Pulp Fashion! Get it?

Since the last few posts have been pretty text heavy, I thought I'd keep things brief today with some images from the exhibit at the Legion of Honor I'll be checking out with my mom this weekend. Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave constructed these elaborate dresses inspired by early European icons. The crazy part? They're made entirely out of paper. I know. They just extended the exhibit through June 12th, in case you're in San Francisco and are as amazed by this as I am.

We're expecting rain here this weekend, and I can't think of a better way to spend the time than strolling through a beautiful museum with my mama, breathing in some art. I hope you all find yourselves some color too, and maybe something that blows your mind just a little bit.

Happy Friday!
xo

The Story of a Birth. 5, and final.

Once it begins, the pushing lasts for about an hour. Jon stands on Erin's right, the grandmothers-to-be on her left. I am down at her legs, front and center with camera around my neck. Erin pushes as instructed by a nurse with a blond bob and a positive attitude. She coaches Erin through, counts out each push -- each mountain she climbs -- and tells her when to relax. In between, Erin cracks jokes and the mood in the room is remarkably light. Excitement is building; the is air electric and fuzzy. It's late morning and the world is awake and it's time. There are a total of 13 people in the room. Midwife, doctor, nurses, nursing students who are there to observe their first delivery. I know there is music, but I am not conscious of it.

I watch only the opening, mesmerized as something takes shape. The nurse's hands work to help the baby out. Push. That's it. You're doing great. Push. There is a sliver of something solid and dark. Push. They're holding Erin's legs up and she throws every ounce of strength she has against the pressure, strength and power she has been cultivating and storing up her entire life for this exact moment. Push. The head appears and I see her smashed red face and I float up out of my body and hover there above it all, suspended in disbelief.

Time stands still and yet moves faster than seems possible. In an instant this baby emerges and is there among us, a living human being with breath and a voice. A voice we all hear and recognize as a sound we weren't sure would ever exist. A voice that will one day become defined and intentional. That will be loud and carry love and hate and every kind of emotion through the air and into the world.

The baby is outside of her, and Erin lets out a wail, a great crying release. She sobs freely and throws herself back onto the bed. Jon cuts the umbilical cord but I don't see it. I see only the blood that splatters on his glasses, face and neck. The baby is carried to the warmer and fiddled with. Jon goes to Erin then goes to the baby then goes to Erin. He is shaking and has no control over his face. Erin laughs when she sees the blood all over him, and asks that he not get any on her pillow. He doesn't even seem to hear her and just burrows into her neck with some desperation. I have never seen him such a wreck. Standing there next to his wife, he removes his glasses and wipes them clean on his shirt, and it is an image I don't think I will ever forget.

Oh, and the name. Erin asks if we want to hear it. "Alice Aurelia," we hear her say. Two perfect little words we've been waiting an eternity for.

Alice Aurelia.

Alice Aurelia.

Alice Aurelia.

She is here. And now, like magic, we all know a new kind of love.

~

Photos by Erin Senge at Alice's 1st birthday party. See more here.

The Story of a Birth. 4.

Source: cdryan.com via Shannon on Pinterest

1:30am. It becomes apparent that Erin's body will need some rest if it's going to handle what lies ahead. It's been 7 or 8 hours and they predict that time will double before the baby is actually here. She makes the decision on her own to have an epidural, and though she hadn't wanted it in the beginning, it's become the right thing to do. The midwife discovers meconium, a dark green substance indicating fetal distress, and Erin is hooked up to oxygen.

We all leave the room. Jon and I, talking quietly in the hall outside, are acutely aware that the man is inserting a giant needle into Erin's spine at that moment. Jon is scared and tired, and it shows in his face. He's afraid Erin will regret this decision after the birth is all over, he doesn't want her to think he's disappointed in her, and he's crying. I say what matters is that a baby is born and everyone is healthy. I say births never go as planned, and this is how it's meant to happen (I read this in a book, though really I know nothing). I say this is what she needs, and she's sure.

When they let us back into the room, Erin is lying there in peace, blissfully isolated from the pain in her abdomen. We all breathe a collective sigh of relief and settle in to keep watch over her and get a little rest ourselves.

4:45am. After shifting from chair to couch to chair again, my legs propped up on the exercise ball, I sit in the dark room looking on as Erin sleeps. She's so angelic and lovely, and a love for her as my older sister swells in me like I swear I've never quite felt before. She looks both wise and strong, innocent and childlike. And I am so happy to be here.

Jon and I head downstairs in search of food. We sit there in the dark cafeteria booth eating vending machine burritos, trying to act as normal as possible. I think we talk about life and love, change and growth. The places you find yourself that you never could have imagined. The places we have yet to find ourselves.

