The Good Enough Parent

By: Meika Rouda

I don’t know if my standards are lower but I find myself wondering if my parenting is “good enough”. When I say that I don’t mean am I striving to be a better parent, reaching for a higher bar, I mean is my parenting, on the lowest level, good enough. Are my kids safe, loved, fed, cared for. Is it OK if they don’t brush their teeth every night or only take a bath every other day. Is it OK that I let my 4-year-old son sometimes watch two movies in a row. Yes in a ROW. That sometimes he persuades me to feed him breakfast for dinner or eat a cookie before bed. That sometimes I don’t make the effort to be the happy, cheery, always positive role model I am supposed to be. That every now and then I count to 30 before I go into the room to comfort my crying daughter, hoping with all hope that during that countdown she will stop crying and go back to sleep. That last week my son had mac and cheese for dinner, then lunch, then dinner, then lunch and then dinner again. Why? Well he asked for it and I didn’t have the energy to fight it, to try and convince him to eat “one bite of chicken” or “broccoli because it makes your eyes brighter.” That good enough parenting is my standard some days and that is OK. I think I am a good parent, not just a good enough parent but actually a good parent most of the time. I have my faults, I don’t discipline well, I am easily coerced into eating sweets and don’t stick to schedules. But I am a full-time mom with two kids under age 4 and it can be difficult to meet everybody’s needs all of the time. This doesn’t include my dog who never gets walked anymore and has easily gained five pounds in the last year, or my husband who has taken to cooking dinner himself because I am not reliable. Usually I eat whatever mac and cheese my son leaves on his plate and end up going to bed at 8:30 with the kids.

It isn’t everyday I stoop to good enough, some days I am fantastic- I think up clever games to get my son to eat all his dinner and do craft projects and play magna-tiles for an hour. I read books and sing songs and take the kids for bike rides. Some days we bake cookies and have dance parties and I don’t get mad at the mess we made. Some days I am the most loving, fun, and patient parent I know. Every now and then my husband comes home to a delicious home cooked dinner and a cheery wife who asks about his day. Every now and then I even run my dog for an hour. I have actually made everything work out perfectly for everyone some days. And while I wish those perfect days were more frequent than they actually are, they do happen. And when they don’t, I am OK settling for good enough because no one has perfect days all the time. Do they?

The Adoption Haters

By: Meika Rouda

I know it sounds naive, but I never thought there would be anyone against adoption. However, my last post introduced me to a new world where people are very much adoption haters. Where birthmothers feel babies are being “taken away”, where women and babies will long for each other for the rest of their lives, where adoption is an evil business that promotes baby stealing and destroys families instead of building them. In fact the idea that families are built is repugnant.

Does this sound shocking? It did to me. When I was doing some research for a book I am working on I googled “Cost of Adoption” facts, and what came up were hundreds of sites dedicated to this anti-adoption movement. I am a believer in free speech, even when that speech is hateful and poisonous, but reading these sites and hearing what women had to say about adoption was depressing and made me angry. Most of the sites were created by birthmothers who regret placing their children. I know this is a real issue that happens; I have read the “Primal Wound” and heard many women confess that they maybe gave up babies without thinking of the long term repercussions. But I also know it is unusual in this day and age for a woman to place a baby for adoption without really thinking about it. Without realizing there are factors in their current situation that will make being a mother difficult. Perhaps it is health or finances or lack of emotional support but being a mother is not an easy job and it is a job that lasts a lifetime. In an age where abortion is legal, women have many choices about parenting. I believe very firmly in the right to choose. And if you give birth and place your baby, there is a good reason you are doing it.

In my instance as an adopted person, my birthmother wasn’t ready to be a mother; she wanted to finish college. I respect that and am grateful to her for placing me in a family where I am loved and cared for and feel a deep sense of identity. She did the right thing for me. What would my life have been like if she had decided to keep me? I will never know but I do know it would have been a harder life, with a single mom who was working and in school. Is it better to be in your natural family even if your parents resent you? No. And I am confident that at some point of my young birthmother’s life she would have resented me. I would have stopped her from experiencing her early adult years, I would have been a burden for her.

