The Sewing Room

“Mommy, can I sew a shirt for Teddy?”

I stood in the entrance of the sewing room, holding up my pink Care Bear. Mom was sitting at her sewing machine, working on a pair of jeans for my dad. She nodded towards the bucket of scraps that she saved for me, and in a minute I had them spread across the floor as I looked for the perfect fabric. I found a bit of cotton that was big enough to cut into a shirt and complimented Teddy's matted pink fur. Teddy flopped down on the table on top of the fabric, and the scissors carefully traced a shirt into the fabric around her. Then with a needle and thread, I sat down to sew.

Mom first learned to sew in her home economics class, and liked it so much that she went home wanting to do more. Her older sisters got her some fabric and a pattern and told her to holler if she needed help. By high school, she was sewing maternity clothes for her math teacher and a wedding dress for her sister. When I was growing up, she sewed all of our clothes, including my dad’s suits and our winter coats. She was often in the sewing room and so my brothers and I were often there too. I still remember the first time she taught me to use her sewing machine and the first time I was allowed to try the serger.

I was seven when I sewed my first outfit for myself. It was a baggy red-and-pink jumper. After that, I slowly started sewing more of my own clothes. By high school, Mom and I would often spend afternoons together in the sewing room, working on various projects. She sewed both of my grad dresses and my wedding dress, but I made my jeans, skirts and tops. We’d put on some music, and sometimes we’d talk as fast as we’d sew, and sometimes the only sound was the clattering of the sewing machine.

When I started university, I missed those times in the sewing room. My brother and I would often get home from school and head down to Mom’s sewing room. I usually didn’t have a project on the go, because I didn’t have time between exams and papers. But we’d grab one of the spare chairs in the room and watch Mom sew and nibble on her stash of chocolate-covered almonds. It was there that I confided to her my questions about choosing universities, my day-to-day doings, and later, my feelings for a university friend I was starting to date.

Last week, as I was off from work, I started sewing for my baby. My husband and I had gone shopping a few weeks beforehand and gotten patterns, flannel, and stretch-knit. One day, I packed up my sewing and my sewing machine and went out to Mom’s place. We spent the morning sewing together – me working on the onesie, she sewing curtains for a friend. “Just like old times,” Mom murmured while we worked and chatted, and I nodded. It felt good.

The Birth Story

My husband’s friends began calling us on Saturday to ask if there was a baby yet. “Sorry,” we said, “I guess we forgot to tell the baby that today was the due date.” We were out browsing baby stores, comparing prices and thinking about what we’d need in the next few months. Baby was being shy, my husband said.

Early the next morning, I woke up with a burning backache, and fumbled for my body pillow before falling back asleep. In a few minutes, the backache returned, and I adjusted the pillow and drifted back to sleep. When it returned for the third time, it finally occurred to me that maybe this was labour. With the fourth contraction, I thought to start timing them. Seven minutes apart. I was debating how soon to wake my husband and head for the hospital when the next one came and he woke up to ask what was wrong. “I think the baby’s coming,” I said. He rolled over to hold me, and the warmth of his body helped ease the pain. He asked how far apart they were, and then sprang into action.

While he gathered the things we needed for the hospital, I managed to dress and tried to deal with each contraction. They were definitely strong and five minutes apart when we got into the car. My husband called our parents on the way, and just before 8:00 on Sunday morning, we were signed into the hospital. The nurse checked on me and the baby and then mostly left us to ourselves. I moved from the shower to the tub to pacing around to the room to back to the shower, while my husband coached me through the pain and reminded me to drink lots. Most of what I ate or drank, I threw up with the stronger contractions. By noon, I was tired and just wanted to curl up in the bed, but the pain wouldn’t let me.