After an hour more of stiff sleep on the chairs in the waiting room, I get up and convince myself I slept a night, though we've all been up for nearly 36 hours. My hair is oily, my armpits smell, and I'm queasy from too little sleep and too much vending machine burrito, but all I want is to see this baby. That is what we're here for, right? She is still coming?

10:15am. Erin is dilated 9 centimeters and we're waiting for the baby to drop down, shift positions. Erin is sitting up in bed, patiently sucking on ice chips. I brush her hair and put it in a ponytail, Jon sets up two Flip cameras on little tripods. She seems to have grown in size since we arrived, or maybe it's just the size of the moment. Her legs are fully spread with belly balancing precariously between them. You can almost see it quivering as the baby gears up to make her debut. Erin says, "It feels like I'm going to shit a turtle."

And this is where my notes end.

***

Dear all who are reading: Thank you for bearing with me. I know the length is long, but the wait was longer. Next post, a baby will be born.

The Story of a Birth. 3.

Source: chroniclebooks.com via Shannon on Pinterest

9:05pm. Erin is perched on her blue exercise ball in her pale blue hospital gown, working through the contractions as they come every two minutes. Jon holds her hand and the two of them huddle there, like a cloud. When a contraction comes, we all watch as Erin bows her head and breathes quietly, her short hair falling in soft sheets around her face and shoulders. She is brave and resolved. At the start, she grimaces slightly and closes her eyes tight, then her face becomes clear and open, full of breath and life and strength as she guides her body through the pain. In the in-between she looks around at us, makes little comments and laughs. It's finally begun, and she feels good. "I've never been so happy to hurt, ever!" she says.

11:40pm. The pain doesn't let up, of course. It plods on, seeming to rise around her like a pool of sludge, slowly becoming thicker and more oppressive. Nurse Sheila comes in to check the monitor and tells Erin that towards the end there will be a lot more pain and a lot more pressure, and Erin wants to know if she might be able to stand for the delivery. It depends on how the baby looks and what the midwife says. Erin goes to the bathroom to take a shower with Jon to support her -- the warm water is meant to loosen her muscles and speed up the process. We all wait. The air in the room has become dense with worry. Watching this kind of pain isn't something any of us are used to.

She emerges from the steamy little room, warm and supple, her belly like a great ripe fruit. Lying on her left side facing the window, she prepares herself for more contractions. When they roll through her, she tucks her chin and folds in on herself. Her toes curl, her legs bend and stretch. Breathy, animal-like sounds come from the back of her throat. She lets out a little groan or whimper, and my mom says she looks like she's four years old, like she's not old enough to have a baby. She's twenty-eight. Jon holds her hand and I roll a tennis ball around the small of her back. A few times, we switch and the hand she holds is mine and as I sit there, gripping the hand of my older sister in labor with all the strength and love that's in me, I feel as though it is the most important thing I have ever done.

1:00am. The midwife does an exam and finds Erin dilated 3-4 centimeters, which is good progress but still far to go. The pain has started to wear her down physically and psychologically, and after 6 or 7 hours of contractions every 2 minutes, she's starting to think she won't be able to do what's coming later. "It's not going to split me open from the inside, right?"she asks the mothers in the room. Despite the fear blooming in her, Erin continues to handle the pain with grace and calm, releasing a steady, monotone humming as she finds her body's rhythm and moves with it instinctually. She seems at once wholly natural and grounded, and yet up above us all. She is somewhere else, and we are waiting down below, feeling as helpless as we are.

The Story of a Birth. 2.

Days later, we were all doing our best to keep the expecting parents preoccupied. Erin was calm, as she'd been throughout the whole pregnancy, and moved through the house quiet and serene. She was accepting of the fact that it wasn't up to her to decide when it would happen, that despite how many walks she went on, how many special herbal salads she ate and how many times she and Jon got busy (twice a day -- yeah, I said it), she wanted a natural birth and the baby would have to make the first move.

The waiting had become excruciating, but it was nice just to be together. We played games, wandered through Ikea, and drank lots of coffee. We ate potato soup outside in a backyard still just cement and weeds, the power lines crisscrossing through the hazy Los Angeles sky. We walked every day up and down the tree-lined path by the house. We did everything we could think of to do. Jon said he had been waking up each morning thinking, today. It will happen today. And then he stopped thinking this all together and no longer believed it would happen at all. He started to think the universe was lying to him, that it was all a hoax.

The doctors knew otherwise, and were less willing to wait. Despite much protest by Erin, the powers that be finally decided that if, by Wednesday, May 19 at 6:00pm, active labor had not begun, they would induce. Upon this news, Erin seemed defeated and reluctantly set about making her peace with the thought of a new plan, the thought of Pitocin. We arrived at the hospital at the appointed time and walked through the lobby. I remember it in dramatic slow motion, but it actually felt strangely normal. It was as though we were arriving for a routine check-up, when really, a life was about to start.

