The Last Name Thing

You know, there are lots of reasons that I chose not to change my name when I got married. One of them is that I want girls who meet me to know that it's OK to get attached to their names; it's OK to form a sense of identity attached to their names; it's not a forgone conclusion that they'll be giving up their names someday.

That said, however, I do not always enjoy being responsible for educating every ignoramus who's never before encountered a woman who kept her name after marrying. In particular, I get tired of the "And are you two legally married, ma'am?" question that I get asked (I'd bet) a heck of a lot more often than do married women who take their husbands' last names. I bet that if my husband lived with his sister (who had the same last name) most credit card types wouldn't even bother to ask that question. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

While I'm here, I'll list some other reasons that I kept my last name:

1. I admit that I floundered a bit with my identity shortly after getting married. I never thought that would happen. Certainly Paul didn't have any ideas about how a wife was supposed to be, but it turns out that I do. So I decided to leave things alone until the dust settled and I felt more comfortable in my skin before deciding on a permanent name change. It turns out that I found that I can be happily married with a different name than my spouse. Fancy that. And aside from the pesky questions from creditors, it hasn't been awkward or troublesome at all.
2. I think the "but what about the kids?!" argument is just an excuse. Turns out that I was right about that too. I has not been at all difficult for me to call up and say, "Hello, this is Sarahlynn Wooster,* Eleanor Wooster-Duke's mom." People aren't confused and neither are we. Ditto when her dad calls.
3. This one is a bit of a reprisal of number 1: maintaining my sense of identity. Here I am, living this totally suburban life as a stay-at-home mom. The symbolism of keeping my own name reminds me to stay true to who I really am and not get sucked into the keeping up with the jones's thing too far, and to keep up my writing and follow my own goals rather than subsuming my life entirely to my family's.
4. I like my name. I like my family. I've had both for my whole life. I also like my husband's family, and while I consider myself a part of his family, I wasn't willing to give up my family identity entirely.

And like I said, it hasn't been hard. When we meet new people, we're the Wooster Dukes. I'm a Wooster. He's a Duke. And our daughter is a Wooster-Duke. In one short name she shows the world which families she comes from. It's nice.

*Names changed to protect the innocent.

A Family Reunion, part 2

August has been a crazy month with out-of-state travel to two different family reunions. If somehow has figured out an easy way to manage long distance car trips (or just trips period) with a baby and a manageable load of stuff, please share. Or better yet, sell your experiences. You'll make millions.

Anyway, I realize that I am never going to have time to write the perfect blog entry so I might as well just paste in my unorganized thoughts rather than keeping them in little Word documents waiting for that magical moment when I'll have the time and mental energy to make them all pretty.

I had a wonderful time in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin last week (where no one I know lives) at a family reunion with my mother's family. Ellie really enjoyed her 6-month-old cousin (what's the relationship between the children of 1st cousins?) and the rest of us really enjoyed talking, drinking, sharing photos, walking, and playing games like croquet, badminton, and volleyball.

These people are intelligent, and they are master manipulators.

The question is: why do they waste so much time when they could be accomplishing so much? Why are they so afraid?

Little Cornie, ridiculous Cornie, Cornie who never thinks of anything or talks about anything, Cornie who is so boring, Cornie whose faith is so ridiculous that it needs to be shaken at all costs: do you think that Cornie's nieces and nephews know all about her one-time fianceé from 40 years ago? Do you think that Cornie's husband is forced to put on his game face and doggedly psychoanalyze why that relationship was never meant to be? No? I don't think so either. And I wonder, as we sit and ridicule Cornie and she's off living her life somewhere, who really is being ridiculous?

Even in our self-flagellation, even in our guilt over the way it ended, we can't seem to stop ridiculing Cornie, presumably to make ourselves feel better. But does it work? Apparently not, because it's 40 years later and here we are, still talking about her.

This family: so smart, so well educated and well traveled and politically correct with such helpful jobs. And yet . . . so pathetic. When does my life start? Apparently the bit that mattered ended 40 years ago, while I was still waiting for life to begin. Oops.