When the nurse came in to check on us once, and asked how far apart the contractions were, my husband started timing them again. They were two minutes apart while I was in the shower, but to his great alarm, slowed when I moved back into the tub. He’d stare at the clock, muttering, “There should be one coming soon,” and when another minute passed before I sat up and began rocking with the pain, he’d get anxious. Labour wasn’t supposed to slow down, he thought. I knew that the tub was relaxing me and slowing things, but I was also tired. However, when the pain wasn’t helped by the warm water, I got out and began pacing, and transition (the hardest part of labour) hit. I moaned and said I couldn’t do it anymore, while my husband and the nurse kept telling me I was doing great. I knew we’d agreed we weren’t going to use pain medication, and so there was nothing to do but keep going and focus on the thought of the baby being here soon.

The midwife arrived as I began pushing, crouched on the bed with my head buried against a pillow, while I fought the pain and the exhaustion. At first, each push hurt, but then I just wanted the baby there. I could feel the baby moving through my body with each push, but it seemed agonizingly slow. The midwife offered gentle suggestions, watching and guiding, while the nurse and my husband stood by to help. When the baby crowned, my husband let me know, adding, “And has lots of hair!” I was in “labourland,” my eyes closed, just focused on getting that baby out. Just get past the head, I thought, push, push, push. And then finally I felt the baby slither out and the midwife caught her and put her on my chest – slimy, wet, bloody, but beautiful.

My husband and I stroked her while she wailed her protests at this strange new world. It may be cliché, but it was true that right then nothing else mattered. She was there and the pain was worth it. I held her until the placenta came, and then my husband watched while the nurse cleaned her up. The midwife took care of me, and helped me try breastfeeding my little daughter, who had finally calmed down. Then her daddy got a chance to hold her while I hobbled into the shower to clean up.

We stayed in the hospital overnight and came home Monday afternoon. Now, she’s sleeping in my arms as I type, for she likes being held. She’s strong and healthy, with a good set of lungs, but generally fusses only when she wants something. We’re still figuring out breastfeeding together, and my husband’s reading all the info we’ve been given and coaching us. She won’t fit her newborn sleepers for very long, for she’s got my height already. She smiles and purses her lips and gives us dubious, one-eyed looks. My husband is proudly calling us “his girls” as he shares the news with our friends. Baby is finally here.

Blog Tag

I got tagged by Janet to participate in a game of blog tag. And since I'm just puttering around at home on my computer, I thought I'd play...

The Rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.

On impulse he pressed the tract upon the blasphemer, who of course received it with an oath. Surgeoner thought no more of the matter until, two months later, he met the blasphemer again, this time a man transfigured. He had read the tract, he had accepted Christ, and he had begun life anew.

That's from Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, which I found at the library a couple days ago and just started reading. One of my English professors used to talk about Davies a lot, so I thought it time that I tried one of his books. (I could have also given you three sentences from one of the baby books that I'm reading...) Three sentences are rather amusing when completely taken out of the context of the book!

Now, I think I will get productive, and dig out my sewing machine to finish sewing that baby onesie that I cut out yesterday...

Why the Technology?

Yesterday at my prenatal appointment, the midwife said that during the last week a woman had a breech birth. Because the midwives (and most doctors) won’t deliver breech babies, that meant an ambulance ride to the city hospital for a C-section. Three of the midwives had checked the woman during her prenatal visits and all thought the baby was head-down, so either the baby flipped or they had mixed up the head and the bum. As a result, the midwife had an ultrasound machine sitting there and wanted to screen all of us to make sure our babies were properly positioned.

My husband and I had decided, after much discussion, that we weren’t going to have a routine ultrasound. There are a few studies suggesting that ultrasounds aren’t completely safe for the baby. We also ruled out all of the common reasons for having the ultrasound; a) gender – we weren’t interested in finding out the sex of the baby; b) due date – we figured having an exact date to count from was more accurate than the ultrasound, which is only reliable to within about a week; c) genetic problems – if there were problems, it wouldn’t change our decision to have our baby, and the risk was greater that we could just be scared by the suggestion of a problem that wasn’t actually there.

So I sat on the couch in the appointment room, with the midwife waving the ultrasound wand at me, and tried to think fast. Was this a valid reason to have the ultrasound done, or should I refuse it again? She assured me it would only take a few seconds, and so dubiously I let her. With a quick check, she verified that the baby was head-down. Yet as I watched the ultrasound, for myself and the next two women, I wondered how it was any more accurate than prodding our bellies. The midwife checked both the head and then where the bum should be, and heads and bums looked about the same on the tiny screen. She even mentioned that herself, saying it was easy to confuse the two. So, if heads and bums feel the same when physically examining a woman, and look the same when using technology, how was the ultrasound any more of a guarantee that the baby wouldn’t be breech?

