Tomorrow

It's been almost 13 years since I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Those of you who know me well probably already know my story. I was living in Los Angeles at the time. I was 24, single, childless and working as a customer service rep at an online maternity store when... The bottom fell out. One day at work I had what I would later learn was a tonic seizure, on the floor of the ladies bathroom. After conflicting diagnoses in California I came back home to Boston where I would eventually be diagnosed as having MS. At the time of my diagnosis I knew exactly what my life would be life would be like. I'd be good for a few years before eventually becoming sicker and sicker, weaker and weaker, more reliant on my friends to take care of me than I already was. And then, the worst thing I could possibly imagine would finally happen to me. I'd end up in a wheelchair. Like my mother. Thankfully (and not surprisingly) I was completely wrong. I very rarely had any problems or even inconveniences due to MS. And aside from my immune system now being more susceptible to things like sinus infections and bronchitis... I was completely fine. And once I became pregnant, my MS went even further into remission and I haven't been on any meds since. And so last month, when I started having more numbness and tingling in my toes than is usual for me, I did what I've always done and called my neurologist for a check up. I figured I'd have the usual neurological exam and then Dr Spencer would schedule an MRI for me before prescribing Neurontin for the tingles. So I was shocked, when, after examining me the attending physician brought in the chief of neurology to do the same. And I was even more shocked to hear her say: "I'm not calling this MS." "I'm sorry?" "I'm not calling this MS until I've done the MRI myself. Too many doctors diagnose an illness as MS when it isn't. Did your doctors in Boston test you for vitamin deficiencies?" "Um...I don't know. No?" "Did anyone look at your thyroid and copper levels? Your vitamin d and vitamin b levels?" "No, I don't think so." "Did you have an EEG?" "I don't know. I don't even know what that is." "Did they put electrodes on your head and flash lights into your eyes?" "No." "Okay, all of that has to be done before I'll call this MS. You'll come see me when all of the tests are done and we'll take it from there. By the way, do you know what your name means? Are you Muslim?" And at this I had to smile. I don't think I've ever met a Muslim who hasn't asked me one or both of these questions within minutes of meeting me. Even in the middle of a potentially life altering doctor's appointment. So...my first of 4, two-hour MRI's is scheduled for next Monday. And unlike that first appointment 13 years ago when it took Maggie's hand holding and two valium to get me to lie still in that machine...this time around I'm completely fine. The thing is, it doesn't matter to me whether I have MS or not. I'm okay either way. I'll take each day as it's given to me. I'll take each moment as it comes. I've already gone through the worst of it. 13 years ago...I had NO coping skills. I dealt with the diagnosis by NOT dealing with it. By trying to drink, smoke, EAT or sex it out of my consciousness. No more. I'm not afraid anymore.

