I feel like I am not accurately portraying life with my infant. There is so much about being a Mom is great, and also much that makes me feel incompetent.
For example:
1) I'm not good at bathing her. She's so slippery and it freaks me out. I always call my partner in to help me. It seems like something I should be able to pull off on my own.
2) I often can't comfort her. She cries and is miserable. I thought that fed, dry babies stop crying when their Mom picks them up. Not the case with the Not-Always-Sunny-Sunshine.
3) Sometimes, I still feel bad about the epidural/epi. That maybe I missed out on some crucial bonding moment with her that I can't make up because I wasn't centered enough.
4) I'm not calm and collected when my baby screams in public. (See #2)
5) I feel sad for my partner that because of my age we put my dreams (having a baby) in front of her dreams (traveling, exciting career). With all our money in fertility and child care, she doesn't have freedom I did when I was younger. She loves Sunshine so much, but I know she has sacrificed more then I have.
6) I'm having trouble with my sling. I swear some of the hip mamas around are looking at me like "You suck with that messed up sling, you imposter!"
7) I worry that my mothering skills are being negatively evaluated often. (See #6). I know I should not care what people think so much.
8) I feel guilty when I get bored at home, or am wishing I could just check my email. I love her more then anything, but sometimes its taxing to take care of a baby.
9) I have trouble with getting onesies on still. Why must baby clothes be pulled over a baby's head? Every baby I have ever seen HATES this.
10) While nursing is going fine now, I still don't know when she has eaten enough, when she is hungry vs. wanting to suck, etc. I don't trust my intuition on this.
Its not that I need to be comforted about this, or be told I'm doing a good job or anything like that. I am mostly thinking about the identity shift that has happened. In some ways I am a different person, but in many ways, I feel the same. I am not someone who this stuff happens for naturally...like all those hip mamas with their calm infants in the slings!
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Dancing Queen, Young and Sweet, Only Seven Weeks
Before we started trying to have a baby, I read tons of things about having kids and did a lot of mental planning. I thought about what the nursery would be like, how I would tell my parents, what we would name the baby. As each try failed, my enthusiasm for these projects shrunk. When a year had gone by and I still wasn't pregnant, I pretty much stopped thinking about my still hypothetical kid. It was painful to give it too much energy.
However, there was one project I kept working on: My Ultimate Baby CD.
I have to confess that I don't know very much about music. I don't even listen to the radio, ever. I don't even like the question "What kind of music do you like?" because I never know what to say. However, when I was TTC, I became obsessed with the idea of creating a mix CD for yet-to-be-conceived-Sunshine. I started compiling a list of songs before we even started trying the IUIs. The list was a page in the back of my planner, and it grew and grew. I tried to incorporate songs from different musical genres. I tried to think of songs that would be appropriate and life affirming for a child. I checked in with Lovely Partner, who asked me to add Led Zeppelin, Tori Amos, and oddly, "You Can Call Me Al." I know it might sound silly, but this list was one of the things that kept me feeling positive about trying to have a baby. It was abstract enough not to hurt, but concrete enough that I felt like I was going to have a baby someday. It was a pleasant distraction from thinking about cervical mucus.
My sister started helping me with the project and soon we had an excel spreadsheet to sort the songs into categories ("Songs for and Inspired by the Gay Community," "Just Plain Fun Songs,"Soothing Sounds" etc.)
On the day Lovely Partner adopted little Sunshine, my sister presented us with the CDs, which must have taken her a really really long time to burn. It is a total of 8 cds, and over 100 songs.
(It also must have cost her a lot of money to buy the songs, and she confessed she did not already own any of the songs "For and Inspired by the Gay Community." )
Most days, I play these songs and dance with my baby. Every now and then a song will make me cry. Lovely Partner thinks its hilarious that I have included Christopher Plummer singing "Edelweiss." We have also clarified with each other that the way we dance at home with a baby (swaying like dorks) is not how we would dance at a club. It is hard to say, but Sunshine seems partial to "Do You Love Me?" by the Contours. So, I'm finding that I am listening to music a lot more these days.
However, there was one project I kept working on: My Ultimate Baby CD.
