Well, I imagine my nomination got retracted yesterday. What a day! I should preface all this by saying that what you're about to read does not reflect the standards of the house you grew up in. That's probably why I was especially horrified. We have a very sick cat at the moment, one who probably shouldn't have been allowed to get this sick, and so we suddenly have a whole lot of new challenges that I really don't need at the moment! And something horrendous has happened to my stomach in the last six weeks or so, guaranteeing that at least four days a week, I have horrible stomach pain and an urgent need for a bathroom at least four times a day. Yet another challenge that I don't need at the moment....
Anyway, we started home from a long weekend in WV, with bad weather looming, and most of the trip went smoothly. I think you were fed up from a disrupted schedule so you didn't nurse much, and I was clearly fed up from a disrupted schedule because my stomach was killing me. I had to stop about an hour and a half from home to be sick, and you were happy to sit in your car seat and smile cheerfully and encouragingly at me, which helped. Then about 50 miles from home, you were just so hungry you couldn't stand it any more, so I made it to our exit and stopped to nurse.
Fed you in the corner of a truckstop parking lot while my stomach started raging again and the snow was coming down. I didn't think I was going to make it to the bathroom, so I drove across the parking lot with you in my lap, grabbed you and the diaper bag and rushed into the bathroom. In the plus column, it was a single contained bathroom, but in the minus, there was no changing table. None. But I was too sick to wait, so I had no choice but to put your blanket down on the floor and lay you down. On a truckstop bathroom floor. I know, I know.... Take heart - at least when you have children, I'll not be harping about "putting my grandchildren in that filthy blah, blah, blah," but telling you, "Oh, don't worry about that pacifier - I changed you once on the floor of a truckstop bathroom and you didn't get typhoid!" Got you changed, crouched down and at arm's length because my boots were wet and I was shedding clumps of snow all over the tile floor around you, got back in the car and made it the last few miles home, but in retrospect, it might have been a more peaceful evening if we'd just slept in the parking lot for the night and then kept driving west.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
My New Mother, Google
I have no idea how I could have been a mother without being a librarian. We'd still be trying to get you out of the car seat! There was just so much I didn't know and no one I felt comfortable asking. Besides, I have, and I hope you've not inherited it, a deep-seated dislike to being told what to do. I don't like to let anyone tell me what to do. If I'm making a new soup, I'll find three different recipes and combine them. If I've got something to make, I'll shop around for different ideas and come up with my own take. When I was in college, I didn't research and form a viewpoint on a topic. I formed a viewpoint and then found quotes that agreed with me. Terrible, I know, but it's how I do things. And so, I'm most comfortable with tracking down a whole bunch of viewpoints, sifting through them for bits of common sense, threads of common philosophy, and snippets of research, to come up with an approach.
I really should have kept track of my Google history, because my searches over the last five months - actually over the last seventeen months - detail virtually ever question, dilemma, or irrational fear I've had. We could start in the summer of 2009 with searches about planning for pregnancy, appropriate vitamin supplements and folic acid levels. Then we move into basal body temperature tracking, luteal phase information, and sample charts. (This phase was repeated over and over. No matter how confident I was in my math, the months of September, October, November, and December found me lying in bed late at night constantly counting and subtracting days in my head before getting up to double-check the number of days in the various phases of menstruation with a Google search. I had a calendar and a thermometer within arm's reach for weeks!) Then came days of searching for how early pregnancy can be detected, what first trimester symptoms there might be, and how I might recognize them.
Of course, after I confirmed I was pregnant, I searched for cute ways to tell your grandparents, what to expect at neonatal appointments, and a practice with midwives and a history of noninterference. For most of pregnancy, my searches fall into two categories - planning and panicking. I planned and planned. I searched for lists of questions to ask potential midwives, I researched birth costs and induction rates, I read up on the recommended supplements. And then, mostly late at night, I panicked. Sometimes it was because I had symptoms of something, but sometimes it was because of the near lack of symptoms. What are late-term miscarriage rates? Is my baby moving enough? Can my baby be moving too much? Am I gaining enough weight? What can I do if I'm gaining too much? Hours and hours of searching, reading accounts of strange concerns and even stranger side effects.
