From cheerfully childless to mindful mommy

I'd be lying if I said that the transition from being cheerfully childless to motherhood has been a smooth one. My life is so radically different that is almost as if I woke up in an alternate universe.

I really loved the life I had before. I loved being able to pick up and go somewhere on a moment's notice. Loved the freedom to take a course or sit and write or stay up all night hanging out with friends. I had a few lovers, each unique and wonderful, each aware of each other and my love of them all. Even with death and dying in my family, such heavy subjects, I felt a lightness of being. I felt free from all the constraints I'd placed on myself over the years. I'd finally grown up and become fully me. And then my female best friend goaded me into recognizing that I'd fallen in love with M and accepting his invitation to move in with him. He supported me after my grandfather's death. We traveled. I supported him through a grueling start-up. We bought a house. And then I got pregnant out of the blue.

Yes, I miss my old life. I'm giving myself permission to miss it, and to come to terms with the changes and the challenges.

The loss of my independence has been the most difficult to adapt to. It would probably be easier if M and I had family closer by, or if I had more friends in the area, because I could call on them to spot me for things like doctor appointments or haircuts or shopping. As it is, I have to pack the Little Man up and bring him everywhere I go. It can be an ordeal even if it's just to go weed outside.  I find it damned inconvenient that I can't just climb up onto a ladder to clear the gutters or empty the dishwasher or take a shower without having to make some sort of provision for my son, especially now that he is crawling around and has figured out how to open cabinets and drawers. And really, there's nothing relaxing about showering listening to a baby howl with displeasure because he's trapped in a walker or a bouncer or otherwise restricted in movement. At best, I get to shower every other day. Any longer than that and the smell of baby puke and sour milk and my own body gets to me.

I miss being able to focus on myself. Before I got pregnant, I was determined to get down to a normal weight range and I made good progress. In having a baby at my age I made a further commitment to being healthy and fit. I'm down 100 pounds in the past 2.5 years. I really want to drop another 30 pounds but I've hit a plateau and my visits to the gym are too infrequent. I try working out at home but the Little Man either wants to participate or wander off. It's rather difficult to monitor him while tying to make sure I don't pull a muscle or otherwise injure myself due to inattentiveness. My doctor says I've done amazingly well and I should focus on maintenance more than further weight loss. He says he's concerned that my focus on dropping more weight will become sabotaging if I get too discouraged. Meanwhile, I'm fighting this near-constant "I'm hungry" feeling that the doc says to feed with warm water. I'm almost chronically under-hydrated since I started breast-feeding, and even after my milk dried up I still struggle to drink enough water -- I'm just too busy playing mommy.

The changes that pregnancy and childbirth have wrought on my body have mostly been awful. My body still doesn't feel like it belongs to me. I often find myself walking funny because there is a cramp in my pelvic area, usually the hip-flexor muscle, I think. My ass aches when I get up after sitting for a while. My lower abdominal muscles, while never particularly strong, seem to resist my efforts to tone them up--from the waist down I feel gelatinous. I'm ok with the changes to my breasts and nipples. I actually like them more, with the weightloss and the changes from pregnancy and lactation -- they are less lumpy than they used to be, and I'm fortunate that I didn't experience mastitis or thrush. The acid reflux and the intestinal spasms have been agonizing.  Since I'm not lactating anymore I switched from Tagamet to Prilosec and it's made a world of difference. Now there is occasional discomfort rather than a constant mid-level discomfort that ramped up to must-go-vomit-stomach-acid-now a few times a week, often a few times a day.

But before I sound too much like some whiny, ungrateful, unfit mother, I should say that I love my new life, too. I love the home I've made for the three of us. I'm happy here, even if I do miss my friends. I've got my patch of dirt to dig in and grow things. I am grateful that M's brilliant mind, which is what initially attracted me to him, is also attractive to so many companies here in Silicon Valley. He makes a good living and we try to live modestly on his income so we can still put money aside. Yes, I'm itching to take some courses and get myself marketable again so I can feel less dependent, but that will have to wait another year or so. I really enjoy his company and he enjoys mine. We talk to each other often, we snuggle when the baby's needs allow, and we both agree that having a baby together has made our bond deeper.

And our son! Wow, what an amazing little guy. Yes, he's teething right now and I really want to run screaming from the house after his nth meltdown, but he's got this wonderful smile and even when he's crying he tries to smile for me sometimes. He's developing so fast and he's becoming his own little person and even as I struggle not to create habits in him I'll regret later, I can't help but scoop him up and love on him. He has so much joy in him and I'm loving experiencing the world from his perspective. I'm experiencing an aspect of life that I'd never thought I would (parenthood) and while it's definitely a mixed bag, I've no regrets. I'm trying to be mindful of what I feed him, trying to keep his chemical-load to a minimum. I'm thinking about what stories I read him and what television programs he sees so I'm aware of what social and cultural norms are being passed on to him. I'm trying to create a safe space for him to grow into the person he wants to be --whatever that looks like. And seeing what a fine job some of my friends have done with their own children, I've got some good role-models and sources of of moral support.

