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.

Eudaimonia -- Well-being and The Good Life

I am the first to admit that I have a good life. A beautiful home, a generous and loving partner who is an excellent breadwinner, and a healthy, adorable baby boy. I'm lucky and I know it. Some days, as I'm doing the mundane household chores or consoling a teething baby, I am visited with a sense of the surreal.  Never, in a thousand imaginings of how I wanted my life to be, would I have imagined myself being Susie Homemaker balancing a baby on my hip as I see my man off to work.

Sure, I enjoyed the kept-woman period and did my best to enjoy being freed from a 9-to-5 job even as part of me resented being dependent and without enough income to support myself. My partner assisted me in growing my internet storefront business as best he could during the economic crash, and he was incredibly supportive as my family went through one health crisis after another. But finding out I was pregnant, well, that was a huge life-changer. And now, as the Little Man reaches the 8 month mark, as my body still recovers from the effects of pregnancy and childbirth, the reality of my life as an unintentional mother is both incredibly real, and incredibly surreal.

Little Man's milestone last month was cutting two teeth. This month, it seems to be locomotion. He started off with the military-style forearms and toes crawl at the beginning of the month and this week he's crawling on his hands and knees. And really getting around. I went to brush my teeth and freaked out when he wasn't anywhere near where I left him. He's also figured out how to pull himself up to a standing position. The first two days he fell over whenever I wasn't watching him like a hawk, but today he's stable on those sturdy little legs. He's falling on his face when his arms give out, but the thunks on the hardwood floor aren't quite as alarmingly loud. I'm kissing and rubbing boo-boos, mostly on his head. It's time to take the next step of child-proofing the plugs and adding baby-gates.

The benefit to all his physical exertion is he's finally napping for about an hour twice a day. The drawback is he's gotten very clingy -- perhaps from the pain / discomfort and the scariness of falling. He often cries when I put him down, so I basically wear the baby carrier 16 hours a day and carry him around in it until he pushes at me to let me know he wants out. If I put him down and move too far away, he starts to cry. Finding time for bio-breaks has become a challenge.

Solid foods are hit and miss. There are days when he won't eat cereal or pureed foods at all. Since my milk dried up he's been on formula, so his poops are really stinky, but less frequent. I worry that he's not getting enough calories, but whenever I pick him up he feels very solid. He's not a chubby baby by any stretch of the imagination, but neither is he a skinny one.

It seems like I'm never alone anymore. I am a person who enjoys my solitude. I think that has been the most difficult adjustment. I'm starting back to the gym, though, and my neighbor is coming over twice a week in the morning to give me a chance to workout, so Little Man is going to learn to adjust to not having me around all the time. I hope.

The acid reflux still gets away from me about once a week. I'm managing it with eating a boring diet and medication. I've also had a half-dozen spastic colon episodes. Very painful. Like labor pains. I'm trying to reduce the amount of time Little Man spends on my chest and belly, since his 20-plus pounds pressing into my body seems to aggravate things. I've had the x-rays and CT scan, the upper GI imaging, and over 30 different blood tests and aside from exceptionally large ovaries (courtesy of PCOS) there is nothing unusual. I'm in excellent health, though borderline anemic. I had eliminated all supplements when I noticed that pills weren't resting well on my acidic stomach, but now that it seems to be (mostly) under control, I'm taking them a few times a week. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing.

At present I'm 75# lighter than I was the day I delivered Little Man. I'd like to drop another 30 this year. We'll see. I think I can manage 3 pounds a month. I'm wearing large women's tops and extra-large bottoms. Right now my excess weight is all below the belly button, courtesy of 10 years of sitting at a desk. I'm looking forward to focusing on my abdomen and thighs at the gym and getting my upper and lower body in better proportion to each other. Given that my mother and sister both were mermaid-shaped, I'm thinking I'm probably going to be bigger on the bottom no matter what I do, but my doc thinks the softness of the muscles in my lower abdomen has something to do with the spastic colon problem, so it's important to get that area of my body back in tone.

Through it all, M has been wonderfully supportive. He knows this isn't the life I'd imagined for myself, and he checks in with me a couple of times a month to make sure I'm doing ok. Believe it or not, the life I was building toward was living in a small house on the coast or in the mountains, alone, with lots of books and paper and time to meditate and garden. I'd imagined my various friends and partners visiting me, but never staying for long. For all my capacity to be a social person, I'm a hermit at heart. He's such an introvert that he considers me an extrovert. Heh.

It's all good though. I'm happy and pretty much healthy. The baby is happy and healthy. So is M. There are things I want to do, and they'll wait. Right now, it's important to be there for the Little Man.

End surreality check :)

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.

