Her Voice, My Turn

Birthday

Today, I’m turning 40. My husband is out for the whole day at work. I’m at home with two of our three kids. I asked RJ to cut more wood for the seventeenth time. The stove burns the wood fast and I’m not about to turn up the furnace. He might just get motivated by the cold to get off his segg and get moving. Football season is over anyway, what could he be watching now? If the cold doesn’t do the trick, his little sister will make sure.

John will be home soon and wanting a hot meal. I need to get the chicken tenders cleaned and breaded, no fat. He doesn’t eat anything greasy or chewy, more work for me. No surprises for me either. It’s just another year, nothing special to celebrate; he better not buy me flowers. After all these years of telling him, he might figure it out this time. He doesn’t need to spend money on me.

Heck, I’m writing in an old spiral notepad here with a free Hyatt pen I picked up in our room; we stayed using my free night during our last road trip to see his mom in Pennsylvania.

Pregnant

The toilet needs a good scrub. I’m out of the scrubbing bubbles. The chores seem endless today. My grocery list has the usual items; I’ll be buying more scrubbing bubbles. It looks like it’s on sale too. The coupons I need are tucked in the envelope with the grocery list. Wait, do I need more Always pads? It’s been longer than the usual 27 or so days… perhaps, it’s fine. My cycle is starting to get longer, I think.

Shoot, now that I think of it. John brought home those flowers on Mother’s Day and that was it for me. He skipped my birthday, he skipped Valentine’s Day, but he chose to weasel his way into my heart and our bed with the most beautiful yellow daffodils for Mother’s Day.

Is it possible at 40? I’ll add a pregnancy test. Just to be safe. I doubt I’ll need it. If I don’t use it, then why buy it? No, Jenny at church did say her mother was 42 when she gave birth. Okay, it’s on the list.

Doctor Visit

Yesterday, John brought me to get an ultrasound. We shared the news with the kids. Lana, our eldest, stayed home from college to be with RJ and their little sister. The look on their faces…They don’t think John and I can still have fun?

The doctor had put the warm gel all over my big belly. It felt familiar and comforting. I notice my step feels lighter and my lips turn up more easily whenever I’m pregnant. These days have been no different from the last three pregnancies. Is the fourth time going to be easy? John and I hold hands when the doctor is running the probe across the surface of my big belly, examining the health of our baby.

Boy or girl? The kids ask incessantly now. They keep throwing names our way: Jeremiah, James, Elijah, or Martha, Margaret, Jeanette, and so on. The gender is a surprise for us too. Let us enjoy whatever God blesses us with.

I hope it’s a boy. RJ says for the seventeenth time. He is blessed with sisters in a growing family, but doesn’t see it that way. The baby is healthy, that’s all that matters. I tell the kids.

Hospital

Last night, my bedclothes and John were soaked; my water broke on the darkest and coldest of nights. I was shivering as John and I got dressed for the hospital. I don’t swear because I believe in God, but God I wanted to swear in multiple tongues. The Volkswagen couldn’t drive any slower on the slick icy roads. Twenty-five minutes on a normal day turned into forty minutes and every bump in the road was a jolt of pain to my core. After I got out of the car, my memory blurred.

Surprise! Number Four

My baby girl is sleeping in the crib beside me now. I’ve been out of the hospital for a week. John and the kids told me what happened after I got to the hospital. To 9 year old Sarah, she can’t stop laughing whenever her brother comes by the new baby. He didn’t get a brother. For a moment, the baby was a boy. The tired doctor must have had the morning sun in his eyes or maybe the umbilical cord confused him after a long delivery.

RJ’s face lit up the room with a smile when the doctor announced a baby boy. As Sarah tells it with a giggle, RJ’s face turned fire hydrant red when the nurse announced a baby girl.

John and I decided to name her after my friend from church. Her middle name would be the same as mine and her Neni, my mother’s middle name. I will call my mom to tell her the news after I finish this last entry.

As I recover and write what others told me about my last natural birth, I see the red splotchy marks on her face are clearing up too. We spent almost 12 hours in labor, you and me. John tells me the doctor drugged me thinking you would come out of me faster. I don’t remember any of this but apparently he used forceps to pry you out. Eight pounds and some ounces too. I suppose my body needed the extra help to get you outside into the world little one.

When you are older, I’ll tell you all about it. Forever and always, you are a surprise baby.

______

That was her last entry––written with tired hands and a full heart, just a week after I was born. I didn’t know any of that at the time, of course. Although I had no voice in those pages, I was there––eyes closed, breath soft, listening to her heartbeat from the outside now.

I found the old spiral bound notepad tucked among my mother’s health records, the ones she kept in her neat handwriting. I almost missed it. It looked like nothing special–creased at the corners, the cover worn and faded. But inside, her words on the page gentle and soothing were incongruous to the voice I grew up hearing. Her tone of voice, high pitched and stern, left an indelible mark on me–shaping how I saw myself: unplanned, extra, an afterthought that didn’t quite fit the main plot.

She often called me a surprise child and not so kindly––yet, I now read her words…and turn back the pages to give them another read for anything I may have missed. On these pages, I see a quiet joy. A woman who was scared, yes––but also, softened. Her writing has been the beginning of a new story I’m trying to unravel from the inside out.

Perhaps, she meant to share this notepad with me if her memory had remained with her in the end. Maybe not. She struggled to remember my name for so many years, calling me Sarah, Lana, even my dog’s name at times. Her going memory fueled her fear. I could see she was suffering. But either way, her words are here for me now.

For the first time, I understand; I wasn’t just a surprise. I was a beginning she never expected––but cherished all the same.

I got a glimpse of that last Mother’s Day. The daffodils I brought her made her face soften and eyes glisten. My Neni, her mother, maintained a beautiful citrus orchard and flower gardens for the hummingbirds to nest sheltered from the sunbaked Arizona heat.

My mom was no different. She might turn down gifts quickly–shutting out the joy of reciprocity for practicality. Except for daffodils and anything that she could put in the ground to nurture. I get the same joy from growing plants. We bonded in our own small way.

I close the old spiral bound notepad and pick up my pen to rewrite my story.