heartache

Finding Peace in the “What’s Next?”

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

Finding Peace After Miscarriage in the "What's Next?" Photo: White family of man, woman and one baby standing in front of red cliffs (top); White family of man, woman, and two kids blocking the woman standing in front of red cliffs (bottom)

The last time we visited Red Rocks National Monument, we were in mourning.

Two and a half years ago, my husband and I were reeling from a doctor’s appointment the week before as we were visiting my sister and brother-in-law in Las Vegas. At that appointment, we found out that the child-to-be I thought I was pregnant with had stopped developing. I was supposed to be ten weeks pregnant; the child-to-be’s heart seemed to have stopped at seven weeks. Rather than delaying our vacation, I chose to wait to get the D&C.

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The Fleeting Memory of Childhood

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

The Fleeting Memory of Childhood. What happens when your child forgets a memory you shared? (Photos - Above, Christmas lights at the entrance to Sesame Place; bottom: Giant cookie monster
“You remember Sesame Place, right? Where we met Cookie Monster?” I said to my four-year-old casually. I was in the middle of contemplating going back sometime this fall.

“No,” he responded and shrugged.

“Really?” I said, tilting my head and squinting at him. His answer completely derailed my train of thought. Visiting Sesame Place had been his first long-term memory, or so I had thought. In fact, it was the one single event he had remembered before his brother had been born, when he was still an only child.

And just like that, it was gone.

That surprise struck me again a few weeks later. We were walking to a pedestrian bridge near our house to watch the trains pass under it. While we used to walk this route daily, Sprout has been more interested this summer in riding his bike or running around the playground than watching trains.

Walking past our neighbor’s house, we spotted their dogs, who are always outside if the weather is decent. Pointing them out to Sprout, I blanked on their names.

“Look, it’s – uh, what are their names again?” I asked.

“I don’t remember,” he said, looking confused himself. While me not remembering their names wasn’t surprising at all, him forgetting them left me with my mouth open. He and Chris walked this route every day for months. Every time, he’d stop and say hello to the dogs. He knew their names as if they were our pets.

After a few mental stumbles, I retrieved their names  – “Cupcake and Boo Boo, that’s it.”

“Oh, right,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was remembering them as well or just affirming me.

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Guest Post at Good Mother Project: Unexpected Complications

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Trigger Warning: Miscarriage, pregnancy loss, pregnancy complications

As I mentioned a few months ago, I had some significant complications with my pregnancy. In my tenth week, I had substantial bleeding – enough to go to the emergency room.  I recount this experience in a guest post called Unexpected Complications at the Good Mother Project, from the initial discovery to the lifting of the restrictions.  (This essay was originally written over a month ago, so we now know that the true resolution was actually wonderful.)

At the ten-week mark in my pregnancy, I was lying on the living room couch, still recovering from putting my toddler son to bed. Suddenly, I felt a bubble and then wetness. Running to the bathroom, I saw blood. My breath faltered and then emerged in gasps.

Read the rest of the post at the Good Mother Project.

Reflections on a New Year: Dreaming and Scheming

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 5 Comments

Goals are tricky little beasts. They’re so easy to pin to big, specific things or be swayed by society’s expectations. It’s easy to ignore the more subtle things that need to be done, like forgiving yourself or making space to enjoy nature. In our capitalist, consumer-driven society, those seem shallow, even though they’re essential to loving others or contributing to a larger community.

After reflecting on 2015 and considering how to approach the coming year, I moved into the process of goal-setting. I knew that the things that were both frustrating me the most and in my control (aka not Congress) were the difficult, slippery issues requiring a lot of emotional work. Because I was overburdened and under-satisfied, I needed to deal with those issues before I could worry about specific actions for my career or volunteer activities.

Thankfully, the Holiday Council provided a nice framework for thinking through that type of goal-setting. Molly, the leader, encouraged us to come up with five ways of being for the coming year, as well as a word that encompassed all of it. While I frequently think about what type of person I want to be, I’d never really considered those traits as characteristics put into action at any particular time. Considering my personal values and what I particularly want to work on in the coming year, I picked the following “ways of being”:

  • Showing kindness and acceptance
  • Empowering and trusting those around me
  • Embracing simplicity
  • Being at peace
  • Telling meaningful stories

After a such a stressful year, I wanted to find ways to be less anxious and more compassionate to myself and others while still “making a difference.”

Reflections on a New Year_ Dreaming and SchemingWord of the Year_ Listen

From those, I realized that my word of the year is “Listen.” It reminds me of the three steps set forth in a prayer by my former church pastor: “Let me listen, let me learn, let me love.” Listening – whether to others’  needs or my own – must be the foundation of my action.

