He's a charmer

Little Man is really developing a sunny personality. He's almost always smiling and cooing when he's awake. I'm finding him more interesting now that he's more interactive. Newborns are time-intensive, but monotonous, to care for. He seems to respond well to strangers -- and strangers to him. We were at Home Depot at 6am yesterday (what else is open at 6am?) scouting out plants (I picked up an arabian jasmine and a kaffir lily, both in bloom) and I was surprised by how many men were charmed by him.

In a couple of hours Little Man will be meeting his great aunties on his father's side of the family. M is looking forward to showing them the house and all the work we've done on it the past year. Hopefully they'll be able to see past the patches of messiness here and there. I didn't get a chance to tackle the floors like I wanted to -- I spent most of my free time the past two days cleaning up a mess the older cat made on the hardwood floor in the office. Grr. Any way, M is certain The Aunts are going to fall in love with Little Man. It will be interesting to see how it all goes.

Still no go on the nursing front. I've given up. We picked up a double-breast pump on Craig's List and I'm feeding him breastmilk via bottle. I do miss the way breastfeeding feels -- it's incredibly intimate and pleasurable and an amazing bonding experience.

Now that I'm pretty much recovered from childbirth (I still haves some lingering stiffness in the pelvic region) I'm feeling restless. When I'm not exhausted, that is :) There are things I want to do, and with the baby, they're just not an option anymore. No more writer's groups, Ruby Tuesday geek girl meetups, college alumnae meetings, photography expeditions, or visits to the gym. Not during the day, anyway. Little Man is still too young to leave with his father for more than 30 minutes or so. He seems to have this radar that wakes him up when I leave the house without him, and then he gets a little agitated when The Mama doesn't appear. When he's a little older, I'll have to look for meaningful social opportunities that involve other mothers and infants/toddlers -- something that is rather outside my experience. As an unintentional mother, I've never found babies all that interesting, and I confess that the conversations between my previously childless self and parents of young children were only marginally more interesting than their little kids. I'm definitely feeling the pressure of a paradigm shift.

In the meantime, I've been exploring the neighborhood on foot with an eye for future activities. There is a Shaolin Cultural Center a few blocks away that teaches a few of the forms of wushu (Chinese martial arts) as well as Mandarin language and culture. They offer classes for kids starting at age 4. There is also a kuk sool won school here in town, and the Buddhist temple nearby offers tai chi, hula, and bon odori dance practice. I also found out they have a Cub Scouts troop there, but given the recent decision by the organization to formally exclude gay boys and leaders, I doubt the Little Man will be a member. I've also found a Safari Run playland a few blocks away, in addition to the Junior Gym and the Kumon learning center over on B Street. The Martin Luther King Center offers lots of family activities, including swimming classes in the summer, and there are lots of parks in walking distance. All-in-all, this is a good neighborhood to raise a family in. That wasn't what I had in mind when I first noticed the house for sale -- I was more interested in walkability / proximity to Downtown and cultural diversity -- but it is going to work out well since I'm not going to be car-dependent and trapped in the suburbs.

One Month Old

Little Man has been with us a month now, and wow, what a month!

It's amazing how quickly M and I have adapted our lives to the extreme changes that come with having a baby around 24/7. And amazing how much we haven't had to change.

Dining out, for now anyway, is still feasible. So is going to the movies. Sleep has become a luxury, though I know I'm getting more than a lot of new parents do. Little Man sleeps for a 4 hour stretch most nights. Keeping up with the house-work is a little more challenging, especially while M is home on paternity leave. Let's just say that he is getting a LOT more sleep than I am, often until nearly noon, and as a courtesy I avoid doing things like running the vacuum and other appliances until he is awake. At which point the noise bothers him. Ah well. A couple more weeks and he'll be back at work. And then all the family on his side will be coming to visit.

