Standard Operating Procedure

After Emma was born, I wrote a lengthy account of her birth--both for my personal diary keeping purposes, and to help me work through the mixed emotions I was having about things not going according to plan.

To be fair, I feel like I should account for Leo's birth as well.  I'd hate for 12 year old Emma to lord over 11 year old Leo that mama loves her more and she knows it's true because mama wrote an essay about how she was born, and didn't write one about him.  I know that's ridiculous, but I've played the scene in my mind a dozen times already.  They'll fight about enough without my adding literary imbalances to the mix.

So where did Leo come from...  The story is actually a little interesting, in that I had some last minute issues with my blood pressure that could have potentially become dangerous for one or both of us.  Throughout my entire pregnancy with Emma (and my normal, non-pregnant life), my blood pressure was nice and low.  In the 90 over 65-ish range.  Always has been.  Then on the day of my scheduled induction with Emma, it had jumped up to "high".  Can't remember the exact reading, but I recall my OB indicating that if I hadn't already been scheduled to induce, my BP was high enough that she would have recommended it.

I never thought much about that blip in my blood pressure trend during my pregnancy with Leo, until I went in to see my Ohio OB at about my 36 week appointment.  After almost an entire pregnancy with low blood pressure, mine was starting to rise.  At 36 weeks, it was still within the high end of the 'normal' range, but at 37 weeks, it was high enough for the doc to tell me to stop working and order some blood tests.  I ended up having two rounds of bloodwork that showed that my liver enzymes were elevated and my platelet count had dropped by more than half.  Being a good reader of the pregnancy blogs, I was educated about pre-eclampsia and HELLP, and was worried that Leo might not be okay.  After the second round of bloodwork, my OB pushed up the date for my scheduled C-section so that he could get Leo out before things got any worse.  According to the doc, I was still okay (although I did see stars every time I moved my head and I was swollen to the point of craziness), but my condition could go from okay to dangerous in no time at all and there was no need to wait to see if that would happen.

So, on March 24, nine days before his scheduled due date, Leo was born.  A scheduled C-section is SO much less dramatic than an emergency C, and my recovery was a lot easier too--since I didn't have labor to recover from as well.  I arrived at Grant hospital an hour before my scheduled surgery, and due to an overflow situation, got sent to a relatively posh labor and delivery suite for my pre-op activities, instead of one of the tiny triage rooms.  We hung out there for about an hour and a half while I changed into a gown and got prepped for surgery.

After answering a lot of questions, getting an IV, and having visits from my OB and anesthesiologist, I was walked down to the operating room (not wheeled!) and got the the spinal block.  The anesthesiologist added a longer-lasting pain med as well called duramorph (sp?) which lasted for about 24 hours and eliminated the need for IV pain relief after the surgery.  From the time I walked into the OR until I had Leo in my arms was less than 20 minutes.

As comfortable as I felt with the idea of the C, and as excited as I was for Leo to arrive, I had about a dozen episodes of anxiety through all this that felt like I huge pressure and tightening of my chest.  I talked to the docs about it, and since they were constantly measuring my vitals, they knew that it wasn't actually physiological.  The episodes were scary to me, and I worried that they were an indicator of panic attacks to come, but I had the last of them during the surgery and have been fine since.

The best part about my experience this time around compared to last time, was that I was able to hold Leo right away.  As soon as he was cleaned up, I got to hold him skin-to-skin.  Before they even weighed him!  We left the OR with him on my chest and I was able to cuddle with him and nurse him right away.  I kept him with me for over an hour before JMT went with him to the nursery for a bath and to get checked out.  What a treat compared to the isolation I felt when Emma was born and I was relegated to a solitary recovery room with a bored nurse and no one else.

The next best part about this experience was having our families around.  JMT's folks were there for moral support before and after the surgery.  It was a huge relief to JMT, I think, to know there was someone there for him in case something went wrong.  It was great to have his folks hang out with me in recovery while he and Leo were in the nursery.  And it was wonderful to have both sets of our parents around to visit with us, bring food to the hospital, and shuttle Emma around.

My recovery this time around was better too.  I was up and walking around sooner, and braver about what I could and could not do sooner than last time.  It was a little rough at the 24 hour mark when the duramorph ran out, but once I got on a good schedule with my pain meds, I did fine while I was at the hospital.  And with only a few exceptions, I was fairly independent and mobile once I got home as well.