Relationship after baby

I was prepared for our relationship to change as a result of Little Man's arrival, and things have changed. Not really for better or worse. They're just different.

I knew our relationship was pretty solid -- it was a major factor in my choice to proceed with a high-risk unplanned pregnancy at age 43 -- but it's proving even more solid than I'd thought. Or perhaps it's that having a baby together has gelled things for us even further. It feels good. Feels right. We're relaxed and happy with each other most of the time, and that impacts Little Man. He's a very easy, happy, loving baby. In the past month, as the baby has gotten a little more independent of me, M has really stepped up his game. He takes Little Man off my hands and has learned to distinguish between a fussy baby that he can console, and one who can only be consoled by mommy. I actually got to spend an hour digging in the garden this weekend, putting arabian jasmine and hibiscus in the ground, and digging up and transplanting a bird of paradise, some fountain grass, lavender, and rosemary. I got dirt under my fingernails and sweat in my eyes and it felt good!

I really like the relationship I have with Little Man's father. He's a good man, a kind and appreciative man. His biggest complaint about me is that I don't give him enough opportunity to do things for me. His second biggest complaint is that I'm not back to normal emotionally. I know that he was looking forward to having me "back" once the baby was born, and I did warn him that I'd still be under the influence of hormones while I'm lactating, but, well, I'm just not as unflappable as I was before-baby, and that is hard on him.  There are moments when he really irritates the hell out of me. Most of the time I know it's about me -- know that he is who he is and if something he does irritates me, that's about me, not him. It's not his nature to deliberately try to piss me off, and sometimes... sometimes I have to remind myself of that. Just like I remind him not to take my irritability personally. Being over-tired and hormonal does strange things to people, and all we can do is try to keep our heads and be compassionate with each other in the aftermath of any heated exchanges.

He's still my best friend, M is. I enjoy his company. He makes me laugh. I can talk with him about just about anything. He's communicative about his unmet needs, which keeps baby-related resentments to a minimum. He's incredibly supportive. He's always asking me what he can do for me, how he can help me achieve my goals. I'm incredibly grateful that he is such a strong breadwinner that he can support our family on his income alone -- in the Bay Area, which is so incredibly expensive to live in. And in exchange, I do my best to be frugal. He is often exasperated by my frugality, so he doesn't give me a hard time when I do spend money. I've done really well with regards to spending on the baby -- scored a lot of great stuff on Craig's List. I actually just bought the first item of baby clothes at a store last week -- an outfit for family photos next month.


Before the photos, we're going on a trip to Puerto Vallarta. I wanted to get some experience with airports and flying with the baby before heading off to Canada to meet M's family at Christmas time. When he asked where I wanted to go, I told him a quick hop to Las Vegas, or LA, or maybe San Diego for a night or two. He knows I don't care for Vegas or LA, and he wasn't interested in San Diego, so he suggested Hawaii. I love Hawaii, particularly the Big Island, but for a first time flight with a 5 month old, a 5 hour trip is daunting. However, given that we do have a passport for Little Man already, that opened up the possibility of flying south, to Mexico. Cabo San Lucas was our first thought, but then a friend suggested the more tropical Puerto Vallerta, which is just a 3.5 hour flight from SFO. Given that we were in Bali just a year ago, I've definitely got what we need for the tropics -- including SPF 50 for the baby.

As for Little Man, he's developing quite well. He's not the butter-ball people expect breastmilk-fed babies to be, though he does have a little roll on each of his thighs. He's sitting up under his own power most of the time -- until he loses interest in being upright, and then he falls over like a puppet. He's started taking control of his bottle from me when he doesn't like how I'm holding it, and as long as it's not too full, he can feed himself. Now that I've finally gotten rid of laryngitis and am talking to him more, he's more talkative -- doing his baby babble. I am amazed by how his dexterity improves daily. His strong little legs support him very well when I've got them shoulder-width apart, and his balance is improving enough that he can stand unsupported for about 5 seconds at a time. He's a cheerful baby, charming people with his big grins, and is rarely fussy or cranky in public. I took him into San Francisco to meet up with Jem and her daughter Rosie for lunch and a museum tour and he did great the whole trip -- including both legs of the BART ride.

Life is good. Not at all what I expected for myself at this age. But good. I'm blessed, and I know it.

Seven Weeks!

We've reached the 7 week mark.

Little Man is growing and growing. He's got to be over 10# (4.5kg) now. He's discovered that he can gnaw on his fist, and he's started moving his fingers independently of each other, rather than just keeping his hands in fists. He's holding his head up quite a lot now, bracing himself up on his elbows, and even pushing upward/forward with his feet. With all the hardwood floors in the house I think he's going to be an early crawler.