This is the case for my daughter’s birthmom as well who was young, who loved her baby, and wanted the best for her. I remember a conversation my husband and I had with our daughter’s birthparents, in their hospital room after the birth. The birthfather said to me, “Raising a baby would be fine, we can handle that. It is later in life, when she is older, that we don’t think we are prepared. We haven’t finished school, we don’t have jobs, even with our families helping us we aren’t ready to be parents.” I thought this was incredibly mature for a 20-year-old to say to me. They had thought this out and wanted to do what was best for everyone involved.

My son’s birthmother was single, already had three other children, two of whom she didn’t have custody of, and was just getting clean from an addiction to pain killers. Adoption was a relief for her. She definitely couldn’t raise this baby and was grateful to us for adopting him.

So for the adoption haters out there, know that there are other stories, and my hope is that you come to peace with the decisions you made and learn to forgive yourself. I guarantee the babies you placed will forgive you if that is what you are looking for. And if you are adopted and long for your birthmother, go find her. Hopefully that will fill the void you claim adoption has created in you. But I think the only one who can heal you is you.

An Interview with Wendy Rhein

Interview with Wendy Rhein by The Next Family

The Next Family is pleased to welcome one of our newer writers, Wendy Rhein. Wendy’s heartfelt stories of being a single mom raising two little ones, in a home that includes her own mother, often come with an added bonus: a recipe for one of her favorite meals. Please feel to ask Wendy more in the comments section.

TNF: How has it been blogging for TNF?

I’ve been blogging for TNF for just a few months and I have loved it. The experience of writing in itself is cathartic, but moreso it is the opportunity to share my family and our experiences with others that I know are living in similar situations. I hope they find some solace and some humor and a compatriot in the struggles of the sandwich generation in my blogs.

TNF: How is your family like every other family and how is it different?

In many, many ways my family is the same as others. Two busy and precocious kids, a working parent, urban living. I’m a room mom in the first grade, we go to birthday parties at those inflatable bouncey houses, lead the Cub Scout den, struggle to find a trusted child care provider, change diapers and grocery shop at 9pm on a Saturday night. Other people live like that, right? We are different for as many reasons as we are the same: we are a multi-racial family with one parent and one grandparent. I am one of thousands of 40-ish adults who has combined households with aging parents who have some capacity to help with the kids but who need some help of their own as well. We are three generations in a three bedroom apartment and we have our share of culture and generational fissures and fractures.

TNF: Did your family accept you and your lifestyle? If yes, explain and if not explain what you have done to help them to accept your decisions and your lifestyle.

Acceptance is interesting because it isn’t like they really had a choice. I know I shocked a few people by becoming a single mother by choice, and then when I wanted to have a second child and told members of my family, mainly by phone, I was often greeted with an initial silence. There were a lot of questions and concerns, some more delicately posed than others. One relative did say to me, when discussing having a second child, “can’t you just get married first this time?” I had to laugh because the comment really was meant with love, even though it came across with some desperation. I explained that my family was about much more than a husband, it was about raising children, being a mother, and that I didn’t want to marry someone just for the sake of having a piece of paper and a sperm donor. I have more respect for marriage than that. It was never brought up again. The core people in my life supported me, helped me think through the issues and challenges, and held my hand when Sam’s adoption challenge was going on. They have always validated my family as a unit regardless of its composition.

TNF: How do you juggle the work at home with your jobs?

The juggle, the dance of balancing work, a family and a life. It has always been about priorities, which sadly means that I come last most of the time. I fully admit that I have taken jobs that required less travel and therefore offered less advancement in order to be home for dinner with my boys every night. I will surely miss out financially in the long run but I don’t regret my choices. A job is a job, but my kids will only be young for a short time. My mother will only be with us for a few more years. I sleep less than I used to. I cook a lot over the weekends and then prepare the next day’s dinner after putting the kids to bed. I pack lunches and backpacks the night before. I have let go of the idea of a clean house every day. I haven’t bought new clothes for myself in a couple of years – why bother when they are going to get sidewalk chalk or drool all over them? But even with the madness of managing working and this home life I have found that I thrive under pressure, and that I need mini pick-me-ups, which for me often happen in the silence of a 20-minute car ride on the way to work or in a early morning phone call to a friend, or in the daily texts and emails with my sister. I am vowing in the coming year to be better about caring for myself and carving out a few more hours a week for me.

