Dad, Zeph and Life

Zeph is asleep on my chest, lightly stirring and breathing and sighing as my heart melts within.

I have to stop and read that again a million times.

But he doesn’t last in that position long.  If I’m not standing up swaying and lightly bouncing, I’m not doing it right.  Too quickly he’s fussing and I have to hand him back to Lu.  She’s on 24 hour feeding patrol.  And he’s a thirsty guy, just like his dad.

His dad.  Me.  Finally.  We did it and it’s the first thing I can believe in so many years.  Silas is my son, but I never got to be his dad, no matter what people say.  And feeling that way for so long, as something I couldn’t be and didn’t have and wasn’t able to do, it feels shocking to apply that label to myself right now.  Shocking but perfect.  Shocking but right.  For the first time in my life the chaos and correctness and beautiful, brilliant danger exactly matches what I want.

The first time we were home together, the three of us, it was like a vortex swirling out from Zephyr rearranging my mind, my soul, the physical reality around us.  Immediately I had to start pushing furniture around and go through boxes of clothes and gifts and random objects of babynessas as Lu lay on the couch with our son at her breast directing my efforts.  It was fucking glorious.

This is his house too, now.

12 days into our new lives together and the grandparents are freaking out.  Our friends are suddenly lighter and elated.  We are wrapped up in his quiet, alert gaze when he feels like being chill and amazed by the lungs and breath and voice as he screams into the night as all babies do when they are alive and want everyone to know it.

Zephyr Rigel Gallagher

We are beyond thrilled to introduce our son Zephyr Rigel Gallagher.

He was born at 8:15am this morning via planned c-section.  He weighs in at 6lbs 13oz and is 19.5 inches tall (long?)

Lu was amazing throughout the surgery, our doctor and nurses have been incredible, and the grandparents are swooning over their brand new grandson.

I feel happy and calm in a way I have not felt in years.  It is like my heart is finally unclenched from the fist it has been twisted into since we lost Silas.

The Long Breath

She’s calmly asleep in bed, I’m on the couch wide awake and waiting.

I have to breathe.  It is all I can do.  I can’t help her or him or Silas or the past.  I am in stasis, hovering, hoping.  I have to breathe.

Struck dumb.  Silenced.  I can’t…  There’s no way to…. Just… us.

Lu grows larger by the moment with our second son inside her and everything I want is right there next to me, within her, and I can do is wait.  The wait has been…

I have to breathe.  In through my nose in calm inhalations, out through my lips.  Like we were taught in the birthing class last time.  Now I’m the one who needs it but it doesn’t seem to take.

Give me everything that comes next.  I am…It is simply impossible to describe how finely wrought are the molecules of my soul, down to the edge, the breathless, bitter, blazing edge of hope and of fear.

My nervous system is firing spasmodically whenever I think of what is coming next, exactly next.

Friday we drive to the hospital together and avoid all obstacles, hand keys to valet, hand future to doctors, wait, hope, focus, hold hands, wait, hope, focus, beg.  Hope… wait… swallow my fear and lay back into the couch as I breathe and wait, again.

The Relentless Pursuit of Living (on Glow)

I’m used to the lies by now.  They are common and easy to say.  I say them for the sake of other people, but also for myself.  I have to lie so that I’m not always the guy that sucks the air out of a room, even if that room is the entire outdoors on a glorious fall day at the farmer’s market and someone has questions about me, about my life, about how I’m doing.  There is no point in ruining every idle conversation and friendly chatter with truth about my dead son Silas.

right where I am project: 979 Days, on Glow in the Woods

The day after he died I thought Lu was next and me right behind her.  On days two through five I was certain of it.  At the time I talked a lot about how we couldn’t let this loss destroy us and poison us and tear us apart but they were words mostly, words I spit out into the World hoping I could make them true.  I had no confidence at all but no one knew.

The rest of this post can be found at Glow in the Woods as part of Angie’s Right Where I am Project.

Hubris & Hope

Dare I write?  Dare I start down this path again with Lu’s second pregnancy?

I’ve had the urge to go back and read what I wrote about each of the stages of her carrying Silas, but frankly, I’m scared.  I’m scared of the innocence and naivety in my writing from that time.  I’m scared of being confident and cocksure that everything is going to go perfectly this time.  I’m scared of reading that confidence in my past posts now knowing how wrong I was.

I’ve considered putting this blog to rest altogether, and let it stand as is, as a testament to Silas’s brief time with us. Instead I could start a new one to chronicle these next nine months.

I’ve also entertained the idea that I shouldn’t write at all this time.  That perhaps the words themselves were the jinx that took him from us, and how dare I risk that again?

But I hate being afraid, and I don’t believe this blog was a jinx in any way.

I also hate it when I tell people Lu is pregnant and they say “Oh how exciting, you’re going to be a father!”

I want to correct them and tell them NO, I *might* become a father.  It could happen.  I hope more than anything that I do become a father.  But for now I’m just a potential-father.  A Maybe-Dad.  A hopefully-father-to-be, if the Universe allows it.  If genetics and nature line up just-so.  If we are as lucky this time as we were unluckly last.

For the last 3 nights I’ve barely slept.  My stomach was bloated and roiling and my mind could not find the path to quiet slumber.  Once I hit 4:30am and I was still awake, again, the knowledge that I was fucked for tomorrow made it even harder to still my thoughts and drift away.  Even pointless tv couldn’t shut me down.  Finally at 6am pure exhaustion took over and I slept for a few hours, but when I had to get up for work I was in slow-mo, and that stayed all day.

So much of our focus was just getting to this point.  Yet, it took so long, it felt like it was never going to happen.  I had to train my brain to think only of right now, of this, of here.  Now we are ‘expecting’ and I am terrified of expectations.  The stress and fear mixed with hope and love has me in knots.  In order to stay sane I’ve taught myself to be happy enough with whatever was right in front of me.  So that’s exactly what I’m going to keep on doing.

Today Lu is pregnant.  A tiny, beautiful heart beats within her.  Her boobs are bodacious and her skin has an amazing glow.  She’s been tired and off to bed early and I’m trying to make her take it as easy as I can, but she’s not one for slowing down for anything.  Today she woke up and felt like she might be getting a little cold, but that could just be her body reacting to the pregnancy.  After all, that happened last time, I checked.

Begin Again

The moment stretched for eternity.

I could see the screen as the image shifted, the doctor moving the ultrasound device.

He paused on a void.  He twisted and focused.

I saw a whisper of motion and then his smile broke the sound barrier and I knew what he was going to say before the words existed.

“There, you see it?”

I saw it, so did Lu.

“That’s a heartbeat,” he said.

It was true.  It is true.

There is a flutter of hope within.

the rides on Glow in the Woods

Our choices, our perspectives, how we handle adversity or celebrate happiness, each instance of decision is another step forward through the twisting path of our treacherous lives.

“swapping little pieces…” on Glow in the Woods

Music may have saved my life, my marriage, my soul.  Even in the darkest, bleakest hours of those first days with Silas suddenly gone, music pierced my impenetrable grief and keep something alive within.

Helped-Less, on Glow…

I fucked up.  It was the two year anniversary of Silas passing, Lu and I couldn’t be together because of work, and I had no idea what to do.  So I planned nothing.

Didn’t call anyone in advance, didn’t make any plans. With Lu away it was  doubly difficult for both of us.

As the day approached I could feel myself tightening into that same awful shape again, where simple things like food and sunlight became taut and painful.

What do I do with the day my son was born and passed away?  The sheer awfulness of the anniversary immobilized me.  I was locked up completely.