Processing Motherhood

It is good to know that all the feedback I received about mother-in-laws mellowing once they meet their grandchildren is true. The visit from M's mother went very well. Better than either he or I expected, based upon her previous visit and comments regarding the pregnancy. Unfortunately, I had a GERD episode in the middle of her visit so I didn't get to do much with her, however, it was a blessing that she was here to take care of the Little Man while I spent the day in bed running a temp and coughing up aspirated stomach acid and phlegm. I've a feeling that my LES valve has been damaged somehow either during or after the pregnancy, because I can't lay down with anything in my stomach or it will come up. The back of M's head can testify to that, poor dear. I'm waiting to hear back from my doctor as to what to do next.

I've been (loosely) following the Dr. Sears approach to Attachment Parenting because it makes sense to me. My goal is to foster a strong sense of security in the Little Man, the kind of security that comes from trusting that the adults in his life will meet his needs. It is my hope that I'll never lose that trust, because one of the things I've been processing as I've been caring for my son are the early memories of my own mother, and my lack of trust in her.

I should state that my mom wasn't a bad mother per se... she just wasn't a good one. She wasn't very maternal or nurturing -- I recently confirmed this with her best friend from my childhood years, wanting to make sure my child's memory and Reality squared-up. Getting married and having children was, for her, the cost of freedom. Being a wife and mother, however, was not terribly interesting to her, and she put both roles behind her when I was 9.  I chalk it off as a Me-Generation thing.

Anyway... I can remember as early as 4 or 5 not telling my mother about an injury because I knew she'd hurt me in the process of attending to it, and knew she wouldn't provide any comfort to offset the pain. It was not an isolated incident, either. I should have gotten stitches on that occasion, and still have the scar to remember it by. Even today I am convinced that the ugly scar is better than the care would have been.

As a consequence of my lack of trust in my parents (my VietNam Vet father was a whole other story), I had trust issues until I entered grief-therapy in my mid-Thirties. Since I know what lasting impressions parenting styles can have on children, I'm determined to create and maintain a sense of security and trust with my son -- even if it means less sleep for now :)

Several times a day, Little Man meets my eyes and smiles this special smile that causes something inside me to flutter. It's a bit like the tearful-wonder feeling I get when my milk lets down. That smile lets me know I'm doing it right, this motherhood thing. Evolution at work -- the maternal instinct is alive and well in me.

This weekend is a just-us weekend, except for a BBQ at a friend's house, and the following weekend M's father and sister arrive for a week-long visit. Fortunately for them, there really isn't much work left to be done on the house, so they'll actually get to enjoy a California vacation with the newest addition to the family. Then a week later it's my step-mother and step-sister. My step-mom is willing to stay for several days, if we want. M seems to be pretty comfortable with her, her nursy-talk about illnesses notwithstanding.

Letter #3 to my unborn son

Little One,

In 7 weeks you'll be joining us, and your father and I are getting ready for your arrival.

A friend loaned us a book regarding childbirth, called A Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth.  I thought reading it would help alleviate my anxiety, but it hasn't -- in some ways it's made it worse. There are so many pros and cons with things like epidurals, inducing labor, episiotomies, obstetricians, midwives, etc. Everyone has an opinion. Some opinions are even based on facts. But the more I read about childbirth, the more I realize that modern medicine has interfered so deeply with women's reproductive matters that we've lost or come to distrust thousands of years of knowledge of something that is innate to us. Childbirth is a natural event that is treated more like a medical emergency waiting to happen, and I guess that is what has me so nervous about the birthing process. Honestly, I'd like to skip over that part and just have you delivered via stork, ok?

We've bought the infant car seat and the stroller for you -- we found a great, gently used Chicco Cortina travel system on Craig's List for 1/3 the cost of new. Your Grandpa Stan went with me to pick it up from a couple who are at Stanford University.

