I Hate My Babysitter (But not really...)

Maternity leave is officially over. This is permanent. Lovely and I did the math, we can't pay our student loans and fertility debt unless we are both working. Hell, we can't even if we are both working. There is no way around daycare, right now. (I'm not against daycare at all, I just personally want to be home with my baby)

So I leave my Sunshine in the morning and pick her up at night. First I hand over my baby, then I hand over my money. It is a double blow. The absurdity of this situation never ceases to amaze me. And I know the childcare worker is underpaid, as well.

So I don't hate my babysitter, really. I'm jealous of all the time she spends with my baby.

We are lucky that my sister has agreed to be the live-in babysitter for January. Beyond lucky. She is gifted with babies and I get to see her so much more. She got laid off so I know I should be thankful that I have a job. Lots of people are losing theirs.

Little Sunshine seems okay with the adjustment. She smiles and coos and seems in a good mood most of the time. However, she has discovered the joys of reverse cycling. This is when a baby decides to nurse often during the night, typically after a Mom returns to work. (I read about it on go.ogle, so it must be true) She used to sleep in pleasant 7-8 hours stretches, now we are lucky to get three. This started exactly when I returned to work. I researched what I should do about this and my favorite advice was "Take reverse cycling as a compliment from your baby." I do my best to feel flattered at 12 a.m., 3 a.m. and 6a.m.

One good thing is that (for now) I am less stressed about every little thing Sunshine is doing. For one thing, I have less time to search the internet. But mostly its because problems seem temporary when babies change so damn fast. My internet search history already has "Baby won't nurse" "Baby nurses constantly" "Baby won't take bottle" "Baby takes too much bottle" "Baby sleeps too much" "Baby doesn't sleep enough." I honestly can't keep up. I'm just gonna hang on and assume that while I am writing about reverse cycling today, I might be writing about the opposite situation next week. Is there such thing as forward cycling?

Can We Learn Without Direct Experience?

Sometimes I have toyed with the idea that I can't learn except by actual experience. That is, advice never helps me. It is like I won't believe it until I see it. This partially explains my credit card debt and past (long ago, thank goodness) relationships with addicts. If only I had listened to what....gee everyone was telling me.

I now present my list of advice I WISHED I followed regarding pregnancy and having an infant:

1) Enjoy your pregnancy. Ha-easier said then done...but still I think I could've enjoyed it more. I know that pregnancy loss is real and the worst thing in the world. Still I wish I had savored that oddness that is feeling pregnant.

2) Write down something about your new baby every single day, no matter how short it is or how tired you are. So much of the first month is a blur. I wish I knew more about the hours she slept or how often she ate, how many diapers I changed a day. (Honestly if I could have a videotape of every moment of her first three months I would LOVE that)

3) Nursing will get better after 6 weeks. I guess I listened to this advice, but I never believed it for real because nursing was so painful and frustrating. It got so much better. It got great. I can't explain it but its one of the most empowering things I have done in my life. Highly recommended.

4) Enjoy the newborn stage. Its true that I thought I might lose my mind with my often crying newborn. When people gave me this advice I thought they were delusional. I was so scared of her vulnerability I wished she would get older quicker. But now I wish I had savored more the smell of her newborn skin, the smallness of her fist, the sheer newness of her. It really goes by so fast.

5) Stay Home with Your Newborn As Much As Possible. At the time I thought I needed to be out and about showing my baby the world around her. And maybe I felt a little cabin fever myself. We walked to coffeeshops and I took her on two visits across state lines. But she was stressed and I was stressed and now I think that sitting on the couch for three months is really not so bad. Its only three months.

Okay so lets see what advice I am getting now that I will regret not following......

Disbelief

I thought about my post about feet and how it might sound...as if biological connections were such an important thing. I can see how other Moms might feel about that and that might be insensitive. What I wanted to convey more was my sense of disbelief that I do have a daughter. I was someone who felt certain she would not arrive.

Sometimes I forget the TTC part is over. I got my first period the other day and when I saw the blood I felt alarmed, just like the old days. I have some clothes that I wore the day I had the miscarriage and I never wore them during my pregnancy. I felt like it was bad luck. I shove those clothes to the back of the drawer and then I remember that she is already here.

