The difficulty with life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

“It’s really difficult.”

The blithe response people have at times given to me in response to hearing about my husband’s deportation and bar from entering the U.S.

How do I respond to that? “You have no idea how difficult that is and was while I was giving birth to our twins and so close to death’s door I nearly tripped through it.” And “no,” people do not come back from death in a day or two. It takes months to a year. Oh yea, and your bills don't pay themselves just because you are sick.

Or do I respond? “Really, it’s not difficult unless one makes it difficult.” What is so hard about getting a husband a Visa to come be with his family during a medical emergency? Are the laws difficult? Yes. Certainly! Are you trying to decide whether my husband should or should not be let in and that is difficult? “If that is difficult, you are sick and have no soul.”

A Visa is a simple small piece of paper that seems to move heaven and earth for some and destroys the lives of others. The stakes of one Visa has destroyed my life. I haven’t allowed it to break me forever but it tempers how I see life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the American dream.

Life. It is only important if you align yourself with the invisible elite of the world and become one of them. If you don’t know who the invisible elite are, we have one similarity: I don’t know who they are either, hence the descriptor “invisible.” Yet they will be revealed once everyone else has lost their wealth to these chosen few. It will be a little like the Venezuelan “ruling class” of time past. Their lives are sacred. But your life and mine will suit their needs and ideals as will our deaths. That you are American will matter little more than the American children living abroad who’ve been killed by drone strikes.

Liberty is a farce in this world. Those who are truly free are dead. In this world of surveillance and technological manipulation, no one is free. Not even the elite.

Pursuit of happiness. Usually, the pursuit of happiness is lived out as the attainment of a comfortable lifestyle. How has that been working for y’all since the housing bubble burst? The number one comfort of millions across the U.S. has been taken away with a slight of hand.

The American dream. I don’t see an American dream. Now, I hear people from the far right yammering away about closing our borders. They’ll likely get their wish. But fences are fences. Who is to say that those fences aren’t really constructed to keep people in? The Berlin Wall was erected to “protect” East Berlin from the not-yet-de-fascistized West Berlin. So, which direction did the traffic flow over that wall?

Help and hospitality.

One of the most scary pregnancy moments was not being in the hospital or anywhere near there. I just remember having returned from work and I was laying on the floor in my bedroom. I think it was on a small mattress. Why on the floor? Because I had given my bed to someone else. Why was I still working? Because I had to.

So, I was laying there tired beyond belief. And all I could do is think. No energy left for anything else.

“I have to eat,” I thought. Yes, but how will I do that? I can’t get up. I am too exhausted. I can’t even walk to my car to drive someplace to get something to eat. But I have to eat, I haven’t eaten for hours. I felt a bit of numbness come over me. I was slipping into a lethargy and had to think my way out before it overtook me.

I thought to myself, “Better I call my sister and ask her to come cook some food for me.”

I rarely called on anyone for help. I was putting all my energy into putting up a good front and I couldn’t buckle under the pressure of the toll my pregnancy was taking on my body. I remember in the last week of pregnancy. My slacks felt much more loose. I was losing significant body fat. The twins were sucking every bit of nutrition out of me. But I wouldn’t allow myself to dwell much on how poorly I was feeling nor on the toll it was taking on my body. I had to fake it till I made it.

My sister came over and cooked. She asked me if I needed to go to the hospital. I told her that I didn’t need to go to the hospital but rather, I needed to eat so I wouldn't end up there.

Since then, I have come to realize with a greater awareness, that the number of people who are helped by dramatic rescue is small in comparison to the number of people who only require small mundane acts of help. Dramatic rescues happen when things have gone wrong for too long.

As in the story of a foreign national. He had been going to university and had been rooming with a bunch of average American guys. It was winter and he had somehow caught an illness that was making it very difficult for him to breathe. He stumbled home from class in the cold, collapsed on his bed and asked his roommates if they could bring him to the doctor. They heard him but somehow ignored him and continued with their Friday night revelry. So he called a friend and the friend decided with him that he should go to the emergency room. He called the ambulance from his bed and when they came to the door the roommates couldn’t figure out who had called an ambulance to their address. He was in the hospital for a week recovering from a respiratory infection.

Please remember to help people in little ways this week.

Home repairs.

I’ve been up to my eyeballs in home repairs. So little by little I’ve been chipping away at it. Last year I was too sick to work on things physically but I went out onto the internet and put in an application here and there for some neighborhood home improvement programs. I’ve been slowly finding out some repairs are better done by someone else. I have a tendency toward my father’s blanket statements, “If you want it done right, you gotta do it yourself.” I’ve also inherited his opinions about what is a job well done. Cover-ups are never a job well done. So those bathrooms that are custom fit and go over the top of your old bathroom—absolutely no!