Miscellany

My mornings used to be my own.  I used to have a few hours to myself between the time I awakened and the time M woke up. Not any more. Though I don't mind, most days, because I wake up to a smiling baby boy. When he sees me looking at him he lights up with a big toothless grin. Sometimes he even coos. It's impossible to mind waking up to that :)

Little Man seems to be done with his growth spurt and I'm able to keep up with him milk supply-wise. I haven't needed to supplement with formula for a couple of weeks, and I've actually been able to freeze about 3 ounces of breastmilk a day. He is looking more and more like his father now, and he's growing into his (my) nose. In addition to inheriting my nose and feet, he seems to have gotten my light-sensitive eyes, poor thing.

He handled being passed around to a dozen different people pretty well at the party this weekend. M and I both were concerned that he might be overwhelmed by all the attention and handling, but he seemed to enjoy it. We might have an extrovert on our hands, instead of an introvert, like us. The jury is still out on handedness. I hope Little Man is a lefty like us just so it is easier for us to teach him to write and whatnot. I remember how difficult things were for me given that my parents were both right handed. M actually does a lot of things right-handed because that was the only way he could learn from right-handers, whereas my paternal grandfather was a leftie and taught me how to hold my pencil and fork, etc, and my mother fought the schools to keep me left-handed. My father's family has a strong left-handed streak, and a lot of people in the older generations stammer when they speak as a result of being 'thwarted' and forced to become right-handed, my father included.

Yesterday a friend of mine from Portland had a layover at SFO so I got a chance to see her and her daughter. We talked about the need to find a woman friend or two with infants to provide support and commiseration -- and my somewhat misogynistic tendencies. My misogyny is surprising to people who know that I attended a women's college and have dated women -- until I clarify. I don't dislike women -- I dislike the lowest-common denominator level that so many women sink to. Having gone to college with over 3000 brilliant women, I know what women can be -- and it annoys me no end to see what women resign themselves to being. I'm just not good at relating to a lot of the concerns that occupy so many women: I'm not into appearances, so swapping stories on clothes shopping, makeup and hair styling flat out bore me. I'm not a wanter. I despise shopping in general and conspicuous consumption in particular. I prefer simplicity and an uncluttered life. I'd rather have a meaningful conversation about what's going on in the world than gossip about movie stars and neighbors. And I don't play the woman-games -- I don't do the passive-aggressive competitor-co-dependent friendships most women seem to perpetuate with each other. I'm animus-dominant, and while I've definitely given my anima room to grow this past decade, I accept that I'm always going to prefer the company of men or masculine-minded women. Thus, finding women I can connect with is difficult enough without adding criteria like new-mom and over-Forty. But I'm not giving up :)

On this 'unintentional mother' blog I've mostly avoided mentioning the things that occupy my thoughts that seem unrelated to the topic. But politics and the environment and technology impact today and tomorrow -- they impact the world my son will inherit. M and I are looking at buying an electric car and putting solar panels up on the house. We're trying to reduce the amount of waste we produce by reducing consumption. We're following the breakthroughs in battery technology and alternative energy. And medicine. It would be lovely if my son came of age in an era in which a cancer diagnosis was not a tragedy, and diseases like malaria and cholera are no longer endemic to Third World. I have hopes that we'll revolutionize education so that young people will be able to learn and retain what they need to in order to take over for the technology priesthood and further the interests of humanity by evolving their thinking. I have hopes, but there are days when the omens and portents point to a dark future and a dying planet, and even my eternal optimism and sunny nature are no match for it. I have a dread that one day that my son will tell me he wishes he'd never been born into such a mess of a world. So I'm doing what I can to make it a better place, bit by bit, neighbor by neighbor, street by street. I'm Being Love, but I know I can try harder. I know I have to. There is too much at stake.

Ten weeks old and a peach party

So, two months in, the mom-thing is working out quite well. M said when he thought about whether or not to proceed with the pregnancy, one of the things he considered was whether or not he thought I would be a good mother. I'm a nurturing person, and given that I practically raised my sisters and half of my cousins, M knew the answer. Still, he seems surprised by how good I am with the baby. To be honest, there are times when I'm surprised, too. There is so much about mothering that is innate, I've come to realize, probably on a racial-memory level, because it's not like I've trained for this. I just know what to do for Little Man.


I miss sleeping. It's been six months since I had a good night's sleep. M tries to help with the baby so I can nap, but often as not, Little Man gets agitated when we're separated for a while and I end up comforting him rather than sleeping. He's an easy baby, for the most part, but he's an alert and fidgety baby. When he's awake, often as not he wants to be in motion, and I don't mean sitting in a swing. I mean sitting in a baby sling while I move him around :) It gets tiring, wearing him all the time, but I'm sure that it will seem like a blink of an eye and he'll be zipping around in his little walker. But for now, I'm learning how to do all sorts of things while wearing him in front--like installing metal weather-stripping on an exterior door while Little Man made curious expressions at the sound of the drill, and putting up a tent single-handedly.