This word and these ways of being helped me establish my goals, which balanced internal, family needs with external ones.

The first two goals were both ones that I would undervalue and ignore unless I purposely focused on them: 1) to let go of my harmful expectations for myself and others and 2) immerse myself without regrets in spending time with my family during maternity leave. While I would be full-time on maternity leave no matter what, I want to have the maturity to feel like it’s not time wasted.

My second two goals were more traditional, although they’re as much about discernment as old-fashioned hard work: helping my church through its transition and having a sense of direction for my career. In both, I want to have a vision moving forward so I don’t just feel like I’m flailing towards nothing in particular.

So far in the year, most of my efforts have focused on simplifying. It just seemed like the right place to start. During Lent, my former pastor always said that fasting wasn’t about giving things up so much as making room for new things. I realized that to have enough space for a newborn, I needed to make both mental and physical space in my life.

Oddly enough, simplification can be a massive project. To help, I drew inspiration from two books: Living the Simple Life and Spark Joy.

As part of our book clean-out, I found Living the Simple Life by Elaine St James. I got it as part of a holiday gift exchange years ago with another book about living in the woods, intending to romantically contemplate how to get back to basics. Appropriately, my busy life kept me from reading it until now. While a lot of the book is not applicable to my life or now radically out of date – it came out in 1998, when the Internet was still something most people didn’t use – just reading it sparked my motivation. Knowing it is possible to simplify helped me interpret what that may mean in my individual life. As the author says, it probably doesn’t mean selling all of your stuff and moving to a cabin in the woods.

For me, I realized a lot of my self-imposed stress emerged from having an endless list of things that “needed” to be addressed. In particular, my activist guilt is the most goaded by the flood of emails I get from organizations requesting I sign petitions or send them money. To minimize that, I’m trying to get myself down to only 15 mailing lists. While I haven’t gotten there yet, I’ve already made a habit of unsubscribing to lists immediately if it’s not what I want. I’m also trying to spend a couple minutes a day randomly erasing or archiving old emails so I don’t have that huge number staring me in the face. I’ve already reduced it down from more than 6,000 to 5,500. While it’s still giant, I’m glad it’s no longer growing.

The second book was Spark Joy by Marie Kondo, the follow-up to The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. After hearing a lot of good things about the previous book and seeing Spark Joy as a free offer, it seemed like something arriving at just the right time. With the need to clear out the future baby’s room that had been a bit of a dumping ground for “stuff we don’t know what to do with” for years, I definitely needed encouragement. While I didn’t follow her “tidying” instructions exactly – or in many cases, not at all – thinking about how my possessions spark joy or not has been really helpful. In addition to helping get rid of stuff, it also helped me consider about how to enjoy the stuff I have now. For example, I’m going to take many of the ticket stubs from concerts and postcards from travel and make a big bulletin board so I can remember those fond memories on a regular basis. I’ve already made huge progress on the room. As it previously inspired despair and now looks like a place where a child may be able to live in the future (after we move some furniture), I’d say the book made a difference. Having things physically organized makes it a lot easier to be mentally organized.

Messy baby room

Before: Yikes.

Almost clean room

Almost done!

Besides simplifying, I’ve also focused on empowering other people. My core urge is to do everything myself because I think I can do it better. Empowering others requires a level of humility and trust that’s both challenging and necessary. At work, I’m putting together an extensive list of reference materials so that other people can take on pieces of my job while I’m on maternity leave. It’s both weird and illuminating to get down all of the knowledge I carry around in my head in a form that makes sense to other people. In my volunteer activities, I’m allowing other people to take over some of my Kidical Mass rides because I simply won’t be allowed back on the bike by that point. As hard as it is to hand my projects over to others, even temporarily, it’s better that they can continue without me than be lost. More importantly, it opens the door for others to contribute their own vision and experiences that wouldn’t have happened if I clung to these projects myself. I want my work to help others to learn and grow rather than restricting them, so this is a great opportunity for that to happen.

As the year progresses, I’m sure these specific goals and steps towards them will shift. But I deeply appreciate the sense of structure they provide as I move through these major transitions in my life. The word “Listen” and ways of being have already provided a foundation for how I structure my time and think about my priorities.

Editor’s note: I didn’t get paid by Stratejoy to write these blog posts.  I just found that the Holiday Council helped me out a lot and wanted to work through some of these thoughts.

