the other shoe

Posted on July 15, 2012 by Emily

We survivors possess many unique skills.  Chief among them may be our ability to consciously deny our persistent, nagging fear of The Other Shoe Dropping.  It’s essential, if we want to keep on living in any meaningful, joyful way.

Most people, at some point, likely entertain thoughts like this:  “I could get hit by a bus tomorrow.  Might as well live for the moment.”

As survivors, the bus has come and gone.  We’ve been flattened.  We’re peeling ourselves off the pavement, clawing and scraping our way forward, but we’re constantly looking over our shoulders, if only on the sly.  We know that we have to keep moving, but fear fights to pull us back.

The specter of The Other Shoe Dropping, for me, becomes most vivid and terrifying in moments of profound bliss, usually apropos of nothing in particular.  Recently, though, the fear took on a specificity I haven’t felt since the moment of my original diagnosis nearly five years ago.

My six-month check-ups with my oncologist have become yawningly routine at this point.  Hello!  How are you?  You look fabulous.  I’m sorry: my hands are really cold. Little bit of pressure…a lot of pressure.  OK, you can sit up.  We’ll have your test results within two weeks.  Don’t forget to stop at the lab for your blood work on your way out.  See you in six months.

No muss, no fuss.  Invariably, within a few days, I get a call telling me that my CA125 is normal.  In another few days, I get another call telling me my PAP test is negative.  No matter how many times I get these calls, my heart always skips a bit when I see the hospital number on my phone, and a huge smile creeps across my face when I get the good news.

After my most recent check-up, at the end of June, the CA125 call came the very next day.  Undetectable; normal.  Words I never tire of hearing, and news I always happily share with my friends and family.

A week later, the second call came.  As usual, it was my oncologist’s nurse.  “Oh, hi,” she began, the same sunny tone as always present in her voice.  “So, your PAP test showed some low-grade dysplasia, and Dr. Chu wants you to come in for a colposcopy, which I know you’ve had before…”

My mind racing, I immediately interrupted her.  “Um, actually, no, I haven’t.”  I flashed back to the hysterical conversations I had with this same nurse during treatment, as I begged and pleaded with her to please have my doctor prescribe me something for my plummeting mood.  Something, please, to stop me from crying all day, every day.

“Oh well,” she continued.  “It’s just an office procedure…take some Motrin…the doctor wants to take a closer look…maybe a biopsy if she sees anything of concern.”

I was holding my son in my arms; when the phone rang, I was about to put him down for a nap.  As the nurse’s words rang through my head, my heart pounded.  All I wanted to do was cling to Earl, shut my eyes and ears to all of this noise, and go back to the place of bliss where I was the moment before the call came.

Rationally, I should have been able to recognize the “ho-hum” tone in the nurse’s voice.  Rationally, I should have been able to process the fact that my own sister has been dealing with a similar diagnosis on and off for several years, and is very much alive and well, happily raising her own child.  Rationally, I should have recognized that the condition discovered in my PAP test is in no way part of the profile of the genetic mutation that I carry.

Instead, panic slowly seeped in.  I went from “low-grade dysplasia” to my husband raising Earl as a single parent, with me dead in the ground, in a matter of seconds.  I lay Earl down on our bed, and gazed at him, smiling as always, but feeling all of the peace and contentment I have finally come to know as a parent melting away, being replaced with the return of cancer, and the sound of The Other Shoe Dropping.

I’m a parent now.  I cannot afford to stay for even a moment in this kind of hotbed of panic.  Get it together, Emily, I told myself.  I helped myself to a capsule of kava, and after speaking briefly to my husband (who took the news perfectly and appropriately in stride), contacted my sister.  She did a wonderful job of honoring my concern while also assuring me that everything would be fine.  She told me about the procedure, and her understanding of the findings.  Wisely, she urged me to call my doctor and ask to speak to her directly, to allay any lingering concerns.  I did just that, and it made all the difference.

The colposcopy is scheduled for the end of the month; in the mean time, we are about to celebrate the finalization of Earl’s adoption.  I’m running and doing yoga with religious zeal.  I’m stronger than ever, and happier than ever.  I cannot even measure the magnitude of the joy that now burns so brightly from the very core of my being.  I’ve survived the shock of getting my first-ever abnormal test results since completing my cancer treatment four years ago.  Now, it’s back to the essential work of staying present in the magic of this moment.

 

 

Posted in cancer, Family, Life After Cancer, medicine | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

burning doubt – lessons from a yoga mala

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Emily

At 5:30 this morning, I offered up all of my doubt to the forces of balance and harmony in the universe.  Then, along with about 10 other women, I performed 108 sun salutations – a yoga mala to mark the Summer Solstice.  At the precise moment I was beginning to feel nagging doubt about recent huge changes and choices in my life, the yoga mala brought me to a place of ecstatic surrender, where the only thing guiding me was trust in myself and my own instincts.  Lesson learned.

