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Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

Consumed by consumption
Shoplifting brand-name jeans is more honest than buying them.
By Amy Benfer
[03/06/00]

Lessons in consumption
Only by immersing our children in marketing can we teach them to choose.
By Nick Gillespie
[03/06/00]

Watching TV on the bus
Teen TV novelizations invade bookstores and void the teenage mind.
By Carina Chocano
[03/03/00]

The tyranny of "Abercrappie"
My brother is under the spell of a company that promotes the frat-boy free-for-all.
By Damien Cave
[03/03/00]

When the revolution comes
We invite readers to respond to the Family for Sale series with grand plans, brainstorms and blueprints for a better tomorrow.
By Jennifer Foote Sweeney and Amy Benfer
[03/03/00]

Complete archives for Mothers Who Think

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For one long month, I'd eaten adequate but uninspired meals as I lay in my hospital bed, trying to keep my unripe baby inside. I had gradually gotten over the insult of having my dinner served at 5 p.m., as if I were a child or nursing-home resident. I even found comfort in warm oatmeal and in safely unseasoned egg-salad sandwiches dipped into tomato soup.

Choosing my meals from the menu distracted me from the monotony of each hospital day. Anti-contraction drugs had reduced my limbs to the consistency of overcooked spaghetti and made my brain too foggy for challenges greater than People magazine. Juicy profiles of the stars and wide-eyed portraits of everyday heroes briefly diverted me, but I always ended up wondering how Madonna, who was also pregnant at the time, would have handled pre-term labor. I jealously imagined her lying between 400-thread-count pima cotton sheets with a personal chef and masseuse catering to her every need. To escape the magazines, I switched to TV.

Also Today Melissa Pasanen's Egg Salad A big bowl of comfort, to be eaten by the spoonful, or between crisp toast. By Melissa Pasanen   Ode to "Joy" On rediscovering the sacred text of the kitchen. By Lloyd Fonvielle

Soaps and daytime talk shows revealed the worst in people, so I resorted to cooking shows: no emotions, no conflict. I sipped murky, gray-green vegetable soup and watched chefs prepare seared sea bass in a sesame crust, ginger crème brulée with candied tangerine and lamb sausage-stuffed poblano chilies. For a few minutes, I would almost forget how much I missed my 2-and-a-half-year-old son. I would briefly ignore the constant nervous anticipation of the next round of rhythmic contractions. Days and chefs went by. I grew the longest fingernails I've ever had and developed a craving for exotic flavors.

Every few days my body overpowered the medication and doctors unleashed a daylong course of powerful muscle relaxants into my bloodstream. From eyes to stomach, my body entered a dreamlike state of extreme slow motion. For the next 24 hours, I couldn't eat. I could barely even think. I missed the tinkling diversion of the meal cart and came to depend on orange Popsicles -- cool and sweet.

Shortly after the last dose snaked down long plastic tubing into my arm, the doctors would give me permission to eat again. Despite nausea and exhaustion, I was starving each time and relished my instant appetizer of salty microwaved chicken noodle soup and crisp toast with peanut butter. My husband, happy to have a task, would arrive with my requested main course: one time, good bread with tangy goat cheese and cracked green olives; another, chewy Pad Thai noodles twisted around fat pink shrimp.

After two weeks of this routine, my husband and I gave up our aching hope that I would go home. We were just relieved to make it through another day avoiding birth. Repeated tests could not explain why I persistently went into labor. The monitors showed a healthy baby, development appropriate for 5-and-a-half months. I felt betrayed by my body.

Late one Sunday evening, my reflexes cut through the drug decoy for the final time. We were very lucky. Although he was 11 weeks early, our 3-pound baby boy arrived safely. He was classified a "feeder and grower" and greenhoused in the neonatal intensive care unit.

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