Perfect Mother Magazine

We are coming to the end of my busy season at work and it could not come fast enough.  As I was finishing up a long day yesterday, missing my family and wondering if I would ever have a social life, a joke popped into my head.  It was one of those online lists: "How to balance kids, work, and marriage while still having a social life! Just follow these 73 easy steps!" Once I thought it, it was stuck. The other ridiculous standards we are held to kept popping into my head. All of the different miracle methods and divisive issues that define the Mommy Wars soon joined.  It kept me up all night (with some help from E). So here you have the product of insomnia, cynicism, and a day off.

By the end of this project, I was feeling a little guilty.  I have a great group of mom friends and we vary pretty wide on our parenting choice/styles. We are able to have conversations and accept each others' differences. We try to support each other when things get tough, and we have a safe place to say those hard truths that our culture pretends don't exist.  I didn't want anyone to feel like my satire was directed towards them. They lift me up and inspire me to be a better parent, but to also forgive myself. This cover is for them. I only wish we had a picture with all of us!

Imado (what I wanna do)

When I was pregnant, everyone wanted to know if it was a girl or boy, and then the name.

After she was born everyone wanted to know if I made through it without an epidural.

Once she was a few months old everyone wanted to know if she was sleeping through the night.

Now that she's over a year old, the question is "How much longer are you going to breastfeed?"

Do you want the short answer or the long answer?  I usually start with the short answer: I don't know. After an awkward pause I start rambling the long answer. It usually includes something about pumping and my work schedule, something else about sleeping through the night and teething. Sometimes I even go into the WHO recommendations and anthropological evidence that says "extended" breastfeeding is biologically normal. 

I'm not sure if it's there or if it is my own insecurities, but every time someone asks, I feel like the implied question is "Why haven't you weaned?" I feel defensive and judged. I have to convince them that I have actual reasons to continue breastfeeding and I'm not just lazy or "soft".

Part of it is that I'm not a pull-the-band-aide-off-quickly kind of mom. I don't like drastic changes, I'd rather do things slowly. That being said, the only change that I've made since she turned the magic age of one is that I don't stress about is anymore, or rather, I try not to. Most of my stress surround pumping and supply. I have a hard time keeping up with her when I work long hours, so we're introducing cow and goat's milk since we're quickly running out of frozen milk. I have to put in a lot of effort to not worry so much, and its really helping. I'm able to focus on work more and I don't threaten to throw my pump off the building anymore.

We've had an interesting journey to get here. It's been full of ups and downs, tears and smiles. Lately the smiles have vastly out numbered the tears and we are both happy with how our nursing relationship is. And its just that: OURS.

So whether or not you are judging me for nursing my one year old at the park/restaurant/work, it really doesn't matter.  The answer to the question is "When it seems right for us" and I don't know when that will be because it hasn't happened yet.

Having a milk break during her 1-year-old photo shoot

Back in Black

Well, today was my third day back at work. I decided to go back two weeks earlier than planned for 10 hours a week.  After that I will try to stay at 30 hours a week for two weeks, before I'm back full time.

So far I think I made the right choice, even if I'm back sooner than I wanted. I'm finding it really hard to get back in the swing of things, so I'm glad to be going back gradually.  I feel like there are so many little things I have to catch up on to be able to get things done, but every time I get to work about 5 more things are added to my To-Do list (and they all have to be done THAT day so they move to the top of my list!).

E has been coming with me, which is interesting.  The biggest problem is that she has an easier time napping in the morning if I take her for a walk and the walk from the car to my office isn't long enough.  So she just wants to nurse and nurse and nurse because she can't sleep. And then she throws it all up on me. So, that's fun. Today she wouldn't sleep for more than 20 minutes (and that was the drive to the Mom & Baby group at the Birth Center). She finally had a meltdown and fell asleep around 3pm (you know, 5 hours after she normally takes her first nap).

Thursday will be the first big chunk of time we are apart. Last week A picked her up at 3pm and I got home at 5:30pm.  That wasn't too bad, but I kept worrying that I had left her somewhere (I had a dream I left her in the car and then my car was stolen). This time it will be from 3pm-8pm.  I'm mostly worried about what will happen if she decides she doesn't want to take the bottle. Poor A. Then next Friday and Saturday will be long days at work because it will be my first show back.  I think A will bring her to campus so I can feed her at least once during the day and I'll just pump a lot the rest of the day.