My husband was not impressed when I told him what the midwife had done. We were both wondering why, with all of their experience, they were suddenly doubting themselves and turning to technology. Women for thousands of years have given birth without ultrasounds and without problems. But now suddenly we have this desire to know everything and to be able to control everything. Machines give us the illusion of that control, yet only an illusion. The whole incident just served to confirm our desire to have a natural childbirth, to trust that God designed my body to do this and it’ll work just fine.

One Person at a Time

Nasreen was six when we met; I was twelve. And our meeting wasn’t in person, but through letters and photos. I had seen one of the many ads in magazines for sponsors for children in third-world countries. After some consultation with my parents, and looking at different aid organizations, I choose one of them and requested a child to sponsor. Soon after, I received the package of information introducing me to Nasreen.

She has a serious expression in all the pictures, her eyebrows drawn slightly together, as though she’s not quite sure about this camera thing. Her hair is black and straight, reaching to about her shoulders. Her eyes are dark and somber, and I wish I could see her smile. I’d love to hear her laughter, her chatter, to see her expression grow animated with excitement. As hard as I stare at those serious pictures, though, I can’t imagine that.

She learns a bit of English in school, and sometimes she addresses and closes her letters in English, writing my name and hers in careful printing. The rest of the letter is in Bengali, and I look at the strange characters, hanging from the bottom of the lines, and read the attached translations. She is well. Her family is well. She goes to school and helps her mom. She plays with her friends. She thanks me for my last letter and for sponsoring her.

And then suddenly, she is gone. A letter comes from the organization, explaining that her family has abruptly left the area and they’ve lost contact. This happens, the letter says. Nasreen is about sixteen now, and I had known that sometime soon my sponsorship of her would end as she would move on as an adult. Still, I find myself crying. I wanted the chance to say goodbye. I’d still dreamed that someday, somehow, I’d find enough money to get to India and visit her. And now, that would never happen.

The organization offered me the chance to sponsor another child, which I declined. For various reasons, I’ve decided that when I sponsor another child, I will do it through another organization, such as Compassion (particularly since reading the posts at Rocks in My Dryer about Compassion’s work in Uganda). And I will sponsor again, because while oftentimes it seems that we can do little about the problems in our world like poverty and hunger, through sponsorship we can touch the life of one child. We can make a world of difference one person at a time.

The Last Day

Today is my last day at work. For the past few days, I’ve been thinking about what to say about the last year and a half. I read what I wrote back when I started this job (because I started this blog slightly before this job). I’ve thought about the other jobs that I’ve worked and quit: cashier at a gas station, clerk at an office, research assistant at a university. And now another career change, from government employee to stay-at-home-mom.

My boss came by my office yesterday to chat while she waited for someone to get off the phone, and asked me when exactly my due date was anyways. When I said next Saturday, her jaw dropped. I shrugged. I work a desk job; I’m not on my feet and it’s not high stress. My pregnancy has been going fine, so I saw no reason not work so long. We needed the paycheque, but more than that, I worried that I’d be bored if I quit work too soon. What would I do at home before there was a baby to take care of? I’ve spent the past six years either at university full-time or working full-time. Being at home full-time will be a big shift.

Yet I’m excited too. No more packing lunches. No more waiting for the bus. No more scrambling out of bed with the alarm clock (well, until I have a crying baby instead of an alarm clock to wake up to!). Now maybe I’ll be able to stay on top of the grocery shopping and house cleaning and laundry. (All of you stay-at-home-moms can tell me “dream on!”) And maybe, while baby sleeps, I can work on the writing that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time – marketing articles and stories, preparing book proposals for my novel.

Any life change, I suppose, is accompanied by both excitement and apprehension. So today I’ll say goodbye to my colleagues, go for lunch with my department, smile and nod to all the congratulations… and at 4:30 I’ll walk out of here as a full-time career woman for the last time.

