Suicide Note
-Anne Sexton
Better,
despite the worms talking to
the mare’s hoof in the field;
better,
despite the season of young girls
dropping their blood;
better somehow
to drop myself quickly
into an old room.
Better (someone said)
not to be born
and far better
not to be born twice
at thirteen
where the boardinghouse,
each year a bedroom,
caught fire.
Dear friend,
I will have to sink with hundreds of others
on a dumbwaiter into hell.
I will be a light thing.
I will enter death
like someone’s lost optical lens.
Life is half enlarged.
The fish and owls are fierce today.
Life tilts backward and forward.
Even the wasps cannot find my eyes.
Yes,
eyes that were immediate once.
Eyes that have been truly awake,
eyes that told the whole story—
poor dumb animals.
Eyes that were pierced,
little nail heads,
light blue gunshots.
And once with
a mouth like a cup,
clay colored or blood colored,
open like the breakwater
for the lost ocean
and open like the noose
for the first head.
Once upon a time
my hunger was for Jesus.
O my hunger! My hunger!
Before he grew old
he rode calmly into Jerusalem
in search of death.
This time
I certainly
do not ask for understanding
and yet I hope everyone else
will turn their heads when an unrehearsed fish jumps
on the surface of Echo Lake;
when moonlight,
its bass note turned up loud,
hurts some building in Boston,
when the truly beautiful lie together.
I think of this, surely,
and would think of it far longer
if I were not… if I were not
at that old fire.
I could admit
that I am only a coward
crying me me me
and not mention the little gnats, the moths,
forced by circumstance
to suck on the electric bulb.
But surely you know that everyone has a death,
his own death,
waiting for him.
So I will go now
without old age or disease,
wildly but accurately,
knowing my best route,
carried by that toy donkey I rode all these years,
never asking, “Where are we going?”
We were riding (if I’d only known)
to this.
Dear friend,
please do not think
that I visualize guitars playing
or my father arching his bone.
I do not even expect my mother’s mouth.
I know that I have died before—
once in November, once in June.
How strange to choose June again,
so concrete with its green breasts and bellies.
Of course guitars will not play!
The snakes will certainly not notice.
New York City will not mind.
At night the bats will beat on the trees,
knowing it all,
seeing what they sensed all day.
Suicide Note February 14, 2009
a love poem July 13, 2008
a love poem
June 30, 2008
i love going home with you
up oppressive flights of stairs,
hall semi-lit by the neighbour’s kitchen,
yellow through our northern window
she is slowly drying dishes, closing the cupboards
for the night
we make our way in the dark, knowing the floor like a second
hand, sleepless nights spent in our matching skin, watching the
thunder roll nearer, watching the movements of the gathering
to the south, the glow of the grill, voices blending with use and
cheap beer,
waiting for the lightning
the retreat, the safety of our beds, cotton sheets,
the party over and you,
curled soft against me
sophie, 5 weeks old
one of us June 7, 2008
Someday, the light will shine like a sun through my skin & they will say, What have you done with your life? & though there are many moments I think I will remember, in the end, I will be proud to say, I was one of us.
Brian Andreas
q & a with michelle… June 6, 2008
… who isn’t due until september.
why wouldnt they break your water sooner?
the midwife didn’t want to. technically it’s possible to be born with the water intact (called a caul) and so they figured that’s just what would happen. but i actually dilated 2 cm past the 10 that you need, so she broke it. i’m glad. my hips might never have gone back. plus, i was so tired i think they were afraid i wouldn’t be able to push her out.
did you need a blood transfusion?
no, thank god. although i did lose enough that they kept us for an extra day and pumped me full of iron. i’m still low which makes me dizzy and tired a lot. but then again, i probably would be anyway
why didnt the epi work…
it did for about 3 or 4 hours, which should have been enough for me to have her. but then i came back (which made me panic because i could see the numbers and i really didn’t want to feel them). they called the poor anesthesiologist (at 1 am) and she came back to give me more. unfortunately by the time i actually got around to having sophie, that was wearing off too
did you ever feel you were going to die?
yes. i thought, “i can’t do this, it’s impossible” without the epi i don’t know how well my mental state would have handled that much pain for that long. i don’t remember much of anything from 7 – 9 really. except getting the epi because i had to sit up and hold still while they made the hole and threaded the tube up my spine. i was sure i couldn’t hold still through a contraction, but the hope of the pain going away… worth it. i definitely yelled through my contractions that last hour. i guess i knew my body could handle it, but my mind couldn’t.