I'm finding that there are conveniences to bottle-feeding Little Man, but for the most part, I'm trying not to regret giving him the bottle, since he no longer wants to latch on to my breast. Too much work to get that milk, I think. I'm pumping about 30 ounces of milk a day and he's drinking nearly all of it, the little glutton. He's gained two pounds his first month of life, so he's less wrinkled. His cheeks are looking chubby and his thighs are filling-out, but he does not yet exhibit the rolls of fat that are characteristic of breast-fed babies.

He's less of a baby-blob than I thought he'd be. Past experiences with other infants lead me to believe that he'd mostly sleep when he wasn't eating, but Little Man is often alert and active for hours at a time. He surprised me on our first night with his ability to lift his head and shoulders, and as each day goes by, he gets stronger and stronger. He uses his hands to grip my clothes and uses his little legs to push himself as he climbs up my torso to reposition himself. Sometimes he likes being low on my belly, while at others, he wants to rest his forehead against my collarbone. He's also learning to mimic facial expressions. M has taught him how to stick out his tongue and make fish-lips. He's also starting to smile more and make noises, starting to experiment with his voice.

He's often enraptured by his father. M has a wonderful voice, and Little Man will turn to look at him, his eyes wide. M often unbuttons his shirts and puts the baby on his chest, especially when Little Man is being fussy and nothing I do settles him down. It's a heart-warming picture -- father and son enjoying a skin-on-skin interlude.

My body is mostly back to normal. The swelling in my feet is gone, and the tingling in my fingers, as well. The bulk of the bleeding stopped around day 20, and the lochia has been very light since then, though I've noticed a little bit of spotting again, the past couple of days. I've been walking a mile+ most days, some of them pushing Little Man in his pram, others wearing him in the Baby Bjorn. After half a mile of carrying him, it's definitely more of a workout. I've resumed most of my normal activities with the exception of heavy-lifting and other forms of exercise that put strain on the abdominal area. I don't want any hernias or other complications from over-exerting. So painting and power tools and gardening, yes, but no resistance-band training yet.

Motherhood seems to agree with me. My neighbors have commented that I seem to have un-aged a decade or two. Looking in the mirror, I do notice that something is different. I'm 44 and I have no wrinkles. Very little gray hair. My skin looks great (must be all that coco butter cream I'm slathering on after I shower) and the odd blemishes that appeared during pregnancy have completely cleared up. Breastfeeding is taking a fair amount of weight off of me, so much in fact that I'm meeting with a dietician/nutritionist today to see what I can do about that. I don't mind dropping a pound a week, but 4 pounds a week is just too fast, and I'm worried about endangering my milk supply.  As it is, I've pulled sorted through the bin of 'someday' clothes in my closet, only to realize that I've dropped two to three dress sizes since last summer and there is very little that fits properly. Washing everything in hot water and drying on high has helped shrink some stuff up, and while I can still wear a lot of my shirts with my breasts ballooned to DD/F territory, even the smallest skirts and pants in my closet hang down around my hips. I suppose I'm going to have to bite the bullet and do some clothes shopping some day soon. Grr. I hate shopping.

I admit to being a bit tired, and on the rare night that Little Man is fussy, I struggle under the pall of  exhaustion and irritability. I've awakened M a couple of times and handed the baby over to him when I'm at wit's end, though I try not to. M functions on 8 hours of sleep but needs 10. Less than 10 hours, or interrupted sleep, and he ends up with a headache all day, so I take care of the baby every night. M often takes over when he gets up, so I can  nap for a few hours. I am already longing for the day that Little Man can speak his needs so it is easier to meet them.

Little Man is adorable when he's sleeping, and when he snuggles up against me and his breath puffs against my skin, all is right in the world. Everything slows down. Time simultaneously stops and flies. My world narrows down to the confines of our home and the peace and love that exists within it. And I think that is as it should be. Yes. It is as it should be.

TMI: Lady-parts postpartum discussion

While I am excited to have my body back, there are some things I wish I'd understood about what would happen to my body during the postpartum period, so I'm documenting it and passing it along to other first-time mothers. Just a warning, the ick-factor of the subject matter may make some people uncomfortable.