Reflections on a New Year: Seasons of Life

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

“You can do it all. Just not all at the same time and not right away.” – Cat Grant, Supergirl

My ambition has the patience of a two-year-old. “But I want it NOW!” it screams, regardless of my rational self’s attempts at talking it down. It’s not that I’m unwilling to work to achieve my goals. In fact, that’s one of my defining traits. It’s that I feel driven to work on all of my goals – personal, professional, relational – simultanously. Small wonder my mental to-do list is the length of the Oxford English Dictionary. But in December, I started to change that thinking, with the therapy session, Stratejoy’s Holiday Council, and of all things, the Supergirl TV show, illuminating an alternative approach.

Livewire

Cat Grant, my new favorite editor in the superhero world. (Bye, J. Jonah Jamison!)

While “You don’t have to do everything all the time” seems like an obvious statement, it’s one I’ve never allowed myself to believe. But hearing it from the therapist (or at least words along those lines) poked through that mental blockage. I realized that, societal expectations aside, I’m the only one in my life who actually expects me to do that.

To shift away from this thinking, the therapist suggested that I pick a couple of areas to focus on at a time. “But I can’t give anything up!” I cried, “They’re too important.”

But in the midst of saying that sentence, I saw a middle ground. I could continue to do things without going full steam ahead on every one of them. Thinking aloud, I said, “I don’t want to give anything up, but I don’t have to get an A in everything, right? I can get Bs in some things.” Now, while grading your own life is not exactly healthy, just the idea of letting myself purposely “get a B” was radical. Obvious stuff to the non-overachievers, but I had never framed it like that before.

Appropriately enough, the Holiday Council addressed many of these issues as well. Molly Mahar, who leads the calls, reinforced the idea that “I am enough,” no matter what my accomplishments list reads that day. She discussed the idea of seasons of life, where some aspects of our life fall back and others come forward. “You can have unlimited dreams and goals, but not unlimited priorities,” she said. Again, the distinction between dreams and priorities was one I had never connected the dots on.

Appropriately, amongst the exhortations to dream big, there was only space in the workbook for three major goals for the coming year. (Despite my newfound realization, I cheated and added a fourth. But before, I probably would have had six, so it’s an improvement.)

In needing to narrow my focus down to four areas – one of which focuses on improving my mental health – I could pick out my true priorities for the year. Now, rather than worrying about “not doing this or that,” I can look at my goals and if it isn’t on there, say with confidence, “Nope, that’s for next year.”

Of course, the hardest part is actually carrying out said goals. While some of them are big ones with many steps, others don’t have long to-do lists but will actually be more difficult. For example, even though it should be simple in theory, I haven’t actually fulfilled any resolution to regularly get seven hours of sleep a night in years.

But just as I’m learning to have patience with seasons of life, I need to have patience with myself with the goals I have taken on. While there are many cliches about this topic, my favorite reminder is from Anne Lamott. She talks about how writing can be radically discouraging if you try to think of it as a whole. Instead, she tells a story where her brother had to do a huge report on birds that he didn’t start until the night before it was due. Her father, advising him on how to approach it, said he just had to go “bird by bird.”

And that’s life, isn’t it? Even if you don’t know what’s ahead, writing is done sentence by sentence, parenting day by day, community building meeting by meeting. All are important, even if you never get to the goal. The moving forward needs to be enough.

Being satisfied with that forward movement while also being able to dream is ultimately what I’m struggling with as I back away from cramming “too much” into my life. It’s not coincidental that these themes keep arising in different, seemingly unrelated aspects of my life. As quoted at the top, media mogul Cat Grant, tells Kara Danvers (aka Supergirl) exactly what I needed to hear yet again. At one point in the Holiday Council, Molly Mahar quoted (from Lynne Twist), “Once we let go of scarcity, we find sufficiency.” That sounds a lot like the permaculture idea that there is no such thing as excess, only things that need to be used in a new way. Nature provides what it needs to function. My own life will too, if I only let it.

The Day I Thought My Baby Had a Brain Tumor

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 12 Comments

The Day I Thought My Baby Had a Brain Tumor. When my son had uneven pupils, we went through a whole battery of tests to find out what might be the cause, including a MRI. (Photo: MRI scan of a brain)

My son has the most beautiful blue eyes in the world. But they aren’t quite flawless. In fact, they’re uneven; his pupils dilate to different sizes. I never noticed it until my husband pointed it out, but from then on it was obvious. While I still think they’re gorgeous, they caused one of the most stressful periods of my life as a mom.

Chris noticed the difference in Sprout’s eyes when he was about three months old. We were eating at a diner booth lit by an old-fashioned lamp. At first, we thought it was a trick of the light. Nonetheless, we agreed we should bring him to the doctor – just in case. Uneven pupils can indicate a concussion, right?