This maternity leave has been so different than my time at home with Emma.  For one, I'm more confident and settled in my routines and approaches to a variety of baby issues.  And also, I'm so much more busy!  Even though Emma spends her weekdays at daycare, it is still a lot of work managing the lives of two kids under 18 months old!  I've spent many hours nursing Leo and thinking about what I should write about this experience, but then I never get a chance to because who has time to write when you have two crazy babies?

Here He Is...

Leo Benjamin... born 3/24, 7 pounds, 8.8 oz., 20 inches long.

Happy, healthy and perfect.

The last night

Tonight is the last night of being a mother of one baby.  One beautiful, sweet, darling baby (who loves the cream filling from the donuts at DK Diner).  I've been excited for #2's arrival since we learned he'd be joining us.  But the sadness of saying goodbye to my singleton relationship with Emma has been growing steadily until now it overwhelms almost everything else.

I think that the main factor is that 16 months is a great age for a baby!  Emma is so fun to be with.  She is absorbing new ideas, synthesizing information at a speed I can hardly keep up with, and learning to make us laugh with her adorable sense of humor.  She has just begun to consistently call me mama (a word preceded by many... most notably "shoes").  She endears herself to me by calling out for me when she needs something.  While she lights up for daddy's dramatic arrival every evening, I'm the one she reaches for when something hurts or doesn't feel quite right.  It's as if finally my love for her is no longer unrequited.

So the steady uptick of pregnancy excitement has been paired with this sadness.  I know that I won't love my girl any less.  But I do know that there will be less of me available to her, at a time when she's just begun to articulate how much of me she wants in her life.  It makes me sad to know she will never remember these days where she was my one and only.  She will always know life as part of a pack, and will never remember when mommy's attentions were focused solely on her.  I know it's better that way... but it is sad to me.

***

So yeah, it's the last night.  We're having a scheduled C-section tomorrow.  When I found out I was pregnant with #2, I never really considered a VBAC.  Which is funny considering what a process it was to get over having a C with Emma.  As it turns out, like last time, this decision wouldn't have been mine to make in the end anyways.  As the weeks have progressed, my blood pressure's been a risin'.  To the point now that it's starting to effect other systems in my body.  The main concern at this point is my platelet count, which has been dropping over the past few weeks.  The doc moved up my C date after my last round of labs, so tomorrow is the day whether we like it or not!  March 24 will make a good birthday--easy to remember and fun to celebrate as it is the day after JMT's mom's birthday.

A thoughtful entry about thoughts I'm thinking

For weeks now I’ve been trying to organize how I’m feeling about so many things—new job, new town, new baby… not to mention the holidays, my no-longer-new baby who is now more of a toddler with jet-packs, and everything else going on in our lives these days. Maybe one of these days I’ll get stranded alone with my laptop and have the opportunity to get it all down in one place. In the meantime, I’ll try to focus my attention on one area—the forthcoming baby.

Here’s a summary of what I’ve been thinking in regards to New Baby: HOLY CRAP, I’M HAVING ANOTHER BABY SOON!!!

It’s funny how this pregnancy is different for me. First and foremost, I’m healthy. No nasty costochondritis to deal with (so far… knock on wood). No pre-term labor scares (again, with the wood and the knocking). The worst of my ailments at this point (28.5 weeks along) is the persistent heartburn. But I can handle that. I did have a run-in with one of my morning sickness meds early on that was pretty scary (tardive dyskinesia from the reglan.) I’m feeling big and cumbersome and easily fatigued—but overall pretty okay. The major difference this time around is my mental state. I am calm! I am not afraid that something catastrophic is going to happen every time I cough or hiccup or feel a funny little twinge about the midsection. It’s great! My main worry about the pregnancy these days is that I’m not worried enough.

The pregnancy is one thing. Actually having a second baby is entirely different altogether. I’ve got plenty of worry about that! Up until about Christmas, the pregnancy and new baby were more of an abstract idea—something to talk about, mull over, and plan for… but not really “real”. The hecticness of the holidays and the constant “Next year at this time I’ll be doing this with 2” thoughts took their toll. In less than 3 months, we’re going to have an even more active, more mobile, more expressive toddler with jet-packs AND we’re going to have a tiny, tiny baby who has needs and funny schedules and itty-bitty clothes to wash.