Today we're having friends and neighbors come by to harvest peaches off our tree and meet the baby. All the work we've done to the exterior of the house the past 6 months have really paid off -- we've got a lovely, comfortable outdoor space that I spend a fair amount of time in, and will probably spend a lot more time in as Little Man grows up. And we've got seating for 14 adults, which is nice for entertaining, I hope. This will be our first gathering since I learned I was pregnant.


To go with the peach theme I've made a jello mould with peaches fresh from our tree, and some panna cotta poured into individual cups for people to have with fresh fruit. No cheesecake this time. The baby only naps for 15-20 minutes at a time and I can't mix the batter while wearing him -- too much chance of disaster :)


M's mother will be arriving mid-week. I'm hoping it will be a good visit. I really enjoying meeting his aunts and uncles a couple of weeks ago. They said that M and I make a good team. I think so, too.

The Descent of the Aunts

M's Aunt Jean sent an email that she and her sister would be coming this weekend. The email was titled "Descent of the Aunts." I read it with a grin. One was coming by Amtrak, the other, by plane, and the plan was to converge at SFO around noon and take the CalTrain to our place, since we're just 4 blocks from the station.

They and their spouses arrived here a little after 1pm on Saturday, bearing gifts. Jean handed them to me, but I left them for M to open -- he loves opening presents. My favorites of the gifts was a little porcelain piggy bank like the one I had as a kid, and the baby crocs shoes. It will be a while before he wears them, but he'll be able to wear them outside and help me in the garden next year. I look forward to making mudpies and running through the sprinklers with him :)

M enjoyed showing his family the house and telling them about the various projects we've done. They liked that the house seems modest in size from the front, but is so large on the inside as it unfolds along the depth of the lot. I like that about it, too. I've never been one for pretense -- which is why I balked when M wanted to look at houses in Palo Alto. After growing up in the Santa Barbara area, I'm full-up on pretentiousness. So we've got a nice modest-looking house in a friendly working-class neighborhood and the renovations have made it especially lovely.

M was proud to show off the patio extension we did with his father's help back in April. I'm still amused that I was hauling 15 pound pavers around at 7 months pregnant.  The whole patio area is really shaping up nicely, especially since we added the sunbrella to the patio set M's father got him for his birthday. There is still some clean-up work to do there, but I should have it done in time for the Peach Party we're having in a couple of weeks. I actually had to tie up the branches of the peach tree because it is so heavy with fruit.

The pièce de résistance was Little Man, of course. Both great-aunties spent a lot of time holding him, and even the uncles, too. We sat outside on the patio and enjoyed the beautiful weather and chatted for a couple of hours, at which point Jean noticed that I was tired. Little Man had me up at 5am, so by 3:30pm I was wilting. We arranged to meet for dinner at Buca di Beppo in SOMA and I laid down with the baby for a two-hour nap.

Dinner was quite an event. I'd never eaten at Buca's before, and so I was unprepared for the big, hearty family-style Italian fare and the celebratory atmosphere. Lots of birthdays with singing and clapping going on. It made conversation difficult, but eventually most of the groups left and by 10pm it was calm enough to visit a little. M's aunties said they think we make a good team, and told me that this is the happiest they've ever seen him, which was gratifying. I think he's the happiest he's been in the 15 years I've known him, and it's always nice to get independent confirmation of that perception.

He makes me happy, and I make him happy. Relationships are work, but when they work life really is beautiful. Fortunately, the arrival of the Little Man hasn't negatively impacted the connection we have.

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.

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.

Breast v. Bottle -- and 6 weeks of heartburn

Little Man isn't nursing. He doesn't want to nurse. He's made it abundantly clear that he finds nursing too much work / too frustrating compared to bottle-feeding.  I've seen the lactation consultant three times and I've got nipple shields and gravity-feed mini-tubing, and he's fine with them as long as he gets his milk straight away -- if there are any delays or kinks he pitches a fit. I'm trying to decide if messing with all this paraphernalia in hopes of getting him back on the breast is worth it. Admittedly, pumping 30oz of milk a day is a hassle, and the thought needing to pump for a couple of years is unexciting to say the least. The need to have a bottle ready in the wee hours, instead of just popping a nipple in his mouth so we can both get back to sleep, is disappointing. On the other hand, we're avoiding thrush and some of the other problems that go with nursing, and given my extreme sensitivity, that is something to be very happy about. In my observation, children that have been nursed for several months tend to be very secure -- they don't suffer from separation anxiety, etc -- so I've been trying to hold Little Man the way I would if he was nursing, rather than just propping him up and popping a bottle in his mouth (which I admit to doing sometimes).

