Today I started my new job as stay-at-home-mommy-of-two. I started at about 3 AM, when I woke up to puke my head off. After I threw up, I laid in bed tossing and turning, needing to puke more but having nothing in my stomach with which to do so. I am not a fan of vomiting water and stomach acids. I drifted in and out of sleep for a bit, being woken up by my achey stomach and waves of nausea. Brendon was such an angel, though. He got fuuuull up on boobymilk before he went down and stayed down until about 7:30 AM. So I didn’t have to juggle him and my feelings of crappy all at once.

I didn’t sleep much, and still felt ridiculous when Alice woke up for the day (weak, shakey, clammy, achey, nauseous). But I took some ibuprofen and evetually ate something, and now I feel more or less back on a human level. Thank God for that, because I came dangerously close to throwing up on Alice as I cleaned her up after her breakfast.

Today has been rather uneventful. I’ve been dreading this for two weeks, but it’s not too bad so far. I feel like I’m constantly feeding someone or changing someone’s diaper, but that’s alright. And in a couple of months, Brendon won’t need changed nearly as often. And I will say that breastfeeding definitely appeals to my lazy nature.

I’m having a hard time absorbing things. The daytime used to be just for Alice and I. Now we’re learning to share our time with someone else. And I’m breastfeeding. This is huge! I have a hard time absorbing that, as well. I have a hard time absorbing that I’m a mother of two now. How did we get here? My life seems like it has advanced 10 years in about 3 short ones.

I’m going to do this. I am doing this.

My first Mothers Day has come and gone.  It was a day full of fishes, cuddles (not with the fishes, though), good food and relaxation. It’s hard to imagine being relaxed with a day as packed as ours was, but apparently it’s possible. Maybe when the kids are older, I won’t be so apt to wanting to go out and do something for Mothers Day. Maybe I’ll be requesting a day to sleep in instead.

 

Now that everything has wound down, and Alice and I have returned to our regularly scheduled programming (wake up, play, eat, play, nap, repeat until bedtime), I’m able to think a little more. Mothers Day celebrates moms, and most young women my age are not yet moms. As a matter of fact, most women my age don’t want to be moms for at least another 6 years. But then again, they also want to travel the world and have shiny brand new vehicles and Coach handbags on a full-time college student’s income (which is, more often than not, $0 a week). I don’t know how they think the world works, really.

 

I got to thinking about why I decided to become a mom. I mean, why did I? And I don’t say this in a “Oh my God, what’s happened to my life, how did I get here” sense. I know I always felt like I wanted to be a mother, but I have a hard time pinpointing exactly why. Is it this way for anyone else? I mean, you’d assume I pondered this before we got pregnant with Alice, but I didn’t really. Not much, and not too deeply.

 

My thoughts get gummed up with what other people think, the reasons a lot of outside people believe drove me to be a mom. That if I had a kid, I could be “lazy”, stay home with her, not get a job. Or that I have mommy issues. Or that we just simply don’t know how to use birth control.  Becoming a mother seems to be a negative thing in a lot of circles around here. Or at least that’s the impression I get.

 

You know what I like about being a mom? Waking up to that chubby baby smile everyday. Smelling her hair after a bath (can she just use that baby soap until she’s 20? Please?). Getting down on the floor and looking at things from her perspective. Watching her face when she sees something she’s never seen before. Seeing her face light up when she learns something new. That time of the evening when she’s starting to get sleepy, and just wants to sit on your lap and cuddle into you. Seeing her toes go straight to her mouth during diaper changes. And that laugh of hers, oh boy.

 

Maybe I’ll never pinpoint why I became a mom. I know why I love it, and I know that there’s no job I’d like better. Maybe I’m not supposed to know why. Maybe that would take away from the experience.

 

All I know is I am crazy about my little girl, and I’m trying my hardest to be the best mommy I can be for her. And really, that’s what’s important. Not what brought me here, but what I do now that I am here.

Bald spot, ahoy!

My daughter is 5 months, 1 week and 3 days old. She came into the world beautifully, almost seamlessly, on October 25th, 2008.  My life has become a whirlwind that I have not only submitted myself to entirely, but have also enjoyed. Who knew that someone who really knows so little about the world could teach you so much.

I have learned that most things are out of my control, no matter how much I hate it. January 31st, I felt an entire loss of control. Alice was sick. So sick that I had been crying more than her, because I was so scared. This was my first big flare-up of momma intuition.

All day that day, people kept telling me that she was fine. She’d been diagnosed with RSV after two visits to the ER, and I seemed to be the only one in my little world who understood how bad that can be. I swear, they hear that it comes from the common cold virus and think it’s nothing. I knew, though. Her wheezing and coughing fits were not “fine”. Something was off, very off. But, I kept rolling over and saying “You’re probably right, I’m probably worrying over nothing”.