Today

There are many words one could use to describe me. I’m a mother, a student, a homemaker, a vegan. I’m African-American, short, funny, and smart. But the word I’ve let define me for the past 20 years is this one: Fat. My name is Khadija Brewington, I’m 37 years old, and until very recently I’d been on one diet or another since the age of 13. My dieting began with puberty. Along with breasts and hips I began to develop a sense of self-consciousness, born from the public scrutiny and criticism I was now subjected to from family and friends. Suddenly my body was no longer my own. Well-intentioned aunts commented on all of the men I’d be able to attract now that I was filling out. Less developed friends lamented their lack of figures in comparison to my own. And boys I’d known since childhood began to look at me in new ways that made me feel uncomfortable. Ill-equipped to handle this attention the only thing I wanted was to disappear. Dieting seemed the best way to do just that. But as most of us know by now the flip side of any diet is overeating. By the time I got to college I’d begun a cycle of dieting and binging that didn’t stop until I realized that I had “dieted” my way up to almost 200 pounds. Although I eventually lost the weight by learning about nutrition and exercise I still maintained a fairly stringent diet. I counted calories, or carbs or points depending on which “lifestyle program” I was following at the moment. I worked out five times a week without fail and kept track of every bite I put into my mouth. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with my behavior because after all, I was just being careful, making sure I never gained the weight back. Because contrary to what my 13 year old self had once believed, there are worse things in life than being stared at admiringly. There are the jeers and stares of disgust that are leveled at the fat woman. My goal was to never be that fat woman again. And I was doing just fine until… I got pregnant. Suddenly, I had to gain weight. But for the first time since puberty I wasn’t afraid of being fat. My job was to grow a baby. A healthy, happy baby and I couldn’t do that if I were restricting my food intake. During my pregnancy I was careful to eat healthy foods and to exercise as much as my body allowed, but my goal was no longer to see a specific number on the scale. For the first time in my life I just wanted to be healthy. One of my favorite books, Life Inside the “Thin” Cage (Rhodes, 2003) discusses the body image issues American women face at different stages in our lives. “For many women, pregnancy is the first time weight becomes an issue. Even those who have never been concerned about how they look can’t help but get a little nervous as the numbers on the scale continue to climb with each passing month.” (Rhodes, 2003, p. 82) I am grateful that this wasn’t the case for me. And upon talking about this issue with a couple of my girlfriends, I am happy to say that they also found pregnancy to be a catalyst for freedom from the confines of restrictive eating. According to my friend Anna, “It’s not like this in my country. In the Philippines we damn sure don’t starve ourselves like they do here. Once I had Laura I was glad to be able to start jogging again but that’s about it. I don’t have to be thin, not for my husband, or anyone else in my family.” And Mary, another mother in my daughter’s playgroup echoed Anna’s sentiments. “I was 120 pounds all throughout college and I maintained my weight on a steady diet of diet coke and cigarettes. Now that I have Jamie I’ve gained 40 pounds but I’m so much healthier. I stopped smoking and I actually EAT real food. This body was able to maintain a healthy pregnancy and nurse my daughter for over 2 years. I don’t need to be skinny anymore, there’s so much more to my life now than just being able to say I can wear a size 2.” Today, I’m in a much better place than I was at 13 or even 30. At 37 years old, I’m well on my way to making peace with the reflection that I see in the mirror each day. I no longer use the scale as a measure of how successful I am in life. I no longer count calories or track my meals. And while I have finally reached a healthy weight for my height and gender, this is no longer my proudest accomplishment. I am still a mother, a student, a homemaker, a vegan. I’ll always be African-American, short, funny, and smart. But I am no longer fat and even more importantly, I am no longer a dieter. And that’s what I’m most proud of right now.

Bitchbitchbitchbitchbitchbitchbitch

Sometimes I hate my boyfriend.

And being a stay at home mom.

And...oh yeah, my life.

I know I'm not supposed to complain.

From an outsider's perspective things probably don't look so bad.

But sometimes I feel like a prisoner in my own home.

My boyfriend's a good guy, he really is.

He works at a job he's grown to hate just so that I can stay home and take care of our daughter and for that, I truly appreciate him but what he doesn't understand is that

I WORK TOO!

Much, much harder than he does.

Because when you're a stay at home mom, hell, ANY kind of mom

YOUR JOB NEVER ENDS.

I don't get sick time, vacation time, lunch breaks or weekends off.

Hell, I don't get to shit, shower or even shave my legs without my daughter barging her way into the bathroom with me.

Once upon a time I had a life.

I lived in Boston and took the Red line to work everyday.

I exercised at Healthworks five mornings a week, took classes at Umass part-time, and on weekends I went to the Kendall Square theater to see all of the movies Ebert had raved about the week before.

I did all of these things blissfully alone.

Now, my alone time consists of the hour or so I get before the baby wakes up each morning and the few minutes I can keep my eyes open after she goes to bed at night.

I know that this will all be worth it one day.

But today...I just needed to bitch.

At Last

It's become cold here in Chicago.

So cold that my fellow mommies and I are discussing who has the best deals on Winter coats.

So cold that I broke out the comforter last night.

So cold that in lieu of our morning trip to the park, I decided to take Amira out during the slightly warmer afternoon instead.

This time last year, an Autumn walk meant no more than dressing my daughter in layers and avoiding the lakefront at all costs. But even if worse came to worse and she caught a minor cold, it wouldn't be that big of a deal for us.

Things are slightly different now.

Today, if my daughter were to catch a cold I'd have to immediately put her on her nebulizer.

I'd have to fill the bathroom with steam and rub her down with Vicks and wait for her breathing to become regular enough for her to get a good night's sleep.

Because at long last the inevitable has finally occured.

After 2.5 years, I've finally weaned my daughter.

I will never again nurse her through an illness.

I will never again nurse her when she falls and hurts herself.

I will never again put her to my breast and know that she'll be sleeping sweetly within 15 minutes...no matter HOW wired she'd previously been.

My baby's not a baby anymore.

And as much as I've longed for this moment over the past 6 months (when nursing began to feel more like a burden than a blessing)

I'd be lying if I said it wasn't bittersweet.

...And Found

I've lived in Chicago for 3 years now and every summer Lorenzo and I take the baby home to Boston to visit my family.