He's still a quiet baby, though he's beginning to make cooing noises and such, and his smiles fill my heart so full I can feel tears in my eyes. He's an active, fidgety baby. I could tell that about him in the womb. He's often awake for 3 or 4 hours at a time, his hands and feet moving around, and his eyes following everything. When he's like that I tend to put him in the Baby Bjorn and bounce him around as I do housekeeping and gardening chores. Honestly, I wish he slept more, because there are days I don't get to shower or change out of my pajamas and end up brushing my teeth in stages.

When my back gets tired of carrying him, I've been putting him in the baby carriage (minus the car seat) and wheel him around the house. The added bonus is the carriage has space to put things, so I use it to ferry stuff back and forth along with the baby. It's been great for when I'm working in the kitchen and I want him nearby but not on the counter. I even put him in it when I'm (trying) to take a shower, because he's at a good height to reach out and adjust the pacifier or touch him to try to soothe him.

Yesterday we went to the library for a couple of hours. I'm going through book-withdrawal, so I've decided to try audiobooks. He was very good--but then I've gotten very good at reading him, so I fed him and changed him before he even had a chance to fuss. The loudest thing he did was burp.

With M away at work this week I've been getting into more of a routine staying on top of the housekeeping. It's difficult to quietly while away 4, 5, and even 6 hours with the baby when we're waiting for M to wake up, and now that he's usually out of the house by 10am, I'm able to vacuum and scrub and bang around to my heart's content. Yes, crazy as it sounds, I enjoy (to a point) housecleaning -- mainly because a clean, organized home is one I can function (and relax) more easily in. If I don't keep up with it, every horizontal surface in the house would soon be covered, the way it was when M lived alone. Living with him I've become much more tolerant of disorder than I used to be, and I expect that with the baby I'll become even more so -- or have a nervous breakdown ;)

What else? I'm still lactating, and so I've got all those hormones going -- which means I'm more 'sensitive' than my usual self. Last night I actually told M that I didn't like him very much right then because he was being mean to me ;) At the time it seemed true, but in retrospect, I think I was just tired and overly sensitive. He's pretty good about helping me when I ask him to -- partly out of gratitude for not requiring him to help with the baby at night, I think. And M has been great about doing what he can to lighten my load or make things more efficient. For example, he noticed how much time I spent outside watering the 60ft planting bed alongside the patio, so he asked me if I wanted irrigation installed. Our landscape service wanted just $250 to install it and hook it up to our existing timer, so we got it done last weekend.

The plum tree in the back yard is dropping the sweetest cherry-sized plums right now. I set up a tarp to collect them -- partly to keep the mess off the lawn, and partly because it seems a shame for such bounty to rot on the ground. This week the peaches on the peach tree have started to get their blush. The tree is so heavy with fruit -- even after considerable thinning -- that the espaliered branches are bending. The fruit should be ripe in the next three weeks to a month, I think.

So far, things are going remarkably well. I'm learning how to plan the things I do to minimize back-and-forth, and to plan for those times when Little Man is napping in order to get things done (like now). M and I get less snuggle time than we used to, but that makes the moments we do catch even sweeter. Seven weeks into this new world of unintentional parenthood, I can say that life is (still) good.

A mother's fears

In my late 30's, I conquered Fear. I picked up the tools for dealing with self-sabotaging fears -- the fears that existed in my head, in my inner world, but not in the real world. I faced my own mortality, I sat with the dying, and I went out and did the things I feared doing because I was tired of being afraid all the time. I learned that everyone is afraid, and that the difference between myself and people who did great things was that the people who did great things felt afraid and acted anyway. I learned that if I wanted to fulfill my own capacity for greatness, I had to develop tools for moving past the paralysis of fear, and use them, every day, until it became second nature to acknowledge my fears and act anyway.

I got off the fear bandwagon, and it was very freeing.

Until last week.

Last week, when my newborn was jaundiced and losing weight and not pooping -- I felt real fear for the first time in years. It was a new kind of fear, and it hit me in the gut like a suckerpunch: What if something happens to my Little Man?

 That thought brought anguish greater than I'd felt at the loss of my sister -- the most keenly felt loss of all the deaths of loved-ones yet -- and sent my mind reeling down the What If path.  As soon as I realized where I was going though, I stopped that self-indulgent sabotage. Down that path lies Smothering Motherhood and an Anxious Fearful Child.

Somewhere there is a balance, and I'll find it. In the meantime, I accept that I'll probably swing between extremes for a bit. I'm sure life will present me many opportunities to confront my mother-fears. I'm also certain I'm up to the challenge of raising a happy, well-adjusted child -- all my fears aside.

I'm also certain that the physical, gut-wrenching response to threats to my son's health and well-being will be with me for the rest of my life. I've just got to learn to accept it as one of the tithes of motherhood and hope it gets easier to think critically and act appropriately despite the fear and the pain.

It does get easier, right?

Labor & Delivery Day (take two)

Tomorrow we try again with the labor induction. I don't doubt we'll be successful this time. I saw my obstetrician today and she said that I've dilated another centimeter and I'm 50% effaced, so I've made progress in the last four days. This is great news, because it means that this time around my body is more ready for labor.

