Balance

So, it has been an emotional week at the Kerr house to say the least.  I like to lead a life of control and I am not one who finds it easy to relinquish that control or ask for help from others, but I got a call last week from my doctor telling me that test results had not come back very good in regard to blood pressure, blood work and some other workups.  So, I had to leave work and head to the office to see what was up.

Baby looks great and he is definitely a boy.  But, mom is not so great.  I feel ashamed in admitting that because I feel like I am an active, healthy person.  I've carried two other healthy babies and I've worked up until the day before I delivered both.  However, here I sit on the 12th of September on my couch typing because I am not at work.  And I am not due until October 26th.  A whole month early.  A whole month of failure.  A whole month of wondering what my kids are going to do in my absence and if everything will go ok.  A whole month of being off work with no baby.  A whole month of people judging me and the fact that I'm not there, probably talking about how lucky I am.  Or worse yet, what if they think I'm faking it?

My doctor is very adamant that work was contributing to my blood pressure issues and it is best to take it easy.  Not bedrest, but basically nothing strenuous or stressful.  Coworkers, friends, and many others keep telling me "enjoy it!" "rest" "take advantage"...  And I've cried about this...a LOT.  But I think back to my daughter Sawyer, almost 9 years ago, when I was a brand new teacher starting my first job.  I had her six weeks into the school year and I was back teaching when she was 6 weeks old.  I have told everyone that is one of my deepest regrets. I didn't spend enough time with her.  I didn't enjoy her the way I should have.  She was the first experience I ever had with motherhood and I short changed myself and her all for fear of what people thought of me as a professional.

Here's the problem.  We put such pressure on people, especially moms, to do it all.  We expect women to have healthy pregnancies while working the whole time, barf in their work bathrooms, keep up with whatever workloads they are expected to do up until the day baby is born, give them six weeks to recover, and get back at it again.  That's our norm.  That's what society expects.  That's what I expected.  Until now.

For my second baby, Harper, almost 4 years ago now, I worked like a madwoman up until I had her, but I took 12 weeks off. I trusted my substitute immensely, and it was the best three months of my life.  I held my baby, I rocked my baby, I watched her grow, and I enjoyed almost every second.  I went to my kindergartner's class and volunteered, baby in tow.  I saw and felt what it was like to be JUST a mom, without the other items I am attached to it.  I came to realize that time that I spent away from other obligations really did make me a better, more patient, less anxietal mom.  I know that choice to take extra time away was the right one for me and my family, even if it was an expensive one.

However, I almost had myself talked out of this for my third time because I had to leave work unexpectedly and very early.  I really contemplated coming back 6 weeks after mini Mr. is born because I felt like I wasn't being fair to my co-workers and my place of employment by staying home for 12 weeks with baby because I have to take this month of right now for me and my health in exchange for a healthy baby.  But the doctor said something to me that changed my thinking.  He asked how I would feel if I didn't do what he asked, if I kept going into work, kept doing all the planning, and I had the baby 7 weeks early with underdeveloped lungs and other systems and he had to stay in the hospital and I couldn't bring him home.  I wouldn't be able to enjoy my time with him because he'd be hooked up to monitors and tubes, or worse...something that I'm not even going to type.  This would be by my own choosing, because I wouldn't relinquish my control and delegate some of my duties to others, causing undue stress to myself, and in turn the baby.

I caught myself.  I was a fraud and a fake.  I was not thinking about my baby.  I was thinking about that other hat I wear- that professional one.  My number one goal in my job is to look out for the best interest of my kids.  I care for them, I make sure they are safe, I do what is best for them, and every decision I make is to ensure that happens.  And, yes, I think that I am the best person for that job.  Yet, here I was legitimately not doing the same for my unborn son.  I wasn't thinking about what was in his best interest, or even my daughters', or my husband's- what if something happened to me, their mom, his wife, because I didn't slow down?  What if something happened to this baby that we have been so excited to meet and we've prepared for and we talk about constantly?  I was actually putting all of that at risk because of my pride and the pressure I place on myself to do it all.

So, as hard as it is for me to not be at work taking care of my kids, or not vacuum my floor a few days a week, or ask for help, I'm going to do it.  This is my last baby,  This is the last inhabitant of my body...forever.  This is the last life I will give.  This is the last tiny head I will sniff.  This is the last tiny human I'll diaper, and swaddle, and feed, and burp, and rock to sleep.  With every action, I'll keep thinking of how it is the last one.  So, I've made a conscious effort to enjoy every minute and to take every hour I can away from my work and prepare for this precious boy who is already so loved.  It will all be there when I am ready to go back.

Saying Goodbye

My Grandma and Grandpa Ferguson have always been such a big part of my life that my earliest memories of my childhood are a heavy mix of their house and mine.  I’m not talking about the big stuff, like Christmases and birthdays, but the little things, the things that we seem to forget about as time wears on.  Red geraniums, the upholstery shop, the brown davenport, the front porch, the whiskey barrel around the light pole, ants dancing on pink flowers-those types of things that seem so insignificant that your mind forgets to remember them until something big happens. Like this.

I had the great pleasure of spending much of my life growing up on Mill Street across the street and two houses down from my grandparents.  Going there wasn’t a treat, it was commonplace.  I ate toast at grandma’s table while she drank her coffee with creamer and sweet and low before I caught the bus.  Even before then I can remember sleeping over on her pullout couch with the feather pillows and fresh pillowcases in one of grandpa’s white t shirts watching things like Walker Texas Ranger and the Miss United States Pageant while eating her homemade popcorn.