TNF: What lessons do you feel are the most important to teach children in this day and age? Are there any lessons they, or perhaps we as parents should unlearn?

There are many lessons that kids today (those KIDS today!) should learn. I fear that the art of imagination and the art of play are getting lost in video games and on-demand television. I want my sons to be able to make a playdate out of anything around them – a stick, a bag of balls, a card board box. I want them to have that freedom to invent and create. As a parent I have to carve out that time deliberately for free-minded playing, away from screens. I also think they need to learn independence and responsibility. That not every task you are asked to do around the house is rewarded with money or a toy or an excursion – some things we do just because we are part of a family and everyone in the family does their share to keep the family moving forward. Granted those things need to be age-appropriate, but if my 2-year-old can take his dishes to the sink after each meal, a 12-year-old can, too. One of the biggest challenges for me as a parent, is letting go of control. My family works for me, and works for my kids and mother, partially because I am a list-making fiend who has her finger on the pulse of household activities and needs. I need to learn to let go more, to let them explore and try and be kids as much and as long as they can be. As parents we also need to stop comparing to other families and to other lifestyles and recognize that our families and lives don’t have to be perfect, and don’t have to be what others are or have, in order to be just right for us.

TNF: Any words of wisdom to pass on to our readers?

Words of wisdom – if you want to be a parent, be a parent. Be a parent with all your soul and never apologize for it. It doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight, coupled or single, have all the money or all the answers, if you know in your core that you want to raise kids then make it happen. I was blessed to have one child biologically and one child through adoption. I would do both again in a heartbeat, and just might some day. Don’t let others talk you out of what you need in your life to feel complete just because it may make them uncomfortable.

Thank you, Wendy, for sharing with us. We look forward to learning more about you and your family…and what you’re makin’ for dinner!

The Price of Adoption

By: Meika Rouda

Adoption is expensive. Even on the lower cost of the spectrum, you are paying for the homestudy, outreach to locate a birthmother, birthmother expenses, and the legal fee for finalization. You are looking at at least $10k. It is a lot of money to gamble on a process that is not regulated at all. I can’t tell you the countless stories I have heard about couples paying $20K to a facilitator for a baby, a baby that doesn’t even exist. It is outright fraud but no one is doing anything about it. Why is that?

This is how the process usually goes: When you are looking to adopt a baby, you can do the outreach yourself or with a certified agency. The wait tends to be long and by the time you pursue adoption, you have probably already waited several years during unsuccessful IVF treatments to become parents. You are vulnerable and want a child as soon as possible. Then you hear about a woman who is a facilitator and has birthmothers lined up. She needs to find homes for these babies. Voila! This is perfect. So you call the facilitator and she gives you her shpiel about the birthmother, the baby, the chance that the birthmother might change her mind but she doesn’t think she will because she seems committed to an adoption plan. So the couple signs up only to get a call a few months later to say that the birthmother decided to keep the baby or maybe that the birthmother was actually never pregnant at all. Now they are out $20K and back where they started with no baby and no birthmother and little hope.

Domestic adoption is a shady business and I mean that when I say business. It is no longer run by non-profits and churches and social service agencies, it is run by individuals, who in the best case are attorneys who can actually give you legal services as well as help you find a birthmother, but most of the time are just some average Joe who decided to go into the business. It is lucrative, $20K just to hook up a birthmom and a couple; they don’t do any of the paperwork or help you navigate the sometimes complicated relationship with the birthmother. They are like a dating service, you pay the fee, they get you a date, and what ever happens from there is up to you.

We were very lucky to get hooked up with an honest and respectable facilitator. The only way we found them was through the non-profit agency that did our homestudy. But I spoke to several facilitators before finding them. People who just felt dishonest, they felt shady even though what they were doing was helping babies and families find each other. They had no credentials, just “years” of experience working with birthmothers. They worked out of their homes and made a lot of promises. They always wanted cash upfront.