did the pain all disappear once you saw her?
well, no. but god i just didn’t care. i ended up having to hand her off because they started pushing so hard on my tummy. and they had to leave the placenta in there for awhile because it was acting like a plug for the bleeding. so they were massaging my tummy hard and fast and ran in with a shot of pitocin. so after that i still had to push out the afterbirth and get stitches. and have more contractions because of the pitocin. but once they took their hands off me things got better. once she was in my arms, i just didn’t care. it was like my body was just this extension, doing it’s own thing, and i was just arms holding this wonderful weight.
are you in pain now or after the delivery? do the stiches hurt?
well, the first day was rough. everything down there swelled a lot, the stitches are incredibly sensitive. the first time i peed i thought i was going to scream because it was like pouring ammonia on an open wound. i sat on a lot of ice, got some motrin and mostly tried to lay on my side. now, it still hurts to sit for very long and the stitches are uncomfortable. i still have cramps, esp when she nurses. and if i sneeze or try to go to the bathroom everything hurts. i can’t push at all. no tightening of any of those muscles. but the stitches should dissolve in 10 days and hopefully things will be better then.
how is walking…
really bad the first day. i was pretty nauseas too b/c the epi makes you a bit sick when you come off, and losing blood made it bad. but i slept through that mostly. i didn’t really walk much otherwise. once i was on my feet it wasn’t so bad, but sitting up and getting to the edge of the bed really hurt.
are you home now, or how long did you have to be at the hospital?
i got home monday night. so i stayed all day sat and sun and most of mon. a little longer because i lost so much blood and because sophie has a little jaundice, so they wanted to keep her under the lights longer if they could. but it was actually kind of nice to stay. i was lucky and the nurses and everyone were just wonderful. plus, they would snuggle her and walk with her so i could sleep for three or so hours at a time at night, which was wonderful.
she was almost 8 poounds.. see no 10 pound baby.
i know! that’s why i forgave the midwife for not breaking my water sooner and for not doing the sweep at all (even though that really IS what worked. lol. and i’m glad of it). but she had a point – the body knows what it’s doing. plus, the midwife was awesome about doing things like when sophie started to crown she told me to stop pushing and really gently stretched me and then had me push out her head really slow, a bit at a time, so even though i tore a little in a couple places, it’s not as bad as it could have been. cause like they saw on the US, it was her head that was so darn big. plus, the midwife let me feel her come out. and had me push in lots of different positions. and was great at explaining HOW to push and when and why. so i was actually getting something done every time.
did it hurt when they broke your water?
nope. it felt like pressure, then this rush of really warm something. but i was nervous because my epi was wearing off and as soon as my water broke the contractions really got going. but the kind where you want to push, so even if they hurt, you push back and as long as you keep pushing, you don’t feel like they hurt. it’s when you want to take a break. lol. you have to break when they do, or just take a breath really quick!
well, you must be exhausted..is it true you have to feed her every 2 hours?
she prefers ever hour. but that was before my milk came in about 4am yesterday morning. now she can go a bit longer. she can go almost 3 hours if someone is holding her. swaddling really helps.
is she a dream?
oh yes. i sleep for 20 minutes at 4 am and i’m up again and i think, oh you are just the prettiest most wonderful thing i’ve ever seen.
what did it feel like the first time you saw her? held her?
well the first time i saw her was right after she came out. they caught her and laid her on my chest. she wasn’t even crying, just making these sweet little talking noises. i cried. haha. counted all her fingers and toes. my mom cut the umbilical cord and they eventually had to clean her off and weigh her and all, but they did her apgar while she was on my chest and were really awesome.
how does it feel now? do you just stare at her sleep?
yep. of course a lot of time when she’s asleep i think “alright! go nap!” and since last night she’s actually been able to stay awake for longer without just crying and being hungry. so we walk around and look at things, go lay in the grass outside. but yes. i could sit and stare all day long. she’s so incredible.
little bird June 3, 2008
Sophia Rose was born May 31 at 4:54am.