108 of these: surya namaskar a

The best way, it seems, to shake off doubt is to challenge oneself in new and perhaps peculiar ways.  When I returned home this morning, sweaty and blissed-out, my husband asked, appropriately, “So you just did the same pose 108 times?”   I alluded to the flow of postures in the sun salutation, and then thought, well, there’s the rub.  It’s in The Flow.

Two weeks ago, I resigned from a job I’ve had for nearly nine years.  At first, I was elated.  I felt strong and clear-headed about my decision.  I’d been frustrated and discontented with my work for years, and had been longing for a change but felt paralyzed at the thought of trying to make something different happen in my professional life.  I was stuck, which for me is one of the worst feelings imaginable.

Then Earl arrived.  There is no better way than welcoming a child to precipitate change.  Like it or not, everything changes.  Sleep schedules, free time, attention spans, priorities: all of it.

It didn’t take long to realize that what I wanted more than anything was to be with Earl all the time, to devote myself completely to loving and nurturing him.  I didn’t want to give up my career as an attorney forever: just for now, like a sabbatical (oh, how I envy my sister her career in academia at times!)  In this moment, in these precious, fleeting early months of Earl’s life, what I want is to give myself over to this monumental love, this task of caring for this beautiful new being.

The realization came almost immediately after we brought Earl home.  Still, I fought it for months, pushing ahead with finding a childcare provider, while simultaneously moving my return to work date back as far as it could conceivably go.  (At the beginning, six months at home seemed like an eternity.  How quickly things change.)  I see now that I was struggling with my competing impulses – of wanting to be home with Earl full-time, and of wanting to preserve my sense of identity as a professional.  I always assumed that I’d be a “working mom,” (what a ridiculous phrase), so when it struck me that my heart was telling me otherwise, I felt a kind of tearing at my sense of self.

Once the decision to resign was made, I was resolute.  I talked to countless people about it, and never waivered in my certitude that I was doing the right thing – for myself, for Earl, for our whole little family.  (I cannot over-state the importance and benefit of having a fully supportive spouse.)  The day I strode into my office, copies of my resignation letter in hand, I was triumphant.  Few things have ever felt more right.

But somehow, last week, after the rush of finally doing this thing that I’d dreamed about for so long, and which promised to give me the freedom to fully devote myself to my son, doubt began to creep in.  I suddenly saw an endless stretch of days ahead, Earl and I lying with books and toys on our bed, laughing and babbling and snuggling together, with no end in sight.  Would I get bored?  Would Earl?  By choosing to leave my job and stay home with him, was I denying him the chance to socialize and interact with other children?  Would I end up smothering him with too much love and attention?  Was I making a bad choice based on my years of anger and sorrow about not being able to have a child, rather than on what is best for the child I finally do have?  Would he get sick of me before he even started pre-school?  Would I go slowly nuts, transforming from attorney to desperate housewife?

In these new days as a stay-at-home mom, I have a lot of time with my thoughts.  I have Earl, and the dog, and NPR, but there are long, quiet moments, when I find myself drifting, missing the rush and bustle of Center City (well, not when it’s 100 degrees), feeling adrift in my new role.  Doubting what I am doing.

But yesterday, things began to shift.  I started the day by sleeping through my 5 AM alarm for my 6 AM yoga class, which left me feeling disgruntled and annoyed.  Then I quickly remembered the Yoga Mala, and rushed to pre-register.  I recognized the backed-up, uncomfortable feeling that had been plaguing me for days, and sensed that 108 sun salutations might be just the ticket to getting unstuck.

Then, I started imagining the moment in the future when I will be ready to go back to work, and thought about the kind of environment I want for Earl when he’s ready to start socializing and learning in an out-of-home setting.  I did some research on childcare centers in our area, and found a few that are highly regarded and that look promising.  Awhile later, I stumbled across the latest blog entry from a beloved young cancer sister, which left me feeling so humbled and grateful, and reminded me of how inter-connected my life is with the lives of so many others – even when I feel like I am drifting on a suburban, air-conditioned island, alone with my infant son.

And this morning, at 4:30 AM, I woke with purpose.  It was time to do something daring, something just for myself, that would take me back to my center.  I was waking before dawn on the hottest, longest day of the year, to remind myself that anything is possible, and that my instincts are powerful.

The mala was, as promised, transformative and vigorous.  Halfway through our 108 sun salutations, I was drenched with sweat, my eyes stinging, my newly cropped hair hanging in my face as my headband slid off.  Halfway through, I felt my belly start to churn with hunger.  Not once, though, did I lose my focus.  Not once did I feel like I couldn’t make it to the end.  As we created more and more energy, I grew lighter, and more assured, and my doubt burned away.

I came home to my son and husband feeling completely right.

Posted in Family, Life After Cancer, Philadelphia, Work, yoga | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

this is why we write

Posted on June 14, 2012 by Emily

Recently, a lovely young woman who just completed treatment for her advanced ovarian cancer told me that reading my blog was “the first time she felt hope.”  She offered these words so honestly, with such straight-forwardness; I was quite taken aback.  For years, I have tried to understand why I write, have tried to justify the self-indulgence.  Finally, I heard a reason.

When we face this monster, we need each other so desperately.