First, the bleeding/discharge, also known as lochia. A friend recommended I stock up on sanitary pads a couple of months ago, and the hospital gave me a package of maternity pads, but I didn't really understand what I was in for. It's been two weeks and I'm still bleeding, though it is lessening. It's like menstrual flow at first, and then it changes (as mentioned in the wiki article I've linked to). There is also the smell, which is a lot like the typical coppery menstrual smell, along with a fresh-meat/meat counter scent that is probably related to healing up from the level 2 perineal tear. I recommend buying heavy-duty pads and just preparing yourself to spend a few weeks feeling less-than-pretty while dealing with your messy Aunt Flow.


Second, anemia. Most women experience anemia in the Third Trimester, I learned. I'd never been anemic before, and even with extra iron in my prenatal vitamin, my iron, etc tested low. I ended up taking ferrous fumarate supplements my last couple of months of pregnancy, because the last thing I wanted was to go into childbirth anemic. With all the bleeding that has been going on, and all the energy that is required to take care of a newborn, I strongly recommend taking extra iron in the Third Trimester and continuing it for a while afterwards.



Third, constipation. In the last weeks of pregnancy I didn't eat much, so I didn't have much in the way of bowel movements, but given that I was taking iron supplements, which are known to be constipating, I made sure to eat a couple of dried figs for fiber every day. Also, I learned the hard way that some of the pain medications used during childbirth can cause constipation/hard stools, and when you're sore and healing from an episiotomy or a tear, (or a C-section for that matter) the last thing you want to do is bear down, so do yourself a favor and have stool softeners waiting for you when you get home from the hospital.You'll be taking them for a couple of weeks, at least, until you're healed up "down there."



Fourth, inflammation and pain. Sitting was very uncomfortable for several days. I can't take NSAIDs, but I wish I could, because the inflammation of the vaginal and rectal areas are aggravated by the pressure/pain from sitting, including using the toilet. In my case, I have access to a Japanese bidet (a Toto Washlet) or I would have used a sitz bath. Soaking helps with the discomfort as well as keeping clean. I use baby wipes instead of toilet tissue right now, as it reduces the abrasion of tender tissues. In the medical profession pain is considered the fifth vital sign. It is important to keep pain levels down when you're healing because otherwise your body diverts resources toward the stress response (fight or flight, production of adrenaline, cortisol, etc). Add pain on top of dealing with a fussy newborn and a sleep deficit, and you're likely to be irritable toward everyone around you. So make sure you've got adequate pain relief when you leave the hospital.

Life with baby, week two.

So far Daddy M and I are adapting fairly easily to the changes that Little Man is bringing to our lives.  It's good that his father has several weeks of paternity leave because it gives them time to bond. I love settling Little Man on his father's bare chest and watching him relax into his father's warmth, arms limp and hanging down along Daddy's ribs. They nap well together, now that M is learning how to relax with the baby on his chest. He's been great about stepping in to help with baby-related stuff when I find myself trying to juggle too many things at once.

Being a mother is a comfortable role for me. I wear it well. It's definitely not a role I ever intended to take on, but it suits me all the same. My life has changed significantly, but not beyond recognition. I value tranquility and contemplation, and while there is certainly less of both in my life these days, nursing Little Man does create opportunities for meditative moments. These little time-outs are restorative. They also enhance the bonding process and force me to slow down. There is very little going on in my world that can't wait until a baby finishes nursing, I've discovered.

We are blessed with an easy baby. Little Man rarely cries or fusses, and in the past two weeks I've learned to read him well enough to know when he's gassy and needs burping, when he needs a diaper change, when he's hungry, and when he wants snuggling. He's got a great smile that he shares liberally with us, and each day he's more alert for longer stretches of time. I carry or wear him around the house and outside when I'm puttering in the garden. He's such a quiet little guy that we've taken him to a few restaurants and even to a movie without incident. Our proximity to downtown means we can walk to dinner or the movies pushing him along in the pram, and when he's older the nearby city parks are going to be very easy to visit.