I wish that there were a better way to put couples and babies together. It is important for birthmothers to have counseling and support around their decision and even then, they may change their minds. But I feel any woman who thinks they should place their baby for adoption, probably should place their baby. There is a reason they feel that way, they aren’t ready to be parents, they aren’t stable financially or emotionally, they have too many children already. There are many reasons. And we need to make sure birthmothers have the right support to get on their feet after they make a difficult decision like placing a baby. But we also need a way to help potential adoptive parents feel like they are diving into a system that works, not a process where a random $20K price tag is acceptable just because.

Why isn’t there a certifiable group that facilitators should be a part of? Lawyers and doctors and social workers have licenses to practice, is there any reason facilitators shouldn’t? Wouldn’t birthmothers also feel better working with a certified facilitator? Maybe there is some education facilitators need to have in order to do their job instead of sticking a sign on their front door and hitting the pavement searching for pregnant teenagers. I don’t know why the government or respectable adoption groups like the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute doesn’t make this more of a priority for legislation. By protecting birthmothers, potential adoptive parents, and babies we are building happy, healthy families and forming a safe structure that normalizes and secures the process. It could also potentially bring down the cost of private adoption, making it more affordable for more families interested in adoption. I realize there will always be the case of a birthmother changing her mind, that is her right, but there is no reason a family has to be out their life savings for nothing. I hope I never hear another story about a family putting up the cash and getting taken advantage of. I like happy endings and adoption should be a happy ending for all.

Mom’s Retreat

By: Meika Rouda

Last month I did the unspeakable, I left my children with my husband and went on a mom’s retreat, alone for 24 hours. I checked into a beautiful hotel about 10 minutes from our house along the San Francisco Bay and read and wrote and didn’t take care of anyone but myself for a whole day and a whole night. I went to the spa and got a massage, I ate at the bar and read a magazine, I sat in the hot tub. I didn’t talk to anyone, no one on my phone and no one, besides my massage therapist and the wait staff at the hotel. It was blissful and yet I had to fight feeling guilty about enjoying it.

The retreat was something I had been thinking about for awhile but couldn’t quite muster up the courage. I am a mother and my kids are my priority so I felt selfish for wanting to spend time alone. Becoming a mother was not easy for me so I felt even more guilty for desiring alone time, like I didn’t appreciate being a mother. I wondered what other people would think when they heard I had gone away alone for a night. They may gossip that Chris and I were having trouble or that I was depressed. Neither of which was true. But one Sunday morning I woke up and said, today is the day I am having my retreat. It was spontaneous and not prompted by anything except a desire for solitude. If I had planned it I would have had a lot of anxiety about the day approaching, I would have meals prepared for Chris and activities planned out and probably wouldn’t have gone in the end. But deciding impromptu to leave was a sign of independence, something I hadn’t indulged in for a long time. And it also empowered Chris to be a caregiver, which he is very capable of, without me micromanaging the process by setting him up with play dates.

When I arrived at the hotel I was giddy as I checked it. “How many guests tonight?” the concierge asked “one- just me.” As soon as I got to my room I lay on the bed and took note of the silence. When I went to lunch I again said “just me” as I was seated at a long communal table. I smiled at the other guests who were entertaining their companions and felt the relief of not worrying about anyone but myself. I paid attention to my surroundings and admired the view. Things I am not able to do when I eat in a restaurant with my kids and am busy feeding a baby or cutting up food for my son while shoving food in my mouth as quickly as possible because I know my kids will get antsy soon and we will have to leave.

As humans we are innately social, we desire people around us, building families, groups of friends. But I wonder if the idea of being alone and the associated loneliness have become an unnecessary fear. I have a friend who hates to be alone. She cannot imagine leaving her husband and kids for a night just to be by herself. It just isn’t appealing to her. If she is going away for a night she wants to go somewhere with her girlfriends and have fun. But being alone is also fun, a different kind of fun, a way to get back in touch and check in with yourself.

I know I wouldn’t appreciate my retreat if I didn’t have my family. If I didn’t have a wonderful chaotic life to return to, solitude is less necessary. But I think mothers and fathers should take the time to do a retreat because parenting is a job about caring and the person we forget to take care for most often is ourselves. I could have spent another 24 hours alone but I went home and got big hugs from my family who had a lovely time in my absence. And I felt revitalized, more tuned in, more grateful of what I have and most importantly, more grateful for who I am.