For example, the reality of what my post-maternity leave after-work routine will be is harrowing. Right now, I get off work between 5 and 5:40, rush to daycare to pick up Emma and drive for 25 minutes back to the house. She usually screams 75% of the way home. I get home, corral her in the living room and take the dogs out before I start making dinner for the two of us. I try to have dinner on the table by 6:30—7:00 at the latest. Hurry through dinner and hopefully JMT comes home before we head her up to bath time and bed. I try to have her to bed by 7:30—8:00 at the latest. This rush gives me no time for any superfluous tasks. The time after 8, when I’m exhausted from a day that started at 5:30 am, is when dishes, laundry, showers and hair drying get done. Not to mention trying to have adult conversation with JMT. Where is a baby going to fit in there? Where does the nursing and the changing and the rocking go? I won’t go into the morning routine, but it’s basically this one in reverse starting well before the sun rises and culminating with me being at my desk at 8 am. There’s no room in the morning for me to have a second cup of coffee. How am I going to fit in this baby? Obviously the division of labor in the house is going to have to change. I think I’m going to appoint Rance in charge of laundry and floor mopping.

So those are the kinds of thoughts I’ve been thinking these days. A savvy commenter would note that the solution would be for me not to work, or to work less. I was lucky in Colorado to be able to work ¾ time, and I bet that a set-up like that would help a lot. Unfortunately, since we still own our Colorado house (and receive much less in rent for it than what we pay on the mortgage each month), the finances dictate that I work full-time. And it’s not that I’m looking for answers right now. I just thought I’d share what’s swirling around in my head right now.

But lest I make everything out to be negative and unpleasant, here’s an example of a ray of sunshine that keeps my life bright:

What a Year!

Let me first start out by saying...

Happy Birthday, sweet Emma.

It's been quite a year. Emma has come so far in such a short time. At one year old, she is still such a happy baby. Always flirting with strangers and waving to them in the grocery store. Happy to share her blocks or gummed up cheerios. She has five teeth, and loves clacking them together like a crocodile--I think she likes the sound it makes. Emma isn't yet walking regularly, but can motor across the floor at such high speeds that walking is irrelevant. She loves opening and closing things--doors, cabinets, boxes--and enjoys putting objects into other objects. Like putting her toys into a bin. In the past few weeks, she has taken to coming by to sweetly lay her head against my leg for a moment before she speeds off to the next great adventure.

The next year of Emma's life will be full of changes--most notably the addition of another baby to our family next Spring. Emma will learn to be a big sister and will be forced to share our attentions. She will get to enjoy to lots of grandparent time now that we've moved to Ohio. She'll have to adjust to me returning to work and a return to daycare. She'll learn to walk and run, and hopefully say some things beyond just Daddy and bah! But I hope she continues to cross the room to sweetly lay her head against my leg for a moment between adventures.

What we left

I'm starting to get wrapped up in the goings on here in Central Ohio, and that's a good thing. But before I forget--I'd like to take a moment to reflect on what we left behind. These photos may not be worth a thousand words to you, but they are to me.

Our perfect little house:

The view from our deck--and where I watched dozens of beautiful summer weddings:

I love you, little house in Manitou.

We're Here

We've been in our house in Grandview for a week now, and the cable man came today and gave us back our internets. It's been a long two weeks without my trusted friends inside the computer.

A lot has happened in these past few weeks, most notably watching strangers pack up everything we own, leaving the house of our dreams, spending a lovely weekend in Aspen, and then starting up all over again here in Ohio. I love our new house, our sweet neighbors and our peaceful neighborhood, but it's not "home" yet for me. I'm hoping that the coming weeks and months of happy events--Emma's birthday, Thanksgiving, the December holidays--will help to make this place feel more like ours.

Emma has been mostly oblivious to the whole thing. She's enjoyed spending the days with mommy and the dogs. She has three and a half teeth now, crawls at lightening speed, and can climb the stairs. She's not walking yet, but she can stand unsupported for longer periods.

Baby #2 is coming along nicely. I'm 15 weeks now, and definitely showing. My new OB does lots of ultrasounds, so I was able to see it yesterday--of course it looks mostly like a ghost blob, but it was neat to see its little hands clasped into to tiny fists.