The gifts are coming in from the baby registry we set up on Amazon.com, and we've been getting wonderful items second-hand from friends, some with the tags still on them. Your Great Aunt Marsha sent a bib with a power-tie printed on the front, and a cute little sailor suit, and of course, a little golfer's outfit. My best friend from Junior High days sent a big box of toys and clothes, and two baby carriers. Your father's friend, David, and his partner, Lynn, brought over some of their favorites from their son's infancy, too. Their boy is 18 months and growing so fast! I know you'll be doing the same. I have some friends who are wonderful at knitting and crocheting, so we've got some beautiful little jackets and hats made with love just for you.

Meanwhile your, Grandfather has really been working hard with us to finish up the landscaping projects we've had going, especially the side-yard gravel-to-paver project. When you're walking around next summer I won't worry about you falling and getting hurt on that sharp-edged gravel anymore. The exterior of your home is shaping up very nicely, though the interior is in a minor state of disarray, thanks to a leak in the master bath. The good news is we've discovered a closet that was abandoned during a renovation. We've just got to figure out how we're going to make it useful and aesthetically pleasing once again.

You're going through your growth spurt right now, and for the first time in my life, I'm anemic. Your expanding circulatory system and red blood cells require lots of iron, so I'm having to supplement my prenatal vitamins with additional iron. I'll probably be doing that for several months, while you're nursing, too.

You're starting to crowd my lungs. I can't take deep breaths anymore, but I'm not feeling short of breath so far, so that is something to be thankful for. In addition to my lungs being crowded, so is my stomach. A lot of food just isn't agreeing with me these days, and vomiting hurts, so I'm eating a lot of yogurt and cottage cheese and blueberries and protein drinks and protein bars. My weight gain so far is at about 10 lbs, but I'm noticing that while my breasts and belly are growing, other areas are shrinking a bit. So far, there are no signs of gestational diabetes or pre-eclampsia, and my blood-pressure is very good. Sleeping for more than 3 hours at a time is nearly impossible now. I suppose it's one way for me to get ready for napping between feedings.

Jasper the kitten isn't very kittenish anymore. He's 8 months old now and weighs 9 lbs. We're hoping he outgrows his adolescent phase before you arrive, because he's a bit aggressively playful. He's fun and sweet and cuddly and he'll be a good companion animal for you when you're both older. I'm not sure how he's going to deal with competition for my breasts, though. They seem to be his favorite place to curl up for a nap.

Your father is being very good to me. I can't wait for the two of you to meet each other. He's such a wonderful, gentle-hearted man, and I think he's going to fall for you pretty hard. He's planning on taking all 7 weeks of his paternity leave so he can spend as much time with us as he can. As it is he's doing everything he can to help me with my physical discomfort right now, and he's great about joining me when I lay down for a nap so I can snuggle and rest. Snuggling up with him is like coming home. You'll understand what I mean some day soon, I'm sure.

Time for bed.

See you in 7 weeks, maybe sooner.

Mom

We're having a baby!

Earlier this afternoon the phone rang. It was the genetic counselor from Kaiser, calling to tell me that the amniocentesis results came back normal. By all accounts we've got a healthy baby on the way.

I thanked her tearfully, had a little cry, and then pulled M away from his travel preparations to give him the news.

He was relieved, but the news heightened his stress-level. Now he has to start telling people. Like his grandmother.

M is one of the most intensely private people I know. He's a closed book to most people because he shares so little of himself. I know that it is a habit formed in childhood: he was the small kid in classrooms with kids a couple of years older than himself, kids who resented the protective delight their teachers took in him. Mentally, he was light-years ahead of his peers, but socially, well, he wasn't ready for the older age group. In addition to being incredibly brilliant, M is a highly sensitive person (HSP), and his sensory processing sensitivity makes him uncomfortably aware of what other people are thinking and feeling. It's always just been easier for him to keep to himself than to push through the discomfort of relating to and with others unlike himself.