My inaugural trip will now be a yearly ritual, one I am already looking forward to for next year.

Hey! Get Off The Phone!

By: Meika Rouda

I was at Starbucks the other day with my one-year-old daughter. We were sitting in a big brown leather chair together sharing some pumpkin bread. Asha was wearing her chic light pink ruffled trench coat. The kind of coat I would love to have but is only made for babies age 0-2T. She looked adorable and was happily eating her bread while kicking her legs in the big chair. There was a woman sitting at a table across from us reading the NY Times with a large cup of coffee in front of her. She looked like she had been sitting there for awhile, immersed in the ritual of coffee drinking and reading the paper. A ritual I no longer have time to partake in now that I have kids. She looked at me and pointed to Asha and said, “That is the cutest coat I have ever seen!” I agreed with her, the trench coat was ridiculously cute. Then she put down her paper and looked me in the eye. “You know, there have been several moms who have sat in that chair with their kids this morning and you are the first one I have seen not on a cell phone.” Her comment reminded me how often I am one of the moms on my phone at the coffee shop or the park, checking my email as if something urgent is happening when more often than not, nothing is happening. It is almost compulsive, the need to check my phone for communication, like there is an expectation that when you get an email or text you need to respond immediately. How did we get this way? And can we learn to leave our cell phones alone and just enjoy a dinner out, a movie, or a piece of pumpkin bread with our daughter without being distracted by the constant stream of communication coming across our phones?

Asha scooted her body off the big leather chair and stood near the woman. She gave her a wave, unprovoked, something I was glad I was watching because I had never seen her wave before. Who knows, if I were checking my email at that moment I would have missed her first wave. Just being able to relax and enjoy watching her interact with the other people in the coffeeshop was a joy. A joy I am too often distracted to experience and appreciate.
As Asha walked around the room, greeting the coffee drinkers and practicing her wave, smiling at strangers and enjoying the stir her trench coat was making, I made a little promise to myself to keep my phone in my bag and my focus on my children. Emails can wait, texting can wait, and if anything is really urgent, they can call me. I want to be available to my children, to witness the little joys that sharing a piece of pumpkin bread at Starbucks can solicit. Seeing her give her first wave, communicating. Something we are so used to doing with our smartphones that we forget to spend the time doing it in person.

Play It Again Sam

By: Wendy Rhein

At 20 months Sam is very clear about his needs: his special music must start when he wakes and go on again when he goes to sleep. Throughout the day it is music that soothes him and engages him when all else fails. Overwhelmed? Music. Overtired? Music. Shortout the general pissiness of an almost two-year-old? Music.

This summer I took the boys to a bluegrass concert. I was poised for it to be a bust because it was late in the evening after a day of playing in the sun. Nate curled up next to me, feet tucked under him, leaning in with his eyes closed. Sam sat on my lap, back rod straight, entranced by the banjos and fiddles, opening and closing his hands, finger tips to finger tips, the picture of joy and amazement.

He learned to snap before he could walk. When he was twelve months old his pediatrician was shocked to see him snapping with both hands while rocking out to Stevie Wonder’s “Superstitious” in his waiting room. He brought out two other doctors to see little Sam snap. Sam just bopped his head and drooled.

I love this about him. Music has been a constant source of comfort in my life as well and like for many of us I know that music is intertwined with memories in such a way that an old song immediately calls up visceral memories of a first sweet kiss or a college road trip with girlfriends. When I was pregnant with Nate I played him music all the time (and was so thankful that I had an office and not a cubicle so I could inch up the volume when I felt the need or felt the extra kicks). His favorites during the end of my pregnancy included Queen, Martina McBride, and John Denver. I developed a birthing playlist and Nate was born to the sounds of the Village People’s YMCA and John Denver’s Take Me Home Country Roads. I know, I know. I was nine months pregnant, irrationally nostalgic, and huge. Cut me some slack. They seemed like good choices at the time. To this day, Nate loves music with a beat you can dance to, a ditty that Dick Clark would give a 10.

With Sam, like so many things, I wonder where this love comes from. Were his birth parents musical? Did his birth mother play music for him while she was pregnant? Was there music in their home? What did he hear? He loves Bob Marley – did she play him reggae? And what about his penchant for standing up and bouncing to A Capella choirs like the Straight No Chaser my sister has given him? Where did that response come from?