And then my due date came....
I really should have kept track of my Google history, because my searches over the last five months - actually over the last seventeen months - detail virtually ever question, dilemma, or irrational fear I've had. We could start in the summer of 2009 with searches about planning for pregnancy, appropriate vitamin supplements and folic acid levels. Then we move into basal body temperature tracking, luteal phase information, and sample charts. (This phase was repeated over and over. No matter how confident I was in my math, the months of September, October, November, and December found me lying in bed late at night constantly counting and subtracting days in my head before getting up to double-check the number of days in the various phases of menstruation with a Google search. I had a calendar and a thermometer within arm's reach for weeks!) Then came days of searching for how early pregnancy can be detected, what first trimester symptoms there might be, and how I might recognize them.
Of course, after I confirmed I was pregnant, I searched for cute ways to tell your grandparents, what to expect at neonatal appointments, and a practice with midwives and a history of noninterference. For most of pregnancy, my searches fall into two categories - planning and panicking. I planned and planned. I searched for lists of questions to ask potential midwives, I researched birth costs and induction rates, I read up on the recommended supplements. And then, mostly late at night, I panicked. Sometimes it was because I had symptoms of something, but sometimes it was because of the near lack of symptoms. What are late-term miscarriage rates? Is my baby moving enough? Can my baby be moving too much? Am I gaining enough weight? What can I do if I'm gaining too much? Hours and hours of searching, reading accounts of strange concerns and even stranger side effects.
And then my due date came....
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Flotation Device
You are my sunshine. I never knew how true those words were, just thought of "Sunshine" as another nickname or endearment like Peanut or Baby Girl, but I mean that in the purest, truest sense. You are the light in my days. Your little face in the morning, smiling next to mine as you wake up, sopping wet and starving hungry, but smiling anyway, is like the sun peeping over the trees. When I'm paused in my work, looking around as I think something over, your small self, pink-nested next to me, is like the burst of bright light when the clouds shift away. And when you cuddle up next to me at night, take a few pulls on your pacifier and sniff a small, contented sigh, it's the same peaceful closing of the day that sunset offers. I track your presence as devotedly as any sunflower ever tracked the progress of the sun across the sky.
It feels a bit backwards, to be so dependent on you. I like for you to be happy, of course, but even when you're not, your presence offers a purpose, an anchor, that keeps me from drifting off course during my day. Even when you're red-faced and in full voice, most of the time I'm thinking, "Oh, she's experimenting with the new vocal ranges she's discovered!" I'm a bit frightened about how I'll manage this when the day comes that my decisions will make you displeased, but I think that's how it goes with mothering - I'll know the necessity of that decision in the bigger picture while you'll only sense the frustration of it in the moment. Right now, we bob through our days, treading water together, doing our best to keep our heads above water, and I'm never certain who depends most on whom, but I cling tightly to you and somehow, we manage to stay afloat.
Our society seems, at the moment, to value pushing babies away from us at lightning speed. You're born and we commence immediately to push you toward adulthood - we want you to sleep alone, to sit up, to walk, to feed yourself. Maybe this is because I came to all this later, but I'm contented to savor it. I'm pretty sure you'll be feeding yourself before you start kindergarten. No doubt, you'll be sleeping through the night in your own bed before you start high school. You came into the world with a little map all your own, and I don't think we're at the point where I need to be yanking it from your hands, shouting directions and pushing you to get wherever it is you're going faster. The sun finds its way across the sky, and I'm certain that with less guidance from me than I'd like to believe, you will too.
