to going back to work but it will be nice to see the friendly adult faces that sustain me throughout the work day. It is nice to be wanted at work and I have enjoyed the relationship I've made between my agency and my school. I will enjoy seeing how my clients have grown over the summer and see their sun-kissed faces at the start of their new school year.

Time seems to march quickly when the work week hits full swing and I'm gobsmacked to realize that I will soon be planning my son's first birthday party. To think we are mere months away from first steps and words. It is humbling to be entrusted with these sweet souls.

I don't know what the next year will bring for my children and me, but we are ready for it and will meet it all with love.

So when we were at the IVP shindig in DC, there were a couple of sickies floating around - some of the kid and some of the adult variety. There was a great big melting pot of germs from as far away as Ireland and Australia as well as a healthy dose of the local flavor. I was expecting Punk to get sick. But oh, she is having the sick of her little life. (I have been spoiled. She does not get sick very often and does not get sick hard.)

She has a double ear infection that is now on its second antibiotic (the first did squat, thankfully the second seems to be working). Today is the first day since, oh, Thursday? that she has not woken up with a fever. She is congested solidly full of snot and it is now making its way into her chest. She sleeps for crap which means that I sleep for crap. And she has lost her mild-mannered disposition and become "that" toddler. The one who freaks out if one food touches another food, and then refuses to eat. The one who freaks out because a little bit of oatmeal is on her hand. The one who freaks out because you started to read the wrong book, even though it was the book she handed you. You know, that one. I have never had that toddler. And I don't particularly like her. ;)

She has been full-on spoiled because of this, with lots of juice, lots of TV, and lots of being able to eat things like goldfish crackers and applesauce for dinner. How I am going to crawl out of this one with some dignity in tact, I don't rightly know. I will leave it up to day care to straighten out. Ha ha.

I don't feel all that great myself, but Jen is of course sick to the tenth power and yesterday needed to go to the emergency room for a bazillion prescriptions and now is locked in the bedroom. I am trying to dig out from under the mountains of laundry from DC and before, all the while wrangling "that" toddler and trying to do some general house tidying. I am supposed to be working on Amy's Valentine's Day swap gift (sorry, Amy) and I am supposed to be doing the taxes and I am supposed to be doing a lot of things. At this point, I have no idea when any of that is going to happen. I'm also supposed to be sending refi paperwork in. That I can commit to doing tonight. I hope.

Since I have been sick and have been sitting in front of a lot of PBS programming (proof of devastating spoilage: Punk now says "PEE BEE ESS"), I have had time to do a lot of navel-gazing and realize that I have not been present in a very long time. I want to apologize to everyone, because I simply haven't had anything to give. I'm sorry I don't comment in your journals. I'm sorry I haven't been active on your bulletin boards. I'm sorry I wasn't more talkative and perky at your big get-together. I'm sorry I haven't made your present. I'm sorry I haven't returned your calls/texts/e-mails/messages on Facebook. I'm sorry I haven't remembered your birthday or sent you that card that has been sitting out for a month. I'm sorry. I wish I wasn't the world's crappiest friend right now but I am in a deep, dark hole and I have no idea how to get out. All I can see in front of me really is work, the toddler, and a devastating to-do list.

I had a crappy part-time job at UMass and I wanted to claw my eyes out every day from sheer boredom. However, I did manage to meet some cool college kids and they made it bearable. Also I met Peterson Toscano who is totally my Big Gay Crush and I wish I met him sooner because I would have begged him for his sperm. No, really.

I checked out of that job on June 29 - my temp contract ran out at the end of the fiscal year. Perfect timing, because I went into labor at 11pm on June 30 when my water broke.

Of course the biggest event of 2007 was birthing my daughter. Labor and delivery were amazing and intense events and I would not trade them for the world. I had the most amazing midwife, the most amazing doula, the most amazing labor nurse, and the most amazing partner. It was a wicked, wild ride and I can totally see why people become birth junkies. I am totally a birth junkie now and would love to be a doula.

The rest of the year was spent being a mama to a kick-ass, intense little person. She is also a high-needs baby and has had too many medical scares in her short life already: major weight loss and dehydration after birth due to lack of breastmilk; a fall from a bed with a resulting CT scan, ambulance ride, and PICU admittance; pretty severe reflux; a mystery rash that was believed to be petechia for no known reason; a lactose intolerance; weird hip/leg issues that are NOT hip dysplasia. We spent more on medical co-pays than probably anything else in 2007.

I spent more time crying in 2007 than any other year in my life. Except maybe when I was an infant. I don't remember. I also was depressed, really depressed, for the first time ever, largely resulting from my nursing issues. (Actually, I still can't think of nursing without getting sad. Two nursing mamas have been in my house this week and I realized that I can't even remember what nursing felt like, and I cried again. Augh.)