I am blessed with the ability to be fully functional on 4 to 6 hours of patchwork sleep.  It's hereditary, I think. My sisters were the same way, as was my mother. I am also blessed that Little Man only wakes up once a night for a feeding. I usually feed him at 11pm, again at 3am-ish, and then when we wakes up again sometime between 6 and 8 am, depending on how long it took him to get back to sleep from his middle-of-the-night milk-a-thon. He's drinking 3 and sometimes even 4 ounces at a time now, which is why he's sleeping for longer stretches than a lot of other newborns.

He started out rather small, at 7 pounds 1 ounce, and after losing 9 ounces on colostrum-only, was 7 pounds 9 ounces on Day 12. He's getting about 1/2 a liter of breastmilk a day (18 ounces), which accounts for his weight increase. And some of my weight loss, I'm sure. I'm glad I made the effort to exercise and keep my weight down during the pregnancy, because my energy-level bounced back up to near-normal within a few days after the baby was born. Seriously. I was cleaning house, doing laundry, gardening, baking, and taking care of the baby with just Daddy M's help (my step-mother had to go home the morning after I came home from the hospital) by Day 4. Apparently this quick a recovery isn't common, but I attribute it partially to my hardy Scottish and German peasant heritage (I'm built for baby-making) and partially to my efforts to stay active and keep my weight gain to a minimum so my body isn't burdened with the exhausting task of moving a lot of surplus weight around in addition to keeping up with the demands of a newborn. As it is, I'm looking forward to the soreness and bleeding to end so I can get to work firming up my lower body. I feel loose and jello-y in my abdomen and hips, and trying to walk at my usual pace still causes pelvic discomfort.

The wait to find out what he looks like isn't over yet. Infants are so plastic. So far it looks like Little Man has my nose. I wish he'd gotten his father's lovely grecian nose instead of my snub nose. I think he's got his father's mouth and eyes. Not sure about the chin yet. It's a pointy chin right now. If it had a hint of a cleft or a dimple I'd say he'd gotten mine, but time will tell. He definitely got my ears, which I got from my father's side of the family. His hair is brown and straight right now, but I know that newborn hair often falls out and grows in quite different. I was born with dark hair that fell out and grew in straight and blonde, and then when I hit puberty it turned dark and curly. Everyone comments on the perfect shape of his head. So far it looks like he's got his father's slender build rather than my sturdier one. Hopefully that means he'll have his father's grace, because I have very little. Without a doubt he's got my feet -- I'd know those long, almost prehensile toes anywhere :)

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?

Little Man's First Week

This first week with our newborn has been challenging. Little Man is jaundiced, but improving. At full-term birth he was 7lbs 1oz but within 3 days he lost 9oz -- about 8% of his original weight. It was tough to see him losing weight on the colostrum he was drawing from my breasts, and when I was told it could take 5 days for my milk to come in, I felt real fear for him. I started drinking Mother's Milk tea and visualizing breasts full of milk during my meditative moments. When my milk came in I was ecstatic, and the blissed-out expression on Little Man's face as he fell asleep with a full belly of milk is one I will always remember.

Our next challenge to face was bowel movements. After 5 days he stopped passing the meconium (which I call toxic waste) and stopped passing anything at all. After 24 hours I called the advice line. They recommended I stimulate his bottom with petroleum jelly and breastfeed him longer and more often, so I did. After 48 hours I was at the pediatric clinic, where they tested his bilirubin (up but not at danger level), took his temperature with a generously lubed anal thermometer, and observed me breastfeeding him to make sure he was drawing enough milk. He was a very aggressive latcher, and I'm producing lots of milk, but the lactation nurse recommended that we supplement the breastfeeding with an additional 2oz of expressed milk every 2.5 to 3 hours. Five feedings later we got what we were looking for, thankfully, but with an undesired side-effect: nipple confusion. He won't latch on anymore, I think because it's so much easier to get milk from a bottle's nipple. So, once we've got his weight up and his bilirubin down, I'll start the battle to get him back on the breast. Thankfully, Kaiser Permanente is strongly committed to breastfeeding because it makes for healthier, happier babies, so I'm getting lots of support from the lactation consultants on staff.