It’s now four years since I finished treatment for Stage III ovarian cancer.  June 11 was always a Big Day in our family – my dear husband’s birthday.  In 2008, the date took on an added significance, one that I felt profoundly in the years immediately following, but which seems to be growing more muted with time.  Perhaps because now, with my son, I have something to truly allow me to focus on the future, rather than feeling constantly caught up in the past, tripping up on the memories of my cancer experience.

Even while in the midst of treatment, as I flailed about, trying to process the fact that my husband and I would never have a biological child, I told the world firmly, “we will adopt!”  I just kept saying it (people would often ask about our family plans even as I was going through chemo, perhaps not realizing what a hot-button issue it was), in the hopes that declaring our intention would somehow make it true.  I was devastated and terrified, but at the same time was determined to just keep imagining that somehow, one day, this would happen, that we would build our family, even if not in the way we had originally planned.

Between the chemo and the steroids and all the other havoc being wreaked upon my body, it was easy to live in a fantasyland, to hurl myself into an imaginary future of babies and a full head of hair.  But it was just as easy to picture the world collapsing in on itself, and see myself disappearing into nothingness.  Most of the time, it felt like I was already halfway there, being steadily erased from my own life, until one day, there would be just a faint smudge, reminding the world that I used to exist.

Recovery seemed to go on forever, in a kind of horrific slow motion.  Time stopped.  During treatment, there are at least markers and milestones to let you know you are moving toward something.  Once it ended, it often felt as if the limbo would never end.  Life in the immediate aftermath of cancer is suspended animation.

We eventually came unstuck.  I can readily trace the beginning of the rebirth to my inaugural week with First Descents in Wyoming, a year after completing treatment.   (More on this in a later post.)  Without that lift, that assurance, that embrace, my husband and I might still be spinning our wheels.  I might still be toiling in a job that left me defeated and uninspired, waiting endlessly, at age 40, for the chance to be a parent, and then waking up one day to realize that I had let cancer win after all.

It’s almost three years now since Jackson – since donuts and mountaintops and dance parties – and the serenity, the stillness, the joy at my center is something that I actively take stock of and give thanks for each and every day.  The woman who scratched and clawed her way to the imaginary, illusory cancer finish line on June 11, 2008, could never have seen this moment, could honestly never have believed it would be possible to feel this strong, this grateful, and this alive.

Facing a future of unknowns is all any of us have.  Walking away from a decade of work in child welfare feels momentous, a little scary, but completely right.  I don’t exactly know what it means to “follow your bliss,” but I do know that becoming a mother, and feeling my heart filled to bursting with love for this little boy, has been the most powerful transformation I have ever undergone – and I’ve been through a few.  During the long days of my illness, everything was reduced to its barest essence, to the simple fact of trying to remain alive.  Today, what propels me forward is this overwhelming drive to give my child all of the love, energy and hope that I can muster.  I have been blessed with this improbable opportunity to be his mother, after all this pain, all this waiting, after nearly careering over the edge.  I owe it to myself and to him to do this with all of my heart.  The weight of my responsibility to him is ever-represent, and so bound up with the fact that he quite nearly never happened.

Yesterday, my aunt called.  She’s a fighter like no other I have ever known.  She carries the same genetic mutation that I do, and has been through multiple cancer diagnoses and countless surgeries to correct complications from her various treatments.  She’s recently come through yet another round of surgery, and as always, has battled like hell to keep up her strength and spirit.  She’s doing beautifully now, and in typical fashion had just come off the tennis court.  I feel like we are members of this terrible, amazing, secret society, sharing an understanding of adversity and resilience that is otherwise almost impossible to express.

We talked at length about Earl, and at one point I said, “Not a day goes by when I take this for granted.  I am grateful every moment for the chance we have been given to be parents, to raise this beautiful boy.”

It is true.  Every angry cry, every lonely moment, that led us to this place has made being here, finally, that much sweeter.

In the end, then, there is hope.  The road is long, uncertain, treacherous.  Some of us make the hairpin turns and live to tell the tale, and even one day realize our dreams.  Many of us do not.  But those who are still on this journey, who are wondering how to face the fear that hovers so close, need to hear our stories.  We may not realize it, but in telling them, we don’t just remind ourselves of what we have endured, we give someone else the courage they need to believe.  Our stories are hope.  We are living proof.

 

 

Posted in adoption, fellow fighters, First Descents, Life After Cancer, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

no time to waste

Posted on May 27, 2012 by Emily

Four years ago, during a heatwave not unlike the one we are now experiencing, I lay confined in the partially air-conditioned recesses of our rented home in Northern Liberties, hanging on to the edges of the life with which four months of cancer treatment had left me.  Reality was warped.  Between the heat and the ravages of chemo, everything was askew, half-melted.  I was skeletal, irrational, terrified, bald.

There was no way, from the depths of that despair, I could have foreseen the reality I now inhabit.  My husband and I are finally homeowners, and though we had to leave our beloved city for the quiet of the South Jersey suburbs in order to realize our dream, we now have a level of financial security that had previously eluded us.  My physical and emotional stamina are greater than at any time in my life before cancer.  And, most remarkably, we are parents.