I've been having problems with heartburn since we got home from the hospital -- even acid reflux and night coughing -- which is completely foreign to me. I've got (had) an iron stomach and now quite a lot of food isn't agreeing with me (yogurt, most dairy, sometimes eggs, most meats, fruits, juices, coffee, breads, etc). I've had to go buy protein drinks and protein bars to try to keep my intake up because I'm dropping 3 to 4 pounds a week and I'm concerned about the impact on my breastmilk supply. Even pumping ~30oz a day I'm having to supplement with 4 to 8 oz of formula a day for the past week. I'm hoping it's just because of the 5-6 week growth spurt I've heard about. I'm on a 14-day course of Prilosec to see if that eliminates the heartburn problem. Meanwhile I'm enjoying eating low-acid foods (like ice cream). I'll take any calories I can get right now.

Little Man's father went back to work today. I liked having him at home -- I really enjoy his company -- but it will be good to get into a routine during the week. Starting Monday.

Cloth Diapers

I am learning about the benefits and drawbacks of cloth diapers.

In addition to the environmental benefits (primarily less landfill and fewer trees), using cloth diapers is frugal. Disposable diapers cost $.30 to $.40 each, so I'm throwing $2 to $3 away each day (if I factor in the cost of doing the laundry, which I'm over-estimating at $1 a day). It also cuts down on the garbage service costs. I was about ready to step up to a larger garbage bin (we're using the smallest one) because a week's worth of disposable diapers (70 to 100) takes up a lot of room, when I decided that Little Man was now big enough to fit into the stash of cloth diapers I'd picked up from an acquaintance (about $400 worth of pre-fold diapers, diaper covers, all-in-ones, and miscellaneous paraphernalia for $50).

The first time I diapered him in the cloth diapers, I did it wrong, and the clothes along his back got wet.  So I went online and found this cloth diaper video from Susan at MamasLoveAtHome.com and realized that I hadn't folded the diaper over in the back so the cotton wicked the urine up where it came into contact with his onesie.  Silly me.

Using cloth diapers requires a bit more forethought. Instead of everything going into the garbage pail, nothing does, really. The diaper and it's paraphernalia needs to be sorted. There is a flushable insert to catch the poop-paste (looks like a fabric softener sheet), and the baby wipes are flushable, too, so they go into the toilet. Then there is the cloth diaper, and the diaper cover/wrap. Most of the time the diaper cover can be re-used, so I have little hooks above the changing table and I hang the just-worn one there to air-out. The soiled cloth diaper (in this case Indian cotton pre-fold) goes into a washable diaper bag designed to hold soiled diapers, which I'm washing every other day.

Once washed, I try to put pre-fold diapers with the liner already on it into the diaper wrap and stack them just above the diaper changing station to make things as easy as possible. Sometimes I just don't get around to being that organized, and I'll pull them directly from the laundry basket. Little Man is very active/alert for a 5-week old.

Of course, when out and about, disposable diapers are preferred, though I've recently learned that there are disposable-diaper type bio-degradable inserts (made by Grovia, gDiapers, and flip) designed to be used with diaper wraps for people who want the convenience of disposable diapers combined with the environmental friendliness of cloth diapers, for about the same price as conventional disposable diapers. I might give them a try--it should be easier than having to buy disposables in the baby's size and worry about him out-growing them before they're all used.

The only major drawback is teaching M how to do the cloth diapers. Fortunately, I've got all-in-ones for him to use, so no need to fuss with the pre-folds.

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 :)

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!

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.

Childbirth. Must I?

I had a high pain tolerance once. I could function well enough at level 10 that one of the paramedics didn't believe me when I told him it was that high. I offered to scream and projectile vomit for him (which I was trying very hard not to do) at which point his partner guided me onto the gurney. In the emergency room it took 3 doses of morphine to bring my pain-level down to a point that my body would lie still for an MRI of my internal organs. That's pain.

Nearly four years ago I was admitted to the hospital with a wound that had gone septic and beyond, to septic shock. I apparently came within hours of dying, had a couple of surgeries, weeks of hospital and home health care, and ended up with an 8-inch long & 4-inch deep open wound that had to heal up from the inside out. Endless bags of antibiotics until my veins were exhausted and I cried through IV pumps rather than admit it was time to change the IV site and invite even more agony (lesson learned: demand a PICC line if I'm going to be on an IV for more than a few days).

Talk about pain. The memory of the pain is still with me: it brings tears to my eyes. It cut through my dilaudid-on-demand; it made my whole body tremble and jerk, even in my sleep. I spent 10 days checked-out from my body, burrowed deep into some remote place in my mind. Those 10 days are lost to me, just pained haziness punctuated with moments of extreme agony. I vowed that I never, ever wanted to experience that kind of pain again.