Speaking of Kaiser Permanente, I've got to say that I'm really impressed with this foundation as a health care provider and insurer. My prenatal care was excellent. There was no stinginess when it came to making sure that the baby and I were as healthy as possible, and with all the ultrasounds, fetal non-stress tests, dozens of doctor's appointments, specialist visits, lab tests, etc, I only made one (yes one!) $10 co-pay. My only expenses were my medications and nutritional supplements, and gasoline for all the to-and-fro. The birth experience was great, too. The Redwood City birthing center is staffed with midwives in addition to nurses and doctors, which is why I chose it. It was a very caring environment and the staff all did a great job of keeping me in the loop and educating me so I could make informed choices about how to progress with the laboring and delivery processes. I ended up with two hospital stay co-pays of $100 each. Knowing that I didn't have to worry about minimum deductibles and residual fees made the pregnancy much less stressful than it otherwise could have been.

What else? I'm retaining more water now than I did during my pregnancy. My feet and ankles look pillowy. The past couple of days I've been wrapping them in compression bandages and elevating them, and it does help -- they look better than they used to, but some of the swelling comes back within an hour or so of removing them. I'm still feeling bloated and flabby, and very sore/tender from the waist down, but that is to be expected. Even so, it appears I lost a dress size or two during the pregnancy. I had to dig deep into my closet to find a pair of pants to wear that don't hang off of me, and most of my skirts are way too loose. It will be interesting to see what my weight is now, and what my dress size is once I've firmed up.

Daddy M is being great. He never fails to step-up when I ask him for something. He's taking time out each day to do a skin-on-skin snuggle with his son, and helps with the supplemental feedings. We had a couple of emotional flare-ups the day after my parents went home, mainly because I was in pain and tired and feeling overwhelmed, but since then, my emotional state has been balanced and my body is handling the pain/discomfort better as I'm adjusting to the new sleep schedule and feeling less tired.

Almost time to wake Little Man for his next feeding! I think I'm going to hop into the shower while I can.

The Little Man is here!

Our little man arrived this past weekend. 

It seems I managed to avoid the C-section that the doctor thought I was going to need because my cervix was so slow to dilate. They put in an epidural before they started the pitocin, and thus before there was any real pain, because my history of long, difficult intubations (for anesthesia) could be problematic if an emergency C-section was needed and I was too far along for an epidural. However, the slow induction worked out in the end -- after 20 hours on pitocin I suddenly progressed from 4cm to 8cm in a 2 hour period and then there was no stopping his arrival -- I pushed 3 times (with a lot of yelling on my part as it seemed once he was in the birth canal the epidural wasn't as effective) and there he was! The midwife said that the birth was so fast he was in shock when he arrived. It took a minute or so for him to cry.

M and my step-mother were there for the birth. Just barely. They walked into the room as he was crowning. M really surprised me by how much he participated in the delivery (he'd expressed some squeamishness) and early care of the baby. He was going to cut the cord but as they handed him the scissors the doctor cut the cord -- apparently it was wrapped around the little man's neck. My mom was here for a couple of days but had to go home. Fortunately, M is on paid paternity leave so he helps me with Little Man. He's a bit overwhelmed right now, but I've never known him to fail to step-up.

He's a perfectly healthy baby boy, thankfully. We had our concerns, even after the genetic screening came back clear, because of my age and the fact that I was on some medications in the first trimester (including the contraceptive pill) that they steered me clear of once I was diagnosed as pregnant. Since I managed my pregnancy weight so well, he was 7 pounds at birth. It looks like he'll have brown hair and brown or hazel eyes. He's got long legs and big feet so it looks like he's going to get the height on my father's side of the family, just like M wanted. Unfortunately, it also looks like he got my nose, which I have courtesy of my father ;)

The Unintentional Mother's Little Man

The first days with Little Man have been pretty intense, especially when he was only getting colostrum from my breasts, but now that my milk has come in, he's sleeping longer and the quality of his hunger cries is far less heartbreaking for me.

Well, the little guy is awake. Time for breakfast!