Grandma was the perfect combination of tough and tender, strong and sweet.  She was a woman who seemed to tower over almost everyone, not just physically, but in personality as well.  I loved her so much and thought she was not only endearing, but a mystery.  I couldn’t figure out why she kept Little Debbies in her dishwasher or why she kept a butter knife in all of her door jambs.  Grandma always called outside “outdoors”.  She called her couch a “davenport”.  She had a china cabinet full of dishes and exciting things that I’m not sure she ever used.  She had Tupperware cups with handles by her sink that grandpa drank cold water out of when he came in from doing work outside.  She used the same cups to rinse my hair when she washed “my head” in the sink.

My grandparents were great friends and neighbors.  They had keys to their neighbor’s homes hanging by their back door.  They always had visitors; they gave people rides. They took care of people. Grandma kept chocolate pudding pops in the deep freeze in the shop. There were air compressors and material I’d weave through to get there. There was an ancient refrigerator by the door and a creepy illustration of a leg in a cauldron hanging above the telephone. They were the only people I knew who had a telephone in a building besides their house.  And the way Grandma answered the phone...

Once I got a little older, Grandma and Grandpa moved to Stimpson Road, and just like the green house on Mill Street, new memories were made almost instantly.  We knew all of their neighbors and they always seemed to have visitors, just like in town.  I loved playing in the outbuildings, especially the pea stone outside of the granary.  We worked in their garden, or rather I watched as they both dug potato hills, choosing the best ones.  They painstakingly plucked tomato bugs off their plants and put them in coffee cans, and then they would burn the pests.  They had a tire swing at the house in town by Cricket’s grave, but at the new house, there was an upgrade- a glider.  Grandma loved to cook, to garden, to gripe at grandpa, and I was sure she loved nothing more than her grandkids.

But, as I got older, my interest and the use of my time changed, as it does for anyone.  I was lucky because I worked at Grandma’s favorite grocery store, Ben’s Supermarket. Every Sunday I could, I would come over for my hour lunch break and sit with Grandma and Grandpa.  Sometimes we’d have Spaghettios, Koegel's viennas, and chips, other times I’d bring something from the deli that they both liked.  But, just like everyone else, I grew up and I moved away to start college and a new life. During that time I probably didn’t value my grandparents the way I should have and I regret that greatly.

But, like some do, I came back and just a couple of weeks before I got married, my grandparents whose homes were second ones to me, made their home in an addition at my mom’s house.  I got to enjoy the company of Grandma and Grandpa Ferguson again the way I did when I was small.  Then, when I welcomed my first daughter, nothing brought back those memories of the house in town and the farm more than watching my grandparents cradle and play with my daughter.  Grandpa would sing and play his harmonica or kazoo while grandma clapped and Sawyer danced.  The pots of flowers Grandma kept started to remind me of the red geraniums she always had outside on the picnic table in town.  I started to remember the upholstery shop pencils that had a string on the end to sharpen them.  I used to take them and go outside to the south side of the red building that housed their business and sign my name on the hot metal.   I started thinking about the white flowering bushes in front of their porch that I would strip to make a “rose” in my hand.  The wagon wheel on the north side of the house.  The clothes always hanging on the line.

I am lucky.  I had the gift of being impacted by them for my whole life.  But, while time can be kind in its gifts, it can also be cruel by what it takes away. Time changes people, and I know that my Grandma is not the same person that she was when I grew up.  My own children often ask me to describe what Grandma was like when I was younger because they see photos of her and they don’t recognize her physically.  We’ve watched her robust body grow tiny and shriveled and her sharp mind turn foggy.  It is so very hard to say goodbye but I also feel like I said goodbye to that woman a long time ago.  The woman that I know today isn’t the same woman that I knew ten years, or twenty years, or thirty years ago, because time changes everything.

After Grandpa passed away, it was easy to see that Grandma’s purpose seemed to have shifted and that strong, tough woman who had always reminded Dunc to "turn up his damn hearing aids" started to slip away, little by little, piece by piece, memory by memory.  And at this point in my life, it is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to watch. I know that my Grandma Ferguson, my two daughters’ Grandma Great, has lead a full life. Not a privileged one, or one devoid of hard work, but a life that has been meaningful and has impacted others. If you know my grandma, you know that it was impossible to go anywhere with her without running into someone she knew.  Kmart, the stockyards, JCPenney, a roadside vegetable stand, a vacation spot Up North, you name the place, she knew a face. So to see her lose her freedom, her strength, and her memories has been beyond difficult mainly because it bothered her.

I am so happy she gets to see Grandpa again, hopefully soon, because I know they’ve missed each other, but I also say that with grimace and some tears, because this baby boy who she couldn’t wait to get her hands on will be the only child I have that she won’t hold to her chest and rock in her chair while I take a photo.  So, selfishly, I want her to hang on, but I also want her to go.  I know she’s ready. I think maybe I’m just not. Regardless, this is a woman who is loved, who has always loved those around her,  and has left such a deep impression on this family that she will continue to be loved and live on once her earthly life is done.  Jean Ferguson is one of a kind and we will miss her so much. In fact, I think we already do.

Thank you for everything, Grandma.