Blogging for Meagan

(Meagan Day Fischer Kopp by Karen Branson, 2005)

I speculate that by now, nearly one month since I first began this blog, the size of my readership is approaching a couple million. Well, perhaps speculate isn't the appropriate word here. Let's change that to fantasize...I fantasize that by now...and so on.

However, I do know for certain that I have one loyal reader who checks for new posts regularly. That would be my beautiful daughter, Meagan. Wouldn't it be fair, therefore, to say that I am blogging for Meagan? Actually, if my understanding is correct that a blog is simply an on-line journal, and if one is allowed to refer to the off-line kind as "blogs" as well, then I have been blogging for Meagan since before she was born...

The first entry into our "baby blog," was actually made by my husband, by way of self-introduction. That was the day we had our first visit with our obstetrician, Dr. Head. After that first page, we did not hear directly from Daddy again until he was called upon to finish my "post" as I was wheeled into surgery.

Digression Alert: After all those natural childbirth/Lamaze classes, I had come to dread words like anesthesia, forceps and -- most of all -- Caesarean. However, by the morning of December 22, 1977 (three weeks after my projected due date), I had gratefully accepted the fact that a "section" (as it was called by those of us in the inner circle -- you know, doctors, nurses, pregos --) would be the safest and least traumatic way to deliver my daughter, who had stubbornly wedged herself between my ribs and my pelvis, upside-down (which in fetus jargon, is "heads-up"), and then proceeded to straighten her legs and place the bottoms of her feet against her forehead.

And to think that at the time we weren't even sure who we were hoping to ease the way for -- was it Meagan -- or Benjamin? (I'm guessing that Benjamin would have been more cooperative, less high-maintenance!)

But back to that journal/blog...I was thrilled to find the first two volumes in the drawer of the cedar chest next to our bed, enabling me to spend the last two days reliving those emotional, exciting times. And now (as then, apparently, since every other page contains some reference to it), I am at a loss for words...Truly, for someone who is constantly spitting out -- and sometimes choking on -- words, I fall miserably short when it comes to using them to describe how certain things make me feel -- especially when those feelings are rooted deeply in my core. Having a baby and then realizing that one has become a mother are a couple of those indescribable Life Events. But that sure didn't stop me from trying -- to describe them, that is!

Every morning I must have awakened to the thought, "Today I shall record this for posterity!" I can just see myself hunched over the kitchen table with my cup of coffee. (Yes, I drank coffee through my pregnancies. Would you like to know what else I drank?) I would be madly scribbling in my black pseudo-leather bound journal, heedless of what I was doing to my posture, ignoring the hollowed-out grapefruit halves by my elbow and the stack of dishes (some of them sure to contain milk -- yuck!) on the counter...

I suppose that when I read those entries later, I was as dismayed at my inarticulateness, as I am now, 31 years later. But today I realized something...

I was able to become totally immersed in remembering myself as I had been, eagerly anticipating motherhood. I chuckled as I remembered how we'd been uncertain about the spelling of her name...For a boy, it was always Benjamin, but we apparently were not sure whether we preferred Megan, Meghann or -- the winner -- Meagan, for a girl. I applauded myself for remembering to include lots of mentions of Daddy so our baby would know that, even though Daddy wasn't big on journaling, this was in no way going to be a one-sided parenthood! I cried "inner" tears when I relived having to resort to padded diapers and shoes separated by metal bars in order to straighten out that poor little"mislocated" hip and those windblown feet. (And not once -- then or now -- did I even think of saying, "See, that's what you get for being so stubborn!") Oh, and the guilt as I was reminded of the day my precious daughter used those pudgy, no-longer-windblown little feet to scootch herself backwards far enough so that the edge of her "bouncer" went over the precipice of the kitchen table, immediately followed by the canvas seat and the baby who was strapped inside! (Yes, I was a horrible, dangerous mother who didn't deserve to have such a magnicifent child -- at least not that day!)

My point? Even though I didn't (don't) have an arsenal of lofty, poetic-sounding words to describe them, those feelings got on those pages somehow, where they have remained all these years! I can still feel those feelings. Those words, inadequate though they may be, can still make me smile, make me cringe, make me cry...

In summary, I invite you to read this entry dated January 9, 1979, two weeks after Meagan's first birthday. (Note: I resisted every urge to edit!)

To My Daughter, Meagan,

Well, Honey, our first year together has gone by, and as I look back, the changes that have taken place just boggle my mind. To think that only a year ago the little sparkly-eyed imp that tears through this house like a whirlwind of curiosity and mischief, the part-monkey, part-princess, mostly bouncy baby that climbs up and stands on the coffee table; that balances, on flat feet, on the edge of the rocking chair; that climbs to the top of the stairs -- alone -- with nary a thought about what would happen if a foot should slip, that that dynamic little bundle of love is the same little bundle of love that only a year ago had no interests or concerns other than when she would be fed or changed.

Well, of course those remarkable changes have continued to occur over the last 30 years. If there is a theme that is evident throughout those pages, it is that my greatest wish for my daughter was that I wouldn't allow the overwhelming strength of my love to choke her, or to keep her from becoming her true self; that my greatest hope was for a relationship with her that would always be close and loving. By the grace of God, my wishes and hopes have been granted.

And I'm not finished blogging for Meagan yet!