Speaking of that, I'm currently finding breastfeeding to be annoying. I believe that it is the right choice and am going to do everything in my power to keep doing it for at least her first year and probably more, but I definitely think the whole cheaper and more convenient thing only applies if you are a stay at home mom. I am so hungry all the time! The extra food I eat probably costs as much as formula! Plus the cost of the pump and maternity clothes. Now that I'm going back to work we will have to deal with washing bottles again, too. Where I appreciate that she gets comfort from nursing, I worry about how she will handle it when that isn't an option. She definitely doesn't get comfort from the bottle, if she'll even take it.  I know that everyone goes through this to some extent, I can't be with her 24/7, but it is still stressful. Even with my minor annoyance, breastfeeding is going well.

I guess I'll reward you for reading my rambly, whiny blog with some pictures! I know that is the real reason you read along =)

Eating at our Centering reunion

Smiles for Mama

On a date with her new boyfriend!

Just chillin'

Bashful smiles

I feel like we should expect to see this look often in her teenage years

Unfortunately, this is the best photo from our trip to the pumpkin patch

Sleepy little owl

Where has the time gone?

Wow, I can't believe how fast time is going by! Our little girl is growing so much every day.  She is awake more and more (oh, speaking of awake, there she is. I'll be back...)

Okay, that didn't take long to be interrupted. As I was saying, it is amazing to watch her as her awareness grows and she learns new things. She is smiling and laughing in her sleep, I wonder what such young babies dream about...

A had to go back to work on Monday, it was very sad for us.  Her 2 weeks off seemed way too short and really flew by.  We are trying to get into more of a routine now so A can get enough sleep and we all get enough time together.  A's mom is staying with us for the rest of the week so I have some support and company during the day.  My mom is taking next week off work for the same reason. 

We are having some ups and downs with eating. My milk came in and after a few days it seemed like we had figured things out, but then it took a turn for the worse. E had a morning where her stomach seemed really upset and she couldn't sleep Things seemed better after she pooped, so we just attributed it to the Italian sausage and peppers I ate for dinner the night before.  The next day A got a stomach bug and spent a day on the couch.  E threw up a few times, too, but otherwise seemed fine. The next day she seemed fine, until bed time.  She was falling asleep like normal, but then she woke up and screamed. A painful, heart-wrenching screech. I held her and rocked her and cried with her.  It broke my heart to hear her.

Since then she has thrown up a few more times and every once and a while she will wake up with a scream (but not as intense as that first one).  After re-reading some of the sections in The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding I have changed how I feed her and things seem to be getting better.  She still seems like her belly hurts sometimes, but usually changing positions or nursing helps. I also started putting her on a wedge when she is in the bassinet. 

Nap time with Mama

Our little Cupcake

Snuggled up with Mom

First bath

Its a lot of work taking a bath

Making faces

Roar!

We had a poop accident!

Toes!

Not sure why this uploaded up-side-down...

Arts and Crafts?

Quite a while ago I read The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding.  It is basically the handbook of La Leche League International and had been recommended to me by multiple people, other books, and websites. I have been putting off writing about it because I wanted to attend a LLL meeting and write about them together.  However, every time I plan on going, something else comes up. Since it has been a while, my review will be brief.

I loved it. 

Okay, not that brief, but seriously, if you plan on breastfeeding, it is great!  It made me feel completely empowered and welcoming of where ever the journey takes me. It is written in inclusive language and really focuses on finding the right breastfeeding relationship for you and your baby. Obviously is advocates exclusive and extended breastfeeding, but not in a way that made me feel like I would be a failure if our plans changed. 

There were two things that really stuck with me for whatever reason.  The first is that we need to switch our point of view away from all of the benefits of breastfeeding and towards the drawbacks of formula. If you think about it scientifically, the breastfed babies should be the control group because it is natural and formula is artificial.  The other point that really stuck with me sort of goes against this first point, but oh well-- how ever much you breastfeed, your baby does benefit.  If that means they get a little bit of colostrum when they are newborns, then you've helped their immune and digestive systems. It has examples like this for each major stage of development. 