Childbirth. On a scale of 1-10 it's just over 11, I've read.  I am assured that the memory of labor pain fades with time. And of course, it does. It must. It's the thought of that in-the-moment gut-wrenching pain that freaks me out. I just don't know if I can muster the courage to face that kind of pain again, even with the help of an epidural. Sometimes I think about scheduling a C-section just to avoid it. And I probably would if I didn't want to have to deal with recovering from major surgery.  I also know it is better for the baby to experience vaginal birth. Its like a full body massage--it gets the blood and lymph flowing, stimulates the muscles, etc. And that matters to me more than the memory of pain.

Childbirth. Never intended to go through it, feel completely unprepared to handle it. But it's how human life begins, so... meh. I'll keep trying to pysch myself into it. Perhaps the Labor & Delivery Tour at the hospital next weekend will help take the edge off some of the anxiety.

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!

Letter #2 to my unborn son

Darling boy,

We are in week 26 of our journey together, the start of the third trimester, and you will arrive in 12 to 13 weeks.  For silly reasons of my own I am hoping that you arrive after May 20th, though that may change as you grow larger and the rigors of pregnancy take their toll.

In the past three weeks my body has changed significantly. I definitely have a belly now, and I notice it most when I'm out for a walk. I have to ask your father to slow down now, because when I try to keep up with him I get a cramp :) As each day goes by I am able to exert myself less without cramps or aches. I notice it most when I'm working in the garden. Even with tools I'm having to take things easy, and I can't assume that I'll be able to do as much from one day to the next. I'm staying as active as I can without risking our safety.

Most days it feels like Spring, which is good, because I'm not feeling as chilled as I was just a few weeks ago. The primroses I planted last year are re-blooming, and the red cyclamen are still growing strong. They are the same color of red as the front door. I've noticed that the wisteria has dozens of flower buds that seem to be swelling a little bit every day. The jasmine are really growing, and the scented rose is leafing out. The plum tree in back is just starting to show it's white blossoms, and in a few weeks, so will the peach tree. The lemon verbena is putting out some leaves now. I'd feared it died in last month's unusual chill. I love the lemon smell and once it is strong again, I'll transplant it into the same flower bed as the rosemary and lavender bushes. I've also got a bird-of-paradise plant to put in between the bottle-brush tree and the mandarin tree at the edge of the patio. In a few years it's orange and red and blue flowers will tie-in the colors of the two trees, and fill the space between them with beautiful foliage. I hope you'll inherit my love of plants, and help me in the garden as you grow.

Hopefully by the end of February the work at the front of the house will be done. We're putting in irrigation and replacing the 60 year old lawn. When that work is done I'll be planting hostas, ferns and astilbe in the flowerbed under the living room windows, and the weeping cherry blossom trees will be planted at the yard's edge, near the sidewalk. In late March your grandfather on your father's side will be coming to stay for a bit, and we'll work on the side yard together. The gravel that was put in by the previous owners is black with sharp edges--pretty enough, but it's not safe for you--and we'll replace it with pavers, thus extending the patio area into a space that will be cool and shady on warm summer afternoons.

Sleeping is becoming more of a challenge, which isn't unexpected. It's a struggle to sleep on my side. I'm constantly waking up on my back with tingly nerve feelings in my legs. I am grateful for the tempurpedic bed, because otherwise I'd be sore and sleepless most of the time.

I'm trying not to obsess too much about the world you're being born into, and I'm trying not to let the sadness, anger, and despair I sometimes feel stick around for too long. I know that the biochemical soup you're swimming in can be affected by my stress, and thus affects you.

The world is in a sorry state, though. Carbon dioxide emissions have jumped tremendously, beyond the worst-case scenarios of many scientists. The oceans are acidifying because of carbon dioxide build-up, and the glaciers and polar ice are melting far more rapidly than predicted. When the rest of the world appears to be in agreement that we all need to limit CO2 emissions and wean off oil, the US, dominated as it is by oil-company-interests and lobbyists, seems determined to believe that we're the smart ones and the rest of the world has been suckered by a hoax (roll eyes). Here in the States we've picked up the pace of natural gas extraction using techniques called "fracking", techniques that pump millions of gallons of water and chemicals into the ground to liberate the gas. The problem is, it's polluting ground-water, and drinking water is already in short supply world-wide. How terribly short-sighted of us.

Southern Europe is in a financial crises, and seeing as Italy accounts for nearly 20% of the GDP for the EU, it cannot be allowed to fail. However, the corrupt politicians and even more corrupt mafia are making people extremely reluctant to co-operate with austerity measures. Greece is on fire, literally. The people of Greece are protesting the way the world banks and the European Union are handling that nation's debt crisis -- a problem created with the help of Goldman Sachs, who helped Greece's politicians conceal it's debts so it could get into the EU in the first place.