They assigned us a room and administered an IV. As the nurse inserted the needle and taped the tubes to her wrist, Erin lie there on her side, her spaceship of a hospital bed in a pool of heavy yellow light. She squeezed her eyes shut with a twinge of pain, and as a few big tears fell down her cheeks, said, "I'm ready to go home now." The nurse-midwife explained that the Pitocin would come next, and left the room. Then, miraculously (or, due to stress), the contractions jumpstarted on their own. It was as though the baby had been waiting as long as she could, and finally responded to the threat. Wait, she seemed to say, I'll do it myself.

After this, Erin perked up. Jon, with a tenderness I had never seen, dried her tears with a tissue and off they went for a walk through the hospital hallways, IV in tow.

Source: flickr.com via Ashley on Pinterest

*Note: Image not my sister.

The Story of a Birth. 1. (For my niece, Alice.)

She is one year old. I saw her enter this world and, per the request of her mama, my sister, I wrote about it. One day Alice will read it, but in the meantime, I'll post a few excerpts over the next week because if there's any experience I want to share with you, it's this.

~

To Alice: This account of your birth comes purely from my own perspective. I am describing how it looked and felt to me, your aunt. Much of this is from memory, some is from notes, and all of it was written nearly a year after the fact, having been postponed out of fear. Words, after all, can hardly touch the start of a life.

Friday, May 14, 2010. We came to wait. It was five days past the due date, which was on Mother's Day and would have been perfect but of course it didn't happen that way. By this point, we believed something would happen at any moment. Something huge, magnificent, and wholly inconceivable. Something we didn't want to miss. What we hadn't anticipated, my mother and I, was how long we would actually be there, in Burbank, slowly sinking with everyone else under the heavy stubbornness of this baby that just wasn't ready.

This baby -- this solid, curled mass that had made its home in my sister's body. A being still unknown to us, a fact we understood intellectually, but beyond that could hardly imagine. Erin and Jon are having a baby, I'd think to myself. It sounds so simple and, of course, it was. Reproduction, the survival of a species, the most basic truth of nature. Yet it was somehow impossible to grasp as reality. The meaning of it -- Erin and Jon are having a baby -- was beyond my scope of understanding. The creation of human life? Here? Now? This, a part of me thought, this could not possibly be.

As we waited, sitting around that little blue house, Erin's hands slid constantly over the hard, round surface of her belly. She'd chat with us, make jokes and laugh, all the while her hands roaming -- seemingly of their own accord -- around and around and around. Her fingers were swollen, her knuckles dry and cracked, and she was always warm. It was May in Southern California, granted, but the mother-to-be carried a dense heat with her, generated by something, an energy, that the rest of us couldn't feel.

My own hands reached instinctively for her belly time and again, wanting just to be near these layers of muscle and flesh that protected beneath them the beating beginning of a life. I'd find a thin, delicate layer of sweat escaping from her pores, seeping through her blue flowered dress and onto my palm. It was as though her very skin was hard at work, preparing for the tremendous feat her body would soon take on.

We've all seen pregnant women before, but being around a woman so close to giving birth does not feel commonplace, it does not feel regular or ordinary. It's the closest I've ever felt to standing in the presence of a higher being, a holy entity, like some kind of prophet or angel that's leading you into an unknown, and somehow, you trust her.

Question and Answer

Source: myrevelment.com via Shannon on Pinterest

Yesterday, someone asked me what I'm going to do next, once I'm no longer doing what I do now. I shrugged it off and said some words, when really, I don't have a plan at all. I don't even have any ideas. I've been at my job for almost 8 months and I've been focusing so much on trying to be a grown-up that I've forgotten more will come after this. Life will not carry me, I have to walk.

Sitting on the bus this morning, I stared into the air, my eyes out of focus and my brain moving too fast for 6am. How long has it been since I've thought about what to do with my life? Weeks? Months? For years, I thought of nothing else. I thought so hard I nearly went nuts, my psyche always soggy, soaked through with uncertainty. The options, the decisions, the I don't have a fucking clue. It had all faded away and I didn't even notice, like when the sun goes down so gradually you're surprised when it's suddenly too dark to see.

Have I been living so much in the present I forgot there has to be a future? Is this what happiness is? Not worrying about what will come next? Does living in the moment mean you don't have goals? I love my life, but that's no excuse. I won't love this life in a year or two. I need a plan, or at the very least, an answer to the question, what will you do next?

But I don't want to go back to that place. The place full of questions and anxiety and the lights are always on. I want to keep living and wait until it makes sense to see what else is out there for me. I want to ease into a plan as though into a warm bath. I want to keep taking it one step at a time, maybe forward, maybe up.