A good reason to move back to Ohio

Grandma time makes Emma happy!

Spinning on that dizzy edge

There's a lot going on in our lives right now. [editors note: understatement of the decade] JMT and I are moving back to our hometown in about a month. I'm pregnant again. JMT is traveling every week for work--has been for the last 6 weeks and will continue to do so until the move. I'm looking for a job in a different state. Looking for an apartment. Trying to organize my house, my life. It's a lot.

I've been singing this Cure lyric over and over in my head and I think it sums up what we're doing--spinning, dangerously close, to that dizzy edge. The edge of falling apart. But somehow, we are keeping it together, staying on the edge and not falling in. I think that's because all of this is so right.

There's a part of all of us that second guesses major decisions--it's part of an internal gut check to make sure that we don't end up doing something terribly stupid. I second guess most every decision, from what I wear to work and eat for lunch to my daycare and nutritional decisions for my child. But, strangely, I'm not second guessing the decision to move back to Ohio. Something about it just feels right deep inside. Raising our family with our family is the right thing to do. A childhood in Colorado would be full of mountain adventure, but no secret snack-time rituals with Grandma or ornery adventures with Grandpa. The photos would be great, but the memories would all be missing something.

I won't say that I'm not sad to leave. I took a walk with Emma through downtown Manitou today and fell in love with this town all over again. I love the obnoxious tourist trap t-shirt stores, the dreadlocked hippies and their rangy dogs, the streetcorner philosophers and the midwestern yokels soaking it all in. I love the architecture and the art, the fountains and the stream. I love that my first child was born here. Perhaps she will soak in some of the local color and it will shine through her wherever we live. I love that we've had this experience in this amazing place.

But I am looking forward to going home.

Toothy

We’ve had a hard time capturing photos of Emma’s two resident toothes, but here they are, in all their pureed carrot glory:

Cycling bib courtesy of Aunt Sis.

Bathing Beauty

A few weeks ago, we kicked off the beginning of the Tour de France with a pool party. Emma sported her ultra-cute bathing suit and robe from Aunt Sis. She didn't know what to make of the water at first, but eventually splashed around a little and played with her ducky.

My friends inside the computer

A few months back I endeavored to record some of my pearls of mothering wisdom, cultivated from eight whole months of experience, and I always meant to post one more item. This one is about my friends inside the computer. You know, the ones I've never actually met, but who entertain me, educate me, and commiserate with me on a daily basis.

I came upon the genre of "mommy blogs" while I was expecting, and have found endless hours of reading entertainment and a sense of kinship and community that I never would have expected. Here are my favorites:

The Modernity Ward: Mothering stories full of punk-rock awesomeness, archives including PCOS and IUI drama.

Dooce: More punk-rock mothering awesomeness and excellent photography from a recovering Mormon. Dooce is famous for being the blogger that got fired for writing anonymously about work back in the early days of blogginess.

Moxie: A parenting question-a-day advice site with unbelievable archives. Moxie herself is thoughtful and provides great responses, but the true strength is in the daily cadre of loyal commenters who provide support and insights to one another. The archives have questions and answers about any possible parenting concern you might have. Moxie's philosophy and advice have given me confidence to parent Emma in the way that feels best and most natural.

Urban Baby: The exact opposite of Moxie. A snarky bunch of totally anonymous NYC mamas who tear each other to shreds over anything and everything. It's like watching a train-wreck. And addictive. A guilty pleasure.

Those are my friends inside the computer. Who are yours?

Love. Hate.

I’ve been wanting to write for some time about my love/hate relationship with nursing the Emma. The phrase love/hate is misleading, though, because it implies that I feel the two in equal measure, and I don’t. Most of the time, I feel the love more. And it is good. Real good. I can feel it in my bones good. But when that other pesky emotion sneaks in, I feel it hard. So hard that it pushes all the good stuff far away into the corners and out of the light and makes it hard to breathe.

Emma took to nursing immediately and our first many months were the kind that people who have trouble nursing hate to hear about. Good supply, good latch, no health issues, plenty of goodness all around. Enter the love.

I think that our good nursing relationship was key in helping me to find my groove as a mother. I felt so purposeful, so competent. My life and my body, they had meaning. I was nourishing this little person. With my body! And she was thriving!

