Pictures from June and July

These feature Fourth of July festivities, plus visits with cousin Iona, honorary Grandma Marsha, and Brady's family!

Glowing Parents

My mother recently learned how to download pictures from her camera into the computer. That relevation leads to this post. She sent us a couple very sweet pictures of ourselves in full parenthood.

Conception Achieved: Anniversary

On June 10, 2008 we conceived our two babies. Actually, they were conceived for us in a petri dish, and there were more than just the two. This wasn't the first batch of embryos to be conceived, either. They were in the third group. These two were the fifth and sixth embryos to get to see the inside of my uterus in the span of a year. What made these two special was that they survived. They stuck around in my body long enough to get bigger, and when they were ready they came out as baby humans.

Last week, Shady Grove Fertility finally got around to my repeated repeated repeated request, and sent me the photo of these two particular embryos.

This is the first picture of Amanda and Elisa.

Amazing. Think of all the genetic information that was inside those tiny cell clusters. We had no idea what they held at the time, and we're only starting to find out. What tiny little bits of infinite mystery and wonder!

To my dear friends who are still in the fight, I think about you all the time. Here is hoping that little clusters of cells like these, wherever they start out and wherever they gestate, float their way into your lives very soon.

Never have things so small been so big. Never have things so nondescript been so beautiful.

Summer Fun

This slideshow has pictures of the girls hanging out at home with their cousin, Iona, in the "Where's Waldo" role (hint: she's usually under something). We also have some pics from our trip to their Godfather Jeff and Aunt Noemi's wedding in Pennsylvania. No, the margarita is not bigger than Amanda. But that didn't stop me from drinking it.

The Latest Photo Shoot

Grandma and Papa were in town for the babies' Christening this weekend, and we took the following pictures in our traditional last-day-of-visit photo shoot:

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Any [wo]man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

-John Donne

Can you love someone so much that they become a part of you? That's what I asked at Mamaw's funeral on Friday. I had been thinking that question after we buried her in a private family ceremony earlier that afternoon. In the car on the way to the church I looked at Amanda in her carseat. Did I really embody part of Mamaw? Did Amanda? I know we had been saying she would live on through her relatives, but would she really?

In her almost 96 years, Mamaw was so "involved with Mankind" (and not just because she was boy-crazy) that around four hundred people came to the Celebration of Life service at the church. The whole choir sang. Grandchildren and children and honorary relatives got up and spoke. Ten years ago she gave one of the "bastard children" from her Sunday School class the task of giving her eulogy. He finally got to do it. And these people are all at least a generation younger than her. Imagine how the congregation would have spilled out into the halls if all -- if any -- of her contemporaries were still around.

Yes, she would live on. Of course she would. All those people filling up the sanctuary were part Mamaw now. The way she had treated them would influence the way they treated others. The way she interacted with the world, the things she had talked with them about, would affect the way they thought and acted. She loved so many people. Like me, she made a best friend every time she went to the grocery store. And because she loved so much, many many people came to love her.

Mamaw is a part of me because she offered her loving arms to me for 37 years. We wrote each other letters; I visited her whenever I could. She would always say that it was so easy to be around me. I found the same true of her (except when she was watching Fox News, which she had chosen because the anchormen were the cutest). One night one year I read her poetry from a very old book. She recited it along with me. It's an understatement to say she was special. And for her to tell me I was special, well. It was special.

When I write letters, when I make friends, when I fight for a chance to speak to a crowd -- about anything -- that's all from Mamaw. When I make a little "huh!" sigh and look up and raise my shoulders, that's Mamaw. When I dangle my fork between my fingers over my plate, that's Mamaw, by way of Mom. And when I yearn to make my home a place where anyone is welcome, where everyone is loved individually, and where music and light reign supreme. That's Mamaw. I want, I want, I want to give my girls the kind of experience that I got at Mamaw's house.

That's how she lives on.