I didn’t think those programs would ever amount to anything. But this year, they’ve come through and I have a new roof and some electrical problems fixed in my home and some plumbing. It’s awesome to come home and it’s done and I didn’t have to scratch my head and do a bunch of research and groan and sigh before putting in a brute effort to cross the item off of my list.

Angie’s List has helped a lot. I’ve also learned a bit about being writing tasteful reviews. I thought I would never join but did just recently. I’ve learned I’m a hard grader. I didn’t like how one guy decided to fix the plumbing. In my idea of things done right, I would never have Jerry-rigged a pvc pipe between two pieces of 100 year old lead pipe and then strapped the top-heavy contraption to the studs so it won’t fall apart. Obviously, somebody’s gotta go in and fix that again some day. So, I mentioned this odd fix as the only drawback to a job well done and gave the guy a B. I was shocked to learn that he wants to come back and redo it, in the event that I give him an A.

Wow! Angie’s List has already paid off.

Enjoying life in transition.

Sometimes it’s a little hard to enjoy life and be happy with huge tasks hanging over your head, when things are very much in a state of not-ideal and working toward making them more ideal.

Not living with my husband is probably the most not-ideal thing I could imagine. Raising twins from birth makes it 3x more not-ideal. And ever since I’ve accepted the fact that he’s not going to get a Visa to come to the U.S. I’ve felt an enormous pressure to do the impossible: pack up my life and our babies and go to Uganda.

This sort of, task of the impossible, never used to daunt me. But after a few set-backs, I have to fight the urge to succumb to failure. Can’t I just sleep through to the deadline and somehow hope when I wake up all things will be done and in order? Or there’s the opposite urge. Can’t I just work so hard, that even if life is beyond miserable for several months, I’ll just continue to work till it’s done. I’ll get two jobs. Work 80 hours/week. Never see my babies awake. I’ll just shut off the water in the house as well as the AC and electricity—never go out, save every dime there is to save for those plane tickets.

Transitions are hard. I haven’t seen many people do them well or without noticable agony. Pre-birth bliss suddenly turns into a pushing and prodding or pulling into the world. There is lots of screaming, usually. You stay with Mom until you are jolted into daycare or pre-school. There is happiness and tears. Then there are the progressive levels of schooling with not much relational continuity throughout. A quick goodbye at graduation and you never see that teacher again. Transitioning from singlehood into marriage with children is likely the most alienating transition of all. Suddenly, you can’t just go have a late night cup of coffee (or other beverage) with your single friends. There are lots of feelings on both sides.

I feel like I’ve been living in transition for the past 2 years. It's like the transition of birthing from one world to the next. I wish I could just rip the band aid off. I could just get up one day and walk out the door, drive to the airport with babies and never look back. That would hurt a lot of people though. I’d best close down my life here well and enjoy it while it’s going on, because I can never regain the time with my growing babies.

So, every once in a while I do what I did last night; the second time in a year. I went out for dinner--two kids in tow. We practiced using crayons and not climbing on tables. The twins ate very nicely, so everyone else said. Only, one blood curdling scream from Gracie. We even got oreos and lollypops from our waitress. And we had fun! And the bill was under $10. Woohoo!

They love children...thank God.

As I dream about Uganda, there is one big welcome relief that washes over me. I hope it isn't a myth. I hope it isn't that I'm the exception because I am white.

In Uganda, people love children and they adore babies. They especially fawn over twins. From what I've been told, often a twin mom is so well taken care of, she is barely allowed to hold them. The relatives old and young will come to help with the babies. Mom nurses them and soothes them only when others can't hush the baby.

When I was there and discovered I was pregnant, I was speaking to the nieces who lived at my home, telling them I'd come back after giving birth. 

"You will have twins," they said. "Girls!" they emphasized.

Not wanting to discourage them I said, "Maybe."

They clapped their hands and danced with glee and spoke of how they would each care for one.

Here, children are seen as a burden and a restriction, as something to be contained. No children allowed her. No children allowed there. Children don't go to church they go to the church's nursery. All children must be belted into the cart at Target. Thank God they don't enforce those rules because what would a mother of multiples do? 

I can't tell you how many times my brothers and sisters and I were the target of people who wanted to restrict us. There were 10 of us going here or there and we were a very gentle crowd but people wanted to saddle us and reign us in. We rarely went out. We rarely booked a hotel together or rented a car together because we always got the management's 5th degree about how should this work and overuse of amenities designated for a limited amount of persons. For us, there was no excessive use of anything, we had already figured out the teamwork necessary to ensure efficiency. So, we used that teamwork to outwit the management.

We were at a campground with cabins, appropriately housed in a cabin our size, however, the managers limited the family of 10's towels to 6 only. We distributed two hand towels to those who didn't have bath towels. And at the next hotel, we pretended that half of us were not with the other half, when requesting extra towels and by walking down the street, while my father requested 2 rooms. We also pretended we were not all in one group at the airport, when my father was booking a rental car.

