http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com A Writing Contest for all You Clever Girls and Boys! Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:05:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/#comments Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:59:34 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ by Janine Salas-Mason It’s usually late evening when I can actually turn on my computer. It’s part of a ritual that initiates my nightly turndown service. Checking that doors are locked, all children are bed and hubby is either sleeping or has the remote in hand and that bag of Oreos and milk he asked me for. Only then, I get to turn on my computer and indulge in my secret pleasure, my writing. Through my writing, I affirm my purpose to myself every day. I am a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend and even if only acknowledged by me, … a writer. We all know that to a mother, your children are your babies no matter how old they get. Meghan, my oldest baby is 12 years old and my first shot at parenthood. I didn’t know it then but she would be my longest labor and the first of five children. Meghan is a pure joy and a preteen, which leaves me as much in awe as it does confusion. Meghan does not know just how special she is to me. She is my first baby. Four years after having Meghan we had Elias, my little brown bear. Yes, I affectionately call him that. And six months after that, I was pregnant with Madison,… the last baby, or so I thought. Elias and Madison are six months apart, it’s almost like having twins. Elias loves his baby sister and Madison, she can’t get enough of Elias. They are inseparable and I ‘m very lucky for that. So I have a great husband, three beautiful children, my own home etc, what more could I want right? Well, my husband, who was adopted at 6 months of age, has discovered his desire to know his own birth family. Amongst the other hats I wear, I now become a private detective find his entire birth family. My husband decides that he would like to give back to society that which was given to him decides we should adopt. Now, I think most of us at one point or another say to ourselves, “if I ever hit the lotto, I would adopt some children etc.” Well, in my family this became a reality. No we didn’t hit lotto, but we did adopt a child. And so Josef, at 2 years old, became part of our family. Josef, is a special needs child. The agency thought he was mute. He wasn’t. He was suffering neglect and had decided he was not ready to speak yet. Josef will always be my special baby. Not because of his special needs, just because he is especially loved. He took my motherly love to a new level, to a place aside of myself …outside of my skin and into my heart. A week into Josef’s arrival I got a life changing phone call. It was the adoption agency explaining that Josef now had a baby brother and they would like to place the 3-month-old baby with us to keep the siblings together. The agency worker said she knew it was a tall order but wanted to “plant the seed” and see if there was any chance of us taking in Josef’s baby brother. Planting a seed was an understatement! I was torn to pieces. I knew it was probably a long shot, but I longed for the baby already and I brought the situation up to my husband. My husband took the weekend to think about it and when he was ready he started by saying, “I think sometimes, our hearts are bigger than our pockets.” My heart sunk, but then he said, “ I have just met my siblings now at 33 years old. I wish I had memories of childhood years with them…” And so it was, that a week after meeting my 2 year old son Josef, I met Ryan, …and baby made five. Ryan had pneumonia when he was placed with us and I spent the next week living in the hospital. I learned to juggle the needs of my new babies and the babies I already had. I learned children could adapt, that they are as giving as we teach them to be. I learned a lot. I learned all this while trying to still meet the needs of my husband, who could prove to be the biggest baby of all at times. (God Bless his soul, a term I use instead of cursing, sometimes!) I learned of my husbands’ affair, and I learned it wasn’t the end of the world even though it felt like it. (That’s a whole other story!) So, at the end of the day, after the homework is done, uniforms are washed, and I have finished giving 10 speeches as to why..why and why,… my evening ritual begins. After turning my husband on and my children off. I am thankful, thankful for my 5 beautiful babies. The ones I gave birth to and the ones God has entrusted to me through adoption. Thankful that it does not make a difference to me which babies I have birthed and which ones I haven’t. Thankful, that I can write and plant a seed.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:06:06 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ by Daniel D'Andrea They were singing and dancing with a contagious bliss, enough to make me giggle along. A simple Christmas carol, in June mind you, was all it took to invoke this fit of joy for the children. They truly were a family; they loved each other more than I could ever hope. I proudly watched, as their mother played and sang along, as careless and joyful as the children. An ear to ear smile took over my face, but I couldn’t hold back the tear from seeping into my mouth. The salty taste did not faze me; nothing could at this point. As I peered in through the window, I felt as though I belonged in that circle, singing and playing along. I don’t know what stopped me, probably the restraining order or deadbolts, but otherwise I was completely free. Nobody will ever know how much I care for those children. Sure, I had odd ways of showing it, and the courts disagreed with my methods, but love is love. After getting fired for drinking at work, I entered a deep depression which forced me into more drinking. I loved the kids at work as much as I loved my own, and teaching was my only passion. Now I lost those kids, my own kids, my wife, my life, everything, all because I like to be wasted to teach elementary math, my other passion. So sue me! Well, not again, please. A tear from the other eye streamed down the other side of my face, this taste seemed to faze me a bit more than the first. After they all began to drift off, I hurried back home to be with my new family. In a fit of defiance, I said out loud to myself, “I don’t need them anymore.” I kicked everything within leg’s distance on my trip home, saying this exact sentence repeatedly. I didn’t cheer up until I arrived back at my own house. Pumpkin was the first to greet me, with a bright smile that lit up the entire room. Well, it did once I lit the candle inside of her. After pumpkin gave me light, I could see old denim jacket wrapped around a book bag and couch cushion greeting me with equal delight. We all gathered on the couch and openly discussed our day. We were giggling and laughing with each other, curled up on the couch with the fireplace cracking. We decided to put in a movie, The Never-ending Story, and watched it together to close out the night. As pumpkin face and denim lay fast asleep, I covered them up and headed upstairs with couch cushion. We enjoyed our moment alone together by making quiet love, the only way we knew how since bringing the children into our lives. After couch cushion fell asleep, I went back the old house and peered in through the window, seeing the children sleep comfortably on their mothers lap, smiling, without a care in the world. They wouldn’t be smiling so calmly if they knew what went down in that lap to conceive them. I sat there behind the bushes, sleeping with them, until it was time to head to work. Everyone at the school always asked to see pictures of my kids. I brought them to a Christmas party and the teachers fell in love with them. They really were a pleasant group of children. But now I have new kids, and I dread the uncomfortable conversation of why they look so different or what happened to your other kids. I didn’t want them to think I ditched my old family for this new and improved version. It was doubly embarrassing to have this conversation while now holding a mop and bucket of puke-filled water. The next day I awoke and didn’t reach for the snooze button or a drink, I just woke up and sprung out of bed. It was Father’s day, and I knew the family was up to something. Much to my surprise, I arrived downstairs to a lovely breakfast already prepared. More surprisingly, next to it was my first wife and kids, “Happy Father’s Day!” I couldn’t believe my eyes, they had looked past the drinking and the fighting and the weeks at a time away and the defecating on the living room carpet, and came to celebrate with me. Both families, both lives, together, I was absolutely elated. I was a father again. I decided to make a drink to celebrate.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:24:01 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ By Sharon Lee Fernberg When our first child was due to be born, my husband and I were required to attend parenting classes at the local hospital. “There will be a trickle when your water breaks,” the nurse informed the parents-to-be. However, after a perfect ten-month pregnancy, my water broke at 5:30 a.m. At 11:00 a.m. while at my obstetrician’s office, the water still gushed from my body as though something inside me kept flushing an inner toilet. Towels and maxi pads could not prevent what occurred inside of me. At 1:00 p.m. my obstetrician ordered an x-ray. A nurse pushed me to radiology in a wheelchair that held a small bowl under the seat. I felt embarrassed that it overflowed but considering I couldn’t even see my feet at the time, I smiled apologetically. Fourteen hours later, my son Jeffrey entered this world, weighing in at 9lbs.2oz. and 21” long. I spent two weeks in the hospital. He flattened my bladder, I was told. Eighteen months later, after being two weeks earlier than the actual due date or two weeks past the due date of my second child, my son Patrick howled his way into our lives, weighing in at eight pounds and 20” long. This time when my water broke, the nurse was correct. I felt only a trickle. We went home three days later. Years later, the pregnancy lasted longer than a year. It began with a meeting on adoption. My husband and I endured sixty page home studies, writing individual accounts on each of our siblings, our parents, our children, and having meetings in our house with the caseworkers from the local agency that handled the adoption proceedings. We took pictures of each room of the house, pictures of the boys and of each other, and provided photos of the cat. We had to be fingerprinted by the FBI in Buffalo, New York. As weeks and then months passed by, we continued to wait patiently and anxiously. We had no choice. It wasn't our decision to make when our daughter would be delivered. Nevertheless, a television meteorologist prepared us. A blizzard was due to arrive in Western New York the end of February. We couldn’t take a chance that her plane would arrive from Korea and we wouldn't be there. My husband informed our caseworker that we were going to go to New Jersey and spend a few days with my sister and her family – just in case. Three days later the call came from New York. The plane would touch down at JFK around 6:00 p.m. that night. It was Leap Year Day. We were only one hour from the airport but we had to meet the adoption agency greeter early to sign papers. The wind hissed that day. A cold chill lingered. In my arms, I held a white and yellow shell stitch afghan I had crocheted for my daughter. Jeff held tightly to the diaper bag. Patrick hugged the pink snowsuit. My husband waited nervously with the camera in his hands. At 6:21 p.m. the plane touched down. Within minutes, a greeter said, “Sung Sin HWANG.” He handed me our 6-1/2 month old daughter. I whispered her new name, Lindsay Sung-Elizabeth. She didn’t cry although tears trickled down my cheeks. Her dark slanted eyes stared up into my face. I kissed her nose. Her small arms curled around my neck. Her shoulder-length silky black hair skimmed my cheek as she laid her head on my shoulder. So, this was our daughter. The boys’ sister. As we departed the airport a half hour later, I held Lindsay tightly, protecting her against the cold chill with the afghan now cloaking her small body. I don't know why but at that moment I thought of the times I had given birth to my sons, and I knew this would always be the day my daughter was delivered. I looked from Lindsay and glanced at my sons, their round faces beaming with excitement and joy. It was then I realized that the overwhelming love I felt in my heart was the same for all three of my children. I felt the tears trickle down my face.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:14:42 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ by Scott Dunlop I am being stalked. Since May 2006 I have been looking over my shoulder. I have felt like a mild celebrity. I don’t get blinded by camera flashes outside the supermarket, or enter into impromptu car chases, no, my stalker is far more subtle than that. I wake up in the morning, and he is there. I bathe, he is there. I get dressed, and I feel his eyes watching me. With every cupboard I open, and every switch I touch, his large saucer eyes trace my every move. He doesn’t speak very much, but he does communicate. What he says to me frightens me. He whispers constantly. You are my hero. I want to be you. I want to do everything you do, and touch everything you touch. I want to wear your shoes, eat your food and test the elasticity of your skin… Which would be very creepy if he was a stranger, but this tiny follower of mine, this little disciple is my son. His gaze is unnerving, his ability to absorb all of my attention is alarming. He is not content with being a bit part in my life-movie, no, he has taken over. He wants to direct, he wants to write, he wants full creative license. He wants to have his name above mine on the billboard, and he refuses to share the credits with anyone else. The stalker wants to be the star. Which isn’t the same as marriage. With marriage, you go from being completely independent, to selectively co-dependent. It’s easy to compromise a little bit for someone you love. You can be married and still retain a great portion of who you are. Not so with babies. With babies you are utterly subsumed by their dependence on you as a caregiver. You can’t fob them off with telling them that you would rather go out and watch a movie than change their diaper, or feed them a bottle. Not unless you want the Authorities to pay you a visit… You can’t just give them a tiny portion of you to clutch, like a sweat-stained handkerchief; they need to have complete access to you all the time. On-stage, off-stage and in the dressing room. Now that I think about it, I have been replaced. I was one the star of my show. I was one the one choosing to eat what I wanted, and where I wanted it. I was a free agent. All my royalties went to me. Suddenly, I find my contract altered. I have been down-sized. The baby is in charge. He commands all the attention when we head out to the shops. He is the one high-fiving strangers and pretending to laugh at their weak jokes. I just traipse after him with his bag, the one stuffed with his snacks and clothes, in case he should get peckish, or need a sudden change. I wipe his bottom, for goodness sake. Everywhere he goes, I go. Every time he opens his mouth, I check to see what he is trying to say. I study his body language. I am there when he wakes, I am there when he sleeps. I take photographs without his permission. I am obsessed. I am a stalker.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:24:53 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ by Misty Noble-Hodge I was round. A not so compact little heartthrob was bundled in my abdomen and in my heart. Oh, I had a love affair with that little baby inside of me. I used to pull my maternity shirts tight against my tummy and watch him roll like the waves in the ocean. I had gone through this pregnancy quite alone and was just waiting for him to be born. To have someone to hold and love. I remember when the doctor told me he wanted to induce. It was a Friday. He said, "How does Monday sound?" Terror of the pain roared through my veins. Monday? That soon? Monday. I went in, late. My mother came with me. She had every intention of spending the night at home, but when they hooked me up to the monitors, I was having contractions. "Can you feel that?" the nurse asked. "Nope," I said with a grin. My mother spent the night on the tiny couch at the foot of my bed. Then came the torturous IV. They had a novice trying to find her way into my veins and I got stuck 11 times before someone who knew what they were doing came in and relieved us both of our suffering. They left for me to get some rest, but made me lay flat on my back under the mountain of baby. Rushing through my head were thoughts about how I wasn’t supposed to lay flat on my back, something about veins being compressed. But surely these labor and delivery nurses knew more than a 20-year-old kid. I wanted gloat when the nurses came in a little while later and told me to roll over because the baby was happier when I was on my left side. I knew that. When morning came, the first time I was checked I had already achieved 4 centimeters. "You can have an epidural now if you want," said the large black nurse. Already? I hadn't even felt any contractions yet. My father briefly stopped in before work while I was resting. They told him it would still be hours before I was 10 centimeters so he could go on to work, which was only 20 minutes away. We would call to keep him updated. Right as he left, the nurse came in to check me again. Lo and behold, 10 centimeters. My mother ran out of the room to call my father's office. He hadn't made it there yet. When he reached the door of the office, his assistant turned him right around. It was time. Flurry of activity. Scrubs. Shiny metal and white cloth. I pushed only twice and my quiet and soft spoke doctor said, "Good." Equal amounts of pride and shock rang through me; it was happening so fast. I heard suctioning. One more gentle push and he was out. I laughed. My first view was a little purple behind. My first question: "Does he have hair?" "Quite a bit of hair," said the nurse. My second question: "Does he have my ears?" My mother beams at me and simply says, "Yes." I am handed a swaddled little caterpillar, a cocooned bundle with long purple fingers and a tiny swollen face. He watches me with attentive eyes as I coo at him. He sucks his fingers and I remark about how we are both starving. I wish I had known to nurse him immediately. But I didn't. No one had told me. He had to wait until later in our room with two nurses trying to position him on my breast. Now I look at this striking child with the gangly legs and arms, who has lost two of the teeth I had watched sprout years ago. His dark brown hair, so like my mother's. Rich chocolate eyes. He is growing up so fast and in so many ways, I feel like I am missing it. He is so big now, but still so small. Six years is not too long to be on this planet. There are so many mornings to be woken and so many more breaths to take. Six years is only long enough to learn to tie one's shoes and write one's name, maybe. There are so many things waiting for him still. I hope he learns to stay young as long as possible. Even though to me, he will always be that little bundle, snuggled into me and making me a mother for the very first time.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:15:35 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ by Janine Dunlop I’m lying in a hospital passageway, wondering whether I’ll be able to love my baby. I am unspeakably nervous and it must be evident, because everyone who appears next to my bed tries to placate me. After what seems an eternity, I’m wheeled in by a jolly nurse who shouts that we should get this show on the road. The “show” is that I’m about to have a baby. Flash to a week previously. I’m sitting at work after twisting my ankle, waiting for the painless contractions that started soon after the fall to go away. When I mention this casually to a colleague, the news spreads like wildfire: Janine is in labour. I’m whisked away to the clinic by our health and safety officer. I comply because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but secretly I’m thinking that this is a waste of my doctor’s time. When I’m strapped to the monitor, it’s established that I’m in labour. I’m 33 weeks pregnant. A drip containing a drug that will stop the contractions is administered. I’m given an injection to mature the baby’s lungs and within an hour, I’m admitted and wheeled in to the antenatal ward, where pregnant women languish in beds all around me. Still in denial, I telephone my husband to ask him to arrange to fetch my car, as I’m planning on being home by the evening. I notice my roommate smiling. “No one leaves this ward,” she laughs. A few days later and she’s being proved right. Despite the drugs, I keep going into labour. I begin to realise that I’ll probably spend the rest of my pregnancy here. I spend a week railing against the unfairness of it all. I had planned to spend three weeks at home with my son, preparing him for the birth of his sibling. Instead, I wheel a drip in front of me every time I go to the bathroom and suffer the indignity of urine samples each morning and suppositories every four hours. Exactly a week after my fall I experience painful contractions late in the afternoon. I am told that the best thing to do is have an emergency caesarean section. I am aware that I have little choice in the matter. To refuse seems like selfishness on my part. When I tell my husband that we’re about to have a baby, he springs into action, arranging for our son to be looked after. I can think of nothing so practical. I feel afraid and out of my depth. I spend the three hours leading up to the event crying, worried that I’m not prepared, that the baby won’t survive and that I won’t be able to love him or her. Back in the operating theatre now, and there is activity all around me. The conversation among the staff is about how busy they were today and how keen they are to get home. It’s after 9pm and they are tired. I wonder briefly whether this means they will be less cautious with me. I clasp my husband’s hand and squeeze harder and harder as the epidural takes effect. The doctors start without telling me, but I am aware of an enormous force pushing and pulling on my belly. My fear is making me sweat. No dimmed lights and calm atmosphere this time around, the lights above me burn my eyes and I recall a line from my son’s storybook: “All the better to see you with.” My husband prays next to me and tells me how well I’m doing. A few minutes later, my baby is born and she is crying. Earlier, my doctor had blithely told me that the baby would be fine, although she would probably need assistance with breathing and feeding initially. I am appalled at his glibness – he is telling me she will need help to live. As the paediatrician looks her over and pronounces her ok, I weep with happiness. She weighs 2.1kg and seems older than her 34 weeks gestation. She astounds everyone the next day by being ready to come out of incubation and sucking vigorously on my breast. We emerge from the maternity ward one week later. I don’t look back as we make our way gingerly to the car park. I’m amazed now that I thought I couldn’t love her. She is my daughter and she’s perfect. A lifetime of love has begun.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:46:19 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ By Christopher "G" Garlington My daughter's friends were over the other day. My daughter's friends are all hyper intelligent and busy as hell just like my daughter but, unlike her, they all have hero quality dads who bend steel bars with their bare hands for a living and rescue babies from vats of molten lead and, most of all, go away during the day to return haggard and stoic and dead tired sometime after 5pm. I, on the other hand, wrestle laundry to the basement and immerse myself in the minutiae of dishwasher load planning and the use of "bluing" to make my whites whiter. I also make twisted knock knock jokes(1) and have a tendency to sing where I ought to mumble and I have, somehow, become their hero. I didn't mean to and I say somehow but I'm being unnecessarily (and uncharacteristically) modest--I know exactly how I became their hero: I told them I chart my daughter's . . . um . . . I keep a record of, uh . . . I mark the calendar for. . . I'm steadfastly abreast of her [punctuation]. This is not the lowest depth my steady emasculation, by the way, that's surely sitting through a stuttering presentation of a Hugh Grant movie so insipidly British even Hugh Grant was rolling his eyes IN THE MOVIE HE WAS STARRING IN. It was a chick flick so flicking chicked I think I grew breasts while I was watching. But, such is marriage. I made my attorney sit through Spawn once so I owe her forever. It is, however, a most unmasculine thing to do, to chart the, er, [grammatical manifestation] of your little princess. In fact, if you are a man, just Stumble elsewhere. I'm embarrassed, ok. Chicks keep reading—I might need your advice. It all started because my Attorney is pretty much too frikkin busy to pay attention to her own [red swarm]. One day she was working hard, staying up late after a 14 hour day deciphering antennae displacement graphs or something equally insanely technical. She was sleep deprived and focused with such unwavering intensity that she actually burned a hole through a deposition with her very eyes. She said "God I feel like crap. I feel bloated and woggly and irritable and—" "You're getting your [red tide]" "I just had my [monsoon wedding]!" "Yeah, 27 days ago." She'd been working so hard she'd actually lost her sense of time. I think if she didn't have a calendar on her blackberry, she wouldn't know what day it was. So her [mighty mighty bosstone] snuck up on her and smacked her across the head. I felt sorry for my little legal Lolita and decided to add her [insane in the membrane] to my automatic calendar and I've been charting ever since. To the minute. Well, being that busy, she never really explained to the teen that this is a regular occurrence, that it can be expected, that JEANS DAY on the calendar is not referring too a dress code. So, in for a dollar if you're in for a dime. The next time my daughter screamed "PAD!" from the bathroom, I tossed a couple in (like grenades) and put her on my calendar too. So there she is, hanging with her friends—ok. Hanging is way too energetic to describe what they do. The flop. They flop over the chair. They flop down in front of the TV. The flop down the steps and flop into the car and flop out. They're virtually boneless. So they were all draped across the furniture expending less energy than most dead field mice when I casually mentioned to Rah that I'd stocked the bathroom with [ammunition] and she might want to remember that since she was due for her [orc horde]. Her friends howled with approval and the Polish one screamed out YOU ARE MY HERO! So there you go. My ability to suppress my natural male tendency to fish and work on trucks in favor of ticking off the days until the women in my life are assaulted by their respective [mammy tsunamis] has elevated me to the level of hero. I can see myself now, standing tall, cast in bronze, a metallic cape forever blown behind me in chunky statuesque bravery, my brow pointed ever eastward, my countenance ever grim, ever focused — a fistful of tampons at my side.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:38:39 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ by Bitsy Parker As a little girl I never played with dolls nor dreamed about being a mother. Perhaps my distance from these maternal feelings made the birth of my first child the most shocking and outrageous experience of my life. My husband and I married when I was 30 and he 36. He brought with him to the marriage two daughters from a previous marriage. We were content with two children and didn’t plan on having more, but we decided that if I did become pregnant, then we would be happy. When I did become pregnant (after about 10 seconds), I thought that my husband would be the main caregiver for the new baby. He was a father. He knew how to handle children. I was a selfish, only child and a busy career girl with no previous baby experience. In my mind, having a baby was like a company buying a subsidiary – in this situation, the baby wasn’t under my direct division, but I would provide necessary support as needed. Go team, go – let’s acquire a baby! Realistically, I knew that the baby would require my attention, but I viewed the forthcoming baby like I would view a charity asking to host an event at my house – I knew there would be work to be done – plant some flowers, wallpaper the bathroom, buy fresh flowers, and I would probably have to leave work early, but ultimately, the charity staff would handle the details like nametags and follow-up letters. I would birth the baby, buy the clothes and order the diaper service, but my husband would do the heavy lifting like teaching the baby to walk and helping with any emotional needs, if there were any. What a shock it was when my daughter, who over-stayed her nine months in my womb by two weeks, was finally knifed out of my gut. After the nineteen hours of wrestling an uncomfortable knot from my uterus, the doctors, nurses and family left my hospital room. It was twilight, and I was staring at the wall in the darkening room wondering what had happened to me. The nurse plunged into the room dragging a streak of fluorescent light with her. She dropped a baby on my lap and left the agitated infant screaming in my arms. The door slowly closed and the harsh light faded – in the dim light I went to work on the little ball of flesh. Instinctively, I undressed the baby and freed her from the hospital clothes that were unnaturally clinging to her body. I, too, took off my mistake of clothing. Skin to skin, I pressed the little baby to my chest and she stopped crying. The power of knowing how to care for this new life was equivalent to the caveman starting the first fire. The “rightness” of this action had enough energy to engulf the hospital in flames. From that moment I knew that my husband was not sitting first chair on this project – I was lead counsel on this case.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:28:59 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ by itchingtowrite We tested positive with the in-home test done over the weekend and since my doctor was busy getting her daughter married to the Srilankankan cricketer Muralidharan, we waited till Good Friday to see her. We decided not to break the news to the family until the doctor gave a clear go ahead. And after the confirmation, we decided to celebrate with a “whirlwind” romantic getaway to the beach retreat Pondicherry where we had first met! While we were quite wary of the test as I was not experiencing any tell-tale signs of pregnancy like giddiness/ nausea like the actresses in Hindi movies do, yet after one week of hugging the news of “baby” happening to ourselves, we were sitting at the doctor’s room with the officially confirmed medical test. She asked me to get a scan done just to ensure everything was alright as I was already on the 6th week. As we were waiting for our turn, I frivolously mentioned that it would be great to have twins. It would be lovely to watch them grow together, having someone to bond with instantly. As parents of twins, we would be unique in the family too! I went in for the scan after drinking loads of water. The doctor was taking his own sweet time, asking me plenty of questions, taking down notes diligently. In turn I also started asking him whether everything was fine. Annoyingly he did not want to answer. Another doctor came by and started looking at the screen. He just muttered “twins??” I thought I heard something that sounded like twins and on cue started troubling the doctor with questions- what happened, what is it, is everything ok? After a long time the doctor turned the screen towards me and said –it’s twins. I could see two distinct dots on the computer screen reflecting the image of the womb. They called the proud father-to-be to show him the goods. As I saw him coming I made a ‘V’ sign indicating 2, wanting to be the first one to break the delightful news – I doubt it whether he understood as he had a very goofy smile on his face as the doctor started giving him the good news. My husband’s feeling is beautifully summed up by him – “Never in my school exams I scored more than what I estimated. After seeing the scan results, I felt I was getting a better score than I had anticipated!” My doctor said probably her good luck had rubbed off on mine, as she was also a mother of twins! I had planned not to tell my colleagues about the pregnancy during the initial days, for obvious reasons- the superstition that one must not disclose the news of a pregnancy until the crucial three months are over. But as they say one should never plan too much- the Doctor advised me to be on bed rest for 6 weeks to tide over the high risk twin gestation. So I had to break the news to one and all at my workplace. And thereafter “baby” became “babies” in our conversation. And the much anticipated Pondicherry trip went out of the window. My CEO commented- how could you blend two different fragrances in the same vessel! I work in the fragrance industry and a fragrance is a blend of chemicals mixed together in a large container.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com A Writing Contest for all You Clever Girls and Boys! Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:05:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com A Writing Contest for all You Clever Girls and Boys! Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:05:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/#comments Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:59:34 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ by Janine Salas-Mason It’s usually late evening when I can actually turn on my computer. It’s part of a ritual that initiates my nightly turndown service. Checking that doors are locked, all children are bed and hubby is either sleeping or has the remote in hand and that bag of Oreos and milk he asked me for. Only then, I get to turn on my computer and indulge in my secret pleasure, my writing. Through my writing, I affirm my purpose to myself every day. I am a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend and even if only acknowledged by me, … a writer. We all know that to a mother, your children are your babies no matter how old they get. Meghan, my oldest baby is 12 years old and my first shot at parenthood. I didn’t know it then but she would be my longest labor and the first of five children. Meghan is a pure joy and a preteen, which leaves me as much in awe as it does confusion. Meghan does not know just how special she is to me. She is my first baby. Four years after having Meghan we had Elias, my little brown bear. Yes, I affectionately call him that. And six months after that, I was pregnant with Madison,… the last baby, or so I thought. Elias and Madison are six months apart, it’s almost like having twins. Elias loves his baby sister and Madison, she can’t get enough of Elias. They are inseparable and I ‘m very lucky for that. So I have a great husband, three beautiful children, my own home etc, what more could I want right? Well, my husband, who was adopted at 6 months of age, has discovered his desire to know his own birth family. Amongst the other hats I wear, I now become a private detective find his entire birth family. My husband decides that he would like to give back to society that which was given to him decides we should adopt. Now, I think most of us at one point or another say to ourselves, “if I ever hit the lotto, I would adopt some children etc.” Well, in my family this became a reality. No we didn’t hit lotto, but we did adopt a child. And so Josef, at 2 years old, became part of our family. Josef, is a special needs child. The agency thought he was mute. He wasn’t. He was suffering neglect and had decided he was not ready to speak yet. Josef will always be my special baby. Not because of his special needs, just because he is especially loved. He took my motherly love to a new level, to a place aside of myself …outside of my skin and into my heart. A week into Josef’s arrival I got a life changing phone call. It was the adoption agency explaining that Josef now had a baby brother and they would like to place the 3-month-old baby with us to keep the siblings together. The agency worker said she knew it was a tall order but wanted to “plant the seed” and see if there was any chance of us taking in Josef’s baby brother. Planting a seed was an understatement! I was torn to pieces. I knew it was probably a long shot, but I longed for the baby already and I brought the situation up to my husband. My husband took the weekend to think about it and when he was ready he started by saying, “I think sometimes, our hearts are bigger than our pockets.” My heart sunk, but then he said, “ I have just met my siblings now at 33 years old. I wish I had memories of childhood years with them…” And so it was, that a week after meeting my 2 year old son Josef, I met Ryan, …and baby made five. Ryan had pneumonia when he was placed with us and I spent the next week living in the hospital. I learned to juggle the needs of my new babies and the babies I already had. I learned children could adapt, that they are as giving as we teach them to be. I learned a lot. I learned all this while trying to still meet the needs of my husband, who could prove to be the biggest baby of all at times. (God Bless his soul, a term I use instead of cursing, sometimes!) I learned of my husbands’ affair, and I learned it wasn’t the end of the world even though it felt like it. (That’s a whole other story!) So, at the end of the day, after the homework is done, uniforms are washed, and I have finished giving 10 speeches as to why..why and why,… my evening ritual begins. After turning my husband on and my children off. I am thankful, thankful for my 5 beautiful babies. The ones I gave birth to and the ones God has entrusted to me through adoption. Thankful that it does not make a difference to me which babies I have birthed and which ones I haven’t. Thankful, that I can write and plant a seed.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:06:06 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ by Daniel D'Andrea They were singing and dancing with a contagious bliss, enough to make me giggle along. A simple Christmas carol, in June mind you, was all it took to invoke this fit of joy for the children. They truly were a family; they loved each other more than I could ever hope. I proudly watched, as their mother played and sang along, as careless and joyful as the children. An ear to ear smile took over my face, but I couldn’t hold back the tear from seeping into my mouth. The salty taste did not faze me; nothing could at this point. As I peered in through the window, I felt as though I belonged in that circle, singing and playing along. I don’t know what stopped me, probably the restraining order or deadbolts, but otherwise I was completely free. Nobody will ever know how much I care for those children. Sure, I had odd ways of showing it, and the courts disagreed with my methods, but love is love. After getting fired for drinking at work, I entered a deep depression which forced me into more drinking. I loved the kids at work as much as I loved my own, and teaching was my only passion. Now I lost those kids, my own kids, my wife, my life, everything, all because I like to be wasted to teach elementary math, my other passion. So sue me! Well, not again, please. A tear from the other eye streamed down the other side of my face, this taste seemed to faze me a bit more than the first. After they all began to drift off, I hurried back home to be with my new family. In a fit of defiance, I said out loud to myself, “I don’t need them anymore.” I kicked everything within leg’s distance on my trip home, saying this exact sentence repeatedly. I didn’t cheer up until I arrived back at my own house. Pumpkin was the first to greet me, with a bright smile that lit up the entire room. Well, it did once I lit the candle inside of her. After pumpkin gave me light, I could see old denim jacket wrapped around a book bag and couch cushion greeting me with equal delight. We all gathered on the couch and openly discussed our day. We were giggling and laughing with each other, curled up on the couch with the fireplace cracking. We decided to put in a movie, The Never-ending Story, and watched it together to close out the night. As pumpkin face and denim lay fast asleep, I covered them up and headed upstairs with couch cushion. We enjoyed our moment alone together by making quiet love, the only way we knew how since bringing the children into our lives. After couch cushion fell asleep, I went back the old house and peered in through the window, seeing the children sleep comfortably on their mothers lap, smiling, without a care in the world. They wouldn’t be smiling so calmly if they knew what went down in that lap to conceive them. I sat there behind the bushes, sleeping with them, until it was time to head to work. Everyone at the school always asked to see pictures of my kids. I brought them to a Christmas party and the teachers fell in love with them. They really were a pleasant group of children. But now I have new kids, and I dread the uncomfortable conversation of why they look so different or what happened to your other kids. I didn’t want them to think I ditched my old family for this new and improved version. It was doubly embarrassing to have this conversation while now holding a mop and bucket of puke-filled water. The next day I awoke and didn’t reach for the snooze button or a drink, I just woke up and sprung out of bed. It was Father’s day, and I knew the family was up to something. Much to my surprise, I arrived downstairs to a lovely breakfast already prepared. More surprisingly, next to it was my first wife and kids, “Happy Father’s Day!” I couldn’t believe my eyes, they had looked past the drinking and the fighting and the weeks at a time away and the defecating on the living room carpet, and came to celebrate with me. Both families, both lives, together, I was absolutely elated. I was a father again. I decided to make a drink to celebrate.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:24:01 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ By Sharon Lee Fernberg When our first child was due to be born, my husband and I were required to attend parenting classes at the local hospital. “There will be a trickle when your water breaks,” the nurse informed the parents-to-be. However, after a perfect ten-month pregnancy, my water broke at 5:30 a.m. At 11:00 a.m. while at my obstetrician’s office, the water still gushed from my body as though something inside me kept flushing an inner toilet. Towels and maxi pads could not prevent what occurred inside of me. At 1:00 p.m. my obstetrician ordered an x-ray. A nurse pushed me to radiology in a wheelchair that held a small bowl under the seat. I felt embarrassed that it overflowed but considering I couldn’t even see my feet at the time, I smiled apologetically. Fourteen hours later, my son Jeffrey entered this world, weighing in at 9lbs.2oz. and 21” long. I spent two weeks in the hospital. He flattened my bladder, I was told. Eighteen months later, after being two weeks earlier than the actual due date or two weeks past the due date of my second child, my son Patrick howled his way into our lives, weighing in at eight pounds and 20” long. This time when my water broke, the nurse was correct. I felt only a trickle. We went home three days later. Years later, the pregnancy lasted longer than a year. It began with a meeting on adoption. My husband and I endured sixty page home studies, writing individual accounts on each of our siblings, our parents, our children, and having meetings in our house with the caseworkers from the local agency that handled the adoption proceedings. We took pictures of each room of the house, pictures of the boys and of each other, and provided photos of the cat. We had to be fingerprinted by the FBI in Buffalo, New York. As weeks and then months passed by, we continued to wait patiently and anxiously. We had no choice. It wasn't our decision to make when our daughter would be delivered. Nevertheless, a television meteorologist prepared us. A blizzard was due to arrive in Western New York the end of February. We couldn’t take a chance that her plane would arrive from Korea and we wouldn't be there. My husband informed our caseworker that we were going to go to New Jersey and spend a few days with my sister and her family – just in case. Three days later the call came from New York. The plane would touch down at JFK around 6:00 p.m. that night. It was Leap Year Day. We were only one hour from the airport but we had to meet the adoption agency greeter early to sign papers. The wind hissed that day. A cold chill lingered. In my arms, I held a white and yellow shell stitch afghan I had crocheted for my daughter. Jeff held tightly to the diaper bag. Patrick hugged the pink snowsuit. My husband waited nervously with the camera in his hands. At 6:21 p.m. the plane touched down. Within minutes, a greeter said, “Sung Sin HWANG.” He handed me our 6-1/2 month old daughter. I whispered her new name, Lindsay Sung-Elizabeth. She didn’t cry although tears trickled down my cheeks. Her dark slanted eyes stared up into my face. I kissed her nose. Her small arms curled around my neck. Her shoulder-length silky black hair skimmed my cheek as she laid her head on my shoulder. So, this was our daughter. The boys’ sister. As we departed the airport a half hour later, I held Lindsay tightly, protecting her against the cold chill with the afghan now cloaking her small body. I don't know why but at that moment I thought of the times I had given birth to my sons, and I knew this would always be the day my daughter was delivered. I looked from Lindsay and glanced at my sons, their round faces beaming with excitement and joy. It was then I realized that the overwhelming love I felt in my heart was the same for all three of my children. I felt the tears trickle down my face.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:14:42 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ by Scott Dunlop I am being stalked. Since May 2006 I have been looking over my shoulder. I have felt like a mild celebrity. I don’t get blinded by camera flashes outside the supermarket, or enter into impromptu car chases, no, my stalker is far more subtle than that. I wake up in the morning, and he is there. I bathe, he is there. I get dressed, and I feel his eyes watching me. With every cupboard I open, and every switch I touch, his large saucer eyes trace my every move. He doesn’t speak very much, but he does communicate. What he says to me frightens me. He whispers constantly. You are my hero. I want to be you. I want to do everything you do, and touch everything you touch. I want to wear your shoes, eat your food and test the elasticity of your skin… Which would be very creepy if he was a stranger, but this tiny follower of mine, this little disciple is my son. His gaze is unnerving, his ability to absorb all of my attention is alarming. He is not content with being a bit part in my life-movie, no, he has taken over. He wants to direct, he wants to write, he wants full creative license. He wants to have his name above mine on the billboard, and he refuses to share the credits with anyone else. The stalker wants to be the star. Which isn’t the same as marriage. With marriage, you go from being completely independent, to selectively co-dependent. It’s easy to compromise a little bit for someone you love. You can be married and still retain a great portion of who you are. Not so with babies. With babies you are utterly subsumed by their dependence on you as a caregiver. You can’t fob them off with telling them that you would rather go out and watch a movie than change their diaper, or feed them a bottle. Not unless you want the Authorities to pay you a visit… You can’t just give them a tiny portion of you to clutch, like a sweat-stained handkerchief; they need to have complete access to you all the time. On-stage, off-stage and in the dressing room. Now that I think about it, I have been replaced. I was one the star of my show. I was one the one choosing to eat what I wanted, and where I wanted it. I was a free agent. All my royalties went to me. Suddenly, I find my contract altered. I have been down-sized. The baby is in charge. He commands all the attention when we head out to the shops. He is the one high-fiving strangers and pretending to laugh at their weak jokes. I just traipse after him with his bag, the one stuffed with his snacks and clothes, in case he should get peckish, or need a sudden change. I wipe his bottom, for goodness sake. Everywhere he goes, I go. Every time he opens his mouth, I check to see what he is trying to say. I study his body language. I am there when he wakes, I am there when he sleeps. I take photographs without his permission. I am obsessed. I am a stalker.