It feels a bit backwards, to be so dependent on you. I like for you to be happy, of course, but even when you're not, your presence offers a purpose, an anchor, that keeps me from drifting off course during my day. Even when you're red-faced and in full voice, most of the time I'm thinking, "Oh, she's experimenting with the new vocal ranges she's discovered!" I'm a bit frightened about how I'll manage this when the day comes that my decisions will make you displeased, but I think that's how it goes with mothering - I'll know the necessity of that decision in the bigger picture while you'll only sense the frustration of it in the moment. Right now, we bob through our days, treading water together, doing our best to keep our heads above water, and I'm never certain who depends most on whom, but I cling tightly to you and somehow, we manage to stay afloat.
Our society seems, at the moment, to value pushing babies away from us at lightning speed. You're born and we commence immediately to push you toward adulthood - we want you to sleep alone, to sit up, to walk, to feed yourself. Maybe this is because I came to all this later, but I'm contented to savor it. I'm pretty sure you'll be feeding yourself before you start kindergarten. No doubt, you'll be sleeping through the night in your own bed before you start high school. You came into the world with a little map all your own, and I don't think we're at the point where I need to be yanking it from your hands, shouting directions and pushing you to get wherever it is you're going faster. The sun finds its way across the sky, and I'm certain that with less guidance from me than I'd like to believe, you will too.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Pink and Sparkly
The last post about the balancing act that is marriage post-baby makes me feel a little bad. I don't want you to have the wrong idea, but in leaving you this record of your early years, I don't want to give you the impression that motherhood is all smiles. While I worry that you might someday read this and feel as if I didn't love you or think I was terrible, I'd rather that than have you find yourself alone someday reading a glossy, smiling account of everything and thinking, "What's wrong with me?! Why can't I manage this? Mom never had these problems." Um, yes she did, and then some.
Now in case you're reading this before you're really able to understand, I want to explain something. You'll probably know by now how it goes with some things in life. A great number of life experiences have fabulous outcomes after lots and lots of work. When you're young, sometimes it can be hard to separate the two - to understand that the work and the outcome depend on each other, but are sort of separate experiences. Like when you have to clean your room or study for a test or save your allowance for weeks to buy a new toy - the cleaning, studying and saving aren't the fun parts (although if you can learn to make them at least moderately enjoyable, things go more easily), but the neat room, the good grade or the new toy are terrific. You are the end result, not the process, and I can be frustrated, taxed and tried by the process but still madly in love with you. Two completely, totally, entirely different things!
As I've mentioned, physically pregnancy wasn't rough, but emotionally, I had more than a few rocky spots. But we got you here, and, when I have good days, I can recognize that I walk a little taller inside knowing that I was able to get you here under my own willpower, without having to have the extra assistance of medication or surgery. And I can also recognize that I've pushed through the difficulty of nursing to an almost inhuman degree.
Nursing might be where things first began to slip a bit.
Now in case you're reading this before you're really able to understand, I want to explain something. You'll probably know by now how it goes with some things in life. A great number of life experiences have fabulous outcomes after lots and lots of work. When you're young, sometimes it can be hard to separate the two - to understand that the work and the outcome depend on each other, but are sort of separate experiences. Like when you have to clean your room or study for a test or save your allowance for weeks to buy a new toy - the cleaning, studying and saving aren't the fun parts (although if you can learn to make them at least moderately enjoyable, things go more easily), but the neat room, the good grade or the new toy are terrific. You are the end result, not the process, and I can be frustrated, taxed and tried by the process but still madly in love with you. Two completely, totally, entirely different things!
As I've mentioned, physically pregnancy wasn't rough, but emotionally, I had more than a few rocky spots. But we got you here, and, when I have good days, I can recognize that I walk a little taller inside knowing that I was able to get you here under my own willpower, without having to have the extra assistance of medication or surgery. And I can also recognize that I've pushed through the difficulty of nursing to an almost inhuman degree.
Nursing might be where things first began to slip a bit.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Seesaw
You hear a great deal about how children change marriages. This, I believe, is inaccurate. Children do not change marriages, but rather bring a new level of awareness. They change your awareness of your marriage or your role in it.