Still more fascinating to me: Even as I think about them, even as I analyze their thoughts and interactions, I can't seem to stop myself from saying "we". This is interesting, given that this is a family that still refers to my father (and the other spouses) as "outsiders" even though they've all been married for more than 30 years. Even though my mother made the decision to raise my sisters and I far away, as Midwesterners, it seems that I've picked up on that insular family identity.

And yet, these really are people who care, who know, who do important work. And some of them really are still activists, in large ways or small. I admire each of them for something, and I really do enjoy our rare visits together. Here's hoping that it doesn't take another 20 years to organize the next official family reunion.

Near Brush with Celebrity

I was feeding Ellie her lunch today when the phone rang. I gingerly picked it up with my cottage cheese covered hands and tentatively answered, expecting the worst. Will it be the hospital with their stubborn insistence that we pay Ellie's medical bills despite their refusal to send us a bill that makes sense, or will it be a telemarketer? Neither! It was a neighbor.

"Are you the house with the flags and John Kerry signs?"
Quietly, bracing myself for a scolding about subdivision policy, "Yes."
Excitedly, "Well, I thought you might want to know that Kerry is coming to Kirkwood this afternoon! He's coming through on a train and he's going to stop and wave from the caboose and if there are enough people there he'll come down and speak! At 2:00!"

Cool! So I cleaned Ellie up, nursed her, grabbed all of our piles of stuff (why does it take so much stuff to get out of the house for just a couple of hours?!) and jammed everything into the car. We made it down to the historic train station at 2:00 and waited with the enthusiastic crowd for an hour and a half. Local Kerry volunteers were passing out stickers, signs, and T-shirts, but much of the crowd had come with their own signs. One Grandma had a sign that read, "Give him hell, Kerry!" An old man and a young boy juggled together. Babies in strollers and dogs enjoyed the beautiful day. Kids ate ice cream and dashed around. Elderly folks gathered in the shade.

When the gates came down and we could hear the train coming, a great cheer rose from the crowd and everyone crowded up to the tracks. The personalized Amtrak train (Help is on the way! American can do better!) chugged on up, and the caboose stopped right in front of Ellie and me! I woke her up for the occasion, pulled her out of her sling, and sat her on my shoulders. She seemed a bit overwhelmed by the noise and the HUGE TRAIN not 5 feet in front of us, but she didn't cry.

Unfortunately, Kerry didn't come out and the train didn't stay. Theresa Heinz Kerry and Chris Heinz came out and waved, and the train slowly chugged on westward. People seemed a little disappointed but not too upset. Word was that he was way behind schedule and caught up giving interviews inside.

For me, the feeling of strength and patriotism and being surrounded by liberals on a warm, sunny, breezy afternoon in my picturesque little community were worth the trip.

Besides, here in the largest city in this battleground state, I'm sure we'll have another opportunity to see Kerry before November.

Ranger Rick Comes to Play

About 3:00 this morning, I started hearing a racket from the nursery. I was just trying to get to sleep (so late! I know!) so I ignored it for a while. The baby wakes up periodically and usually soothes herself back to sleep. She has a book made of crinkly cloth in her crib, and I figured that she was playing with that. Well, the noise didn't stop and upon reflection it didn't sound so much like her book, so I went in to investigate. I was pretty freaked out when I heard the noise - much louder! - in her room but saw her curled up on her side, fast asleep.

Ellie's bedroom window looks out onto our screened in porch, and when I looked through the window I saw a strand of the white Christmas light we have out there banging violently against the glass. This is what was making the racket. At first I thought it was a sudden storm that had blown the light loose, but I quickly noticed that nothing else was blowing wildly.

I went back into my room to get some shoes, and made sure to turn on the lights and make some noise while I was at it. Fortunately for my fraidy-cat self, Paul woke up and came with me to investigate ("Oh, did I wake you? So sorry."). When we turned on the patio lights and peered through the sliding glass door in our family room, what to our wondering eyes did appear? Not a miniature sleigh and 8 tiny reindeer but rather raccoons.