I'm not sure what the Internet is going to look like for you when you're old enough to use it. Powerful lobbies are at work to make it easier to monetize media traffic and invade people's privacy in the name of copyright and IP protection. Between that and the increasing amount of money that corporations are pouring into PACs which influence the political landscape, I half-fear that Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash will be far more prophetic than any of us will like. Will you come into adulthood living in a corporate enclave in a corporate town policed by corporate security in an America in which the line between the haves and have-nots is sharply delineated?  Or will you grow up in Canada, your father's homeland, because we had to flee the insanity here in the US?  I don't know, but more and more it is looking like it may be a necessary option.

Everywhere in the world there is ideological oppression of one sort or another. Right now in the US women's rights are being targeted by politicians on the Right, hoping somehow to invigorate their conservative Christian base to get out and vote in November. The Republicans are having their primaries and caucuses right now, and it looks like less than 5% of eligible voters are actually showing up at the polls. I think all the negative super-PAC ads and attacks are alienating all voters, regardless of party. And I'm not sure this is accidental. It is in corporate interests to keep voter participation to a minimum. It is easier to control for a smaller electorate than a large, active one. It costs them less money to buy votes and politicians that way, and they've a much better chance of making sure things go their way.

Currently we're embroiled in a health care debate over whether or not employers should be required to provide health insurance that covers prescription contraceptives. The argument is it violates the freedom of religion in this country. The irony is that the Founding Fathers weren't concerned with preserving religious freedom from government interference. They were concerned about keeping religion OUT of government. Most of them were Deists, and most of them were appalled by the control that the various religious sects exerted over their congregations, cities, counties, and even states.  The Christians of a couple of hundred years ago were not shy about running people out of town if they weren't of the same denomination, and weren't shy about trying to expand theocracy, which the Founding Fathers considered antithetical to their Enlightenment-Period beliefs and values. But most Americans are woefully ignorant of what happened yesterday, never mind what happened 200 or 300 years ago. Most are sheeple who are willing to believe what someone else spoon-feeds them, as long as it is dressed up to suit their ideological bent. It's sad, and discouraging, and frankly, disgusting.

But for all that, I am hopeful. I'm looking for ways to make the world a better place for you.  I'm working on developing community in our neighborhood. I'm planting fruits and vegetables on our property and helping in Rachel's community garden. I'm looking at ways to develop and expand the Green Economy. I envision a world in which people live in harmony with the planet. A world in which every person lives a sustainable lifestyle and every company does business in a sustainable way. I believe it is possible for humanity to leap toward a new level of consciousness that unites, rather than divides us. If I didn't think it was possible to turn the tide of the world toward such things, I could not bring you into it. I hope when the time comes that you're self-aware and world-aware that you won't hate the older generations for what we've done, and what we've failed to do. I hope, I really hope, to make this a better world for you.


Love,
Mom

Observations on being 23 weeks pregnant at 43

I suppose it's just as well that I don't have a 9-to-5 job, because I find myself needing a nap every afternoon. My OB was very clear with me that since this is a high-risk pregnancy I should rest when my body tells me I need to rest. So afternoon naps it is. Sleeping is an interesting experience now, because I am normally a back sleeper and now the baby is getting big enough for my uterus to press against the nerves that run down my legs, making them tingle. I'm mostly sleeping on my side now -- until my bladder decides it's time to void it.

I've also started wearing a bra to bed so my breasts don't hurt -- which they do when I sleep on my side for any length of time. Catch-22.

I'm having vivid dreams. I often lay half-awake under the influence of a dream, thinking about something or someone. This morning it was a "Children of Men" type of dream. War-torn environment, holed up in a room feeling frightened and big with child... M got up to intercept someone coming our direction and he was dragged off, fighting. My terror spiked and I knew I needed to stay calm, but I couldn't, so I found myself screaming for Dato -- he has a very deep calm. I woke up with his name right there on the front of my brain. I was worried that my psychic scream might have woken him up where he was sleeping 700 miles away, it was that strong.
 
I can't suck-in my stomach anymore, either. There just isn't any place for it to go. No more sit-ups, so I'm doing reverse ones -- raising my knees toward my torso as close as I can. I'm hating lap belts when I drive, too. I don't like that pressure low on my pelvis. It feels... off. It also seems to contribute to the "I need to pee" feeling. I'm tempted to just go with the shoulder restraint only.

My hair is growing fast, which I like, but so are my nails, which I'm not so keen about. I'm clipping them daily, it seems. The best news is that I'm not getting any of the acne some women get when they're pregnant. I think it helps that I don't wear make-up.

I find that I'm walking slower, and more carefully. I can feel the baby-weight in front of me a bit, and when I go for long walks I can feel the muscles / ligaments are getting tender -- stretching. My joints are loosening up and my knees hurt much of the time. Curling up on the couch with a heated throw blanket really seems to help, though.

My libido is also raging. I think I'd have sex all day if I could, but as it is, I'm masturbating almost daily. Multiple orgasms are a breeze right now. An old lover of mine told me that when his ex-wife was pregnant he made it his mission to give her an orgasm every day. He said a happy mommy makes a happy baby. Smart man!