There was not much different about this vacation. I saw my family, my friends, and my old co-workers but because, upon our arrival, my best friend Maggie hadn't returned to Boston from her vacation yet, I was able to spend some time alone with her youngest daughter, Cat.

I am so grateful for that occasion.

Cat, who had just completed her freshman year of college, came to my mom's house to visit us as soon as she learned we were in town. Having not seen each other in a year we had a lot of catching up to do.

"Tell me all about college," I began.

And after filling me in on the classes she'd taken, her major, and her new friends, Cat gave me the details of her break up with her high school boyfriend. As much as it had hurt her at the time, she was doing much better now and knew it had been for the best.

Like Cat, I too had gone away to college with my high school boyfriend and like Cat, we also broke up before the end of the first year.

But...

I didn't handle things as well as she had.

I probably came as close to a nervous breakdown as one can get without needing psychiatric care. (THAT nervous breakdown would come years later...another post, another time)

Growing up, I never had any self-esteem. I have no idea why because I was surrounded by the most supportive, the most loving friends, family and teachers that anyone could ask for but...

Somehow I veered off track.

The books that had been a constant for me, the writing that had once sustained me were suddenly replaced with phone calls and love letters from boys.

The journaling that I had done, the poems and short stories I used to write...gone.

Instead, what mattered most was how pretty I was, how popular, how well-liked.

Somewhere along the line I lost myself.

Luckily, after many, many years I regained my sense of self-worth. And now, at 36, I enter a new phase of my life. My goal is no longer to be the sexy singleton. Today, I am a mother, a partner, and a role model to my little girl.

And I'm a writer, or at least, I plan on becoming one again.

To paraphrase something Toni Morrison once said there are two things I now know I have to do: I HAVE to be able to parent my child and I have to write. There are no longer any ifs, ands, or buts about it for me.

I have to write.

And that's exactly what I intend to do from here on out.

Lost

It's been 7 months since I've last written.

It's official.

Somewhere along the way I lost myself.

Just Do It

Deciding to become a parent was a difficult decision for me.

Learning how to parent wasn't much easier.

Amira was born on April 2, 2009 via emergency c-section. Because both she and I came down with fevers during her delivery, Amira was kept in the special nursery for the first four days of her life while I slept in a hospital room across the hall.

21 months later this is still the furthest apart my daughter and I have ever slept.

In the months before I delivered I read every pregnancy book, pregnancy magazine and Internet article on the subject that I could get my hands on.

And even though Fit Pregnancy, Vegetarian Pregnancy and other periodicals were useful to me along the way, in our society there is still only one, true pregnancy bible.

What To Expect When You're Expecting.

I read this book ferociously and only put it back in the bookcase to read its follow up, What To Expect The First Year.

Both books suggested that breastfeeding moms use a co-sleeper for the first several months of baby's life. Co-sleepers are like open faced cribs (minus the high railings) that are attached to a parent's bed. This makes it MUCH easier to breastfeed in the middle of the night. When it's time to nurse, Mom simply rolls over and baby is right next to her, but in a safe and separate sleeping space. Between the co-sleeper I'd purchased and the crib my best friends had given me as a shower gift, I knew Amira's sleeping arrangements were in place for the first couple years of her life.

I was wrong.

Nights were torture for us.

Like most newborns Amira seemed to wake up the minute we put her to bed in her co-sleeper. No matter how snuggly we wrapped her or how often we rocked her, Amira never seemed to sleep for more than an hour at a time, leaving me and Lorenzo exhausted, overwhelmed and desperate for advice.

But the solution to our problem didn't lie in any of my pregnancy books, or even from the mouth of a fellow mother.

It came from my sister and her solution was a simple one.

"Khadija, put the baby in the bed with you and get some sleep."


I was stunned.


"I can't, are you crazy? I can't do that. I'll kill her, I'll roll over and crush her in my sleep."

Fareeda burst out in laughter and replied, "No you won't.

"Yes I will, of course I will. Besides, you're not supposed to do that, the book says..."

"Fuck the book, you will not kill your child. When Treasure sleeps over my house she doesn't just sleep next to me, she sleeps ON TOP OF ME and we have NEVER had a problem, not once. Amira's your daughter, you won't roll over her, trust me, okay? Just trust me."

So I did.

It was the best parenting advice I've ever received.

Amira has slept curled beside me ever since. And though it would be many more months before she slept through the night, from that moment on we've all slept MUCH more peacefully in our queen sized bed.

Together.

And though this arrangement may go against commonly held societal standards, Fareeda was right.

Sometimes you have to put down the books and go with your gut instead.