Pregnancy and mamahood has done a number on our marriage, but we are committed to coming out stronger on the other side and hope we are already on our way.

I am having a bit of a crisis of faith with respect to breastfeeding. I guess I am just not used to failure. I'm a goal-oriented person and when I want to do something, I do it. And if it's hard, I work hard and I get it done. I can't really think of anything I really wanted to do that I couldn't pull off. Except this.

It hit me the other day that I am taking 9-12 pills a day and getting half an ounce (or so) of milk per feeding. In a perfect situation (where the domperidone is timed just right and I don't nurse for 6-8 hours and it's first thing in the morning when milk peaks) I can squeeze out 2 ounces of milk, and let me tell you, it takes a lot of work. I have to pump for a long time, all the while squeezing the crap out of my boob with my hand in all kinds of funky ways to eke out every last drop. And then I actually get 2 ounces, which is a minor miracle.

Usually, though, pumping involves all of the above things, but half an ounce of output or less. That's disheartening. Like WOAH.

So here's the thing: generous friends have given me about six boxes of domperidone, and one is en route from juliann as well. I have about four boxes left to my name. Do I buy more? Is it worth spending hundreds of dollars on bootleg medication to frustrate my little baby by continuing to put her on the boob that barely spits out milk? When she is really hungry, she gets PISSED OFF. I can't say I blame her. It's like being starving and having someone offer you one hors d'oeuvre. And making you work really really hard for it. It actually makes me sad when she's so frustrated. And then she guzzles 4oz. of formula and loves life.

It's so hard because I love nursing her and I love the time we spend, but is it worth dropping big bucks that we don't have on pills when we're already dropping big bucks on formula? (Although we haven't dropped bucks in a while, thanks to the generosity of folks sending us their free samples and Jen's parents buying us $100 worth of formula at BJs when they were here.) Do I spend $190 on 18 boxes of pills (a box lasts 11 days, so 198 days' worth) and try to stick it out? Do I use the pills I have and then see what happens when I run out? Do I continue to force the angry, hungry baby to suck out every last drop before I let her eat her real meal?

It's hard because I have a hard time separating what I'm doing that's best for her versus what I'm doing that is best for me. I wonder if I'm being selfish with all of this nursing business and whether I'm just beating a dead horse. 12 pills for a couple of half-ounce servings? I know every drop is helpful but sometimes I wonder if my money is better served buying someone else's breastmilk.

I have such a love-hate relationship with hormones. On one hand, I love what I've been able to accomplish (and will soon be accomplishing) by messing around with my natural set-up of hormones. I'm doing something that I'd been told and always thought was out of my reach, and hey, what can I say? I like to do the impossible. But on the other hand, it's been 27 months now that I haven't been myself. I don't even really recognize myself. I'm some medically-twisted New Me.

( Lots of random blather about gender and hormones that you can feel free to skip. )

But I know that I look at pictures from three years ago and see myself, and look at pictures from now and wonder who that person is. I guess I will keep telling myself it will get better with time.

It had been a terrible year. All sorts of unfathomable things had been unraveling around me for so long that sometimes I think I should have expected it, but how can one expect something so cold? I suppose there is intelligence for this sort of thing but I have known for a very long time that I simply do not possess it. I do not have the heart, nor the brain, for such things. I am glad for that.

It was a particularly agonizing summer. Our apartment building got struck by lightning in June. The building caught fire and a neighbor pounded on our door, "Get out! The building is on fire!" I was in the middle of writing a paper for finals and had to switch gears immediately to load cats into carriers and run outside. The apartment above us but one over was completely obliterated; ours escaped with some water damage. We were finally allowed back in and I had a little nervous breakdown about how foolish it was to leave the computer inside a burning building when I was in the middle of finals. An hour after we were let back in, a policeman told us sternly that we had to leave immediately for an undisclosed amount of time. No reason. No explanation. We thought it might have been concern of a gas main problem but the truth was that in searching the charred building for embers, bomb-making chemicals were found. In my neighbor's apartment. We were evacuated for four days, I think, during the beginning of the end of our marriage. That was June.

In July, I asked him if he was still in love with me and he said no. I called Becky and neither of us were surprised. It still sucked, though. We'd signed a lease a couple of days before the fire and had just moved into another apartment in the same complex. We agreed to ride out the lease. 11.5 more months.

In August, I had my first tonsil abcess and ended up needing him to take me to the ER. It was awful - the pain, and having to depend on him. My grandfather ended up in the hospital in August as well. We both recovered, but it was a long summer. The quarter came to an end and I decided I needed a little reward for surviving the summer. I found a cheap flight to New York and made plans to spend nearly a week with my best friend. A whole week that we'd packed with parties, dancing, theatre, the beach. Oh, and making out with Becky.