Happy Feet

I am still finding it hard to believe that I gave birth to the baby playing in the next room. I started this blog before I had her, and now she is real. I never could have dreamed up a more wonderful baby. I don't think she looks too much like me. She doesn't have my eyes, my nose, my mouth, my hair, or my facial shape. I feel like I have a good idea what her donor must look like. Her social security card and birth certificate haven't come yet, and occasionally I worry about not having identification for her.

I have bizarre thoughts, like someone will ask me to prove I birthed her. I imagine a stern man from the Department of Parental Security demanding evidence. "Look," I will say desperately while quickly pulling off my shoes and socks, "we have identical toes."

New Look

I have myself a new header, thanks to Calliope at creatingmotherhood.com. I "won" it from the Uterus Brigade. I've changed my subheading in homage to my Mom (not that she knows I have a blog) because she puts out a family newsletter called Mom's Musings.
Thanks Calliope!

Belated Thankgiving

Thank you to everyone who gave me advice and support on my Incompetence post. That was good stuff. Thanks to everyone who reads and comments or lurks. Your real perspectives (and the ones I just imagine) have helped me sort my thoughts.

Thanks especially to the bloggers, whose blogs give me so much freakin good information and inspiration. Before TTC, I didn't buy into the idea of "online community' and I have happily been proved wrong.

What's In a Name?

I use pseudonyms for this blog, which makes this story difficult to tell.

My name is Sarah Soda. My girlfriend is Lovely Partner. Our baby, Sunshine, has her last name. This was a decision we came to mutually. I gave our baby my DNA, she gave our baby her name. We don't have a double or hypenated last name. Our baby has two MIDDLE names, one of which is my last name. We are totally fine with this.

So, our baby is Sunshine Middle Soda Partner. (Which sounds like it is from the Sarah Palin Name Generator Game). To make it more confusing, Sunshine's real name is somewhat unusual and has a commonly used nickname, Sunny. Both my last name and my partner's name are also not pronounced as they are spelled. None of us have androgynous names. I love Sunshine's name, but I also recognize it's a name with issues.

After Sunshine was born, we received a lot of presents for her in the mail. An overwhelming, much-appreciated amount of packages. Since we live in an apartment with a broken doorbell on a busy street in an urban neighborhood, we did not receive many of the packages, but instead got a card from the post office asking us to pick them up at the Post office.

They have been addressed to: Sunshine Soda, Sunshine Partner, Sunny, Sunny c/o of Partner, Lovely and Sarah, Sunshine Soda Partner, Ms. Lovely Partner and Ms. Sarah Partner, Sunny Soda, Ms. Sunshine M.S. Partner etc. You get the idea.

So I go to the post office to pick up a bunch of packages. Anticipating a problem, I have Lovely sign the form that says I can pick up packages in her name, plus her Driver's License. I get to the post office right before it closes, and soon a long line is behind me. I hand over 4 cards all with different variations of the name, plus my I.D. and Lovely's I.D.

Postal Worker says "Well these packages appear to be for "Sunshine" and then there is one for "Ms. Lovely Partner, so what ones are you picking up"

Me: "Sunshine is a baby, she can't pick them up, so I am, and Lovely Partner signed here that I can pick her packages up"

Postal Worker "Well.....you only have a signature from Lovely Partner, when the packages are for Sunshine Partner."

Me: "Sunshine is an infant, so I am picking them up"

Postal Worker "Who is the Mom then?" (Crowd behind me gets impatient as Postal Worker scrutinizes all the I.D.s, all the cards, all the variations of Sunshine's name)

Me: "Both of Us" (Postal Worker doesn't hear me, still scrutinizing)

Postal Worker "What, who's the Mom?"

Me: "Her"

So yep, in a rush, with an impatient crowd behind me, I actually denied I was my daughter's mother. For what sociologist Goffman calls "ease of interaction." I wouldn't have done this if Sunshine was a grown child, and listening. (I don't think so anyway, although I would consider safety, her wishes, etc). But in this case, it was the quickest easiest way to get the packages. I know the same thing would happen for Lovely if Sunshine had my last name. I imagine this kind of thing will happen a lot. It still felt very weird.