That evening, Al was melting down. She was simply losing it. She felt so terrible and was so exhausted. As were we, since we’d had a cumulative 9 hours of sleep for the two days prior… and that’s the two of us combined. I called my sister and asked her if she could come assist so we could catch a couple hours of snooze time. She comes over, no fuss. But things just escalate with Alice, and I never hit the mattress. Instead, I hit the ground running when she had a coughing fit that lasted about 5 minutes, one where she began to turn blue.

Once she stabilized, we drove to the hospital. The cold air in the car seemed to help, she was being more like her old self. But I knew she wasn’t okay. I knew I should have just taken her in earlier in the day when I first had my doubts. Those doubts were there for a reason, but I let other people tell me I was wrong.

The ER doctor was, quite frankly, a total bitch. I am a young mother. But, being a young mother and being lazy and incompetent are not automatically best buddies. I do my damndest to take the best care I can of this little girl, and I went into overdrive when she got sick. This doctor had the gall to imply that not only was I not helping her at home (we had a nebulizer, which I had been using, it just wasn’t helping her anymore), that I was just tired of her and wanted someone to take her off my hands for me while she’s sick. I haven’t felt rage so strong in a long time. It burned in my torso. My lips tightened in an attempt to keep everything I could have said trapped in my throat. My hands gripped my seat so hard my knuckles popped. Who is she to come in and call me lazy? Who is she to come in and pretend that I haven’t been bending over backwards and jumping to the moon for this baby?

My sister was my backbone in there. Without her, I wouldn’t have had the strength to push for a second opinion. After single handedly insulting my parenting and my integrity, she was getting ready to send Alice home. Even knowing that this was Alice’s third visit there in two days. She rolled her eyes as we pushed for what was needed, and eventually she gave in. The head doctor came in, and decided pretty much right then that there was no way he was sending her home. I never did see that ER doctor again after that. Not a bad thing.

Alice was admitted, and stayed for three days. She was on oxygen for two of those, with nebulizer treatments up to her eyeballs. When we were relocated from the ER to the isolation unit, I was asked if I would be staying there with her. Shock strikes once again. You mean there are people who leave their babies here alone? I spend everyday with Al, and there is no way I could leave her. Especially not in a situation like this. I turn to the well meaning nurse and proudly answer “yes”. They checked her vitals, and even though she was breathing pretty normally, her oxygen levels were ridiculously low.

My baby girl is so strong. She was so very brave there. She kept all the nurses coming back for more, with her smiles and giggles. Her motto apparently was “RSV? What’s RSV? I’m gonna chew on my crinkle bug instead!”.

 

She is currently sleeping, in her crib, where she has been since about 9:45 PM. She’s wonderful, no lie.

Pregnancy truly is magical. Just watch as you go from looking for signs that you are pregnant… to looking for signs of labor. See yourself go from squinting to see if that second line is really there, to trying to discern Braxton Hicks and gas pains from real contractions. The biggest magic trick of all; watch yourself go from being ecstatic to have that little baby growing inside of you, to wanting nothing more than for it to make it’s way out of you.

 

Now, if only giving birth were similar to pulling a rabbit out of a top hat…

I didn’t think I’d be one of those women who was losing her marbles near the end of the pregnancy. The woman looking for any safe way to get things moving, to a point of obsession, as if she doesn’t already know her (very limited) options. As if she might find some magic at-home solution. But I’ll be damned if I haven’t reached that point.

 

With a forever broken tailbone, torn cartilage in my ribs and a baby’s head cuddling my cervix so hard that I feel as if she could fall out when I walk, I think I can safely say I have reached the point of “get this baby out of me”. Admitting it is the first step on the road to recovery. But no matter how much I exercise my google-fu and read all sorts of odd techniques, I realize that she will not budge for anything unless she’s ready. Doesn’t make things any easier, of course.

 

My mom had four kids. According to some sources, she seemed to have the castor oil method down to a science. Almost like she could just ingest it and suddenly will her body into labor. Was it the castor oil, or was it us kids knowing that if we didn’t get out of there soon she’d lose her mind? Maybe the castor oil was just a signal to us that if we didn’t get moving she wouldn’t be too far off from reaching in there and dragging us out herself. But we’ll never know.

 

I know I should put less effort into finding contraction-starting magic tricks and more effort into gathering up the patience I need to keep dragging along. But here’s a good question; where the hell do I find this spring of patience? Google is failing me on this one. Is it nestled into the shelves along with the red raspberry leaf tea and evening primrose oil? Tucked in with that breast pump that seems like it would do a good job at the whole nipple stimulation technique? Is this some weird way of punishing me for finding out about this pregnancy before I’d even missed a period? Damn you, First Response gods. Five days sooner, or five days longer that you can torture the hell out of me?