I'm doing my best to envision a positive birthing experience, particularly one without the need for a C-section. I've spooked the anesthesiology department with my revelation that in all three of my experiences with general anesthesia, I was very difficult to intubate -- my most recent one took 30 minutes, even with a glide-scope. I'm "anterior" -- whatever that means -- the first anesthesiologist repeated it to me over and over again as I was being taken to recovery. I remember her urgency, saying I needed to remember that one word to give to a doctor if I ever had to go under again. So now the Labor and Delivery team are on notice that Anesthesia needs as much lead time as they can get if it looks like a C-section is needed. The mid-wife's response?  "We'll just have to make sure we won't need a C-section then."  I liked her immensely after that :)

I've had time to relax this week since I got the last of the preparation work done last week. I'm feeling much more rested and centered.

I'm kind of dreading breastfeeding. I've been having those nipple vasospasms two and three times a day, and instead of dragging myself into the shower in the middle of the night, I've been having an ounce of alcohol--which my OB says is ok, especially after she witnessed first-hand just how painful they are. The alcohol is a vasodilator that counteracts the vasoconstriction, usually within 5 minutes or so. It's blessed relief. On top of that, I've been having breathtakingly painful charlie-horse muscle spasms in the groin area the past few nights, so I'm eager to push the little guy out.

I'm looking forward to getting my bladder back, and my stomach, too. Solid food isn't sitting well with me, hasn't for weeks. Most of all, though, I'm looking forward to this next stage of my life.

In some ways I'm still in disbelief that I'm having a baby, even as the reality of it kicks me in the diaphragm and bounces on my bladder. But I'm just crazy about M and we've got a good life and a beautiful home and it seems natural for the baby to be the next thing. After that, who knows?

Try a little tenderness (instead of pissiness)

I was up and around after 4 hours sleep.

The "up" part has become a lot more challenging this past week. It's something I do s-l-o-w-l-y so the baby weight in my uterus has time to shift with me. If I get up too quickly it just plain hurts, so I ease into a standing position and make my way around the house with the help of the walls until I've got my equilibrium and momentum. I cleaned the kitchen, fed the cats, took my morning vitamins, and got to work finishing the data migration from my old MacBook Pro to the new one. I know if I don't have it done before the baby comes it could be months before I've got a fully-functioning personal computer again.

The wind woke M up about 10 minutes earlier than his usual time. It's been gusting up to 40mph here for at least 36 hours and the wind downed a gorgeous old olive tree across the street yesterday. We spent a little time together before he fired up the computers for work and play, and by 10am I felt an uncontrollable urge to nap.

We had another workman come in today, and after I found dealing with yesterday's workman so tiring, M decided to work from home today to help me out. The window for his arrival was 9:30-11:00 and at 10:50am, while I was napping, M got into the shower. He thought the guy was going to be a no-show. Nope. At 10:55 the doorbell rang. Then some knocking. I yelled for M to get the door, not knowing he was in the shower. The doorbell rang again and more knocking. I realized that if I didn't get to the door soon, the guy might leave, and the hole in the wall (left by the plumber who repaired a leak in the master bath) would go un-repaired. So I leaped out of bed (a feat that hurt so badly my knees almost buckled) and hobbled to the door as fast as my legs and the walls would support me. This 60 foot dash had me a little out of breath as I opened the door, still in my pajamas and clutching at my belly. I'm sure I wasn't a pretty picture, and as a result of my humiliation and disappointment, I sought out poor M while he was still in the shower and got pissy with him. It took me about half an hour to get over my pissyness, even after he'd apologized a couple of times and gave me a hug. Grr.

The good news is the contractor did a great job of patching up our wall. If we had regular drywall I would have patched it myself, but we don't. The walls in our circa 1950 house have two layers of wallboard--one is cementboard and another is a plasterboard that was a precursor to sheetrock, for a combined thickness of about 3/4". I didn't feel like wrestling with trying to find a combination of furring strips and sheetrock that would make the right thickness to match the rest of the wall, or doing the amount of messy mudding (spackling) it would take to build the surface up if I had to use just 5/8" drywall--even if I wasn't 39 weeks pregnant :) The best thing about being "handy" is knowing how to do a cost-benefit analysis that helps determine whether or not to let a pro do the work.

This afternoon we snuggled a bit and had a mini-talk about how the baby is going to impact our lives. I told him he's going to have to step in as the primary source of attention for Jasper, who is a very social animal and needs interaction with his people, or he acts out. It's rather funny, actually.

I also told him that I want him to let me know if he is experiencing an attention deficit, because I'm going to be tuning into the baby's needs and may not be as attuned to his. I've gotten very good about letting him know what my needs are, even making an effort to give him advanced notice where I can, and I've also gotten very good at anticipating his needs (which he loves--who wouldn't?) but realistically, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to maintain that level of presence with a newborn on my hands. I know a lot of couples go through a tough time the first 6 months because the father feels like a third wheel and an afterthought and I'm hoping to avoid that by reminding M that he has a better chance of getting what he wants if he has the presence of mind to ask for it ;)

Tonight he plays poker with his friends, and I get the evening to myself. Probably the last evening alone in a long, long time.