My favorite time of every day became the bedtime routine. I would put little Emma in her jammies, swaddle her (for the first four months) or zip her into a sleep sack (since then), turn on the Spa Radio channel on the Pandora, and nurse her to sleep while we lay in my bed with the lights down low and the new age music pulsed and whirred in the background. Many a night, I fell asleep there too, and we cuddled and snoozed and it was perfect. Over time, she learned to be transported first to the bassinet and later to her own bedroom to keep sleeping, and I would get to have a few hours of adult time with JMT and my life felt balanced and so, so manageable.

Man, just writing that makes me want to hit fast-forward on the day and start the 7pm roundup right now.

When she was tiny, there were plenty of full-on love moments during daytime nursing as well, when she would fall asleep on me, or when she learned to look up and smile at me when she was done. All good things. And now that she’s a bigger girl, there are the sweet sleepy moments when her body is heavy against me and we can sit for an hour or more while the day goes on around us, and the silly moments when she decides to make a game of things and repeatedly pull away from me and then dive bomb back in for more, and the giggly moments, when she thinks that this nursing thing is just the funniest thing ever, and the serious, “I are hungry baby” moments, when she takes the business of nursing very seriously—furrowing her brow and focusing very, very hard at the task at hand.

All good. So good.

So what about that other thing I mentioned? The hate? Well, it’s in there too. And in increasing amounts. And it manifests itself in ugly ways. Like the tears. The frustration. And the doubt. And the crushing sadness. The growing feelings of inadequacy. Yeah, I hate those.

The unbelievably trite cliché, “All good things must come to an end” comes to mind here. I have always known that I won’t be nursing Emma when she is seventeen. So of course, I knew that eventually I would stop nursing this kid. Preferably before she learned to drive. But I also thought, perhaps naively so, that I would be able to stop nursing Emma on my terms. That at the time I decided, I would do as the baby-rearing textbooks advise and gradually decrease her time nursing, cut out pumping sessions, etc. I figured I’d have an epiphany sometime after her first year and begin the process of ending things.

What I didn’t expect was this long, slow death. For the past three months, my milk supply has been diminishing bit by bit. I’ve done everything the good Internets tells me to do to improve the situation: the tea, the fenugreek, the expensive supplements, drinking enough water to sail a boat on. No dice.

I could write so much about the specifics of how this sucks. I could write about how demoralizing it is to spend 40 minutes a day at work pumping, and only coming up with enough milk for the daycare provider to spike Emma’s formula with one ounce per bottle. I could write about the pain of watching Emma’s increasing disappointment that there just isn’t enough. I could write about the cuts on my arms that I could swear Emma inflicts on purpose with her little razor nails when she’s trying and trying to get enough to eat, but there just isn’t any more to be had. I could write about the horrific realization that those cries we’d been hearing for days weren’t from teething pains, but rather hunger pangs, and were quickly remedied with a nice big bottle of formula.

But I won’t. What’s worse than all of those things is the sadness. The loss. I can supplement Emma’s dietary needs with formula, and she doesn’t seem to mind. But I can’t seem to find a supplement for what I’m losing: the contentedness, the feeling of competence and purpose, the love.

What makes this harder still is the slowness of it. Since a little breastmilk is still better than no breastmilk, I don’t feel like I can cut off cold turkey. So my sadness has become an open wound that cannot heal. Not yet. It’s like a long, slow break-up where you rehash all the good times and the badness over and over before you say goodbye for the last time.

The rational part of me knows this is all nonsense. Emma is happy to drink formula; I am privileged to have had as good of an experience with nursing as I did; we are healthy and well provided for; I’ll get to stop pumping. I know. But the sadness, it defies reason. It cannot be bargained down. It just has to be, to work itself out. And that’s what I hate.

Tooth!

Thursday June 18th, the first chomper showed itself.  Here's a photo of her gummy grin before the teeth.  She'll never look like this again!

So much to say

IMG_3540
Originally uploaded by steal jane

I have much to say about our family vacation last week. and many photos to share We had a great time galavanting about the eastern half of the country seeing family. Even all the traveling (air and car) wasn't that bad. The highlight for me, however, was watching JMT and Emma become best friends. Of course he has always loved her. Of course she has always been happy to see him. But after 9 days of nearly constant contact, their interactions have become a joy to watch. They are my two great loves.