Fortunately for him, his father (and grandmother) understand this about him.  His mother, not so much. She's often upset with him for not telling her things she thinks are important, but as he's reminded her, she does the same thing, so she's one to talk :)

So... M keeps to himself. Small social circles, few overlapping, with little information exchange. His introversion means he has difficulty determining where his differences from others lie, and since being different was always a painful thing, I think it is just easier for him to assume that other people think and feel the same way he does. He's never been one to talk about his romantic relationships, not to anyone. I think I'm the only exception to the rule. And, interestingly enough, he prefers not to hear about others' relationships, exploits, etc.  It makes him uncomfortable, the thoughts and mental images that scroll through his mind, so he prefers not to know the intimate details, and has difficulty understanding why anyone would want to know such details about him.

Which is where telling people about the baby is difficult and stressful for him, I know. I'm trying not to take it personally, trying not to make it about me or the baby, when it's really about him. Telling others about the baby means he has to reveal the true nature of our relationship to people who, in the absence of details, will fill in the blanks themselves. It is one thing for people to assume he's sexually active. It's quite another for others to know that he is, to know who he's with, and for them to imagine what may or may not go on in the privacy of his bedroom. He says he's prim. I say he's prudish and quaint. It's a part of who he is, and I get that about him, even though we're quite opposite in that way. Hell, I'm a sex educator, among other things  :)

He's taking his grandmother to Vegas this weekend. She loves casinos and slot machines, and seeing as she's 89, he isn't sure how much longer she's going to be able to travel and get around under her own steam. So he's planned a fun, memorable weekend at the Mirage in Vegas. He's thoughtful that way.

On our way out door, M asked his grandmother how many great-grandchildren she wants. I think she said four. He reached out and put his hand on my belly and told her she'd have her first great-grandchild in May. She lit up and looked sly. She said she'd thought I was pregnant -- she knew the signs -- and was very happy to know she'd read them right. We've spent a week together and had some conversations, and she's seen us together, so she knows the love that is there between us.

Hopefully, they'll have an uneventful flight to Vegas, and I'll have an uneventful weekend. I'm feeling a bit tired. Must have been all the flowerbed weeding I did.

Family Reactions

My family has reacted very positively to the news of my pregnancy.

Friends and family were aware that I've not been feeling well the past couple of months so it seemed important to let them know that there wasn't anything terribly wrong. We've had 3 deaths in the family around this time in the past 3 years so everyone has been holding their breaths wondering what was going to happen next. One of my sisters is dead and the other has literally descended into madness, so needless to say, my parents are giddy with relief. My step-sisters and my friends have all been supportive and congratulatory.

M got a more mixed reaction from his family.

His father is pleased, his sister is very happy, and his mother is upset. She's had a rough year, economically, and she had to take in her elder mentally-handicapped brother, and she wants her son back home in Canada, someday. Him buying a house here in the States and then getting an American knocked-up puts a damper on that idea.  Hers is a disappointing reaction, but I'm sure she'll come around. Now that he's told her and she's gotten upset, he has a good excuse to stay at his father's house, where he grew up, away from all the cats he's allergic to and the uncle he has difficulty relating to. It's too much uncomfortableness for someone with his level of sensitivity.

Meanwhile, M is a bit of a nervous wreck and can't wait to get home. To me, in the States.

Meanwhile, I miss him. Home isn't quite home without him.

M will wait to tell his extended family and friends until after the amnio results come through in a few weeks. It doesn't make sense to let everyone know and then have to retract the announcement if it turns out we're going to terminate the pregnancy. It could be rather painful, actually. I'm trying not to regret letting most of the people on my side know, since they're all so positive and excited and I'd hate to have to give them bad news.

Ah well.  Telling others about the pregnancy helps the reality of it sink in. I'm still partly in a state of disbelief. How could something that was never supposed to happen to me suddenly happen after 20 years? Life is weird. Life finds a way.

Christmas tide

As per usual, M and I are in different countries during this holiday. He is in Canada visiting his family and friends, and I am in Central California, doing the same.