Food cravings are ranging from CPK chopped salads to candied ginger to dark chocolate with sea salt. I picked up some frozen greek yogurt bars at Costco to deal with the ice cream cravings. They're 70 calories and 9 grams of protein, so I feel pretty good about having one.


That nesting-instinct thing is hitting me pretty hard these days. I have this urge to get things done -now-. I just hired a landscaper to come in and re-sod the front yard later this month. I had the fruit trees sprayed yesterday. I've been using the weed-eater and the hedge trimmer and the hula hoe in daily binges -- part exercise, part OCD. I've ordered some trees, even. Two flowering cherries and an Owari mandarin. The flowering cherries (Prunus pendula) will go out front at end of the month, and when the mandarin comes in from Monrovia we'll plant it near the patio, next to the lemon bottlebrush tree (Callistemon citrinus). We'll plant pear trees next year, I think, to compliment the peach and plum we already have, and to give some shade to the back yard, which faces south.

Inside, I've torn up my bedroom. I'm going through anything still in boxes and deciding what to keep and what to donate. I might just have a garage sale, actually. I have so many boxes of my grandmother's things -- china and silver and other things I'm unlikely to ever use but can't seem to part with, so they're being stacked up in the big closet in the room we've taken over as an office.  I've never been much of a hoarder, except for books, and fortunately I found homes for about 2000 books last year. The ones I have left are things like signed first editions and out-of-print books that I may just pack up to keep safe from baby-fingers. And to make room for storing baby things. My Ikea Expedit bookshelf fits most baskets so it converts easily to other uses.

I've looked at the courses that Kaiser offers for new parents and I'll take them in March and April I think -- Labor and Delivery tours, newborn care, and breastfeeding. I think M will do the first two with me. That is my preference at least, and since I rarely state preferences, he usually pays attention when I do.

I'm getting a bit anxious about the whole birthing thing, not the pain so much as things like tearing versus episiotomy, the possibility of C-section if there is fetal distress, and choosing a birthing partner with both of my sisters out of the picture. M's empathy and sensitivities are likely to make him unsuitable as a partner for the entire process. He's confessed to a preference for  the 1950's cigar-in-hand waiting room level of involvement, and I'm ok with that :) We've only known about the baby for 6 or 7 weeks now, so there is still so much adjusting to do, unintentional parents that we are.

Letter #1 to my unborn son

Dear Baby Boy,

In this, our 23rd week together, you are making your presence known, even though I am not obviously pregnant-looking yet. I can feel you moving around, though at this point I can't tell if you are contra-dancing or taiko drumming -- it feels like both sometimes.

It seems like you are going to have your father's sweet-tooth, based on all the sweets-related cravings I'm experiencing right now.  In the interests of keeping both of us healthy, however, I'm doing my best to resist. I want to keep my weight and blood-sugar levels down so there's no gestational diabetes or toxemia -- so help me out here and crave chopped salads again, ok?

Gifts from the baby registry have already started arriving. In less than four months you'll be wearing some of these things. They look so tiny, these clothes, which makes the thought of giving birth to you a little less scary, but also makes me fear my natural clumsiness, which is in full-force these days. Babies don't bounce when dropped ;)

I'm avoiding chemicals as much as I can, eating organic as much as I can afford. No artificial sweeteners, no foods nuked in plastic containers, no drinks from plastic bottles. The geneticist and biochemist in me is wary of the possible effects of man-made chemicals on you. Your father has taken over the chemical-related yard duties and even some of the cleaning, too.

Soon we'll start setting up the nursery-zone in my bedroom. I know it seems a bit late in the game to some people, but I've only known you were coming for about 6 weeks now. I want to keep you near for at least the first year, so it will be a while before you get a room of your own.

Love,
Mama

PS: Thanks for letting me sleep through the night last night.

My Greatest Fear

When I was a kid my parents often hurled a curse at us: "I hope one day you have a child just like you!"

I didn't understand what they meant when I was grammar-school aged (except that I was somehow "bad"), though later I decided it was an expression of frustration resulting from their obvious incompetence as parents. Being a teenager, I knew everything, of course, and my parents, though older and more experienced, were somehow stupider. The hubris of youth, eh?

Today, though, as I find my bladder shrinking and my breasts expanding, I've starting wondering about what my son will be like, with my parent's words echoing in my mind. And more and more, I'm hoping he'll be like M. His parents say he was an easy baby and an easy child. He wasn't fussy or demanding, he wasn't a trouble-maker, and he wasn't accident prone. Just a little contrarian. And he's still contrarian. And given that I'm contrarian too, I will not be surprised if our son is as well.  I'm ok with that.  Contrarians don't follow the herd. We are comfortable questioning the majority (the status quo, the conventional wisdom, the common practice) when it doesn't make sense to us, and we'll often do the opposite just to demonstrate our disagreement. I can handle contrarians. I are one :)

I understand that a child's behavior and psychology are heavily influenced by their parent's behavior and psychology, and M and I are both pretty self-aware people, so I'm not too concerned about our child picking up passive-aggressive behaviors and the like from us. I'm not sure how much having a child will affect our relationship, but right now at least, we don't play the typical gender-role based mind-games many couples do. We're both too pragmatic and efficiency-minded to waste time with such counter-productive forms of communication. Our son will probably be very direct and verbally articulate, because that is how we are with each other.