7lbs 12oz
20 & 1/2 inches
she has red hair.
my contractions actually began thursday morning, were bad enough that night to go into the hospital, but they said i was progressing so slowly there was no point in my staying. they gave me something to help sleep, but i still woke up every time i had a contraction. i went back in at 3 friday afternoon almost unable to walk. by 9 my contractions weren’t even breaking between, but i wasn’t dilating very quickly. i decided to take the epidural, i was so exhausted. i was fully dilated by 1:00 but my water would not break, so still no baby. the graph paper measured contractions up to 100 – mine hit 120. at 4:30 the midwife finally broke my water. she was born at 4:54 and i hemorrhaged pretty badly (thank god for modern medicine). the blood soaked all the pads at sheets and started to fall to the floor like some cheap but effective horror movie. so they gave me a shot of pitocin (cause i really needed more contractions) and did this really painful massage of my belly every couple minutes and we got through.
there’s a lot of that time i don’t remember. it was an ocean. it’s this incredible process, the body becoming self-obsessed. becoming a way for life to get through. we are stronger than we think. what i do remember is pushing so hard my eyeballs were going to burst and the midwife saying, reach down and feel, she’s coming. and somehow i got a hand down and strong and slippery as a fish she swam into the world. 30 seconds later she was on my chest and my mom was cutting the cord, but my fingertips still remember that sudden rush of life. as if it were something much bigger than my beautiful baby we touched.
she doesn’t hardly cry, just opens her mouth and peeps like a little bird. of course she also seems to have an aversion to sleeping, but we’ll get there. just think, this post was typed entirely with one hand in the middle of the night. and it only took 3 feedings!
nesting May 20, 2008
i find myself touching your feet, your spine,
the open windows where i no longer can balance
safely
i long for you
the wanting leaves me breathless
i take everything out of the drawers,
put it back, listen
to the beginning of twelve
songs, the city, unpopulated by people,
just the coughing growl of the mower,
the lion living next door,
an insistent horn, the erratic beat of
blown-out speakers, waking to tires against
gravel and the crack of a beer can
opening
a dream of you in a basket, like Moses,
undone, open-eyed, breathing the beautiful,
poisonous air
36 weeks May 7, 2008
UPDATES!
so I only get to see the doctor when I have an ultrasound… usually I’ve gotta see the midwife. one of them is evil, and one is nice. fortunately, I got to see the nice one, but she said that she doesn’t like to do “inductions” and I told her, TOO BAD. the doc said we needed to. but she wouldn’t set me up an appointment before next Friday *rolls eyes* irritating. but they did the internal check and she said my cervix is soft, it’s just not dialating yet. which is fine. as long as it dialates a little before next Friday, they’ll do the sweep if I want it. you bet I do. she also helped me write my birth plan, which is awesome. when I get it all typed up, I’ll share!
Oh baby, oh baby. 
here’s me at 36 weeks. Sophie’s about 8lbs (the doc’s best guess) so we’re going to try and get things moving in the next week. YAY.
http://sunshinegypsy.deviantart.com/art/36-weeks-84819584
http://sunshinegypsy.deviantart.com/art/36-weeks-II-84820146
I don’t know… I think I’m going to miss her. My little bean. Except for the whole part about shoving her hand down my crotch. That I won’t miss.
baby news April 22, 2008
first of all: i put some of my week 34 ultrasound pictures up. got them yesterday. just for entertainment. two of her spine and two of her face (yep, she looks just like an alien)
second of all: the doc has decided to induce me at 37 & 1/2 weeks, because she’s way too big. so the week after mother’s day, i’ll be a mom! 
only 3 more weeks!!
third of all: they diagnosed sophie with “megaureters” which is a form of Prenatal Hydronephrosis. big scary name. really, my mom and i think this is what i had when i was a baby, just that they didn’t really have a name for it then. I was lucky and had rich parents 
They took me to a specialist in Chicago, but I was on antibiotics for nearly 4 years straight. Pretty much I was born with a bladder infection that just never went away. To have the ureaters dialated too far, means that they allow urine to back up, causing UTI, bladder infections and kidney infections. I didn’t know it wasn’t supposed to hurt to pee until I was almost 6. SIGH. It’s not life-threatening if they know about, only if the baby gets a kidney infection and they don’t fix it soon enough. But still, I don’t want my baby to be miserable. And there’s not much I can do to get it fixed. Just not even fair. I can get help, but not the specialist or the surgery. I can just get a constant stream of temporary fixes. Which is going to have to be enough. Still I wish they would have told me when they noticed, not now that I only have 3 weeks! grrrr… so pretty much, that sucks. but we can deal.
my mom’s doing great, in three weeks i’ll have my daughter in my arms. YAY. life is good.
news April 17, 2008
since i just wrote this email to my brother and my mom’s sister… it has all the news and i thought i’d share it with you. it’s a lot of information – so don’t feel obligated! but so many people have sent notes or emailed me for more info, this seemed the easiest way – since i already wrote it out once! and thank you all for your kind concern.
