I don't find any comfort in telling myself pretty lies, because I remain too conscious that they are lies. It would not do me any good at this point to tell myself that it's "probably nothing." No; she has some genetic condition. I know that. I don't know which one, though we now have this new Diagnosis Du Jour. It has its pluses and minuses.

The biggest plus of all is, of course, Frances herself. She is such a great person. Five hundred pounds of cuteness packed into a compact 14 pound body. She has recently learned how to say wow, yes, no and more. She says yes like Mooch the cat from the comics: yesh! No is always accompanied by a little head-shake, for emphasis. More sounds like Moe, and is usually said in reference to bananas or milk. She is such a little picture, sitting at the table pointing to the empty banana skin, saying "Moe! Moe! 'nana."

She is snuggly and warm. Yesterday at the doctor's office she sat quietly on my lap, leaning against me and resting her head just below my collarbone. I wrapped my arms around her and kissed the top of her head.

She also says "mole." Yes, as in those brown raised things on your skin. I have a large one on my arm she is fascinated with. She pulls and picks at it, sometimes causing it to bleed, saying "mole, mole, mole" all the while. It's painful, but funny.

I would not trade her for a boatload of "normal" babies. She is adorable and perfect and beautiful just the way she is. I ask myself sometimes if I'd trade her for a version of herself without this condition--and the answer is still no. Because it really wouldn't be her. Would she be so shy and solemn and sweet if she were a big Bruiser Baby? I doubt it.

It's also tempting to tell myself sometimes that we would have done better if she were born in the days before genetics counselling, when she would have been "small" but there would not have been this push to get a label on her. But even that's not so. Go back far enough and I would have been pressured to leave her in a field to die, so I could quickly bear some other more physically normal baby; but the world would have lost out, never to have such a loveable and caring person in it.

More recently, something like what happened to my Great Aunt Hannah could have happened; she was sterilized by the government as a child because she was "too small to bear children." I never have to worry about that. And neither does Frances. Her body will remain under her control.

Even more recently, her life chances would have been severely compromised because a woman's goal was to get married and have children; and being "different" always makes that harder. She would have been a disappointment: A bright girl, sure, but who wants bright in a girl? What you want is pretty and obedient so you can marry her off properly and get grandchildren.

Fortunately, today, her bright mind and sweet personality will count for much more than her small size. This is a good time for her to be alive, and it's a good time to be her mother.

But it's still hard. It's hard to worry and wonder; it's hard to deal with fish-eyes I get from other people who are tempted to play Good Citizen and rescue this poor unfortunate and obviously malnourished baby from her abusive mother. It's hard to have no idea what to expect--will her growth speed up, stay the same, or slow down even more? It's hard to have to think about things like how I'll talk to her about this one day, how I'll help her develop a solid sense of her own worth, how I'll encourage her to maintain her sociable and loving nature in the face of what I'm sure at some point is going to be vicious playground attacks. And I'd rather acknowledge and work with how hard it is than paper over it with false brightness. Not because I'm some kind of irreedemable pessimist, but because I think it's better. It's more productive, and you grow more.

When I converted (in a manner of speaking) from fundamentalist christianity to wicca, one of the things I left behind was evangelism. Unlike Phantom Scribbler's Miserable Missionary, I don't want to make my faith a matter of public viewing. And ok, that is partly because there are still idiots around who think that "suffer not a witch to live" is a perfectly reasonable statement; and partly it's because I get sick very fast of playing teacher to people who want to know all about it without, say, picking up a book. But it is also in large part just a fact that other people have their own way of relating to the Universe and finding meaning in their lives, and I respect that. Not everyone is meant to be a witch. A statement of the blatantly obvious.

So the influence my beliefs have on my approach to life are not very clear to others; but this is one of those areas. I do not believe that destruction is inherently bad. I do not believe in running away from fears, or pretending that a problem is an opportunity. I believe in staring it square in the face, and dealing with it. I believe in letting pain hurt.

This should be such an obvious thing, shouldn't it? But it seems people spend a lot of time convincing themselves that their pain doesn't hurt, not really, because it isn't real pain or it could always be worse. Or that because it's part of God's Plan it actually feels good. I don't know what that accomplishes, besides ulcers and guilt. I believe in letting pain hurt. It doesn't last forever. And you learn what you can handle; you grow.

It's possible to do both. Put your pain in perspective, acknowledge that on a global scale of 1-10 it's probably a 3, but still let it be pain.

I do Tarot readings for myself sometimes. I realize that this is not standard practice, but it's very effective. Even when I get a gibberish reading, if I look back at it a few months later I'll see that it was true. It was good advice, and a decent forecast, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it because it wasn't what I expected to happen. I have no theory for why or how Tarot works for me; maybe my subconscious knows a lot and manipulates the cards to get a good reading; maybe I see what I need to see and the cards don't matter; maybe there are little gremlins in the deck who arrange things; maybe Hecate works things out. I don't know, and I don't think it matters.

For some reason, when I do readings, I get the Tower card an awful lot more than one might expect. The Tower represents cataclysmic change. Something you value and love is going to be destroyed to the foundations in order to allow for the building of something even stronger and better on the ruins. It is going to happen, whether you like it or not. You can accept it, and start to rebuild; or you can fight it, and try to buttress that tower up for as long as it can stand. Either way, the Tower is coming down.