I'm staying with my friend Nettie again this Christmas, outside Santa Barbara. I've known her since she was in the womb. I literally laid hands on her mother when she was in labor and prayed for Jesus to take the pain away. I was 4 and a half at the time, and I was already in the flower of my grandparent's evangelism :)

We've lost contact intermittently over the years, Nettie and me. I moved back East after high school while she got married and made babies. We didn't see each other again for 14 years, and that was for my grandmother's funeral. I had every intention of remaining in contact, but at the time I was involved with a very possessive woman, and in the couple of years after Grandmother passed I also lost my mother, my mentor/mother-figure, and a good friend. With each death I withdrew more and more, and about a year after the last death I realized that my coping mechanisms weren't working for me, so I started grief-counseling and therapy. I was really starting to live life again when my sister took ill, died 2 years later, and then my family was hit with a series of cancer diagnoses and deaths. Yeah, that ugly.

Anyway, I found Nettie again through that wonder of social networking, the big FB, and in the past 2 years we've gotten very close. Close like sisters. She had been close to my sister Tammy, the one who died, so I find that I can share the grief of her loss in the company of someone who isn't going to make a drama or tragedy of it.  It is what it is. What happened, happened and we miss her.

And boy do I miss her during Christmas. It was her favorite holiday. She tended to go all-out with hosting and entertaining, cooking, decorating, gift-giving. She loved a good party, Tammy did. And Nettie is a lot like Tammy that way. She is unfazed by the presence of 30 or 40 people in her house all talking and carrying on. She's got that Portuguese family thing going on -- the more the merrier.

But even with all the people mobbing the house she still found time to talk to me about the pregnancy, to reassure me with regards to some of my fears, and to offer to be there for me in the delivery room, if I wanted. I feel very touched by that offer. M has surprised me with his fortitude regarding hospitals and home health care, etc, after my battle with septicemia but I'm not sure he's up to being my full-time partner in the delivery room. He's just too empathetic. Even if my sister Terri wasn't, well, indisposed, I probably wouldn't want her there. As an RN she can be particularly nasty when her nursing standards aren't being met. I've seen (and heard) her in action and it is not pleasant.

Even though I've only been here for a couple of days, I've spent some time with my mother's brother, another friend of the family, and saw my parents and step-sisters and nieces and nephew. I noticed that spending time with my family still feels awkward at times. I never really bonded with my step-sisters (twins are a unit sufficient unto themselves) and my father and I had such an abusive, tumultuous relationship that the truce we worked on just before hell broke lose still feels fragile. I know he's wary around me, like he expects me to behave like my sister Terri does, but we're world's apart, temperment-wise. On the plus side, my step-mother and I are finally comfortable together, which is a blessing. Despite my mild discomfort it was a good Christmas. Everyone was full of holiday cheer and excitement for the baby, and I collected a lot of recommendations and advice.

Given that I worked very hard this year to slim down, one of my fears is of gaining the weight back during my pregnancy. My doctor and nutritionist have been working with me on a 0 - 10 lbs plan, but hearing about the 50, 60, and 70 pounds that my sisters and friends gained during theirs really freaked me out. It doesn't matter that most of it came off during breastfeeding, etc. With my PCOS-related hormone issues weight reduction is nightmarishly difficult and with my luck, breastfeeding would not cause the weightloss they experienced. So my goal is 0 - 10 lbs net gained. So far I'm at 3.

M still hasn't told his parents about the baby. He doesn't want the news to get out to the extended family until we're sure of the status, so he's waiting until after Xmas. That, and he's certain his mother is going to react poorly to the news, which makes him even more reluctant. She's one of those... hmm... glass half-empty types, with some over-protective tendencies. In other words, she's a fairly typical mother ;)

Ah, the Holidays. Such a love-hate relationship most of us have with this Season. To quote my father: "Smile goddammit, it's Christmas!"