The NSSDMD: (Not So Single Double Mama Drama) Part One

I have been away, and I'm truly sorry to leave those hanging that follow this journalesque blog o'mine. But as with a journal, sometimes life supersedes the written word for a time, only to fuel it so completely later. Please read on for a full explanation and catching up of what's been going down. I shan't be away again for so very long.

When I check out of lifes' motel, there will be so many shinning, glittery memories of my time here that I'll gratefully look back upon. My favorite movies and books. Enjoying all the boisterous family holidays as a kid, feeling safe, happy and loved. Sewing wild oats with wild abandon, in places I'd always dreamed of being and at long last, made it to. Looking in the mirror and feeling delighted at what I see staring back. Hours spent with the people that celebrate who I am the most, doing things unique to only us. And most glittery to date, starting a family of my own. My life has morphed and grown to allow for their respective journeys to take shape, and it's as rewarding as it is grueling at times, not that it's a news flash to say so. The past few months I've been away we've multiplied from three to four, moved to a new city, and started a new chapter.

My enigmatic little genius, my sassy spitfire with a heart of gold named Logan, who so completely changed my scope of life seven years ago (and the soul reason for the SMD), started out a painful secret of mine. I've touched on this subject a few times, but never with this degree of explanation. I didn't feel I could do it all justice, or I just wanted the forthcoming novel to do big numbers, I 'spose. But it's a necessary, timely time to let you all in on it.

No one knew concretely (a few family members suspected) of Logan until she was already here, after I gave birth to her myself, all by myself. I kept it hidden from everyone I knew. Yeah, I know, misguided teenagers in preachy after school specials do that sort of thing, not competent 23 year old aspiring actors. Secret, solo and in the passenger seat of a car isn't how women envision their first child bearing experience. Especially when they didn't want one to begin with, didn't fathom it ever happening. My distant thinking at the time was that motherhood would trample everything I'd carved out for my life up to that point. I was an island of my own independent functioning, a career oriented, self-sufficient party girl that no one really understood, but who many thought they knew well enough. Not having anyone to care about or for, besides me, myself, and I. My plan was to leave her at a fire station for someone who really wanted a kid, could truly take care of her. Then she came out and I let myself fall in love, and couldn't drop her anywhere but into my own life. Needless to say the ripples of how Logan was born touched everyone around us. Anyone regaled with the tale was/is shocked or humbled or confused (or all three) as to why I could/would do anything so "dangerous" or "difficult", or truly astonished that I had the wherewithal to see it through with no trauma or death.

Truth be told, I was more freaked out by the thought of others interfering than by any other facet of what was happening. No stranger was going to shout "BREATHE!" at me, if you catch my breeze. I know how to do that, thanks, and I would rather do it at my own behest. Most women would have gotten prenatal care, dealt with the "facts", let everyone know what was happening way before. Celebrated it with cutesy decorations, even. I'm not most women though, don't do things the "normal" way,  and these two experiences only cemented that about me.

When it was just Logan and I for that first five years, it felt like who I presumed I was and who I truly wanted to be finally blended and multiplied my person hood, even as it kicked my ass into shape. To hell with all the others. I had found a being that loved me for me, unconditionally, one who I would see concrete proof of daily time and energy and emotion spent. I was content and determined to shift and make my goals fit around this little lump of love. So I did, and it was good.

Cut to October of almost two years ago, when we met Darrick. He was a friend of a friend, and sparks didn't exactly fly when we first met. He seemed like good bro material, but I wasn't looking for any sort of romance. So, naturally, the ivory white glove of relationship slapped my cheek soundly. It was a quick, challenging, comfortable ride to coupledom from there. We went from acquaintances, to friends, to roommates with benefits, to being with each other everyday. We had started a life together. All within a couple weeks.

We were/are friends first, and that always leads to something lasting, even when it's resisted most for various external reasons. He's a lone wolf like myself, so we had some adjustments within ourselves to contend with (but like attracts like, so here we are). Logz was none too pleased to have our dynamic changed so soundly either, needless to say. I was all she'd ever known and now there was someone else taking my time and attention. But they are a lot alike ironically, and after seeing him as a friend first and then (stubbornly, reluctantly), a father figure, she finally accepted that we were now three. It was a breakthrough, it was.

Then around September of last year, I crash landed back in that weird, distant place I had only known once before. That lonely, protective, place. I watched from a distance as all the happy, nagging thoughts of giving Logan a sibling, all the anxieties of having another lump of love added to the mix too soon, as the anxieties of financial constraints had a strangle hold on us,  and most of all, dealing with what everyone around me would have to say about it all...finally, I watched as it all culminated on Mothers' Day of this year, when Maybel Dean Alexander was born. She was 8lbs 1oz of round, roley, Buddha baby from the moment she debuted. Quiet and observant and lovely. This time I was in the bathroom, not my car, so upgrade there at least. Just like her sister before, she debuted to a couple suspecting family members, but mostly clueless onslaughts of those who know us. They all were shocked and delighted, confused but content that we were both healthy and happy. Logan loves her baby sis, despite the initial resentful fury that comes with any sibling dynamic, and the near out of the blue big sister-hood.
  

I don't suppose I can explain my position to any satisfying degree, but I'm a writer so I'll take a stab at it. Some could argue that I betrayed many people out of the "pregnancy experience" they would have had through me, that I cheated Maybel out of prenatal care in every respect, that I cheated myself out of that...and in that way I feel a millimeter of remorse. But that's just it; if it weren't for anyone else involved, I would have done it just the way I did. She came out as healthy as a little ox (or bull, she is a Taurus..and her name is Maybel) so at the end of the day, no harm no foul. Darrick took the biggest hit being a proud papa that couldn't really be, but that's a big reason why we work. He trusted me to do what I had to, and he's just thankful to have such a wonderful baby girl. 

Pregnancy does funny things to women, just as war does funny things to men. Hormones and emotions thereof, the prospect of  shoving your personal autonomy farther away (just as you got it back to some degree if you have more than one), considering all the ramifications of every choice you will or won't make on your baby and everyone else involved...it can be one of the loneliest, scariest times in a womans' life. Even if throngs of people support them through it, it's still personal and private and life altering.

For some reason, my response to all that is to go into "protection mode" as a nurse in the hospital called it (we went both times after they were born, to get checked out). Half of me denies it's happening, the other half will be damned to let anyone mess with me or the alien object that grows steadily that I must protect. A part of me just doesn't want anyone to see me go through all the gory details if I can spare them. As crazy as it sounds. I didn't connect to either girls until I looked into their eyes for the first time, heard their cry, kissed their little chubby cheeks. I knew if I'd gone the traditional route things would have been worse for me, and in effect, them.

This I will say, however, for what it's worth and as for how it may apply to mine or  any particular life situation of yours:

1) Babies are resilient, miraculous creatures. They follow mamas' lead, so if you're OK with your choices, they will be too.

2) Panic never helps any situation, stay calm and stay in the moment and stay strong. It will work itself out, I'm living proof of that.

3) If you trust yourself enough to know what's best for yourself, then committing to it all the way-even when that means choosing something that's wrong to someone else-won't bring about catastrophe, it will bring change for the better. With all due respect to the peanut gallery, you have to ignore them. Either they'll understand or they'll exit your life, and you'll be happy in that life. It's the only one you have, afterall.

So Maybel is here now, no matter what it took, with all her magic and beauty and wrecking ball effect life as we knew it, only to re-build it stronger. She fits so well, and we love her completely. Amidst all the Maybel drama, we were getting ducks in rows to move to San Diego, the other big change in our lives lately....standby for Part Two.