I have to confess that I don't know very much about music. I don't even listen to the radio, ever. I don't even like the question "What kind of music do you like?" because I never know what to say. However, when I was TTC, I became obsessed with the idea of creating a mix CD for yet-to-be-conceived-Sunshine. I started compiling a list of songs before we even started trying the IUIs. The list was a page in the back of my planner, and it grew and grew. I tried to incorporate songs from different musical genres. I tried to think of songs that would be appropriate and life affirming for a child. I checked in with Lovely Partner, who asked me to add Led Zeppelin, Tori Amos, and oddly, "You Can Call Me Al." I know it might sound silly, but this list was one of the things that kept me feeling positive about trying to have a baby. It was abstract enough not to hurt, but concrete enough that I felt like I was going to have a baby someday. It was a pleasant distraction from thinking about cervical mucus.
My sister started helping me with the project and soon we had an excel spreadsheet to sort the songs into categories ("Songs for and Inspired by the Gay Community," "Just Plain Fun Songs,"Soothing Sounds" etc.)
On the day Lovely Partner adopted little Sunshine, my sister presented us with the CDs, which must have taken her a really really long time to burn. It is a total of 8 cds, and over 100 songs.
(It also must have cost her a lot of money to buy the songs, and she confessed she did not already own any of the songs "For and Inspired by the Gay Community." )
Most days, I play these songs and dance with my baby. Every now and then a song will make me cry. Lovely Partner thinks its hilarious that I have included Christopher Plummer singing "Edelweiss." We have also clarified with each other that the way we dance at home with a baby (swaying like dorks) is not how we would dance at a club. It is hard to say, but Sunshine seems partial to "Do You Love Me?" by the Contours. So, I'm finding that I am listening to music a lot more these days.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
My night with Stella
Stella isn't the name of my daughter, its the name of a beer I just drank. My Lovely Partner has been encouraging me to get out of the house where I have been tethered to my Sunshine for 6 weeks today. Lovely tells me that I really need a break. In six weeks, I've spent roughly a total of 4 hours out of my house. Weird. I used to be such an active girl.
So I head out a local restaurant and have the above mentioned beer. Though I've always been a lightweight, this beer makes me feel ridiculously loopy. Maybe its from nursing, or not drinking beer for 9 months. I sit by myself at a booth and read the newspaper, inhaling election news, restaurant reviews, and gay gossip. I sort of....forget everything. Then, it feels oddly outrageous to be sitting there while Lovely is at home with the baby. I feel like a bad Mom. Still, I ordered dessert. I feel somewhat like my old self, reading the paper in a restaurant. For a few minutes, I am tranferred back to my old life. But yet, I don't really miss my old self, all carefree and ......leisurely. But I do I miss Lovely Partner! She should be here with me. We always said that we would go for sushi once we had the baby. However, this date is probably some time off as we nurse and care for an infant in a town far away from most of our loved ones and natural babysitters. I miss talking to her. Then I feel bad for not thinking my daughter should be here with me. Somehow, Lovely fits in with my image of a great night at the restaurant, but the baby doesn't. I wonder what they are doing right now, in this hour away from me. I've been craving some time to myself, but yet I'm sort of bored at the restaurant.
I think my identity has shifted because my old one isn't fitting somehow. I feel like an imposter, drinking beer and reading papers by myself in public. I stroll over to a public computer lab and logon to f.acebook, where I know Lovely has posted pictures of our daughter. I look throught them. I thought about the other night when Lovely and I went through the pictures from the day of the birth. We were both amazed to see that Sunshine looked like herself at birth. She seemed like a stranger 6 weeks ago, and now she is so familiar. Before we looked back at these pictures, we both assumed she must have looked different at birth for us to feel that way. But in the birth pictures, she is so familiar. So heartbreakingly sweet.
In the computer lab, I write this post. And that is how I spent the two hours away from my daughter today.
So I head out a local restaurant and have the above mentioned beer. Though I've always been a lightweight, this beer makes me feel ridiculously loopy. Maybe its from nursing, or not drinking beer for 9 months. I sit by myself at a booth and read the newspaper, inhaling election news, restaurant reviews, and gay gossip. I sort of....forget everything. Then, it feels oddly outrageous to be sitting there while Lovely is at home with the baby. I feel like a bad Mom. Still, I ordered dessert. I feel somewhat like my old self, reading the paper in a restaurant. For a few minutes, I am tranferred back to my old life. But yet, I don't really miss my old self, all carefree and ......leisurely. But I do I miss Lovely Partner! She should be here with me. We always said that we would go for sushi once we had the baby. However, this date is probably some time off as we nurse and care for an infant in a town far away from most of our loved ones and natural babysitters. I miss talking to her. Then I feel bad for not thinking my daughter should be here with me. Somehow, Lovely fits in with my image of a great night at the restaurant, but the baby doesn't. I wonder what they are doing right now, in this hour away from me. I've been craving some time to myself, but yet I'm sort of bored at the restaurant.