I will never know the answers to my questions about his history and his cell memory. As an adoptive parent, I can’t say he has his mother’s eyes or Uncle Joe’s laugh and that’s ok. In fact it can be a good thing. This is just part of the gift of Sam that I get to unwrap and cherish every day – the unknown looks and half smiles, the blossoming personality that is at times impish and at times ages old. And his deep love for music.

My recipe this week has nothing to do with music but is just plain tasty. I am sure there is a song somewhere that would work – something by Jimmy Buffet. These margarita cookies are savory and sweet, crisp and soft. I wonder if there is a pina colada version of this cookie out there … may need to work on that.

Margarita Cookies
(makes 48)

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp.
2/3c powdered/confectioner’s sugar
2 egg yolks, room temp. Separated
Pinch of salt
2 limes, zested and juiced
1 medium orange, zested
2c flour
1/2c coarse sugar (I use organic sugar with a coarser grain and deeper color, sanding sugar would work too)
2t flaky sea salt

Put the softened butter in a mixer bowl and beat until smooth. Add the powdered sugar and beat until silky. Beat in one egg yolk, salt, zests and lime juice. Switch to low on the mixer and add the flour, beating just until incorporated. You want to be careful to not overbeat and can mix any wayward flour in by hand if needed.

Turn the dough out onto a counter, make a big ball, and divide it in half. Wrap each half in plastic wrap and chill for about 30 minutes in the fridge.

After it has chilled and is easier to work with, take one package of dough and form it into a log (working on a clean surface) so that the end result is a log of dough that is about 1 inch in diameter. The length is irrelevant if you get the thickness right. Do this with each package. Wrap the logs in plastic and chill for two hours. You can also freeze them at this point for about a month for ready-made cookies.

Preheat your oven to 350 and line 2 sheets with parchment paper. While the dough is chilling you can put together the coating. Whisk the second egg yolk in a small bowl to use as a glaze.

In another bowl mix the sugar and salt together. Spread the mixture on some wax paper.

Take one log out and unwrap it. Brush it lightly with the egg yolk, using a pastry brush. Roll the log in the sugar/salt mix, pressing the mix in gently so it sticks if needed. Think of it like rolling sushi – use the plastic wrap to help it along, rolled tight. Using a sharp knife or dental floss, slice each log into cookie circles about ¼ inch thick. Place the cookies on the sheets and be sure to leave about ½ inch between them because they will spread a little while baking. When you’re ready to roll the second log, take it out of the fridge. You want to be sure the dough is chilled when you are working with it.

Bake for 12 minutes or until they are set but not browned. The yolk glaze on the outside may brown a bit and that’s fine.

The Lucky Seeds

By: Meika Rouda

I have a friend who has recently become pregnant after two years of trying. She is in her late thirties and has two other kids, ages 9 and 6, that she had no trouble conceiving. She and her husband live in LA and have struggled financially; her husband’s funding for his start-up recently fell through and he has had difficulty landing a job. Their lives are a little uncertain, their modest house filled to the gills with the two kids and a live-in nanny who commutes each week from Tijuana. Their families were not supportive of their plan to try for another child. They thought it was crazy –they had no money and already had two beautiful, healthy children. But my friend always wanted three kids and felt that now that she had her own business, as a life coach, she could dedicate more time to a new baby, something she was unable to do when she had a full-time job when her other two kids were young. So despite their families’ protests, they continued to try.

When it didn’t happen quickly, she considered fertility treatments or adoption but both were too costly. A cost she could not rationalize when she already had two kids, a boy and a girl. She turned 39 in September and said she had “stopped” trying for a child. Little did she know she was actually already pregnant.

She relayed the story of how this miracle of creation happened to me the other day:

“Meika, over the summer, I started to eat gluten-free.” She is gushing like this was the key to all life’s problems.

“Then my daughter asked me to stop volunteering one weekend a month at USM (the spiritual psychology school she attended). So I respected her wishes that I spend more time with my family and told the school I needed a hiatus.”

She takes a breath; she is speaking quickly, the frenetic pace of excitement.