Four years ago, during those steaming days in the city, when every step along the sidewalk or climb to our third-floor bedroom felt a Herculean task, I clutched desperately to the ghost of the child I would never bear.  It was a wound, a trauma, from which I felt certain I would never recover.  It seemed hopeless that we would ever build the family we always dreamed we would have.

Yet here we are.  Our son has proved more beautiful, hilarious and mesmerizing than we ever could have imagined.  He has lit up our lives and our hearts with a love so enormous, it still seems unreal at times.  The happiness  – true, soul-tickling happiness – is palpable.

Life immediately preceding Earl’s arrival was joyful, but not like this.  Something profound and fundamental has changed.  I want to be able to differentiate the essence of my connections to my child from those of new parents – whether biological or adoptive – who have not had cancer.  Not because these feelings of mine are better or stronger, but because they are pushing and pulling me in ways I could never have predicted, and because they are urging me to take hold of my life in an entirely new way.

I spent many years and many thousands of dollars being trained as an attorney.  I sat for the Pennsylvania bar exam three times before passing.  This profession did not come easily to me, as it does to some.  Through school, and through much of my career in practice, I have wrestled with its strictures and tedium.  Even before my cancer diagnosis almost five years ago, I entertained thoughts of leaving my job, if not the law profession entirely.  These feelings of ambivalence are not new.

But now, I am a mother.  Now, I have been given the extraordinary and almost implausible opportunity to raise a child – one who even at less than five months of age has shown us qualities and gifts that truly astound us.  Now, the ordeal of my past illness – and the specter of a new diagnosis – bring the meaning of my choices about continuing to labor at a job that leaves me drained and largely unfilled, while paying someone else to help raise my son – into stark relief.

The light in my heart that ignited the moment we met Earl has been burning fiercely, powerfully, over these past months.  I feel an invincibility, a purpose, a conviction that far eclipses even my proudest moments in my work as an attorney.  For over ten years, I have toiled in child welfare, trying to plug the bursting dam of social and economic inequity.  It is a tide that will never be stemmed, and it has left me poured out, and often hopeless.

Every new parent understands and struggles with the insane speed at which her child grows and changes, and every new parent most likely longs to spend as much time as possible with his child.  I don’t profess to be saying anything new, as it pertains to the universal dilemma of working parents.

But four years on from my last round of chemo, cancer’s legacy continues to reverberate with an intensity, and insistence, that I simply cannot ignore.  I have already lost months, if not years, of my own life, to cancer.  I do not know when it will strike again.  I do not know if I will be given the chance to raise my child to adulthood.  What I do know is that being a mother, raising Earl, is the most deeply gratifying and meaningful work I have ever undertaken, and I want to give my child every ounce of energy, every single moment of my attention, that I possibly can.

We all grasp, on some level, life’s fragility.  We all tell ourselves, intellectually, that we know we could go in an instant, and that we ought therefore to savor every second we have.  But having dwelt so long in the darkest fears of my own end, having watched myself nearly wither to extinction and then somehow, miraculously, be reborn, I cannot for an instant deny this truth.

I am a mother now.  There can no longer be half-measures.  I sit with my son each night before he goes to sleep, and rock him gently while his bedtime playlist soothes him.  I take his tiny perfect fingers in mine, and my heart fairly bursts with the wonder of it all.  Sometimes, the tears just flow.  In each of these moments, cancer is present.  The heartbreak it brought me will never, in a million years, be forgotten, or even repaired.  The shadow that it casts over my future cannot be ignored.

Each moment is precious.  Each one.  There is no time to waste.

 

 

 

 

Posted in adoption, Family, Life After Cancer, Philadelphia, Work | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

lucky me?

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Emily

Many weeks ago, as I walked the neighborhood with my new baby snuggled in his Moby wrap, a woman coming out of her car stopped us with a smile.  She peered in at Earl’s tiny face.

“What a beautiful baby,” she said, all sincerity.  She kept smiling as she walked toward her front door.  “Lucky you.”

Those words have been reverberating inside my head ever since.  Luck seems an especially strange concept now, as I consider how life has transformed since becoming a mother, and how that transformation is tied to my status as a cancer survivor.

What is luck?  What is fated? How does one incredible blessing – welcoming a child as beautiful and magical as ours – balance against the curse of what preceded his arrival, and the fear that more cancer may be lurking around the corner?

When I was diagnosed with Stage III ovarian cancer, people would say, “You’re lucky they caught it so early,” when in fact “they” had not.  Even as my treatment progressed and my prognosis improved, it was difficult to understand how my situation could be construed as in any way fortunate.  In those long, dark months, it seemed my entire life had been exploded – any conception of a future, of living fully, was obliterated.

The months unfolded after treatment finished; once the paralyzing depression was brought under control, once joy was rediscovered, and once I saw what was happening to my friends and acquaintances with cancer, the reality of my good fortune slowly asserted itself.  People my age were dying – lots of them.  My genes are wonky, and I’ll be getting colonoscopies like clockwork for the rest of my days (however many of them there are), but once I emerged from the post-treatment darkness, I understood with clarity that this was not my time.