But Mamaw doesn't just live. She died. She swapped love with us. The places in us that she filled with her memories and appreciation, used to hold bits of us. We gave those to her. And so when the bell tolled for Mamaw, it rang for a broken community, a broken family, a broken me. We're mostly the same, and we hold so much of her still. But it's a loss. It hurts. We all died last Monday.

Along with the tolling bell quote, I've been thinking about "tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." Can you imagine what life would have been like without Mamaw? No, me neither. And I don't want to. Getting my heart broken at 37 is a small price to pay for the life she's given to me.

I see Mamaw's baby pictures in Amanda's dark hair and chubby cheeks. I see Mamaw's love of people in Elisa's perpetual smile. In James I see the person Mamaw said she'd marry if I didn't.

We're all Mamaw. It's only barely a metaphor. And so we're all less now than what we were.

It will take some time to recover.

The Day of Mothers

This morning I wrote about Mothers' Day from the perspective I've had until now: that of someone on the outside. Today I was inside. And I like it.

I did the 6:00 a.m. feeding, but James took the babies from there, and I got to sleep until 11:23! I slept so much that my eyes were puffy. That hasn't happened in a long time. I awoke to the sound of Amanda howling in the living room and James begging her, from the kitchen, to just hang on. As I came down the stairs, James told me to go back upstairs. Then he reconsidered. Okay, you can come down here, but you have to stay in the living room.

After a very sweet few minutes talking to my little babies, both of whom were smiling back at me and doing some very preliminary cooing sounds, James walked in with a masterpiece. The girls and he had made French toast with strawberries on top, and fresh squeezed orange juice. I can't remember which girl they said it had been who squeezed the oranges, but either way I'm impressed. I wouldn't have thought they had the strength.

James also brought me out a card from the girls, which he was kind enough to take dictation onto. He even drew a heart on it, because the girls told him to. They know, at this early age, that girls draw hearts on things. It's true. I told him about the year of 5th grade, when I dotted every single "i", for one year, with a heart.

Next, James brought me out a baby bottle with some flowers in it. It was going to go on the tray that would have brought me my breakfast in bed, if I'd stayed there to receive it. Oh, so cute.

I love my husband, and I love my little daughters. And according to what they wrote on the card, they love me, too. It turns out, Mothers' Day isn't just about elevating the mothers around us. It's not even spelled Mothers' Day. It's Mother's Day. It's not about being celebrated: it's about celebrating your own mom for the wonderful, wonderful things she's done for you and meant to you. When you hear somebody thanking you for what you do for them, and they tell you they love you as much as you love them... well, wow. James's card made me really understand that the girls love me. It may seem funny, but I wasn't sure they did. I wasn't even sure they recognized me when I picked them up. But yeah, I guess they would.

I have heard people say that when you have children, you appreciate your own parents much more. You have a much greater understanding of what they went through with you. That's true. And having twins myself, I realize with shock and awe what their lives were like in 1972. And so I say,

WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?

It's true that Dad tried to comfort me in the infertile years by saying that children were a lot of trouble, and maybe I didn't want them anyway. But it wasn't a very specific warning.

I do feel my mother could have been a lot clearer about what I was really in for. She did say year ago, apropos of nothing, that she hadn't minded the work of taking care of two little children at the same time, since David and I were so cute. She just liked being around us. At the time, I thought that was obvious. Now, I see it's not something you can take for granted.

So why didn't Mom tell me how exhausting it is to do everything you have to do to take care of one baby, and right after you have won every struggle with the one, to turn around and do the same thing with the other? You finally rock one to sleep. Okay, good. Now change the other's diaper, feed her, and rock her to sleep now. Whew. Finally got one through a bath, screaming the whole time? She's warm and toasty, finally calm, and smelling sweet? Okay, go get the other one and peel her clothes off her. Start the cycle all over again.

I'm not complaining. I'm just saying. Damn.

Mom should have complained. So why didn't she? I suppose it's because she loved us as much as we loved her. And that's a whole, whole lot.

Now I get it.