Tomorrow night we'll have our Last Supper as a childless couple.

And Friday morning we initiate labor. Finally.

Wish me luck!

Two weeks until Delivery Day

We have a completely new HVAC system for the house as of Thursday. Boy does it raise and lower ambient temperatures quickly! And it's all high-efficiency so we'll see a difference in our gas and electric bills. We decided to get it done before the baby comes, instead of afterwards. Sometime in the next 9 months we'll have the floors insulated from the crawlspace -- before winter comes and the baby is crawling around on cold hardwood and stone tile floors. Of our 1900 sq foot house, only about 500 sq feet is carpeted.

I had someone come in to tackle cleaning the bathrooms and floors, and she did a beautiful job for a fair wage. I'll probably ask her back in a few weeks.

The Graco pack n'play bassinet has been put together and is situated by my bed. It's going to be a good height for handling middle of the night changes and breastfeeding. I've already got diaper-changing and feeding-related stuff in two canvas bins in the top half of the bassinet. God, I hope I'm ready for that!

All the baby clothes and linens that came in this week have been washed and stashed. Yesterday we stopped by Ikea to pick up a dresser and cloth bins to compartmentalize the drawers so those tiny little socks and whatnot don't get lost in the shuffle. M wanted to be a part of the baby furniture decision-making process, but he's only available on weekends, and our weekends have been full of classes and house-related projects and his usual techie puttering. Hopefully we'll get the dresser assembled today.

Speaking of classes, I had the breastfeeding class and the newborn care class yesterday. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I booked two 2.5-3 hour classes back to back. All that sitting in hard chairs made my feet and ankles swell. They're still swollen this morning. Grr.

I'm getting frustrated and tearful a lot more these days, mostly with M. I know it's not fair for me to expect him to read my mind and anticipate my needs, but there are times when I wish he was a better listener -- especially those times when I've had to repeat myself. He's also used to me being his reminder system, but I'm not very good at it these days -- not when my brain is mushy like it is now. Living with M is like living with an artist or musician or an absent-minded professor. He's always thinking and imagining--which I love about him. He's got a big, sexy brain. Before we lived together he'd forget to do things like make meals, do laundry, and feed the cat -- so I took all the domestic stuff on. And now I'm a bit overwhelmed. It's frustrating when he asks me about something as simple as how I make his bacon sandwiches -- which I make the way he told me he likes them -- but, I should be happy he's making the effort, right? Right. Right.

Sleeping is no longer the deep, restful sleep it once was. I'm constantly adjusting positions because something is tingling or I can't breathe right or the baby keeps pounding on the same spot like he needs more room. I'm resting/napping a lot more. I experience the burning-eye need to lay down two or three times a day now. The good news is that this phase is only for 2 more weeks.Once the baby is born I'll be sleeping less, I know, but I'll be experiencing a lot less physical discomfort (I hope) and much better mobility. Two improvements which should have a marked impact on my emotional state.

Still to do are the bag for the hospital, the installation of the car seat base, purchasing some newborn disposable diapers to get through the first few days of toxic waste, and finishing the re-organization of my bedroom so I'm not tripping over bins and boxes.

Physical discomfort and cognitive dissonance

Discomfort is the umbra of my existence: leaning forward, walking, sleeping, digesting a meal, even my thought processes -- all are impacted by the entity occupying my womb.

I admit there are times when I feel occupied rather than, oh, I don't know, pregnant. My body is no longer wholly my own. Sometimes that bothers me on a deep, barely conscious level. I think it has something to do with the fact that gestation and motherhood just aren't part of my identity. They never had been. Yes, I am a nurturer, but I am not a mommy. The whole mommy-identity is foreign to me, and still uncomfortable. I know that when the time comes I'll step into that role, and that in being a mother, I will become one. I know this, and I'm not worried. I'm just uncomfortably aware that a disconnect is still there, and I'm doing my best to be okay with that.

The part of me that never wanted to be a parent wants validation, I think. This surprising miracle pregnancy has changed everything, and that part of me doesn't welcome the changes. There. I've admitted it.

I never wanted to be a mother and I'm not 100% certain I want to be a mother, but I'm carrying this baby and a larger part of me wants to experience this whole new realm that I never thought would be open to me. I've been rapidly playing catch-up, emotionally, mentally. Most females are indoctrinated to see baby-making as part of their identity, a prerequisite for being a "real" woman. They dress baby-dolls and pick out names and fantasize about weddings and nurseries. They evaluate the males in their lives as prospective providers and fathers. They ask themselves, "Would I want to make a baby with this man?" Many, if not most, women do this, I know. But not me.