Paul had left an open bag of dog food out on the porch and the little rascals really really wanted it. So they climbed up the walls of the porch to the upper corners, where the screen is most vulnerable, and ripped open the screens! In two places! The screen was just pulled right back. The little buggers looked right at me from 3 feet away and went on with their party.

Unhealthily fearless Paul ventured outside (through the front door; I wouldn't let him open the patio door and risk letting the fiends into the house) and opened up the patio door so that they could escape more easily. They were intimidated by him and scampered back, so he grabbed the dog food and brought it inside.

When we got up later this morning, they were gone. It was a while before we got to sleep, though. Adrenaline rush! Ah, life in suburbia.

To Be or Not to Be (a Stay at Home Mom)

Do you ever feel like you're balanced on the cusp of two very different realities? Like your life could take off in two different directions from here, each of them plausible and exciting, but mutually exclusive?

I felt that way when I was pregnant. My career was going very well, it was exciting, and I felt that I could really throw myself into it and make a name for myself in my company. And yet . . .

A part of me always wanted to be a stay at home mom. My mom stayed home with my younger sisters and me until the youngest was in school. She was really good at it. She always had constructive, fun, creative things for us to do. And she took on mothering like any other career. She read books, she prepared in advance, she worked hard. I have always wanted to provide the same kind of wonderful, magical childhood for my own children.

Which way to go? Either way, there would be guilt. Guilt at putting my children in daycare while I worked at a job that wasn't really "important" (in as much as that I wasn't actually saving lives or anything like that) or guilt at staying home, not being a "good enough feminist," not using my college degree, etc.

There were also dreams. I dreamed (and still do) of being an author. I want to make a living writing fiction. I'm not asking to be Sara Paretsky (though I think she's amazing) but maybe Dorothy Cannell? To make enough money that we don't have to worry about money, enough that I can call myself a writer and mean "as a profession" rather than as a "hobby."

I was further confounded when I learned that Ellie was going to have some serious health problems. I coped with the news much the way I usually cope with big things: I threw myself into the moment, working really hard and not thinking too much about the future. My boss always wanted to be a stay at home mom and asked me unofficially what I thought I'd do. At this point I was still really torn and told her that I was sure I'd come back to work because it would be too hard and too depressing to be home alone all day with a seriously sick and disabled baby.

After Ellie was born, I had a hard time imagining her sleeping in another room, let alone leaving her for an entire work day or - God forbid! - a business trip. I was still thinking of going back to work, somehow, even though Ellie wouldn't take a bottle and I hadn't found a sitter for her. Then, a month before I was to return to work, I learned that Ellie was going to need open heart surgery the week that my family medical leave expired. I asked for more time off, unpaid. No dice.

So in effect, the decision was made for me. In some ways, it was a real relief not to be responsible for making such a huge decision. I love staying home with Ellie right now. I also miss work. And if my company had been more flexible - if I could have had 6 months or a year off unpaid, I believe that I would have returned to work and that the company would have been better off for it.

I'm almost certain that I would have returned to work if my company had offered:
- extended leave (up to a year, unpaid)
- on-site daycare
- reduced travel
- the opportunity for job-sharing or part-time employment

Alas, none of those options were available to me and I'm still a little bitter. I know that I am fortunate in that I don't have to work in order for us to keep food on the table, although we have had to tighten our belts (figuratively speaking only). I know that I am fortunate in that my not working was a choice that we were able to make as a family. But I feel that - in my situation - I didn't have much of a choice. I simply couldn't go back to work while Ellie was having or recovering from surgery. I simply couldn't leave her during her first and most vulnerable months. And that was the right decision for us.

Hopefully my career will resume, or take off in an exciting new direction, when I'm ready. When we're all ready, as a family.

What I wanted to be when I grew up

When I was about 9 years old, I decided that I wanted to be a doctor.  This conviction held for about 13 years, although my direction changed from wanting to be a psychiatrist (ala Barbra Streisand in Prince of Tides) to wanting to be a part-time pediatrician: working in a clinic in the mornings and being home with my children in the afternoons.  I held onto this dream until my senior year of college.

I also always liked the idea of being a writer.  When I was very young, rainy afternoons might find me making books with my mom's help.  She'd create a book out of construction paper.  I'd tell her the story and she'd right it town, and I'd choose illustrations from the Sears and J.C. Penny catalogs.