I think my identity has shifted because my old one isn't fitting somehow. I feel like an imposter, drinking beer and reading papers by myself in public. I stroll over to a public computer lab and logon to f.acebook, where I know Lovely has posted pictures of our daughter. I look throught them. I thought about the other night when Lovely and I went through the pictures from the day of the birth. We were both amazed to see that Sunshine looked like herself at birth. She seemed like a stranger 6 weeks ago, and now she is so familiar. Before we looked back at these pictures, we both assumed she must have looked different at birth for us to feel that way. But in the birth pictures, she is so familiar. So heartbreakingly sweet.
In the computer lab, I write this post. And that is how I spent the two hours away from my daughter today.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
But I Wanted to Write about How We Cried when Obama Won
One sunny day in 1997, I was taking a walk with my friend. She told me that she heard Ellen Degeneres was going to come out of the closet, and that she was going to make the main character on her show a lesbian. I was 24, and had been out for 3 years already. I pretty much knew Ellen was a lesbian (duh!) but I was surprised by the latest rumors about her TV show. I told my friend that I doubted that would happen. In fact, I told her that I didn't think a show about a lesbian starring an out lesbian would happen "in my lifetime." Of course, I was incredibly incredibly wrong. My laughable myopic statement was uttered just over a decade ago, but it seems like a lifetime. Out t.v and movie characters and public figures are commonplace. States legalized gay marriage. And, yes, our President-Elect explicitly included gay folk in his historic acceptance speech.
And yet.
So many of us had our celebration on Tuesday take a sadder tone when we learned the news of Prop 8. Lovely and I watched the returns, the speeches, the incredibly moving images of people dancing in Chicago, Kenya, Spellman College, Ebenezer Baptist church. We cheered, cried, and drank champagne. When Obama talked about what changes his daughters might see in America if they lived to be 106, I thought of my own daughter. She was nestled in Lovely's lap, wearing an Obama onesie, oblivious to the fact that her country had been changed forever. She slept through my happiest moment as an American. Then Lovely left the room and I checked the Prop 8 news. Not good. Terrible. I decided not to tell Lovely, who worked her ass off fighting an anti-gay amendment in our Home State in 2004, only to be crushed. I wanted her to continue to savor this night of hope and feeling included in something wonderful. She walked up to me and I tried to close the computer browser. But she looked at me and said "I just looked up the same thing in the other room."
I tried to focus on Obama and what it meant. I still celebrated all day Wednesday and felt jubilant, especially when seeing pictures of the First Family. I struggled with the idea that I might be missing the bigger picture of the election since it was "my' group that was screwed. But you can't totally shake it when a majority of people vote to take away your rights, the rights of people you love, and the rights of a community you call your own. I hurt for my friends in California. I thought of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon and what the people in California were saying about their beautiful inspiring marriage. It is hard to feel excited about inclusion when you are excluded. It is difficult to feel hope when yours dashed in state after state. It is nearly impossible to feel giddy about progress when you see a major step back.
So many people have remarked that Obama's win was something they would never see in their lifetime. How moving it is to hear the stories of people who toiled in the civil rights movement talk about what this election means to them. They talked about how impossible and far off this moment once seemed. They mentioned scars, pain, and losses.
As I despair about Prop 8 and what it means to my family, I'm going to try to keep these heroes in mind. To keep my eyes on the prize. To remember my conversation about Ellen and how change can come sooner than we think. To think about what beautiful and amazing changes my daughter will see if she lives to be 106. To hope it doesn't take that long. To work for it, even when victory seems impossible and far off.
Deep in my heart, I do believe, we will overcome. Someday.
And yet.