Your dad and I have a pretty stable relationship. If you think of relationships as a seesaw, some people are at opposite ends, as far as they can get from each other. These work, of course, but because if their distance from the fulcrum, it can take a little more work to keep things balanced. Your dad and I are both pretty near the center, so historically, it's taken a lot for us to get unbalanced. We're so close to each other in terms of work, interests, outlook, etc., that we're like two people scooted right up to the center of the seesaw. If you ever try this, you'll see just how hard it is to shake things up!
And that was always important to me. I grew up in a culture that really values men and male contributions. I would like to think that you're reading this some distant day in the future and thinking, "Huh? What was that like?" but I'm not that optimistic.... It's getting better - when your grandma had me, she was told by her employer, "I don't hire pregnant women. If I can give your job away while you're on maternity leave, I will." So she only took eleven days off. That sort of thing would be a lawsuit today, but even so, when I was growing up, there was a real imbalance. The men in our family made the big decisions, even about things they didn't necessarily know as much about as the women. They sat down at the dinner table and waited to be served. When dinner was over, they went to the living room to lie down and talk while the women cleaned up. Women could be talking and one of the men would decide they had something to say, interrupt and just change the direction of the conversation. Your grandma and great-grandma took us shopping, weeded out our clothes, picked up birthday gifts for our friends, and just generally made our lives run smoothly.
Still, early on, I realized that there was an equation and that I was on the wrong side of it.
Your dad and I have a pretty stable relationship. If you think of relationships as a seesaw, some people are at opposite ends, as far as they can get from each other. These work, of course, but because if their distance from the fulcrum, it can take a little more work to keep things balanced. Your dad and I are both pretty near the center, so historically, it's taken a lot for us to get unbalanced. We're so close to each other in terms of work, interests, outlook, etc., that we're like two people scooted right up to the center of the seesaw. If you ever try this, you'll see just how hard it is to shake things up!
And that was always important to me. I grew up in a culture that really values men and male contributions. I would like to think that you're reading this some distant day in the future and thinking, "Huh? What was that like?" but I'm not that optimistic.... It's getting better - when your grandma had me, she was told by her employer, "I don't hire pregnant women. If I can give your job away while you're on maternity leave, I will." So she only took eleven days off. That sort of thing would be a lawsuit today, but even so, when I was growing up, there was a real imbalance. The men in our family made the big decisions, even about things they didn't necessarily know as much about as the women. They sat down at the dinner table and waited to be served. When dinner was over, they went to the living room to lie down and talk while the women cleaned up. Women could be talking and one of the men would decide they had something to say, interrupt and just change the direction of the conversation. Your grandma and great-grandma took us shopping, weeded out our clothes, picked up birthday gifts for our friends, and just generally made our lives run smoothly.
Still, early on, I realized that there was an equation and that I was on the wrong side of it.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Four Months Already?!
You're sleeping in my lap now, something that we do regularly, and all I have to do is look down to see your sweet little face in the blue light from my laptop screen. You snort and wiggle and giggle in your sleep. Sometimes you cry too, and Mama snuggles you closer then.
I don't think I realized it when we were in the hospital, but giving birth to you was the first step in the most healing process I've ever experienced. When your grandma died, it left a huge hole in me, one that I was afraid to talk about, one that I felt awkward about, but somehow the aspect that defined me most. Losing her was the largest event in my life and for more than two decades, I measured everything by before her death and after. I missed her so much, missed her every single day, missed her so much that sometimes even as a grownup, I'd have days when I'd just double over and sob, "I want my mother" over and over and over.