When I learned about Michael Critchon, I thought, "This is it!  I'll be a doctor and use my knowledge and experiences to write fiction!"

Above all of that, the part that was never hard to imagine or seemed unachievable: I wanted to be married and I wanted to have children.

The fall of my senior year of college, I was well into the medical school admissions process.  My university, which I chose in part because of its high percentage of graduates accepted into medical schools, showed how it ranked so highly.  The dean in charge of pre-medical studies held a meeting for all of us senior pre-meds.  There were probably 100 of us there.  This meeting was ostensibly to help guide us through the admissions process, but ended up feeling more like a way to weed out those of us who were less than fully dedicated.  She stressed what the lives of medical students and residents are like, and how it's not so much different for a primary care physician in a managed care system.  I hadn't been enjoying my science classes for some time, and I decided that maybe this wasn't for me, after all.  I still loved medicine (and I was a state-certified Emergency Medical Technician, though I never worked in that capacity beyond my training) but I found myself unable to commit to 7 more years of intense work and study before being able to see the light of day again, followed by a life of living on a pager, being awoken in the middle of the night.  That's not how I dreamed my life would be.

So I threw myself into having fun my senior year of college and didn't worry too much about what would happen afterwards (my parents must have been beside themselves, but I don't remember them saying anything about my lack of direction).  After graduation I worked as a lifeguard for a couple of months until I landed a "real" job.

The Internet was still pretty new at this time, but shortly before graduation I sat down at my P.C. and typed "medicine, publishing, st. louis" into a search engine.  I was an English major and figured that publishing was a logical career direction for me.  I still loved health sciences.  And I had a new boyfriend with whom I was very much in love, and figured that it would be nice to stick around St. Louis for a while to see how things went with him (he was still an undergraduate).  To my surprise, I learned that one of the largest health sciences publishers was right here in St. Louis.  I applied, and my career was launched.

I was an editorial assistant in Nursing Editorial for 9 months, then I was a developmental editor in Allied Health, or Health-Related Professions Editorial for 3 years.  Developmental editorial involves working with the authors on submission of a manuscript "acceptable in form and content" to the publisher.  The acquisitions editor - my boss - found the authors and signed the contracts, then passed the project along to me.  I worked with the author on getting the manuscript in on time, making sure that all the illustrations were accounted for and in the right places, etc.  I also handled having manuscripts reviewed by professionals in the appropriate fields.  When a manuscript is ready, developmental editors pass it along to Production, including copy editors.  I was getting really bored with processing manuscripts, which involved a lot of numbering pages, so I moved over to the Health Professions Marketing department as a marketing manager. 

I loved being a marketing manager.  It was not what I had dreamed of doing, but it was fun work and I was good at it.  Still, I always thought, "this is a great job . . . for now."

A Mother's Love

I don't know how to describe what it feels like to love your child. I suppose that it's different for every mother, and perhaps for every child as well. I can speak only of my own experience loving my daughter.

I've heard it said that the intense feeling of love you feel when you look at your child is overwhelming, that you never thought you could love another person so much. That's not quite it for me. I've also heard it said that having a child is like having your heart walking around outside your body all the time. That sounds especially mawkish, but hits much closer to the mark.

When Ellie is apart from me, even for a short time, I feel slightly anxious and unsettled, like I've become separated from a detachable limb. She is part of me and she is the best part of me and yet she has the wonderful ability to surprise and impress me.

It's like nothing I've ever experienced.

A Tale of Two Mommys' Groups

Another time, I'll tell the story of how I came to be a Stay At Home Mom, and someday I'll even write an account of how I spend my time during the day. Right now, I'm writing about mother's support groups, altruistically called "play groups" for children.

Because of my daughter's congenital heart defect, she and I stayed home for her first four months. After she was recovered from her surgery and it was finally springtime, I felt ready to venture out into the world a bit more. And so we began going to play groups. We regularly go to two.