Jodie had been having a bit of a stressful time so I arranged a day of total spoilage for her, a fun little Date Day. I'd arranged for flowers to be sent to her at work, and had ordered theatre tickets for us that night. She'd wanted to see "The Music Man" because Robert Sean Leonard was playing Prof. Harold Hill. I spent way more than I could realistically afford on really good seats, so that maybe RSL would see us when we yelled, "Swing Heil, Peter!" at him. She ended up deciding at the last minute to take a personal day that day so we could hang together. The flowers could take care of themselves. We got into a stupid argument the night before, god what a waste of time in hindsight, and fell asleep exhausted in the inky hours of morning.

We got two hours of sleep.
We got a phone call about an airplane.
We got up to watch the news.
We got the shock of our lives.
We got dressed.
We got donuts.
We got e-mail saying our musical was cancelled. For an unknown duration.
We got lots of frantic messages from loved ones.
We got a visit from Chris who'd walked all the way home with ash in his hair.
We got older that day.

I can't believe it's been five years. I still remember the feeling of her leg pressed against mine as we sat on the couch fixated on the playback loop. I still remember the feeling of knowing that your best friend should ALWAYS be sitting next to you when your world is shattering. I still remember the feeling of the warm sun on my cool skin as we walked outside, the weather perfect and early fall, just like today. Because it was today, a different today that I still remember in a heartbeat.

I sent two messages today: a voicemail to Jodie to remind her that I loved her and was thinking of her, because today will always and forever be etched with our friendship and how much I need her; and a text message to Chris - "Five years ago today I plucked ash from your hair. I love you."

What I wrote in 2001.
What I wrote in 2003.
What I wrote in 2004.

I tend to gloss over events these days that years ago would have held much more weight, much more need for documentation. I don't think this has changed, I just think I have become more busy, more full of events. I wish for simpler days when I could ruminate on one situation, one event, one emotion, so it could be processed and moved along. Staccato blasts of chaos and drama have all but eliminated the possibility of this.

I would have written about the traumatic experience of taking Jen to the emergency room when she couldn't breathe from bronchitis, nearly a year to the day from when I went to a different hospital, in a different state, to be told that my father was not going to live. To sign DNR forms. To have only one hope - that nothing final happened before my brother could come to town. One year later I was in a dingy ER in Dorchester with my wife who was struggling to breathe, gasping on top of several new health concerns that had popped up in the last few weeks. Flashback City. I could have given a lot of life to those feelings, to that event, to the parallel and visceral memories. Instead the car got vandalized and our IUI cycle got cancelled.

Recently, in an argument, she told me that she was really hurt by that evening in the hospital, that I wasn't there for her in the way she wanted. I didn't hold her hand much, I didn't whisper comforting things. And I felt horribly guilty, and sad, and undeserving of compassion for my own pain, for my own situation, for the acknowledgment that it must have been terribly difficult to be in the ER that night, just a year later, with yet another near and dear next to the monitors and machines. And I guess in some ways that shows more than anything else how out of sync and out of touch we have actually become in our time in Boston, with the trials and tribulations that seem to be neverending around these parts. That's sad.

I suppose I shouldn't watch maudlin Logo programs On Demand about old lesbians dying of cancer. At least not this early in the morning at the start of a beautiful Saturday.

I want my old life back.

The other really interesting thing Jen and I talked about was about friendships and relationships, and how they affect us. She said that I haven't really been myself the whole time we've been in Boston, and I totally agree. Ryan and I were talking about how I didn't want to go to Game Night and he said, "What? You don't want to go to a party? You are the life of the party!" And it totally bummed me out because it used to be so true.

Jen told me that she is happy and gets to see the Real Me when we're with work people or people from the HelpLine. And I'm inclined to agree. I feel most like myself - my most likeable, funloving self - with people from work and the HelpLine... almost as good as with my soulfriends in Columbus. I just feel like I can be myself, like who myself is is appreciated, like I have some sort of value or merit or zing. It's nice.

I used to think that I'm happier at work than at home because things were really messed up at home. But the more I think about it, and the more Jen talks about it, the more I realize that the interactions I have at work - in a similar place and from a standpoint of genuinely wanting to get to know me and care about what's going on - help me tap into that genuine-ness and spirit of who I am. And of /course/ that makes me happy - I get to be me! I get to prank and be rude and inappropriate and people like it and feed off it and we all have a crazy time. It's good.

We talked a little bit, too, on what makes a good friend and what I, specifically, look for and need in good friendships. I mentioned when Coworker S had a family tragedy and she had to rush out of town, and how I called her every night to check up on her, even for a minute. I am that kind of friend because I /want/ that kind of friend. Maybe it's from spending my time with social service workers. Who knows? All I know is I have high standards, and I became accustomed to being blessed with an unusually large number of such quality friendships. And I sure do miss that.