As much as I enjoyed the book, it was really hard to read from cover to cover. I find this true of a lot of baby and development books; it is always easier to read whatever stage applies to you, and usually things get a little repetitive to accommodate this. I felt this way about The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, however, it is divided into 3 sections and I you skip the middle one ("Ages and Stages") the rest is much easier to stay awake through.


Well, I guess that wasn't as brief as I expected, but here is another one anyways. The next book I read was Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin. Again, it came highly recommended from various sources. We had already bought and read Ina May's Guide to Childbirth (my review) and I was concerned it would be a waste of time to read this, too.  I mean, how much more could one woman write about giving birth? 

In the end I did feel like it was a waste for me to read, but not for the reasons I had anticipated. I was amazed at how much the two books differed in approach, if not in content.  Spiritual Midwifery has a much more... well, spiritual viewpoint.  Go figure. A lot of the message was the same- women have great control over their bodies and they need to feel safe and relaxed to have the best birth experience. Most births are normal and don't need interventions, just support. All of those kinds of things.  Unfortunately for me the way it was presented was much harder to relate to than in Ina May's Guide.  Not only is it very faith based, but there was definitely a certain amount of the hippy-ish language that just made it hard for me to connect with. Not much is psychedelic or groovy anymore.

That was all in the inspirational birth stories part.  The second part was more informative, including a lot more in depth information written for midwives, which was interesting.  I think A enjoyed that part more than I did.

I have one more book that I wanted to read before our little girl arrives and I am almost done.  Then I will read fiction.  Lots of it.  That isn't about babies. =)

Induction Indication

Yesterday was the day I was to go off birth control in order to begin the next step in my lactation induction protocol.  This morning, I took the herbal supplements (blessed thistle and fenugreek seed) recommended as well as the domperidone that I've been taking for six months.  I forgot to eat oatmeal for breakfast, but I'll do better tomorrow.  Interestingly, the protocol I'm on says that oatmeal has shown to increase breast milk production and it's suggested I eat it for breakfast at least three times a week.  

This morning, I began pumping for the first time.  The tentative plan has always been to pump often and in short bursts at first, to get my nipples used to all this suctioning.  Poor nipples.  So anyway.  I pulled out our pump and had to read the instructions, haha.  Then I did about five minutes of pumping on the left breast - only to discover that after pumping, there was a little pearlescent droplet of milk hanging out.  Um, what?!  That is crazy.  I've only been off the birth control for a day, and that is supposed to suppress breast milk.  The protocol tells us that you shouldn't expect milk for up to a week (or more) after beginning to pump.  So to get a little drop on the first pumping pretty much floored me.  Way to go, Lefty!  

Then it was Righty's turn.  I did the same thing, five minutes of pumping - and found that Righty had several MORE droplets of milk and the milk had actually leaked down and wet the areola where the pump contacted it.  Whoa!  Righty, you're even more awesome.  

All in all, I'm mightily impressed with the girls this morning.  Way to be, breasties!  

I'm really starting to let myself feel optimistic about this.  I think I've been so concerned that the induction would fail and I'd let myself down that I never really allowed myself to hope that it really could and would work for us, as a family.  Even if it doesn't work as well as I want, I will try my best and we'll see where that takes us!  

(Sorry for an entry centered on my breasts, certainly that must be odd...  Oh well.)

If You Give A Pregnant Woman A Steam-Cleaner...

She's going to want her wife to steam-clean all the carpets in the house.  Hey, we should start in the living room!  But before we can steam-clean the carpet, we need to shove all our furniture into our combination kitchen/dining room.

While her wife is steaming, the pregnant woman will reconsider the arrangement of the living room furniture.