Book Review: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Bruno is a nine-year-old boy growing up Berlin, with three best friends for life and an older sister who is a Hopeless Case. Then his life gets turned upside down when his father is transferred to a very important assignment at “Out-with.” Their new home is only three stories instead of five, leaving Bruno few prospects for exploration, and the only other people around live on the other side of a fence and wear striped pajamas. Bruno is bored there, until one day he goes exploring along the fence and meets a boy who lives on the other side.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne is a story of an unlikely friendship between Bruno, a Nazi commandant’s son, and Shmuel, a Jewish prisoner. Their common ground is that both are living in a place that neither likes and that they were moved there against their wills. Bruno and Shmuel sit on opposite sides of the fence, sharing their stories of their former homes and what they want to be when they grow up.

Boyne captures a nine-year-old boy’s voice and perspective perfectly. Through Bruno’s eyes, we catch glimpses of what goes on around him. Yet we, with our knowledge of history, understand more about the events surrounding him than he does. Bruno is naïve, accepting things as they are without questioning them, yet his naivety captures the reader, as most of us can understand that there are times when we don’t want to know more either. Boyne calls the novel a fable; he is not trying to tell history, but to capture the types of people involved in the history.

This simple yet profound story is one of the most moving tales of the Holocaust that I’ve ever read.

Blogging a Difference

Over the last year and a bit as I’ve been surfing the blogosphere, I’ve seen many different blogs and many different reasons for blogging. Some, like me, are writers sharing their writing and struggles with writing. Others share their faith journey through devotionals and meditations. Some post about their families and activities. Others write short anecdotes or funny stories. And Shannon over at Rocks in My Dryer is using her blog to make a different in world poverty.

Shannon has been blogging for the past three years and gets about a hundred comments with every post she writes. Recently, she was approached by Compassion International to be part of a team going to Uganda to blog about the relief efforts there. Despite a fear of flying and a lot of home commitments, Shannon agreed to go after much prayer. This week, she lands in Africa to start the tour.

I was intrigued by what Compassion hopes to accomplish in taking a group of bloggers over to Africa. In the writing world, blog tours are growing increasingly popular in promoting books, in a sort of word-of-mouth way of advertising. Blogs have become a powerful medium of communication in our technological society. Many of us have probably heard of Compassion or similar aid organizations (and even been involved with them), but this tour gives us a chance to see what a difference these organizations really make in the lives of the children they are working with.

It's All Normal

I was grabbing my lunch in the staff kitchen when someone asked me how many months I had left. By now, it’s pretty obvious that I’m pregnant and won’t be around the office for much longer. People I don’t even know or have barely talked to before are stopping to ask me when I’m due and how I’m feeling.

“In two weeks,” I answered, stepping out of the way for another person to get their lunch out of the fridge. The person who had asked the question gave me a surprised look, as did a couple others in the lunch room. Apparently I don’t look eight-and-a-half months pregnant (just like I didn’t look three months or five months pregnant either…).

Then came the stories. One lady commented how someone she knew gained about fifty pounds and had a huge baby belly. I agreed that I’d heard women could gain anywhere from twenty to seventy pounds when pregnant. One of the fellows in the lunch room inquired how much weight I’d gained over the course of my pregnancy. I’m at the bottom of the spectrum; I’ve gained about twenty pounds so far.

“What’s normal?” he asked then.

I laughed. “Twenty to seventy pounds.”

We seem to have this desperate need to be “normal,” and we all have an idea about what “normal” is. So anyone who’s seen a pregnant lady thinks that I’m smaller than normal. But I’ve learned over the last eight months that almost anything is normal in pregnancy. Some women have no morning sickness and some women have it all day for the whole nine months. Some get sore backs, stretch marks, shortness of breath, heartburn – and some don’t. It’s all normal.

Every woman, every baby, every pregnancy, is unique. But that’s normal.

The Grass Is Greener...