I've now seen this card often enough in readings, and experienced it often enough in life, that when I start to sense the Tower coming down, I stand back and let it fall. I used to try furiously to prop it up; but it never worked. And not only did it not work, but all I would do is hide from myself any potential there was for learning or growth in the situation. Instead of a new, beautiful tower, I'd end up with some crippled half-fallen relic.

I understand this is an approach to problems that makes many people highly uncomfortable. The generally supported response seems to be The Silver Lining. Why, my tower's not falling down; it's just a handy-man's special. A bit of crazy glue and a few planks of lumber and it will have more character than ever!

The Silver Lining is appropriate to many situations, and many people find it a great approach to their lives. But I've read Candide and I agree with Voltaire that not all things are for the best in this best of all possible worlds. when people tell me (or insinuate) that I should 'look on the bright side,' I get irritated. Anyone else is free to spend their lives that way, but not to preach at me about it. Also, I feel a bit sorry for them. I refrain from preaching at them in reverse, or try to, but by and large I don't understand how one can go through life pretending that bad things are good and not end up stark raving mad.

It comes down, I think, to a fundamental difference to the largely Christian values our society has, and my own Wiccan values. Christianity says JOY--be happy, be grateful, things are good. Deny your negative impulses and your dark side. Confess to them, but deny them. Keep it hidden, under wraps. Let your light shine. Christianity says, Look On The Bright Side. Remember, I was a christian for 17 years, and a very devout one, so I do have some basis for these comments--but yes, I understand this does not represent ALL christians or all christian theology, and it's been deeply and badly coloured by my experiences in the church in which I was a member.

Wicca says, where there's fear, there's power--so find your fears, and face them. Wicca says--we all have a Shadow, a darker version of ourselves that we keep hidden from the world, where we keep our baser impulses, our unkind thoughts, the parts of ourselves we think are ugly or wrong. And because we are afraid of our Shadows, and afraid of our Shadows being seen, they have tremendous power over us. There is also a lot of strength in our Shadows because some of the things we hide aren't actually all that bad--only different.

The difference is, I think, that Christianity argues that Good is Good, and Bad is Bad, and never the twain shall meet--keep yourself above it, be untainted, don't let the bad of the world touch you. Christianity argues that everything that happens is part of God's plan, and God is good, so ultimately everything that happens is good (or at least has some purpose). Whereas Wicca argues that good and bad are both intrinsically necessary to life, and that death and destruction are not only necessary, but sometimes beneficial. But it's still death and destruction, and it's up to people to find or make meaning from their experiences. It argues that people need to acknowledge and integrate the darkness in themselves and in the world to be whole, and to be strong.

As an example, there is a ritual in Reclaiming Wicca (the trad I'm mostly closely aligned with) in which one enters a trance state and greets the four directions. While one does so, one tries to be open to a sense of fear coming from anywhere in particular (keeping in mind this is all a mental exercise). If one senses fear, one turns in the direction it's coming from--and walks toward it.

It's become a general approach towards life for me, as I would argue any real belief system would. When something scares me or causes me pain, I turn to face that direction and walk towards it. I've learned that it won't go away until I do, until I face it down. And I've learned that it won't blow those problems up to the size of the Rocky Mountains; on the contrary, I end up seeing how big they really are, and usually, they're not that impressive close up. Whereas if I Look On the Bright Side, and pretend those problems aren't there, they grow to the size of solar systems. On the surface I'm bright and shiny; just underneath I'm a gibbering mess, wondering "what if."

I think a lot of the time, when other people tell you to "be happy" or "look on the bright side," it's very selfish. It has nothing to do with our happiness, and everything to do with their comfort. They don't want to witness the pain because it makes them uncomfortable. So when they say you're being too negative, or it could be worse, or don't you understand that some people have REAL problems, what they mean is--shut up and keep it away from me.

In any case:

If someone is reading this and waiting for the Epiphany, the part where I talk about how God has a plan, and He has blessed us with this Special Child, and I'm so glad He entrusted her to US because some other family wouldn't care for her properly, and all things work out for the best in this best of all possible worlds.... I'm sorry, but you have the wrong blog.

This has nothing to do with God's plan (or the Goddess' either, for that matter). A sperm met an egg, and that was that. Our little eggie survived and grew, and was born, and is now the World's Best Baby Ever, Bar None. But I believe that it was chance that brought her to us. There's no big Lesson to learn--the Universe is not a sadistic homeroom teacher. I can learn from this, and I can grow (and I will, as much as I can), but that's not "why she's here." She's just HERE.

She's here; and she's loveable, beautiful and perfect. She is my life. I love her more than anything. The good she has brought me so overwhelmingly outweighs the bad; but it's no use pretending there's no bad. Dealing with this has been hard, and it hurts. It's going to keep being hard and hurting in various ways for a long time. But it was only by acknowledging that--by staring straight at it--that I was able to see that on a Global Scale of suffering from 1-10 where the Tsunami or a nuclear bomb is 10, we're at 2, or maybe 3. No; probably 2.

I do not grieve Frances. I celebrate her, daily. But when we started this medical merry-go-round, the Tower did fall down again. And here I am, still puzzling over blueprints for a new one. I do grieve for the lost expectations, for the way I thought things were going to be. I grieve for not having any expectations to replace them with.

But because I stared it in the face, I can see that it's a fair price to pay for winning the Baby Lottery. More than fair; it's a bargain.