Once the carpet is dry, she'll want to try out some new furniture scenarios.  But in order to try new things out, it involves moving the television and entertainment unit to a different wall, requiring that the cable for satellite TV be run through a different exterior wall.  Which will require a masonry drill bit.  Which the steam-cleaning wife and the pregnant woman don't own.  Then the lucky father of the pregnant woman gets to come save the day by assisting the pregnant woman in running the new cable through the wall.  Then, the rotten father of the pregnant woman will suggest that in addition to vacuuming, wiping, and zip-tying all the cords at the back of the unit together, she should also cable-staple said zip-tied cord bundles to the back of the unit in accordance with the brickwork-style compartments in the Ikea unit.  Because everyone hates seeing cables behind entertainment units stuffed with electronics and children's DVDs and toys and books.

If the furniture gets rearranged, then all the previous decorations in the living room will need to be altered.  The new space on the walls will of course need new things to occupy them, including MORE photographs than already adorn our home.

And once all that is accomplished, there are of course more rooms to rearrange, redecorate, and steam-clean.


Naturally, I trust you all understand my tongue-in-cheek humor here!  Truthfully, I've found T's new nesting instincts to be rather charming and adorable - likely because I know they aren't here to stay!  I've enjoyed helping out, and I absolutely don't want her doing anything chemical-ish anyway so I'm the first one to volunteer to handle these things.

As I would hope you could tell, nesting has set in for my wonderfully pregnant wife.  Things I don't think I'd ever expect to come from her mouth have been issuing forth at a somewhat alarming pace.  To mention a few:
"I'm really tired of the hard water stains on our dishes.  I think I'll soak the dishes in vinegar and rub the stains off. "
"I feel like I NEED to clean out the junk drawer.  It's driving me crazy."
"Next time most of the silverware is out of the drawer, we should put the plastic divider into the dishwasher."  (This one I actually agree with, lol.)
"The linen closet really needs to be gone through and reorganized.  I think I'll wash everything in there after work tonight."
"Would you mind dusting and then wiping down the ceiling fan blades and housing this weekend?  I really want to balance it better so it STOPS CLICKING ALL THE TIME."
A couple weekends ago I even caught her dusting the fire extinguisher.  (She doesn't seem to appreciate the humor in this that I do.)

To her immense credit, she's been very productive.  She did clean out the junk drawer, she did clean out and reorganize (and label) the shelves of the linen closet.  She's been going through old documents that we tend to neglect by leaving in giant piles and discover again two years later.  Not to mention that she's already washed and put away the baby clothing she received at her surprise work shower in June.  And we've finally cleaned out the cabinet in the kitchen that was devoted to our foster kids - kid dishes, sippy cups, baby food, formula, bibs, meds, you name it.  Haven't even looked in that cabinet in seven months, but now it's been cleaned out and reorganized as well.

The biggest thing left on our list is to clean out the office and create a guest bedroom in its stead.  This is on my To-Do list for this weekend while T handles a huge Catholic youth convention ... I'd rather be me than her this weekend, and that is saying something because the office is a huge undertaking!  Once we can get the guest room going, we'll be able to finish up Ever's room and then we'll be much closer to ready.

Speaking of ready.  I've spent much of my time lately occupying that place of total delight in the idea of meeting my daughter while simultaneously being in denial that she's really going to be here sometime in the next three to seven weeks.  Same old story, right?

In the next couple weeks we'll be doing a casting of T's belly, too, and I'm pretty stoked about that.  Also, my lactation induction protocol is about to change majorly!  I'm stopping the birth control after tomorrow, and beginning to take breastmilk production enhancing herbs and starting to pump.  We'll see in the next couple weeks if we've got any luck!  Let's see, what else... Oh, we took some cute photos!  And T got a new lens for the camera for her birthday, and we're really excited about that.  Photos from the new lens to come soon, hopefully.  Here are the cute ones we took from last weekend to tide you over:

With our dog, Manni!

Knitting Evie's newest beautiful hat.

Caught her stretching - whoa, lookit that belly!

Stuck Between a Rock and a Pregnant Place

Overall, I feel overwhelmingly lucky at how well this pregnancy has gone.  The only major hiccup was my own clumsy fault. My body has done what it is supposed to do and the normal pregnancy aches and pains have been on the mild side.