I'm touched that she cares enough to think about me and my well-being, but I'm more touched that she pays attention and really notices. She's a keeper.

One thing I noticed a bazillion years ago when I started getting involved in the genderqueer community was how many genderqueer people who were born female had been diagnosed with PCOS or other endocrine conditions. It's not really surprising, since PCOS raises androgen levels and throws off female hormones and all of that... but I'd never made that connection until I started hearing how many people had it. Treatment for PCOS used to just pretty much consist of birth control pills to regulate menstrual cycles, but that didn't really work for me. BCPs kind of turned me into a monster - I had these horrific mood swings and got really REALLY angry. Out of nowhere. I would be all happy-la-la and then I would just get totally pissed off. Or I would bust out crying because of some song on the radio. It was crazy. I was never so glad to ditch the BCPs. A. and I "risked" pregnancy for a long time because I refused to take BCPs anymore and wasn't really worried about getting pregnant, and life got much better.

The Metformin stuff seems to really be working, symptom-wise. I mean, I dropped a bunch of weight, I get my period every once in a while, and my insulin and testosterone levels have gone down into the normal range. But something has changed, something I haven't really been writing about but have definitely been thinking about.

I seem to be losing a lot of the boy in me, and that kind of bums me out. I'm guessing it's probably due to reduced androgen levels but I hate the idea that my identity and who I feel I am can be reduced to hormones. That's crazy! But it sure seems to be true.

It seems so strange to see older photos from when Jen and I got together. Now I have this froo-froo hair (which does look quite cool, I have to admit) and the lost weight means I don't fit into most of my boy pants anymore and I end up wearing these (very flattering) girly low-rise pants and stuff. It's crazy! So I have this girl hair and girl clothes and talk about baby-making and eeek, what happened to me?

I talk to my coworkers about passing as male a few years ago and no one believes me, and now I feel like I'm losing some of that genderqueer identity that I liked so much, that I felt so at home in. Only it doesn't feel very at home anymore. The idea that I have ever been a boy seems kind of like a sham. All this because of hormones?

This isn't very well developed or coherent, I know. It's just been on my mind. Thoughts?

It was recently asked of me if I thought it was responsible to go through fertility treatments to potentially bring a child into the world who might also have infertility issues, thereby creating familial dependence on the pharmaceutical industry. The comment and question was: I don't really consider fertility drugs a good idea. I understand the urge to be pregnant, to carry and give birth - I have that same urge. But I'm also aware that pregnancy may not be the best option for me and my child. If you push to have biological children, they will likely suffer the same infertility problems you're having, condemning generations of your offspring to dependence on Big Pharma.

My quick response:

Interesting perspective.

I don't consider myself any more dependent on "Big Pharma" than your average Joe Schmo American. My family history, like most people's family histories, is full of pharmaceuticals - high blood pressure, type II diabetes, cholesterol, heart disease, skin cancer, depression, et cetera. All of these are fairly common problems these days, especially as people get older and "modern medicine" keeps them going. My grandfather is 88 years old and has had 2 heart attacks and one bypass surgery, takes medication for heart disease, blood pressure, and type II diabetes (largely diet controlled). Should he have not had children?

I think the push to adopt existing children is admirable, and more than admirable, it should be considered and pursued by more people. However, I think that discouraging people from having children (biological, adopted, or whatever) usually ends up boiling down to trying to create some superior class of people who 'should' have biochildren over others who 'shouldn't' - queers, single parents, poor people, sicker people, older people, people without health insurance, people in poorer countries... I could continue to go on.

I'm appalled by a statement that implies that a child with the potential to develop endocrine problems (like PCOS) is somehow less desirable or would be 'suffering' more than an adopted child. My parents actually /don't/ have a history of PCOS or other endocrine problems, although PCOS is now seen largely as an insulin problem more than an ovary problem... and since my grandfather developed type II diabetes later in life it's /possible/ that I've inherited some sort of predisposition to him. Of course, it's also possible that I could have a heart attack in my 50s like my father, or have high cholesterol like my grandmother.

What /is/ a shame is the way pregnancy and childbirth have become big business for medical and pharmaceutical companies, with scheduled inductions and pain-free laboring and intervention after intervention that in most cases are not necessary and may impede progress. In that sense, /anyone/ who chooses (or doesn't choose) to be pregnant is feeding "Big Pharma." What next? End all pregnancies? Decide no one should give birth?

I think it's fantastic that you have soul-searched and come to the conclusion that pregnancy may not be the best option for you and your child. My hope is that every person is able to do the same amount of thinking and have the same amount of choice.

I thought this would make an interesting interactive debate, because I know that I have a lot of different friends with a LOT of different perspectives. SO HAVE AT IT!