Down With Mickey.

by Alexa on January 26, 2009

Shortly after Simone was born, I opened an email from an editor. She offered her congratulations and said that sometime, when I felt up to it, she would love to have me write something for her magazine.
I was attached to my breast pump at the time, pressed against the window of my hospital room to get WiFi reception. My heart wriggled, and I pecked out an enthusiastic reply with my free hand.
…To which the editor responded, gently suggesting that perhaps I wanted to wait until I was more than a few days postpartum, what with my baby on a ventilator and all. You know, until my abdominal flesh wasn’t riddled with staples, and I was wearing something without a tie in the back.

We kept in touch, and last summer, after Simone was home and I’d gotten my sea-legs, she helped me pitch an article about my experience in the NICU. When preemies are covered in the press, the focus is usually on the person inside the isolette—the medical-miracle, “size-of-a-ballpoint-pen!” part of the story. But I wanted to write something about what it is like to become a mother while someone else is taking care of your baby, how it happens and how it changes you. I wanted it to be tender and a little funny, and most of all I wanted other parents with babies in the NICU to be able to pick up a magazine and see themselves there. The article sold, and my mother-in-law came down for a few days so I could knock out a draft. Besides the main essay, I wrote sidebars—one with advice for NICU parents, and one about developmental care, for which I got to interview Dr. Heidelise Als. A very fancy photographer took pictures of my family and of a few babies in the unit where Simone once lived, and last week I started talking to the parents of those babies, so that their stories could be briefly told as well. Along the way I sold another unrelated article to the same magazine, and began to think of myself—at least a little bit—like a real, live writer.

I couldn’t bring myself to reveal much about the project here, because it all seemed too good to be true, and I was afraid that as soon as I wrote about it, I’d get a call saying that the editors had changed their minds, and upon further consideration didn’t like my work at all. A little silly, because the May issue—my issue!—was already in layout, but I’m skittish and paranoid by nature.

The magazine was Wondertime, and on Friday its parent company, Disney, decided to shut it down. The next issue will be the final one.

{Ed. Note: Well played January, you wily bastard. Well played.}

Of course I am crushed that I won’t be showing up in the NICU this spring with an armful of free copies for the parents there, and for the doctors and nurses who took such good care of Simone. And I’ll admit, I was dreaming (dreaming!) of the day I could waltz into my beloved Target, or a bookstore, and see my name in print. I am disappointed that a parenting magazine that had a sense of humor and was consistently well-written will disappear from the shelves. But most of all, I am devastated for my editor, who along with a host of kind and talented people, lost her job. I owe her so much, and I am just sick on her behalf. I am certain she will be snapped up elsewhere, because she is so very excellent (and obviously has SUPERB taste in writers), but you know what? That paunchy, glove-wearing mouse can SUCK IT.

Down With Mickey.

I Wrote This.

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