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the death of my friend Sarah Feather, after a prolonged fight with ovarian cancer.  She left two beautiful boys and a devoted husband – not to mention countless friends and relatives.  She was blessed with love beyond measure; for whatever cruel reasons, her good fortune did not extend to her cancer struggle.

Recently, I’ve come into come contact with several other young women battling advanced gynecologic cancers.  I’ve listened to their stories, and shared my own.  From this place, as an ecstatic mother of a beautiful boy, living fully and happily, it feels strange – but necessary – to harken back to the days four years ago when the darkness was all-consuming, when fear ruled the day.  I want to give these women hope, but their fortunes remain unknown.  There is nothing I can do to change that.  As the words tumble forth, as I try to offer consolation, I feel my hands are tied.

As we waited to adopt our son, blind faith was the order of the day.  Any sense of control was illusory.  We turned our trust over to our agency, and hoped that somehow our story, our wait, would connect with a mother looking for the right family for her child.

What has happened for us, becoming parents to Earl, is beyond miraculous.  Was it luck, or something larger?  Did the Fates award us extra credit for having endured cancer, and bless us with a magical baby?  Almost everyone who meets our child remarks on his extraordinary beauty, the intangible aura that surrounds him, the brightness in his eyes.  Cancer deprived us of the chance to make our own child.  Perhaps, then, we’ve been given the chance to love and raise this little boy, as some kind of cosmic balancing of the scales.

Instead of being angry about the toll that cancer has exacted on so many young people and their families (which I usually am), I prefer in this moment to be naïve, and hope that everyone who has confronted the nightmare of cancer will one day know such a reversal of fortune, and be given a second chance to live the life they have long dreamed.

 

Posted in adoption, fellow fighters, Life After Cancer | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

invisible touch

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Emily

In an unexpected twist of fate, the presence of these writings in the public space of the Internet has revealed deep and difficult connections between my status as a cancer survivor and an adoptive mother.  I owe this in large part to encountering a new voice whose intelligence and insight confirm that some of the most remarkable people are touched by this wretched disease.  It seems a cruel cosmic joke.

My new friend raises the issue of challenges unique to parenting during and after cancer, and decries the lack of resources available to those of us who inhabit this peculiar space.  Her situation differs from mine in that she was just recently diagnosed during the caesarian birth of her second child, and is now faced with raising two children while undergoing rigorous treatment and recovering from major surgery.  Still, even though I am four years out from diagnosis and am now happily parenting my adopted son while feeling fit and strong, I feel that the menacing legacy of my cancer (and the prospect of a new diagnosis down the road, thanks to my HNPCC mutation) connect me to this stranger.  Facing cancer changes everything, including our status as parents.

Invisible Sleeping Woman, Salvador Dali, 1930.

Yesterday, writing to my friend, I found myself stuck on the dual invisibility I now claim, as a cancer survivor and an adoptive parent.  During our wait, Mike and I tended to imagine our eventual child being African-American, in which case the fact of his or her adopted status would have been plain to the world.  We expected to be a conspicuous adoptive family from the very first moment.

Our son, though of mixed racial background, in his first weeks has been identified as “white” on more than one occasion, a fact which has served to mask his adopted status, and has given rise to at least one moment that drew the invisibility of both his story and mine into stark focus.

Earlier this week, we were out at a local coffee shop.  While there, a nosy, chatty woman inserted herself into our space, and asked how old Earl was.  When I said, “5 weeks,” she replied immediately, “You look great.  I guess you just bounced right back.”

I smiled weakly and didn’t respond.  I wanted to say, “Actually, I have no uterus or ovaries, and my son is adopted.  Not that it’s any of your damn business.”

On numerous occasions since I stopped “looking” sick, I have wondered how my cancer history is masked.  I have reflected on the assumptions people make about my health based on my appearance.  It’s the inevitable flip-side, I suppose, of having spent so much time with the fact of my cancer written on my body for all the world to see.  Now the invisibility of Earl’s adopted status is heaped upon the invisibility of my cancer history, and I am left in moments like the one I just described feeling like the person I am doesn’t fit into anyone’s world view but my own.

The queasiness I felt when confronted with a stranger’s assumption that I had given birth to my child (which of course implicates my status as an infertile cancer survivor) may explain why I have balked at the notion of suddenly being part of the “mommy club.”  I cannot suddenly relate to people by virtue of our shared status as mothers; I came to this place along a tortured and difficult road, and cancer looms large in my history and will always be a part of my life as I undergo regular screenings and surveillance.  The unbridled joy of being a new parent is finally mine, but it is laced with an inarticulable poignancy I am still struggling to define.

 

Posted in adoption, fellow fighters, Infertility, Life After Cancer | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

mitt romney steals my baby or, adoption anxiety

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Emily

My sister-in-law was in for a quick visit this weekend.  It was fabulous to see her and finally be able to share parenting stories.  For the past eight years, we have watched her raise her own children, always feeling a bit like outsiders looking in.  Now we’re all part of the same club.