On Thursday afternoons, we go to Kangaroo Kids for the nursing moms' group. The first time I walked into this support group, I felt warm and safe. A panic I didn't realize I'd been feeling began to quiet. I sat in a corner and just absorbed the atmosphere. My daughter, Ellie, was overwhelmed too. She was all huge eyes and silence. She couldn't concentrate on nursing (for the first time ever) because there was so much else going on. There were moms talking loudly: sharing experiences, stories, and parenting tips. There were babies crying, babies nursing, babies crawling, babies playing with toys and exploring. It was incredible. One mom told a story about a very new, very young mom who was having a hard time. The other moms made a plan for reaching out to this young woman, picking her up at home, and bringing her and her baby to the group. It's a warm, commune kind of feel. These women talk about slinging, naturopathic remedies for ailments, attachment parenting, whole foods, discipline, family planning, exercise, and whatever else they need to talk about. The group is "led" very loosely by Tanya, a lactation consultant and attachment parenting-style mother of 4. The other moms are a mix of single and married women, young and older, stay at home and working full-time, and everything in between. They are rich and poor. And we meet, of course, in a resale shop with a very casual attitude.

On Friday afternoons I go to Gymboree Play & Music for another play group. This was the first mother's group I'd ever been to, and I found it through a friend at work who had a college friend who had a baby a few days after I did. She'd met another couple of women who had babies around the same time, and a "play group" was formed. Initially we all met for lunch at a very upscale mall. Often, I wouldn't eat. We'd sit at a cafe and chat. The other moms all had fancy SUV strollers from Peg Perego. The babies spent most of the "play group" sitting in their strollers, drinking from bottles or napping or fussing or looking at toys. Looking around at the other mid-day mall patrons - almost exclusively women - I thought, "This is how the other half lives! I always wondered who these people are, shopping in the middle of the day." I wondered how other people saw me, sitting in a cafe in a ritzy mall at lunchtime, with my beautiful blond baby in a sling. I didn't have a stroller to bring along, but I preferred to have Ellie close to my body where I could snuggle her and kiss her head from time to time. One of the other moms is on a leave of absence from work, but probably won't go back. Another is a freelance photographer. A third is an attorney and works part time. All are at least college educated and have husbands who are attorneys with large downtown firms. Now that the kids are older, we meet at Gymboree Play & Music so that the kids can move about and play. But other than chasing increasingly mobile babies around, the moms' part is largely the same.

So what do I get out of this group and why do I keep going back? Truthfully, I fall somewhere between the two groups and feel like I can be myself in both situations. It's wonderful to go to a group (the Gymboree group) where all the babies are the same age and we're all first time moms. We're learning as we go, and it's so fascinating to see the kids hit milestones at the same time. One week they'd all discovered ceiling fans. Another week they were suddenly all sitting unassisted. Sharing these experiences has been invaluable, and has lessened the sense of isolation I hadn't even realized that I was feeling. I wish that there were similar groups for new fathers, and can almost understand the appeal of something like the Promise Keepers: a place where dads feel supported and surrounded by others sharing the experience of new parenthood.

In lots of ways, these women are different from me, but in lots of ways they're the same, too. I have learned so much from these other moms and babies. In my world, where there's no extended family close by and we all live separately in our individual houses surrounded by moats of grass, it's easy to feel alone. It's been so helpful to me to talk with other new moms who are dealing with lots of the same issues, who don't have it all together, who have questions too.

And that's all besides the feeling of accomplishment that comes from something as simple as getting it all together enough to get out of the house for a couple of hours in the afternoon.

Haircut Confessional

I've never been in a confessional, so my experience in that area is limited to portrayals on TV and in movies and this is very superficial. Me : haircuts :: Catholics : confession

When I'm actually sitting in the stylist's chair: "Forgive me. It's been 6 months since my last appointment." My assigned penance is usually some ridiculously expensive shampoo and conditioner.

It starts with other women when we're talking about hair. "No, actually, I don't have a hairdresser. I just go to Great Clips or somewhere a couple of times a year. I should probably find someone and keep going back to the same person, though." But I don't. I don't want to spend the money, I don't want to make the conversation. The whole experience is very awkward for me, and it's supposed to be "natural" for women, right? God forbid I ever have to ask for something more exotic, like a waxing or something else.