Back in the first few months of my pregnancy, I couldn't wait to get maternity clothes. Particularly when I didn't start showing until I was about five months pregnant, so I could still fit most of my regular clothes (except perhaps my jeans). Getting new clothes is fun, but the thought of shopping at the maternity stores was even more exciting. Like it was a badge of pregnancy, announcing "You have arrived!"

Now, the maternity clothes are a little less exciting. I'm eight-and-a-half months pregnant and feel like I've been wearing the same five items of clothing forever. Okay, I have a few more clothes than that and it hasn't been quite that long. I managed to get a pair of jeans on sale after Christmas (which are now my most comfy pants) and my sister-in-law gave me a couple hand-me-down tops about then too. But I'm daydreaming about the other clothes in my closet... the pre-pregnant stuff.

My mother-in-law had a Sears catalogue on the table the other night when we dropped by, and I found myself flipping through it and drooling over the models. Swimsuits... dresses... tops... It all looked good, because it wasn't maternity. Don't get me wrong. I love being pregnant, love the smiles that my belly gets, love the little reminders of the new person about to join our family. But it'll be nice when I'm holding that new little person and can go back to wearing my normal clothes.

Times of Change

I'm blogging over at Inscribe Writers' Online today about life and changes.

Book Review: Seize the Night

I’ve seen Koontz’s books around but wasn’t very interested until I read an interview with him. I made a mental note to check out his writing, and found the opportunity when my husband picked up some of his books at a library book sale. I enjoyed Koontz’s prose in Seize the Night, though parts of the book were disturbing (to say the least—I wouldn’t recommend reading the book late at night while alone anywhere). So if you like mystery and suspense with a scientific bent—seize the Koontz!

Carpe nostrum is Chris’ motto—seize the night. He has a rare genetic disorder that leaves him with no pigment in his skin and means he will die young. He lives at night, avoiding the bright light of day that could cause cancer or other problems. And because he lives at night, he sees things around his small town that no one else sees. This much we learn in the first few pages of Dean Koontz’s novel Seize the Night (Bantam, 1999, ISBN 978-0553580198).

When a friend’s son is kidnapped, Chris goes after him, using his knowledge of the dark parts of town to chase the kidnapper. When he can’t rescue Jimmy on his own, he recruits his friends: Sasha, his ex-cop girlfriend; Bobby, his surfing buddy; Doogie, a Harley-riding ballroom-dancing DJ; and Roosevelt, a huge “cat-whisperer” along with his feline, Mungojerrie, who “knows things.” Together, they go after Jimmy and three other children who were also kidnapped, as well as Chris’ dog Orson, who got lost in Chris’ first rescue attempt.

Underlying the whole rescue attempt are the weird things going on in town because of the secret scientific activity that happened there a few years ago. Chris’ mom, now dead, was a genetic scientist at the centre of the research. She wanted to find a way to cure Chris’ disease, but in the process, she developed a terrible retrovirus that is now destroying humanity as Chris and his friends know it. 

Orson and Mungojerrie are among the few characters in the novel who are smarter and better because of the experiments. More often, however, the experiments created monsters like the vicious pack of monkeys that roam the town or the humans who have caught the virus and are “becoming.”

Seize the Night is a dark novel, and not just because it takes place mostly at night. Koontz is an excellent writer who provides vivid descriptions—even of death and evil. His characters are realistic and unique; the surfer lingo between Chris and Bobby helps to relieve some of the tension in the novel. Some parts of the plot became confusing as, along with the genetic experiments going on at the lab, there were also time travel experiments that brought with them their own horrors.

Overall, Koontz writes a riveting, suspenseful novel with detailed description and gripping scenes.

Dean Koontz was the first president of the Horror Writers Association, an organization started in 1985 to meet the needs of the writers of this genre. During his time as president, he helped established the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement, an annual award presented to an author whose work has influenced the horror genre.

Koontz has been penning novels since 1968 and also writes under several pen names, including Deanna Dwyer and Brian Coffey. Thirteen of his novels have been number one on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list and sixteen of his novels have reached that place on the paperback bestseller list. Koontz grew up in Pennsylvania and now lives with his wife in California. You can find out more about Dean on his website.