The afternoon she arrived, she asked me where things stand legally with our adoption process.  I explained that while our son’s birth mother has irrevocably terminated her parental rights, there is an unknown birth father out there, and that his rights can’t be terminated for another two months.  She asked, appropriately enough, if that was causing me anxiety.

“No,” I said firmly.  “There’s an infinitesimal chance that he would ever find this baby, and even less of a chance that he’d have any interest in parenting him.”

“That’s good,” she responded.  “Because that would be a really long time to have that kind of uncertainty and anxiety hanging over you.”

Flash forward to this morning, when I woke from a vivid dream that featured the emergence of our son’s biological grandparents who (quite unrealistically) somehow managed to interfere with his placement and have him put in their care.  The punch line is that the grandparents turned out to be Mitt and Anne Romney (apparently I am as afraid of the Romneys stealing our country as I am of our son’s biological family stealing him from us), but in spite of the humorous twist, the dream was terrifying.  I cried uncontrollably as my son was handed over to this menacing Guy Smiley.

Mitt Romney will never, ever touch my baby

Once I had coffee in hand, I shared my dream on Twitter – my instant therapy and way of acknowledging the fears manifested in my dreams while also trying to quickly put them behind me.

Leave it to one of my fellow adoptive parent friends to call me on the carpet, pointing out in her inimitable way that perhaps my sub-conscious mind is working over-time and I’d be well-served to spend a few waking moments trying to process my anxiety.

So here I am, not entirely sure what I should be doing, other than acknowledging openly to the universe that I am apparently more worried than I realized about something happening to disrupt our adoption, about some unseen hand sweeping in to snatch our son from our arms.

There is undeniable fragility in our circumstance, but isn’t it simply of a flavor unique to being a new adoptive parent?  There are a thousand other ways in which one’s status as a new parent can be threatened.  Yesterday, a woman reached out to me on this blog, and shared her recent diagnosis with advanced ovarian cancer detected during the caesarian birth of her child.  I look back to the moment of my own diagnosis, and the paralyzing fear that gripped me.  I try to imagine that moment coupled with the one I am in now, as a rapt new parent; the result is a truly incomprehensible cognitive and emotional dissonance.  I think of the woman currently caught in the confluence of these earth-shattering emotions, and I want to scream and cry for her.  But I also want to believe that she will endure them, and emerge on the other side as a super-human goddess of unrivalled strength and wisdom, someone who will light the way for the rest of us mere mortals.

I mention this woman’s situation not to minimize the significance of my own anxiety, but rather to recognize the reality that we are all hanging in a kind of delicate balance, whether as new adoptive parents, cancer patients, or something else entirely.  The question is simply how to muster the grace needed to maintain that balance, how to dance with love and hope in our hearts while embracing the fears that lurk unseen.

 

 

 

 

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a complicated miracle: parents at last

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Emily

Yesterday, a young woman reached out to me on this neglected blog, and shared a glimpse of her own cancer journey.  She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer last fall at age 25, and is currently battling the post-treatment demons that those of us who have endured surgery, chemo and radiation know only too well.  Her words hit me hard, fairly knocking me right out of the blissed-out delirium that has engulfed me since our son, Earl, came into our lives three weeks ago.

Yes: our son.  Our long, tumultuous path to parenthood has finally led us to our child.  We are ecstatic.  But as with most things since cancer, our joy has a unique flavor.

As I read this young woman’s words, I was suddenly no longer a euphoric new parent, holding my beautiful child, singing to him and kissing him all day long.  Instead, I was back in the hospital, plugged in and drugged out, terrified.  I was alone and heartbroken, lost in the daze of my own trauma, months and months after I was declared cancer-free.  With a few words from a stranger, it all came flooding back.

That’s when I knew it was time to start writing about being a parent whose child came to her through adoption and cancer – a mysterious one-two punch that makes me feel like I’m coloring outside the lines of these two distinct communities that I now claim.

It’s been three weeks since I became a mother.  I’m home all day; Earl is asleep most of the time; perfect conditions for writing and reflecting.  But I’ve been stuck.

On what?

I’ve been writing for years about the trials of Life After Cancer, and more recently, about our path to parenthood.  The waiting, the uncertainty, the residual resentment at my wretched disease for making us go through this invasive, unfair process – waiting for some anonymous human being to select us to raise her child.  All the while, I’ve been surrounded by pregnant friends and coworkers.  It’s enough to drive anyone mad.  What perfect fodder, really, for a writer.

So what’s a cancer blogger to do when her dream finally comes true?  The call comes; the chaos begins.  Our baby is coming!  At last!

I could write about the moment when Mike and I first met Earl, two hours after he was born.  I could describe how we walked into the nursery, led by the kind-hearted head nurse, who instinctively folded me in her arms when I began sobbing hysterically as I looked down at his perfect, squirming little body.  I could tell you how the room spun – not unlike the way it did when I first met with my oncologist and she told me about the disease ravaging my reproductive organs.  I could try to explain how for days it felt like my body wouldn’t stop shaking, how every time I gazed at Earl’s perfectly gorgeous face, the tears would spontaneously flow.