Back to fears:
M's greatest fear is having a stupid child. It sounds like a terrible thing to say, but I understand. Heritability of intelligence is polygenic and highly variable depending on environment. So that M and I both have IQs over 140 doesn't mean our son will qualify for Mensa from birth. In his experience, it is difficult for people of very different intelligence levels to connect, and he's afraid he won't be able to relate to his son if he's not "bright."

Meanwhile, my greatest fear is of having a child like the one I was.

My friends have heard the stories over the years, and they are amusing. Except if you think about being the parent of a child like I was. Now I recognize that much of my early childhood behavior and psychology was influenced by my parents and my environment (the former being disinterested and the latter being quite odd), and I know that the environment I provide will be very different, but I can't help but wonder if the the way I viewed, experienced, and interacted with the world is something that will be passed on.

I was a terribly bright child. I heard it again this Christmas from the woman (Susan) who taught me to read and tell time and tie my shoes before I was 4 years old.  I was rather solemn and observant, active but not hyper, and very very curious. I wanted to know. I wanted answers. And I didn't hesititate to act in my pursuit of those answers. I was a budding scientist, always seeing connections and causality and wondering if the patterns I observed could be applied to other things. Put that way, it sounds innocuous enough but in many ways it wasn't.

A month ago at Xmas Susan and I were laughing about "The Water Hose Incident" It was interesting to hear about it from her perspective, and to remember it from my (then child's) perspective. Putting the two together made for a comical story.

It goes something like this:

Adult perspective: Pregnant Mother was out in the garage doing laundry and talking on the phone. While she was doing this, Kelly fed a garden hose through the mail slot in the front door and flooded much of the house with several inches of water. She splashed water everywhere, getting the TV, the stereo, and even her sister in the playpen soaking wet. When Mother discovered the mess she called Susan to come take Kelly away for a few days so she wouldn't kill her. The carpets had to be torn up and replaced, the TV and the stereo were ruined, and the water had to be pumped out of the house. It was a mess!

Child's perspective:  Oooh look! When you water a lawn, brown grass turns green. My carpet is brown, if I water it, will it turn that pretty green color? The mailman puts things through the slot in the door, can I put the hose through the slot in the door? If I can put the hose through the slot in the door, then maybe I can turn the carpet green! I'm watering the carpet but it isn't turning green yet. You have to move the sprinkler around to water all of the lawn so it all turns green, so maybe if I water all of the carpet, then it will turn green. Things are in the way, but I have to get all of the carpet watered, so I am going to have to water them too, I guess. Oh no! Tammy is screaming and crying. I like playing in the sprinklers, why doesn't she?  Uh-oh, Mommy is yelling. I'm not supposed to water the carpets? Why not? And if I'm not supposed to, why didn't anyone tell me that?

Amusing, isn't it? Only it wasn't an isolated incident. Long before I could be shipped off to kindergarten I was already dismantling things to find out how they worked. Crawling into places to see what was there. Trying to use grown-up tools to do grown-up tasks.  The world was a puzzle and I was determined to solve it.

Now admittedly, I was left unattended a lot, and my parents often resorted to "I don't know" and "Because I said so" and "Go away" when it came to my endless questions. So I tried to learn things  by myself. My parents, young as they were, didn't know how to cope with me. I scared the hell out of them many, many times. And back then, thorough spankings were legal, so I was spanked a lot for reasons I didn't understand, which brought out the contrarian in me and made things even more difficult all around.

Ok, so... maybe... thinking about it... my "awfulness" as a child was less about me and more a function of my parent's lack of preparedness to handle a child like me. But then again, is it even possible to prepare for a child like me? I'm not going to have 3 children under age five like my mother did, and M isn't going to have the PTSD that my father did when he came home from Viet Nam. I'm 20 years older than they were when I was born. I've had years of training and experience working with children -- but those were other people's children. I'm a calm person, not a reactive one, and I know not to let kids push my buttons. But still...

I guess my greatest fear isn't so much that I'll have a child like me, but rather, that I'd lose my mind trying to be an adequate parent for a child like me. A nice, sweet, quiet baby like M was -- no problem. But a double-handful of a child who is impossibly bright and contrarian and always on the go and getting into things... I don't know. I suppose time will tell if this unintentional mother has what it takes.