I love being an auntie. I love solitude and serenity. I love the solitary pursuits of writing and voice-over recording. I love sleeping in and dining out and haring off on crazy adventures. I like riding motorcycles a little too fast and making love a little too slow. Someday... Someday I hope I'll say "I love being a mom." Even though I won't love waking up all hours of the night, even though I won't enjoy cleaning up vomit and poo. I hope I'll be saying that I love being a mom even after I've had to cancel much-anticipated plans because the baby is sick or the sitter fell through for the nth time.  I think I will.

I'm an all-in kind of person, and when M and I decided to proceed with this pregnancy, I committed myself to doing whatever it takes, to being whoever I need to be, in order to fulfill the imperatives of our child-to-be. Including being a mother.

I am grateful that the baby's father and I have such a strong connection. M and I have been each other's closest friends for years. Becoming lovers seemed natural, if accidental. Love flows this way, sometimes. I'm hoping we'll succeed at being parents together, succeed in building a family life together. He, at least, has always wanted a family, and in this, I'll follow his lead.

Soon. The baby is coming soon. I'm looking forward to the day he arrives. Even if he isn't being delivered by stork.

Mothering

I hobbled through life for many years as an emotional cripple. I loved with everything I was capable of, and sometimes it was enough. And sometimes it was not. But in those days, it was the best I could do. And in those days, I was aware of my emotional disability, and I was grateful that I could not have children.

In my early 30's everything changed. I wanted to grow. I wanted to become more fully me. I just didn't know how. Well, that isn't quite right. I knew that in order to effect meaningful change in my life, I needed to develop new, adult coping mechanisms. I just didn't know how to do that. I looked to the people in my life to learn how and made a very poor choice, landing myself in a same-sex relationship with a friend-turned-lover that was both physically and emotionally abusive.

And within months for embarking on that relationship, people I loved started dying. Four people in two years: my grandmother, my mother, my mother-figure, and a good friend. I went from an emotional cripple to an emotional quadraplegic. I couldn't cope. I understood the grieving process intellectually, but didn't know how to walk the path. Paralyzed, I huddled in on myself for a couple of years waiting for something, anything to change. And then it did. The woman I was involved with finally realized what I'd known after 6 months into our relationship, and broke things off.

Within two months I was in therapy. Something in me found the resolve to seek professional help. I wanted to understand myself, understand why I'd chosen an abusive relationship with a woman when I'd never tolerated anything of the sort from a man. And I wanted those adult coping mechanisms, damnit!

Therapy was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was 18 months of shoveling shit out of the barn in my head. Many times I wanted to quit, but I didn't, because I knew that if I stopped, I'd never start up again. It was just that painful.

But oh so worth it.

When I went in to my first appointment I told my therapist that I wanted help developing new coping mechanisms for today and tomorrow, and that I didn't want to revisit things deep in the past. I was very adamant about that. I was also very wrong.

In order to develop adult coping mechanisms, I needed to recognize the genesis of the ones that weren't working for me. And in order to determine why I'd chosen to remain in an abusive relationship with a woman, I needed to understand my relationship with my mother and how it shaped me, emotionally.

For years I'd blamed my being an emotional cripple on my father, a Viet Nam Vet whom I'd never liked even as a toddler, and who was physically, mentally and emotionally abusive all through my childhood. And while, certainly, his style of "fathering" was damaging, it was my mother's "mothering" skills, or lack thereof, which shaped my emotional landscape.

My mother was adopted. It's something she never got over, that very fundamental abandonment, and the onotological angst (Who am I? Why am I?) haunted her. She was herself an emotional cripple. She wanted closeness but feared it. She pulled with one hand and pushed with the other. She married to get away from her evangelical parents, and children were an accidental by-product of that choice. She didn't want children, and she didn't want motherhood. She hated keeping house and by the time I was five I was doing dishes and laundry, dressing my younger sisters, changing diapers, etc. I feared her temper. I kicked her once and she told me if I did it again, she'd break my leg. I believed her. She actually chased after me with a bullwhip once. When I was injured, I was afraid to go to her for care, because she was so impersonal and rough. But she had a wonderful voice and she told good stories and sometimes she was warm and loving. My best memories are of her playing with my hair.

She and my father fought, often violently, and after really bad fights one of them would disappear for a few days. But one day -- one day she went away and didn't come back.

And that was what crippled me.

See, children don't understand the world, but as children, we do try, and we make the best sense of it we can. In the absence of explanations that make sense to us, we connect the dots and come to our own conclusions. We make up our own meanings, our own stories, and we live inside them.

From a child's perspective, a mother is someone who loves you always, no matter what, and will always be there. From a child's perspective, when Mommy leaves you, it's because there is something wrong with you. When my mother left, my sisters and I made it mean that we were unlovable and unworthy -- that there was something wrong with us, something so wrong that even Mommy couldn't stand to be our mother. We internalized it and forgot the story we'd made up. We lived it.

And I took up the mantle of mothering. I thought that it was my fault that my sisters didn't have a mother anymore, so I took it on, as best I could. As best as any nine-year-old could. My father re-married and I took on my step-sisters, too, since their mother, like my father, was all too eager to offload parenting responsibilities so they could go play.