 

I’m going to leave you now so I can properly consume what could be considered a lethal amount of pineapple. Time will tell on that one.

“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born.  She never existed before.  The woman existed, but the mother, never.  A mother is something absolutely new.”

-Rajneesh

“Been there, done that” moms; you are a serious drag sometimes. You can be awesome sources of information, but some of you can be a drag. I understand the noble idea of trying to give first-time moms an idea of what might be in their near future but seriously, pull back on the Debbie Downer act just a little. Since getting pregnant, I have heard 97% horror stories and warnings, and about 2% touting the positive aspects of motherhood and parenting. Where did the other 1% go? Random gurgling noises from their babies.

 

I think it’s mostly common knowledge that having a baby means less sleep. This is one of the most famous aspects of new parenthood. So why the need to bring it up like it’s breaking news? Also, we all know babies crap in their diapers and that if you have a baby, you’ll be the one changing those diapers about 90% of the time if not all of the time. Not a newsflash and, for most women, not shocking.

 

I hear these things from other moms, and I wonder, “don’t they have anything more constructive to say?”. It’s no wonder so many women fear becoming a mother, it’s made out to be like having a tooth extracted. Everyday. For the rest of your life. We get tons of warnings on what we’ll be having to sacrifice and what could go wrong, and hardly any positive reinforcement that we can, indeed, handle it. Or even that it might be, dare I say, rewarding at some points?

 

At a birthday party for my niece last night my husband and I were talking to a family friend who now has a 6 month old son. My husband was talking about how people at work keep telling him about how miserable he’s going to be because he won’t be sleeping for months, whatever typical newborn-related horrors they can think of. She looked at us, and with a certain sincerity to her candor, said “You will be tired, but it’s a good tired. It’s a different tired. And it doesn’t last forever”. (And in the big picture, it really doesn’t.)

 

That’s a new one. Honesty, paired with some encouraging words. Strange concept… why can’t we get a little more of that? It’s not pretending that new parenthood is easy and all rainbows and teddy bears, but it’s also not pretending that you’re going to want to kill yourself because your life is changing. Which, I guess some people feel that way, but that’s a pretty dramatic situation to just assume applies to all new parents.

 

What I’m getting at is this; enough stating the obvious, enough doom and gloom, it’s not constructive. Go ahead and be honest, but don’t forget to add how much you love that look on your baby’s face when you go in to pick them up out of their crib in the morning, or how much fun you have giving baby a bath, or whatever parts of being a mom you actually enjoy. We need the honesty, but it’s just as important that we hear some positives as it is for us to hear some negatives. Without a good balance, you end up with a mother who’s shaking in her boots over this impending journey. And what good does that do for anyone, really?

I have lived the past 8 months in chunks of weeks and “milestones”. All sorts of milestones. My first puking session, my first ultrasound, feeling the baby kick for the first time, the list goes on. These milestones help to make it through the crazy, insanely long, “Why the hell do I have to wait so damn long” 280 day gestational period. And that’s to be taken with a grain of salt, of course, since some babies hold out longer than that. And if this little girl is anything like her momma, she’ll be stubborn and hold out as long as possible.

 

The 280 day gestational period is just long enough to develop all sorts of anxieties about impending motherhood, I have learned. Anxieties about things that, in a non-pregnant state of mind, you most likely never would have thought of. First-time pregnant women can be funny like that. I’ve known women who’ve gone into complete panic mode over the sighting of the first stretch mark. I felt like I was about to have an anxiety attack when trying to figure out an arrangement for the bedroom that would better enable me to fit a bassinet next to me, and couldn’t figure out a way. It’s safe to say… we are weird.

 

The gestational period is also just long enough for you to fold and organize baby’s clothes a total of 561 times. In a three week period, of course.

 

And luckily enough, this gestational period is also long enough to realize that the stretch mark was going to show up no matter how much of that $45 stretch mark serum you basted your body with, the bassinet doesn’t need six feet between itself and the nearest wall, and baby isn’t going to care if her onesies are arranged by color from smallest to largest and with specific colored hangers for each size… still, doesn’t hurt to do that, right? We figure it out by ourselves eventually. I think that’s why we were given 280 days (give or take).

 

Out of those 280 days, I have 47 left. Just long enough to wonder, “will I really be able to do this?”. This is the least amusing anxiety that I’ve had come up. It’s a valid question, can I really do this? I’m supposed to go push this little girl out through my lady parts, bring her home two days later and be competent enough to handle her? How am I even worthy of her? She’s been a mystery to me for so long now, will I be in such complete awe of her that I have issues functioning? Will Gilligan EVER get off that island? I don’t know.

 

But I’ve got about 47 days to figure it out.

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

-Elizabeth Stone