I'm Back!!!

I'm sorry for my serious delinquency in writing. I have been having some real ups and downs this past week, and I honestly thought about chucking the idea of the blog altogether. I have started wondering: is all of this blogging, twittering, facebooking "stuff" a vehicle for one to be self-absorbed and obsessive? I'm starting to think maybe. It's good therapy for me, though, so for now, I'm sticking with it.

There are so many things I could write about tonight....I have a gazillion thoughts running around in my already crowded head. Such as:

-self-doubt

-being judgmental

-swinging from one extreme emotion to the next

-photography, photography, photography

-Nick

-family

-trip to Iowa for 4th of July

-family

-the effects of the oppressive heat

-worrying about my health

-not wanting to go to the doctor to stop myself from worrying

-this blog

-family

-the book I'm reading, Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult

-the movie My Sister's Keeper - based on book by Jodi P. - out tomorrow

-family

Do you notice a repetitive theme going on here? Yes, I continue to be focused on thinking about my family - even though it is among a long list of other thoughts, concerns, wonderings. Still, it all seems to go back to family. And that's a good thing. A challenging thing but a good thing, none-the-less.

Have I told the story of my birth? Excuse me, our birth? It's a great story, and I've heard it many, many times. I've heard it so many times that the images I associate with it have been burned on my brain, and I think I actually remember it. 

Amy and I, as I have mentioned, are the youngest of seven children. My parents were average, middle class citizens who were struggling through and yet enjoying life as parents of five children/young adults, ages 19-7. Why then, you might ask, would they embark on another pregnancy? Fate? Fate or blind luck or God's plan? Hmmmm....I'll go with God's plan. 

Our conception and arrival were definitely a shocker for the family. When my mom announced at the dinner table that she was pregnant, our brother Jamie (nine at the time - I think), laid his head down on the table and cried.  This is not my favorite part of the story, as I am sure Jamie must have been thinking: another kid around here? However, Jamie is a bit of a sentimental guy, so I like to think of his tears that night as tears of joy! : ) Yeah, right!

My mom tells the story most vividly of how she came to be pregnant for the sixth time. My oldest sister, Vicki up and moved to Florida with her steady boyfriend, Dean. Dean was a bit of a wild child/hippie/free spirit - you get the idea. Mom and Dad absolutely adore him today - all of these years later when his presence in our family seems an absolute perfect fit - but back then they say they were, well...worried. 

My mom was so worried, in fact, that her "cycle was completely out of whack!" She describes herself as practically crazed - out of her mind, in fact - that Vicki had moved to what seemed like a world away. I know you see where this is headed. In her grief and despair, she was given a distraction by God: a baby! 

Let me interject her that I cannot imagine being in my parents' situation. I think of how the world has changed since then, and how young and middle aged couples are so deliberate in their actions these days. 2.5 kids are planned out carefully as not to leave out proper time and resources for ballet and karate lessons and of course, the biggie, college tuition. Expectations revolve so heavily on creating the well-rounded, fulfilled child. I envy the "it will all work out" philosophy that couples with large families must have had back then. I am sad that so few people will have the experience of a large family as I have. 

Anyway - back to the story. Mom's pregnancy was fairly normal, I guess. She was 35, almost 36 at the time she was pregnant. That is my age now - like I said, I cannot imagine it! She did say she was unusually large, and she could not eat enough to keep up her own body weight. She said she could see her ribs - sticking out behind her largely protruding belly. She said she was so large, in fact, that she could rest a plate on her belly and eat off of it! She wondered if she was having twins, but the doctor assured her that she was only having one, as he heard only one heartbeat....no ultrasounds back then, of course.

We were born on the 3oth of July, so I can only begin to imagine her misery in the heat of the summer. I'm not sure what she was doing that day. I need to ask her that - I really have only heard the delivery and post-delivery stories. After Amy was born, her stomach did not flatten out, and it was then, and only then, did she and the doctor realize there was another baby! ME! I know it will be a shock, but my delivery was complicated! I was a medical hassle from the very beginning! I was breach, and to make matters worse, my mom had completely stopped having contractions.

At this point, Dad says he was standing directly outside the delivery room smoking cigarettes as fast and furiously as he could. In the thirty one minutes between Amy's birth and mine, he claims to have smoked a pack - or at least he felt like he did. In a moment my mom describes as pure desperation on the part of the doctor, he put his hands on my moms stomach and literally pushed me out.

I may be overanalyzing things - as you know I am prone to doing - but I find it so amazing that in many ways Nick and I came into the world in such similar fashion. Nick was pulled out of me, while I was able to do nothing but pray, and my mom must have been feeling equally helpless as the doctor forced me into the world. I thought about my entrance to the world a lot when I was in the asylum, as well. The journey of our lives seems to be sprinkled throughout with consistent themes....is that by choice or chance? From the beginning and throughout my life has been filled with surprise, concern, one-in-a-million (or at least one in a few hundred thousand) moments and events that forever altered my journey and the journey of our family.

The next part of the story is also an interesting detail that seems to have been a beginning to a life-long pattern. Since I was a complete shock, when my siblings came to the hospital to see their new brother or sister, they were blown away to realize they had two new sisters. When my dad showed us to them through the nursery window, he said, "That's Amy and that's the other one." They had not picked out a name for me yet. Amy and I have discussed many times how our whole lives have been the same line over and over, "You know Amy, and this, of course is Angie," said with a tone implying, "the one with cancer." 

Recently, Amy attended a New Year's Eve party in our hometown in Iowa. She said it was great to see people she hadn't seen in years. She did say she spent a good amount of the evening, though, answering the question, "and how is your sister?" She claims that even relatives in our family remember me long before they recognize her. When we were younger and up into college, this was a source of contention for both of us. Amy felted slighted by being my shadow. I felt awkward and angry about being in the spotlight. And one night, sitting in the car in a rainy parking lot on the campus of MU, we got it all out. We discussed it until we couldn't cry or discuss it anymore.

Someday I will write more about that night and about that discussion. It's a moment in time I don't want to remember and I don't want to forget. It's a moment in time that reminds me of the miracle of life and family and relationships and communication. Most importantly, it is a moment in time that reminds me of one oh so important and undeniable fact: we are in this together.