Choice

People keep telling me that it's "interesting" to hear my perspective on choice, given my situation. I am glad to share. Before I came to be here, how could I possibly have known how I would feel?

While I was pregnant, I learned that my daughter would have Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome) and an atrial-ventricular septal (heart) defect. This was pretty heavy. Although I initially didn't want to have the prenatal screenings (because it wouldn't change anything; we wouldn't choose to terminate regardless – plus, why would anything be wrong?!) I ended up having quite a few.

I declined the quad screen maternal blood test that looks for elevated or decreased levels of this and that. My reasons made perfect sense during the day. But at night I couldn't sleep. Or I awoke in a panic. At night the rational daytime feelings didn't matter at all. So I decided to have the blood test to help myself sleep better. Shockingly (or not) my levels of this and that were slightly out of whack. Because I was 28 years old I had a 1 in 816 chance of having a child with Trisomy 21. The quad screen results increased the risk to 1 in 221. 1 in 250 is considered "borderline" for more testing, so there was still little cause for concern. I agreed to have a Level 2 diagnostic ultrasound but declined amniocentesis – too risky. The ultrasound turned up the heart defect, which is more common in kids with D.S. than in chromosomally typical kids. And a couple other points of concern too: slightly thickened nuchal fold, maybe, and a single umbilical artery. Now the doc put the chance at 1 in 2. 50/50. That weekend sucked. I'll write about it some other time; it's still too raw to explore.

I agreed to have amniocentesis. The preliminary results and the eventual full results came back the same: Trisomy 21.

When we first learned about the heart defect and the increased chance of Down syndrome, my O.B. was very supportive. She made it clear that she would not judge me, whatever I decided. She told me that the day I learned about the heart defect (before we knew for sure about the Trisomy 21) was the last day I could legally have an abortion in Missouri, but that if that's what I decided to do, to come to her. She'd help me find a resource in another state to have the procedure done safely.

I'm saying I – I – I throughout. My husband, Paul, and I were very much in this together. Going through this brought us much closer together as we learned to lean on each other in a way we'd never had to before. We learned every piece of news, attended every doctor's appointment, and made every decision together.

In the end, as we expected, we decided not to terminate. I spent the rest of my pregnancy mourning the loss of the healthy, smart first child I had dreamed of. I spent the months reading about other families in my situation. I spent it crying and coping and learning and feeling a really strange mix of emotions. How could I have felt differently? All I knew was what was wrong with my daughter, not how wonderful she was to be. I love my daughter. She is a gift and a blessing. I expect this blog to be regularly filled with obnoxiously glowing maternal love and pride.

Interesting facts: Over 90% percent of women who learn that they're carrying a fetus with Trisomy 21 choose to terminate, regardless of their political affiliation or previous opinions about abortion. The only women I know who have decided to continue their pregnancies have all been "pro-choice" women, as I was. Most babies with Down syndrome are born to women in their 20's, who often have gone through less prenatal testing.

So, looking at my beautiful daughter and loving her so much, how do I feel now? I am a stronger supporter of abortion rights and a woman's right to choose than I was before.

1) Until you've been in this position, you have no idea how you will feel, how you will cope, what will be right for you and your family.
2) If I had not had the opportunity to choose to have Ellie, I believe that I would have felt trapped by my pregnancy, trapped by this baby that I was scared of. I believe that I would have come to resent her and that would have gotten in the way of loving her and bonding with her as I have.

Almost every weekend there are protestors at the new Planned Parenthood up the street from my house. Only one time have I ever seen a woman picketing. Most of the time, the protestors are men, sometimes with children in tow. This fills me with rage. You don't know. You haven't been there. It's none of your damn business. I would never wish the suffering I went through last summer on anyone. But if one of these men is ever in the situation that my husband found himself in last summer, I think he will begin to see the world very differently. And I hope that he will be surrounded by compassionate people who know that the world is not simplistic. It is not black and white. And that believing that it is so – judging one's neighbors so quickly and so harshly - is a far greater sin then that which they protest so loudly.