Meet the newest member of our crazy clan,

Luka Lee Ferrell

Born April 5th, 2014

8:35 p.m.

7lbs. 14 oz. of sweet baby flesh and  21″ of pure love

We are both sleep deprived and over the moon.

I’ve been drumming up a post about pregnancy’s dirty little secrets: the ones no one talks about because the “conditions” have silly names, embarrassing consequences, and devastating repercussions (like making reproduction look unattractive). I promise that post is on its way—I mean, who isn’t interested in hearing about “vagina knives?”

Alas, I have been awash in a mix of miracles, albeit small ones, but ones worthy of recounting and relishing. I feel as though I must get these down on (virtual) paper so when I’m up at 4 a.m. for the fourth time with nipple thrush and a wailing child, I will remember that I do, indeed, have much for which to be thankful.

In no particular order, my mix of miracles:

Without digging any holes, kneeling at all or purchasing new bulbs, 75% of my daffodils, tulips and irises have come back. I know they are supposed to do this, but this is the first year they’ve actually heeded my pleas!

Disregard the weeds–they come back too, those jerks!

The students in my small little logging town outdid themselves: they wrote cards and poems, videoed skits and baked brownies, purchased onsies and pacifiers, and came by to say one last goodbye twice. Never in my eleven years of teaching have I felt more adored or honored. I have found a pretty special home.

A mole removed turns out benign!

Two dear friends birthed beautiful, healthy babies!

My sister and co. have raised nearly $5,000 for my nephew.

I have the luxury of beginning maternity leave starting today…and lasting all the until school resumes in September!

A tax refund that makes me want to weep with joy. (Have you ever heard those words together? Tax and joy?)

Thus far, an “easy” pregnancy (don’t jinx me in these last 3.5 weeks!) and a doting husband.

Don’t you worry, I’ll be back soon to report on the likes of nipple cheese and profuse body odor. But for now, let’s relish, shall we? Spring and the smell of newborn babies are on the horizon!!

Sometimes teachers strike gold: for a whole week I have the local(ish) poet Tim McNulty hanging out and teaching my Seniors poetry.

He shared his latest book of poems, Ascendance, and mentioned the photograph on the front. A salmon jumps up Kettle Falls, now damned by the Grand Coulee. Tim went on to talk about the beauty of salmon who “go back to the place they were born.” And he mentioned that line perhaps twice more. It resonated with me.

We were supposed to write about–gawd, I dunno even know what–that’s how fiercely this line sat with me–this idea that where ever I birthed my child, (s)he might have this faint memory of it, this whisper of the room and the light and the soft way N spoke in my ear. That somewhere deep inside his marrow, like a salmon, if instructed, he could “go back to the place he was born.”I haven’t written poetry in eons, and now I can’t quite remember why.

Go Back to the Place You Were Born

Go back to the place you were born
up the back stairs on 1st Street
in the old converted house
whose trillium walls wear
first wails
of new life
where tepid water
fills deep tubs
and a damask duvet covers
a bed on which women’ve labored.

There, on the hardwood planks,
you will find where I curled my toes
and leaked fluids
where your Father whispered in my ears
and massaged the place between my thumb and forefinger.

Go back to that place
where our blue eyes first locked
where time stood still
and our hearts beat
independently
for the first time
because of each other.

I remember when I found out: I was at school, and I’d called my mom just before class started. Something in her voice sounded urgent.

Two words, one diagnosis: Cystic Fibrosis.

My three-month old nephew was now doomed to a fate I’d seen play out in my childhood.

Uncle N and baby Walter

My mind immediately separated into two spheres, one, thinking of my childhood friend, Melissa, who battled the disease and succumbed to it when she was 24, and my sister, thousands of miles away in Germany, tending to a five year-old, a two-year old, and now, a terminally ill infant.

I wanted so badly to call and weep with her. To show up at her house and cook her macaroni and cheese and run my fingers through her hair, to hold her close while wet tears fell between us. We knew what this meant for Walter—we’d watch Melissa live the whole thing. I’d seen the inhalers and nebulizers and hacked up mucus and shortness of breath and the lung transplant and the solidarity of her family and the courage and hope and ultimately, the resignation.

It’s almost a year later and my sister and her family have relocated Stateside, in Spokane. I got to meet Walter for the first time in October, and the little guy is all smiles, and coos and joyful baby love. He doesn’t know he’s sick. He doesn’t know about the football he might not be able to play, the friends who might shun him while he uses his nebulizer, the black tar that might grow and adhere to his lungs. I try not to think about him in his teens or twenties, try not to consider how quickly a cure might progress to let him live to see his forties.

And I cannot, imagine, for the life of me, how my sister wakes up every day, stares into the lake of his blue eyes, and knows that she will likely have to say good-bye to this little love.

It is too much to bear.

So I’m joining her in celebrating Walter’s first (of many, many!) birthday by participating in The Great Strides Walk, a Cystic Fibrosis fundraiser. It’s one of the only things I can give the boy for his birthday that encapsulates the hope I have for him and my sister—the hope of a long, healthy life. Of a cure.

I would LOVE to raise at least $350 to “gift” to this little one, and I wondered if you would help me. I am asking for a $10 donation from each of my friends (and I think I have more than 35 of you!!) You can go here to donate to Walk for Walter.

The addendum to the song “Happy Birthday” says, “and many more.” This is my way of ensuring many more for Little Walter. Because who can imagine a face like this vanishing before its time?

The Happiest Almost 1 Year Old I Know!

Thanks for helping me celebrate my nephew’s birthday.