I became an enabler, a rescuer, a fixer. I became controlling and manipulative.  I craved peace and harmony, and to my young eyes, the familiar, the status quo, was the closest I could come to that.  I developed skills and coping mechanisms designed to perpetuate those conditions. It was a comfortable, if miserable existence. In therapy, I learned to call it what it was, neurosis. Jung said that neurosis is "the suffering of the soul which has not discovered its meaning" and that pretty much says it all.

So in the course of therapy, I discovered the story I'd made up about the little girl who was unworthy of her mother's love, and I learned to comfort my inner child and nurture her (instead of everyone else). I let go of my strangle-hold on my old ways of being and opened up to learning new tools and ways of being. I worked out my mommy-issues and my daddy-issues and took ownership of my life, my relationships, my emotions, thoughts, and attitudes. I fully inhabit me.

I'm emotionally and psychologically adult now. I am capable of loving and being loved without building barriers to protect myself from fears of loss and abandonment. I've buried three more family members in as many years and come through those experiences feeling enriched, and at times, transformed.

My biggest challenge so far has been dealing with my youngest sister, whose mental illness and refusal to accept the help and care she needs had challenged the limits of my ability to cope. Today she's in an institutional setting, the enforced structure of which seems to be giving her the basis she needs to examine and rebuild her life.

I'm facing a new challenge soon, the challenge of mothering my son, and I feel confident that I am up to it.  Finally, at 44, I think I'm grown-up enough to be a good parent, to raise a child without fear of perpetuating the emotional and psychological issues that have plagued my family. And what a tremendous feeling it is!

Pregnant in Forties equals High Risk Pregnancy (so they say)

I've spent days working on a particular post that isn't ready yet, and in the meantime, the baby is growing.

It seems like just yesterday that I noticed the hardness of my uterus creeping up past my belly button. Now it's half-way to my diaphragm. I've gotten used to that constantly-bloated feeling now. I go in for a growth ultrasound on Thursday to make sure he's the right size for his age. I don't think that's going to be a problem.

Since I'm in my Forties, this is considered a high-risk pregnancy. So far, at 27 weeks, I'm not retaining any water. No puffiness in my face or extremities. My breathing is good -- I only feel winded when I try to keep up with M when we're walking together. My blood pressure is good. Soon I'll be monitoring my urine for signs of stress on my kidneys (toxemia), and I'll go in for another blood glucose test soon to make sure I'm not getting gestational diabetes. My mood is good, especially now that M is over his shock and talking more openly about the baby. For a while there I had dark spells in which I felt very alone and stuck.

I've either gotten used to the soreness on my knees that has plagued me since the First Trimester, or it's let up for some reason. They still hurt, but not as much. Getting up from the couch and even out of bed is more work these days. I used to sleep mostly in the middle of my bed, but I've changed to sleeping on the right side of my bed, leaving the entire left side clear, which gives me lots of room to sleep on my left side and none on my right. Sleeping on my back makes my legs tingle and sleeping on my right puts pressure on the superior vena cava, and as the baby grows it will only get worse, so I'm using pillows to keep me from sleeping any direction but left. Thank God M and I have separate beds!

I'm wearing a bra to bed at night, have been for a while. My breasts tend to wake me with aches and burning if I don't. So far they haven't grown drastically in cup size... they've just filled-in, back to the firmness I remember in my 20s. If they fill in much more, though, I'm going to have to step up another cup size.

Laughing, coughing, sneezing, hiccuping, vomiting -- these things put pressure on my bladder and often result in a change of clothing. I may resort to wearing panty-liners soon.

I'm fidgety. I'm constantly changing positions. Switching between couch and chair. Laying on the water bed once in a while instead of my tempurpedic. Standing I like, so long as there is movement involved. If I'm standing in a line for more than 15 minutes my low back starts to hurt. I try to finish what I start, but I find that I'm over-estimating my stamina. I really have to pace myself, especially with regards to exertion like digging things up in the garden, etc. I get cramps and feel sore low under my belly when I over do it.

I find that I'm hungry a lot more often these days. I'm trying to keep the noshing under control by stocking the fridge with greek yogurt and snap peas and sticks of cheese, and by navigating around certain shops when I'm on my walks. I'm two and three blocks from a Cold Stone Creamery, Beard Papa's Desserts, and Fletch's Footlongs for example. A couple of blocks more and there's bubble tea places, chinese, thai, and indian restaurants, two hot pot places (one chinese and one japanese), a dozen sushi and bento places, several pizza shops, two donut shops, gelato and coffee shops, four italian places, and two organic gourmet burger joints in addition to KFC, Taco Bell, and Burger King. Yeah -- I live in a pregnant woman's food paradise -- or nightmare, depending on perspective.

On the up side, my hair and skin and nails look great. I have a good excuse to nap whenever I want to. M is more solicitous with regards to my comfort, and more zealous about my physical exertion. I get to intersperse my activities with "just being" down-time. This works well with the whole pregnancy-brain thing. I find that if I give myself time to zone-out and just be, I feel less stressed and am less likely to experience those pregnancy-brain blank-outs at inconvenient moments.