—————–
Since I went to Chicago on Wednesday and again on Saturday, I thought I’d give you a quick rundown of how the week has gone & where things stand now, with hopefully a little more information.
The surgery on Tuesday ran an hour and half over the expected time because they had difficulty locating where the problem was originating from. They took Mom’s intestines out and manipulated them to check that the cancer had not spread, this was already setting her up for complications, because the organs were put back as best as possible, but still not how they came out. They took out the uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes, ovaries, appendix and also took half of the “meckels” which is that odd little guy who was attached to her umbilical cord and intestines.
They sent her organs to the lab to be biopsied and determine for certain where the cancer had originated from and/or spread to, because they were unable to figure that out while she was in surgery. The incision began at the top of her pubic bone and ran to about four inches above her belly button. The doctor said that she will experience more pain than most patients because of her previous surgery. They also had to work around her hernia next to her belly button.
With all the internal stitches and external staples the risk of secondary infection was very high. She got a fever on Tuesday night which began with uncontrollable shivering, which was terribly painful because of all the stomach muscles involved in a shiver. They piled the blankets on to try to stop that, but her temperature shot up to about 101. They could not determine if it was because of an infection or something else, but a couple hours later it fell again, bottoming out at around 95 degrees.
By morning she felt a lot better, and they took the morphine drip out and put her on oral oxycodone pills. They also took out her catheter. She got up and walked around the floor once, they started to feel really badly. They soon realized that she was completely unable to go to the bathroom – her system was still so completely asleep that her bladder had filled to the point of pain, stretching against her stitches and abdomen and she could not go. They put the catheter back in. By the time I arrived at about 5:00 the oxycodone pills were not working at all and her pain had escalated to unbearable heights. After much arguing with the nurses (while they gave her heating pads and Tylenol) we finally got a doctor to order a shot that seemed to at least make the pain temporarily bearable. Mom was pretty out of it when I left, but at least seemed able to doze on and off. They would only give the shot upon request, however, so Dad stayed up all night and called them whenever a shot or the pills were due. He fell asleep once and they missed a shot by 45 minutes and the pain was immediate, so in the morning they talked with the doctor and he set it up so the shots would come regularly through the day.
She was able to come off the shots by Thursday evening and on Friday she got to have some real food and they took the catheter back out. She was able to get up and take a walk and pee on her own! They did ultrasounds of her bladder to determine if she was emptying fully and despite drinking a lot and the IV being in so she went a lot, they discovered her bladder was filling back up, despite her being able to go. Once they hit a critical point they inserted a temporary catheter to drain her, then a real one. That night she got a fever of 102 and they put her on two antibiotics – one that would work immediately and one that ran a 48 hour course.
Saturday morning they tried taking her catheter out again. When I arrived she was feeling pretty good (the fever had dropped), but her bladder ultrasounds showed she was filling up again. We took a couple of walks around the floor and she ate scrambled eggs and green beans for lunch, then fish and some baked potato for dinner! She was drinking a lot and by the time I left it seemed as if her bladder might be going down little by little – but at least in the right direction.
Saturday night and Sunday morning don’t seem to have gone as well – “crappy treatment and manipulation” was the word I got. I know we were hoping she could come home today, but I don’t know that things are going to work out that way.
The doctor did come in on Saturday with the results of the biopsy. Doc said that they had found a small adenocarcinoma on her cervix right above where the cone biopsy was taken from. It was small, but the cells matched those on all three pap’s, so that was where it had started. It took so long to find because it’s so rare that anything is that small and still discovered. The doc said it was amazing that the cells had even shown up on one pap, let alone all three – so she was very lucky. I think she’s a bit frustrated that it was such a small little guy and they took so much! But this way, they’re nearly positive they’ve got it. She’ll have to go back every couple months for the first few years so they can check her out and make sure nothing else crops up – but at the moment they said she’s good to go.
Overall, it was a serious surgery, so complications aren’t that surprising. She is feeling better bit by bit, but there are setbacks and she’s still very shaky. Hopefully she will be able to come home soon and get some fresh air. Although the hospital is very nice – no yucky smell or bad lighting and a huge flat screen TV – it’s not the same as being able to open your window or avoid being poked and prodded. Hopefully she will have less problems with her intestines starting back up, but we won’t know for another couple days about that. If you have any questions, you’re free to email me back or call
