Continuance...

Oh for the love of grapefruit. I can't concentrate on homework this week...

So my story continues.

Home for my new family was a carpeted, curtained off dining room in a three bedroom, one bathroom house with a 28-year old single mom, who quickly became my "adoptive" mom (I still call her mama), and her three children. I was approaching 16 years old and had moved in with this woman about a year before when my mom moved away. I was her live-in babysitter while she went out and she babysat for me while I continued living like a teenager. To make a long story short I will state the obvious and move on.

It didn't work out between the loser and me. Not long after our son was born he split and we have had sparse civil conversations over the years. Enough said.

Following the semi-uneventful exodus of my baby's daddy and his squalid group of friends, the lady I had been living with became tired of my juvenile behavior and gave me the boot.

Enter new boyfriend (loser).

I lived without a home for the following time period.

For the following few months, my baby, loser #2 and I lived from couch to couch, party house to party house until I finally came to my senses and realized that I wasn't doing right by my child. So I called mama and asked her if my Zacky could come and stay with her until I got on my feet. She invited me over and we talked about the way things would work, how often I would come and visit, when I would bring food, etc.

Then I said goodbye to my baby.

Over the next several weeks, I came and visited and brought food and diapers and the things I knew Zack would need. But my visits were not enough. I still didn't have a job, a home, or a car and so my visits became fewer and farther between. Then I heard that Child Protective Services (CPS) wanted to talk to me. Well, I avoided them like the plague because I figured if they couldn't find me they couldn't take my baby away. I was so wrong.

CPS finally got me into their office to tell me that they were taking custody of my son and I would be ordered to complete a number of tasks in order to get him back. Jumping through hoops, if you will. The first thing I was supposed to do was complete 60 days of inpatient drug and alcohol treatment. They apparently didn't believe me that the only addiction I truly possessed was tobacco. I had been smoking pot at that point for five years pretty consistently, tried LSD a couple of times, speed once and refused to get into the alcohol world because I had seen what it did to my family. I drank very occasionally. However, this was my first duty in the sequence of events that were supposed to end with the return of my child.

Unfortunately, my son was the ultimate unfinished project in the smorgasboard of victims to my ADHD. I completed the inpatient treatment but not the other things, that included another 30 days of out patient treatment in a half-way house, finding a job, taking parenting classes, and getting a place to live. Half way through the half-way house I was 18 and I left for a life of daisy chains, rainbow gatherings, and the gratefully dead.

Welcome Petah!

I am so excited. The Righteous Babe had her baby at home in Buffalo on January 20. A little girl named Petah. Good work and congratulations to Ani!

Tibial Tuberosities and Trivial Tubers

As I sit here at my desk procrastinating homework, I find myself looking back on my life and pondering the events that brought me here, in this house, a midwifery student with a husband and three children, a dog and a cat.

Some of those ponderings are easily resolved. I mean, my friend's cat had kittens and so I took it upon myself to be deaf to the protests of my husband and bring the little shiny ball of grey fur home and call him Sprocket. That one is simple.

But how the hell did I actually make it in to midwifery school? OK, story time! I will tell you my story in pieces so that you have time to absorb it all and I have time to actually do some homework.

Did I mention that I'm a high school drop-out? Yes, in 1990 I dropped out of 10th grade so that I could further pursue the art of being in love with a loser. The one great thing that came out of that sequence of events: my 16 year old son, Zack. Zackary James Stilts. Oh what an amazing moment it was the first time I saw him. My body chose not to expell him from within the darkness of my womb and so the doctor decided that Zack would come out via an amazingly small slit at the top of my pubic bone. My sister held my hand and took pictures of the surgery while I laid there, feeling my lower abdomen being pushed and pulled and tugged. The next thing I knew, I heard that newborn squall as the doc said, "Hey little one, you're not supposed to do that yet." The nurses cleaned him up and handed him to my sister who brought him close. I wasn't able to hold him right away because my arms were strapped to the obnoxious boards at my sides. My wonderful sister brought him to me and said, "Aimee, look, it's a boy! You got your Zackary James!" And I replied "Oh, great!" and I turned my head and threw up the medicine that was supposed to keep me from throwing up. You see, I knew the gender of each of my children before they were born through intuition, not ultrasound. My sister wanted me to have a girl (the bitch), and I really knew he was a boy and was happy about that. The next day I inspected him while waves of visitors came in to greet this tiny baby boy that was all mine. I felt his soft head and looked into his eyes; cooed to him; counted his fingers and toes; ran my hands along his tibial tuberosities and his olecranon processes; and tickled his patellas (patellae?). We spent four days together in the recovery room, getting to know each other before we were allowed to go home.

To be continued...
(ooh, isn't this just as good as your favorite television drama?!)

Blog Virgin

OK, well maybe I'm not a total blog virgin; I've posted a couple of them on myspace.com. However, this is the first time I've ever set up a page that is only for blogging. I didn't even know what a blog was a year ago.

As I procrastinate doing my homework and studying, I am thinking about my future. My husband and I took a walk today and talked about our five year plan. I wanted to move to Portland, Oregon; he wants to stay put. I am certainly fine with staying here in this beautiful, sopping wet Pacific Northwest Paradise that I was born and raised in. So there we have it. We are staying, Bellingham! How do you feel about that?

Speaking of sopping wet, my goal today is to drink three liters of water. It'll be tough, but I think I can do it.

Thanks for reading this. It will get more interesting as time roll on. I promise.