So many of us had our celebration on Tuesday take a sadder tone when we learned the news of Prop 8. Lovely and I watched the returns, the speeches, the incredibly moving images of people dancing in Chicago, Kenya, Spellman College, Ebenezer Baptist church. We cheered, cried, and drank champagne. When Obama talked about what changes his daughters might see in America if they lived to be 106, I thought of my own daughter. She was nestled in Lovely's lap, wearing an Obama onesie, oblivious to the fact that her country had been changed forever. She slept through my happiest moment as an American. Then Lovely left the room and I checked the Prop 8 news. Not good. Terrible. I decided not to tell Lovely, who worked her ass off fighting an anti-gay amendment in our Home State in 2004, only to be crushed. I wanted her to continue to savor this night of hope and feeling included in something wonderful. She walked up to me and I tried to close the computer browser. But she looked at me and said "I just looked up the same thing in the other room."
I tried to focus on Obama and what it meant. I still celebrated all day Wednesday and felt jubilant, especially when seeing pictures of the First Family. I struggled with the idea that I might be missing the bigger picture of the election since it was "my' group that was screwed. But you can't totally shake it when a majority of people vote to take away your rights, the rights of people you love, and the rights of a community you call your own. I hurt for my friends in California. I thought of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon and what the people in California were saying about their beautiful inspiring marriage. It is hard to feel excited about inclusion when you are excluded. It is difficult to feel hope when yours dashed in state after state. It is nearly impossible to feel giddy about progress when you see a major step back.
So many people have remarked that Obama's win was something they would never see in their lifetime. How moving it is to hear the stories of people who toiled in the civil rights movement talk about what this election means to them. They talked about how impossible and far off this moment once seemed. They mentioned scars, pain, and losses.
As I despair about Prop 8 and what it means to my family, I'm going to try to keep these heroes in mind. To keep my eyes on the prize. To remember my conversation about Ellen and how change can come sooner than we think. To think about what beautiful and amazing changes my daughter will see if she lives to be 106. To hope it doesn't take that long. To work for it, even when victory seems impossible and far off.
Deep in my heart, I do believe, we will overcome. Someday.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Salad in My Bra, Crying over Spilt Milk and Other Nursing Disasters
Believe me when I tell you that if I was more tech savvy or had more time I would've somehow made the theme from Jaws play when you read this post.
My lil Sunshine is 5 weeks old and doing very well. We've been doing a lot of learning, she and I.
Nursing has been the hardest thing for us to master. I am baffled as to why something that seems perfectly designed by nature has been so tricky for the two of us.
The rough patch started on day one, when the nurse threatened to take my baby to NICU if I didn't feed her formula or if some blood sugar number didn't go from 48 to "above 50." So already I was scared something was wrong with me, my milk, the baby. I quickly realized that I couldn't do many of the nursing positions people recommended because for several days I could not sit up or re-position my body due to the tailbone injury I sustained in labor. (I am looking forward to telling sunshine one day how I busted my ass birthing her) I kept nursing and it hurt. Every nursing guide in the world will tell you that if breastfeeding hurts, you are doing it wrong. Too which I wanted to yell "No freakin kidding!" I could not get it right. My nipples were raw and my heart hurt too from seeing my little baby at my breasts, wailing in frustration.
One breast got engorged and it really hurt. Sunshine couldn't latch on that side at all. The lactation consultant told me to put cabbage on it if that happened so I did. So I walked around for a couple of days with cabbage on my breast. My sister asked if I left like biblical Eve, but I told her I felt like goblaki. (My mother is Polish and prefers we use this term instead of "stuffed cabbage). I also had the fun of having other people push on my breast so that we could leak milk into a bottle. Luckily my body modesty was destroyed giving birth to Sunshine. If we pushed for an hour or so, we could get an ounce of milk to feed to her. When Lovely Partner accidentally kicked over some of the expressed breast milk, I cried. All that effort, dribbling on the floor. We tried to use the mechanical breast pump, but it came with its own set of problems and haunted me with a strange rhythmic noise that I swear sounded like "John McCain Sarah Palin John McCain Sarah Palin."
The worst part was the look on Sunshine's face as she was placed on me to be nursed. Her face would be beet red. Her mouth would be open as if screaming. Her little head would sort of bang against me and I imagined her thinking "Stop this now!" or "I hate you!" When we couldn't get any milk and I was scared I was starving her, we tried a bit of formula--in a bottle. That didn't help. (I later read that women thinking they are starving their babies is a main reason they quit breastfeeding). Sunshine still had trouble latching and then I did my Internet research and saw how a bottle can cause "nipple confusion." I felt like a complete idiot for not researching breastfeeding before, you know, having a baby. In extremely bad planning, I was collecting articles on making creative meals for toddlers instead. Finally I found some articles on curing nipple confusion. I bought special ice packs for breasts with holes where the nipples are. I realized my teeth were hurting from gritting them when she latched on. While she napped I dreaded the next time she would need to eat.