But what would that do?  Everyone knows about “the miracle of birth;” every new parent could tell stories about the first time they saw their child, how in love and overwhelmed they felt from that very first moment.

But this feels different, like something more complicated.  Cancer makes our miracle different.

We’ve spent the past year with our adoption agency in a cohort of other young couples, most who have struggled with infertility.  Other than a few same-sex couples, infertility has been the underlying theme motivating these hopeful parents through the adoption process.  While it’s true that I too am infertile, it’s cancer that made me that way.  It’s because of cancer’s affront to my body that I am now Earl’s mother.

Please don’t mistake me for a cancer Pollyanna:  oh, it’s been such a blessing!  My life has changed so much for the better!  I wouldn’t trade my cancer experience for anything!   I am not that person.

What I am is an adoptive parent whose journey to parenthood has been profoundly shaped by the disease that almost killed me.  For that reason, I never want to lose sight of the nightmare that preceded this dream come true.

 

Posted in adoption, fellow fighters, Infertility, Life After Cancer, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

four years: a parade of awe

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Emily

Something is changing.  Perhaps it is simply that the passage of time breeds perspective.  But something must be owed to hard work and hopefulness, and the steadfastness of friends and family. 

This past Tuesday marked four years since the beginning of the week that started my cancer journey.  These are dates that will be forever burned in my brain.  This year, though, is the first year that this week completely snuck up on me, not even giving me pause.  This feels significant.

On Wednesday, as Mike and I walked off the train, it suddenly hit me:  “Hey,” I said to him.  “Yesterday was my MRI-iversary. What do you know about that?”  I had been to yoga Wednesday morning, and was feeling energized and happy.  As the significance of the date occurred to me, there was no quickening of my heart rate, no sinking feeling in my gut, no wave of anxiety washing over me.  Just a matter-of-fact recognition of the events as they had occurred, four years ago.

Yesterday, the sense of serenity persisted.   I was out of bed just after 5 AM, brewing coffee, hanging out with my dog, enjoying my Twitter feed.  I watched Bono’s appearance on The Daily Show from the previous night.  I was warm and happy inside my house, feeling snug and secure against the darkness outside.  But I felt the life force coursing within me, making me antsy.  I decided to go for a run.  So on a chilly December 1st morning, I logged 4-plus miles as I watched the sunrise; there are few things more beautiful.

After running, enjoying my endorphin rush, I faced unexpected obstacles as I attempted to get dressed.  I first donned a pair of pants purchased soon after treatment, which now sagged around my waist.  Feeling absurd, not wanting to spend the day hiking my pants up, I pulled them off.  I tried another pair with a mysterious, faint grease stain on the leg, that also suddenly felt weird in all the wrong places.  A third pair, recently purchased and washed, fell oddly around my deformed mid-section in a way they hadn’t before.  I laughed and sighed as the clothes piled up on my bed.  I offered a running commentary to my bewildered basset hound, who watched in confusion.  I felt not so much a deformed, menopausal-before-my-time victim of cancer, but more of a fussy school kid who suddenly hates all of her clothes. 

 A few years ago, this same scene would have triggered so much anxiety, perhaps even driven me to tears.  For what seemed an eternity, I was so furious and despondent about what cancer had done to my body, inside and out.  Not only was I robbed of a chance to give birth to a child, but my weight fluctuated wildly, taking me from emaciated to beefy, seemingly in the blink of an eye.  I felt like a stranger in my own skin.

Thank Whomever for the reclamation that I’ve managed in the intervening years.  Thank the Universe for the miles run, for the downward dogs and the first-ever headstand, the gateway to a reviving yoga practice.  Thank you for the glorious bike rides.  My body is my own again, and not just because I’ve shed some of the unwanted extra pounds.  But because of my strength, my resilience, my love of doing this living thing.

Mr. Potato Head knows what’s up

But the unexpected wonder didn’t stop with the comedy of fashion errors.  Yesterday I also managed to shake of the long-standing Scrooge-like attitude I’ve always had toward our office holiday party.  In years past, I’d eschew the whole affair, feeling over-whelmed by the excess of food, averse to the forced small talk, disdainful of the mandatory cheer. This year, though, perhaps because of the influence of my boisterous and fun-loving new officemate, I decided to try on a bit of holiday spirit.  I even served as her vocal coach as she worked on her lines for a workplace-specific version of “The 12 Days of Christmas.”  (Happy to say, she brought the house down.) “Who is this person?” I asked myself. “And what has she done with Emily?”

In the midst of the merriment, I even spent some time holding and cuddling another co-worker’s one-year-old.  And instead of feeling empty inside, instead of wondering, “Where is MY baby?  When will it be MY turn?”  I laughed and smiled as I patted Patrick’s huge belly.  I tickled his nose and held his little hands, and I just thought to myself, how amazing, this little person.  And how wonderful it will be when I have the chance to hold my own.