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:24:53 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ by Misty Noble-Hodge I was round. A not so compact little heartthrob was bundled in my abdomen and in my heart. Oh, I had a love affair with that little baby inside of me. I used to pull my maternity shirts tight against my tummy and watch him roll like the waves in the ocean. I had gone through this pregnancy quite alone and was just waiting for him to be born. To have someone to hold and love. I remember when the doctor told me he wanted to induce. It was a Friday. He said, "How does Monday sound?" Terror of the pain roared through my veins. Monday? That soon? Monday. I went in, late. My mother came with me. She had every intention of spending the night at home, but when they hooked me up to the monitors, I was having contractions. "Can you feel that?" the nurse asked. "Nope," I said with a grin. My mother spent the night on the tiny couch at the foot of my bed. Then came the torturous IV. They had a novice trying to find her way into my veins and I got stuck 11 times before someone who knew what they were doing came in and relieved us both of our suffering. They left for me to get some rest, but made me lay flat on my back under the mountain of baby. Rushing through my head were thoughts about how I wasn’t supposed to lay flat on my back, something about veins being compressed. But surely these labor and delivery nurses knew more than a 20-year-old kid. I wanted gloat when the nurses came in a little while later and told me to roll over because the baby was happier when I was on my left side. I knew that. When morning came, the first time I was checked I had already achieved 4 centimeters. "You can have an epidural now if you want," said the large black nurse. Already? I hadn't even felt any contractions yet. My father briefly stopped in before work while I was resting. They told him it would still be hours before I was 10 centimeters so he could go on to work, which was only 20 minutes away. We would call to keep him updated. Right as he left, the nurse came in to check me again. Lo and behold, 10 centimeters. My mother ran out of the room to call my father's office. He hadn't made it there yet. When he reached the door of the office, his assistant turned him right around. It was time. Flurry of activity. Scrubs. Shiny metal and white cloth. I pushed only twice and my quiet and soft spoke doctor said, "Good." Equal amounts of pride and shock rang through me; it was happening so fast. I heard suctioning. One more gentle push and he was out. I laughed. My first view was a little purple behind. My first question: "Does he have hair?" "Quite a bit of hair," said the nurse. My second question: "Does he have my ears?" My mother beams at me and simply says, "Yes." I am handed a swaddled little caterpillar, a cocooned bundle with long purple fingers and a tiny swollen face. He watches me with attentive eyes as I coo at him. He sucks his fingers and I remark about how we are both starving. I wish I had known to nurse him immediately. But I didn't. No one had told me. He had to wait until later in our room with two nurses trying to position him on my breast. Now I look at this striking child with the gangly legs and arms, who has lost two of the teeth I had watched sprout years ago. His dark brown hair, so like my mother's. Rich chocolate eyes. He is growing up so fast and in so many ways, I feel like I am missing it. He is so big now, but still so small. Six years is not too long to be on this planet. There are so many mornings to be woken and so many more breaths to take. Six years is only long enough to learn to tie one's shoes and write one's name, maybe. There are so many things waiting for him still. I hope he learns to stay young as long as possible. Even though to me, he will always be that little bundle, snuggled into me and making me a mother for the very first time.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:15:35 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ by Janine Dunlop I’m lying in a hospital passageway, wondering whether I’ll be able to love my baby. I am unspeakably nervous and it must be evident, because everyone who appears next to my bed tries to placate me. After what seems an eternity, I’m wheeled in by a jolly nurse who shouts that we should get this show on the road. The “show” is that I’m about to have a baby. Flash to a week previously. I’m sitting at work after twisting my ankle, waiting for the painless contractions that started soon after the fall to go away. When I mention this casually to a colleague, the news spreads like wildfire: Janine is in labour. I’m whisked away to the clinic by our health and safety officer. I comply because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but secretly I’m thinking that this is a waste of my doctor’s time. When I’m strapped to the monitor, it’s established that I’m in labour. I’m 33 weeks pregnant. A drip containing a drug that will stop the contractions is administered. I’m given an injection to mature the baby’s lungs and within an hour, I’m admitted and wheeled in to the antenatal ward, where pregnant women languish in beds all around me. Still in denial, I telephone my husband to ask him to arrange to fetch my car, as I’m planning on being home by the evening. I notice my roommate smiling. “No one leaves this ward,” she laughs. A few days later and she’s being proved right. Despite the drugs, I keep going into labour. I begin to realise that I’ll probably spend the rest of my pregnancy here. I spend a week railing against the unfairness of it all. I had planned to spend three weeks at home with my son, preparing him for the birth of his sibling. Instead, I wheel a drip in front of me every time I go to the bathroom and suffer the indignity of urine samples each morning and suppositories every four hours. Exactly a week after my fall I experience painful contractions late in the afternoon. I am told that the best thing to do is have an emergency caesarean section. I am aware that I have little choice in the matter. To refuse seems like selfishness on my part. When I tell my husband that we’re about to have a baby, he springs into action, arranging for our son to be looked after. I can think of nothing so practical. I feel afraid and out of my depth. I spend the three hours leading up to the event crying, worried that I’m not prepared, that the baby won’t survive and that I won’t be able to love him or her. Back in the operating theatre now, and there is activity all around me. The conversation among the staff is about how busy they were today and how keen they are to get home. It’s after 9pm and they are tired. I wonder briefly whether this means they will be less cautious with me. I clasp my husband’s hand and squeeze harder and harder as the epidural takes effect. The doctors start without telling me, but I am aware of an enormous force pushing and pulling on my belly. My fear is making me sweat. No dimmed lights and calm atmosphere this time around, the lights above me burn my eyes and I recall a line from my son’s storybook: “All the better to see you with.” My husband prays next to me and tells me how well I’m doing. A few minutes later, my baby is born and she is crying. Earlier, my doctor had blithely told me that the baby would be fine, although she would probably need assistance with breathing and feeding initially. I am appalled at his glibness – he is telling me she will need help to live. As the paediatrician looks her over and pronounces her ok, I weep with happiness. She weighs 2.1kg and seems older than her 34 weeks gestation. She astounds everyone the next day by being ready to come out of incubation and sucking vigorously on my breast. We emerge from the maternity ward one week later. I don’t look back as we make our way gingerly to the car park. I’m amazed now that I thought I couldn’t love her. She is my daughter and she’s perfect. A lifetime of love has begun.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:46:19 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ By Christopher "G" Garlington My daughter's friends were over the other day. My daughter's friends are all hyper intelligent and busy as hell just like my daughter but, unlike her, they all have hero quality dads who bend steel bars with their bare hands for a living and rescue babies from vats of molten lead and, most of all, go away during the day to return haggard and stoic and dead tired sometime after 5pm. I, on the other hand, wrestle laundry to the basement and immerse myself in the minutiae of dishwasher load planning and the use of "bluing" to make my whites whiter. I also make twisted knock knock jokes(1) and have a tendency to sing where I ought to mumble and I have, somehow, become their hero. I didn't mean to and I say somehow but I'm being unnecessarily (and uncharacteristically) modest--I know exactly how I became their hero: I told them I chart my daughter's . . . um . . . I keep a record of, uh . . . I mark the calendar for. . . I'm steadfastly abreast of her [punctuation]. This is not the lowest depth my steady emasculation, by the way, that's surely sitting through a stuttering presentation of a Hugh Grant movie so insipidly British even Hugh Grant was rolling his eyes IN THE MOVIE HE WAS STARRING IN. It was a chick flick so flicking chicked I think I grew breasts while I was watching. But, such is marriage. I made my attorney sit through Spawn once so I owe her forever. It is, however, a most unmasculine thing to do, to chart the, er, [grammatical manifestation] of your little princess. In fact, if you are a man, just Stumble elsewhere. I'm embarrassed, ok. Chicks keep reading—I might need your advice. It all started because my Attorney is pretty much too frikkin busy to pay attention to her own [red swarm]. One day she was working hard, staying up late after a 14 hour day deciphering antennae displacement graphs or something equally insanely technical. She was sleep deprived and focused with such unwavering intensity that she actually burned a hole through a deposition with her very eyes. She said "God I feel like crap. I feel bloated and woggly and irritable and—" "You're getting your [red tide]" "I just had my [monsoon wedding]!" "Yeah, 27 days ago." She'd been working so hard she'd actually lost her sense of time. I think if she didn't have a calendar on her blackberry, she wouldn't know what day it was. So her [mighty mighty bosstone] snuck up on her and smacked her across the head. I felt sorry for my little legal Lolita and decided to add her [insane in the membrane] to my automatic calendar and I've been charting ever since. To the minute. Well, being that busy, she never really explained to the teen that this is a regular occurrence, that it can be expected, that JEANS DAY on the calendar is not referring too a dress code. So, in for a dollar if you're in for a dime. The next time my daughter screamed "PAD!" from the bathroom, I tossed a couple in (like grenades) and put her on my calendar too. So there she is, hanging with her friends—ok. Hanging is way too energetic to describe what they do. The flop. They flop over the chair. They flop down in front of the TV. The flop down the steps and flop into the car and flop out. They're virtually boneless. So they were all draped across the furniture expending less energy than most dead field mice when I casually mentioned to Rah that I'd stocked the bathroom with [ammunition] and she might want to remember that since she was due for her [orc horde]. Her friends howled with approval and the Polish one screamed out YOU ARE MY HERO! So there you go. My ability to suppress my natural male tendency to fish and work on trucks in favor of ticking off the days until the women in my life are assaulted by their respective [mammy tsunamis] has elevated me to the level of hero. I can see myself now, standing tall, cast in bronze, a metallic cape forever blown behind me in chunky statuesque bravery, my brow pointed ever eastward, my countenance ever grim, ever focused — a fistful of tampons at my side.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:38:39 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ by Bitsy Parker As a little girl I never played with dolls nor dreamed about being a mother. Perhaps my distance from these maternal feelings made the birth of my first child the most shocking and outrageous experience of my life. My husband and I married when I was 30 and he 36. He brought with him to the marriage two daughters from a previous marriage. We were content with two children and didn’t plan on having more, but we decided that if I did become pregnant, then we would be happy. When I did become pregnant (after about 10 seconds), I thought that my husband would be the main caregiver for the new baby. He was a father. He knew how to handle children. I was a selfish, only child and a busy career girl with no previous baby experience. In my mind, having a baby was like a company buying a subsidiary – in this situation, the baby wasn’t under my direct division, but I would provide necessary support as needed. Go team, go – let’s acquire a baby! Realistically, I knew that the baby would require my attention, but I viewed the forthcoming baby like I would view a charity asking to host an event at my house – I knew there would be work to be done – plant some flowers, wallpaper the bathroom, buy fresh flowers, and I would probably have to leave work early, but ultimately, the charity staff would handle the details like nametags and follow-up letters. I would birth the baby, buy the clothes and order the diaper service, but my husband would do the heavy lifting like teaching the baby to walk and helping with any emotional needs, if there were any. What a shock it was when my daughter, who over-stayed her nine months in my womb by two weeks, was finally knifed out of my gut. After the nineteen hours of wrestling an uncomfortable knot from my uterus, the doctors, nurses and family left my hospital room. It was twilight, and I was staring at the wall in the darkening room wondering what had happened to me. The nurse plunged into the room dragging a streak of fluorescent light with her. She dropped a baby on my lap and left the agitated infant screaming in my arms. The door slowly closed and the harsh light faded – in the dim light I went to work on the little ball of flesh. Instinctively, I undressed the baby and freed her from the hospital clothes that were unnaturally clinging to her body. I, too, took off my mistake of clothing. Skin to skin, I pressed the little baby to my chest and she stopped crying. The power of knowing how to care for this new life was equivalent to the caveman starting the first fire. The “rightness” of this action had enough energy to engulf the hospital in flames. From that moment I knew that my husband was not sitting first chair on this project – I was lead counsel on this case.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:28:59 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ by itchingtowrite We tested positive with the in-home test done over the weekend and since my doctor was busy getting her daughter married to the Srilankankan cricketer Muralidharan, we waited till Good Friday to see her. We decided not to break the news to the family until the doctor gave a clear go ahead. And after the confirmation, we decided to celebrate with a “whirlwind” romantic getaway to the beach retreat Pondicherry where we had first met! While we were quite wary of the test as I was not experiencing any tell-tale signs of pregnancy like giddiness/ nausea like the actresses in Hindi movies do, yet after one week of hugging the news of “baby” happening to ourselves, we were sitting at the doctor’s room with the officially confirmed medical test. She asked me to get a scan done just to ensure everything was alright as I was already on the 6th week. As we were waiting for our turn, I frivolously mentioned that it would be great to have twins. It would be lovely to watch them grow together, having someone to bond with instantly. As parents of twins, we would be unique in the family too! I went in for the scan after drinking loads of water. The doctor was taking his own sweet time, asking me plenty of questions, taking down notes diligently. In turn I also started asking him whether everything was fine. Annoyingly he did not want to answer. Another doctor came by and started looking at the screen. He just muttered “twins??” I thought I heard something that sounded like twins and on cue started troubling the doctor with questions- what happened, what is it, is everything ok? After a long time the doctor turned the screen towards me and said –it’s twins. I could see two distinct dots on the computer screen reflecting the image of the womb. They called the proud father-to-be to show him the goods. As I saw him coming I made a ‘V’ sign indicating 2, wanting to be the first one to break the delightful news – I doubt it whether he understood as he had a very goofy smile on his face as the doctor started giving him the good news. My husband’s feeling is beautifully summed up by him – “Never in my school exams I scored more than what I estimated. After seeing the scan results, I felt I was getting a better score than I had anticipated!” My doctor said probably her good luck had rubbed off on mine, as she was also a mother of twins! I had planned not to tell my colleagues about the pregnancy during the initial days, for obvious reasons- the superstition that one must not disclose the news of a pregnancy until the crucial three months are over. But as they say one should never plan too much- the Doctor advised me to be on bed rest for 6 weeks to tide over the high risk twin gestation. So I had to break the news to one and all at my workplace. And thereafter “baby” became “babies” in our conversation. And the much anticipated Pondicherry trip went out of the window. My CEO commented- how could you blend two different fragrances in the same vessel! I work in the fragrance industry and a fragrance is a blend of chemicals mixed together in a large container.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/#comments Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:59:34 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ by Janine Salas-Mason It’s usually late evening when I can actually turn on my computer. It’s part of a ritual that initiates my nightly turndown service. Checking that doors are locked, all children are bed and hubby is either sleeping or has the remote in hand and that bag of Oreos and milk he asked me for. Only then, I get to turn on my computer and indulge in my secret pleasure, my writing. Through my writing, I affirm my purpose to myself every day. I am a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend and even if only acknowledged by me, … a writer. We all know that to a mother, your children are your babies no matter how old they get. Meghan, my oldest baby is 12 years old and my first shot at parenthood. I didn’t know it then but she would be my longest labor and the first of five children. Meghan is a pure joy and a preteen, which leaves me as much in awe as it does confusion. Meghan does not know just how special she is to me. She is my first baby. Four years after having Meghan we had Elias, my little brown bear. Yes, I affectionately call him that. And six months after that, I was pregnant with Madison,… the last baby, or so I thought. Elias and Madison are six months apart, it’s almost like having twins. Elias loves his baby sister and Madison, she can’t get enough of Elias. They are inseparable and I ‘m very lucky for that. So I have a great husband, three beautiful children, my own home etc, what more could I want right? Well, my husband, who was adopted at 6 months of age, has discovered his desire to know his own birth family. Amongst the other hats I wear, I now become a private detective find his entire birth family. My husband decides that he would like to give back to society that which was given to him decides we should adopt. Now, I think most of us at one point or another say to ourselves, “if I ever hit the lotto, I would adopt some children etc.” Well, in my family this became a reality. No we didn’t hit lotto, but we did adopt a child. And so Josef, at 2 years old, became part of our family. Josef, is a special needs child. The agency thought he was mute. He wasn’t. He was suffering neglect and had decided he was not ready to speak yet. Josef will always be my special baby. Not because of his special needs, just because he is especially loved. He took my motherly love to a new level, to a place aside of myself …outside of my skin and into my heart. A week into Josef’s arrival I got a life changing phone call. It was the adoption agency explaining that Josef now had a baby brother and they would like to place the 3-month-old baby with us to keep the siblings together. The agency worker said she knew it was a tall order but wanted to “plant the seed” and see if there was any chance of us taking in Josef’s baby brother. Planting a seed was an understatement! I was torn to pieces. I knew it was probably a long shot, but I longed for the baby already and I brought the situation up to my husband. My husband took the weekend to think about it and when he was ready he started by saying, “I think sometimes, our hearts are bigger than our pockets.” My heart sunk, but then he said, “ I have just met my siblings now at 33 years old. I wish I had memories of childhood years with them…” And so it was, that a week after meeting my 2 year old son Josef, I met Ryan, …and baby made five. Ryan had pneumonia when he was placed with us and I spent the next week living in the hospital. I learned to juggle the needs of my new babies and the babies I already had. I learned children could adapt, that they are as giving as we teach them to be. I learned a lot. I learned all this while trying to still meet the needs of my husband, who could prove to be the biggest baby of all at times. (God Bless his soul, a term I use instead of cursing, sometimes!) I learned of my husbands’ affair, and I learned it wasn’t the end of the world even though it felt like it. (That’s a whole other story!) So, at the end of the day, after the homework is done, uniforms are washed, and I have finished giving 10 speeches as to why..why and why,… my evening ritual begins. After turning my husband on and my children off. I am thankful, thankful for my 5 beautiful babies. The ones I gave birth to and the ones God has entrusted to me through adoption. Thankful that it does not make a difference to me which babies I have birthed and which ones I haven’t. Thankful, that I can write and plant a seed.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com A Writing Contest for all You Clever Girls and Boys! Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:05:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/#comments Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:59:34 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ by Janine Salas-Mason It’s usually late evening when I can actually turn on my computer. It’s part of a ritual that initiates my nightly turndown service. Checking that doors are locked, all children are bed and hubby is either sleeping or has the remote in hand and that bag of Oreos and milk he asked me for. Only then, I get to turn on my computer and indulge in my secret pleasure, my writing. Through my writing, I affirm my purpose to myself every day. I am a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend and even if only acknowledged by me, … a writer. We all know that to a mother, your children are your babies no matter how old they get. Meghan, my oldest baby is 12 years old and my first shot at parenthood. I didn’t know it then but she would be my longest labor and the first of five children. Meghan is a pure joy and a preteen, which leaves me as much in awe as it does confusion. Meghan does not know just how special she is to me. She is my first baby. Four years after having Meghan we had Elias, my little brown bear. Yes, I affectionately call him that. And six months after that, I was pregnant with Madison,… the last baby, or so I thought. Elias and Madison are six months apart, it’s almost like having twins. Elias loves his baby sister and Madison, she can’t get enough of Elias. They are inseparable and I ‘m very lucky for that. So I have a great husband, three beautiful children, my own home etc, what more could I want right? Well, my husband, who was adopted at 6 months of age, has discovered his desire to know his own birth family. Amongst the other hats I wear, I now become a private detective find his entire birth family. My husband decides that he would like to give back to society that which was given to him decides we should adopt. Now, I think most of us at one point or another say to ourselves, “if I ever hit the lotto, I would adopt some children etc.” Well, in my family this became a reality. No we didn’t hit lotto, but we did adopt a child. And so Josef, at 2 years old, became part of our family. Josef, is a special needs child. The agency thought he was mute. He wasn’t. He was suffering neglect and had decided he was not ready to speak yet. Josef will always be my special baby. Not because of his special needs, just because he is especially loved. He took my motherly love to a new level, to a place aside of myself …outside of my skin and into my heart. A week into Josef’s arrival I got a life changing phone call. It was the adoption agency explaining that Josef now had a baby brother and they would like to place the 3-month-old baby with us to keep the siblings together. The agency worker said she knew it was a tall order but wanted to “plant the seed” and see if there was any chance of us taking in Josef’s baby brother. Planting a seed was an understatement! I was torn to pieces. I knew it was probably a long shot, but I longed for the baby already and I brought the situation up to my husband. My husband took the weekend to think about it and when he was ready he started by saying, “I think sometimes, our hearts are bigger than our pockets.” My heart sunk, but then he said, “ I have just met my siblings now at 33 years old. I wish I had memories of childhood years with them…” And so it was, that a week after meeting my 2 year old son Josef, I met Ryan, …and baby made five. Ryan had pneumonia when he was placed with us and I spent the next week living in the hospital. I learned to juggle the needs of my new babies and the babies I already had. I learned children could adapt, that they are as giving as we teach them to be. I learned a lot. I learned all this while trying to still meet the needs of my husband, who could prove to be the biggest baby of all at times. (God Bless his soul, a term I use instead of cursing, sometimes!) I learned of my husbands’ affair, and I learned it wasn’t the end of the world even though it felt like it. (That’s a whole other story!) So, at the end of the day, after the homework is done, uniforms are washed, and I have finished giving 10 speeches as to why..why and why,… my evening ritual begins. After turning my husband on and my children off. I am thankful, thankful for my 5 beautiful babies. The ones I gave birth to and the ones God has entrusted to me through adoption. Thankful that it does not make a difference to me which babies I have birthed and which ones I haven’t. Thankful, that I can write and plant a seed.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:06:06 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ by Daniel D'Andrea They were singing and dancing with a contagious bliss, enough to make me giggle along. A simple Christmas carol, in June mind you, was all it took to invoke this fit of joy for the children. They truly were a family; they loved each other more than I could ever hope. I proudly watched, as their mother played and sang along, as careless and joyful as the children. An ear to ear smile took over my face, but I couldn’t hold back the tear from seeping into my mouth. The salty taste did not faze me; nothing could at this point. As I peered in through the window, I felt as though I belonged in that circle, singing and playing along. I don’t know what stopped me, probably the restraining order or deadbolts, but otherwise I was completely free. Nobody will ever know how much I care for those children. Sure, I had odd ways of showing it, and the courts disagreed with my methods, but love is love. After getting fired for drinking at work, I entered a deep depression which forced me into more drinking. I loved the kids at work as much as I loved my own, and teaching was my only passion. Now I lost those kids, my own kids, my wife, my life, everything, all because I like to be wasted to teach elementary math, my other passion. So sue me! Well, not again, please. A tear from the other eye streamed down the other side of my face, this taste seemed to faze me a bit more than the first. After they all began to drift off, I hurried back home to be with my new family. In a fit of defiance, I said out loud to myself, “I don’t need them anymore.” I kicked everything within leg’s distance on my trip home, saying this exact sentence repeatedly. I didn’t cheer up until I arrived back at my own house. Pumpkin was the first to greet me, with a bright smile that lit up the entire room. Well, it did once I lit the candle inside of her. After pumpkin gave me light, I could see old denim jacket wrapped around a book bag and couch cushion greeting me with equal delight. We all gathered on the couch and openly discussed our day. We were giggling and laughing with each other, curled up on the couch with the fireplace cracking. We decided to put in a movie, The Never-ending Story, and watched it together to close out the night. As pumpkin face and denim lay fast asleep, I covered them up and headed upstairs with couch cushion. We enjoyed our moment alone together by making quiet love, the only way we knew how since bringing the children into our lives. After couch cushion fell asleep, I went back the old house and peered in through the window, seeing the children sleep comfortably on their mothers lap, smiling, without a care in the world. They wouldn’t be smiling so calmly if they knew what went down in that lap to conceive them. I sat there behind the bushes, sleeping with them, until it was time to head to work. Everyone at the school always asked to see pictures of my kids. I brought them to a Christmas party and the teachers fell in love with them. They really were a pleasant group of children. But now I have new kids, and I dread the uncomfortable conversation of why they look so different or what happened to your other kids. I didn’t want them to think I ditched my old family for this new and improved version. It was doubly embarrassing to have this conversation while now holding a mop and bucket of puke-filled water. The next day I awoke and didn’t reach for the snooze button or a drink, I just woke up and sprung out of bed. It was Father’s day, and I knew the family was up to something. Much to my surprise, I arrived downstairs to a lovely breakfast already prepared. More surprisingly, next to it was my first wife and kids, “Happy Father’s Day!” I couldn’t believe my eyes, they had looked past the drinking and the fighting and the weeks at a time away and the defecating on the living room carpet, and came to celebrate with me. Both families, both lives, together, I was absolutely elated. I was a father again. I decided to make a drink to celebrate.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:24:01 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ By Sharon Lee Fernberg When our first child was due to be born, my husband and I were required to attend parenting classes at the local hospital. “There will be a trickle when your water breaks,” the nurse informed the parents-to-be. However, after a perfect ten-month pregnancy, my water broke at 5:30 a.m. At 11:00 a.m. while at my obstetrician’s office, the water still gushed from my body as though something inside me kept flushing an inner toilet. Towels and maxi pads could not prevent what occurred inside of me. At 1:00 p.m. my obstetrician ordered an x-ray. A nurse pushed me to radiology in a wheelchair that held a small bowl under the seat. I felt embarrassed that it overflowed but considering I couldn’t even see my feet at the time, I smiled apologetically. Fourteen hours later, my son Jeffrey entered this world, weighing in at 9lbs.2oz. and 21” long. I spent two weeks in the hospital. He flattened my bladder, I was told. Eighteen months later, after being two weeks earlier than the actual due date or two weeks past the due date of my second child, my son Patrick howled his way into our lives, weighing in at eight pounds and 20” long. This time when my water broke, the nurse was correct. I felt only a trickle. We went home three days later. Years later, the pregnancy lasted longer than a year. It began with a meeting on adoption. My husband and I endured sixty page home studies, writing individual accounts on each of our siblings, our parents, our children, and having meetings in our house with the caseworkers from the local agency that handled the adoption proceedings. We took pictures of each room of the house, pictures of the boys and of each other, and provided photos of the cat. We had to be fingerprinted by the FBI in Buffalo, New York. As weeks and then months passed by, we continued to wait patiently and anxiously. We had no choice. It wasn't our decision to make when our daughter would be delivered. Nevertheless, a television meteorologist prepared us. A blizzard was due to arrive in Western New York the end of February. We couldn’t take a chance that her plane would arrive from Korea and we wouldn't be there. My husband informed our caseworker that we were going to go to New Jersey and spend a few days with my sister and her family – just in case. Three days later the call came from New York. The plane would touch down at JFK around 6:00 p.m. that night. It was Leap Year Day. We were only one hour from the airport but we had to meet the adoption agency greeter early to sign papers. The wind hissed that day. A cold chill lingered. In my arms, I held a white and yellow shell stitch afghan I had crocheted for my daughter. Jeff held tightly to the diaper bag. Patrick hugged the pink snowsuit. My husband waited nervously with the camera in his hands. At 6:21 p.m. the plane touched down. Within minutes, a greeter said, “Sung Sin HWANG.” He handed me our 6-1/2 month old daughter. I whispered her new name, Lindsay Sung-Elizabeth. She didn’t cry although tears trickled down my cheeks. Her dark slanted eyes stared up into my face. I kissed her nose. Her small arms curled around my neck. Her shoulder-length silky black hair skimmed my cheek as she laid her head on my shoulder. So, this was our daughter. The boys’ sister. As we departed the airport a half hour later, I held Lindsay tightly, protecting her against the cold chill with the afghan now cloaking her small body. I don't know why but at that moment I thought of the times I had given birth to my sons, and I knew this would always be the day my daughter was delivered. I looked from Lindsay and glanced at my sons, their round faces beaming with excitement and joy. It was then I realized that the overwhelming love I felt in my heart was the same for all three of my children. I felt the tears trickle down my face.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:14:42 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ by Scott Dunlop I am being stalked. Since May 2006 I have been looking over my shoulder. I have felt like a mild celebrity. I don’t get blinded by camera flashes outside the supermarket, or enter into impromptu car chases, no, my stalker is far more subtle than that. I wake up in the morning, and he is there. I bathe, he is there. I get dressed, and I feel his eyes watching me. With every cupboard I open, and every switch I touch, his large saucer eyes trace my every move. He doesn’t speak very much, but he does communicate. What he says to me frightens me. He whispers constantly. You are my hero. I want to be you. I want to do everything you do, and touch everything you touch. I want to wear your shoes, eat your food and test the elasticity of your skin… Which would be very creepy if he was a stranger, but this tiny follower of mine, this little disciple is my son. His gaze is unnerving, his ability to absorb all of my attention is alarming. He is not content with being a bit part in my life-movie, no, he has taken over. He wants to direct, he wants to write, he wants full creative license. He wants to have his name above mine on the billboard, and he refuses to share the credits with anyone else. The stalker wants to be the star. Which isn’t the same as marriage. With marriage, you go from being completely independent, to selectively co-dependent. It’s easy to compromise a little bit for someone you love. You can be married and still retain a great portion of who you are. Not so with babies. With babies you are utterly subsumed by their dependence on you as a caregiver. You can’t fob them off with telling them that you would rather go out and watch a movie than change their diaper, or feed them a bottle. Not unless you want the Authorities to pay you a visit… You can’t just give them a tiny portion of you to clutch, like a sweat-stained handkerchief; they need to have complete access to you all the time. On-stage, off-stage and in the dressing room. Now that I think about it, I have been replaced. I was one the star of my show. I was one the one choosing to eat what I wanted, and where I wanted it. I was a free agent. All my royalties went to me. Suddenly, I find my contract altered. I have been down-sized. The baby is in charge. He commands all the attention when we head out to the shops. He is the one high-fiving strangers and pretending to laugh at their weak jokes. I just traipse after him with his bag, the one stuffed with his snacks and clothes, in case he should get peckish, or need a sudden change. I wipe his bottom, for goodness sake. Everywhere he goes, I go. Every time he opens his mouth, I check to see what he is trying to say. I study his body language. I am there when he wakes, I am there when he sleeps. I take photographs without his permission. I am obsessed. I am a stalker.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:24:53 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ by Misty Noble-Hodge I was round. A not so compact little heartthrob was bundled in my abdomen and in my heart. Oh, I had a love affair with that little baby inside of me. I used to pull my maternity shirts tight against my tummy and watch him roll like the waves in the ocean. I had gone through this pregnancy quite alone and was just waiting for him to be born. To have someone to hold and love. I remember when the doctor told me he wanted to induce. It was a Friday. He said, "How does Monday sound?" Terror of the pain roared through my veins. Monday? That soon? Monday. I went in, late. My mother came with me. She had every intention of spending the night at home, but when they hooked me up to the monitors, I was having contractions. "Can you feel that?" the nurse asked. "Nope," I said with a grin. My mother spent the night on the tiny couch at the foot of my bed. Then came the torturous IV. They had a novice trying to find her way into my veins and I got stuck 11 times before someone who knew what they were doing came in and relieved us both of our suffering. They left for me to get some rest, but made me lay flat on my back under the mountain of baby. Rushing through my head were thoughts about how I wasn’t supposed to lay flat on my back, something about veins being compressed. But surely these labor and delivery nurses knew more than a 20-year-old kid. I wanted gloat when the nurses came in a little while later and told me to roll over because the baby was happier when I was on my left side. I knew that. When morning came, the first time I was checked I had already achieved 4 centimeters. "You can have an epidural now if you want," said the large black nurse. Already? I hadn't even felt any contractions yet. My father briefly stopped in before work while I was resting. They told him it would still be hours before I was 10 centimeters so he could go on to work, which was only 20 minutes away. We would call to keep him updated. Right as he left, the nurse came in to check me again. Lo and behold, 10 centimeters. My mother ran out of the room to call my father's office. He hadn't made it there yet. When he reached the door of the office, his assistant turned him right around. It was time. Flurry of activity. Scrubs. Shiny metal and white cloth. I pushed only twice and my quiet and soft spoke doctor said, "Good." Equal amounts of pride and shock rang through me; it was happening so fast. I heard suctioning. One more gentle push and he was out. I laughed. My first view was a little purple behind. My first question: "Does he have hair?" "Quite a bit of hair," said the nurse. My second question: "Does he have my ears?" My mother beams at me and simply says, "Yes." I am handed a swaddled little caterpillar, a cocooned bundle with long purple fingers and a tiny swollen face. He watches me with attentive eyes as I coo at him. He sucks his fingers and I remark about how we are both starving. I wish I had known to nurse him immediately. But I didn't. No one had told me. He had to wait until later in our room with two nurses trying to position him on my breast. Now I look at this striking child with the gangly legs and arms, who has lost two of the teeth I had watched sprout years ago. His dark brown hair, so like my mother's. Rich chocolate eyes. He is growing up so fast and in so many ways, I feel like I am missing it. He is so big now, but still so small. Six years is not too long to be on this planet. There are so many mornings to be woken and so many more breaths to take. Six years is only long enough to learn to tie one's shoes and write one's name, maybe. There are so many things waiting for him still. I hope he learns to stay young as long as possible. Even though to me, he will always be that little bundle, snuggled into me and making me a mother for the very first time.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:15:35 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ by Janine Dunlop I’m lying in a hospital passageway, wondering whether I’ll be able to love my baby. I am unspeakably nervous and it must be evident, because everyone who appears next to my bed tries to placate me. After what seems an eternity, I’m wheeled in by a jolly nurse who shouts that we should get this show on the road. The “show” is that I’m about to have a baby. Flash to a week previously. I’m sitting at work after twisting my ankle, waiting for the painless contractions that started soon after the fall to go away. When I mention this casually to a colleague, the news spreads like wildfire: Janine is in labour. I’m whisked away to the clinic by our health and safety officer. I comply because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but secretly I’m thinking that this is a waste of my doctor’s time. When I’m strapped to the monitor, it’s established that I’m in labour. I’m 33 weeks pregnant. A drip containing a drug that will stop the contractions is administered. I’m given an injection to mature the baby’s lungs and within an hour, I’m admitted and wheeled in to the antenatal ward, where pregnant women languish in beds all around me. Still in denial, I telephone my husband to ask him to arrange to fetch my car, as I’m planning on being home by the evening. I notice my roommate smiling. “No one leaves this ward,” she laughs. A few days later and she’s being proved right. Despite the drugs, I keep going into labour. I begin to realise that I’ll probably spend the rest of my pregnancy here. I spend a week railing against the unfairness of it all. I had planned to spend three weeks at home with my son, preparing him for the birth of his sibling. Instead, I wheel a drip in front of me every time I go to the bathroom and suffer the indignity of urine samples each morning and suppositories every four hours. Exactly a week after my fall I experience painful contractions late in the afternoon. I am told that the best thing to do is have an emergency caesarean section. I am aware that I have little choice in the matter. To refuse seems like selfishness on my part. When I tell my husband that we’re about to have a baby, he springs into action, arranging for our son to be looked after. I can think of nothing so practical. I feel afraid and out of my depth. I spend the three hours leading up to the event crying, worried that I’m not prepared, that the baby won’t survive and that I won’t be able to love him or her. Back in the operating theatre now, and there is activity all around me. The conversation among the staff is about how busy they were today and how keen they are to get home. It’s after 9pm and they are tired. I wonder briefly whether this means they will be less cautious with me. I clasp my husband’s hand and squeeze harder and harder as the epidural takes effect. The doctors start without telling me, but I am aware of an enormous force pushing and pulling on my belly. My fear is making me sweat. No dimmed lights and calm atmosphere this time around, the lights above me burn my eyes and I recall a line from my son’s storybook: “All the better to see you with.” My husband prays next to me and tells me how well I’m doing. A few minutes later, my baby is born and she is crying. Earlier, my doctor had blithely told me that the baby would be fine, although she would probably need assistance with breathing and feeding initially. I am appalled at his glibness – he is telling me she will need help to live. As the paediatrician looks her over and pronounces her ok, I weep with happiness. She weighs 2.1kg and seems older than her 34 weeks gestation. She astounds everyone the next day by being ready to come out of incubation and sucking vigorously on my breast. We emerge from the maternity ward one week later. I don’t look back as we make our way gingerly to the car park. I’m amazed now that I thought I couldn’t love her. She is my daughter and she’s perfect. A lifetime of love has begun.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:46:19 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ By Christopher "G" Garlington My daughter's friends were over the other day. My daughter's friends are all hyper intelligent and busy as hell just like my daughter but, unlike her, they all have hero quality dads who bend steel bars with their bare hands for a living and rescue babies from vats of molten lead and, most of all, go away during the day to return haggard and stoic and dead tired sometime after 5pm. I, on the other hand, wrestle laundry to the basement and immerse myself in the minutiae of dishwasher load planning and the use of "bluing" to make my whites whiter. I also make twisted knock knock jokes(1) and have a tendency to sing where I ought to mumble and I have, somehow, become their hero. I didn't mean to and I say somehow but I'm being unnecessarily (and uncharacteristically) modest--I know exactly how I became their hero: I told them I chart my daughter's . . . um . . . I keep a record of, uh . . . I mark the calendar for. . . I'm steadfastly abreast of her [punctuation]. This is not the lowest depth my steady emasculation, by the way, that's surely sitting through a stuttering presentation of a Hugh Grant movie so insipidly British even Hugh Grant was rolling his eyes IN THE MOVIE HE WAS STARRING IN. It was a chick flick so flicking chicked I think I grew breasts while I was watching. But, such is marriage. I made my attorney sit through Spawn once so I owe her forever. It is, however, a most unmasculine thing to do, to chart the, er, [grammatical manifestation] of your little princess. In fact, if you are a man, just Stumble elsewhere. I'm embarrassed, ok. Chicks keep reading—I might need your advice. It all started because my Attorney is pretty much too frikkin busy to pay attention to her own [red swarm]. One day she was working hard, staying up late after a 14 hour day deciphering antennae displacement graphs or something equally insanely technical. She was sleep deprived and focused with such unwavering intensity that she actually burned a hole through a deposition with her very eyes. She said "God I feel like crap. I feel bloated and woggly and irritable and—" "You're getting your [red tide]" "I just had my [monsoon wedding]!" "Yeah, 27 days ago." She'd been working so hard she'd actually lost her sense of time. I think if she didn't have a calendar on her blackberry, she wouldn't know what day it was. So her [mighty mighty bosstone] snuck up on her and smacked her across the head. I felt sorry for my little legal Lolita and decided to add her [insane in the membrane] to my automatic calendar and I've been charting ever since. To the minute. Well, being that busy, she never really explained to the teen that this is a regular occurrence, that it can be expected, that JEANS DAY on the calendar is not referring too a dress code. So, in for a dollar if you're in for a dime. The next time my daughter screamed "PAD!" from the bathroom, I tossed a couple in (like grenades) and put her on my calendar too. So there she is, hanging with her friends—ok. Hanging is way too energetic to describe what they do. The flop. They flop over the chair. They flop down in front of the TV. The flop down the steps and flop into the car and flop out. They're virtually boneless. So they were all draped across the furniture expending less energy than most dead field mice when I casually mentioned to Rah that I'd stocked the bathroom with [ammunition] and she might want to remember that since she was due for her [orc horde]. Her friends howled with approval and the Polish one screamed out YOU ARE MY HERO! So there you go. My ability to suppress my natural male tendency to fish and work on trucks in favor of ticking off the days until the women in my life are assaulted by their respective [mammy tsunamis] has elevated me to the level of hero. I can see myself now, standing tall, cast in bronze, a metallic cape forever blown behind me in chunky statuesque bravery, my brow pointed ever eastward, my countenance ever grim, ever focused — a fistful of tampons at my side.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:38:39 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ by Bitsy Parker As a little girl I never played with dolls nor dreamed about being a mother. Perhaps my distance from these maternal feelings made the birth of my first child the most shocking and outrageous experience of my life. My husband and I married when I was 30 and he 36. He brought with him to the marriage two daughters from a previous marriage. We were content with two children and didn’t plan on having more, but we decided that if I did become pregnant, then we would be happy. When I did become pregnant (after about 10 seconds), I thought that my husband would be the main caregiver for the new baby. He was a father. He knew how to handle children. I was a selfish, only child and a busy career girl with no previous baby experience. In my mind, having a baby was like a company buying a subsidiary – in this situation, the baby wasn’t under my direct division, but I would provide necessary support as needed. Go team, go – let’s acquire a baby! Realistically, I knew that the baby would require my attention, but I viewed the forthcoming baby like I would view a charity asking to host an event at my house – I knew there would be work to be done – plant some flowers, wallpaper the bathroom, buy fresh flowers, and I would probably have to leave work early, but ultimately, the charity staff would handle the details like nametags and follow-up letters. I would birth the baby, buy the clothes and order the diaper service, but my husband would do the heavy lifting like teaching the baby to walk and helping with any emotional needs, if there were any. What a shock it was when my daughter, who over-stayed her nine months in my womb by two weeks, was finally knifed out of my gut. After the nineteen hours of wrestling an uncomfortable knot from my uterus, the doctors, nurses and family left my hospital room. It was twilight, and I was staring at the wall in the darkening room wondering what had happened to me. The nurse plunged into the room dragging a streak of fluorescent light with her. She dropped a baby on my lap and left the agitated infant screaming in my arms. The door slowly closed and the harsh light faded – in the dim light I went to work on the little ball of flesh. Instinctively, I undressed the baby and freed her from the hospital clothes that were unnaturally clinging to her body. I, too, took off my mistake of clothing. Skin to skin, I pressed the little baby to my chest and she stopped crying. The power of knowing how to care for this new life was equivalent to the caveman starting the first fire. The “rightness” of this action had enough energy to engulf the hospital in flames. From that moment I knew that my husband was not sitting first chair on this project – I was lead counsel on this case.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:28:59 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ by itchingtowrite We tested positive with the in-home test done over the weekend and since my doctor was busy getting her daughter married to the Srilankankan cricketer Muralidharan, we waited till Good Friday to see her. We decided not to break the news to the family until the doctor gave a clear go ahead. And after the confirmation, we decided to celebrate with a “whirlwind” romantic getaway to the beach retreat Pondicherry where we had first met! While we were quite wary of the test as I was not experiencing any tell-tale signs of pregnancy like giddiness/ nausea like the actresses in Hindi movies do, yet after one week of hugging the news of “baby” happening to ourselves, we were sitting at the doctor’s room with the officially confirmed medical test. She asked me to get a scan done just to ensure everything was alright as I was already on the 6th week. As we were waiting for our turn, I frivolously mentioned that it would be great to have twins. It would be lovely to watch them grow together, having someone to bond with instantly. As parents of twins, we would be unique in the family too! I went in for the scan after drinking loads of water. The doctor was taking his own sweet time, asking me plenty of questions, taking down notes diligently. In turn I also started asking him whether everything was fine. Annoyingly he did not want to answer. Another doctor came by and started looking at the screen. He just muttered “twins??” I thought I heard something that sounded like twins and on cue started troubling the doctor with questions- what happened, what is it, is everything ok? After a long time the doctor turned the screen towards me and said –it’s twins. I could see two distinct dots on the computer screen reflecting the image of the womb. They called the proud father-to-be to show him the goods. As I saw him coming I made a ‘V’ sign indicating 2, wanting to be the first one to break the delightful news – I doubt it whether he understood as he had a very goofy smile on his face as the doctor started giving him the good news. My husband’s feeling is beautifully summed up by him – “Never in my school exams I scored more than what I estimated. After seeing the scan results, I felt I was getting a better score than I had anticipated!” My doctor said probably her good luck had rubbed off on mine, as she was also a mother of twins! I had planned not to tell my colleagues about the pregnancy during the initial days, for obvious reasons- the superstition that one must not disclose the news of a pregnancy until the crucial three months are over. But as they say one should never plan too much- the Doctor advised me to be on bed rest for 6 weeks to tide over the high risk twin gestation. So I had to break the news to one and all at my workplace. And thereafter “baby” became “babies” in our conversation. And the much anticipated Pondicherry trip went out of the window. My CEO commented- how could you blend two different fragrances in the same vessel! I work in the fragrance industry and a fragrance is a blend of chemicals mixed together in a large container.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:06:06 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ by Daniel D'Andrea They were singing and dancing with a contagious bliss, enough to make me giggle along. A simple Christmas carol, in June mind you, was all it took to invoke this fit of joy for the children. They truly were a family; they loved each other more than I could ever hope. I proudly watched, as their mother played and sang along, as careless and joyful as the children. An ear to ear smile took over my face, but I couldn’t hold back the tear from seeping into my mouth. The salty taste did not faze me; nothing could at this point. As I peered in through the window, I felt as though I belonged in that circle, singing and playing along. I don’t know what stopped me, probably the restraining order or deadbolts, but otherwise I was completely free. Nobody will ever know how much I care for those children. Sure, I had odd ways of showing it, and the courts disagreed with my methods, but love is love. After getting fired for drinking at work, I entered a deep depression which forced me into more drinking. I loved the kids at work as much as I loved my own, and teaching was my only passion. Now I lost those kids, my own kids, my wife, my life, everything, all because I like to be wasted to teach elementary math, my other passion. So sue me! Well, not again, please. A tear from the other eye streamed down the other side of my face, this taste seemed to faze me a bit more than the first. After they all began to drift off, I hurried back home to be with my new family. In a fit of defiance, I said out loud to myself, “I don’t need them anymore.” I kicked everything within leg’s distance on my trip home, saying this exact sentence repeatedly. I didn’t cheer up until I arrived back at my own house. Pumpkin was the first to greet me, with a bright smile that lit up the entire room. Well, it did once I lit the candle inside of her. After pumpkin gave me light, I could see old denim jacket wrapped around a book bag and couch cushion greeting me with equal delight. We all gathered on the couch and openly discussed our day. We were giggling and laughing with each other, curled up on the couch with the fireplace cracking. We decided to put in a movie, The Never-ending Story, and watched it together to close out the night. As pumpkin face and denim lay fast asleep, I covered them up and headed upstairs with couch cushion. We enjoyed our moment alone together by making quiet love, the only way we knew how since bringing the children into our lives. After couch cushion fell asleep, I went back the old house and peered in through the window, seeing the children sleep comfortably on their mothers lap, smiling, without a care in the world. They wouldn’t be smiling so calmly if they knew what went down in that lap to conceive them. I sat there behind the bushes, sleeping with them, until it was time to head to work. Everyone at the school always asked to see pictures of my kids. I brought them to a Christmas party and the teachers fell in love with them. They really were a pleasant group of children. But now I have new kids, and I dread the uncomfortable conversation of why they look so different or what happened to your other kids. I didn’t want them to think I ditched my old family for this new and improved version. It was doubly embarrassing to have this conversation while now holding a mop and bucket of puke-filled water. The next day I awoke and didn’t reach for the snooze button or a drink, I just woke up and sprung out of bed. It was Father’s day, and I knew the family was up to something. Much to my surprise, I arrived downstairs to a lovely breakfast already prepared. More surprisingly, next to it was my first wife and kids, “Happy Father’s Day!” I couldn’t believe my eyes, they had looked past the drinking and the fighting and the weeks at a time away and the defecating on the living room carpet, and came to celebrate with me. Both families, both lives, together, I was absolutely elated. I was a father again. I decided to make a drink to celebrate.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com A Writing Contest for all You Clever Girls and Boys! Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:05:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/#comments Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:59:34 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ by Janine Salas-Mason It’s usually late evening when I can actually turn on my computer. It’s part of a ritual that initiates my nightly turndown service. Checking that doors are locked, all children are bed and hubby is either sleeping or has the remote in hand and that bag of Oreos and milk he asked me for. Only then, I get to turn on my computer and indulge in my secret pleasure, my writing. Through my writing, I affirm my purpose to myself every day. I am a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend and even if only acknowledged by me, … a writer. We all know that to a mother, your children are your babies no matter how old they get. Meghan, my oldest baby is 12 years old and my first shot at parenthood. I didn’t know it then but she would be my longest labor and the first of five children. Meghan is a pure joy and a preteen, which leaves me as much in awe as it does confusion. Meghan does not know just how special she is to me. She is my first baby. Four years after having Meghan we had Elias, my little brown bear. Yes, I affectionately call him that. And six months after that, I was pregnant with Madison,… the last baby, or so I thought. Elias and Madison are six months apart, it’s almost like having twins. Elias loves his baby sister and Madison, she can’t get enough of Elias. They are inseparable and I ‘m very lucky for that. So I have a great husband, three beautiful children, my own home etc, what more could I want right? Well, my husband, who was adopted at 6 months of age, has discovered his desire to know his own birth family. Amongst the other hats I wear, I now become a private detective find his entire birth family. My husband decides that he would like to give back to society that which was given to him decides we should adopt. Now, I think most of us at one point or another say to ourselves, “if I ever hit the lotto, I would adopt some children etc.” Well, in my family this became a reality. No we didn’t hit lotto, but we did adopt a child. And so Josef, at 2 years old, became part of our family. Josef, is a special needs child. The agency thought he was mute. He wasn’t. He was suffering neglect and had decided he was not ready to speak yet. Josef will always be my special baby. Not because of his special needs, just because he is especially loved. He took my motherly love to a new level, to a place aside of myself …outside of my skin and into my heart. A week into Josef’s arrival I got a life changing phone call. It was the adoption agency explaining that Josef now had a baby brother and they would like to place the 3-month-old baby with us to keep the siblings together. The agency worker said she knew it was a tall order but wanted to “plant the seed” and see if there was any chance of us taking in Josef’s baby brother. Planting a seed was an understatement! I was torn to pieces. I knew it was probably a long shot, but I longed for the baby already and I brought the situation up to my husband. My husband took the weekend to think about it and when he was ready he started by saying, “I think sometimes, our hearts are bigger than our pockets.” My heart sunk, but then he said, “ I have just met my siblings now at 33 years old. I wish I had memories of childhood years with them…” And so it was, that a week after meeting my 2 year old son Josef, I met Ryan, …and baby made five. Ryan had pneumonia when he was placed with us and I spent the next week living in the hospital. I learned to juggle the needs of my new babies and the babies I already had. I learned children could adapt, that they are as giving as we teach them to be. I learned a lot. I learned all this while trying to still meet the needs of my husband, who could prove to be the biggest baby of all at times. (God Bless his soul, a term I use instead of cursing, sometimes!) I learned of my husbands’ affair, and I learned it wasn’t the end of the world even though it felt like it. (That’s a whole other story!) So, at the end of the day, after the homework is done, uniforms are washed, and I have finished giving 10 speeches as to why..why and why,… my evening ritual begins. After turning my husband on and my children off. I am thankful, thankful for my 5 beautiful babies. The ones I gave birth to and the ones God has entrusted to me through adoption. Thankful that it does not make a difference to me which babies I have birthed and which ones I haven’t. Thankful, that I can write and plant a seed.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:06:06 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ by Daniel D'Andrea They were singing and dancing with a contagious bliss, enough to make me giggle along. A simple Christmas carol, in June mind you, was all it took to invoke this fit of joy for the children. They truly were a family; they loved each other more than I could ever hope. I proudly watched, as their mother played and sang along, as careless and joyful as the children. An ear to ear smile took over my face, but I couldn’t hold back the tear from seeping into my mouth. The salty taste did not faze me; nothing could at this point. As I peered in through the window, I felt as though I belonged in that circle, singing and playing along. I don’t know what stopped me, probably the restraining order or deadbolts, but otherwise I was completely free. Nobody will ever know how much I care for those children. Sure, I had odd ways of showing it, and the courts disagreed with my methods, but love is love. After getting fired for drinking at work, I entered a deep depression which forced me into more drinking. I loved the kids at work as much as I loved my own, and teaching was my only passion. Now I lost those kids, my own kids, my wife, my life, everything, all because I like to be wasted to teach elementary math, my other passion. So sue me! Well, not again, please. A tear from the other eye streamed down the other side of my face, this taste seemed to faze me a bit more than the first. After they all began to drift off, I hurried back home to be with my new family. In a fit of defiance, I said out loud to myself, “I don’t need them anymore.” I kicked everything within leg’s distance on my trip home, saying this exact sentence repeatedly. I didn’t cheer up until I arrived back at my own house. Pumpkin was the first to greet me, with a bright smile that lit up the entire room. Well, it did once I lit the candle inside of her. After pumpkin gave me light, I could see old denim jacket wrapped around a book bag and couch cushion greeting me with equal delight. We all gathered on the couch and openly discussed our day. We were giggling and laughing with each other, curled up on the couch with the fireplace cracking. We decided to put in a movie, The Never-ending Story, and watched it together to close out the night. As pumpkin face and denim lay fast asleep, I covered them up and headed upstairs with couch cushion. We enjoyed our moment alone together by making quiet love, the only way we knew how since bringing the children into our lives. After couch cushion fell asleep, I went back the old house and peered in through the window, seeing the children sleep comfortably on their mothers lap, smiling, without a care in the world. They wouldn’t be smiling so calmly if they knew what went down in that lap to conceive them. I sat there behind the bushes, sleeping with them, until it was time to head to work. Everyone at the school always asked to see pictures of my kids. I brought them to a Christmas party and the teachers fell in love with them. They really were a pleasant group of children. But now I have new kids, and I dread the uncomfortable conversation of why they look so different or what happened to your other kids. I didn’t want them to think I ditched my old family for this new and improved version. It was doubly embarrassing to have this conversation while now holding a mop and bucket of puke-filled water. The next day I awoke and didn’t reach for the snooze button or a drink, I just woke up and sprung out of bed. It was Father’s day, and I knew the family was up to something. Much to my surprise, I arrived downstairs to a lovely breakfast already prepared. More surprisingly, next to it was my first wife and kids, “Happy Father’s Day!” I couldn’t believe my eyes, they had looked past the drinking and the fighting and the weeks at a time away and the defecating on the living room carpet, and came to celebrate with me. Both families, both lives, together, I was absolutely elated. I was a father again. I decided to make a drink to celebrate.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:24:01 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ By Sharon Lee Fernberg When our first child was due to be born, my husband and I were required to attend parenting classes at the local hospital. “There will be a trickle when your water breaks,” the nurse informed the parents-to-be. However, after a perfect ten-month pregnancy, my water broke at 5:30 a.m. At 11:00 a.m. while at my obstetrician’s office, the water still gushed from my body as though something inside me kept flushing an inner toilet. Towels and maxi pads could not prevent what occurred inside of me. At 1:00 p.m. my obstetrician ordered an x-ray. A nurse pushed me to radiology in a wheelchair that held a small bowl under the seat. I felt embarrassed that it overflowed but considering I couldn’t even see my feet at the time, I smiled apologetically. Fourteen hours later, my son Jeffrey entered this world, weighing in at 9lbs.2oz. and 21” long. I spent two weeks in the hospital. He flattened my bladder, I was told. Eighteen months later, after being two weeks earlier than the actual due date or two weeks past the due date of my second child, my son Patrick howled his way into our lives, weighing in at eight pounds and 20” long. This time when my water broke, the nurse was correct. I felt only a trickle. We went home three days later. Years later, the pregnancy lasted longer than a year. It began with a meeting on adoption. My husband and I endured sixty page home studies, writing individual accounts on each of our siblings, our parents, our children, and having meetings in our house with the caseworkers from the local agency that handled the adoption proceedings. We took pictures of each room of the house, pictures of the boys and of each other, and provided photos of the cat. We had to be fingerprinted by the FBI in Buffalo, New York. As weeks and then months passed by, we continued to wait patiently and anxiously. We had no choice. It wasn't our decision to make when our daughter would be delivered. Nevertheless, a television meteorologist prepared us. A blizzard was due to arrive in Western New York the end of February. We couldn’t take a chance that her plane would arrive from Korea and we wouldn't be there. My husband informed our caseworker that we were going to go to New Jersey and spend a few days with my sister and her family – just in case. Three days later the call came from New York. The plane would touch down at JFK around 6:00 p.m. that night. It was Leap Year Day. We were only one hour from the airport but we had to meet the adoption agency greeter early to sign papers. The wind hissed that day. A cold chill lingered. In my arms, I held a white and yellow shell stitch afghan I had crocheted for my daughter. Jeff held tightly to the diaper bag. Patrick hugged the pink snowsuit. My husband waited nervously with the camera in his hands. At 6:21 p.m. the plane touched down. Within minutes, a greeter said, “Sung Sin HWANG.” He handed me our 6-1/2 month old daughter. I whispered her new name, Lindsay Sung-Elizabeth. She didn’t cry although tears trickled down my cheeks. Her dark slanted eyes stared up into my face. I kissed her nose. Her small arms curled around my neck. Her shoulder-length silky black hair skimmed my cheek as she laid her head on my shoulder. So, this was our daughter. The boys’ sister. As we departed the airport a half hour later, I held Lindsay tightly, protecting her against the cold chill with the afghan now cloaking her small body. I don't know why but at that moment I thought of the times I had given birth to my sons, and I knew this would always be the day my daughter was delivered. I looked from Lindsay and glanced at my sons, their round faces beaming with excitement and joy. It was then I realized that the overwhelming love I felt in my heart was the same for all three of my children. I felt the tears trickle down my face.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:14:42 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ by Scott Dunlop I am being stalked. Since May 2006 I have been looking over my shoulder. I have felt like a mild celebrity. I don’t get blinded by camera flashes outside the supermarket, or enter into impromptu car chases, no, my stalker is far more subtle than that. I wake up in the morning, and he is there. I bathe, he is there. I get dressed, and I feel his eyes watching me. With every cupboard I open, and every switch I touch, his large saucer eyes trace my every move. He doesn’t speak very much, but he does communicate. What he says to me frightens me. He whispers constantly. You are my hero. I want to be you. I want to do everything you do, and touch everything you touch. I want to wear your shoes, eat your food and test the elasticity of your skin… Which would be very creepy if he was a stranger, but this tiny follower of mine, this little disciple is my son. His gaze is unnerving, his ability to absorb all of my attention is alarming. He is not content with being a bit part in my life-movie, no, he has taken over. He wants to direct, he wants to write, he wants full creative license. He wants to have his name above mine on the billboard, and he refuses to share the credits with anyone else. The stalker wants to be the star. Which isn’t the same as marriage. With marriage, you go from being completely independent, to selectively co-dependent. It’s easy to compromise a little bit for someone you love. You can be married and still retain a great portion of who you are. Not so with babies. With babies you are utterly subsumed by their dependence on you as a caregiver. You can’t fob them off with telling them that you would rather go out and watch a movie than change their diaper, or feed them a bottle. Not unless you want the Authorities to pay you a visit… You can’t just give them a tiny portion of you to clutch, like a sweat-stained handkerchief; they need to have complete access to you all the time. On-stage, off-stage and in the dressing room. Now that I think about it, I have been replaced. I was one the star of my show. I was one the one choosing to eat what I wanted, and where I wanted it. I was a free agent. All my royalties went to me. Suddenly, I find my contract altered. I have been down-sized. The baby is in charge. He commands all the attention when we head out to the shops. He is the one high-fiving strangers and pretending to laugh at their weak jokes. I just traipse after him with his bag, the one stuffed with his snacks and clothes, in case he should get peckish, or need a sudden change. I wipe his bottom, for goodness sake. Everywhere he goes, I go. Every time he opens his mouth, I check to see what he is trying to say. I study his body language. I am there when he wakes, I am there when he sleeps. I take photographs without his permission. I am obsessed. I am a stalker.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:24:53 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ by Misty Noble-Hodge I was round. A not so compact little heartthrob was bundled in my abdomen and in my heart. Oh, I had a love affair with that little baby inside of me. I used to pull my maternity shirts tight against my tummy and watch him roll like the waves in the ocean. I had gone through this pregnancy quite alone and was just waiting for him to be born. To have someone to hold and love. I remember when the doctor told me he wanted to induce. It was a Friday. He said, "How does Monday sound?" Terror of the pain roared through my veins. Monday? That soon? Monday. I went in, late. My mother came with me. She had every intention of spending the night at home, but when they hooked me up to the monitors, I was having contractions. "Can you feel that?" the nurse asked. "Nope," I said with a grin. My mother spent the night on the tiny couch at the foot of my bed. Then came the torturous IV. They had a novice trying to find her way into my veins and I got stuck 11 times before someone who knew what they were doing came in and relieved us both of our suffering. They left for me to get some rest, but made me lay flat on my back under the mountain of baby. Rushing through my head were thoughts about how I wasn’t supposed to lay flat on my back, something about veins being compressed. But surely these labor and delivery nurses knew more than a 20-year-old kid. I wanted gloat when the nurses came in a little while later and told me to roll over because the baby was happier when I was on my left side. I knew that. When morning came, the first time I was checked I had already achieved 4 centimeters. "You can have an epidural now if you want," said the large black nurse. Already? I hadn't even felt any contractions yet. My father briefly stopped in before work while I was resting. They told him it would still be hours before I was 10 centimeters so he could go on to work, which was only 20 minutes away. We would call to keep him updated. Right as he left, the nurse came in to check me again. Lo and behold, 10 centimeters. My mother ran out of the room to call my father's office. He hadn't made it there yet. When he reached the door of the office, his assistant turned him right around. It was time. Flurry of activity. Scrubs. Shiny metal and white cloth. I pushed only twice and my quiet and soft spoke doctor said, "Good." Equal amounts of pride and shock rang through me; it was happening so fast. I heard suctioning. One more gentle push and he was out. I laughed. My first view was a little purple behind. My first question: "Does he have hair?" "Quite a bit of hair," said the nurse. My second question: "Does he have my ears?" My mother beams at me and simply says, "Yes." I am handed a swaddled little caterpillar, a cocooned bundle with long purple fingers and a tiny swollen face. He watches me with attentive eyes as I coo at him. He sucks his fingers and I remark about how we are both starving. I wish I had known to nurse him immediately. But I didn't. No one had told me. He had to wait until later in our room with two nurses trying to position him on my breast. Now I look at this striking child with the gangly legs and arms, who has lost two of the teeth I had watched sprout years ago. His dark brown hair, so like my mother's. Rich chocolate eyes. He is growing up so fast and in so many ways, I feel like I am missing it. He is so big now, but still so small. Six years is not too long to be on this planet. There are so many mornings to be woken and so many more breaths to take. Six years is only long enough to learn to tie one's shoes and write one's name, maybe. There are so many things waiting for him still. I hope he learns to stay young as long as possible. Even though to me, he will always be that little bundle, snuggled into me and making me a mother for the very first time.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:15:35 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ by Janine Dunlop I’m lying in a hospital passageway, wondering whether I’ll be able to love my baby. I am unspeakably nervous and it must be evident, because everyone who appears next to my bed tries to placate me. After what seems an eternity, I’m wheeled in by a jolly nurse who shouts that we should get this show on the road. The “show” is that I’m about to have a baby. Flash to a week previously. I’m sitting at work after twisting my ankle, waiting for the painless contractions that started soon after the fall to go away. When I mention this casually to a colleague, the news spreads like wildfire: Janine is in labour. I’m whisked away to the clinic by our health and safety officer. I comply because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but secretly I’m thinking that this is a waste of my doctor’s time. When I’m strapped to the monitor, it’s established that I’m in labour. I’m 33 weeks pregnant. A drip containing a drug that will stop the contractions is administered. I’m given an injection to mature the baby’s lungs and within an hour, I’m admitted and wheeled in to the antenatal ward, where pregnant women languish in beds all around me. Still in denial, I telephone my husband to ask him to arrange to fetch my car, as I’m planning on being home by the evening. I notice my roommate smiling. “No one leaves this ward,” she laughs. A few days later and she’s being proved right. Despite the drugs, I keep going into labour. I begin to realise that I’ll probably spend the rest of my pregnancy here. I spend a week railing against the unfairness of it all. I had planned to spend three weeks at home with my son, preparing him for the birth of his sibling. Instead, I wheel a drip in front of me every time I go to the bathroom and suffer the indignity of urine samples each morning and suppositories every four hours. Exactly a week after my fall I experience painful contractions late in the afternoon. I am told that the best thing to do is have an emergency caesarean section. I am aware that I have little choice in the matter. To refuse seems like selfishness on my part. When I tell my husband that we’re about to have a baby, he springs into action, arranging for our son to be looked after. I can think of nothing so practical. I feel afraid and out of my depth. I spend the three hours leading up to the event crying, worried that I’m not prepared, that the baby won’t survive and that I won’t be able to love him or her. Back in the operating theatre now, and there is activity all around me. The conversation among the staff is about how busy they were today and how keen they are to get home. It’s after 9pm and they are tired. I wonder briefly whether this means they will be less cautious with me. I clasp my husband’s hand and squeeze harder and harder as the epidural takes effect. The doctors start without telling me, but I am aware of an enormous force pushing and pulling on my belly. My fear is making me sweat. No dimmed lights and calm atmosphere this time around, the lights above me burn my eyes and I recall a line from my son’s storybook: “All the better to see you with.” My husband prays next to me and tells me how well I’m doing. A few minutes later, my baby is born and she is crying. Earlier, my doctor had blithely told me that the baby would be fine, although she would probably need assistance with breathing and feeding initially. I am appalled at his glibness – he is telling me she will need help to live. As the paediatrician looks her over and pronounces her ok, I weep with happiness. She weighs 2.1kg and seems older than her 34 weeks gestation. She astounds everyone the next day by being ready to come out of incubation and sucking vigorously on my breast. We emerge from the maternity ward one week later. I don’t look back as we make our way gingerly to the car park. I’m amazed now that I thought I couldn’t love her. She is my daughter and she’s perfect. A lifetime of love has begun.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:46:19 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ By Christopher "G" Garlington My daughter's friends were over the other day. My daughter's friends are all hyper intelligent and busy as hell just like my daughter but, unlike her, they all have hero quality dads who bend steel bars with their bare hands for a living and rescue babies from vats of molten lead and, most of all, go away during the day to return haggard and stoic and dead tired sometime after 5pm. I, on the other hand, wrestle laundry to the basement and immerse myself in the minutiae of dishwasher load planning and the use of "bluing" to make my whites whiter. I also make twisted knock knock jokes(1) and have a tendency to sing where I ought to mumble and I have, somehow, become their hero. I didn't mean to and I say somehow but I'm being unnecessarily (and uncharacteristically) modest--I know exactly how I became their hero: I told them I chart my daughter's . . . um . . . I keep a record of, uh . . . I mark the calendar for. . . I'm steadfastly abreast of her [punctuation]. This is not the lowest depth my steady emasculation, by the way, that's surely sitting through a stuttering presentation of a Hugh Grant movie so insipidly British even Hugh Grant was rolling his eyes IN THE MOVIE HE WAS STARRING IN. It was a chick flick so flicking chicked I think I grew breasts while I was watching. But, such is marriage. I made my attorney sit through Spawn once so I owe her forever. It is, however, a most unmasculine thing to do, to chart the, er, [grammatical manifestation] of your little princess. In fact, if you are a man, just Stumble elsewhere. I'm embarrassed, ok. Chicks keep reading—I might need your advice. It all started because my Attorney is pretty much too frikkin busy to pay attention to her own [red swarm]. One day she was working hard, staying up late after a 14 hour day deciphering antennae displacement graphs or something equally insanely technical. She was sleep deprived and focused with such unwavering intensity that she actually burned a hole through a deposition with her very eyes. She said "God I feel like crap. I feel bloated and woggly and irritable and—" "You're getting your [red tide]" "I just had my [monsoon wedding]!" "Yeah, 27 days ago." She'd been working so hard she'd actually lost her sense of time. I think if she didn't have a calendar on her blackberry, she wouldn't know what day it was. So her [mighty mighty bosstone] snuck up on her and smacked her across the head. I felt sorry for my little legal Lolita and decided to add her [insane in the membrane] to my automatic calendar and I've been charting ever since. To the minute. Well, being that busy, she never really explained to the teen that this is a regular occurrence, that it can be expected, that JEANS DAY on the calendar is not referring too a dress code. So, in for a dollar if you're in for a dime. The next time my daughter screamed "PAD!" from the bathroom, I tossed a couple in (like grenades) and put her on my calendar too. So there she is, hanging with her friends—ok. Hanging is way too energetic to describe what they do. The flop. They flop over the chair. They flop down in front of the TV. The flop down the steps and flop into the car and flop out. They're virtually boneless. So they were all draped across the furniture expending less energy than most dead field mice when I casually mentioned to Rah that I'd stocked the bathroom with [ammunition] and she might want to remember that since she was due for her [orc horde]. Her friends howled with approval and the Polish one screamed out YOU ARE MY HERO! So there you go. My ability to suppress my natural male tendency to fish and work on trucks in favor of ticking off the days until the women in my life are assaulted by their respective [mammy tsunamis] has elevated me to the level of hero. I can see myself now, standing tall, cast in bronze, a metallic cape forever blown behind me in chunky statuesque bravery, my brow pointed ever eastward, my countenance ever grim, ever focused — a fistful of tampons at my side.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:38:39 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ by Bitsy Parker As a little girl I never played with dolls nor dreamed about being a mother. Perhaps my distance from these maternal feelings made the birth of my first child the most shocking and outrageous experience of my life. My husband and I married when I was 30 and he 36. He brought with him to the marriage two daughters from a previous marriage. We were content with two children and didn’t plan on having more, but we decided that if I did become pregnant, then we would be happy. When I did become pregnant (after about 10 seconds), I thought that my husband would be the main caregiver for the new baby. He was a father. He knew how to handle children. I was a selfish, only child and a busy career girl with no previous baby experience. In my mind, having a baby was like a company buying a subsidiary – in this situation, the baby wasn’t under my direct division, but I would provide necessary support as needed. Go team, go – let’s acquire a baby! Realistically, I knew that the baby would require my attention, but I viewed the forthcoming baby like I would view a charity asking to host an event at my house – I knew there would be work to be done – plant some flowers, wallpaper the bathroom, buy fresh flowers, and I would probably have to leave work early, but ultimately, the charity staff would handle the details like nametags and follow-up letters. I would birth the baby, buy the clothes and order the diaper service, but my husband would do the heavy lifting like teaching the baby to walk and helping with any emotional needs, if there were any. What a shock it was when my daughter, who over-stayed her nine months in my womb by two weeks, was finally knifed out of my gut. After the nineteen hours of wrestling an uncomfortable knot from my uterus, the doctors, nurses and family left my hospital room. It was twilight, and I was staring at the wall in the darkening room wondering what had happened to me. The nurse plunged into the room dragging a streak of fluorescent light with her. She dropped a baby on my lap and left the agitated infant screaming in my arms. The door slowly closed and the harsh light faded – in the dim light I went to work on the little ball of flesh. Instinctively, I undressed the baby and freed her from the hospital clothes that were unnaturally clinging to her body. I, too, took off my mistake of clothing. Skin to skin, I pressed the little baby to my chest and she stopped crying. The power of knowing how to care for this new life was equivalent to the caveman starting the first fire. The “rightness” of this action had enough energy to engulf the hospital in flames. From that moment I knew that my husband was not sitting first chair on this project – I was lead counsel on this case.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:28:59 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ by itchingtowrite We tested positive with the in-home test done over the weekend and since my doctor was busy getting her daughter married to the Srilankankan cricketer Muralidharan, we waited till Good Friday to see her. We decided not to break the news to the family until the doctor gave a clear go ahead. And after the confirmation, we decided to celebrate with a “whirlwind” romantic getaway to the beach retreat Pondicherry where we had first met! While we were quite wary of the test as I was not experiencing any tell-tale signs of pregnancy like giddiness/ nausea like the actresses in Hindi movies do, yet after one week of hugging the news of “baby” happening to ourselves, we were sitting at the doctor’s room with the officially confirmed medical test. She asked me to get a scan done just to ensure everything was alright as I was already on the 6th week. As we were waiting for our turn, I frivolously mentioned that it would be great to have twins. It would be lovely to watch them grow together, having someone to bond with instantly. As parents of twins, we would be unique in the family too! I went in for the scan after drinking loads of water. The doctor was taking his own sweet time, asking me plenty of questions, taking down notes diligently. In turn I also started asking him whether everything was fine. Annoyingly he did not want to answer. Another doctor came by and started looking at the screen. He just muttered “twins??” I thought I heard something that sounded like twins and on cue started troubling the doctor with questions- what happened, what is it, is everything ok? After a long time the doctor turned the screen towards me and said –it’s twins. I could see two distinct dots on the computer screen reflecting the image of the womb. They called the proud father-to-be to show him the goods. As I saw him coming I made a ‘V’ sign indicating 2, wanting to be the first one to break the delightful news – I doubt it whether he understood as he had a very goofy smile on his face as the doctor started giving him the good news. My husband’s feeling is beautifully summed up by him – “Never in my school exams I scored more than what I estimated. After seeing the scan results, I felt I was getting a better score than I had anticipated!” My doctor said probably her good luck had rubbed off on mine, as she was also a mother of twins! I had planned not to tell my colleagues about the pregnancy during the initial days, for obvious reasons- the superstition that one must not disclose the news of a pregnancy until the crucial three months are over. But as they say one should never plan too much- the Doctor advised me to be on bed rest for 6 weeks to tide over the high risk twin gestation. So I had to break the news to one and all at my workplace. And thereafter “baby” became “babies” in our conversation. And the much anticipated Pondicherry trip went out of the window. My CEO commented- how could you blend two different fragrances in the same vessel! I work in the fragrance industry and a fragrance is a blend of chemicals mixed together in a large container.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:24:01 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ By Sharon Lee Fernberg When our first child was due to be born, my husband and I were required to attend parenting classes at the local hospital. “There will be a trickle when your water breaks,” the nurse informed the parents-to-be. However, after a perfect ten-month pregnancy, my water broke at 5:30 a.m. At 11:00 a.m. while at my obstetrician’s office, the water still gushed from my body as though something inside me kept flushing an inner toilet. Towels and maxi pads could not prevent what occurred inside of me. At 1:00 p.m. my obstetrician ordered an x-ray. A nurse pushed me to radiology in a wheelchair that held a small bowl under the seat. I felt embarrassed that it overflowed but considering I couldn’t even see my feet at the time, I smiled apologetically. Fourteen hours later, my son Jeffrey entered this world, weighing in at 9lbs.2oz. and 21” long. I spent two weeks in the hospital. He flattened my bladder, I was told. Eighteen months later, after being two weeks earlier than the actual due date or two weeks past the due date of my second child, my son Patrick howled his way into our lives, weighing in at eight pounds and 20” long. This time when my water broke, the nurse was correct. I felt only a trickle. We went home three days later. Years later, the pregnancy lasted longer than a year. It began with a meeting on adoption. My husband and I endured sixty page home studies, writing individual accounts on each of our siblings, our parents, our children, and having meetings in our house with the caseworkers from the local agency that handled the adoption proceedings. We took pictures of each room of the house, pictures of the boys and of each other, and provided photos of the cat. We had to be fingerprinted by the FBI in Buffalo, New York. As weeks and then months passed by, we continued to wait patiently and anxiously. We had no choice. It wasn't our decision to make when our daughter would be delivered. Nevertheless, a television meteorologist prepared us. A blizzard was due to arrive in Western New York the end of February. We couldn’t take a chance that her plane would arrive from Korea and we wouldn't be there. My husband informed our caseworker that we were going to go to New Jersey and spend a few days with my sister and her family – just in case. Three days later the call came from New York. The plane would touch down at JFK around 6:00 p.m. that night. It was Leap Year Day. We were only one hour from the airport but we had to meet the adoption agency greeter early to sign papers. The wind hissed that day. A cold chill lingered. In my arms, I held a white and yellow shell stitch afghan I had crocheted for my daughter. Jeff held tightly to the diaper bag. Patrick hugged the pink snowsuit. My husband waited nervously with the camera in his hands. At 6:21 p.m. the plane touched down. Within minutes, a greeter said, “Sung Sin HWANG.” He handed me our 6-1/2 month old daughter. I whispered her new name, Lindsay Sung-Elizabeth. She didn’t cry although tears trickled down my cheeks. Her dark slanted eyes stared up into my face. I kissed her nose. Her small arms curled around my neck. Her shoulder-length silky black hair skimmed my cheek as she laid her head on my shoulder. So, this was our daughter. The boys’ sister. As we departed the airport a half hour later, I held Lindsay tightly, protecting her against the cold chill with the afghan now cloaking her small body. I don't know why but at that moment I thought of the times I had given birth to my sons, and I knew this would always be the day my daughter was delivered. I looked from Lindsay and glanced at my sons, their round faces beaming with excitement and joy. It was then I realized that the overwhelming love I felt in my heart was the same for all three of my children. I felt the tears trickle down my face.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com A Writing Contest for all You Clever Girls and Boys! Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:05:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/#comments Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:59:34 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ by Janine Salas-Mason It’s usually late evening when I can actually turn on my computer. It’s part of a ritual that initiates my nightly turndown service. Checking that doors are locked, all children are bed and hubby is either sleeping or has the remote in hand and that bag of Oreos and milk he asked me for. Only then, I get to turn on my computer and indulge in my secret pleasure, my writing. Through my writing, I affirm my purpose to myself every day. I am a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend and even if only acknowledged by me, … a writer. We all know that to a mother, your children are your babies no matter how old they get. Meghan, my oldest baby is 12 years old and my first shot at parenthood. I didn’t know it then but she would be my longest labor and the first of five children. Meghan is a pure joy and a preteen, which leaves me as much in awe as it does confusion. Meghan does not know just how special she is to me. She is my first baby. Four years after having Meghan we had Elias, my little brown bear. Yes, I affectionately call him that. And six months after that, I was pregnant with Madison,… the last baby, or so I thought. Elias and Madison are six months apart, it’s almost like having twins. Elias loves his baby sister and Madison, she can’t get enough of Elias. They are inseparable and I ‘m very lucky for that. So I have a great husband, three beautiful children, my own home etc, what more could I want right? Well, my husband, who was adopted at 6 months of age, has discovered his desire to know his own birth family. Amongst the other hats I wear, I now become a private detective find his entire birth family. My husband decides that he would like to give back to society that which was given to him decides we should adopt. Now, I think most of us at one point or another say to ourselves, “if I ever hit the lotto, I would adopt some children etc.” Well, in my family this became a reality. No we didn’t hit lotto, but we did adopt a child. And so Josef, at 2 years old, became part of our family. Josef, is a special needs child. The agency thought he was mute. He wasn’t. He was suffering neglect and had decided he was not ready to speak yet. Josef will always be my special baby. Not because of his special needs, just because he is especially loved. He took my motherly love to a new level, to a place aside of myself …outside of my skin and into my heart. A week into Josef’s arrival I got a life changing phone call. It was the adoption agency explaining that Josef now had a baby brother and they would like to place the 3-month-old baby with us to keep the siblings together. The agency worker said she knew it was a tall order but wanted to “plant the seed” and see if there was any chance of us taking in Josef’s baby brother. Planting a seed was an understatement! I was torn to pieces. I knew it was probably a long shot, but I longed for the baby already and I brought the situation up to my husband. My husband took the weekend to think about it and when he was ready he started by saying, “I think sometimes, our hearts are bigger than our pockets.” My heart sunk, but then he said, “ I have just met my siblings now at 33 years old. I wish I had memories of childhood years with them…” And so it was, that a week after meeting my 2 year old son Josef, I met Ryan, …and baby made five. Ryan had pneumonia when he was placed with us and I spent the next week living in the hospital. I learned to juggle the needs of my new babies and the babies I already had. I learned children could adapt, that they are as giving as we teach them to be. I learned a lot. I learned all this while trying to still meet the needs of my husband, who could prove to be the biggest baby of all at times. (God Bless his soul, a term I use instead of cursing, sometimes!) I learned of my husbands’ affair, and I learned it wasn’t the end of the world even though it felt like it. (That’s a whole other story!) So, at the end of the day, after the homework is done, uniforms are washed, and I have finished giving 10 speeches as to why..why and why,… my evening ritual begins. After turning my husband on and my children off. I am thankful, thankful for my 5 beautiful babies. The ones I gave birth to and the ones God has entrusted to me through adoption. Thankful that it does not make a difference to me which babies I have birthed and which ones I haven’t. Thankful, that I can write and plant a seed.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:06:06 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ by Daniel D'Andrea They were singing and dancing with a contagious bliss, enough to make me giggle along. A simple Christmas carol, in June mind you, was all it took to invoke this fit of joy for the children. They truly were a family; they loved each other more than I could ever hope. I proudly watched, as their mother played and sang along, as careless and joyful as the children. An ear to ear smile took over my face, but I couldn’t hold back the tear from seeping into my mouth. The salty taste did not faze me; nothing could at this point. As I peered in through the window, I felt as though I belonged in that circle, singing and playing along. I don’t know what stopped me, probably the restraining order or deadbolts, but otherwise I was completely free. Nobody will ever know how much I care for those children. Sure, I had odd ways of showing it, and the courts disagreed with my methods, but love is love. After getting fired for drinking at work, I entered a deep depression which forced me into more drinking. I loved the kids at work as much as I loved my own, and teaching was my only passion. Now I lost those kids, my own kids, my wife, my life, everything, all because I like to be wasted to teach elementary math, my other passion. So sue me! Well, not again, please. A tear from the other eye streamed down the other side of my face, this taste seemed to faze me a bit more than the first. After they all began to drift off, I hurried back home to be with my new family. In a fit of defiance, I said out loud to myself, “I don’t need them anymore.” I kicked everything within leg’s distance on my trip home, saying this exact sentence repeatedly. I didn’t cheer up until I arrived back at my own house. Pumpkin was the first to greet me, with a bright smile that lit up the entire room. Well, it did once I lit the candle inside of her. After pumpkin gave me light, I could see old denim jacket wrapped around a book bag and couch cushion greeting me with equal delight. We all gathered on the couch and openly discussed our day. We were giggling and laughing with each other, curled up on the couch with the fireplace cracking. We decided to put in a movie, The Never-ending Story, and watched it together to close out the night. As pumpkin face and denim lay fast asleep, I covered them up and headed upstairs with couch cushion. We enjoyed our moment alone together by making quiet love, the only way we knew how since bringing the children into our lives. After couch cushion fell asleep, I went back the old house and peered in through the window, seeing the children sleep comfortably on their mothers lap, smiling, without a care in the world. They wouldn’t be smiling so calmly if they knew what went down in that lap to conceive them. I sat there behind the bushes, sleeping with them, until it was time to head to work. Everyone at the school always asked to see pictures of my kids. I brought them to a Christmas party and the teachers fell in love with them. They really were a pleasant group of children. But now I have new kids, and I dread the uncomfortable conversation of why they look so different or what happened to your other kids. I didn’t want them to think I ditched my old family for this new and improved version. It was doubly embarrassing to have this conversation while now holding a mop and bucket of puke-filled water. The next day I awoke and didn’t reach for the snooze button or a drink, I just woke up and sprung out of bed. It was Father’s day, and I knew the family was up to something. Much to my surprise, I arrived downstairs to a lovely breakfast already prepared. More surprisingly, next to it was my first wife and kids, “Happy Father’s Day!” I couldn’t believe my eyes, they had looked past the drinking and the fighting and the weeks at a time away and the defecating on the living room carpet, and came to celebrate with me. Both families, both lives, together, I was absolutely elated. I was a father again. I decided to make a drink to celebrate.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:24:01 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ By Sharon Lee Fernberg When our first child was due to be born, my husband and I were required to attend parenting classes at the local hospital. “There will be a trickle when your water breaks,” the nurse informed the parents-to-be. However, after a perfect ten-month pregnancy, my water broke at 5:30 a.m. At 11:00 a.m. while at my obstetrician’s office, the water still gushed from my body as though something inside me kept flushing an inner toilet. Towels and maxi pads could not prevent what occurred inside of me. At 1:00 p.m. my obstetrician ordered an x-ray. A nurse pushed me to radiology in a wheelchair that held a small bowl under the seat. I felt embarrassed that it overflowed but considering I couldn’t even see my feet at the time, I smiled apologetically. Fourteen hours later, my son Jeffrey entered this world, weighing in at 9lbs.2oz. and 21” long. I spent two weeks in the hospital. He flattened my bladder, I was told. Eighteen months later, after being two weeks earlier than the actual due date or two weeks past the due date of my second child, my son Patrick howled his way into our lives, weighing in at eight pounds and 20” long. This time when my water broke, the nurse was correct. I felt only a trickle. We went home three days later. Years later, the pregnancy lasted longer than a year. It began with a meeting on adoption. My husband and I endured sixty page home studies, writing individual accounts on each of our siblings, our parents, our children, and having meetings in our house with the caseworkers from the local agency that handled the adoption proceedings. We took pictures of each room of the house, pictures of the boys and of each other, and provided photos of the cat. We had to be fingerprinted by the FBI in Buffalo, New York. As weeks and then months passed by, we continued to wait patiently and anxiously. We had no choice. It wasn't our decision to make when our daughter would be delivered. Nevertheless, a television meteorologist prepared us. A blizzard was due to arrive in Western New York the end of February. We couldn’t take a chance that her plane would arrive from Korea and we wouldn't be there. My husband informed our caseworker that we were going to go to New Jersey and spend a few days with my sister and her family – just in case. Three days later the call came from New York. The plane would touch down at JFK around 6:00 p.m. that night. It was Leap Year Day. We were only one hour from the airport but we had to meet the adoption agency greeter early to sign papers. The wind hissed that day. A cold chill lingered. In my arms, I held a white and yellow shell stitch afghan I had crocheted for my daughter. Jeff held tightly to the diaper bag. Patrick hugged the pink snowsuit. My husband waited nervously with the camera in his hands. At 6:21 p.m. the plane touched down. Within minutes, a greeter said, “Sung Sin HWANG.” He handed me our 6-1/2 month old daughter. I whispered her new name, Lindsay Sung-Elizabeth. She didn’t cry although tears trickled down my cheeks. Her dark slanted eyes stared up into my face. I kissed her nose. Her small arms curled around my neck. Her shoulder-length silky black hair skimmed my cheek as she laid her head on my shoulder. So, this was our daughter. The boys’ sister. As we departed the airport a half hour later, I held Lindsay tightly, protecting her against the cold chill with the afghan now cloaking her small body. I don't know why but at that moment I thought of the times I had given birth to my sons, and I knew this would always be the day my daughter was delivered. I looked from Lindsay and glanced at my sons, their round faces beaming with excitement and joy. It was then I realized that the overwhelming love I felt in my heart was the same for all three of my children. I felt the tears trickle down my face.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:14:42 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ by Scott Dunlop I am being stalked. Since May 2006 I have been looking over my shoulder. I have felt like a mild celebrity. I don’t get blinded by camera flashes outside the supermarket, or enter into impromptu car chases, no, my stalker is far more subtle than that. I wake up in the morning, and he is there. I bathe, he is there. I get dressed, and I feel his eyes watching me. With every cupboard I open, and every switch I touch, his large saucer eyes trace my every move. He doesn’t speak very much, but he does communicate. What he says to me frightens me. He whispers constantly. You are my hero. I want to be you. I want to do everything you do, and touch everything you touch. I want to wear your shoes, eat your food and test the elasticity of your skin… Which would be very creepy if he was a stranger, but this tiny follower of mine, this little disciple is my son. His gaze is unnerving, his ability to absorb all of my attention is alarming. He is not content with being a bit part in my life-movie, no, he has taken over. He wants to direct, he wants to write, he wants full creative license. He wants to have his name above mine on the billboard, and he refuses to share the credits with anyone else. The stalker wants to be the star. Which isn’t the same as marriage. With marriage, you go from being completely independent, to selectively co-dependent. It’s easy to compromise a little bit for someone you love. You can be married and still retain a great portion of who you are. Not so with babies. With babies you are utterly subsumed by their dependence on you as a caregiver. You can’t fob them off with telling them that you would rather go out and watch a movie than change their diaper, or feed them a bottle. Not unless you want the Authorities to pay you a visit… You can’t just give them a tiny portion of you to clutch, like a sweat-stained handkerchief; they need to have complete access to you all the time. On-stage, off-stage and in the dressing room. Now that I think about it, I have been replaced. I was one the star of my show. I was one the one choosing to eat what I wanted, and where I wanted it. I was a free agent. All my royalties went to me. Suddenly, I find my contract altered. I have been down-sized. The baby is in charge. He commands all the attention when we head out to the shops. He is the one high-fiving strangers and pretending to laugh at their weak jokes. I just traipse after him with his bag, the one stuffed with his snacks and clothes, in case he should get peckish, or need a sudden change. I wipe his bottom, for goodness sake. Everywhere he goes, I go. Every time he opens his mouth, I check to see what he is trying to say. I study his body language. I am there when he wakes, I am there when he sleeps. I take photographs without his permission. I am obsessed. I am a stalker.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:24:53 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ by Misty Noble-Hodge I was round. A not so compact little heartthrob was bundled in my abdomen and in my heart. Oh, I had a love affair with that little baby inside of me. I used to pull my maternity shirts tight against my tummy and watch him roll like the waves in the ocean. I had gone through this pregnancy quite alone and was just waiting for him to be born. To have someone to hold and love. I remember when the doctor told me he wanted to induce. It was a Friday. He said, "How does Monday sound?" Terror of the pain roared through my veins. Monday? That soon? Monday. I went in, late. My mother came with me. She had every intention of spending the night at home, but when they hooked me up to the monitors, I was having contractions. "Can you feel that?" the nurse asked. "Nope," I said with a grin. My mother spent the night on the tiny couch at the foot of my bed. Then came the torturous IV. They had a novice trying to find her way into my veins and I got stuck 11 times before someone who knew what they were doing came in and relieved us both of our suffering. They left for me to get some rest, but made me lay flat on my back under the mountain of baby. Rushing through my head were thoughts about how I wasn’t supposed to lay flat on my back, something about veins being compressed. But surely these labor and delivery nurses knew more than a 20-year-old kid. I wanted gloat when the nurses came in a little while later and told me to roll over because the baby was happier when I was on my left side. I knew that. When morning came, the first time I was checked I had already achieved 4 centimeters. "You can have an epidural now if you want," said the large black nurse. Already? I hadn't even felt any contractions yet. My father briefly stopped in before work while I was resting. They told him it would still be hours before I was 10 centimeters so he could go on to work, which was only 20 minutes away. We would call to keep him updated. Right as he left, the nurse came in to check me again. Lo and behold, 10 centimeters. My mother ran out of the room to call my father's office. He hadn't made it there yet. When he reached the door of the office, his assistant turned him right around. It was time. Flurry of activity. Scrubs. Shiny metal and white cloth. I pushed only twice and my quiet and soft spoke doctor said, "Good." Equal amounts of pride and shock rang through me; it was happening so fast. I heard suctioning. One more gentle push and he was out. I laughed. My first view was a little purple behind. My first question: "Does he have hair?" "Quite a bit of hair," said the nurse. My second question: "Does he have my ears?" My mother beams at me and simply says, "Yes." I am handed a swaddled little caterpillar, a cocooned bundle with long purple fingers and a tiny swollen face. He watches me with attentive eyes as I coo at him. He sucks his fingers and I remark about how we are both starving. I wish I had known to nurse him immediately. But I didn't. No one had told me. He had to wait until later in our room with two nurses trying to position him on my breast. Now I look at this striking child with the gangly legs and arms, who has lost two of the teeth I had watched sprout years ago. His dark brown hair, so like my mother's. Rich chocolate eyes. He is growing up so fast and in so many ways, I feel like I am missing it. He is so big now, but still so small. Six years is not too long to be on this planet. There are so many mornings to be woken and so many more breaths to take. Six years is only long enough to learn to tie one's shoes and write one's name, maybe. There are so many things waiting for him still. I hope he learns to stay young as long as possible. Even though to me, he will always be that little bundle, snuggled into me and making me a mother for the very first time.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:15:35 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ by Janine Dunlop I’m lying in a hospital passageway, wondering whether I’ll be able to love my baby. I am unspeakably nervous and it must be evident, because everyone who appears next to my bed tries to placate me. After what seems an eternity, I’m wheeled in by a jolly nurse who shouts that we should get this show on the road. The “show” is that I’m about to have a baby. Flash to a week previously. I’m sitting at work after twisting my ankle, waiting for the painless contractions that started soon after the fall to go away. When I mention this casually to a colleague, the news spreads like wildfire: Janine is in labour. I’m whisked away to the clinic by our health and safety officer. I comply because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but secretly I’m thinking that this is a waste of my doctor’s time. When I’m strapped to the monitor, it’s established that I’m in labour. I’m 33 weeks pregnant. A drip containing a drug that will stop the contractions is administered. I’m given an injection to mature the baby’s lungs and within an hour, I’m admitted and wheeled in to the antenatal ward, where pregnant women languish in beds all around me. Still in denial, I telephone my husband to ask him to arrange to fetch my car, as I’m planning on being home by the evening. I notice my roommate smiling. “No one leaves this ward,” she laughs. A few days later and she’s being proved right. Despite the drugs, I keep going into labour. I begin to realise that I’ll probably spend the rest of my pregnancy here. I spend a week railing against the unfairness of it all. I had planned to spend three weeks at home with my son, preparing him for the birth of his sibling. Instead, I wheel a drip in front of me every time I go to the bathroom and suffer the indignity of urine samples each morning and suppositories every four hours. Exactly a week after my fall I experience painful contractions late in the afternoon. I am told that the best thing to do is have an emergency caesarean section. I am aware that I have little choice in the matter. To refuse seems like selfishness on my part. When I tell my husband that we’re about to have a baby, he springs into action, arranging for our son to be looked after. I can think of nothing so practical. I feel afraid and out of my depth. I spend the three hours leading up to the event crying, worried that I’m not prepared, that the baby won’t survive and that I won’t be able to love him or her. Back in the operating theatre now, and there is activity all around me. The conversation among the staff is about how busy they were today and how keen they are to get home. It’s after 9pm and they are tired. I wonder briefly whether this means they will be less cautious with me. I clasp my husband’s hand and squeeze harder and harder as the epidural takes effect. The doctors start without telling me, but I am aware of an enormous force pushing and pulling on my belly. My fear is making me sweat. No dimmed lights and calm atmosphere this time around, the lights above me burn my eyes and I recall a line from my son’s storybook: “All the better to see you with.” My husband prays next to me and tells me how well I’m doing. A few minutes later, my baby is born and she is crying. Earlier, my doctor had blithely told me that the baby would be fine, although she would probably need assistance with breathing and feeding initially. I am appalled at his glibness – he is telling me she will need help to live. As the paediatrician looks her over and pronounces her ok, I weep with happiness. She weighs 2.1kg and seems older than her 34 weeks gestation. She astounds everyone the next day by being ready to come out of incubation and sucking vigorously on my breast. We emerge from the maternity ward one week later. I don’t look back as we make our way gingerly to the car park. I’m amazed now that I thought I couldn’t love her. She is my daughter and she’s perfect. A lifetime of love has begun.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:46:19 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ By Christopher "G" Garlington My daughter's friends were over the other day. My daughter's friends are all hyper intelligent and busy as hell just like my daughter but, unlike her, they all have hero quality dads who bend steel bars with their bare hands for a living and rescue babies from vats of molten lead and, most of all, go away during the day to return haggard and stoic and dead tired sometime after 5pm. I, on the other hand, wrestle laundry to the basement and immerse myself in the minutiae of dishwasher load planning and the use of "bluing" to make my whites whiter. I also make twisted knock knock jokes(1) and have a tendency to sing where I ought to mumble and I have, somehow, become their hero. I didn't mean to and I say somehow but I'm being unnecessarily (and uncharacteristically) modest--I know exactly how I became their hero: I told them I chart my daughter's . . . um . . . I keep a record of, uh . . . I mark the calendar for. . . I'm steadfastly abreast of her [punctuation]. This is not the lowest depth my steady emasculation, by the way, that's surely sitting through a stuttering presentation of a Hugh Grant movie so insipidly British even Hugh Grant was rolling his eyes IN THE MOVIE HE WAS STARRING IN. It was a chick flick so flicking chicked I think I grew breasts while I was watching. But, such is marriage. I made my attorney sit through Spawn once so I owe her forever. It is, however, a most unmasculine thing to do, to chart the, er, [grammatical manifestation] of your little princess. In fact, if you are a man, just Stumble elsewhere. I'm embarrassed, ok. Chicks keep reading—I might need your advice. It all started because my Attorney is pretty much too frikkin busy to pay attention to her own [red swarm]. One day she was working hard, staying up late after a 14 hour day deciphering antennae displacement graphs or something equally insanely technical. She was sleep deprived and focused with such unwavering intensity that she actually burned a hole through a deposition with her very eyes. She said "God I feel like crap. I feel bloated and woggly and irritable and—" "You're getting your [red tide]" "I just had my [monsoon wedding]!" "Yeah, 27 days ago." She'd been working so hard she'd actually lost her sense of time. I think if she didn't have a calendar on her blackberry, she wouldn't know what day it was. So her [mighty mighty bosstone] snuck up on her and smacked her across the head. I felt sorry for my little legal Lolita and decided to add her [insane in the membrane] to my automatic calendar and I've been charting ever since. To the minute. Well, being that busy, she never really explained to the teen that this is a regular occurrence, that it can be expected, that JEANS DAY on the calendar is not referring too a dress code. So, in for a dollar if you're in for a dime. The next time my daughter screamed "PAD!" from the bathroom, I tossed a couple in (like grenades) and put her on my calendar too. So there she is, hanging with her friends—ok. Hanging is way too energetic to describe what they do. The flop. They flop over the chair. They flop down in front of the TV. The flop down the steps and flop into the car and flop out. They're virtually boneless. So they were all draped across the furniture expending less energy than most dead field mice when I casually mentioned to Rah that I'd stocked the bathroom with [ammunition] and she might want to remember that since she was due for her [orc horde]. Her friends howled with approval and the Polish one screamed out YOU ARE MY HERO! So there you go. My ability to suppress my natural male tendency to fish and work on trucks in favor of ticking off the days until the women in my life are assaulted by their respective [mammy tsunamis] has elevated me to the level of hero. I can see myself now, standing tall, cast in bronze, a metallic cape forever blown behind me in chunky statuesque bravery, my brow pointed ever eastward, my countenance ever grim, ever focused — a fistful of tampons at my side.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:38:39 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ by Bitsy Parker As a little girl I never played with dolls nor dreamed about being a mother. Perhaps my distance from these maternal feelings made the birth of my first child the most shocking and outrageous experience of my life. My husband and I married when I was 30 and he 36. He brought with him to the marriage two daughters from a previous marriage. We were content with two children and didn’t plan on having more, but we decided that if I did become pregnant, then we would be happy. When I did become pregnant (after about 10 seconds), I thought that my husband would be the main caregiver for the new baby. He was a father. He knew how to handle children. I was a selfish, only child and a busy career girl with no previous baby experience. In my mind, having a baby was like a company buying a subsidiary – in this situation, the baby wasn’t under my direct division, but I would provide necessary support as needed. Go team, go – let’s acquire a baby! Realistically, I knew that the baby would require my attention, but I viewed the forthcoming baby like I would view a charity asking to host an event at my house – I knew there would be work to be done – plant some flowers, wallpaper the bathroom, buy fresh flowers, and I would probably have to leave work early, but ultimately, the charity staff would handle the details like nametags and follow-up letters. I would birth the baby, buy the clothes and order the diaper service, but my husband would do the heavy lifting like teaching the baby to walk and helping with any emotional needs, if there were any. What a shock it was when my daughter, who over-stayed her nine months in my womb by two weeks, was finally knifed out of my gut. After the nineteen hours of wrestling an uncomfortable knot from my uterus, the doctors, nurses and family left my hospital room. It was twilight, and I was staring at the wall in the darkening room wondering what had happened to me. The nurse plunged into the room dragging a streak of fluorescent light with her. She dropped a baby on my lap and left the agitated infant screaming in my arms. The door slowly closed and the harsh light faded – in the dim light I went to work on the little ball of flesh. Instinctively, I undressed the baby and freed her from the hospital clothes that were unnaturally clinging to her body. I, too, took off my mistake of clothing. Skin to skin, I pressed the little baby to my chest and she stopped crying. The power of knowing how to care for this new life was equivalent to the caveman starting the first fire. The “rightness” of this action had enough energy to engulf the hospital in flames. From that moment I knew that my husband was not sitting first chair on this project – I was lead counsel on this case.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:28:59 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ by itchingtowrite We tested positive with the in-home test done over the weekend and since my doctor was busy getting her daughter married to the Srilankankan cricketer Muralidharan, we waited till Good Friday to see her. We decided not to break the news to the family until the doctor gave a clear go ahead. And after the confirmation, we decided to celebrate with a “whirlwind” romantic getaway to the beach retreat Pondicherry where we had first met! While we were quite wary of the test as I was not experiencing any tell-tale signs of pregnancy like giddiness/ nausea like the actresses in Hindi movies do, yet after one week of hugging the news of “baby” happening to ourselves, we were sitting at the doctor’s room with the officially confirmed medical test. She asked me to get a scan done just to ensure everything was alright as I was already on the 6th week. As we were waiting for our turn, I frivolously mentioned that it would be great to have twins. It would be lovely to watch them grow together, having someone to bond with instantly. As parents of twins, we would be unique in the family too! I went in for the scan after drinking loads of water. The doctor was taking his own sweet time, asking me plenty of questions, taking down notes diligently. In turn I also started asking him whether everything was fine. Annoyingly he did not want to answer. Another doctor came by and started looking at the screen. He just muttered “twins??” I thought I heard something that sounded like twins and on cue started troubling the doctor with questions- what happened, what is it, is everything ok? After a long time the doctor turned the screen towards me and said –it’s twins. I could see two distinct dots on the computer screen reflecting the image of the womb. They called the proud father-to-be to show him the goods. As I saw him coming I made a ‘V’ sign indicating 2, wanting to be the first one to break the delightful news – I doubt it whether he understood as he had a very goofy smile on his face as the doctor started giving him the good news. My husband’s feeling is beautifully summed up by him – “Never in my school exams I scored more than what I estimated. After seeing the scan results, I felt I was getting a better score than I had anticipated!” My doctor said probably her good luck had rubbed off on mine, as she was also a mother of twins! I had planned not to tell my colleagues about the pregnancy during the initial days, for obvious reasons- the superstition that one must not disclose the news of a pregnancy until the crucial three months are over. But as they say one should never plan too much- the Doctor advised me to be on bed rest for 6 weeks to tide over the high risk twin gestation. So I had to break the news to one and all at my workplace. And thereafter “baby” became “babies” in our conversation. And the much anticipated Pondicherry trip went out of the window. My CEO commented- how could you blend two different fragrances in the same vessel! I work in the fragrance industry and a fragrance is a blend of chemicals mixed together in a large container.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:14:42 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ by Scott Dunlop I am being stalked. Since May 2006 I have been looking over my shoulder. I have felt like a mild celebrity. I don’t get blinded by camera flashes outside the supermarket, or enter into impromptu car chases, no, my stalker is far more subtle than that. I wake up in the morning, and he is there. I bathe, he is there. I get dressed, and I feel his eyes watching me. With every cupboard I open, and every switch I touch, his large saucer eyes trace my every move. He doesn’t speak very much, but he does communicate. What he says to me frightens me. He whispers constantly. You are my hero. I want to be you. I want to do everything you do, and touch everything you touch. I want to wear your shoes, eat your food and test the elasticity of your skin… Which would be very creepy if he was a stranger, but this tiny follower of mine, this little disciple is my son. His gaze is unnerving, his ability to absorb all of my attention is alarming. He is not content with being a bit part in my life-movie, no, he has taken over. He wants to direct, he wants to write, he wants full creative license. He wants to have his name above mine on the billboard, and he refuses to share the credits with anyone else. The stalker wants to be the star. Which isn’t the same as marriage. With marriage, you go from being completely independent, to selectively co-dependent. It’s easy to compromise a little bit for someone you love. You can be married and still retain a great portion of who you are. Not so with babies. With babies you are utterly subsumed by their dependence on you as a caregiver. You can’t fob them off with telling them that you would rather go out and watch a movie than change their diaper, or feed them a bottle. Not unless you want the Authorities to pay you a visit… You can’t just give them a tiny portion of you to clutch, like a sweat-stained handkerchief; they need to have complete access to you all the time. On-stage, off-stage and in the dressing room. Now that I think about it, I have been replaced. I was one the star of my show. I was one the one choosing to eat what I wanted, and where I wanted it. I was a free agent. All my royalties went to me. Suddenly, I find my contract altered. I have been down-sized. The baby is in charge. He commands all the attention when we head out to the shops. He is the one high-fiving strangers and pretending to laugh at their weak jokes. I just traipse after him with his bag, the one stuffed with his snacks and clothes, in case he should get peckish, or need a sudden change. I wipe his bottom, for goodness sake. Everywhere he goes, I go. Every time he opens his mouth, I check to see what he is trying to say. I study his body language. I am there when he wakes, I am there when he sleeps. I take photographs without his permission. I am obsessed. I am a stalker.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com A Writing Contest for all You Clever Girls and Boys! Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:05:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/#comments Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:59:34 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ by Janine Salas-Mason It’s usually late evening when I can actually turn on my computer. It’s part of a ritual that initiates my nightly turndown service. Checking that doors are locked, all children are bed and hubby is either sleeping or has the remote in hand and that bag of Oreos and milk he asked me for. Only then, I get to turn on my computer and indulge in my secret pleasure, my writing. Through my writing, I affirm my purpose to myself every day. I am a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend and even if only acknowledged by me, … a writer. We all know that to a mother, your children are your babies no matter how old they get. Meghan, my oldest baby is 12 years old and my first shot at parenthood. I didn’t know it then but she would be my longest labor and the first of five children. Meghan is a pure joy and a preteen, which leaves me as much in awe as it does confusion. Meghan does not know just how special she is to me. She is my first baby. Four years after having Meghan we had Elias, my little brown bear. Yes, I affectionately call him that. And six months after that, I was pregnant with Madison,… the last baby, or so I thought. Elias and Madison are six months apart, it’s almost like having twins. Elias loves his baby sister and Madison, she can’t get enough of Elias. They are inseparable and I ‘m very lucky for that. So I have a great husband, three beautiful children, my own home etc, what more could I want right? Well, my husband, who was adopted at 6 months of age, has discovered his desire to know his own birth family. Amongst the other hats I wear, I now become a private detective find his entire birth family. My husband decides that he would like to give back to society that which was given to him decides we should adopt. Now, I think most of us at one point or another say to ourselves, “if I ever hit the lotto, I would adopt some children etc.” Well, in my family this became a reality. No we didn’t hit lotto, but we did adopt a child. And so Josef, at 2 years old, became part of our family. Josef, is a special needs child. The agency thought he was mute. He wasn’t. He was suffering neglect and had decided he was not ready to speak yet. Josef will always be my special baby. Not because of his special needs, just because he is especially loved. He took my motherly love to a new level, to a place aside of myself …outside of my skin and into my heart. A week into Josef’s arrival I got a life changing phone call. It was the adoption agency explaining that Josef now had a baby brother and they would like to place the 3-month-old baby with us to keep the siblings together. The agency worker said she knew it was a tall order but wanted to “plant the seed” and see if there was any chance of us taking in Josef’s baby brother. Planting a seed was an understatement! I was torn to pieces. I knew it was probably a long shot, but I longed for the baby already and I brought the situation up to my husband. My husband took the weekend to think about it and when he was ready he started by saying, “I think sometimes, our hearts are bigger than our pockets.” My heart sunk, but then he said, “ I have just met my siblings now at 33 years old. I wish I had memories of childhood years with them…” And so it was, that a week after meeting my 2 year old son Josef, I met Ryan, …and baby made five. Ryan had pneumonia when he was placed with us and I spent the next week living in the hospital. I learned to juggle the needs of my new babies and the babies I already had. I learned children could adapt, that they are as giving as we teach them to be. I learned a lot. I learned all this while trying to still meet the needs of my husband, who could prove to be the biggest baby of all at times. (God Bless his soul, a term I use instead of cursing, sometimes!) I learned of my husbands’ affair, and I learned it wasn’t the end of the world even though it felt like it. (That’s a whole other story!) So, at the end of the day, after the homework is done, uniforms are washed, and I have finished giving 10 speeches as to why..why and why,… my evening ritual begins. After turning my husband on and my children off. I am thankful, thankful for my 5 beautiful babies. The ones I gave birth to and the ones God has entrusted to me through adoption. Thankful that it does not make a difference to me which babies I have birthed and which ones I haven’t. Thankful, that I can write and plant a seed.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:06:06 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ by Daniel D'Andrea They were singing and dancing with a contagious bliss, enough to make me giggle along. A simple Christmas carol, in June mind you, was all it took to invoke this fit of joy for the children. They truly were a family; they loved each other more than I could ever hope. I proudly watched, as their mother played and sang along, as careless and joyful as the children. An ear to ear smile took over my face, but I couldn’t hold back the tear from seeping into my mouth. The salty taste did not faze me; nothing could at this point. As I peered in through the window, I felt as though I belonged in that circle, singing and playing along. I don’t know what stopped me, probably the restraining order or deadbolts, but otherwise I was completely free. Nobody will ever know how much I care for those children. Sure, I had odd ways of showing it, and the courts disagreed with my methods, but love is love. After getting fired for drinking at work, I entered a deep depression which forced me into more drinking. I loved the kids at work as much as I loved my own, and teaching was my only passion. Now I lost those kids, my own kids, my wife, my life, everything, all because I like to be wasted to teach elementary math, my other passion. So sue me! Well, not again, please. A tear from the other eye streamed down the other side of my face, this taste seemed to faze me a bit more than the first. After they all began to drift off, I hurried back home to be with my new family. In a fit of defiance, I said out loud to myself, “I don’t need them anymore.” I kicked everything within leg’s distance on my trip home, saying this exact sentence repeatedly. I didn’t cheer up until I arrived back at my own house. Pumpkin was the first to greet me, with a bright smile that lit up the entire room. Well, it did once I lit the candle inside of her. After pumpkin gave me light, I could see old denim jacket wrapped around a book bag and couch cushion greeting me with equal delight. We all gathered on the couch and openly discussed our day. We were giggling and laughing with each other, curled up on the couch with the fireplace cracking. We decided to put in a movie, The Never-ending Story, and watched it together to close out the night. As pumpkin face and denim lay fast asleep, I covered them up and headed upstairs with couch cushion. We enjoyed our moment alone together by making quiet love, the only way we knew how since bringing the children into our lives. After couch cushion fell asleep, I went back the old house and peered in through the window, seeing the children sleep comfortably on their mothers lap, smiling, without a care in the world. They wouldn’t be smiling so calmly if they knew what went down in that lap to conceive them. I sat there behind the bushes, sleeping with them, until it was time to head to work. Everyone at the school always asked to see pictures of my kids. I brought them to a Christmas party and the teachers fell in love with them. They really were a pleasant group of children. But now I have new kids, and I dread the uncomfortable conversation of why they look so different or what happened to your other kids. I didn’t want them to think I ditched my old family for this new and improved version. It was doubly embarrassing to have this conversation while now holding a mop and bucket of puke-filled water. The next day I awoke and didn’t reach for the snooze button or a drink, I just woke up and sprung out of bed. It was Father’s day, and I knew the family was up to something. Much to my surprise, I arrived downstairs to a lovely breakfast already prepared. More surprisingly, next to it was my first wife and kids, “Happy Father’s Day!” I couldn’t believe my eyes, they had looked past the drinking and the fighting and the weeks at a time away and the defecating on the living room carpet, and came to celebrate with me. Both families, both lives, together, I was absolutely elated. I was a father again. I decided to make a drink to celebrate.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:24:01 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ By Sharon Lee Fernberg When our first child was due to be born, my husband and I were required to attend parenting classes at the local hospital. “There will be a trickle when your water breaks,” the nurse informed the parents-to-be. However, after a perfect ten-month pregnancy, my water broke at 5:30 a.m. At 11:00 a.m. while at my obstetrician’s office, the water still gushed from my body as though something inside me kept flushing an inner toilet. Towels and maxi pads could not prevent what occurred inside of me. At 1:00 p.m. my obstetrician ordered an x-ray. A nurse pushed me to radiology in a wheelchair that held a small bowl under the seat. I felt embarrassed that it overflowed but considering I couldn’t even see my feet at the time, I smiled apologetically. Fourteen hours later, my son Jeffrey entered this world, weighing in at 9lbs.2oz. and 21” long. I spent two weeks in the hospital. He flattened my bladder, I was told. Eighteen months later, after being two weeks earlier than the actual due date or two weeks past the due date of my second child, my son Patrick howled his way into our lives, weighing in at eight pounds and 20” long. This time when my water broke, the nurse was correct. I felt only a trickle. We went home three days later. Years later, the pregnancy lasted longer than a year. It began with a meeting on adoption. My husband and I endured sixty page home studies, writing individual accounts on each of our siblings, our parents, our children, and having meetings in our house with the caseworkers from the local agency that handled the adoption proceedings. We took pictures of each room of the house, pictures of the boys and of each other, and provided photos of the cat. We had to be fingerprinted by the FBI in Buffalo, New York. As weeks and then months passed by, we continued to wait patiently and anxiously. We had no choice. It wasn't our decision to make when our daughter would be delivered. Nevertheless, a television meteorologist prepared us. A blizzard was due to arrive in Western New York the end of February. We couldn’t take a chance that her plane would arrive from Korea and we wouldn't be there. My husband informed our caseworker that we were going to go to New Jersey and spend a few days with my sister and her family – just in case. Three days later the call came from New York. The plane would touch down at JFK around 6:00 p.m. that night. It was Leap Year Day. We were only one hour from the airport but we had to meet the adoption agency greeter early to sign papers. The wind hissed that day. A cold chill lingered. In my arms, I held a white and yellow shell stitch afghan I had crocheted for my daughter. Jeff held tightly to the diaper bag. Patrick hugged the pink snowsuit. My husband waited nervously with the camera in his hands. At 6:21 p.m. the plane touched down. Within minutes, a greeter said, “Sung Sin HWANG.” He handed me our 6-1/2 month old daughter. I whispered her new name, Lindsay Sung-Elizabeth. She didn’t cry although tears trickled down my cheeks. Her dark slanted eyes stared up into my face. I kissed her nose. Her small arms curled around my neck. Her shoulder-length silky black hair skimmed my cheek as she laid her head on my shoulder. So, this was our daughter. The boys’ sister. As we departed the airport a half hour later, I held Lindsay tightly, protecting her against the cold chill with the afghan now cloaking her small body. I don't know why but at that moment I thought of the times I had given birth to my sons, and I knew this would always be the day my daughter was delivered. I looked from Lindsay and glanced at my sons, their round faces beaming with excitement and joy. It was then I realized that the overwhelming love I felt in my heart was the same for all three of my children. I felt the tears trickle down my face.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:14:42 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ by Scott Dunlop I am being stalked. Since May 2006 I have been looking over my shoulder. I have felt like a mild celebrity. I don’t get blinded by camera flashes outside the supermarket, or enter into impromptu car chases, no, my stalker is far more subtle than that. I wake up in the morning, and he is there. I bathe, he is there. I get dressed, and I feel his eyes watching me. With every cupboard I open, and every switch I touch, his large saucer eyes trace my every move. He doesn’t speak very much, but he does communicate. What he says to me frightens me. He whispers constantly. You are my hero. I want to be you. I want to do everything you do, and touch everything you touch. I want to wear your shoes, eat your food and test the elasticity of your skin… Which would be very creepy if he was a stranger, but this tiny follower of mine, this little disciple is my son. His gaze is unnerving, his ability to absorb all of my attention is alarming. He is not content with being a bit part in my life-movie, no, he has taken over. He wants to direct, he wants to write, he wants full creative license. He wants to have his name above mine on the billboard, and he refuses to share the credits with anyone else. The stalker wants to be the star. Which isn’t the same as marriage. With marriage, you go from being completely independent, to selectively co-dependent. It’s easy to compromise a little bit for someone you love. You can be married and still retain a great portion of who you are. Not so with babies. With babies you are utterly subsumed by their dependence on you as a caregiver. You can’t fob them off with telling them that you would rather go out and watch a movie than change their diaper, or feed them a bottle. Not unless you want the Authorities to pay you a visit… You can’t just give them a tiny portion of you to clutch, like a sweat-stained handkerchief; they need to have complete access to you all the time. On-stage, off-stage and in the dressing room. Now that I think about it, I have been replaced. I was one the star of my show. I was one the one choosing to eat what I wanted, and where I wanted it. I was a free agent. All my royalties went to me. Suddenly, I find my contract altered. I have been down-sized. The baby is in charge. He commands all the attention when we head out to the shops. He is the one high-fiving strangers and pretending to laugh at their weak jokes. I just traipse after him with his bag, the one stuffed with his snacks and clothes, in case he should get peckish, or need a sudden change. I wipe his bottom, for goodness sake. Everywhere he goes, I go. Every time he opens his mouth, I check to see what he is trying to say. I study his body language. I am there when he wakes, I am there when he sleeps. I take photographs without his permission. I am obsessed. I am a stalker.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:24:53 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ by Misty Noble-Hodge I was round. A not so compact little heartthrob was bundled in my abdomen and in my heart. Oh, I had a love affair with that little baby inside of me. I used to pull my maternity shirts tight against my tummy and watch him roll like the waves in the ocean. I had gone through this pregnancy quite alone and was just waiting for him to be born. To have someone to hold and love. I remember when the doctor told me he wanted to induce. It was a Friday. He said, "How does Monday sound?" Terror of the pain roared through my veins. Monday? That soon? Monday. I went in, late. My mother came with me. She had every intention of spending the night at home, but when they hooked me up to the monitors, I was having contractions. "Can you feel that?" the nurse asked. "Nope," I said with a grin. My mother spent the night on the tiny couch at the foot of my bed. Then came the torturous IV. They had a novice trying to find her way into my veins and I got stuck 11 times before someone who knew what they were doing came in and relieved us both of our suffering. They left for me to get some rest, but made me lay flat on my back under the mountain of baby. Rushing through my head were thoughts about how I wasn’t supposed to lay flat on my back, something about veins being compressed. But surely these labor and delivery nurses knew more than a 20-year-old kid. I wanted gloat when the nurses came in a little while later and told me to roll over because the baby was happier when I was on my left side. I knew that. When morning came, the first time I was checked I had already achieved 4 centimeters. "You can have an epidural now if you want," said the large black nurse. Already? I hadn't even felt any contractions yet. My father briefly stopped in before work while I was resting. They told him it would still be hours before I was 10 centimeters so he could go on to work, which was only 20 minutes away. We would call to keep him updated. Right as he left, the nurse came in to check me again. Lo and behold, 10 centimeters. My mother ran out of the room to call my father's office. He hadn't made it there yet. When he reached the door of the office, his assistant turned him right around. It was time. Flurry of activity. Scrubs. Shiny metal and white cloth. I pushed only twice and my quiet and soft spoke doctor said, "Good." Equal amounts of pride and shock rang through me; it was happening so fast. I heard suctioning. One more gentle push and he was out. I laughed. My first view was a little purple behind. My first question: "Does he have hair?" "Quite a bit of hair," said the nurse. My second question: "Does he have my ears?" My mother beams at me and simply says, "Yes." I am handed a swaddled little caterpillar, a cocooned bundle with long purple fingers and a tiny swollen face. He watches me with attentive eyes as I coo at him. He sucks his fingers and I remark about how we are both starving. I wish I had known to nurse him immediately. But I didn't. No one had told me. He had to wait until later in our room with two nurses trying to position him on my breast. Now I look at this striking child with the gangly legs and arms, who has lost two of the teeth I had watched sprout years ago. His dark brown hair, so like my mother's. Rich chocolate eyes. He is growing up so fast and in so many ways, I feel like I am missing it. He is so big now, but still so small. Six years is not too long to be on this planet. There are so many mornings to be woken and so many more breaths to take. Six years is only long enough to learn to tie one's shoes and write one's name, maybe. There are so many things waiting for him still. I hope he learns to stay young as long as possible. Even though to me, he will always be that little bundle, snuggled into me and making me a mother for the very first time.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:15:35 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ by Janine Dunlop I’m lying in a hospital passageway, wondering whether I’ll be able to love my baby. I am unspeakably nervous and it must be evident, because everyone who appears next to my bed tries to placate me. After what seems an eternity, I’m wheeled in by a jolly nurse who shouts that we should get this show on the road. The “show” is that I’m about to have a baby. Flash to a week previously. I’m sitting at work after twisting my ankle, waiting for the painless contractions that started soon after the fall to go away. When I mention this casually to a colleague, the news spreads like wildfire: Janine is in labour. I’m whisked away to the clinic by our health and safety officer. I comply because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but secretly I’m thinking that this is a waste of my doctor’s time. When I’m strapped to the monitor, it’s established that I’m in labour. I’m 33 weeks pregnant. A drip containing a drug that will stop the contractions is administered. I’m given an injection to mature the baby’s lungs and within an hour, I’m admitted and wheeled in to the antenatal ward, where pregnant women languish in beds all around me. Still in denial, I telephone my husband to ask him to arrange to fetch my car, as I’m planning on being home by the evening. I notice my roommate smiling. “No one leaves this ward,” she laughs. A few days later and she’s being proved right. Despite the drugs, I keep going into labour. I begin to realise that I’ll probably spend the rest of my pregnancy here. I spend a week railing against the unfairness of it all. I had planned to spend three weeks at home with my son, preparing him for the birth of his sibling. Instead, I wheel a drip in front of me every time I go to the bathroom and suffer the indignity of urine samples each morning and suppositories every four hours. Exactly a week after my fall I experience painful contractions late in the afternoon. I am told that the best thing to do is have an emergency caesarean section. I am aware that I have little choice in the matter. To refuse seems like selfishness on my part. When I tell my husband that we’re about to have a baby, he springs into action, arranging for our son to be looked after. I can think of nothing so practical. I feel afraid and out of my depth. I spend the three hours leading up to the event crying, worried that I’m not prepared, that the baby won’t survive and that I won’t be able to love him or her. Back in the operating theatre now, and there is activity all around me. The conversation among the staff is about how busy they were today and how keen they are to get home. It’s after 9pm and they are tired. I wonder briefly whether this means they will be less cautious with me. I clasp my husband’s hand and squeeze harder and harder as the epidural takes effect. The doctors start without telling me, but I am aware of an enormous force pushing and pulling on my belly. My fear is making me sweat. No dimmed lights and calm atmosphere this time around, the lights above me burn my eyes and I recall a line from my son’s storybook: “All the better to see you with.” My husband prays next to me and tells me how well I’m doing. A few minutes later, my baby is born and she is crying. Earlier, my doctor had blithely told me that the baby would be fine, although she would probably need assistance with breathing and feeding initially. I am appalled at his glibness – he is telling me she will need help to live. As the paediatrician looks her over and pronounces her ok, I weep with happiness. She weighs 2.1kg and seems older than her 34 weeks gestation. She astounds everyone the next day by being ready to come out of incubation and sucking vigorously on my breast. We emerge from the maternity ward one week later. I don’t look back as we make our way gingerly to the car park. I’m amazed now that I thought I couldn’t love her. She is my daughter and she’s perfect. A lifetime of love has begun.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:46:19 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ By Christopher "G" Garlington My daughter's friends were over the other day. My daughter's friends are all hyper intelligent and busy as hell just like my daughter but, unlike her, they all have hero quality dads who bend steel bars with their bare hands for a living and rescue babies from vats of molten lead and, most of all, go away during the day to return haggard and stoic and dead tired sometime after 5pm. I, on the other hand, wrestle laundry to the basement and immerse myself in the minutiae of dishwasher load planning and the use of "bluing" to make my whites whiter. I also make twisted knock knock jokes(1) and have a tendency to sing where I ought to mumble and I have, somehow, become their hero. I didn't mean to and I say somehow but I'm being unnecessarily (and uncharacteristically) modest--I know exactly how I became their hero: I told them I chart my daughter's . . . um . . . I keep a record of, uh . . . I mark the calendar for. . . I'm steadfastly abreast of her [punctuation]. This is not the lowest depth my steady emasculation, by the way, that's surely sitting through a stuttering presentation of a Hugh Grant movie so insipidly British even Hugh Grant was rolling his eyes IN THE MOVIE HE WAS STARRING IN. It was a chick flick so flicking chicked I think I grew breasts while I was watching. But, such is marriage. I made my attorney sit through Spawn once so I owe her forever. It is, however, a most unmasculine thing to do, to chart the, er, [grammatical manifestation] of your little princess. In fact, if you are a man, just Stumble elsewhere. I'm embarrassed, ok. Chicks keep reading—I might need your advice. It all started because my Attorney is pretty much too frikkin busy to pay attention to her own [red swarm]. One day she was working hard, staying up late after a 14 hour day deciphering antennae displacement graphs or something equally insanely technical. She was sleep deprived and focused with such unwavering intensity that she actually burned a hole through a deposition with her very eyes. She said "God I feel like crap. I feel bloated and woggly and irritable and—" "You're getting your [red tide]" "I just had my [monsoon wedding]!" "Yeah, 27 days ago." She'd been working so hard she'd actually lost her sense of time. I think if she didn't have a calendar on her blackberry, she wouldn't know what day it was. So her [mighty mighty bosstone] snuck up on her and smacked her across the head. I felt sorry for my little legal Lolita and decided to add her [insane in the membrane] to my automatic calendar and I've been charting ever since. To the minute. Well, being that busy, she never really explained to the teen that this is a regular occurrence, that it can be expected, that JEANS DAY on the calendar is not referring too a dress code. So, in for a dollar if you're in for a dime. The next time my daughter screamed "PAD!" from the bathroom, I tossed a couple in (like grenades) and put her on my calendar too. So there she is, hanging with her friends—ok. Hanging is way too energetic to describe what they do. The flop. They flop over the chair. They flop down in front of the TV. The flop down the steps and flop into the car and flop out. They're virtually boneless. So they were all draped across the furniture expending less energy than most dead field mice when I casually mentioned to Rah that I'd stocked the bathroom with [ammunition] and she might want to remember that since she was due for her [orc horde]. Her friends howled with approval and the Polish one screamed out YOU ARE MY HERO! So there you go. My ability to suppress my natural male tendency to fish and work on trucks in favor of ticking off the days until the women in my life are assaulted by their respective [mammy tsunamis] has elevated me to the level of hero. I can see myself now, standing tall, cast in bronze, a metallic cape forever blown behind me in chunky statuesque bravery, my brow pointed ever eastward, my countenance ever grim, ever focused — a fistful of tampons at my side.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:38:39 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ by Bitsy Parker As a little girl I never played with dolls nor dreamed about being a mother. Perhaps my distance from these maternal feelings made the birth of my first child the most shocking and outrageous experience of my life. My husband and I married when I was 30 and he 36. He brought with him to the marriage two daughters from a previous marriage. We were content with two children and didn’t plan on having more, but we decided that if I did become pregnant, then we would be happy. When I did become pregnant (after about 10 seconds), I thought that my husband would be the main caregiver for the new baby. He was a father. He knew how to handle children. I was a selfish, only child and a busy career girl with no previous baby experience. In my mind, having a baby was like a company buying a subsidiary – in this situation, the baby wasn’t under my direct division, but I would provide necessary support as needed. Go team, go – let’s acquire a baby! Realistically, I knew that the baby would require my attention, but I viewed the forthcoming baby like I would view a charity asking to host an event at my house – I knew there would be work to be done – plant some flowers, wallpaper the bathroom, buy fresh flowers, and I would probably have to leave work early, but ultimately, the charity staff would handle the details like nametags and follow-up letters. I would birth the baby, buy the clothes and order the diaper service, but my husband would do the heavy lifting like teaching the baby to walk and helping with any emotional needs, if there were any. What a shock it was when my daughter, who over-stayed her nine months in my womb by two weeks, was finally knifed out of my gut. After the nineteen hours of wrestling an uncomfortable knot from my uterus, the doctors, nurses and family left my hospital room. It was twilight, and I was staring at the wall in the darkening room wondering what had happened to me. The nurse plunged into the room dragging a streak of fluorescent light with her. She dropped a baby on my lap and left the agitated infant screaming in my arms. The door slowly closed and the harsh light faded – in the dim light I went to work on the little ball of flesh. Instinctively, I undressed the baby and freed her from the hospital clothes that were unnaturally clinging to her body. I, too, took off my mistake of clothing. Skin to skin, I pressed the little baby to my chest and she stopped crying. The power of knowing how to care for this new life was equivalent to the caveman starting the first fire. The “rightness” of this action had enough energy to engulf the hospital in flames. From that moment I knew that my husband was not sitting first chair on this project – I was lead counsel on this case.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:28:59 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ by itchingtowrite We tested positive with the in-home test done over the weekend and since my doctor was busy getting her daughter married to the Srilankankan cricketer Muralidharan, we waited till Good Friday to see her. We decided not to break the news to the family until the doctor gave a clear go ahead. And after the confirmation, we decided to celebrate with a “whirlwind” romantic getaway to the beach retreat Pondicherry where we had first met! While we were quite wary of the test as I was not experiencing any tell-tale signs of pregnancy like giddiness/ nausea like the actresses in Hindi movies do, yet after one week of hugging the news of “baby” happening to ourselves, we were sitting at the doctor’s room with the officially confirmed medical test. She asked me to get a scan done just to ensure everything was alright as I was already on the 6th week. As we were waiting for our turn, I frivolously mentioned that it would be great to have twins. It would be lovely to watch them grow together, having someone to bond with instantly. As parents of twins, we would be unique in the family too! I went in for the scan after drinking loads of water. The doctor was taking his own sweet time, asking me plenty of questions, taking down notes diligently. In turn I also started asking him whether everything was fine. Annoyingly he did not want to answer. Another doctor came by and started looking at the screen. He just muttered “twins??” I thought I heard something that sounded like twins and on cue started troubling the doctor with questions- what happened, what is it, is everything ok? After a long time the doctor turned the screen towards me and said –it’s twins. I could see two distinct dots on the computer screen reflecting the image of the womb. They called the proud father-to-be to show him the goods. As I saw him coming I made a ‘V’ sign indicating 2, wanting to be the first one to break the delightful news – I doubt it whether he understood as he had a very goofy smile on his face as the doctor started giving him the good news. My husband’s feeling is beautifully summed up by him – “Never in my school exams I scored more than what I estimated. After seeing the scan results, I felt I was getting a better score than I had anticipated!” My doctor said probably her good luck had rubbed off on mine, as she was also a mother of twins! I had planned not to tell my colleagues about the pregnancy during the initial days, for obvious reasons- the superstition that one must not disclose the news of a pregnancy until the crucial three months are over. But as they say one should never plan too much- the Doctor advised me to be on bed rest for 6 weeks to tide over the high risk twin gestation. So I had to break the news to one and all at my workplace. And thereafter “baby” became “babies” in our conversation. And the much anticipated Pondicherry trip went out of the window. My CEO commented- how could you blend two different fragrances in the same vessel! I work in the fragrance industry and a fragrance is a blend of chemicals mixed together in a large container.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:24:53 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ by Misty Noble-Hodge I was round. A not so compact little heartthrob was bundled in my abdomen and in my heart. Oh, I had a love affair with that little baby inside of me. I used to pull my maternity shirts tight against my tummy and watch him roll like the waves in the ocean. I had gone through this pregnancy quite alone and was just waiting for him to be born. To have someone to hold and love. I remember when the doctor told me he wanted to induce. It was a Friday. He said, "How does Monday sound?" Terror of the pain roared through my veins. Monday? That soon? Monday. I went in, late. My mother came with me. She had every intention of spending the night at home, but when they hooked me up to the monitors, I was having contractions. "Can you feel that?" the nurse asked. "Nope," I said with a grin. My mother spent the night on the tiny couch at the foot of my bed. Then came the torturous IV. They had a novice trying to find her way into my veins and I got stuck 11 times before someone who knew what they were doing came in and relieved us both of our suffering. They left for me to get some rest, but made me lay flat on my back under the mountain of baby. Rushing through my head were thoughts about how I wasn’t supposed to lay flat on my back, something about veins being compressed. But surely these labor and delivery nurses knew more than a 20-year-old kid. I wanted gloat when the nurses came in a little while later and told me to roll over because the baby was happier when I was on my left side. I knew that. When morning came, the first time I was checked I had already achieved 4 centimeters. "You can have an epidural now if you want," said the large black nurse. Already? I hadn't even felt any contractions yet. My father briefly stopped in before work while I was resting. They told him it would still be hours before I was 10 centimeters so he could go on to work, which was only 20 minutes away. We would call to keep him updated. Right as he left, the nurse came in to check me again. Lo and behold, 10 centimeters. My mother ran out of the room to call my father's office. He hadn't made it there yet. When he reached the door of the office, his assistant turned him right around. It was time. Flurry of activity. Scrubs. Shiny metal and white cloth. I pushed only twice and my quiet and soft spoke doctor said, "Good." Equal amounts of pride and shock rang through me; it was happening so fast. I heard suctioning. One more gentle push and he was out. I laughed. My first view was a little purple behind. My first question: "Does he have hair?" "Quite a bit of hair," said the nurse. My second question: "Does he have my ears?" My mother beams at me and simply says, "Yes." I am handed a swaddled little caterpillar, a cocooned bundle with long purple fingers and a tiny swollen face. He watches me with attentive eyes as I coo at him. He sucks his fingers and I remark about how we are both starving. I wish I had known to nurse him immediately. But I didn't. No one had told me. He had to wait until later in our room with two nurses trying to position him on my breast. Now I look at this striking child with the gangly legs and arms, who has lost two of the teeth I had watched sprout years ago. His dark brown hair, so like my mother's. Rich chocolate eyes. He is growing up so fast and in so many ways, I feel like I am missing it. He is so big now, but still so small. Six years is not too long to be on this planet. There are so many mornings to be woken and so many more breaths to take. Six years is only long enough to learn to tie one's shoes and write one's name, maybe. There are so many things waiting for him still. I hope he learns to stay young as long as possible. Even though to me, he will always be that little bundle, snuggled into me and making me a mother for the very first time.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com A Writing Contest for all You Clever Girls and Boys! Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:05:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/#comments Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:59:34 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ by Janine Salas-Mason It’s usually late evening when I can actually turn on my computer. It’s part of a ritual that initiates my nightly turndown service. Checking that doors are locked, all children are bed and hubby is either sleeping or has the remote in hand and that bag of Oreos and milk he asked me for. Only then, I get to turn on my computer and indulge in my secret pleasure, my writing. Through my writing, I affirm my purpose to myself every day. I am a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend and even if only acknowledged by me, … a writer. We all know that to a mother, your children are your babies no matter how old they get. Meghan, my oldest baby is 12 years old and my first shot at parenthood. I didn’t know it then but she would be my longest labor and the first of five children. Meghan is a pure joy and a preteen, which leaves me as much in awe as it does confusion. Meghan does not know just how special she is to me. She is my first baby. Four years after having Meghan we had Elias, my little brown bear. Yes, I affectionately call him that. And six months after that, I was pregnant with Madison,… the last baby, or so I thought. Elias and Madison are six months apart, it’s almost like having twins. Elias loves his baby sister and Madison, she can’t get enough of Elias. They are inseparable and I ‘m very lucky for that. So I have a great husband, three beautiful children, my own home etc, what more could I want right? Well, my husband, who was adopted at 6 months of age, has discovered his desire to know his own birth family. Amongst the other hats I wear, I now become a private detective find his entire birth family. My husband decides that he would like to give back to society that which was given to him decides we should adopt. Now, I think most of us at one point or another say to ourselves, “if I ever hit the lotto, I would adopt some children etc.” Well, in my family this became a reality. No we didn’t hit lotto, but we did adopt a child. And so Josef, at 2 years old, became part of our family. Josef, is a special needs child. The agency thought he was mute. He wasn’t. He was suffering neglect and had decided he was not ready to speak yet. Josef will always be my special baby. Not because of his special needs, just because he is especially loved. He took my motherly love to a new level, to a place aside of myself …outside of my skin and into my heart. A week into Josef’s arrival I got a life changing phone call. It was the adoption agency explaining that Josef now had a baby brother and they would like to place the 3-month-old baby with us to keep the siblings together. The agency worker said she knew it was a tall order but wanted to “plant the seed” and see if there was any chance of us taking in Josef’s baby brother. Planting a seed was an understatement! I was torn to pieces. I knew it was probably a long shot, but I longed for the baby already and I brought the situation up to my husband. My husband took the weekend to think about it and when he was ready he started by saying, “I think sometimes, our hearts are bigger than our pockets.” My heart sunk, but then he said, “ I have just met my siblings now at 33 years old. I wish I had memories of childhood years with them…” And so it was, that a week after meeting my 2 year old son Josef, I met Ryan, …and baby made five. Ryan had pneumonia when he was placed with us and I spent the next week living in the hospital. I learned to juggle the needs of my new babies and the babies I already had. I learned children could adapt, that they are as giving as we teach them to be. I learned a lot. I learned all this while trying to still meet the needs of my husband, who could prove to be the biggest baby of all at times. (God Bless his soul, a term I use instead of cursing, sometimes!) I learned of my husbands’ affair, and I learned it wasn’t the end of the world even though it felt like it. (That’s a whole other story!) So, at the end of the day, after the homework is done, uniforms are washed, and I have finished giving 10 speeches as to why..why and why,… my evening ritual begins. After turning my husband on and my children off. I am thankful, thankful for my 5 beautiful babies. The ones I gave birth to and the ones God has entrusted to me through adoption. Thankful that it does not make a difference to me which babies I have birthed and which ones I haven’t. Thankful, that I can write and plant a seed.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:06:06 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ by Daniel D'Andrea They were singing and dancing with a contagious bliss, enough to make me giggle along. A simple Christmas carol, in June mind you, was all it took to invoke this fit of joy for the children. They truly were a family; they loved each other more than I could ever hope. I proudly watched, as their mother played and sang along, as careless and joyful as the children. An ear to ear smile took over my face, but I couldn’t hold back the tear from seeping into my mouth. The salty taste did not faze me; nothing could at this point. As I peered in through the window, I felt as though I belonged in that circle, singing and playing along. I don’t know what stopped me, probably the restraining order or deadbolts, but otherwise I was completely free. Nobody will ever know how much I care for those children. Sure, I had odd ways of showing it, and the courts disagreed with my methods, but love is love. After getting fired for drinking at work, I entered a deep depression which forced me into more drinking. I loved the kids at work as much as I loved my own, and teaching was my only passion. Now I lost those kids, my own kids, my wife, my life, everything, all because I like to be wasted to teach elementary math, my other passion. So sue me! Well, not again, please. A tear from the other eye streamed down the other side of my face, this taste seemed to faze me a bit more than the first. After they all began to drift off, I hurried back home to be with my new family. In a fit of defiance, I said out loud to myself, “I don’t need them anymore.” I kicked everything within leg’s distance on my trip home, saying this exact sentence repeatedly. I didn’t cheer up until I arrived back at my own house. Pumpkin was the first to greet me, with a bright smile that lit up the entire room. Well, it did once I lit the candle inside of her. After pumpkin gave me light, I could see old denim jacket wrapped around a book bag and couch cushion greeting me with equal delight. We all gathered on the couch and openly discussed our day. We were giggling and laughing with each other, curled up on the couch with the fireplace cracking. We decided to put in a movie, The Never-ending Story, and watched it together to close out the night. As pumpkin face and denim lay fast asleep, I covered them up and headed upstairs with couch cushion. We enjoyed our moment alone together by making quiet love, the only way we knew how since bringing the children into our lives. After couch cushion fell asleep, I went back the old house and peered in through the window, seeing the children sleep comfortably on their mothers lap, smiling, without a care in the world. They wouldn’t be smiling so calmly if they knew what went down in that lap to conceive them. I sat there behind the bushes, sleeping with them, until it was time to head to work. Everyone at the school always asked to see pictures of my kids. I brought them to a Christmas party and the teachers fell in love with them. They really were a pleasant group of children. But now I have new kids, and I dread the uncomfortable conversation of why they look so different or what happened to your other kids. I didn’t want them to think I ditched my old family for this new and improved version. It was doubly embarrassing to have this conversation while now holding a mop and bucket of puke-filled water. The next day I awoke and didn’t reach for the snooze button or a drink, I just woke up and sprung out of bed. It was Father’s day, and I knew the family was up to something. Much to my surprise, I arrived downstairs to a lovely breakfast already prepared. More surprisingly, next to it was my first wife and kids, “Happy Father’s Day!” I couldn’t believe my eyes, they had looked past the drinking and the fighting and the weeks at a time away and the defecating on the living room carpet, and came to celebrate with me. Both families, both lives, together, I was absolutely elated. I was a father again. I decided to make a drink to celebrate.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:24:01 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ By Sharon Lee Fernberg When our first child was due to be born, my husband and I were required to attend parenting classes at the local hospital. “There will be a trickle when your water breaks,” the nurse informed the parents-to-be. However, after a perfect ten-month pregnancy, my water broke at 5:30 a.m. At 11:00 a.m. while at my obstetrician’s office, the water still gushed from my body as though something inside me kept flushing an inner toilet. Towels and maxi pads could not prevent what occurred inside of me. At 1:00 p.m. my obstetrician ordered an x-ray. A nurse pushed me to radiology in a wheelchair that held a small bowl under the seat. I felt embarrassed that it overflowed but considering I couldn’t even see my feet at the time, I smiled apologetically. Fourteen hours later, my son Jeffrey entered this world, weighing in at 9lbs.2oz. and 21” long. I spent two weeks in the hospital. He flattened my bladder, I was told. Eighteen months later, after being two weeks earlier than the actual due date or two weeks past the due date of my second child, my son Patrick howled his way into our lives, weighing in at eight pounds and 20” long. This time when my water broke, the nurse was correct. I felt only a trickle. We went home three days later. Years later, the pregnancy lasted longer than a year. It began with a meeting on adoption. My husband and I endured sixty page home studies, writing individual accounts on each of our siblings, our parents, our children, and having meetings in our house with the caseworkers from the local agency that handled the adoption proceedings. We took pictures of each room of the house, pictures of the boys and of each other, and provided photos of the cat. We had to be fingerprinted by the FBI in Buffalo, New York. As weeks and then months passed by, we continued to wait patiently and anxiously. We had no choice. It wasn't our decision to make when our daughter would be delivered. Nevertheless, a television meteorologist prepared us. A blizzard was due to arrive in Western New York the end of February. We couldn’t take a chance that her plane would arrive from Korea and we wouldn't be there. My husband informed our caseworker that we were going to go to New Jersey and spend a few days with my sister and her family – just in case. Three days later the call came from New York. The plane would touch down at JFK around 6:00 p.m. that night. It was Leap Year Day. We were only one hour from the airport but we had to meet the adoption agency greeter early to sign papers. The wind hissed that day. A cold chill lingered. In my arms, I held a white and yellow shell stitch afghan I had crocheted for my daughter. Jeff held tightly to the diaper bag. Patrick hugged the pink snowsuit. My husband waited nervously with the camera in his hands. At 6:21 p.m. the plane touched down. Within minutes, a greeter said, “Sung Sin HWANG.” He handed me our 6-1/2 month old daughter. I whispered her new name, Lindsay Sung-Elizabeth. She didn’t cry although tears trickled down my cheeks. Her dark slanted eyes stared up into my face. I kissed her nose. Her small arms curled around my neck. Her shoulder-length silky black hair skimmed my cheek as she laid her head on my shoulder. So, this was our daughter. The boys’ sister. As we departed the airport a half hour later, I held Lindsay tightly, protecting her against the cold chill with the afghan now cloaking her small body. I don't know why but at that moment I thought of the times I had given birth to my sons, and I knew this would always be the day my daughter was delivered. I looked from Lindsay and glanced at my sons, their round faces beaming with excitement and joy. It was then I realized that the overwhelming love I felt in my heart was the same for all three of my children. I felt the tears trickle down my face.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:14:42 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ by Scott Dunlop I am being stalked. Since May 2006 I have been looking over my shoulder. I have felt like a mild celebrity. I don’t get blinded by camera flashes outside the supermarket, or enter into impromptu car chases, no, my stalker is far more subtle than that. I wake up in the morning, and he is there. I bathe, he is there. I get dressed, and I feel his eyes watching me. With every cupboard I open, and every switch I touch, his large saucer eyes trace my every move. He doesn’t speak very much, but he does communicate. What he says to me frightens me. He whispers constantly. You are my hero. I want to be you. I want to do everything you do, and touch everything you touch. I want to wear your shoes, eat your food and test the elasticity of your skin… Which would be very creepy if he was a stranger, but this tiny follower of mine, this little disciple is my son. His gaze is unnerving, his ability to absorb all of my attention is alarming. He is not content with being a bit part in my life-movie, no, he has taken over. He wants to direct, he wants to write, he wants full creative license. He wants to have his name above mine on the billboard, and he refuses to share the credits with anyone else. The stalker wants to be the star. Which isn’t the same as marriage. With marriage, you go from being completely independent, to selectively co-dependent. It’s easy to compromise a little bit for someone you love. You can be married and still retain a great portion of who you are. Not so with babies. With babies you are utterly subsumed by their dependence on you as a caregiver. You can’t fob them off with telling them that you would rather go out and watch a movie than change their diaper, or feed them a bottle. Not unless you want the Authorities to pay you a visit… You can’t just give them a tiny portion of you to clutch, like a sweat-stained handkerchief; they need to have complete access to you all the time. On-stage, off-stage and in the dressing room. Now that I think about it, I have been replaced. I was one the star of my show. I was one the one choosing to eat what I wanted, and where I wanted it. I was a free agent. All my royalties went to me. Suddenly, I find my contract altered. I have been down-sized. The baby is in charge. He commands all the attention when we head out to the shops. He is the one high-fiving strangers and pretending to laugh at their weak jokes. I just traipse after him with his bag, the one stuffed with his snacks and clothes, in case he should get peckish, or need a sudden change. I wipe his bottom, for goodness sake. Everywhere he goes, I go. Every time he opens his mouth, I check to see what he is trying to say. I study his body language. I am there when he wakes, I am there when he sleeps. I take photographs without his permission. I am obsessed. I am a stalker.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:24:53 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ by Misty Noble-Hodge I was round. A not so compact little heartthrob was bundled in my abdomen and in my heart. Oh, I had a love affair with that little baby inside of me. I used to pull my maternity shirts tight against my tummy and watch him roll like the waves in the ocean. I had gone through this pregnancy quite alone and was just waiting for him to be born. To have someone to hold and love. I remember when the doctor told me he wanted to induce. It was a Friday. He said, "How does Monday sound?" Terror of the pain roared through my veins. Monday? That soon? Monday. I went in, late. My mother came with me. She had every intention of spending the night at home, but when they hooked me up to the monitors, I was having contractions. "Can you feel that?" the nurse asked. "Nope," I said with a grin. My mother spent the night on the tiny couch at the foot of my bed. Then came the torturous IV. They had a novice trying to find her way into my veins and I got stuck 11 times before someone who knew what they were doing came in and relieved us both of our suffering. They left for me to get some rest, but made me lay flat on my back under the mountain of baby. Rushing through my head were thoughts about how I wasn’t supposed to lay flat on my back, something about veins being compressed. But surely these labor and delivery nurses knew more than a 20-year-old kid. I wanted gloat when the nurses came in a little while later and told me to roll over because the baby was happier when I was on my left side. I knew that. When morning came, the first time I was checked I had already achieved 4 centimeters. "You can have an epidural now if you want," said the large black nurse. Already? I hadn't even felt any contractions yet. My father briefly stopped in before work while I was resting. They told him it would still be hours before I was 10 centimeters so he could go on to work, which was only 20 minutes away. We would call to keep him updated. Right as he left, the nurse came in to check me again. Lo and behold, 10 centimeters. My mother ran out of the room to call my father's office. He hadn't made it there yet. When he reached the door of the office, his assistant turned him right around. It was time. Flurry of activity. Scrubs. Shiny metal and white cloth. I pushed only twice and my quiet and soft spoke doctor said, "Good." Equal amounts of pride and shock rang through me; it was happening so fast. I heard suctioning. One more gentle push and he was out. I laughed. My first view was a little purple behind. My first question: "Does he have hair?" "Quite a bit of hair," said the nurse. My second question: "Does he have my ears?" My mother beams at me and simply says, "Yes." I am handed a swaddled little caterpillar, a cocooned bundle with long purple fingers and a tiny swollen face. He watches me with attentive eyes as I coo at him. He sucks his fingers and I remark about how we are both starving. I wish I had known to nurse him immediately. But I didn't. No one had told me. He had to wait until later in our room with two nurses trying to position him on my breast. Now I look at this striking child with the gangly legs and arms, who has lost two of the teeth I had watched sprout years ago. His dark brown hair, so like my mother's. Rich chocolate eyes. He is growing up so fast and in so many ways, I feel like I am missing it. He is so big now, but still so small. Six years is not too long to be on this planet. There are so many mornings to be woken and so many more breaths to take. Six years is only long enough to learn to tie one's shoes and write one's name, maybe. There are so many things waiting for him still. I hope he learns to stay young as long as possible. Even though to me, he will always be that little bundle, snuggled into me and making me a mother for the very first time.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:15:35 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ by Janine Dunlop I’m lying in a hospital passageway, wondering whether I’ll be able to love my baby. I am unspeakably nervous and it must be evident, because everyone who appears next to my bed tries to placate me. After what seems an eternity, I’m wheeled in by a jolly nurse who shouts that we should get this show on the road. The “show” is that I’m about to have a baby. Flash to a week previously. I’m sitting at work after twisting my ankle, waiting for the painless contractions that started soon after the fall to go away. When I mention this casually to a colleague, the news spreads like wildfire: Janine is in labour. I’m whisked away to the clinic by our health and safety officer. I comply because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but secretly I’m thinking that this is a waste of my doctor’s time. When I’m strapped to the monitor, it’s established that I’m in labour. I’m 33 weeks pregnant. A drip containing a drug that will stop the contractions is administered. I’m given an injection to mature the baby’s lungs and within an hour, I’m admitted and wheeled in to the antenatal ward, where pregnant women languish in beds all around me. Still in denial, I telephone my husband to ask him to arrange to fetch my car, as I’m planning on being home by the evening. I notice my roommate smiling. “No one leaves this ward,” she laughs. A few days later and she’s being proved right. Despite the drugs, I keep going into labour. I begin to realise that I’ll probably spend the rest of my pregnancy here. I spend a week railing against the unfairness of it all. I had planned to spend three weeks at home with my son, preparing him for the birth of his sibling. Instead, I wheel a drip in front of me every time I go to the bathroom and suffer the indignity of urine samples each morning and suppositories every four hours. Exactly a week after my fall I experience painful contractions late in the afternoon. I am told that the best thing to do is have an emergency caesarean section. I am aware that I have little choice in the matter. To refuse seems like selfishness on my part. When I tell my husband that we’re about to have a baby, he springs into action, arranging for our son to be looked after. I can think of nothing so practical. I feel afraid and out of my depth. I spend the three hours leading up to the event crying, worried that I’m not prepared, that the baby won’t survive and that I won’t be able to love him or her. Back in the operating theatre now, and there is activity all around me. The conversation among the staff is about how busy they were today and how keen they are to get home. It’s after 9pm and they are tired. I wonder briefly whether this means they will be less cautious with me. I clasp my husband’s hand and squeeze harder and harder as the epidural takes effect. The doctors start without telling me, but I am aware of an enormous force pushing and pulling on my belly. My fear is making me sweat. No dimmed lights and calm atmosphere this time around, the lights above me burn my eyes and I recall a line from my son’s storybook: “All the better to see you with.” My husband prays next to me and tells me how well I’m doing. A few minutes later, my baby is born and she is crying. Earlier, my doctor had blithely told me that the baby would be fine, although she would probably need assistance with breathing and feeding initially. I am appalled at his glibness – he is telling me she will need help to live. As the paediatrician looks her over and pronounces her ok, I weep with happiness. She weighs 2.1kg and seems older than her 34 weeks gestation. She astounds everyone the next day by being ready to come out of incubation and sucking vigorously on my breast. We emerge from the maternity ward one week later. I don’t look back as we make our way gingerly to the car park. I’m amazed now that I thought I couldn’t love her. She is my daughter and she’s perfect. A lifetime of love has begun.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:46:19 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ By Christopher "G" Garlington My daughter's friends were over the other day. My daughter's friends are all hyper intelligent and busy as hell just like my daughter but, unlike her, they all have hero quality dads who bend steel bars with their bare hands for a living and rescue babies from vats of molten lead and, most of all, go away during the day to return haggard and stoic and dead tired sometime after 5pm. I, on the other hand, wrestle laundry to the basement and immerse myself in the minutiae of dishwasher load planning and the use of "bluing" to make my whites whiter. I also make twisted knock knock jokes(1) and have a tendency to sing where I ought to mumble and I have, somehow, become their hero. I didn't mean to and I say somehow but I'm being unnecessarily (and uncharacteristically) modest--I know exactly how I became their hero: I told them I chart my daughter's . . . um . . . I keep a record of, uh . . . I mark the calendar for. . . I'm steadfastly abreast of her [punctuation]. This is not the lowest depth my steady emasculation, by the way, that's surely sitting through a stuttering presentation of a Hugh Grant movie so insipidly British even Hugh Grant was rolling his eyes IN THE MOVIE HE WAS STARRING IN. It was a chick flick so flicking chicked I think I grew breasts while I was watching. But, such is marriage. I made my attorney sit through Spawn once so I owe her forever. It is, however, a most unmasculine thing to do, to chart the, er, [grammatical manifestation] of your little princess. In fact, if you are a man, just Stumble elsewhere. I'm embarrassed, ok. Chicks keep reading—I might need your advice. It all started because my Attorney is pretty much too frikkin busy to pay attention to her own [red swarm]. One day she was working hard, staying up late after a 14 hour day deciphering antennae displacement graphs or something equally insanely technical. She was sleep deprived and focused with such unwavering intensity that she actually burned a hole through a deposition with her very eyes. She said "God I feel like crap. I feel bloated and woggly and irritable and—" "You're getting your [red tide]" "I just had my [monsoon wedding]!" "Yeah, 27 days ago." She'd been working so hard she'd actually lost her sense of time. I think if she didn't have a calendar on her blackberry, she wouldn't know what day it was. So her [mighty mighty bosstone] snuck up on her and smacked her across the head. I felt sorry for my little legal Lolita and decided to add her [insane in the membrane] to my automatic calendar and I've been charting ever since. To the minute. Well, being that busy, she never really explained to the teen that this is a regular occurrence, that it can be expected, that JEANS DAY on the calendar is not referring too a dress code. So, in for a dollar if you're in for a dime. The next time my daughter screamed "PAD!" from the bathroom, I tossed a couple in (like grenades) and put her on my calendar too. So there she is, hanging with her friends—ok. Hanging is way too energetic to describe what they do. The flop. They flop over the chair. They flop down in front of the TV. The flop down the steps and flop into the car and flop out. They're virtually boneless. So they were all draped across the furniture expending less energy than most dead field mice when I casually mentioned to Rah that I'd stocked the bathroom with [ammunition] and she might want to remember that since she was due for her [orc horde]. Her friends howled with approval and the Polish one screamed out YOU ARE MY HERO! So there you go. My ability to suppress my natural male tendency to fish and work on trucks in favor of ticking off the days until the women in my life are assaulted by their respective [mammy tsunamis] has elevated me to the level of hero. I can see myself now, standing tall, cast in bronze, a metallic cape forever blown behind me in chunky statuesque bravery, my brow pointed ever eastward, my countenance ever grim, ever focused — a fistful of tampons at my side.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:38:39 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ by Bitsy Parker As a little girl I never played with dolls nor dreamed about being a mother. Perhaps my distance from these maternal feelings made the birth of my first child the most shocking and outrageous experience of my life. My husband and I married when I was 30 and he 36. He brought with him to the marriage two daughters from a previous marriage. We were content with two children and didn’t plan on having more, but we decided that if I did become pregnant, then we would be happy. When I did become pregnant (after about 10 seconds), I thought that my husband would be the main caregiver for the new baby. He was a father. He knew how to handle children. I was a selfish, only child and a busy career girl with no previous baby experience. In my mind, having a baby was like a company buying a subsidiary – in this situation, the baby wasn’t under my direct division, but I would provide necessary support as needed. Go team, go – let’s acquire a baby! Realistically, I knew that the baby would require my attention, but I viewed the forthcoming baby like I would view a charity asking to host an event at my house – I knew there would be work to be done – plant some flowers, wallpaper the bathroom, buy fresh flowers, and I would probably have to leave work early, but ultimately, the charity staff would handle the details like nametags and follow-up letters. I would birth the baby, buy the clothes and order the diaper service, but my husband would do the heavy lifting like teaching the baby to walk and helping with any emotional needs, if there were any. What a shock it was when my daughter, who over-stayed her nine months in my womb by two weeks, was finally knifed out of my gut. After the nineteen hours of wrestling an uncomfortable knot from my uterus, the doctors, nurses and family left my hospital room. It was twilight, and I was staring at the wall in the darkening room wondering what had happened to me. The nurse plunged into the room dragging a streak of fluorescent light with her. She dropped a baby on my lap and left the agitated infant screaming in my arms. The door slowly closed and the harsh light faded – in the dim light I went to work on the little ball of flesh. Instinctively, I undressed the baby and freed her from the hospital clothes that were unnaturally clinging to her body. I, too, took off my mistake of clothing. Skin to skin, I pressed the little baby to my chest and she stopped crying. The power of knowing how to care for this new life was equivalent to the caveman starting the first fire. The “rightness” of this action had enough energy to engulf the hospital in flames. From that moment I knew that my husband was not sitting first chair on this project – I was lead counsel on this case.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:28:59 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ by itchingtowrite We tested positive with the in-home test done over the weekend and since my doctor was busy getting her daughter married to the Srilankankan cricketer Muralidharan, we waited till Good Friday to see her. We decided not to break the news to the family until the doctor gave a clear go ahead. And after the confirmation, we decided to celebrate with a “whirlwind” romantic getaway to the beach retreat Pondicherry where we had first met! While we were quite wary of the test as I was not experiencing any tell-tale signs of pregnancy like giddiness/ nausea like the actresses in Hindi movies do, yet after one week of hugging the news of “baby” happening to ourselves, we were sitting at the doctor’s room with the officially confirmed medical test. She asked me to get a scan done just to ensure everything was alright as I was already on the 6th week. As we were waiting for our turn, I frivolously mentioned that it would be great to have twins. It would be lovely to watch them grow together, having someone to bond with instantly. As parents of twins, we would be unique in the family too! I went in for the scan after drinking loads of water. The doctor was taking his own sweet time, asking me plenty of questions, taking down notes diligently. In turn I also started asking him whether everything was fine. Annoyingly he did not want to answer. Another doctor came by and started looking at the screen. He just muttered “twins??” I thought I heard something that sounded like twins and on cue started troubling the doctor with questions- what happened, what is it, is everything ok? After a long time the doctor turned the screen towards me and said –it’s twins. I could see two distinct dots on the computer screen reflecting the image of the womb. They called the proud father-to-be to show him the goods. As I saw him coming I made a ‘V’ sign indicating 2, wanting to be the first one to break the delightful news – I doubt it whether he understood as he had a very goofy smile on his face as the doctor started giving him the good news. My husband’s feeling is beautifully summed up by him – “Never in my school exams I scored more than what I estimated. After seeing the scan results, I felt I was getting a better score than I had anticipated!” My doctor said probably her good luck had rubbed off on mine, as she was also a mother of twins! I had planned not to tell my colleagues about the pregnancy during the initial days, for obvious reasons- the superstition that one must not disclose the news of a pregnancy until the crucial three months are over. But as they say one should never plan too much- the Doctor advised me to be on bed rest for 6 weeks to tide over the high risk twin gestation. So I had to break the news to one and all at my workplace. And thereafter “baby” became “babies” in our conversation. And the much anticipated Pondicherry trip went out of the window. My CEO commented- how could you blend two different fragrances in the same vessel! I work in the fragrance industry and a fragrance is a blend of chemicals mixed together in a large container.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:15:35 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ by Janine Dunlop I’m lying in a hospital passageway, wondering whether I’ll be able to love my baby. I am unspeakably nervous and it must be evident, because everyone who appears next to my bed tries to placate me. After what seems an eternity, I’m wheeled in by a jolly nurse who shouts that we should get this show on the road. The “show” is that I’m about to have a baby. Flash to a week previously. I’m sitting at work after twisting my ankle, waiting for the painless contractions that started soon after the fall to go away. When I mention this casually to a colleague, the news spreads like wildfire: Janine is in labour. I’m whisked away to the clinic by our health and safety officer. I comply because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but secretly I’m thinking that this is a waste of my doctor’s time. When I’m strapped to the monitor, it’s established that I’m in labour. I’m 33 weeks pregnant. A drip containing a drug that will stop the contractions is administered. I’m given an injection to mature the baby’s lungs and within an hour, I’m admitted and wheeled in to the antenatal ward, where pregnant women languish in beds all around me. Still in denial, I telephone my husband to ask him to arrange to fetch my car, as I’m planning on being home by the evening. I notice my roommate smiling. “No one leaves this ward,” she laughs. A few days later and she’s being proved right. Despite the drugs, I keep going into labour. I begin to realise that I’ll probably spend the rest of my pregnancy here. I spend a week railing against the unfairness of it all. I had planned to spend three weeks at home with my son, preparing him for the birth of his sibling. Instead, I wheel a drip in front of me every time I go to the bathroom and suffer the indignity of urine samples each morning and suppositories every four hours. Exactly a week after my fall I experience painful contractions late in the afternoon. I am told that the best thing to do is have an emergency caesarean section. I am aware that I have little choice in the matter. To refuse seems like selfishness on my part. When I tell my husband that we’re about to have a baby, he springs into action, arranging for our son to be looked after. I can think of nothing so practical. I feel afraid and out of my depth. I spend the three hours leading up to the event crying, worried that I’m not prepared, that the baby won’t survive and that I won’t be able to love him or her. Back in the operating theatre now, and there is activity all around me. The conversation among the staff is about how busy they were today and how keen they are to get home. It’s after 9pm and they are tired. I wonder briefly whether this means they will be less cautious with me. I clasp my husband’s hand and squeeze harder and harder as the epidural takes effect. The doctors start without telling me, but I am aware of an enormous force pushing and pulling on my belly. My fear is making me sweat. No dimmed lights and calm atmosphere this time around, the lights above me burn my eyes and I recall a line from my son’s storybook: “All the better to see you with.” My husband prays next to me and tells me how well I’m doing. A few minutes later, my baby is born and she is crying. Earlier, my doctor had blithely told me that the baby would be fine, although she would probably need assistance with breathing and feeding initially. I am appalled at his glibness – he is telling me she will need help to live. As the paediatrician looks her over and pronounces her ok, I weep with happiness. She weighs 2.1kg and seems older than her 34 weeks gestation. She astounds everyone the next day by being ready to come out of incubation and sucking vigorously on my breast. We emerge from the maternity ward one week later. I don’t look back as we make our way gingerly to the car park. I’m amazed now that I thought I couldn’t love her. She is my daughter and she’s perfect. A lifetime of love has begun.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com A Writing Contest for all You Clever Girls and Boys! Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:05:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/#comments Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:59:34 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ by Janine Salas-Mason It’s usually late evening when I can actually turn on my computer. It’s part of a ritual that initiates my nightly turndown service. Checking that doors are locked, all children are bed and hubby is either sleeping or has the remote in hand and that bag of Oreos and milk he asked me for. Only then, I get to turn on my computer and indulge in my secret pleasure, my writing. Through my writing, I affirm my purpose to myself every day. I am a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend and even if only acknowledged by me, … a writer. We all know that to a mother, your children are your babies no matter how old they get. Meghan, my oldest baby is 12 years old and my first shot at parenthood. I didn’t know it then but she would be my longest labor and the first of five children. Meghan is a pure joy and a preteen, which leaves me as much in awe as it does confusion. Meghan does not know just how special she is to me. She is my first baby. Four years after having Meghan we had Elias, my little brown bear. Yes, I affectionately call him that. And six months after that, I was pregnant with Madison,… the last baby, or so I thought. Elias and Madison are six months apart, it’s almost like having twins. Elias loves his baby sister and Madison, she can’t get enough of Elias. They are inseparable and I ‘m very lucky for that. So I have a great husband, three beautiful children, my own home etc, what more could I want right? Well, my husband, who was adopted at 6 months of age, has discovered his desire to know his own birth family. Amongst the other hats I wear, I now become a private detective find his entire birth family. My husband decides that he would like to give back to society that which was given to him decides we should adopt. Now, I think most of us at one point or another say to ourselves, “if I ever hit the lotto, I would adopt some children etc.” Well, in my family this became a reality. No we didn’t hit lotto, but we did adopt a child. And so Josef, at 2 years old, became part of our family. Josef, is a special needs child. The agency thought he was mute. He wasn’t. He was suffering neglect and had decided he was not ready to speak yet. Josef will always be my special baby. Not because of his special needs, just because he is especially loved. He took my motherly love to a new level, to a place aside of myself …outside of my skin and into my heart. A week into Josef’s arrival I got a life changing phone call. It was the adoption agency explaining that Josef now had a baby brother and they would like to place the 3-month-old baby with us to keep the siblings together. The agency worker said she knew it was a tall order but wanted to “plant the seed” and see if there was any chance of us taking in Josef’s baby brother. Planting a seed was an understatement! I was torn to pieces. I knew it was probably a long shot, but I longed for the baby already and I brought the situation up to my husband. My husband took the weekend to think about it and when he was ready he started by saying, “I think sometimes, our hearts are bigger than our pockets.” My heart sunk, but then he said, “ I have just met my siblings now at 33 years old. I wish I had memories of childhood years with them…” And so it was, that a week after meeting my 2 year old son Josef, I met Ryan, …and baby made five. Ryan had pneumonia when he was placed with us and I spent the next week living in the hospital. I learned to juggle the needs of my new babies and the babies I already had. I learned children could adapt, that they are as giving as we teach them to be. I learned a lot. I learned all this while trying to still meet the needs of my husband, who could prove to be the biggest baby of all at times. (God Bless his soul, a term I use instead of cursing, sometimes!) I learned of my husbands’ affair, and I learned it wasn’t the end of the world even though it felt like it. (That’s a whole other story!) So, at the end of the day, after the homework is done, uniforms are washed, and I have finished giving 10 speeches as to why..why and why,… my evening ritual begins. After turning my husband on and my children off. I am thankful, thankful for my 5 beautiful babies. The ones I gave birth to and the ones God has entrusted to me through adoption. Thankful that it does not make a difference to me which babies I have birthed and which ones I haven’t. Thankful, that I can write and plant a seed.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:06:06 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ by Daniel D'Andrea They were singing and dancing with a contagious bliss, enough to make me giggle along. A simple Christmas carol, in June mind you, was all it took to invoke this fit of joy for the children. They truly were a family; they loved each other more than I could ever hope. I proudly watched, as their mother played and sang along, as careless and joyful as the children. An ear to ear smile took over my face, but I couldn’t hold back the tear from seeping into my mouth. The salty taste did not faze me; nothing could at this point. As I peered in through the window, I felt as though I belonged in that circle, singing and playing along. I don’t know what stopped me, probably the restraining order or deadbolts, but otherwise I was completely free. Nobody will ever know how much I care for those children. Sure, I had odd ways of showing it, and the courts disagreed with my methods, but love is love. After getting fired for drinking at work, I entered a deep depression which forced me into more drinking. I loved the kids at work as much as I loved my own, and teaching was my only passion. Now I lost those kids, my own kids, my wife, my life, everything, all because I like to be wasted to teach elementary math, my other passion. So sue me! Well, not again, please. A tear from the other eye streamed down the other side of my face, this taste seemed to faze me a bit more than the first. After they all began to drift off, I hurried back home to be with my new family. In a fit of defiance, I said out loud to myself, “I don’t need them anymore.” I kicked everything within leg’s distance on my trip home, saying this exact sentence repeatedly. I didn’t cheer up until I arrived back at my own house. Pumpkin was the first to greet me, with a bright smile that lit up the entire room. Well, it did once I lit the candle inside of her. After pumpkin gave me light, I could see old denim jacket wrapped around a book bag and couch cushion greeting me with equal delight. We all gathered on the couch and openly discussed our day. We were giggling and laughing with each other, curled up on the couch with the fireplace cracking. We decided to put in a movie, The Never-ending Story, and watched it together to close out the night. As pumpkin face and denim lay fast asleep, I covered them up and headed upstairs with couch cushion. We enjoyed our moment alone together by making quiet love, the only way we knew how since bringing the children into our lives. After couch cushion fell asleep, I went back the old house and peered in through the window, seeing the children sleep comfortably on their mothers lap, smiling, without a care in the world. They wouldn’t be smiling so calmly if they knew what went down in that lap to conceive them. I sat there behind the bushes, sleeping with them, until it was time to head to work. Everyone at the school always asked to see pictures of my kids. I brought them to a Christmas party and the teachers fell in love with them. They really were a pleasant group of children. But now I have new kids, and I dread the uncomfortable conversation of why they look so different or what happened to your other kids. I didn’t want them to think I ditched my old family for this new and improved version. It was doubly embarrassing to have this conversation while now holding a mop and bucket of puke-filled water. The next day I awoke and didn’t reach for the snooze button or a drink, I just woke up and sprung out of bed. It was Father’s day, and I knew the family was up to something. Much to my surprise, I arrived downstairs to a lovely breakfast already prepared. More surprisingly, next to it was my first wife and kids, “Happy Father’s Day!” I couldn’t believe my eyes, they had looked past the drinking and the fighting and the weeks at a time away and the defecating on the living room carpet, and came to celebrate with me. Both families, both lives, together, I was absolutely elated. I was a father again. I decided to make a drink to celebrate.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:24:01 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ By Sharon Lee Fernberg When our first child was due to be born, my husband and I were required to attend parenting classes at the local hospital. “There will be a trickle when your water breaks,” the nurse informed the parents-to-be. However, after a perfect ten-month pregnancy, my water broke at 5:30 a.m. At 11:00 a.m. while at my obstetrician’s office, the water still gushed from my body as though something inside me kept flushing an inner toilet. Towels and maxi pads could not prevent what occurred inside of me. At 1:00 p.m. my obstetrician ordered an x-ray. A nurse pushed me to radiology in a wheelchair that held a small bowl under the seat. I felt embarrassed that it overflowed but considering I couldn’t even see my feet at the time, I smiled apologetically. Fourteen hours later, my son Jeffrey entered this world, weighing in at 9lbs.2oz. and 21” long. I spent two weeks in the hospital. He flattened my bladder, I was told. Eighteen months later, after being two weeks earlier than the actual due date or two weeks past the due date of my second child, my son Patrick howled his way into our lives, weighing in at eight pounds and 20” long. This time when my water broke, the nurse was correct. I felt only a trickle. We went home three days later. Years later, the pregnancy lasted longer than a year. It began with a meeting on adoption. My husband and I endured sixty page home studies, writing individual accounts on each of our siblings, our parents, our children, and having meetings in our house with the caseworkers from the local agency that handled the adoption proceedings. We took pictures of each room of the house, pictures of the boys and of each other, and provided photos of the cat. We had to be fingerprinted by the FBI in Buffalo, New York. As weeks and then months passed by, we continued to wait patiently and anxiously. We had no choice. It wasn't our decision to make when our daughter would be delivered. Nevertheless, a television meteorologist prepared us. A blizzard was due to arrive in Western New York the end of February. We couldn’t take a chance that her plane would arrive from Korea and we wouldn't be there. My husband informed our caseworker that we were going to go to New Jersey and spend a few days with my sister and her family – just in case. Three days later the call came from New York. The plane would touch down at JFK around 6:00 p.m. that night. It was Leap Year Day. We were only one hour from the airport but we had to meet the adoption agency greeter early to sign papers. The wind hissed that day. A cold chill lingered. In my arms, I held a white and yellow shell stitch afghan I had crocheted for my daughter. Jeff held tightly to the diaper bag. Patrick hugged the pink snowsuit. My husband waited nervously with the camera in his hands. At 6:21 p.m. the plane touched down. Within minutes, a greeter said, “Sung Sin HWANG.” He handed me our 6-1/2 month old daughter. I whispered her new name, Lindsay Sung-Elizabeth. She didn’t cry although tears trickled down my cheeks. Her dark slanted eyes stared up into my face. I kissed her nose. Her small arms curled around my neck. Her shoulder-length silky black hair skimmed my cheek as she laid her head on my shoulder. So, this was our daughter. The boys’ sister. As we departed the airport a half hour later, I held Lindsay tightly, protecting her against the cold chill with the afghan now cloaking her small body. I don't know why but at that moment I thought of the times I had given birth to my sons, and I knew this would always be the day my daughter was delivered. I looked from Lindsay and glanced at my sons, their round faces beaming with excitement and joy. It was then I realized that the overwhelming love I felt in my heart was the same for all three of my children. I felt the tears trickle down my face.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:14:42 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ by Scott Dunlop I am being stalked. Since May 2006 I have been looking over my shoulder. I have felt like a mild celebrity. I don’t get blinded by camera flashes outside the supermarket, or enter into impromptu car chases, no, my stalker is far more subtle than that. I wake up in the morning, and he is there. I bathe, he is there. I get dressed, and I feel his eyes watching me. With every cupboard I open, and every switch I touch, his large saucer eyes trace my every move. He doesn’t speak very much, but he does communicate. What he says to me frightens me. He whispers constantly. You are my hero. I want to be you. I want to do everything you do, and touch everything you touch. I want to wear your shoes, eat your food and test the elasticity of your skin… Which would be very creepy if he was a stranger, but this tiny follower of mine, this little disciple is my son. His gaze is unnerving, his ability to absorb all of my attention is alarming. He is not content with being a bit part in my life-movie, no, he has taken over. He wants to direct, he wants to write, he wants full creative license. He wants to have his name above mine on the billboard, and he refuses to share the credits with anyone else. The stalker wants to be the star. Which isn’t the same as marriage. With marriage, you go from being completely independent, to selectively co-dependent. It’s easy to compromise a little bit for someone you love. You can be married and still retain a great portion of who you are. Not so with babies. With babies you are utterly subsumed by their dependence on you as a caregiver. You can’t fob them off with telling them that you would rather go out and watch a movie than change their diaper, or feed them a bottle. Not unless you want the Authorities to pay you a visit… You can’t just give them a tiny portion of you to clutch, like a sweat-stained handkerchief; they need to have complete access to you all the time. On-stage, off-stage and in the dressing room. Now that I think about it, I have been replaced. I was one the star of my show. I was one the one choosing to eat what I wanted, and where I wanted it. I was a free agent. All my royalties went to me. Suddenly, I find my contract altered. I have been down-sized. The baby is in charge. He commands all the attention when we head out to the shops. He is the one high-fiving strangers and pretending to laugh at their weak jokes. I just traipse after him with his bag, the one stuffed with his snacks and clothes, in case he should get peckish, or need a sudden change. I wipe his bottom, for goodness sake. Everywhere he goes, I go. Every time he opens his mouth, I check to see what he is trying to say. I study his body language. I am there when he wakes, I am there when he sleeps. I take photographs without his permission. I am obsessed. I am a stalker.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:24:53 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ by Misty Noble-Hodge I was round. A not so compact little heartthrob was bundled in my abdomen and in my heart. Oh, I had a love affair with that little baby inside of me. I used to pull my maternity shirts tight against my tummy and watch him roll like the waves in the ocean. I had gone through this pregnancy quite alone and was just waiting for him to be born. To have someone to hold and love. I remember when the doctor told me he wanted to induce. It was a Friday. He said, "How does Monday sound?" Terror of the pain roared through my veins. Monday? That soon? Monday. I went in, late. My mother came with me. She had every intention of spending the night at home, but when they hooked me up to the monitors, I was having contractions. "Can you feel that?" the nurse asked. "Nope," I said with a grin. My mother spent the night on the tiny couch at the foot of my bed. Then came the torturous IV. They had a novice trying to find her way into my veins and I got stuck 11 times before someone who knew what they were doing came in and relieved us both of our suffering. They left for me to get some rest, but made me lay flat on my back under the mountain of baby. Rushing through my head were thoughts about how I wasn’t supposed to lay flat on my back, something about veins being compressed. But surely these labor and delivery nurses knew more than a 20-year-old kid. I wanted gloat when the nurses came in a little while later and told me to roll over because the baby was happier when I was on my left side. I knew that. When morning came, the first time I was checked I had already achieved 4 centimeters. "You can have an epidural now if you want," said the large black nurse. Already? I hadn't even felt any contractions yet. My father briefly stopped in before work while I was resting. They told him it would still be hours before I was 10 centimeters so he could go on to work, which was only 20 minutes away. We would call to keep him updated. Right as he left, the nurse came in to check me again. Lo and behold, 10 centimeters. My mother ran out of the room to call my father's office. He hadn't made it there yet. When he reached the door of the office, his assistant turned him right around. It was time. Flurry of activity. Scrubs. Shiny metal and white cloth. I pushed only twice and my quiet and soft spoke doctor said, "Good." Equal amounts of pride and shock rang through me; it was happening so fast. I heard suctioning. One more gentle push and he was out. I laughed. My first view was a little purple behind. My first question: "Does he have hair?" "Quite a bit of hair," said the nurse. My second question: "Does he have my ears?" My mother beams at me and simply says, "Yes." I am handed a swaddled little caterpillar, a cocooned bundle with long purple fingers and a tiny swollen face. He watches me with attentive eyes as I coo at him. He sucks his fingers and I remark about how we are both starving. I wish I had known to nurse him immediately. But I didn't. No one had told me. He had to wait until later in our room with two nurses trying to position him on my breast. Now I look at this striking child with the gangly legs and arms, who has lost two of the teeth I had watched sprout years ago. His dark brown hair, so like my mother's. Rich chocolate eyes. He is growing up so fast and in so many ways, I feel like I am missing it. He is so big now, but still so small. Six years is not too long to be on this planet. There are so many mornings to be woken and so many more breaths to take. Six years is only long enough to learn to tie one's shoes and write one's name, maybe. There are so many things waiting for him still. I hope he learns to stay young as long as possible. Even though to me, he will always be that little bundle, snuggled into me and making me a mother for the very first time.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:15:35 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ by Janine Dunlop I’m lying in a hospital passageway, wondering whether I’ll be able to love my baby. I am unspeakably nervous and it must be evident, because everyone who appears next to my bed tries to placate me. After what seems an eternity, I’m wheeled in by a jolly nurse who shouts that we should get this show on the road. The “show” is that I’m about to have a baby. Flash to a week previously. I’m sitting at work after twisting my ankle, waiting for the painless contractions that started soon after the fall to go away. When I mention this casually to a colleague, the news spreads like wildfire: Janine is in labour. I’m whisked away to the clinic by our health and safety officer. I comply because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but secretly I’m thinking that this is a waste of my doctor’s time. When I’m strapped to the monitor, it’s established that I’m in labour. I’m 33 weeks pregnant. A drip containing a drug that will stop the contractions is administered. I’m given an injection to mature the baby’s lungs and within an hour, I’m admitted and wheeled in to the antenatal ward, where pregnant women languish in beds all around me. Still in denial, I telephone my husband to ask him to arrange to fetch my car, as I’m planning on being home by the evening. I notice my roommate smiling. “No one leaves this ward,” she laughs. A few days later and she’s being proved right. Despite the drugs, I keep going into labour. I begin to realise that I’ll probably spend the rest of my pregnancy here. I spend a week railing against the unfairness of it all. I had planned to spend three weeks at home with my son, preparing him for the birth of his sibling. Instead, I wheel a drip in front of me every time I go to the bathroom and suffer the indignity of urine samples each morning and suppositories every four hours. Exactly a week after my fall I experience painful contractions late in the afternoon. I am told that the best thing to do is have an emergency caesarean section. I am aware that I have little choice in the matter. To refuse seems like selfishness on my part. When I tell my husband that we’re about to have a baby, he springs into action, arranging for our son to be looked after. I can think of nothing so practical. I feel afraid and out of my depth. I spend the three hours leading up to the event crying, worried that I’m not prepared, that the baby won’t survive and that I won’t be able to love him or her. Back in the operating theatre now, and there is activity all around me. The conversation among the staff is about how busy they were today and how keen they are to get home. It’s after 9pm and they are tired. I wonder briefly whether this means they will be less cautious with me. I clasp my husband’s hand and squeeze harder and harder as the epidural takes effect. The doctors start without telling me, but I am aware of an enormous force pushing and pulling on my belly. My fear is making me sweat. No dimmed lights and calm atmosphere this time around, the lights above me burn my eyes and I recall a line from my son’s storybook: “All the better to see you with.” My husband prays next to me and tells me how well I’m doing. A few minutes later, my baby is born and she is crying. Earlier, my doctor had blithely told me that the baby would be fine, although she would probably need assistance with breathing and feeding initially. I am appalled at his glibness – he is telling me she will need help to live. As the paediatrician looks her over and pronounces her ok, I weep with happiness. She weighs 2.1kg and seems older than her 34 weeks gestation. She astounds everyone the next day by being ready to come out of incubation and sucking vigorously on my breast. We emerge from the maternity ward one week later. I don’t look back as we make our way gingerly to the car park. I’m amazed now that I thought I couldn’t love her. She is my daughter and she’s perfect. A lifetime of love has begun.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:46:19 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ By Christopher "G" Garlington My daughter's friends were over the other day. My daughter's friends are all hyper intelligent and busy as hell just like my daughter but, unlike her, they all have hero quality dads who bend steel bars with their bare hands for a living and rescue babies from vats of molten lead and, most of all, go away during the day to return haggard and stoic and dead tired sometime after 5pm. I, on the other hand, wrestle laundry to the basement and immerse myself in the minutiae of dishwasher load planning and the use of "bluing" to make my whites whiter. I also make twisted knock knock jokes(1) and have a tendency to sing where I ought to mumble and I have, somehow, become their hero. I didn't mean to and I say somehow but I'm being unnecessarily (and uncharacteristically) modest--I know exactly how I became their hero: I told them I chart my daughter's . . . um . . . I keep a record of, uh . . . I mark the calendar for. . . I'm steadfastly abreast of her [punctuation]. This is not the lowest depth my steady emasculation, by the way, that's surely sitting through a stuttering presentation of a Hugh Grant movie so insipidly British even Hugh Grant was rolling his eyes IN THE MOVIE HE WAS STARRING IN. It was a chick flick so flicking chicked I think I grew breasts while I was watching. But, such is marriage. I made my attorney sit through Spawn once so I owe her forever. It is, however, a most unmasculine thing to do, to chart the, er, [grammatical manifestation] of your little princess. In fact, if you are a man, just Stumble elsewhere. I'm embarrassed, ok. Chicks keep reading—I might need your advice. It all started because my Attorney is pretty much too frikkin busy to pay attention to her own [red swarm]. One day she was working hard, staying up late after a 14 hour day deciphering antennae displacement graphs or something equally insanely technical. She was sleep deprived and focused with such unwavering intensity that she actually burned a hole through a deposition with her very eyes. She said "God I feel like crap. I feel bloated and woggly and irritable and—" "You're getting your [red tide]" "I just had my [monsoon wedding]!" "Yeah, 27 days ago." She'd been working so hard she'd actually lost her sense of time. I think if she didn't have a calendar on her blackberry, she wouldn't know what day it was. So her [mighty mighty bosstone] snuck up on her and smacked her across the head. I felt sorry for my little legal Lolita and decided to add her [insane in the membrane] to my automatic calendar and I've been charting ever since. To the minute. Well, being that busy, she never really explained to the teen that this is a regular occurrence, that it can be expected, that JEANS DAY on the calendar is not referring too a dress code. So, in for a dollar if you're in for a dime. The next time my daughter screamed "PAD!" from the bathroom, I tossed a couple in (like grenades) and put her on my calendar too. So there she is, hanging with her friends—ok. Hanging is way too energetic to describe what they do. The flop. They flop over the chair. They flop down in front of the TV. The flop down the steps and flop into the car and flop out. They're virtually boneless. So they were all draped across the furniture expending less energy than most dead field mice when I casually mentioned to Rah that I'd stocked the bathroom with [ammunition] and she might want to remember that since she was due for her [orc horde]. Her friends howled with approval and the Polish one screamed out YOU ARE MY HERO! So there you go. My ability to suppress my natural male tendency to fish and work on trucks in favor of ticking off the days until the women in my life are assaulted by their respective [mammy tsunamis] has elevated me to the level of hero. I can see myself now, standing tall, cast in bronze, a metallic cape forever blown behind me in chunky statuesque bravery, my brow pointed ever eastward, my countenance ever grim, ever focused — a fistful of tampons at my side.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:38:39 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ by Bitsy Parker As a little girl I never played with dolls nor dreamed about being a mother. Perhaps my distance from these maternal feelings made the birth of my first child the most shocking and outrageous experience of my life. My husband and I married when I was 30 and he 36. He brought with him to the marriage two daughters from a previous marriage. We were content with two children and didn’t plan on having more, but we decided that if I did become pregnant, then we would be happy. When I did become pregnant (after about 10 seconds), I thought that my husband would be the main caregiver for the new baby. He was a father. He knew how to handle children. I was a selfish, only child and a busy career girl with no previous baby experience. In my mind, having a baby was like a company buying a subsidiary – in this situation, the baby wasn’t under my direct division, but I would provide necessary support as needed. Go team, go – let’s acquire a baby! Realistically, I knew that the baby would require my attention, but I viewed the forthcoming baby like I would view a charity asking to host an event at my house – I knew there would be work to be done – plant some flowers, wallpaper the bathroom, buy fresh flowers, and I would probably have to leave work early, but ultimately, the charity staff would handle the details like nametags and follow-up letters. I would birth the baby, buy the clothes and order the diaper service, but my husband would do the heavy lifting like teaching the baby to walk and helping with any emotional needs, if there were any. What a shock it was when my daughter, who over-stayed her nine months in my womb by two weeks, was finally knifed out of my gut. After the nineteen hours of wrestling an uncomfortable knot from my uterus, the doctors, nurses and family left my hospital room. It was twilight, and I was staring at the wall in the darkening room wondering what had happened to me. The nurse plunged into the room dragging a streak of fluorescent light with her. She dropped a baby on my lap and left the agitated infant screaming in my arms. The door slowly closed and the harsh light faded – in the dim light I went to work on the little ball of flesh. Instinctively, I undressed the baby and freed her from the hospital clothes that were unnaturally clinging to her body. I, too, took off my mistake of clothing. Skin to skin, I pressed the little baby to my chest and she stopped crying. The power of knowing how to care for this new life was equivalent to the caveman starting the first fire. The “rightness” of this action had enough energy to engulf the hospital in flames. From that moment I knew that my husband was not sitting first chair on this project – I was lead counsel on this case.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:28:59 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ by itchingtowrite We tested positive with the in-home test done over the weekend and since my doctor was busy getting her daughter married to the Srilankankan cricketer Muralidharan, we waited till Good Friday to see her. We decided not to break the news to the family until the doctor gave a clear go ahead. And after the confirmation, we decided to celebrate with a “whirlwind” romantic getaway to the beach retreat Pondicherry where we had first met! While we were quite wary of the test as I was not experiencing any tell-tale signs of pregnancy like giddiness/ nausea like the actresses in Hindi movies do, yet after one week of hugging the news of “baby” happening to ourselves, we were sitting at the doctor’s room with the officially confirmed medical test. She asked me to get a scan done just to ensure everything was alright as I was already on the 6th week. As we were waiting for our turn, I frivolously mentioned that it would be great to have twins. It would be lovely to watch them grow together, having someone to bond with instantly. As parents of twins, we would be unique in the family too! I went in for the scan after drinking loads of water. The doctor was taking his own sweet time, asking me plenty of questions, taking down notes diligently. In turn I also started asking him whether everything was fine. Annoyingly he did not want to answer. Another doctor came by and started looking at the screen. He just muttered “twins??” I thought I heard something that sounded like twins and on cue started troubling the doctor with questions- what happened, what is it, is everything ok? After a long time the doctor turned the screen towards me and said –it’s twins. I could see two distinct dots on the computer screen reflecting the image of the womb. They called the proud father-to-be to show him the goods. As I saw him coming I made a ‘V’ sign indicating 2, wanting to be the first one to break the delightful news – I doubt it whether he understood as he had a very goofy smile on his face as the doctor started giving him the good news. My husband’s feeling is beautifully summed up by him – “Never in my school exams I scored more than what I estimated. After seeing the scan results, I felt I was getting a better score than I had anticipated!” My doctor said probably her good luck had rubbed off on mine, as she was also a mother of twins! I had planned not to tell my colleagues about the pregnancy during the initial days, for obvious reasons- the superstition that one must not disclose the news of a pregnancy until the crucial three months are over. But as they say one should never plan too much- the Doctor advised me to be on bed rest for 6 weeks to tide over the high risk twin gestation. So I had to break the news to one and all at my workplace. And thereafter “baby” became “babies” in our conversation. And the much anticipated Pondicherry trip went out of the window. My CEO commented- how could you blend two different fragrances in the same vessel! I work in the fragrance industry and a fragrance is a blend of chemicals mixed together in a large container.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:46:19 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ By Christopher "G" Garlington My daughter's friends were over the other day. My daughter's friends are all hyper intelligent and busy as hell just like my daughter but, unlike her, they all have hero quality dads who bend steel bars with their bare hands for a living and rescue babies from vats of molten lead and, most of all, go away during the day to return haggard and stoic and dead tired sometime after 5pm. I, on the other hand, wrestle laundry to the basement and immerse myself in the minutiae of dishwasher load planning and the use of "bluing" to make my whites whiter. I also make twisted knock knock jokes(1) and have a tendency to sing where I ought to mumble and I have, somehow, become their hero. I didn't mean to and I say somehow but I'm being unnecessarily (and uncharacteristically) modest--I know exactly how I became their hero: I told them I chart my daughter's . . . um . . . I keep a record of, uh . . . I mark the calendar for. . . I'm steadfastly abreast of her [punctuation]. This is not the lowest depth my steady emasculation, by the way, that's surely sitting through a stuttering presentation of a Hugh Grant movie so insipidly British even Hugh Grant was rolling his eyes IN THE MOVIE HE WAS STARRING IN. It was a chick flick so flicking chicked I think I grew breasts while I was watching. But, such is marriage. I made my attorney sit through Spawn once so I owe her forever. It is, however, a most unmasculine thing to do, to chart the, er, [grammatical manifestation] of your little princess. In fact, if you are a man, just Stumble elsewhere. I'm embarrassed, ok. Chicks keep reading—I might need your advice. It all started because my Attorney is pretty much too frikkin busy to pay attention to her own [red swarm]. One day she was working hard, staying up late after a 14 hour day deciphering antennae displacement graphs or something equally insanely technical. She was sleep deprived and focused with such unwavering intensity that she actually burned a hole through a deposition with her very eyes. She said "God I feel like crap. I feel bloated and woggly and irritable and—" "You're getting your [red tide]" "I just had my [monsoon wedding]!" "Yeah, 27 days ago." She'd been working so hard she'd actually lost her sense of time. I think if she didn't have a calendar on her blackberry, she wouldn't know what day it was. So her [mighty mighty bosstone] snuck up on her and smacked her across the head. I felt sorry for my little legal Lolita and decided to add her [insane in the membrane] to my automatic calendar and I've been charting ever since. To the minute. Well, being that busy, she never really explained to the teen that this is a regular occurrence, that it can be expected, that JEANS DAY on the calendar is not referring too a dress code. So, in for a dollar if you're in for a dime. The next time my daughter screamed "PAD!" from the bathroom, I tossed a couple in (like grenades) and put her on my calendar too. So there she is, hanging with her friends—ok. Hanging is way too energetic to describe what they do. The flop. They flop over the chair. They flop down in front of the TV. The flop down the steps and flop into the car and flop out. They're virtually boneless. So they were all draped across the furniture expending less energy than most dead field mice when I casually mentioned to Rah that I'd stocked the bathroom with [ammunition] and she might want to remember that since she was due for her [orc horde]. Her friends howled with approval and the Polish one screamed out YOU ARE MY HERO! So there you go. My ability to suppress my natural male tendency to fish and work on trucks in favor of ticking off the days until the women in my life are assaulted by their respective [mammy tsunamis] has elevated me to the level of hero. I can see myself now, standing tall, cast in bronze, a metallic cape forever blown behind me in chunky statuesque bravery, my brow pointed ever eastward, my countenance ever grim, ever focused — a fistful of tampons at my side.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com A Writing Contest for all You Clever Girls and Boys! Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:05:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/#comments Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:59:34 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ by Janine Salas-Mason It’s usually late evening when I can actually turn on my computer. It’s part of a ritual that initiates my nightly turndown service. Checking that doors are locked, all children are bed and hubby is either sleeping or has the remote in hand and that bag of Oreos and milk he asked me for. Only then, I get to turn on my computer and indulge in my secret pleasure, my writing. Through my writing, I affirm my purpose to myself every day. I am a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend and even if only acknowledged by me, … a writer. We all know that to a mother, your children are your babies no matter how old they get. Meghan, my oldest baby is 12 years old and my first shot at parenthood. I didn’t know it then but she would be my longest labor and the first of five children. Meghan is a pure joy and a preteen, which leaves me as much in awe as it does confusion. Meghan does not know just how special she is to me. She is my first baby. Four years after having Meghan we had Elias, my little brown bear. Yes, I affectionately call him that. And six months after that, I was pregnant with Madison,… the last baby, or so I thought. Elias and Madison are six months apart, it’s almost like having twins. Elias loves his baby sister and Madison, she can’t get enough of Elias. They are inseparable and I ‘m very lucky for that. So I have a great husband, three beautiful children, my own home etc, what more could I want right? Well, my husband, who was adopted at 6 months of age, has discovered his desire to know his own birth family. Amongst the other hats I wear, I now become a private detective find his entire birth family. My husband decides that he would like to give back to society that which was given to him decides we should adopt. Now, I think most of us at one point or another say to ourselves, “if I ever hit the lotto, I would adopt some children etc.” Well, in my family this became a reality. No we didn’t hit lotto, but we did adopt a child. And so Josef, at 2 years old, became part of our family. Josef, is a special needs child. The agency thought he was mute. He wasn’t. He was suffering neglect and had decided he was not ready to speak yet. Josef will always be my special baby. Not because of his special needs, just because he is especially loved. He took my motherly love to a new level, to a place aside of myself …outside of my skin and into my heart. A week into Josef’s arrival I got a life changing phone call. It was the adoption agency explaining that Josef now had a baby brother and they would like to place the 3-month-old baby with us to keep the siblings together. The agency worker said she knew it was a tall order but wanted to “plant the seed” and see if there was any chance of us taking in Josef’s baby brother. Planting a seed was an understatement! I was torn to pieces. I knew it was probably a long shot, but I longed for the baby already and I brought the situation up to my husband. My husband took the weekend to think about it and when he was ready he started by saying, “I think sometimes, our hearts are bigger than our pockets.” My heart sunk, but then he said, “ I have just met my siblings now at 33 years old. I wish I had memories of childhood years with them…” And so it was, that a week after meeting my 2 year old son Josef, I met Ryan, …and baby made five. Ryan had pneumonia when he was placed with us and I spent the next week living in the hospital. I learned to juggle the needs of my new babies and the babies I already had. I learned children could adapt, that they are as giving as we teach them to be. I learned a lot. I learned all this while trying to still meet the needs of my husband, who could prove to be the biggest baby of all at times. (God Bless his soul, a term I use instead of cursing, sometimes!) I learned of my husbands’ affair, and I learned it wasn’t the end of the world even though it felt like it. (That’s a whole other story!) So, at the end of the day, after the homework is done, uniforms are washed, and I have finished giving 10 speeches as to why..why and why,… my evening ritual begins. After turning my husband on and my children off. I am thankful, thankful for my 5 beautiful babies. The ones I gave birth to and the ones God has entrusted to me through adoption. Thankful that it does not make a difference to me which babies I have birthed and which ones I haven’t. Thankful, that I can write and plant a seed.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:06:06 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ by Daniel D'Andrea They were singing and dancing with a contagious bliss, enough to make me giggle along. A simple Christmas carol, in June mind you, was all it took to invoke this fit of joy for the children. They truly were a family; they loved each other more than I could ever hope. I proudly watched, as their mother played and sang along, as careless and joyful as the children. An ear to ear smile took over my face, but I couldn’t hold back the tear from seeping into my mouth. The salty taste did not faze me; nothing could at this point. As I peered in through the window, I felt as though I belonged in that circle, singing and playing along. I don’t know what stopped me, probably the restraining order or deadbolts, but otherwise I was completely free. Nobody will ever know how much I care for those children. Sure, I had odd ways of showing it, and the courts disagreed with my methods, but love is love. After getting fired for drinking at work, I entered a deep depression which forced me into more drinking. I loved the kids at work as much as I loved my own, and teaching was my only passion. Now I lost those kids, my own kids, my wife, my life, everything, all because I like to be wasted to teach elementary math, my other passion. So sue me! Well, not again, please. A tear from the other eye streamed down the other side of my face, this taste seemed to faze me a bit more than the first. After they all began to drift off, I hurried back home to be with my new family. In a fit of defiance, I said out loud to myself, “I don’t need them anymore.” I kicked everything within leg’s distance on my trip home, saying this exact sentence repeatedly. I didn’t cheer up until I arrived back at my own house. Pumpkin was the first to greet me, with a bright smile that lit up the entire room. Well, it did once I lit the candle inside of her. After pumpkin gave me light, I could see old denim jacket wrapped around a book bag and couch cushion greeting me with equal delight. We all gathered on the couch and openly discussed our day. We were giggling and laughing with each other, curled up on the couch with the fireplace cracking. We decided to put in a movie, The Never-ending Story, and watched it together to close out the night. As pumpkin face and denim lay fast asleep, I covered them up and headed upstairs with couch cushion. We enjoyed our moment alone together by making quiet love, the only way we knew how since bringing the children into our lives. After couch cushion fell asleep, I went back the old house and peered in through the window, seeing the children sleep comfortably on their mothers lap, smiling, without a care in the world. They wouldn’t be smiling so calmly if they knew what went down in that lap to conceive them. I sat there behind the bushes, sleeping with them, until it was time to head to work. Everyone at the school always asked to see pictures of my kids. I brought them to a Christmas party and the teachers fell in love with them. They really were a pleasant group of children. But now I have new kids, and I dread the uncomfortable conversation of why they look so different or what happened to your other kids. I didn’t want them to think I ditched my old family for this new and improved version. It was doubly embarrassing to have this conversation while now holding a mop and bucket of puke-filled water. The next day I awoke and didn’t reach for the snooze button or a drink, I just woke up and sprung out of bed. It was Father’s day, and I knew the family was up to something. Much to my surprise, I arrived downstairs to a lovely breakfast already prepared. More surprisingly, next to it was my first wife and kids, “Happy Father’s Day!” I couldn’t believe my eyes, they had looked past the drinking and the fighting and the weeks at a time away and the defecating on the living room carpet, and came to celebrate with me. Both families, both lives, together, I was absolutely elated. I was a father again. I decided to make a drink to celebrate.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:24:01 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ By Sharon Lee Fernberg When our first child was due to be born, my husband and I were required to attend parenting classes at the local hospital. “There will be a trickle when your water breaks,” the nurse informed the parents-to-be. However, after a perfect ten-month pregnancy, my water broke at 5:30 a.m. At 11:00 a.m. while at my obstetrician’s office, the water still gushed from my body as though something inside me kept flushing an inner toilet. Towels and maxi pads could not prevent what occurred inside of me. At 1:00 p.m. my obstetrician ordered an x-ray. A nurse pushed me to radiology in a wheelchair that held a small bowl under the seat. I felt embarrassed that it overflowed but considering I couldn’t even see my feet at the time, I smiled apologetically. Fourteen hours later, my son Jeffrey entered this world, weighing in at 9lbs.2oz. and 21” long. I spent two weeks in the hospital. He flattened my bladder, I was told. Eighteen months later, after being two weeks earlier than the actual due date or two weeks past the due date of my second child, my son Patrick howled his way into our lives, weighing in at eight pounds and 20” long. This time when my water broke, the nurse was correct. I felt only a trickle. We went home three days later. Years later, the pregnancy lasted longer than a year. It began with a meeting on adoption. My husband and I endured sixty page home studies, writing individual accounts on each of our siblings, our parents, our children, and having meetings in our house with the caseworkers from the local agency that handled the adoption proceedings. We took pictures of each room of the house, pictures of the boys and of each other, and provided photos of the cat. We had to be fingerprinted by the FBI in Buffalo, New York. As weeks and then months passed by, we continued to wait patiently and anxiously. We had no choice. It wasn't our decision to make when our daughter would be delivered. Nevertheless, a television meteorologist prepared us. A blizzard was due to arrive in Western New York the end of February. We couldn’t take a chance that her plane would arrive from Korea and we wouldn't be there. My husband informed our caseworker that we were going to go to New Jersey and spend a few days with my sister and her family – just in case. Three days later the call came from New York. The plane would touch down at JFK around 6:00 p.m. that night. It was Leap Year Day. We were only one hour from the airport but we had to meet the adoption agency greeter early to sign papers. The wind hissed that day. A cold chill lingered. In my arms, I held a white and yellow shell stitch afghan I had crocheted for my daughter. Jeff held tightly to the diaper bag. Patrick hugged the pink snowsuit. My husband waited nervously with the camera in his hands. At 6:21 p.m. the plane touched down. Within minutes, a greeter said, “Sung Sin HWANG.” He handed me our 6-1/2 month old daughter. I whispered her new name, Lindsay Sung-Elizabeth. She didn’t cry although tears trickled down my cheeks. Her dark slanted eyes stared up into my face. I kissed her nose. Her small arms curled around my neck. Her shoulder-length silky black hair skimmed my cheek as she laid her head on my shoulder. So, this was our daughter. The boys’ sister. As we departed the airport a half hour later, I held Lindsay tightly, protecting her against the cold chill with the afghan now cloaking her small body. I don't know why but at that moment I thought of the times I had given birth to my sons, and I knew this would always be the day my daughter was delivered. I looked from Lindsay and glanced at my sons, their round faces beaming with excitement and joy. It was then I realized that the overwhelming love I felt in my heart was the same for all three of my children. I felt the tears trickle down my face.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:14:42 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ by Scott Dunlop I am being stalked. Since May 2006 I have been looking over my shoulder. I have felt like a mild celebrity. I don’t get blinded by camera flashes outside the supermarket, or enter into impromptu car chases, no, my stalker is far more subtle than that. I wake up in the morning, and he is there. I bathe, he is there. I get dressed, and I feel his eyes watching me. With every cupboard I open, and every switch I touch, his large saucer eyes trace my every move. He doesn’t speak very much, but he does communicate. What he says to me frightens me. He whispers constantly. You are my hero. I want to be you. I want to do everything you do, and touch everything you touch. I want to wear your shoes, eat your food and test the elasticity of your skin… Which would be very creepy if he was a stranger, but this tiny follower of mine, this little disciple is my son. His gaze is unnerving, his ability to absorb all of my attention is alarming. He is not content with being a bit part in my life-movie, no, he has taken over. He wants to direct, he wants to write, he wants full creative license. He wants to have his name above mine on the billboard, and he refuses to share the credits with anyone else. The stalker wants to be the star. Which isn’t the same as marriage. With marriage, you go from being completely independent, to selectively co-dependent. It’s easy to compromise a little bit for someone you love. You can be married and still retain a great portion of who you are. Not so with babies. With babies you are utterly subsumed by their dependence on you as a caregiver. You can’t fob them off with telling them that you would rather go out and watch a movie than change their diaper, or feed them a bottle. Not unless you want the Authorities to pay you a visit… You can’t just give them a tiny portion of you to clutch, like a sweat-stained handkerchief; they need to have complete access to you all the time. On-stage, off-stage and in the dressing room. Now that I think about it, I have been replaced. I was one the star of my show. I was one the one choosing to eat what I wanted, and where I wanted it. I was a free agent. All my royalties went to me. Suddenly, I find my contract altered. I have been down-sized. The baby is in charge. He commands all the attention when we head out to the shops. He is the one high-fiving strangers and pretending to laugh at their weak jokes. I just traipse after him with his bag, the one stuffed with his snacks and clothes, in case he should get peckish, or need a sudden change. I wipe his bottom, for goodness sake. Everywhere he goes, I go. Every time he opens his mouth, I check to see what he is trying to say. I study his body language. I am there when he wakes, I am there when he sleeps. I take photographs without his permission. I am obsessed. I am a stalker.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:24:53 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ by Misty Noble-Hodge I was round. A not so compact little heartthrob was bundled in my abdomen and in my heart. Oh, I had a love affair with that little baby inside of me. I used to pull my maternity shirts tight against my tummy and watch him roll like the waves in the ocean. I had gone through this pregnancy quite alone and was just waiting for him to be born. To have someone to hold and love. I remember when the doctor told me he wanted to induce. It was a Friday. He said, "How does Monday sound?" Terror of the pain roared through my veins. Monday? That soon? Monday. I went in, late. My mother came with me. She had every intention of spending the night at home, but when they hooked me up to the monitors, I was having contractions. "Can you feel that?" the nurse asked. "Nope," I said with a grin. My mother spent the night on the tiny couch at the foot of my bed. Then came the torturous IV. They had a novice trying to find her way into my veins and I got stuck 11 times before someone who knew what they were doing came in and relieved us both of our suffering. They left for me to get some rest, but made me lay flat on my back under the mountain of baby. Rushing through my head were thoughts about how I wasn’t supposed to lay flat on my back, something about veins being compressed. But surely these labor and delivery nurses knew more than a 20-year-old kid. I wanted gloat when the nurses came in a little while later and told me to roll over because the baby was happier when I was on my left side. I knew that. When morning came, the first time I was checked I had already achieved 4 centimeters. "You can have an epidural now if you want," said the large black nurse. Already? I hadn't even felt any contractions yet. My father briefly stopped in before work while I was resting. They told him it would still be hours before I was 10 centimeters so he could go on to work, which was only 20 minutes away. We would call to keep him updated. Right as he left, the nurse came in to check me again. Lo and behold, 10 centimeters. My mother ran out of the room to call my father's office. He hadn't made it there yet. When he reached the door of the office, his assistant turned him right around. It was time. Flurry of activity. Scrubs. Shiny metal and white cloth. I pushed only twice and my quiet and soft spoke doctor said, "Good." Equal amounts of pride and shock rang through me; it was happening so fast. I heard suctioning. One more gentle push and he was out. I laughed. My first view was a little purple behind. My first question: "Does he have hair?" "Quite a bit of hair," said the nurse. My second question: "Does he have my ears?" My mother beams at me and simply says, "Yes." I am handed a swaddled little caterpillar, a cocooned bundle with long purple fingers and a tiny swollen face. He watches me with attentive eyes as I coo at him. He sucks his fingers and I remark about how we are both starving. I wish I had known to nurse him immediately. But I didn't. No one had told me. He had to wait until later in our room with two nurses trying to position him on my breast. Now I look at this striking child with the gangly legs and arms, who has lost two of the teeth I had watched sprout years ago. His dark brown hair, so like my mother's. Rich chocolate eyes. He is growing up so fast and in so many ways, I feel like I am missing it. He is so big now, but still so small. Six years is not too long to be on this planet. There are so many mornings to be woken and so many more breaths to take. Six years is only long enough to learn to tie one's shoes and write one's name, maybe. There are so many things waiting for him still. I hope he learns to stay young as long as possible. Even though to me, he will always be that little bundle, snuggled into me and making me a mother for the very first time.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:15:35 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ by Janine Dunlop I’m lying in a hospital passageway, wondering whether I’ll be able to love my baby. I am unspeakably nervous and it must be evident, because everyone who appears next to my bed tries to placate me. After what seems an eternity, I’m wheeled in by a jolly nurse who shouts that we should get this show on the road. The “show” is that I’m about to have a baby. Flash to a week previously. I’m sitting at work after twisting my ankle, waiting for the painless contractions that started soon after the fall to go away. When I mention this casually to a colleague, the news spreads like wildfire: Janine is in labour. I’m whisked away to the clinic by our health and safety officer. I comply because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but secretly I’m thinking that this is a waste of my doctor’s time. When I’m strapped to the monitor, it’s established that I’m in labour. I’m 33 weeks pregnant. A drip containing a drug that will stop the contractions is administered. I’m given an injection to mature the baby’s lungs and within an hour, I’m admitted and wheeled in to the antenatal ward, where pregnant women languish in beds all around me. Still in denial, I telephone my husband to ask him to arrange to fetch my car, as I’m planning on being home by the evening. I notice my roommate smiling. “No one leaves this ward,” she laughs. A few days later and she’s being proved right. Despite the drugs, I keep going into labour. I begin to realise that I’ll probably spend the rest of my pregnancy here. I spend a week railing against the unfairness of it all. I had planned to spend three weeks at home with my son, preparing him for the birth of his sibling. Instead, I wheel a drip in front of me every time I go to the bathroom and suffer the indignity of urine samples each morning and suppositories every four hours. Exactly a week after my fall I experience painful contractions late in the afternoon. I am told that the best thing to do is have an emergency caesarean section. I am aware that I have little choice in the matter. To refuse seems like selfishness on my part. When I tell my husband that we’re about to have a baby, he springs into action, arranging for our son to be looked after. I can think of nothing so practical. I feel afraid and out of my depth. I spend the three hours leading up to the event crying, worried that I’m not prepared, that the baby won’t survive and that I won’t be able to love him or her. Back in the operating theatre now, and there is activity all around me. The conversation among the staff is about how busy they were today and how keen they are to get home. It’s after 9pm and they are tired. I wonder briefly whether this means they will be less cautious with me. I clasp my husband’s hand and squeeze harder and harder as the epidural takes effect. The doctors start without telling me, but I am aware of an enormous force pushing and pulling on my belly. My fear is making me sweat. No dimmed lights and calm atmosphere this time around, the lights above me burn my eyes and I recall a line from my son’s storybook: “All the better to see you with.” My husband prays next to me and tells me how well I’m doing. A few minutes later, my baby is born and she is crying. Earlier, my doctor had blithely told me that the baby would be fine, although she would probably need assistance with breathing and feeding initially. I am appalled at his glibness – he is telling me she will need help to live. As the paediatrician looks her over and pronounces her ok, I weep with happiness. She weighs 2.1kg and seems older than her 34 weeks gestation. She astounds everyone the next day by being ready to come out of incubation and sucking vigorously on my breast. We emerge from the maternity ward one week later. I don’t look back as we make our way gingerly to the car park. I’m amazed now that I thought I couldn’t love her. She is my daughter and she’s perfect. A lifetime of love has begun.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:46:19 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ By Christopher "G" Garlington My daughter's friends were over the other day. My daughter's friends are all hyper intelligent and busy as hell just like my daughter but, unlike her, they all have hero quality dads who bend steel bars with their bare hands for a living and rescue babies from vats of molten lead and, most of all, go away during the day to return haggard and stoic and dead tired sometime after 5pm. I, on the other hand, wrestle laundry to the basement and immerse myself in the minutiae of dishwasher load planning and the use of "bluing" to make my whites whiter. I also make twisted knock knock jokes(1) and have a tendency to sing where I ought to mumble and I have, somehow, become their hero. I didn't mean to and I say somehow but I'm being unnecessarily (and uncharacteristically) modest--I know exactly how I became their hero: I told them I chart my daughter's . . . um . . . I keep a record of, uh . . . I mark the calendar for. . . I'm steadfastly abreast of her [punctuation]. This is not the lowest depth my steady emasculation, by the way, that's surely sitting through a stuttering presentation of a Hugh Grant movie so insipidly British even Hugh Grant was rolling his eyes IN THE MOVIE HE WAS STARRING IN. It was a chick flick so flicking chicked I think I grew breasts while I was watching. But, such is marriage. I made my attorney sit through Spawn once so I owe her forever. It is, however, a most unmasculine thing to do, to chart the, er, [grammatical manifestation] of your little princess. In fact, if you are a man, just Stumble elsewhere. I'm embarrassed, ok. Chicks keep reading—I might need your advice. It all started because my Attorney is pretty much too frikkin busy to pay attention to her own [red swarm]. One day she was working hard, staying up late after a 14 hour day deciphering antennae displacement graphs or something equally insanely technical. She was sleep deprived and focused with such unwavering intensity that she actually burned a hole through a deposition with her very eyes. She said "God I feel like crap. I feel bloated and woggly and irritable and—" "You're getting your [red tide]" "I just had my [monsoon wedding]!" "Yeah, 27 days ago." She'd been working so hard she'd actually lost her sense of time. I think if she didn't have a calendar on her blackberry, she wouldn't know what day it was. So her [mighty mighty bosstone] snuck up on her and smacked her across the head. I felt sorry for my little legal Lolita and decided to add her [insane in the membrane] to my automatic calendar and I've been charting ever since. To the minute. Well, being that busy, she never really explained to the teen that this is a regular occurrence, that it can be expected, that JEANS DAY on the calendar is not referring too a dress code. So, in for a dollar if you're in for a dime. The next time my daughter screamed "PAD!" from the bathroom, I tossed a couple in (like grenades) and put her on my calendar too. So there she is, hanging with her friends—ok. Hanging is way too energetic to describe what they do. The flop. They flop over the chair. They flop down in front of the TV. The flop down the steps and flop into the car and flop out. They're virtually boneless. So they were all draped across the furniture expending less energy than most dead field mice when I casually mentioned to Rah that I'd stocked the bathroom with [ammunition] and she might want to remember that since she was due for her [orc horde]. Her friends howled with approval and the Polish one screamed out YOU ARE MY HERO! So there you go. My ability to suppress my natural male tendency to fish and work on trucks in favor of ticking off the days until the women in my life are assaulted by their respective [mammy tsunamis] has elevated me to the level of hero. I can see myself now, standing tall, cast in bronze, a metallic cape forever blown behind me in chunky statuesque bravery, my brow pointed ever eastward, my countenance ever grim, ever focused — a fistful of tampons at my side.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:38:39 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ by Bitsy Parker As a little girl I never played with dolls nor dreamed about being a mother. Perhaps my distance from these maternal feelings made the birth of my first child the most shocking and outrageous experience of my life. My husband and I married when I was 30 and he 36. He brought with him to the marriage two daughters from a previous marriage. We were content with two children and didn’t plan on having more, but we decided that if I did become pregnant, then we would be happy. When I did become pregnant (after about 10 seconds), I thought that my husband would be the main caregiver for the new baby. He was a father. He knew how to handle children. I was a selfish, only child and a busy career girl with no previous baby experience. In my mind, having a baby was like a company buying a subsidiary – in this situation, the baby wasn’t under my direct division, but I would provide necessary support as needed. Go team, go – let’s acquire a baby! Realistically, I knew that the baby would require my attention, but I viewed the forthcoming baby like I would view a charity asking to host an event at my house – I knew there would be work to be done – plant some flowers, wallpaper the bathroom, buy fresh flowers, and I would probably have to leave work early, but ultimately, the charity staff would handle the details like nametags and follow-up letters. I would birth the baby, buy the clothes and order the diaper service, but my husband would do the heavy lifting like teaching the baby to walk and helping with any emotional needs, if there were any. What a shock it was when my daughter, who over-stayed her nine months in my womb by two weeks, was finally knifed out of my gut. After the nineteen hours of wrestling an uncomfortable knot from my uterus, the doctors, nurses and family left my hospital room. It was twilight, and I was staring at the wall in the darkening room wondering what had happened to me. The nurse plunged into the room dragging a streak of fluorescent light with her. She dropped a baby on my lap and left the agitated infant screaming in my arms. The door slowly closed and the harsh light faded – in the dim light I went to work on the little ball of flesh. Instinctively, I undressed the baby and freed her from the hospital clothes that were unnaturally clinging to her body. I, too, took off my mistake of clothing. Skin to skin, I pressed the little baby to my chest and she stopped crying. The power of knowing how to care for this new life was equivalent to the caveman starting the first fire. The “rightness” of this action had enough energy to engulf the hospital in flames. From that moment I knew that my husband was not sitting first chair on this project – I was lead counsel on this case.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:28:59 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ by itchingtowrite We tested positive with the in-home test done over the weekend and since my doctor was busy getting her daughter married to the Srilankankan cricketer Muralidharan, we waited till Good Friday to see her. We decided not to break the news to the family until the doctor gave a clear go ahead. And after the confirmation, we decided to celebrate with a “whirlwind” romantic getaway to the beach retreat Pondicherry where we had first met! While we were quite wary of the test as I was not experiencing any tell-tale signs of pregnancy like giddiness/ nausea like the actresses in Hindi movies do, yet after one week of hugging the news of “baby” happening to ourselves, we were sitting at the doctor’s room with the officially confirmed medical test. She asked me to get a scan done just to ensure everything was alright as I was already on the 6th week. As we were waiting for our turn, I frivolously mentioned that it would be great to have twins. It would be lovely to watch them grow together, having someone to bond with instantly. As parents of twins, we would be unique in the family too! I went in for the scan after drinking loads of water. The doctor was taking his own sweet time, asking me plenty of questions, taking down notes diligently. In turn I also started asking him whether everything was fine. Annoyingly he did not want to answer. Another doctor came by and started looking at the screen. He just muttered “twins??” I thought I heard something that sounded like twins and on cue started troubling the doctor with questions- what happened, what is it, is everything ok? After a long time the doctor turned the screen towards me and said –it’s twins. I could see two distinct dots on the computer screen reflecting the image of the womb. They called the proud father-to-be to show him the goods. As I saw him coming I made a ‘V’ sign indicating 2, wanting to be the first one to break the delightful news – I doubt it whether he understood as he had a very goofy smile on his face as the doctor started giving him the good news. My husband’s feeling is beautifully summed up by him – “Never in my school exams I scored more than what I estimated. After seeing the scan results, I felt I was getting a better score than I had anticipated!” My doctor said probably her good luck had rubbed off on mine, as she was also a mother of twins! I had planned not to tell my colleagues about the pregnancy during the initial days, for obvious reasons- the superstition that one must not disclose the news of a pregnancy until the crucial three months are over. But as they say one should never plan too much- the Doctor advised me to be on bed rest for 6 weeks to tide over the high risk twin gestation. So I had to break the news to one and all at my workplace. And thereafter “baby” became “babies” in our conversation. And the much anticipated Pondicherry trip went out of the window. My CEO commented- how could you blend two different fragrances in the same vessel! I work in the fragrance industry and a fragrance is a blend of chemicals mixed together in a large container.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:38:39 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ by Bitsy Parker As a little girl I never played with dolls nor dreamed about being a mother. Perhaps my distance from these maternal feelings made the birth of my first child the most shocking and outrageous experience of my life. My husband and I married when I was 30 and he 36. He brought with him to the marriage two daughters from a previous marriage. We were content with two children and didn’t plan on having more, but we decided that if I did become pregnant, then we would be happy. When I did become pregnant (after about 10 seconds), I thought that my husband would be the main caregiver for the new baby. He was a father. He knew how to handle children. I was a selfish, only child and a busy career girl with no previous baby experience. In my mind, having a baby was like a company buying a subsidiary – in this situation, the baby wasn’t under my direct division, but I would provide necessary support as needed. Go team, go – let’s acquire a baby! Realistically, I knew that the baby would require my attention, but I viewed the forthcoming baby like I would view a charity asking to host an event at my house – I knew there would be work to be done – plant some flowers, wallpaper the bathroom, buy fresh flowers, and I would probably have to leave work early, but ultimately, the charity staff would handle the details like nametags and follow-up letters. I would birth the baby, buy the clothes and order the diaper service, but my husband would do the heavy lifting like teaching the baby to walk and helping with any emotional needs, if there were any. What a shock it was when my daughter, who over-stayed her nine months in my womb by two weeks, was finally knifed out of my gut. After the nineteen hours of wrestling an uncomfortable knot from my uterus, the doctors, nurses and family left my hospital room. It was twilight, and I was staring at the wall in the darkening room wondering what had happened to me. The nurse plunged into the room dragging a streak of fluorescent light with her. She dropped a baby on my lap and left the agitated infant screaming in my arms. The door slowly closed and the harsh light faded – in the dim light I went to work on the little ball of flesh. Instinctively, I undressed the baby and freed her from the hospital clothes that were unnaturally clinging to her body. I, too, took off my mistake of clothing. Skin to skin, I pressed the little baby to my chest and she stopped crying. The power of knowing how to care for this new life was equivalent to the caveman starting the first fire. The “rightness” of this action had enough energy to engulf the hospital in flames. From that moment I knew that my husband was not sitting first chair on this project – I was lead counsel on this case.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com A Writing Contest for all You Clever Girls and Boys! Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:05:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/#comments Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:59:34 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ by Janine Salas-Mason It’s usually late evening when I can actually turn on my computer. It’s part of a ritual that initiates my nightly turndown service. Checking that doors are locked, all children are bed and hubby is either sleeping or has the remote in hand and that bag of Oreos and milk he asked me for. Only then, I get to turn on my computer and indulge in my secret pleasure, my writing. Through my writing, I affirm my purpose to myself every day. I am a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend and even if only acknowledged by me, … a writer. We all know that to a mother, your children are your babies no matter how old they get. Meghan, my oldest baby is 12 years old and my first shot at parenthood. I didn’t know it then but she would be my longest labor and the first of five children. Meghan is a pure joy and a preteen, which leaves me as much in awe as it does confusion. Meghan does not know just how special she is to me. She is my first baby. Four years after having Meghan we had Elias, my little brown bear. Yes, I affectionately call him that. And six months after that, I was pregnant with Madison,… the last baby, or so I thought. Elias and Madison are six months apart, it’s almost like having twins. Elias loves his baby sister and Madison, she can’t get enough of Elias. They are inseparable and I ‘m very lucky for that. So I have a great husband, three beautiful children, my own home etc, what more could I want right? Well, my husband, who was adopted at 6 months of age, has discovered his desire to know his own birth family. Amongst the other hats I wear, I now become a private detective find his entire birth family. My husband decides that he would like to give back to society that which was given to him decides we should adopt. Now, I think most of us at one point or another say to ourselves, “if I ever hit the lotto, I would adopt some children etc.” Well, in my family this became a reality. No we didn’t hit lotto, but we did adopt a child. And so Josef, at 2 years old, became part of our family. Josef, is a special needs child. The agency thought he was mute. He wasn’t. He was suffering neglect and had decided he was not ready to speak yet. Josef will always be my special baby. Not because of his special needs, just because he is especially loved. He took my motherly love to a new level, to a place aside of myself …outside of my skin and into my heart. A week into Josef’s arrival I got a life changing phone call. It was the adoption agency explaining that Josef now had a baby brother and they would like to place the 3-month-old baby with us to keep the siblings together. The agency worker said she knew it was a tall order but wanted to “plant the seed” and see if there was any chance of us taking in Josef’s baby brother. Planting a seed was an understatement! I was torn to pieces. I knew it was probably a long shot, but I longed for the baby already and I brought the situation up to my husband. My husband took the weekend to think about it and when he was ready he started by saying, “I think sometimes, our hearts are bigger than our pockets.” My heart sunk, but then he said, “ I have just met my siblings now at 33 years old. I wish I had memories of childhood years with them…” And so it was, that a week after meeting my 2 year old son Josef, I met Ryan, …and baby made five. Ryan had pneumonia when he was placed with us and I spent the next week living in the hospital. I learned to juggle the needs of my new babies and the babies I already had. I learned children could adapt, that they are as giving as we teach them to be. I learned a lot. I learned all this while trying to still meet the needs of my husband, who could prove to be the biggest baby of all at times. (God Bless his soul, a term I use instead of cursing, sometimes!) I learned of my husbands’ affair, and I learned it wasn’t the end of the world even though it felt like it. (That’s a whole other story!) So, at the end of the day, after the homework is done, uniforms are washed, and I have finished giving 10 speeches as to why..why and why,… my evening ritual begins. After turning my husband on and my children off. I am thankful, thankful for my 5 beautiful babies. The ones I gave birth to and the ones God has entrusted to me through adoption. Thankful that it does not make a difference to me which babies I have birthed and which ones I haven’t. Thankful, that I can write and plant a seed.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:06:06 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ by Daniel D'Andrea They were singing and dancing with a contagious bliss, enough to make me giggle along. A simple Christmas carol, in June mind you, was all it took to invoke this fit of joy for the children. They truly were a family; they loved each other more than I could ever hope. I proudly watched, as their mother played and sang along, as careless and joyful as the children. An ear to ear smile took over my face, but I couldn’t hold back the tear from seeping into my mouth. The salty taste did not faze me; nothing could at this point. As I peered in through the window, I felt as though I belonged in that circle, singing and playing along. I don’t know what stopped me, probably the restraining order or deadbolts, but otherwise I was completely free. Nobody will ever know how much I care for those children. Sure, I had odd ways of showing it, and the courts disagreed with my methods, but love is love. After getting fired for drinking at work, I entered a deep depression which forced me into more drinking. I loved the kids at work as much as I loved my own, and teaching was my only passion. Now I lost those kids, my own kids, my wife, my life, everything, all because I like to be wasted to teach elementary math, my other passion. So sue me! Well, not again, please. A tear from the other eye streamed down the other side of my face, this taste seemed to faze me a bit more than the first. After they all began to drift off, I hurried back home to be with my new family. In a fit of defiance, I said out loud to myself, “I don’t need them anymore.” I kicked everything within leg’s distance on my trip home, saying this exact sentence repeatedly. I didn’t cheer up until I arrived back at my own house. Pumpkin was the first to greet me, with a bright smile that lit up the entire room. Well, it did once I lit the candle inside of her. After pumpkin gave me light, I could see old denim jacket wrapped around a book bag and couch cushion greeting me with equal delight. We all gathered on the couch and openly discussed our day. We were giggling and laughing with each other, curled up on the couch with the fireplace cracking. We decided to put in a movie, The Never-ending Story, and watched it together to close out the night. As pumpkin face and denim lay fast asleep, I covered them up and headed upstairs with couch cushion. We enjoyed our moment alone together by making quiet love, the only way we knew how since bringing the children into our lives. After couch cushion fell asleep, I went back the old house and peered in through the window, seeing the children sleep comfortably on their mothers lap, smiling, without a care in the world. They wouldn’t be smiling so calmly if they knew what went down in that lap to conceive them. I sat there behind the bushes, sleeping with them, until it was time to head to work. Everyone at the school always asked to see pictures of my kids. I brought them to a Christmas party and the teachers fell in love with them. They really were a pleasant group of children. But now I have new kids, and I dread the uncomfortable conversation of why they look so different or what happened to your other kids. I didn’t want them to think I ditched my old family for this new and improved version. It was doubly embarrassing to have this conversation while now holding a mop and bucket of puke-filled water. The next day I awoke and didn’t reach for the snooze button or a drink, I just woke up and sprung out of bed. It was Father’s day, and I knew the family was up to something. Much to my surprise, I arrived downstairs to a lovely breakfast already prepared. More surprisingly, next to it was my first wife and kids, “Happy Father’s Day!” I couldn’t believe my eyes, they had looked past the drinking and the fighting and the weeks at a time away and the defecating on the living room carpet, and came to celebrate with me. Both families, both lives, together, I was absolutely elated. I was a father again. I decided to make a drink to celebrate.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:24:01 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ By Sharon Lee Fernberg When our first child was due to be born, my husband and I were required to attend parenting classes at the local hospital. “There will be a trickle when your water breaks,” the nurse informed the parents-to-be. However, after a perfect ten-month pregnancy, my water broke at 5:30 a.m. At 11:00 a.m. while at my obstetrician’s office, the water still gushed from my body as though something inside me kept flushing an inner toilet. Towels and maxi pads could not prevent what occurred inside of me. At 1:00 p.m. my obstetrician ordered an x-ray. A nurse pushed me to radiology in a wheelchair that held a small bowl under the seat. I felt embarrassed that it overflowed but considering I couldn’t even see my feet at the time, I smiled apologetically. Fourteen hours later, my son Jeffrey entered this world, weighing in at 9lbs.2oz. and 21” long. I spent two weeks in the hospital. He flattened my bladder, I was told. Eighteen months later, after being two weeks earlier than the actual due date or two weeks past the due date of my second child, my son Patrick howled his way into our lives, weighing in at eight pounds and 20” long. This time when my water broke, the nurse was correct. I felt only a trickle. We went home three days later. Years later, the pregnancy lasted longer than a year. It began with a meeting on adoption. My husband and I endured sixty page home studies, writing individual accounts on each of our siblings, our parents, our children, and having meetings in our house with the caseworkers from the local agency that handled the adoption proceedings. We took pictures of each room of the house, pictures of the boys and of each other, and provided photos of the cat. We had to be fingerprinted by the FBI in Buffalo, New York. As weeks and then months passed by, we continued to wait patiently and anxiously. We had no choice. It wasn't our decision to make when our daughter would be delivered. Nevertheless, a television meteorologist prepared us. A blizzard was due to arrive in Western New York the end of February. We couldn’t take a chance that her plane would arrive from Korea and we wouldn't be there. My husband informed our caseworker that we were going to go to New Jersey and spend a few days with my sister and her family – just in case. Three days later the call came from New York. The plane would touch down at JFK around 6:00 p.m. that night. It was Leap Year Day. We were only one hour from the airport but we had to meet the adoption agency greeter early to sign papers. The wind hissed that day. A cold chill lingered. In my arms, I held a white and yellow shell stitch afghan I had crocheted for my daughter. Jeff held tightly to the diaper bag. Patrick hugged the pink snowsuit. My husband waited nervously with the camera in his hands. At 6:21 p.m. the plane touched down. Within minutes, a greeter said, “Sung Sin HWANG.” He handed me our 6-1/2 month old daughter. I whispered her new name, Lindsay Sung-Elizabeth. She didn’t cry although tears trickled down my cheeks. Her dark slanted eyes stared up into my face. I kissed her nose. Her small arms curled around my neck. Her shoulder-length silky black hair skimmed my cheek as she laid her head on my shoulder. So, this was our daughter. The boys’ sister. As we departed the airport a half hour later, I held Lindsay tightly, protecting her against the cold chill with the afghan now cloaking her small body. I don't know why but at that moment I thought of the times I had given birth to my sons, and I knew this would always be the day my daughter was delivered. I looked from Lindsay and glanced at my sons, their round faces beaming with excitement and joy. It was then I realized that the overwhelming love I felt in my heart was the same for all three of my children. I felt the tears trickle down my face.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:14:42 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ by Scott Dunlop I am being stalked. Since May 2006 I have been looking over my shoulder. I have felt like a mild celebrity. I don’t get blinded by camera flashes outside the supermarket, or enter into impromptu car chases, no, my stalker is far more subtle than that. I wake up in the morning, and he is there. I bathe, he is there. I get dressed, and I feel his eyes watching me. With every cupboard I open, and every switch I touch, his large saucer eyes trace my every move. He doesn’t speak very much, but he does communicate. What he says to me frightens me. He whispers constantly. You are my hero. I want to be you. I want to do everything you do, and touch everything you touch. I want to wear your shoes, eat your food and test the elasticity of your skin… Which would be very creepy if he was a stranger, but this tiny follower of mine, this little disciple is my son. His gaze is unnerving, his ability to absorb all of my attention is alarming. He is not content with being a bit part in my life-movie, no, he has taken over. He wants to direct, he wants to write, he wants full creative license. He wants to have his name above mine on the billboard, and he refuses to share the credits with anyone else. The stalker wants to be the star. Which isn’t the same as marriage. With marriage, you go from being completely independent, to selectively co-dependent. It’s easy to compromise a little bit for someone you love. You can be married and still retain a great portion of who you are. Not so with babies. With babies you are utterly subsumed by their dependence on you as a caregiver. You can’t fob them off with telling them that you would rather go out and watch a movie than change their diaper, or feed them a bottle. Not unless you want the Authorities to pay you a visit… You can’t just give them a tiny portion of you to clutch, like a sweat-stained handkerchief; they need to have complete access to you all the time. On-stage, off-stage and in the dressing room. Now that I think about it, I have been replaced. I was one the star of my show. I was one the one choosing to eat what I wanted, and where I wanted it. I was a free agent. All my royalties went to me. Suddenly, I find my contract altered. I have been down-sized. The baby is in charge. He commands all the attention when we head out to the shops. He is the one high-fiving strangers and pretending to laugh at their weak jokes. I just traipse after him with his bag, the one stuffed with his snacks and clothes, in case he should get peckish, or need a sudden change. I wipe his bottom, for goodness sake. Everywhere he goes, I go. Every time he opens his mouth, I check to see what he is trying to say. I study his body language. I am there when he wakes, I am there when he sleeps. I take photographs without his permission. I am obsessed. I am a stalker.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:24:53 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ by Misty Noble-Hodge I was round. A not so compact little heartthrob was bundled in my abdomen and in my heart. Oh, I had a love affair with that little baby inside of me. I used to pull my maternity shirts tight against my tummy and watch him roll like the waves in the ocean. I had gone through this pregnancy quite alone and was just waiting for him to be born. To have someone to hold and love. I remember when the doctor told me he wanted to induce. It was a Friday. He said, "How does Monday sound?" Terror of the pain roared through my veins. Monday? That soon? Monday. I went in, late. My mother came with me. She had every intention of spending the night at home, but when they hooked me up to the monitors, I was having contractions. "Can you feel that?" the nurse asked. "Nope," I said with a grin. My mother spent the night on the tiny couch at the foot of my bed. Then came the torturous IV. They had a novice trying to find her way into my veins and I got stuck 11 times before someone who knew what they were doing came in and relieved us both of our suffering. They left for me to get some rest, but made me lay flat on my back under the mountain of baby. Rushing through my head were thoughts about how I wasn’t supposed to lay flat on my back, something about veins being compressed. But surely these labor and delivery nurses knew more than a 20-year-old kid. I wanted gloat when the nurses came in a little while later and told me to roll over because the baby was happier when I was on my left side. I knew that. When morning came, the first time I was checked I had already achieved 4 centimeters. "You can have an epidural now if you want," said the large black nurse. Already? I hadn't even felt any contractions yet. My father briefly stopped in before work while I was resting. They told him it would still be hours before I was 10 centimeters so he could go on to work, which was only 20 minutes away. We would call to keep him updated. Right as he left, the nurse came in to check me again. Lo and behold, 10 centimeters. My mother ran out of the room to call my father's office. He hadn't made it there yet. When he reached the door of the office, his assistant turned him right around. It was time. Flurry of activity. Scrubs. Shiny metal and white cloth. I pushed only twice and my quiet and soft spoke doctor said, "Good." Equal amounts of pride and shock rang through me; it was happening so fast. I heard suctioning. One more gentle push and he was out. I laughed. My first view was a little purple behind. My first question: "Does he have hair?" "Quite a bit of hair," said the nurse. My second question: "Does he have my ears?" My mother beams at me and simply says, "Yes." I am handed a swaddled little caterpillar, a cocooned bundle with long purple fingers and a tiny swollen face. He watches me with attentive eyes as I coo at him. He sucks his fingers and I remark about how we are both starving. I wish I had known to nurse him immediately. But I didn't. No one had told me. He had to wait until later in our room with two nurses trying to position him on my breast. Now I look at this striking child with the gangly legs and arms, who has lost two of the teeth I had watched sprout years ago. His dark brown hair, so like my mother's. Rich chocolate eyes. He is growing up so fast and in so many ways, I feel like I am missing it. He is so big now, but still so small. Six years is not too long to be on this planet. There are so many mornings to be woken and so many more breaths to take. Six years is only long enough to learn to tie one's shoes and write one's name, maybe. There are so many things waiting for him still. I hope he learns to stay young as long as possible. Even though to me, he will always be that little bundle, snuggled into me and making me a mother for the very first time.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:15:35 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ by Janine Dunlop I’m lying in a hospital passageway, wondering whether I’ll be able to love my baby. I am unspeakably nervous and it must be evident, because everyone who appears next to my bed tries to placate me. After what seems an eternity, I’m wheeled in by a jolly nurse who shouts that we should get this show on the road. The “show” is that I’m about to have a baby. Flash to a week previously. I’m sitting at work after twisting my ankle, waiting for the painless contractions that started soon after the fall to go away. When I mention this casually to a colleague, the news spreads like wildfire: Janine is in labour. I’m whisked away to the clinic by our health and safety officer. I comply because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but secretly I’m thinking that this is a waste of my doctor’s time. When I’m strapped to the monitor, it’s established that I’m in labour. I’m 33 weeks pregnant. A drip containing a drug that will stop the contractions is administered. I’m given an injection to mature the baby’s lungs and within an hour, I’m admitted and wheeled in to the antenatal ward, where pregnant women languish in beds all around me. Still in denial, I telephone my husband to ask him to arrange to fetch my car, as I’m planning on being home by the evening. I notice my roommate smiling. “No one leaves this ward,” she laughs. A few days later and she’s being proved right. Despite the drugs, I keep going into labour. I begin to realise that I’ll probably spend the rest of my pregnancy here. I spend a week railing against the unfairness of it all. I had planned to spend three weeks at home with my son, preparing him for the birth of his sibling. Instead, I wheel a drip in front of me every time I go to the bathroom and suffer the indignity of urine samples each morning and suppositories every four hours. Exactly a week after my fall I experience painful contractions late in the afternoon. I am told that the best thing to do is have an emergency caesarean section. I am aware that I have little choice in the matter. To refuse seems like selfishness on my part. When I tell my husband that we’re about to have a baby, he springs into action, arranging for our son to be looked after. I can think of nothing so practical. I feel afraid and out of my depth. I spend the three hours leading up to the event crying, worried that I’m not prepared, that the baby won’t survive and that I won’t be able to love him or her. Back in the operating theatre now, and there is activity all around me. The conversation among the staff is about how busy they were today and how keen they are to get home. It’s after 9pm and they are tired. I wonder briefly whether this means they will be less cautious with me. I clasp my husband’s hand and squeeze harder and harder as the epidural takes effect. The doctors start without telling me, but I am aware of an enormous force pushing and pulling on my belly. My fear is making me sweat. No dimmed lights and calm atmosphere this time around, the lights above me burn my eyes and I recall a line from my son’s storybook: “All the better to see you with.” My husband prays next to me and tells me how well I’m doing. A few minutes later, my baby is born and she is crying. Earlier, my doctor had blithely told me that the baby would be fine, although she would probably need assistance with breathing and feeding initially. I am appalled at his glibness – he is telling me she will need help to live. As the paediatrician looks her over and pronounces her ok, I weep with happiness. She weighs 2.1kg and seems older than her 34 weeks gestation. She astounds everyone the next day by being ready to come out of incubation and sucking vigorously on my breast. We emerge from the maternity ward one week later. I don’t look back as we make our way gingerly to the car park. I’m amazed now that I thought I couldn’t love her. She is my daughter and she’s perfect. A lifetime of love has begun.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:46:19 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ By Christopher "G" Garlington My daughter's friends were over the other day. My daughter's friends are all hyper intelligent and busy as hell just like my daughter but, unlike her, they all have hero quality dads who bend steel bars with their bare hands for a living and rescue babies from vats of molten lead and, most of all, go away during the day to return haggard and stoic and dead tired sometime after 5pm. I, on the other hand, wrestle laundry to the basement and immerse myself in the minutiae of dishwasher load planning and the use of "bluing" to make my whites whiter. I also make twisted knock knock jokes(1) and have a tendency to sing where I ought to mumble and I have, somehow, become their hero. I didn't mean to and I say somehow but I'm being unnecessarily (and uncharacteristically) modest--I know exactly how I became their hero: I told them I chart my daughter's . . . um . . . I keep a record of, uh . . . I mark the calendar for. . . I'm steadfastly abreast of her [punctuation]. This is not the lowest depth my steady emasculation, by the way, that's surely sitting through a stuttering presentation of a Hugh Grant movie so insipidly British even Hugh Grant was rolling his eyes IN THE MOVIE HE WAS STARRING IN. It was a chick flick so flicking chicked I think I grew breasts while I was watching. But, such is marriage. I made my attorney sit through Spawn once so I owe her forever. It is, however, a most unmasculine thing to do, to chart the, er, [grammatical manifestation] of your little princess. In fact, if you are a man, just Stumble elsewhere. I'm embarrassed, ok. Chicks keep reading—I might need your advice. It all started because my Attorney is pretty much too frikkin busy to pay attention to her own [red swarm]. One day she was working hard, staying up late after a 14 hour day deciphering antennae displacement graphs or something equally insanely technical. She was sleep deprived and focused with such unwavering intensity that she actually burned a hole through a deposition with her very eyes. She said "God I feel like crap. I feel bloated and woggly and irritable and—" "You're getting your [red tide]" "I just had my [monsoon wedding]!" "Yeah, 27 days ago." She'd been working so hard she'd actually lost her sense of time. I think if she didn't have a calendar on her blackberry, she wouldn't know what day it was. So her [mighty mighty bosstone] snuck up on her and smacked her across the head. I felt sorry for my little legal Lolita and decided to add her [insane in the membrane] to my automatic calendar and I've been charting ever since. To the minute. Well, being that busy, she never really explained to the teen that this is a regular occurrence, that it can be expected, that JEANS DAY on the calendar is not referring too a dress code. So, in for a dollar if you're in for a dime. The next time my daughter screamed "PAD!" from the bathroom, I tossed a couple in (like grenades) and put her on my calendar too. So there she is, hanging with her friends—ok. Hanging is way too energetic to describe what they do. The flop. They flop over the chair. They flop down in front of the TV. The flop down the steps and flop into the car and flop out. They're virtually boneless. So they were all draped across the furniture expending less energy than most dead field mice when I casually mentioned to Rah that I'd stocked the bathroom with [ammunition] and she might want to remember that since she was due for her [orc horde]. Her friends howled with approval and the Polish one screamed out YOU ARE MY HERO! So there you go. My ability to suppress my natural male tendency to fish and work on trucks in favor of ticking off the days until the women in my life are assaulted by their respective [mammy tsunamis] has elevated me to the level of hero. I can see myself now, standing tall, cast in bronze, a metallic cape forever blown behind me in chunky statuesque bravery, my brow pointed ever eastward, my countenance ever grim, ever focused — a fistful of tampons at my side.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:38:39 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ by Bitsy Parker As a little girl I never played with dolls nor dreamed about being a mother. Perhaps my distance from these maternal feelings made the birth of my first child the most shocking and outrageous experience of my life. My husband and I married when I was 30 and he 36. He brought with him to the marriage two daughters from a previous marriage. We were content with two children and didn’t plan on having more, but we decided that if I did become pregnant, then we would be happy. When I did become pregnant (after about 10 seconds), I thought that my husband would be the main caregiver for the new baby. He was a father. He knew how to handle children. I was a selfish, only child and a busy career girl with no previous baby experience. In my mind, having a baby was like a company buying a subsidiary – in this situation, the baby wasn’t under my direct division, but I would provide necessary support as needed. Go team, go – let’s acquire a baby! Realistically, I knew that the baby would require my attention, but I viewed the forthcoming baby like I would view a charity asking to host an event at my house – I knew there would be work to be done – plant some flowers, wallpaper the bathroom, buy fresh flowers, and I would probably have to leave work early, but ultimately, the charity staff would handle the details like nametags and follow-up letters. I would birth the baby, buy the clothes and order the diaper service, but my husband would do the heavy lifting like teaching the baby to walk and helping with any emotional needs, if there were any. What a shock it was when my daughter, who over-stayed her nine months in my womb by two weeks, was finally knifed out of my gut. After the nineteen hours of wrestling an uncomfortable knot from my uterus, the doctors, nurses and family left my hospital room. It was twilight, and I was staring at the wall in the darkening room wondering what had happened to me. The nurse plunged into the room dragging a streak of fluorescent light with her. She dropped a baby on my lap and left the agitated infant screaming in my arms. The door slowly closed and the harsh light faded – in the dim light I went to work on the little ball of flesh. Instinctively, I undressed the baby and freed her from the hospital clothes that were unnaturally clinging to her body. I, too, took off my mistake of clothing. Skin to skin, I pressed the little baby to my chest and she stopped crying. The power of knowing how to care for this new life was equivalent to the caveman starting the first fire. The “rightness” of this action had enough energy to engulf the hospital in flames. From that moment I knew that my husband was not sitting first chair on this project – I was lead counsel on this case.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:28:59 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ by itchingtowrite We tested positive with the in-home test done over the weekend and since my doctor was busy getting her daughter married to the Srilankankan cricketer Muralidharan, we waited till Good Friday to see her. We decided not to break the news to the family until the doctor gave a clear go ahead. And after the confirmation, we decided to celebrate with a “whirlwind” romantic getaway to the beach retreat Pondicherry where we had first met! While we were quite wary of the test as I was not experiencing any tell-tale signs of pregnancy like giddiness/ nausea like the actresses in Hindi movies do, yet after one week of hugging the news of “baby” happening to ourselves, we were sitting at the doctor’s room with the officially confirmed medical test. She asked me to get a scan done just to ensure everything was alright as I was already on the 6th week. As we were waiting for our turn, I frivolously mentioned that it would be great to have twins. It would be lovely to watch them grow together, having someone to bond with instantly. As parents of twins, we would be unique in the family too! I went in for the scan after drinking loads of water. The doctor was taking his own sweet time, asking me plenty of questions, taking down notes diligently. In turn I also started asking him whether everything was fine. Annoyingly he did not want to answer. Another doctor came by and started looking at the screen. He just muttered “twins??” I thought I heard something that sounded like twins and on cue started troubling the doctor with questions- what happened, what is it, is everything ok? After a long time the doctor turned the screen towards me and said –it’s twins. I could see two distinct dots on the computer screen reflecting the image of the womb. They called the proud father-to-be to show him the goods. As I saw him coming I made a ‘V’ sign indicating 2, wanting to be the first one to break the delightful news – I doubt it whether he understood as he had a very goofy smile on his face as the doctor started giving him the good news. My husband’s feeling is beautifully summed up by him – “Never in my school exams I scored more than what I estimated. After seeing the scan results, I felt I was getting a better score than I had anticipated!” My doctor said probably her good luck had rubbed off on mine, as she was also a mother of twins! I had planned not to tell my colleagues about the pregnancy during the initial days, for obvious reasons- the superstition that one must not disclose the news of a pregnancy until the crucial three months are over. But as they say one should never plan too much- the Doctor advised me to be on bed rest for 6 weeks to tide over the high risk twin gestation. So I had to break the news to one and all at my workplace. And thereafter “baby” became “babies” in our conversation. And the much anticipated Pondicherry trip went out of the window. My CEO commented- how could you blend two different fragrances in the same vessel! I work in the fragrance industry and a fragrance is a blend of chemicals mixed together in a large container.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:28:59 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ by itchingtowrite We tested positive with the in-home test done over the weekend and since my doctor was busy getting her daughter married to the Srilankankan cricketer Muralidharan, we waited till Good Friday to see her. We decided not to break the news to the family until the doctor gave a clear go ahead. And after the confirmation, we decided to celebrate with a “whirlwind” romantic getaway to the beach retreat Pondicherry where we had first met! While we were quite wary of the test as I was not experiencing any tell-tale signs of pregnancy like giddiness/ nausea like the actresses in Hindi movies do, yet after one week of hugging the news of “baby” happening to ourselves, we were sitting at the doctor’s room with the officially confirmed medical test. She asked me to get a scan done just to ensure everything was alright as I was already on the 6th week. As we were waiting for our turn, I frivolously mentioned that it would be great to have twins. It would be lovely to watch them grow together, having someone to bond with instantly. As parents of twins, we would be unique in the family too! I went in for the scan after drinking loads of water. The doctor was taking his own sweet time, asking me plenty of questions, taking down notes diligently. In turn I also started asking him whether everything was fine. Annoyingly he did not want to answer. Another doctor came by and started looking at the screen. He just muttered “twins??” I thought I heard something that sounded like twins and on cue started troubling the doctor with questions- what happened, what is it, is everything ok? After a long time the doctor turned the screen towards me and said –it’s twins. I could see two distinct dots on the computer screen reflecting the image of the womb. They called the proud father-to-be to show him the goods. As I saw him coming I made a ‘V’ sign indicating 2, wanting to be the first one to break the delightful news – I doubt it whether he understood as he had a very goofy smile on his face as the doctor started giving him the good news. My husband’s feeling is beautifully summed up by him – “Never in my school exams I scored more than what I estimated. After seeing the scan results, I felt I was getting a better score than I had anticipated!” My doctor said probably her good luck had rubbed off on mine, as she was also a mother of twins! I had planned not to tell my colleagues about the pregnancy during the initial days, for obvious reasons- the superstition that one must not disclose the news of a pregnancy until the crucial three months are over. But as they say one should never plan too much- the Doctor advised me to be on bed rest for 6 weeks to tide over the high risk twin gestation. So I had to break the news to one and all at my workplace. And thereafter “baby” became “babies” in our conversation. And the much anticipated Pondicherry trip went out of the window. My CEO commented- how could you blend two different fragrances in the same vessel! I work in the fragrance industry and a fragrance is a blend of chemicals mixed together in a large container.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com A Writing Contest for all You Clever Girls and Boys! Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:05:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/#comments Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:59:34 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/ by Janine Salas-Mason It’s usually late evening when I can actually turn on my computer. It’s part of a ritual that initiates my nightly turndown service. Checking that doors are locked, all children are bed and hubby is either sleeping or has the remote in hand and that bag of Oreos and milk he asked me for. Only then, I get to turn on my computer and indulge in my secret pleasure, my writing. Through my writing, I affirm my purpose to myself every day. I am a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend and even if only acknowledged by me, … a writer. We all know that to a mother, your children are your babies no matter how old they get. Meghan, my oldest baby is 12 years old and my first shot at parenthood. I didn’t know it then but she would be my longest labor and the first of five children. Meghan is a pure joy and a preteen, which leaves me as much in awe as it does confusion. Meghan does not know just how special she is to me. She is my first baby. Four years after having Meghan we had Elias, my little brown bear. Yes, I affectionately call him that. And six months after that, I was pregnant with Madison,… the last baby, or so I thought. Elias and Madison are six months apart, it’s almost like having twins. Elias loves his baby sister and Madison, she can’t get enough of Elias. They are inseparable and I ‘m very lucky for that. So I have a great husband, three beautiful children, my own home etc, what more could I want right? Well, my husband, who was adopted at 6 months of age, has discovered his desire to know his own birth family. Amongst the other hats I wear, I now become a private detective find his entire birth family. My husband decides that he would like to give back to society that which was given to him decides we should adopt. Now, I think most of us at one point or another say to ourselves, “if I ever hit the lotto, I would adopt some children etc.” Well, in my family this became a reality. No we didn’t hit lotto, but we did adopt a child. And so Josef, at 2 years old, became part of our family. Josef, is a special needs child. The agency thought he was mute. He wasn’t. He was suffering neglect and had decided he was not ready to speak yet. Josef will always be my special baby. Not because of his special needs, just because he is especially loved. He took my motherly love to a new level, to a place aside of myself …outside of my skin and into my heart. A week into Josef’s arrival I got a life changing phone call. It was the adoption agency explaining that Josef now had a baby brother and they would like to place the 3-month-old baby with us to keep the siblings together. The agency worker said she knew it was a tall order but wanted to “plant the seed” and see if there was any chance of us taking in Josef’s baby brother. Planting a seed was an understatement! I was torn to pieces. I knew it was probably a long shot, but I longed for the baby already and I brought the situation up to my husband. My husband took the weekend to think about it and when he was ready he started by saying, “I think sometimes, our hearts are bigger than our pockets.” My heart sunk, but then he said, “ I have just met my siblings now at 33 years old. I wish I had memories of childhood years with them…” And so it was, that a week after meeting my 2 year old son Josef, I met Ryan, …and baby made five. Ryan had pneumonia when he was placed with us and I spent the next week living in the hospital. I learned to juggle the needs of my new babies and the babies I already had. I learned children could adapt, that they are as giving as we teach them to be. I learned a lot. I learned all this while trying to still meet the needs of my husband, who could prove to be the biggest baby of all at times. (God Bless his soul, a term I use instead of cursing, sometimes!) I learned of my husbands’ affair, and I learned it wasn’t the end of the world even though it felt like it. (That’s a whole other story!) So, at the end of the day, after the homework is done, uniforms are washed, and I have finished giving 10 speeches as to why..why and why,… my evening ritual begins. After turning my husband on and my children off. I am thankful, thankful for my 5 beautiful babies. The ones I gave birth to and the ones God has entrusted to me through adoption. Thankful that it does not make a difference to me which babies I have birthed and which ones I haven’t. Thankful, that I can write and plant a seed.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-salas-mason/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:06:06 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/ by Daniel D'Andrea They were singing and dancing with a contagious bliss, enough to make me giggle along. A simple Christmas carol, in June mind you, was all it took to invoke this fit of joy for the children. They truly were a family; they loved each other more than I could ever hope. I proudly watched, as their mother played and sang along, as careless and joyful as the children. An ear to ear smile took over my face, but I couldn’t hold back the tear from seeping into my mouth. The salty taste did not faze me; nothing could at this point. As I peered in through the window, I felt as though I belonged in that circle, singing and playing along. I don’t know what stopped me, probably the restraining order or deadbolts, but otherwise I was completely free. Nobody will ever know how much I care for those children. Sure, I had odd ways of showing it, and the courts disagreed with my methods, but love is love. After getting fired for drinking at work, I entered a deep depression which forced me into more drinking. I loved the kids at work as much as I loved my own, and teaching was my only passion. Now I lost those kids, my own kids, my wife, my life, everything, all because I like to be wasted to teach elementary math, my other passion. So sue me! Well, not again, please. A tear from the other eye streamed down the other side of my face, this taste seemed to faze me a bit more than the first. After they all began to drift off, I hurried back home to be with my new family. In a fit of defiance, I said out loud to myself, “I don’t need them anymore.” I kicked everything within leg’s distance on my trip home, saying this exact sentence repeatedly. I didn’t cheer up until I arrived back at my own house. Pumpkin was the first to greet me, with a bright smile that lit up the entire room. Well, it did once I lit the candle inside of her. After pumpkin gave me light, I could see old denim jacket wrapped around a book bag and couch cushion greeting me with equal delight. We all gathered on the couch and openly discussed our day. We were giggling and laughing with each other, curled up on the couch with the fireplace cracking. We decided to put in a movie, The Never-ending Story, and watched it together to close out the night. As pumpkin face and denim lay fast asleep, I covered them up and headed upstairs with couch cushion. We enjoyed our moment alone together by making quiet love, the only way we knew how since bringing the children into our lives. After couch cushion fell asleep, I went back the old house and peered in through the window, seeing the children sleep comfortably on their mothers lap, smiling, without a care in the world. They wouldn’t be smiling so calmly if they knew what went down in that lap to conceive them. I sat there behind the bushes, sleeping with them, until it was time to head to work. Everyone at the school always asked to see pictures of my kids. I brought them to a Christmas party and the teachers fell in love with them. They really were a pleasant group of children. But now I have new kids, and I dread the uncomfortable conversation of why they look so different or what happened to your other kids. I didn’t want them to think I ditched my old family for this new and improved version. It was doubly embarrassing to have this conversation while now holding a mop and bucket of puke-filled water. The next day I awoke and didn’t reach for the snooze button or a drink, I just woke up and sprung out of bed. It was Father’s day, and I knew the family was up to something. Much to my surprise, I arrived downstairs to a lovely breakfast already prepared. More surprisingly, next to it was my first wife and kids, “Happy Father’s Day!” I couldn’t believe my eyes, they had looked past the drinking and the fighting and the weeks at a time away and the defecating on the living room carpet, and came to celebrate with me. Both families, both lives, together, I was absolutely elated. I was a father again. I decided to make a drink to celebrate.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/daniel-dandrea/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:24:01 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/ By Sharon Lee Fernberg When our first child was due to be born, my husband and I were required to attend parenting classes at the local hospital. “There will be a trickle when your water breaks,” the nurse informed the parents-to-be. However, after a perfect ten-month pregnancy, my water broke at 5:30 a.m. At 11:00 a.m. while at my obstetrician’s office, the water still gushed from my body as though something inside me kept flushing an inner toilet. Towels and maxi pads could not prevent what occurred inside of me. At 1:00 p.m. my obstetrician ordered an x-ray. A nurse pushed me to radiology in a wheelchair that held a small bowl under the seat. I felt embarrassed that it overflowed but considering I couldn’t even see my feet at the time, I smiled apologetically. Fourteen hours later, my son Jeffrey entered this world, weighing in at 9lbs.2oz. and 21” long. I spent two weeks in the hospital. He flattened my bladder, I was told. Eighteen months later, after being two weeks earlier than the actual due date or two weeks past the due date of my second child, my son Patrick howled his way into our lives, weighing in at eight pounds and 20” long. This time when my water broke, the nurse was correct. I felt only a trickle. We went home three days later. Years later, the pregnancy lasted longer than a year. It began with a meeting on adoption. My husband and I endured sixty page home studies, writing individual accounts on each of our siblings, our parents, our children, and having meetings in our house with the caseworkers from the local agency that handled the adoption proceedings. We took pictures of each room of the house, pictures of the boys and of each other, and provided photos of the cat. We had to be fingerprinted by the FBI in Buffalo, New York. As weeks and then months passed by, we continued to wait patiently and anxiously. We had no choice. It wasn't our decision to make when our daughter would be delivered. Nevertheless, a television meteorologist prepared us. A blizzard was due to arrive in Western New York the end of February. We couldn’t take a chance that her plane would arrive from Korea and we wouldn't be there. My husband informed our caseworker that we were going to go to New Jersey and spend a few days with my sister and her family – just in case. Three days later the call came from New York. The plane would touch down at JFK around 6:00 p.m. that night. It was Leap Year Day. We were only one hour from the airport but we had to meet the adoption agency greeter early to sign papers. The wind hissed that day. A cold chill lingered. In my arms, I held a white and yellow shell stitch afghan I had crocheted for my daughter. Jeff held tightly to the diaper bag. Patrick hugged the pink snowsuit. My husband waited nervously with the camera in his hands. At 6:21 p.m. the plane touched down. Within minutes, a greeter said, “Sung Sin HWANG.” He handed me our 6-1/2 month old daughter. I whispered her new name, Lindsay Sung-Elizabeth. She didn’t cry although tears trickled down my cheeks. Her dark slanted eyes stared up into my face. I kissed her nose. Her small arms curled around my neck. Her shoulder-length silky black hair skimmed my cheek as she laid her head on my shoulder. So, this was our daughter. The boys’ sister. As we departed the airport a half hour later, I held Lindsay tightly, protecting her against the cold chill with the afghan now cloaking her small body. I don't know why but at that moment I thought of the times I had given birth to my sons, and I knew this would always be the day my daughter was delivered. I looked from Lindsay and glanced at my sons, their round faces beaming with excitement and joy. It was then I realized that the overwhelming love I felt in my heart was the same for all three of my children. I felt the tears trickle down my face.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/sharon-fernberg/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:14:42 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/ by Scott Dunlop I am being stalked. Since May 2006 I have been looking over my shoulder. I have felt like a mild celebrity. I don’t get blinded by camera flashes outside the supermarket, or enter into impromptu car chases, no, my stalker is far more subtle than that. I wake up in the morning, and he is there. I bathe, he is there. I get dressed, and I feel his eyes watching me. With every cupboard I open, and every switch I touch, his large saucer eyes trace my every move. He doesn’t speak very much, but he does communicate. What he says to me frightens me. He whispers constantly. You are my hero. I want to be you. I want to do everything you do, and touch everything you touch. I want to wear your shoes, eat your food and test the elasticity of your skin… Which would be very creepy if he was a stranger, but this tiny follower of mine, this little disciple is my son. His gaze is unnerving, his ability to absorb all of my attention is alarming. He is not content with being a bit part in my life-movie, no, he has taken over. He wants to direct, he wants to write, he wants full creative license. He wants to have his name above mine on the billboard, and he refuses to share the credits with anyone else. The stalker wants to be the star. Which isn’t the same as marriage. With marriage, you go from being completely independent, to selectively co-dependent. It’s easy to compromise a little bit for someone you love. You can be married and still retain a great portion of who you are. Not so with babies. With babies you are utterly subsumed by their dependence on you as a caregiver. You can’t fob them off with telling them that you would rather go out and watch a movie than change their diaper, or feed them a bottle. Not unless you want the Authorities to pay you a visit… You can’t just give them a tiny portion of you to clutch, like a sweat-stained handkerchief; they need to have complete access to you all the time. On-stage, off-stage and in the dressing room. Now that I think about it, I have been replaced. I was one the star of my show. I was one the one choosing to eat what I wanted, and where I wanted it. I was a free agent. All my royalties went to me. Suddenly, I find my contract altered. I have been down-sized. The baby is in charge. He commands all the attention when we head out to the shops. He is the one high-fiving strangers and pretending to laugh at their weak jokes. I just traipse after him with his bag, the one stuffed with his snacks and clothes, in case he should get peckish, or need a sudden change. I wipe his bottom, for goodness sake. Everywhere he goes, I go. Every time he opens his mouth, I check to see what he is trying to say. I study his body language. I am there when he wakes, I am there when he sleeps. I take photographs without his permission. I am obsessed. I am a stalker.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/scott-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:24:53 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/ by Misty Noble-Hodge I was round. A not so compact little heartthrob was bundled in my abdomen and in my heart. Oh, I had a love affair with that little baby inside of me. I used to pull my maternity shirts tight against my tummy and watch him roll like the waves in the ocean. I had gone through this pregnancy quite alone and was just waiting for him to be born. To have someone to hold and love. I remember when the doctor told me he wanted to induce. It was a Friday. He said, "How does Monday sound?" Terror of the pain roared through my veins. Monday? That soon? Monday. I went in, late. My mother came with me. She had every intention of spending the night at home, but when they hooked me up to the monitors, I was having contractions. "Can you feel that?" the nurse asked. "Nope," I said with a grin. My mother spent the night on the tiny couch at the foot of my bed. Then came the torturous IV. They had a novice trying to find her way into my veins and I got stuck 11 times before someone who knew what they were doing came in and relieved us both of our suffering. They left for me to get some rest, but made me lay flat on my back under the mountain of baby. Rushing through my head were thoughts about how I wasn’t supposed to lay flat on my back, something about veins being compressed. But surely these labor and delivery nurses knew more than a 20-year-old kid. I wanted gloat when the nurses came in a little while later and told me to roll over because the baby was happier when I was on my left side. I knew that. When morning came, the first time I was checked I had already achieved 4 centimeters. "You can have an epidural now if you want," said the large black nurse. Already? I hadn't even felt any contractions yet. My father briefly stopped in before work while I was resting. They told him it would still be hours before I was 10 centimeters so he could go on to work, which was only 20 minutes away. We would call to keep him updated. Right as he left, the nurse came in to check me again. Lo and behold, 10 centimeters. My mother ran out of the room to call my father's office. He hadn't made it there yet. When he reached the door of the office, his assistant turned him right around. It was time. Flurry of activity. Scrubs. Shiny metal and white cloth. I pushed only twice and my quiet and soft spoke doctor said, "Good." Equal amounts of pride and shock rang through me; it was happening so fast. I heard suctioning. One more gentle push and he was out. I laughed. My first view was a little purple behind. My first question: "Does he have hair?" "Quite a bit of hair," said the nurse. My second question: "Does he have my ears?" My mother beams at me and simply says, "Yes." I am handed a swaddled little caterpillar, a cocooned bundle with long purple fingers and a tiny swollen face. He watches me with attentive eyes as I coo at him. He sucks his fingers and I remark about how we are both starving. I wish I had known to nurse him immediately. But I didn't. No one had told me. He had to wait until later in our room with two nurses trying to position him on my breast. Now I look at this striking child with the gangly legs and arms, who has lost two of the teeth I had watched sprout years ago. His dark brown hair, so like my mother's. Rich chocolate eyes. He is growing up so fast and in so many ways, I feel like I am missing it. He is so big now, but still so small. Six years is not too long to be on this planet. There are so many mornings to be woken and so many more breaths to take. Six years is only long enough to learn to tie one's shoes and write one's name, maybe. There are so many things waiting for him still. I hope he learns to stay young as long as possible. Even though to me, he will always be that little bundle, snuggled into me and making me a mother for the very first time.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/misty-noble-hodge/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:15:35 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/ by Janine Dunlop I’m lying in a hospital passageway, wondering whether I’ll be able to love my baby. I am unspeakably nervous and it must be evident, because everyone who appears next to my bed tries to placate me. After what seems an eternity, I’m wheeled in by a jolly nurse who shouts that we should get this show on the road. The “show” is that I’m about to have a baby. Flash to a week previously. I’m sitting at work after twisting my ankle, waiting for the painless contractions that started soon after the fall to go away. When I mention this casually to a colleague, the news spreads like wildfire: Janine is in labour. I’m whisked away to the clinic by our health and safety officer. I comply because I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but secretly I’m thinking that this is a waste of my doctor’s time. When I’m strapped to the monitor, it’s established that I’m in labour. I’m 33 weeks pregnant. A drip containing a drug that will stop the contractions is administered. I’m given an injection to mature the baby’s lungs and within an hour, I’m admitted and wheeled in to the antenatal ward, where pregnant women languish in beds all around me. Still in denial, I telephone my husband to ask him to arrange to fetch my car, as I’m planning on being home by the evening. I notice my roommate smiling. “No one leaves this ward,” she laughs. A few days later and she’s being proved right. Despite the drugs, I keep going into labour. I begin to realise that I’ll probably spend the rest of my pregnancy here. I spend a week railing against the unfairness of it all. I had planned to spend three weeks at home with my son, preparing him for the birth of his sibling. Instead, I wheel a drip in front of me every time I go to the bathroom and suffer the indignity of urine samples each morning and suppositories every four hours. Exactly a week after my fall I experience painful contractions late in the afternoon. I am told that the best thing to do is have an emergency caesarean section. I am aware that I have little choice in the matter. To refuse seems like selfishness on my part. When I tell my husband that we’re about to have a baby, he springs into action, arranging for our son to be looked after. I can think of nothing so practical. I feel afraid and out of my depth. I spend the three hours leading up to the event crying, worried that I’m not prepared, that the baby won’t survive and that I won’t be able to love him or her. Back in the operating theatre now, and there is activity all around me. The conversation among the staff is about how busy they were today and how keen they are to get home. It’s after 9pm and they are tired. I wonder briefly whether this means they will be less cautious with me. I clasp my husband’s hand and squeeze harder and harder as the epidural takes effect. The doctors start without telling me, but I am aware of an enormous force pushing and pulling on my belly. My fear is making me sweat. No dimmed lights and calm atmosphere this time around, the lights above me burn my eyes and I recall a line from my son’s storybook: “All the better to see you with.” My husband prays next to me and tells me how well I’m doing. A few minutes later, my baby is born and she is crying. Earlier, my doctor had blithely told me that the baby would be fine, although she would probably need assistance with breathing and feeding initially. I am appalled at his glibness – he is telling me she will need help to live. As the paediatrician looks her over and pronounces her ok, I weep with happiness. She weighs 2.1kg and seems older than her 34 weeks gestation. She astounds everyone the next day by being ready to come out of incubation and sucking vigorously on my breast. We emerge from the maternity ward one week later. I don’t look back as we make our way gingerly to the car park. I’m amazed now that I thought I couldn’t love her. She is my daughter and she’s perfect. A lifetime of love has begun.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/janine-dunlop/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:46:19 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/ By Christopher "G" Garlington My daughter's friends were over the other day. My daughter's friends are all hyper intelligent and busy as hell just like my daughter but, unlike her, they all have hero quality dads who bend steel bars with their bare hands for a living and rescue babies from vats of molten lead and, most of all, go away during the day to return haggard and stoic and dead tired sometime after 5pm. I, on the other hand, wrestle laundry to the basement and immerse myself in the minutiae of dishwasher load planning and the use of "bluing" to make my whites whiter. I also make twisted knock knock jokes(1) and have a tendency to sing where I ought to mumble and I have, somehow, become their hero. I didn't mean to and I say somehow but I'm being unnecessarily (and uncharacteristically) modest--I know exactly how I became their hero: I told them I chart my daughter's . . . um . . . I keep a record of, uh . . . I mark the calendar for. . . I'm steadfastly abreast of her [punctuation]. This is not the lowest depth my steady emasculation, by the way, that's surely sitting through a stuttering presentation of a Hugh Grant movie so insipidly British even Hugh Grant was rolling his eyes IN THE MOVIE HE WAS STARRING IN. It was a chick flick so flicking chicked I think I grew breasts while I was watching. But, such is marriage. I made my attorney sit through Spawn once so I owe her forever. It is, however, a most unmasculine thing to do, to chart the, er, [grammatical manifestation] of your little princess. In fact, if you are a man, just Stumble elsewhere. I'm embarrassed, ok. Chicks keep reading—I might need your advice. It all started because my Attorney is pretty much too frikkin busy to pay attention to her own [red swarm]. One day she was working hard, staying up late after a 14 hour day deciphering antennae displacement graphs or something equally insanely technical. She was sleep deprived and focused with such unwavering intensity that she actually burned a hole through a deposition with her very eyes. She said "God I feel like crap. I feel bloated and woggly and irritable and—" "You're getting your [red tide]" "I just had my [monsoon wedding]!" "Yeah, 27 days ago." She'd been working so hard she'd actually lost her sense of time. I think if she didn't have a calendar on her blackberry, she wouldn't know what day it was. So her [mighty mighty bosstone] snuck up on her and smacked her across the head. I felt sorry for my little legal Lolita and decided to add her [insane in the membrane] to my automatic calendar and I've been charting ever since. To the minute. Well, being that busy, she never really explained to the teen that this is a regular occurrence, that it can be expected, that JEANS DAY on the calendar is not referring too a dress code. So, in for a dollar if you're in for a dime. The next time my daughter screamed "PAD!" from the bathroom, I tossed a couple in (like grenades) and put her on my calendar too. So there she is, hanging with her friends—ok. Hanging is way too energetic to describe what they do. The flop. They flop over the chair. They flop down in front of the TV. The flop down the steps and flop into the car and flop out. They're virtually boneless. So they were all draped across the furniture expending less energy than most dead field mice when I casually mentioned to Rah that I'd stocked the bathroom with [ammunition] and she might want to remember that since she was due for her [orc horde]. Her friends howled with approval and the Polish one screamed out YOU ARE MY HERO! So there you go. My ability to suppress my natural male tendency to fish and work on trucks in favor of ticking off the days until the women in my life are assaulted by their respective [mammy tsunamis] has elevated me to the level of hero. I can see myself now, standing tall, cast in bronze, a metallic cape forever blown behind me in chunky statuesque bravery, my brow pointed ever eastward, my countenance ever grim, ever focused — a fistful of tampons at my side.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/christopher-garlington/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:38:39 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/ by Bitsy Parker As a little girl I never played with dolls nor dreamed about being a mother. Perhaps my distance from these maternal feelings made the birth of my first child the most shocking and outrageous experience of my life. My husband and I married when I was 30 and he 36. He brought with him to the marriage two daughters from a previous marriage. We were content with two children and didn’t plan on having more, but we decided that if I did become pregnant, then we would be happy. When I did become pregnant (after about 10 seconds), I thought that my husband would be the main caregiver for the new baby. He was a father. He knew how to handle children. I was a selfish, only child and a busy career girl with no previous baby experience. In my mind, having a baby was like a company buying a subsidiary – in this situation, the baby wasn’t under my direct division, but I would provide necessary support as needed. Go team, go – let’s acquire a baby! Realistically, I knew that the baby would require my attention, but I viewed the forthcoming baby like I would view a charity asking to host an event at my house – I knew there would be work to be done – plant some flowers, wallpaper the bathroom, buy fresh flowers, and I would probably have to leave work early, but ultimately, the charity staff would handle the details like nametags and follow-up letters. I would birth the baby, buy the clothes and order the diaper service, but my husband would do the heavy lifting like teaching the baby to walk and helping with any emotional needs, if there were any. What a shock it was when my daughter, who over-stayed her nine months in my womb by two weeks, was finally knifed out of my gut. After the nineteen hours of wrestling an uncomfortable knot from my uterus, the doctors, nurses and family left my hospital room. It was twilight, and I was staring at the wall in the darkening room wondering what had happened to me. The nurse plunged into the room dragging a streak of fluorescent light with her. She dropped a baby on my lap and left the agitated infant screaming in my arms. The door slowly closed and the harsh light faded – in the dim light I went to work on the little ball of flesh. Instinctively, I undressed the baby and freed her from the hospital clothes that were unnaturally clinging to her body. I, too, took off my mistake of clothing. Skin to skin, I pressed the little baby to my chest and she stopped crying. The power of knowing how to care for this new life was equivalent to the caveman starting the first fire. The “rightness” of this action had enough energy to engulf the hospital in flames. From that moment I knew that my husband was not sitting first chair on this project – I was lead counsel on this case.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/bitsy-parker/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:28:59 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/ by itchingtowrite We tested positive with the in-home test done over the weekend and since my doctor was busy getting her daughter married to the Srilankankan cricketer Muralidharan, we waited till Good Friday to see her. We decided not to break the news to the family until the doctor gave a clear go ahead. And after the confirmation, we decided to celebrate with a “whirlwind” romantic getaway to the beach retreat Pondicherry where we had first met! While we were quite wary of the test as I was not experiencing any tell-tale signs of pregnancy like giddiness/ nausea like the actresses in Hindi movies do, yet after one week of hugging the news of “baby” happening to ourselves, we were sitting at the doctor’s room with the officially confirmed medical test. She asked me to get a scan done just to ensure everything was alright as I was already on the 6th week. As we were waiting for our turn, I frivolously mentioned that it would be great to have twins. It would be lovely to watch them grow together, having someone to bond with instantly. As parents of twins, we would be unique in the family too! I went in for the scan after drinking loads of water. The doctor was taking his own sweet time, asking me plenty of questions, taking down notes diligently. In turn I also started asking him whether everything was fine. Annoyingly he did not want to answer. Another doctor came by and started looking at the screen. He just muttered “twins??” I thought I heard something that sounded like twins and on cue started troubling the doctor with questions- what happened, what is it, is everything ok? After a long time the doctor turned the screen towards me and said –it’s twins. I could see two distinct dots on the computer screen reflecting the image of the womb. They called the proud father-to-be to show him the goods. As I saw him coming I made a ‘V’ sign indicating 2, wanting to be the first one to break the delightful news – I doubt it whether he understood as he had a very goofy smile on his face as the doctor started giving him the good news. My husband’s feeling is beautifully summed up by him – “Never in my school exams I scored more than what I estimated. After seeing the scan results, I felt I was getting a better score than I had anticipated!” My doctor said probably her good luck had rubbed off on mine, as she was also a mother of twins! I had planned not to tell my colleagues about the pregnancy during the initial days, for obvious reasons- the superstition that one must not disclose the news of a pregnancy until the crucial three months are over. But as they say one should never plan too much- the Doctor advised me to be on bed rest for 6 weeks to tide over the high risk twin gestation. So I had to break the news to one and all at my workplace. And thereafter “baby” became “babies” in our conversation. And the much anticipated Pondicherry trip went out of the window. My CEO commented- how could you blend two different fragrances in the same vessel! I work in the fragrance industry and a fragrance is a blend of chemicals mixed together in a large container.]]> http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/itchingtowrite/feed/ 0 http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/dawn-allcot/ http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/dawn-allcot/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:21:43 +0000 webmaster http://writingcontest.thenovelette.com/dawn-allcot/ by Dawn Allcot My niece was the first baby I remember holding. I was 16. My mother instructed me, “Support her neck,” as she handed me the tiny bundle. I gazed, transfixed, at the angel clad in pink. Possessed by her pink rosebud lips, captivated by those pudgy red cheeks, amazed by the way her little hand clutched my finger, I stared into soulful blue eyes that seemed to hold all the secrets of the universe. I must have looked uncomfortable—like a pauper holding a piece of fine crystal, afraid of squeezing too hard because it may break. But I remember cuddling her, relishing that “baby smell” of powder and goodness, and knowing I would never let anything happen to her. Jennifer was a good baby, hardly ever cried. She grew into a precocious toddler with wild curls. We grew closer as she learned to talk, to sing. I babysat; we played; I spoiled her with toys and attention. But she wasn’t mine. I had none of the expense, responsibility or mess. At 16, holding that baby, the thought of ever wanting children seemed far away and foreign. Even as I got older, I never pictured myself with children of my own. In the first years of our marriage, my husband and I discussed it. I flip-flopped from “maybe someday” to “never!” Seeing a child throw a tantrum in the checkout aisle of the grocery store—red face, shrill screams, haggard mother pleading him to stop crying—would tilt my decision toward no. Then I’d see a cute baby, sleeping peacefully, and think, “Maybe, but not now.” One Saturday afternoon, after spending 40 minutes on a ferry with a screaming infant (whose mother decided to change the child’s diaper at a table in the boat’s bar) my husband became convinced I was done. We were never having kids. Then I spent the day with a friend’s toddler. Parker has a winning smile, large blonde curls, and learned to say my name a few minutes after we met. I wouldn’t mind a kid like that… My husband took my indecision in stride, figuring it would work itself out. I can’t tell you exactly when the shift occurred. Maybe it happened when I noticed the first streaks of gray in my hair, a few faint creases around my eyes. Time passes quickly. Couples we know have already had their first child. The last of our single friends are getting married and talking about having kids. Those who are closer to 40 worry it may not happen. “I feel like I’ve spent my whole life working so hard to avoid pregnancy, that when I want to conceive, I won’t be able to,” one friend, newly engaged, revealed during girls’ night out. The irony of the universe. For me, it’s time. I don’t know how or why, but I know. My niece is 17 now, and driving.