“Then my rabbi went to Israel and had some seeds blessed. He gave me the seeds and I put them in my belly button while I slept.”

“Uh huh,” I said. I was familiar with this world of doing seemingly ridiculous things in order to help conception. She forgot she was talking to someone who drank soup everyday for 6 months, didn’t eat gluten, sugar, or raw vegetables and waited in line to see Amma, the hugging guru, to ask for a baby to appear in my uterus. I knew what it was like to do unimaginable things, waiting for the miracle of conception.

Then she concluded, “I got pregnant, just like that. I didn’t even know I was pregnant, my cycle has been so crazy but it just worked!”

“Or maybe it just happened.” I said, with a flat tone. Maybe it was just the right egg and the right sperm and the right time. Maybe it had nothing to do with gluten and seeds and volunteering. I say this because sometimes you do all the right things, pray, eat strange diets, walk on the right side of the street, talk to gurus, sleep with fertility dolls under your pillow, take fertility drugs, take tests, stand on your head after intercourse, avoid tight jeans and aerobic activity and still don’t conceive. I know this because I did all those things.

So as happy as I am that she has her wish, that her dream and “miracle” happened, I think sometimes things just happen and sometimes they don’t. And I know that it may feel nice to think she helped her conception, that she aided her body in producing a baby, but maybe it was just coincidence.
There was a time when I really resented pregnant people. I was jealous and angry that my own body, with all the acupuncture treatments and herbs and special diets and exercise and faith and hope wouldn’t bear a child. Thankfully I don’t feel that way anymore. I have tried to forgive my body and know that things do work out, even if they work out differently than you planned. But when I hear people like my friend declare all the things they did naturally to create a pregnancy, it stings. I wonder “does she think I didn’t do enough?” or do I think I didn’t do enough?

There is nothing I cherish more than my children. They are so much a part of me, they feel like they came from my body. I can’t imagine loving them more. So my dream of motherhood is fulfilled, and while the guru didn’t produce a pregnancy, my hope of having a baby did come true. But I realize that what I will always find sad is that my body failed me. I wasn’t able to participate in our female right of giving birth. It is assumed as a woman that you will get pregnant and have children should you decide. But when that decision doesn’t become fact, it changes how you look at your body, how you feel inside. Especially when there is no conclusive reason why. When you have good eggs and good sperm and clean tubes, it is just unexplained. It just doesn’t make sense.

What does make sense is that people need to follow their own paths, do what they need to do to feel like they tried everything they could. They need to “give up” –oh, how many times people told me “as soon as you give up on having a baby you will get pregnant.” Or “as soon as you adopt you are going to get pregnant.” It is unnecessary false hope, something I think people think you want. But I don’t believe life works like that. I think life is a series of unplanned events and how we deal with the curve balls is what makes us who we are.

So I wish my friend well with this new baby, and if she feels it was the blessed seeds from Israel that created her conception, more power to her.

Mazel Tov.

There is No Party at our Potty

By: Meika Rouda

Almost a year ago, when our son turned 3, we flirted with the idea of potty training him. We bought him fantastic new underwear with cars and spiderman on them. He delighted when he tried them on and then insisted he wear a diaper underneath. We bought him his own potty, a small blue one that fit just right, then we upgraded to a more advanced “cars” themed one where the “flushing” sounded like a car revving and the seat was padded. He loved to sit on it, play with it, even have his stuffed animals sit on it, but never did he take his pants down and try to use it the way it was intended. It became another toy around the house. So we upped the ante and put M&M’s next to the toilet, I bought little gifts and wrapped them up and stacked them on the back of the toilet, our bathroom was over crowded with gifts, sweets, and an array of small potties to lure our son into the destined milestone of going diaper-free. We had incentives galore. This is what we are supposed to do, right?

A month ago, after our son still showed little interested in the toilet, we decided to go commando and spend the weekend at home with no diapers. We told our son days in advance that the “diaper fairy” was coming to take his diapers away. This technique worked great with his pacifier so we were feeling confident. This was going to work! On Friday morning I left a big present for him at the foot of his bed from the diaper fairy and stashed his diapers in a closet. He woke up and was so excited to see the present. He was ready. It was on.