So far, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed, this high-risk pregnancy has been pretty low-key. 12 more weeks to go, and we'll be bringing a little one home. Which reminds me... I should start thinking about buying some nursery furniture and figuring out how to incorporate a newborn's paraphernalia into my bedroom.

Pregnancy and Emotions. Arrgghhhh!

Pregnancy and emotions go together like peas and carrots or corned beef and cabbage. Combinations I do not care for, I must admit. I'm finding myself overly-sensitive to things being said to me. I'm hearing "tone" that isn't there, and quite often I'm reacting before it occurs to me to stop and evaluate. I'm reading something, or listening to a program, or having a conversation and suddenly I'm in tears.

Most of the women I know have taken this escalation in stride, but I'm having real difficulties with it. I'm not normally an emotionally reactive person. I worked hard to put filters in place between impulse and action, and I usually do a good job of examining both my emotional responses, and the appropriateness of the actions I want to take. I understand that my thoughts and attitudes are causal forces in my life, and that while I may not have control over how I feel about something, I do have control over how I react. And how I react creates my life.

Enter pregnancy.

Context, contemplation, and understanding of the subjective nature of personal reality have taken a back seat to impulse. No more taking a moment to check-in and ask myself if that person really meant to say what I think I heard. Nope. I'm just going with whatever I'm feeling in the moment. And while that feels perfectly natural in that moment, the moments following whatever outburst occurs are pretty surreal. Some days I know I'm being unreasonable and irrational and I warn my partner in advance. But much of the time I'm apologizing to him after the fact. When I get upset and agitated, he gets upset and agitated -- mainly because until recently, I rarely ever got upset and agitated, and when I did, it was usually for a very obvious reason, and now all of a sudden I'm getting all worked-up and he has no idea why, which makes him feel attacked and/or anxious.

In some ways it is comical. I'm being what he considers a typical female right now -- so maybe I've not gone as far off my rocker as I think. He's mentioned how my emotional reactivity during pregnancy makes him appreciate just how even-tempered I normally am. And of course he's looking forward to the day I return to my normal self. I had to warn him last night that it may be a while, since breastfeeding will almost certainly prolong the duration of hormone-related emotions. I'm hoping I'll have developed a new strategy for coping with it before the baby is born. I'm probably being overly optimistic, though.

Bottom line, being in control of myself is very important to me, and I'm feeling powerless to control myself. Fortunately, my partner is being understanding. For now, anyway ;)

And reason falls by the wayside...

This whole baby-thing is intimidating me. I'm slowly becoming irrational, and I know it.

Physically, it helps that I now understand that what is happening to my body are pregnancy-related changes, and yet, even with the various online newsletters coaching me through what is happening week-by-week, I'm still experiencing disquiet. Sometimes I even feel hijacked.

Mentally, I'm foggy. I feel like a sharp knife that is going dull. I sometimes struggle with putting words together when I'm speaking. My clarity is slipping. I'm not quite bovine but I'm terrified that I'm on my way.

Emotionally, I find myself engaged quite often in conversations with myself, trying to reassure myself that these emotional surges are just pregnancy-related and not really meaningful. I find myself just reacting more and more over silly things that don't really matter and it disturbs me because I normally have my finger on my emotional pulse and head off outbursts with validation and rational self-talk.

I'm trying to keep myself under control, trying to minimize the external expression of what is going on internally. I'm trying to minimize it, because I know that pregnant women can be notoriously moody and capricious, and I know that it's difficult for the people living with them day after day. I'm trying so hard not to put M through this "perfect storm" I'm in. He's accustomed to something very different.

But it's getting more and more difficult, and I'm feeling irrationally resentful about the effort I'm going to in order to keep the boat from rocking. I feel that there isn't any recognition from him, just upset when I fail to be my usual calm, rational self. Telling him I'm pregnant and I'm trying so hard not to externalize all this turmoil doesn't seem to make a difference. He's caught up in his own emotional world right now--his world is unsettled, too. And that's okay. I get that this is all probably normal.

But normal for us is me making things easy. He's the intense one, I'm the easygoing one. To use his words, I'm the accommodating one. He's used to me recognizing when he's in a mood or stressed or whatever and giving him space and not pushing his buttons. Not taking it personally. He's used to me letting him know when I'm feeling upset before I start acting upset. Only my capacity to do those things and be that way is diminishing as my pregnancy advances. And communication is the keystone of our relationship. Argh.

An hour from now I'll probably feel differently. Maybe. Hopefully. I'm sure we'll weather this and everything will be okay in the end. It's not like this problem is unknown to most couples during pregnancies.  I half wish I was more of a "typical female" in our relationship, because at least he'd have coping mechanisms in place for when reason falls by the wayside.  But he doesn't and I'm not and I guess we'll learn how to cope with these changes along with all the others we have to look forward to as unintentional parents. Ah hell... ;)