But, everyone kept telling me that it usually gets easier to nurse, so I kept trying. It did get easier, little by little. I put away the cabbage and started using my special boob ice packs less and less. My sunshine is a smart cookie and she started figuring out some things about nursing. I must've learned something too, though I don't remember how or when. The coolest part (besides knowing that I am successfully feeding my baby) is when we do get it right. Sometimes, she even grabs my finger with her little hand and grips it tight when she is nursing. Even though I know I am projecting, I like to tell myself this is her way of encouraging me and saying "Come on Mom, we can do this!"
I think that I like to reflect on the whole experience of learning to breastfeed because it helps me remember that there is a learning curve to a lot of this mothering stuff. Even if it doesn't come natural to me, I can still try to improve.
My lil Sunshine is 5 weeks old and doing very well. We've been doing a lot of learning, she and I.
Nursing has been the hardest thing for us to master. I am baffled as to why something that seems perfectly designed by nature has been so tricky for the two of us.
The rough patch started on day one, when the nurse threatened to take my baby to NICU if I didn't feed her formula or if some blood sugar number didn't go from 48 to "above 50." So already I was scared something was wrong with me, my milk, the baby. I quickly realized that I couldn't do many of the nursing positions people recommended because for several days I could not sit up or re-position my body due to the tailbone injury I sustained in labor. (I am looking forward to telling sunshine one day how I busted my ass birthing her) I kept nursing and it hurt. Every nursing guide in the world will tell you that if breastfeeding hurts, you are doing it wrong. Too which I wanted to yell "No freakin kidding!" I could not get it right. My nipples were raw and my heart hurt too from seeing my little baby at my breasts, wailing in frustration.
One breast got engorged and it really hurt. Sunshine couldn't latch on that side at all. The lactation consultant told me to put cabbage on it if that happened so I did. So I walked around for a couple of days with cabbage on my breast. My sister asked if I left like biblical Eve, but I told her I felt like goblaki. (My mother is Polish and prefers we use this term instead of "stuffed cabbage). I also had the fun of having other people push on my breast so that we could leak milk into a bottle. Luckily my body modesty was destroyed giving birth to Sunshine. If we pushed for an hour or so, we could get an ounce of milk to feed to her. When Lovely Partner accidentally kicked over some of the expressed breast milk, I cried. All that effort, dribbling on the floor. We tried to use the mechanical breast pump, but it came with its own set of problems and haunted me with a strange rhythmic noise that I swear sounded like "John McCain Sarah Palin John McCain Sarah Palin."
The worst part was the look on Sunshine's face as she was placed on me to be nursed. Her face would be beet red. Her mouth would be open as if screaming. Her little head would sort of bang against me and I imagined her thinking "Stop this now!" or "I hate you!" When we couldn't get any milk and I was scared I was starving her, we tried a bit of formula--in a bottle. That didn't help. (I later read that women thinking they are starving their babies is a main reason they quit breastfeeding). Sunshine still had trouble latching and then I did my Internet research and saw how a bottle can cause "nipple confusion." I felt like a complete idiot for not researching breastfeeding before, you know, having a baby. In extremely bad planning, I was collecting articles on making creative meals for toddlers instead. Finally I found some articles on curing nipple confusion. I bought special ice packs for breasts with holes where the nipples are. I realized my teeth were hurting from gritting them when she latched on. While she napped I dreaded the next time she would need to eat.
But, everyone kept telling me that it usually gets easier to nurse, so I kept trying. It did get easier, little by little. I put away the cabbage and started using my special boob ice packs less and less. My sunshine is a smart cookie and she started figuring out some things about nursing. I must've learned something too, though I don't remember how or when. The coolest part (besides knowing that I am successfully feeding my baby) is when we do get it right. Sometimes, she even grabs my finger with her little hand and grips it tight when she is nursing. Even though I know I am projecting, I like to tell myself this is her way of encouraging me and saying "Come on Mom, we can do this!"
I think that I like to reflect on the whole experience of learning to breastfeed because it helps me remember that there is a learning curve to a lot of this mothering stuff. Even if it doesn't come natural to me, I can still try to improve.
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