He went diaper-free all day and I kept asking him, “Do you have to use the potty?” “No,” he would say. I would insist he sit on the potty “just to see if anything comes out” but he cried and protested. He didn’t have to go, he didn’t want to sit on the potty, none of them. Several hours went by, still nothing. He was clearly holding his bladder which is made of steel apparently because as the day came to a close, still nothing. I was worried. What was going on? Is he that freaked out by the toilet? I asked him if he wanted to pee outside in the bushes. Still no. I put him on his little potty and he cried. Finally I put him on the big potty. He cried harder. We watched the movie ” Once upon a potty” and sang the song “I’m going to a potty party” but still nothing. I fed him m&m’s and gave him presents, just for sitting on the toilet. Still no action.

It was bath time and he still hadn’t peed or pooped all day. This was bad. While in the bath he looked at me with shock in his eyes. “Are you going pee?” I asked, hopefully. He nodded. I picked him up out of the tub and put him on the toilet. He looked a little afraid but he didn’t cry, even though he was soaking wet. We looked in the toilet and he was peeing. Victory! He laughed and was so pleased with himself. I gave him a high five and as many m&m’s as he wanted. He got back in the bath and I was cheering and telling him how great he was. Then it was bedtime and he needed a diaper. So I put one on him and as soon as I pulled his pajama bottoms up, he had peed. So I put another diaper on him. “Mama, I have pee pee” he said 5 minutes later. So I put another new diaper on him. Then as I am about to tuck him into bed and read books, he poops. Now that the diaper was back, his systems were all “go”.

The next morning we tried again diaper-free and the same thing: he claimed he didn’t have to use the potty and didn’t want to sit on the toilet. I reminded him how he had gone in the toilet the day before but he still refused. It was like it had never happened. As the hours went by I got worried again and then, lo and behold, after bath when the diaper went on, there was free flow. The next day was Sunday and we had the same routine again. He cried on the toilet and just held his body functions until he got a diaper. At the end of the day I asked him if he wanted to use diapers all the time again instead of underwear. He said yes. So we accepted defeat and went back to diapers.

I admit to being really frustrated. I just wanted it to kick in like everyone says it will “one day they just get on the potty and that is that”. Well, not my son –at least, not so far. He has always been the kid that has taken a little longer to do things. He didn’t get his first tooth until he was 14 months old. So we have to be patient and understanding but I never know how much we should encourage or force things and when to back off and just let him decide. As much as I want it to happen, it isn’t really up to me; all I can do is encourage him, talk about it, and keep singing the song “I’m going to a potty party”.

Hopefully someday the party will arrive.

Mamalita

By: Meika Rouda

With two young children, I rarely have time to read so when I do I want it to be good and when it is great I want to tell people about it. I recently finished the book Mamalita by Jessica O’Dwyer. It is a memoir about her experience adopting her daughter in Guatemala. I usually don’t relate to adoption books because the narrators come off as whiny or like victims or the point of view is from some doctor or professor who studies adoption but has no first-hand experience. I rarely find someone I am rooting for. But I am happy to say Jessica’s book is of a different breed. The book is moving and smart and reads more like a thriller than a memoir. I genuinely found myself turning each page wanting to know what was going to happen. The difficulties Jessica and her husband faced in the process of adoption, the paperwork, the bureaucracy, the shady notorios and adoption facilitator makes you realize the mountains parents are willing to climb for their children. Jessica ended up living in Guatemala and taking care of her daughter for 6 months until the paperwork was finalized. A triumph for her to be living in a third world country, speaking a foreign language, and caring for a young baby on her own without the help of her husband. Her honesty is refreshing –from admitting her daughter had trouble bonding with her in the beginning, to confessing her own trials as a mother and the helplessness she felt dealing with a broken system in a foreign country. It is a book I would highly recommend to anyone interested in or familiar with adoption, experiencing IVF, or conceiving naturally, same sex parents and surrogates because ultimately a mother’s love is great and vast and not something to be messed with. In the end what makes us a mother are the lengths we go for our children, the depth of our love, and the fact that family is precious and worth fighting for. Thank you Jessica for your book! Your story transcends adoption and is a great read for any parent or parent to be. And best of all, I think I like adoption memoirs so if anyone has a favorite let me know.

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