She wasn't perfect (and I won't be either, not even close, which I'm sure you'll know all too well and all too soon) but she was mine and losing her was so painful. I didn't realize it for a long time, but I think I put off having you as long as I did because I was just scared. Scared that I'd die, scared that your dad would, scared that you would, that I'd make someone I loved so much only to lose them. But then, and this is one of the things I want you to know if you lose me before you have a baby of your own, I realized that not doing things because you're scared is not a valid reason. There are plenty of reasons not to have a baby - not wanting to give up the time, not wanting to share your life with someone who has no ability to share - but never, ever avoid doing something for no other reason than fear. Suddenly, irrationally, I wanted you SO badly - especially for some odd reason after reading The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club and Hens Dancing (British novels have such charmingly imperfect children...) - and then I finally got brave enough to say that aloud.
I don't think I realized it when we were in the hospital, but giving birth to you was the first step in the most healing process I've ever experienced. When your grandma died, it left a huge hole in me, one that I was afraid to talk about, one that I felt awkward about, but somehow the aspect that defined me most. Losing her was the largest event in my life and for more than two decades, I measured everything by before her death and after. I missed her so much, missed her every single day, missed her so much that sometimes even as a grownup, I'd have days when I'd just double over and sob, "I want my mother" over and over and over.
She wasn't perfect (and I won't be either, not even close, which I'm sure you'll know all too well and all too soon) but she was mine and losing her was so painful. I didn't realize it for a long time, but I think I put off having you as long as I did because I was just scared. Scared that I'd die, scared that your dad would, scared that you would, that I'd make someone I loved so much only to lose them. But then, and this is one of the things I want you to know if you lose me before you have a baby of your own, I realized that not doing things because you're scared is not a valid reason. There are plenty of reasons not to have a baby - not wanting to give up the time, not wanting to share your life with someone who has no ability to share - but never, ever avoid doing something for no other reason than fear. Suddenly, irrationally, I wanted you SO badly - especially for some odd reason after reading The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club and Hens Dancing (British novels have such charmingly imperfect children...) - and then I finally got brave enough to say that aloud.
The Story of You, Part 5
Turns out your timing was perfect because my blood pressure spiked pretty badly right after you arrived (199 over 145). I wasn’t awake enough to be worried, but everyone in the delivery room was, especially Daddy and Grandpa. I was too busy feeding you your first meal. They gave me a few doses of medicine over the next hour or so, but they weren’t helping, and out of concern that I might have a seizure, they started me on a magnesium IV drip and moved me into the high-risk pregnancy section rather than regular labor recovery. Magnesium dulls your nervous system, so my arms felt like lead and I was very groggy for the next 24 hours, but between Daddy and the lactation consultant, we were able to make sure I could keep cuddling you and feeding you, even if I couldn’t actually lift you. By Tuesday night, I was able to come off the magnesium drip and I started making more sense right away – Daddy had been a little unnerved by how out of it I was, but I got better pretty quickly after the medicine was gone and I was able to have something other than clear liquids. French fries and chocolate chip cookies and iced tea from Max & Erma’s were what I wanted for dinner and it tasted SO good, since I’d not had anything other than juice and Jello since a piece of toast around lunch on Sunday.
Wednesday, my blood pressure still wasn’t low enough, so we had to hang out a bit longer, but I just got to feed you and cuddle with you and rest, so I didn’t mind at all. By Thursday morning, they thought you had a touch of jaundice and were concerned, so we were afraid you were in for another night in the hospital. I really just wanted to get you home and settled in our space (and get a shower!), so they scrambled around and found a light blanket and you came home as a little blue glowworm.
The ride home was the most terrifying car ride of Mama’s entire life! I’m still not sure exactly why. I wasn’t scared to be bringing you home – couldn’t wait, in fact. I think it was probably partly that we’d been in such a still, quiet, monochromatic environment, and suddenly, in my overly emotional state, we were out in the world with all these colors and noises and things moving and I was absolutely petrified that something would happen to you somehow. It didn’t help that an ambulance and fire trucks passed us. You slept through the whole thing, of course, but I cried and cried and cried so hard that I could hardly breathe. Scared Daddy pretty badly and he was thinking he was going to have to pull over and let me calm down, but we made it home and then things were so much better. I was so excited to start our life at home with you that I forgot all about how scared I’d been when we got home!
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