The First Round of Tests

The call to the nurse the next morning didn’t assuage our fears. They encouraged us to come in for an appointment right away. Clearly, this wasn’t a common issue. When we got to the pediatrician, he said that yes, Sprout’s eyes were uneven. With a  look of concern on his normally optimistic face, the doctor recommended making an appointment immediately with a pediatric ophthalmologist.

Chris and Sprout went to the specialist without me. I desperately wanted to go, but I couldn’t take time off right after returning from maternity leave. To dilate Sprout’s pupils, the doctor administered eye drops. If both pupils were the same size after the eye drops, there was no underlying problem. But if they were still different, he would need “more tests.” A dreaded phrase. His pupils still were off by several millimeters.  We were off to another specialist.

Part of the 15%?

The next stop was the Children’s National Medical Center in downtown Washington, D.C. After giving Sprout even stronger eye drops derived from the main component of cocaine, the specialist found his pupils were still different sizes.

On one hand, he said that 85 percent of kids with this result are fine. They just have an inborn quirk. But the other 15 percent? They have a brain tumor or something else dreadful pressing on the nerve leading to the eye.  85% usually isn’t bad odds. But any number feels like bad odds when you’re talking about your infant possibly having a brain tumor.

To find out for certain, Sprout would have to have an MRI. Because most MRIs require patients be perfectly still, they’re difficult for adults to do. They’re impossible for infants – unless you put them under anesthesia.

Even with national experts caring for him, the thought of anyone putting my baby under made me catch my breath. Not to mention the horrible possibilities of the potential MRI results.

All of it seemed horribly predestined. My pregnancy and his early babyhood had gone easily compared to the horror stories of people I knew. I felt like this was the other shoe dropping.

The earliest appointment was available in a month. For the first few weeks, I was fine; I simply refused to think about it. Every time the thought of the appointment wandered into my mind, I shoved it out.

But then, the Children’s National Medical Center started an ad campaign at the subway stop I walked through every day. My baby’s upcoming test struck me square in the face every morning. I flinched each time, averting my eyes. The ads were supposed to be comforting, but all I could think was, “He could be one of those kids. My baby could have cancer.”

Facing the MRI

This thought pounded through my mind the day of the appointment.

As we paced through the winding hallway from the security desk to the check-in to the MRI waiting area, I saw so many sick children. Children with scars on their heads, children in wheelchairs, children with bandages. And those were only the outward signs. The horror that raged through their little bodies was left up to the imagination.

I couldn’t help but think of Sprout here for his second, third, fourth, seemingly infinite treatment. As I looked at the parents, I saw a future version of myself. I’ve been in situations that others would find terrifying, but that hospital is the scariest place I’ve ever been.

In the waiting room, I bounced Sprout. I couldn’t stay still. Time slowed in a way that it hadn’t since I had been in labor. When they finally called us, the staff were calm and smiling without being excessively so. The nurse complemented us on using cloth diapers, saying how rarely she saw them. The anesthesiologist explained that they usually don’t allow parents to stay when they put the babies under.

We must have hid our anxiety well; they called us in a few minutes later. Sprout was restrained with the smallest Velcro straps. I held his tiny hand as they put the mask on. He squirmed and then fell still.

Chris and I waited in the cafeteria. We held food and hot tea in our shaking hands. We shifted back and forth in the sculpted plastic and metal seats. We talked about the hospital, about politics, about everything but the answer to “What if?”

When they called us back, Sprout was lying on a hospital bed. He was so still that I could hardly tell if he was breathing or not. I ached to hug him, but we had to wait for him to come out from under the anesthesia. I hadn’t fed him for hours, so my breasts were sore. As he started to stir, I started to breathe again. I picked him up and cradled him.

Hearing the News

The days waiting for the results dragged on and on. After a few days, the doctor called Chris directly, informing him that the MRI was clear. I was frustrated to hear the news second-hand – it would have felt more concrete to hear it straight from the doctor. Relief washed over me anyway.

We had our follow-up appointment and final report a few weeks ago. This time, the hospital wasn’t so threatening – it offered a potential confirmation of health, not illness. Everything checked out normally. The doctor said he was relieved that nothing had changed. In the report, he said Sprout is a “a delightful young man,” which I thought was an amusing way to describe a nine-month0old.

Now, I look into Sprout’s blue eyes and see an inquisitive baby looking back at me. But behind that beauty, there’s a lurking fear, a reminder of what might have been. Fortunately, I also know that the fear is no match for our love for him. I know even if he was sick, he and his eyes would still be beautiful. Because beauty and love always win out over fear.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only struggle our family’s had. I talk about the complications with my second pregnancy over at the Good Mother Project. For hearing more about the joys and the struggles of our experiences as parents, be sure to follow us on Facebook.