Raising children in the U.S. is one of the most alienating experiences I have ever encountered. That there is two has but aggravated the situation. When my babies were 5-10 lbs. I would go downtown on the bus with them. One in the stroller and one in a strapped on frontal carrier. I was still weak from the birthing ordeal and once the stroller almost got away when the bus careened around a corner. The bus driver hollered at me and the sign grimaced at me to, demanding all strollers be folded and child and stroller be carried aboard. They forgot, some don't have a choice about being one or numerous. 

"Only, two infants per adult, under 18 months!"

Shucks! Somebody should have told God about that rule when there appeared more than two in some Mom's belly.

Today, my twins were banned from an apartment building. It was not because of their behavior. It was simply because they were children in the care of my friend and that by all definitions is a business, generating profit. I cried for an hour, while my girls looked at me, confused. Here, I work my tail off to provide for my babies and all my friend's landlord can see is a profit generating daycare. What do I do now? Leave them in their crib and go to work? Can somebody please stop this madness. Sounds like there's a good portion of nightmares coming out of America also.

Buckle it up!

So, there are currently two things that the twins must do constantly: wipe things and buckle buckles. They get great satisfaction from buckling their carseat buckles. All the buckles on all the rockers bouncies and swings are buckled unless Momma un-buckles them.

It's no wonder they think life is about buckles. Every day by 6:30 am, I buckle them into their carseats. Snap. Snap. Snap. Then repeat. Snap. Snap. Snap.  We get to daycare by 7:00 and I un-buckle them from the car. Snap. Snap. Snap. Then repeat. Snap. Snap. Snap. I snap them into their stroller. Snap. Snap. Then repeat. Snap. Snap. I take them in and we un-snap them from their Stroller. Snap. Snap. Then repeat. Snap. Snap.

If they go anywhere. They must be snapped into their stroller. Snap. Snap. Then repeat. Snap. Snap.

Once I go to pick them up, I snap them into their stroller. Snap. Snap. Then repeat. Snap. Snap....

And we continue the series of snaping and unsnapping. 20 in the morning 20 in the evening at basic minimum to get to and from daycare. Is there any wonder that they believe that life is about snapping buckles?

Once we get home we eat and wipe. And change diapers and wipe some more. Then if we have time we wipe the floor and wipe the counter. The only confusing thing about all the wiping is...Crazy that with all the wiping, things aren't more clean around here.

Maternal Care in Uganda: Stories from Kiwoko Hospital and other thoughts.

While I was pregnant with my twins, I began researching maternity care in Uganda. I was working on compiling a case for Stephen's Visa. I had a few options. I could go to Uganda to deliver. There, I would have the help of my husband and the benefit of rich organic food. I could deliver here in the states, and depend on help from family and friends, with the benefit of modern medicine. It was during this time I reached out to people around me for help. Some stepped up and a number of folks who were complete strangers helped above and beyond the call of duty. A few, who may have been overwhelmed by my prediciment, advised that I should go and let my husband take care of me.

No pregnant woman should have to read what I read, while knowing I was in the middle of a high risk pregnancy. But then again, no woman should have to deliver babies in the conditions that I read about. The statistics are aweful. It scars my soul, and brings the reality of these adverse conditions right into my back yard, to think that anyone would wish this on me or on any other human.

Below are links to an article published in The Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing. It is about the building of a NICU at Kiwoko Hospital. You can also follow Kiwoko Hospital on Facebook. Kiwoko Hospital

This isn't the only nightmare of a story I had run into. The largest hospital in Uganda, Kampala's International Hospital along with other hospitals in Kampala, were closing their doors to the public during a week long power outage in January of 2012. I delivered here in March 2012. Protests ensued after a member of the MP's staff, went to deliver a child at that hospital and died of excessive bleeding and a ruptured uterus. (See link below.) Entirely, preventative! A newly set up NICU, had just placed their newest set of twins in the donated incubators. But one twin died during the night because the incubator was not staffed and the power had gone out. My husband told me just recently, he had been speaking periodically with one of his customers about her twins and his twins as parents so often do who find themselves in the same situation. Just recently, he had inquired about her twins only to find out that one had died. The mother didn't really know what had happened but just that the child had developed a cough. According to the article below, malaria, pneumonia, and diarreha are among the main killers of children.

Now, instead of fretting over the stain in my child's onsie, let me just go and cry instead.

Actually, I'm not a nurse, nor was I ever in the medical field. But I do know that diagnosing pneumonia and diarreha is a very simple thing and administering the remedy is even more simple. But my thought process goes to the moment when I am there in Uganda and my child or some neighbor's child catches diarreha or pneumonia, is there some way I could have the remedy with me? I would have to get the remedy now, while here in the states.

Devlopment-of-a-Neonatal-Intensive-Care-Unit-in-Uganda-Africa.-Lester-D.-2002..pdf

Maternal Deaths on the Rise in Uganda