The day, filled with hope and light and laughter, ended so perfectly, when I walked out of work on the heels of my beautiful friend who is days away from delivering her own child.  We stood outside in the cooling evening air, waiting for her man to round the corner.  I told her, with love in my heart, how I think about her every evening when I get home. (“Is she OK?  Is it happening now?? AAHHH!”) Her man arrived, and I shared my shpilkes with him, too, and gave him a big hug, knowing that the next time I see him, he’ll be a Dad for real. 

I hugged my friend, too, and as her huge belly pressed against me, I felt the wonder of our friendship mix with the miracle of creation.  These people I love are about to embark on this incredible adventure, and I just felt myself bursting with excitement and happiness for them, and so blessed to be a part of their world, and to have a chance to share in the love.  It felt momentous to be able to separate my own journey to parenthood from theirs, and fully appreciate the magic of what is happening for them.  How powerful to realize, “It’s not about me.”

I can’t even begin to explain why yesterday turned into this ceaseless parade of awe.  I can’t account for how I have reached this place of peace. It’s been hard work, all these years, but today, I felt the pay-off so acutely.  Tomorrow, on the date when I first met with my oncologist and scheduled my surgery, I will gather with my dearest friends, the same people who surrounded me during that surreal weekend four years ago, after my tumor was found but before my cancer was confirmed.  We will drink and laugh as we always do, but I will be sure to raise a glass to them and say thank you. Without what they – and all my friends and family – have given me these past four years, life would not be the delicious mystery which it has become.

Posted in adoption, Life After Cancer, running, yoga | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

early thanksgiving

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Emily

My original thought last evening, after rocking out insanely for 13.1 miles, was to simply offer a post of thanks for all of the incredible artists – some of whom I’ve loved for my whole life, some of whom are new to me in recent weeks and months – who propelled me through my second half marathon of 2011.  And I still want to do that, because honestly, the music that coursed through me as I pounded the streets of Philadelphia yesterday was a huge part of getting to the finish line with a smile on my face.  Music has always fed my soul, and for helping me conquer the Philadelphia Half-Marathon, I do need to sincerely thank these amazing musicians:

The Decemberists; Yeah Yeah Yeahs; Florence + The Machine; The Sounds; U2; Madonna; Funkadelic; Eurythmics; Pink; Nancy Ajram; Garbage; Pure Reason Revolution; Black Eyed Peas; Annie Lennox; Crowded House; Kaki King; Oasis; Zap Mama; Adele; AC/DC; Luscious Jackson; Flaming Lips; David Bowie; Talk Talk.

Florence Welch

Special recognition must go to Florence + The Machine, who, like other wonderful things and people of late, came across my radar through the magic of social media.  My husband’s Twitter friend and musical soul mate in The Netherlands recently introduced Mike to this astounding music, and Mike then quickly passed it on to me.  From the moment I first heard “Lover to Lover,” just a few short weeks ago, I have been mesmerized.  I came across a quote from Florence Welch, the main creative force in the act, and when I read these words, it all made sense: “I want my music to sound like throwing yourself out of a tree, or off a tall building, or as if you’re being sucked down into the ocean and you can’t breathe.”

If you haven’t checked out Florence + The Machine, do yourself a favor.  Do it now.

So, the gift of music continues.  I thank the Universe for it every day.

But it is the season, and as we approach the holidays still waiting for the child we want so desperately to love, it seems right to take stock.  It’s all too easy to focus on what’s missing, the family that has yet to be completed, the pain of our wait.  But in my clearest moments, I ask myself: why?

Why cry for won’t I don’t have? Why not celebrate what I do?  It helps no one to view life as an empty vessel, begging to be filled.  In fact, it is already over-flowing with beautiful things.

Yesterday’s 13.1 miles were gorgeous, perfect.   My feet beat a path through a huge swath of the city I love most dearly.  There was pain.  Near the zoo, I almost crapped my pants.  I cursed my feet; more specifically, I cursed what chemo did to them.

I also high-fived the Eagles’ mascot on Arch Street, and a giant chocolate chip pancake at Broad and Chestnut.  People lining the route read my name on my bib and cheered for me.  There was life everywhere.  Mike and I crossed the finish line hand-in-hand.

Next up, 26.2

It could not have been more magical.  And as soon as it was over, I vowed to run the entire 26.2 mile course next year.

Two runners died at the finish line yesterday – young men, gone in a flash after pushing themselves to their limit.  We must never forget how quickly this can all end, for any of us.

California cuties

So I give ecstatic thanks.  For four mind-bending years since cancer upended my life.  For my superb husband, who buoys and supports me through absolutely everything, good and bad.  For my beautiful niece and nephew from California, who lit up our home for a few precious days earlier this month.  For the kind and generous couple from our adoption cohort who have just welcomed a baby boy, and have shown such compassion and concern for our continuing wait.  For my ridiculous basset hound.  For the friends out there, everywhere, like stars in the night sky, always shining their light.

I love all of it, every day.

Posted in adoption, Life After Cancer, music, Philadelphia, running | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment