#NaPoWriMo'21

[torrentialmonsoon]

My Birth Story - Part 1

Last year at my 38th week appointment, I was diagnosed with high blood pressure. I was told to think about induction as high blood pressure is very dangerous for myself and the baby. The OB gave me the option of coming back 2 days later and having my BP checked again, and if it was normal, then we would go with the flow and wait for baby to arrive on his/her own (we didnt know the gender at the time even though we tried to find out). But if it was high again, it's recommended that I be induced.

I took the option of waiting the 2 days to see if it would become normal. Went to the clinic 2 days later, and low and behold, it was still high. I was already 1 cm dilated as well. My induction was booked at the hospital for April 15th.

I got my induction done. If you don't know about it, it's VERY painful. I cried. It isn't the worse pain I've felt though. The worse pain was when I was getting tests done at the fertility centre because I have fertility issues, and one of the procedures is to get your tubes flushed with water. That was something. I never want to do that again. Worst pain I have ever felt. Back to my story, after induction, they send me home and tell me that they will call me to come back the next morning. I went back the next morning, and they did some tests and said we will call you. Go home again. So I went. On the 16th, they called me back and said to come around 5 pm. We went. With all our bags that have been packed for many, many days. I wait 2 hours in the waiting room.

As I wait, I see woman after woman, coming in, visibly in strong active labour. As if they were about to pop a baby out any minute. They were sweating, breathing so hard, and in so much pain that they couldn't even speak. They all get priority before me, and rightfully so. A nurse comes towards the waiting area and calls my name. I was like, "finally!" She comes to me and says, the OB would like to speak to you in a few minutes. I said, "okay" and the nurse walks away. I sit back down and wait a few more minutes. I'm updating my husband as he isn't allowed in the hospital until I've been checked in completely. Covid rules. So annoying. He's waiting in the parking lot. It has almost been 2 hours. I can't imagine what he's thinking and going through. I'm sure time must have been like molasses for him.

The nurse calls my name again, and this time is accompanied by an OB. I walk behind them as they take me to a private room, which is actually a shared post partum area with tons of beds. They ask me to sit down and I'm now getting nervous.

"We wanted to ask you if you'd be willing to go to the Trillium hospital about 15 minutes away. Our hospital keeps getting pregnant woman after another in labour and babies keep getting born. Unfortunately, because it's the long Easter weekend, we are also under staff compared to the amount of babies that are being born. Would you be comfortable with going to Trillium instead? I don't want you to keep waiting as you're hitting the 24 hour mark with your induction already. I've already spoken to the OB there, Dr. Chu. She is absolutely amazing and they said that it's not that busy there. Because we are all under one system under Health Partners, they already have all your information. All you have to do is agree and I can make the phone call to let them know you are coming."

I call my husband and ask him what he thinks. He says, yes, we shouldn't wait any longer. Let's get going to the other hospital. We drive to Trillium, I enter the main entrance while Saqib parks the car. They ask me about any covid symptoms and the guy at the reception says, "You're the third pregnant patient they have sent in just the last few hours today." He was very nice and shared that the walk to the Labour and Assessment unit was very long. He offered a wheel chair for me to sit on. I decline politely, and regret this decision as soon as we start walking.

I get to the unit, they check me in, ask me a bunch of questions, I get changed into a gown. Dr. Chu pops in and says hello. She sounds super lovely and I feel a huge relief take over me, thinking I'll be in good hands. She says, "This baby has been through all of Mississauga today to just be born!" I smile and agree. And I tell her that the baby is ready to be born now. I'm finally checked in and go to a private room. I get attached to lots of wires that will monitor me and the baby. I'm finally allowed to call my husband in and I feel grateful to have him by my side.

The nurse is lovely and is pumping all the fluids and hormones in to me that are needed for me to continue the birthing process. The OB comes in again and says that they are going to break my water now, and she does. I thought it would be very painful, but it wasn't. But I did have to do lots of breathing while she removed the instruments from inside me to trigger the water breaking. She also checked my dilation and I was at a 2-3 cm.

The OB said to continue monitoring the contractions, that I'll start to feel them soon. And to let the nurse know if I would like the epidural. The nurse gives me a couple of juice boxes to drink to get the baby moving. And tells me I should eat some food that my husband brought. I eat it and I go to sleep.

At around 3 am, I really have to go to the washroom but I need help because I'm still attached to all the wires. I buzz the nurse, she comes in and helps me out. She then says that she will check my dilation. I'm at 5 cm now. But I feel no contractions. She offers that I take the epidural if I'm interested, so I can go to sleep after that. I decide to take it. It's not as painful as I thought. The OB steps in and says that her shift ends at 8 am and the other OB on duty will come in to check. If the baby doesn't arrive before 8 am, then the new OB will help deliver the baby in the morning.

The baby doesn't like the epidural that much. The heart rate starts to go up fast. Another nurse comes in to check. There are 2 nurses in now, trying to get the baby’s heart rate to go back to normal. They pump some more hormones in me and that does the trick. Baby's heart rate is back to normal, but that was scary. I sleep really well for the rest of the night.

I don't remember the exact time the morning OB comes in but she is accompanied by a few more nurses. She's very enthusiastic, wakes me up, and says she's going to check my dilation. If I'm at 10 cm, we are ready to start pushing. I'm at 10 cm now.

She teaches me how to push and I begin doing so. I don't remember how many times I did. But I kept trying. I can hear one of the nurses say that I'm almost there, she can see the top of the baby’s head. My body temperature starts declining fast. The baby's heart rate starts skyrocketing. This is not good. The OB says we may have to do an emergency C section so both mom and baby are safe. She says to my husband, I want to try forceps, I can see him and we can pull him out. My husband asks, what are the cons of it. She says, that it's very rare but there could be a spinal issue for the baby or there could be some coning of the head. But if we don't do it, it could not be good news. We agree to the forceps.

She uses the forceps and our beautiful baby is born. I can't see him but my husband watches. He's crying and says, it's a boy. More professionals rush in and take the baby. I'm on edge because I'm waiting for the cry. And I finally hear it. I say Alhumdullilah. He's all good. I am exhausted. And I see the OB pulling out the placenta. I think, oh good, I didn't have to push again for that. My husband is calling my sister. I see the OB doing some stitches. Nurses are asking if I want skin to skin. I say yes. They place baby on me and he stops crying. We look into each other's eyes and find perfection. I say salaam to him. We name him Aariz. I feel extremely nauseous. I hear the OB say okay, she won't stop bleeding. I say, can someone get the baby, I'm about to throw up. They pick him fast and one nurse says turn to your left. As soon as I do, I throw up twice. The OB keeps calling my husband, saying dad, dad. But he is too occupied on the phone and doesn't realize he's a dad now. I yell out Saqib, and he finally looks at the OB.

I pass out.

#personal #birth story #birth trauma #napowrimo #napowrimo2023 #i've been working on this for a couple of days #NOT poetry but a story #at least i'm writing #day 20 #day 21 #day 22

[semicolonsoliloquy]

My love letters bleed, scab over with wax

torn open by fingers, or else by knife

folded-up innards of paper relax

and in your hands, they hand over my life.

Cursive veins show you the path to my heart;

see how the map leads so close to your skin?

My eyes meet yours in each ink-blotted part—

A wordlessness you can take meaning in.

You treat the reading like a dissection,

holding each metaphor up to the light—

Are you disgusted by my affection?

Are you overcome by nausea or fright?

Or is this surprise? Do you find it true

that these insides match the insides of you?

#poets on tumblr #spilled ink #original writing #sonnet #napowrimo #napowrimo22 #napowrimo 2022 #day 21

[writinginnorthnorfolk]

Mothers

a country girl she had rosy cheeks the legacy of working beneath the open sky a twinkle in her eye she worked her spells growing market vegetables her two daughters running free climbing trees and skinning knees my girl has long since flown the nest and although I know I was not the best mother she has thrived and multiplied and I am reincarnated in grand motherhood a mother floats above a…

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#2022 #Daughters #Day 21 #Giovanni Segantini #Mothers #NaPoWriMo #The Evil Mothers

[raeiolene]

4.21.2022 • Prompt #21 — Write a poem in which you first recall someone you used to know closely, but are no longer in touch with, then a job you used to have but no longer do, and then a piece of art that you saw once and that has stuck with you over time. Inspiration: Indiana & Paris • #napowrimo #nationalpoetrymonth #poets #poetry #poetrycommunity #writer #writing #writingcommunity #iamwriting #poems https://www.instagram.com/p/CczKr2MNh7h/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#21 #napowrimo #nationalpoetrymonth #poets #poetry #poetrycommunity #writer #writing #writingcommunity #iamwriting #poems

[rustbeltjessie]

From today’s (4/21) NaPoWriMo prompt. Text ID under cut.

He had that electric sugar-shock of dark hair, like the gravel-voiced man who sang my favorite sad songs, was haloed always by something like smoke rings and coffee-steam, blurred headlights of passing cars, the moon’s corona, a spray of tiny white moths appearing in a shock, then gone, he grew up outside Rockford, the first of my Illinois boys who shared the same first name, I met him halfway the first of June, laughing, here, I made you a mix tape, my favorite music, we met as friends, I was already taken, how indiscreet, my my that night he took pictures of me, smoke- wreathed over coffee by the window-glass, blurred beneath the bare-bulb glare in the Howard Johnson’s basement, it was the first time I’d ever felt like someone, a subject worthy of a photograph, I knew I’d fall like falling off a skateboard, rolling down the hill by the Oasis over Interstate 90, inevitable as skinned knees, grass stains, a busted lip, a cough, a choke

In the parking lot we found a child’s lost craft project, construction-paper stars strung on blue yarn, sun-faded but still intact, a bouquet of stars, years on, I worked for a season in a flower shop, a job the second boy with the same first name helped me find, it was Christmas time, I arranged bouquets, Precious Time Rose-red, Dendrobium Orchid white with yellow-starred center, green of spruce boughs, after work I’d head north to the Art Institute, stand again in front of Chagall’s America Windows, the warm blue light, all the people dancing, making music, violins, the moon, the swirl, menorahed candles, purple bird, yellow-green spray of flowers, floating above the blue buildings, I’d remember him, how if I could make our own windows, our America, they’d have the broken bottle-glass, drought-dry grass, blur of headlights, sun-warmed suburban aqueducts, skateboards, skinned knees, swirl of smoke

Coffee-steam, glacier-carved lakes blue-dark icy shock, mix tapes, tiny cities, the halfway places where we met, the moths, two people dancing on the flowered tiles of a filmic kitchen, a bouquet of construction-paper stars, the blue taste of the rain that stained his skin, ask why I was made the desperate way I am.

—Jessie Lynn McMains, “Untitled (America Windows)”

#jessie lynn mcmains #poetry #napowrimo #glopowrimo #prompts #ekphrastic #this needs some editing but i like where it's going

[l33lzonwheelz]

NaPoWriMo Day 21- Roots by Lily-Lucid

[guns-wanderingsoul]

Source: Found Poetry from Page 21 of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

#thepoeming#shirleyjackson#hauntingofhillhousepoems#found poetry#30 poems in 30 days#napowrimo

[env0]

I posted 21,555 times in 2022

1,289 posts created (6%)

20,266 posts reblogged (94%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@env0

@mynamemeanscloud

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I tagged 1,611 of my posts in 2022

#env0 writes - 348 posts

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#ask meme - 38 posts

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#seven ember stories - 33 posts

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#napowrimo - 31 posts

#long poem - 31 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#we knew cause the white house had to fucking hire people who would piece together documents he shredded that he wasn't legally supposed to s

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Slumberland was really enjoyable because it dealt so fascinatingly with loss. Loss of innocence seen both as a child and as an adult. Fear, in all the ways we deal with loss. Cutting ourselves off from the world, diving into darker or deeper aspects of ourselves. It also showed healing in a way that is rooted in love. We never truly lose the ones we lost, because we loved them. How can we use that love to heal ourselves and others. Sometimes healing is reaching out to someone reaching out to us. Nemo’s uncle admits nonstop he’s terrible at feelings and kids, but he tries and tries and tries to connect with this girl, who is so desperate to see her father again, and knows of a magical world adults would never believe. But it is all real.

Dreams aren’t what we want, but what we need. Sometimes safe. Sometimes thrilling.But most of all, loved.

169 notes - Posted November 21, 2022

#4

10 Free Spelljammer Monsters

See the full post

338 notes - Posted April 22, 2022

#3

Okay I went back to take the Dobby Gucci advertisement shot...

505 notes - Posted May 20, 2022

#2

What... The fuck?

Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers 2022

912 notes - Posted May 20, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

EXU: Calamity said love is the strongest force in the cosmos. That we break and make the world for those we love. That we will ruin ourselves or become our best selves, or both with and through the power of love. That even amidst grief and tragedy there is always a thread of hope pulling everyone through towards that tomorrow. That dreaded, hopeful, destined morning.

2,157 notes - Posted June 17, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #is it vain that my tags are my own? #and that i reblogged myself the most? #probably my text/selfies/poems

[peaamlipoetrydoctor]

Day One /// NaPoWri----NO

Having another go at revisiting the prompts from April 2022's National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo).

Day One was a prompt to write a poem about the body but/and it was also a prompt to structure a poem with reference to the structure of a previously existing piece.

I didn't really understand it in that way at the time, but have just written a similar exercise for my class with Poetry School London where we broke down the elements in a particular poem and used the same elements as a starting-point scaffold for a new piece of our own on entirely different theme.

So, this was the prompt as given -

>>> FROM a workshop Maureen Thorson took with Beatrix Gates in 2021 and >>> BASED on the prose poem "A Story About The Body" by Robert Hass with the following elements >>> theme should be a story about the body >>> should involve an encounter between two people >>> at least one line of dialogue >>> at least one crisp image.

Originally I thought that maybe I'd just edit the poem I wrote on this day first time round, but as it turns out nearly 1/3rd of those poems, including the Day One poem, are "on topic" to be early draft material for what be evolving/coalescing into my next poetry pamphlet. (The list of poems in this group are listed in blue at the end. of this post...)

So - new poem then... HERE GOES... /// [TO BE CONTINUED...]

This list originally appeared in and is copied from a post on 5th May:

01 April - Fog Gets to Know Her New Body

03 April - Glosa, after (and not entirely in agreement with Elizabeth Barrett Browning) - a negotiation about "non-heroic” kinds of love

06 April - Things Fall Apart (from Yeats, The Second Coming)

08 April - Papparazzi - the theme of different lives / different choices

10 April - Lost Love Poem II - the II in the title here is because I wrote Lost Love Poem I for the Mid-Life sequence in question…

13 April - Temerity - on why I insist on hoping-beyond-hope

16 April - Persistence - effectively the same poem, different form?

21 April - To Dream or To Scream? - a poem about my ex-husband (the dream/scream of the [TERRIBLE] title refer to paintings BTW)

27 April - String Theory - different lives again

and the “bonus” poem, Reminiscing with Alice - nostalgia.

#poetry #poetic #prose poem #writing prompt #napowrimo

[awyldepoetry]

Pragma

As Eros softens it seems love has died often we don’t know it needs lay fallow the lust to see a sprouting at springtide pressure that can turn a good Love sallow

Anything that is worth it’s weight can wait much stronger are the goals and bonds we tend understanding makes a spark constellate commitment provides quality to mend

Lovingly and fondly, I grow honor patiently, together we choose to build Eros melts away but this Love’s calmer heads level, hearts are apt to be fulfilled

Seen as whole, a warm embrace—accepting softer touch, honest care in connecting

--

A. Wylde

from 7 Sonnets on Love

April 24th, 2022 NaPoWriMo 21/30

#poems #sonnet #7sol #form poem #napowrimo #napowrimo22 #national poetry writing month #1901 #Love #Pragma

[caponstandbi]

NaPoWriMo #21

I want to be loved so badly 

I am an egg left half-cracked and oozing on the counter 

Covered in spiderweb fractures 

Wobbling as more of me slips between the edges 

I am begging someone 

Anyone 

To turn me into a cake 

If you move quick there might be usefulness left to salvage 

Please

Make me something beautiful 

Instead of something left to rot 

Brush the yolk of me over dough so I can make it shine 

Whisk me into stiff peaks and bake me until I am whole again 

I can’t do the saving by myself anymore 

I have tried being bloody but unbowed 

All I got is a mouth tacky with blood 

And a spine that aches 

Now I am neither beautiful nor useful 

And those are the only two things I am supposed to be 

A specter of my mother is asking me 

Well, what did you do to make yourself appealing? 

What service do you provide? 

But I am just this half-cracked egg 

                                                          Rolling 

                     Rolling 

On a sticky counter 

You should probably go back to the fridge 

Open up the carton 

And start over

#poetry #napowrimo

[alixx-black]

//escapril// NAPOWRIMO: Day 21

21 Chapters Done, 9 More To Go ?! This #originalstory told through #poetry for #NaPoWriMo continues to carry us through the life, and inevitable death, of our narrator. Today, they are seeing through the madness of becoming an adult and growing up.

Dew The cool night’s water washes away mistakes from the days that passed before I ever knew the taste of warm morning dew.

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#escapril #gogyohka #lets escapril #napowrimo #national poem writing month #original story #Poetry

[writinginnorthnorfolk]

Anxiety

My poem won’t do what I want it to. I chew my pen, my nails, my lip and resort to the key- board. No change. Words seem to have lives of their own. They’re off to have adventures, without me, they don’t care about poetry. Yet, they’ve guided me here, to a wordingfount, where poems are found. Kim M. Russell, 21st April 2023 Image: collaboration with Ave Calvar on Unsplash It’s day…

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#Abstract noun #Anxiety #Day 21 #Invented word #NaPoWriMo #Very short lines #Wordingfount

[mabhsavage]

NaPoWriMo Day 21: Don’t be a part of the problem; be the entire problem

Note: This is entirely UPG, I don’t claim to carry messages from deities or other beings! While in the hot tub Loki says, “In the chaos be the calm (or cause).”

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#GloPoWriMo #GloPoWriMo 2023 #haiku #hot tubs #Lokean #Loki #napowrimo #NaPoWriMo 2023 #norse #pagan #poem #poems #Poet #poetry #poets #spirituality #travel #UPG #Witchcraft #writing

[blackinkmess]

NaPoWriMo 2023 - Day 21

To be fifteen with nothing but fairytale dreams stars shining in my eyes with all that I wanted from life. We take it for granted how it feels to be that young and alive. We grow up so quickly and forget the magic. Teenage years are filled with so much passion and intensity, but what if they also contain the key? Pull the yearbook off the shelf, open those dusty boxes filled with relics of the past, remember who you are and make that magic last.

#writer #writing #poetry #poet #poem #poeticstories #writingthestorm #creativewriting #napowrimo

[secretsinthedarkthepodcast]

NaPoWriMo 2023 Day 21: Belief

Day 21’s poem was Sarah Gambito’s “Grace”. So a poem that says a lot of things without using many words. Also, there was a list of words from which we had to determine the title and I went with belief but I added the other few words that I wanted to write about in my poem. Belief I cannot Write. I cannot Write of Despair, Grief, Pain. I am tired Of the Old Tales that Strangle me. Have me In…

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#belief #freedom #napowrimo #napowrimo 2023 #napowrimo2023 #nationalpoetrymonth #POETRY #WordPress