That being said, I'm a whiny pansy. I really am. I haven't done well with the limitations my pregnant body has, especially when the end point seems so far away.  The end point, my due date.  It not all that far away any more.  47 days (45 if you go by the ultrasound).  I'm finally feeling like I can do it.  I may have to do things at a slower pace and take more breaks, but I can get through the next 7 weeks, its not that long.  I may have to ask for help more often, but I have great friends and family and they get more annoyed when I don't ask and try to do something stupid myself. I spent so much time worrying about being able to survive this summer that I just realized I made it through the hardest part, the monsoons are here and they are fantastic! I'm going to focus on enjoying these last weeks of my pregnancy, since it is likely to be my only one.

With my 3rd trimester about half way over, our to-do list seems to get bigger and bigger.  I think it just seems to get bigger since the time is smaller.  We have accomplished parts of each project, but not enough to cross anything off.  Like our bag for when I go into labor.  We have a bag picked out and a list of what goes in it, but it isn't packed, and we have to buy a lot of the things we need for it. Then there is the house,  most of the projects can't be finished completely until we can clean out the office and turn it into a guest room. Does anyone want a drafting table?

The other thing that has been on my mind is the state of motherhood.  I feel like we are at this weird place where we are first time parents and not, all at the same time.  The most obvious thing for me is sleep.  Every time A or I make a comment about sleep, it seems like everyone's reaction is "Just wait 'til that baby comes!  Enjoy the sleep you get while you can!"  Well, yeah.  Having a newborn means you don't get sleep.  Fortunately, that's what maternity leave is for.  When we had foster kids we had work the next day.  I think with A&A I took one day off, but that day was spend getting shots so they could be enrolled in day care. Taking 2 kids to the doctor and them both needing shots before you know them 24 hours was one of the most traumatic things I've ever had to do.  By the end I wanted to cry with them. My trauma was only a drop in the bucket to what they had to be going through.

There are some things that I'm really looking forward to having my own children instead of fostering.  She will be able to sleep in our room and in our bed if we want.  Our first placement would have been able to be in our room, but she was too big for the bassinet we had, so she was in the crib in the nursery. The other big thing is FORMULA!  We don't have to get up an mix a bottle every time she wakes up! I'm also hoping our little girl has a stronger immune system!  It seemed like our foster kids were ALWAYS sick, and we were, too.  Hopefully breast feeding and pushing daycare off a bit will help us not catch EVERYTHING! I also think the foster kids were especially vulnerable because of all of the stress of their situation. Poor kids. The biggest different is we won't have to deal with CPS! We don't have to arrange our week around when the kids are on visits or when we have home visits.  We won't have team meetings and court dates. We won't have to get permission to cut her hair! Maybe one day we will have to deal with CPS again and it will mean the adoption laws in AZ have changed and we can both have legal rights to our kids. Then it will be worth it!

One thing I did find comfort in with fostering that I won't have with our own is the lack of permanence.  At the most difficult times when I had given up hope, I found some comfort in the fact that the situation wasn't permanent. At some point that particular problem would be someone else's to deal with. When I couldn't comfort one of the kids when they were upset, it was easier to not feel like a failure.  I wasn't the one they wanted to be comforted by and that was okay and normal. But that won't be true anymore. Fortunately it also taught me that usually that problem would eventually be resolved anyways.  As my mother-in-law quotes, "This too shall pass".

I feel like I'm prepared for parenthood. You can't be prepared for every situation, but know our parenting style and work well as a team. I know there will be times when we feel overwhelmed, but now we will be able to take a break and have a babysitter.  They won't have to have their fingerprint card and be on file with the agency.  We can ask a favor from a friend or our family and get an evening out. 

In the mean time we are focusing on the things foster care couldn't prepare us for; pregnancy, labor, and birth, breastfeeding, vaccinations (since we didn't have a choice before), co-sleeping. Later this week we are going to a La Leche League meeting.  We were warned by our Bradley instructor that there will be a lot of women breastfeeding (scandalous!), most without using a nursing cover (even more scandalous!).  Umm, yeah, its La Leche League, that's the point!  Anyways,  I'll try to write a blog afterwards about the meeting and about their book, "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding".

Well, that was a rather long blog for me, hopefully it wasn't too disjointed!

-T