Second Time Mom: Reality Check

Otherwise known as Respect the Nap: Take Two.

Having a newborn is no big deal, I thought.

I've done it before.

Piece of cake.

Eat. Sleep. Poop.

Put the baby down drowsy but awake.

Paci, swaddle, etc.

I got this.

........

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Sorry.

I never realized just how arrogant my first-time-mom-self was, thinking I had this parenting thing all figured out just because I'd done it once.

Yeah, sure, I'm not a First Time Mom (FTM), but I might as well be. Each kid is its own universe, its own puzzle to figure out.

That's the first thing Z and I learned from the first moment we saw baby C.

"She has hair on her head!"

"Her eyes are DARK!"

"She is so different from M!"

So many things about C are different from M, and most of them have nothing to do with her physical features. And why shouldn't she be different? She's a different person! Duh.

Yet somehow, while pregnant with her, I imagined her to be M's clone. And, of course, she isn't.

For one thing, she will. not. take. a. paci. (Arg.)

She also will. not. take. a. nap. (Arg!) Even though I'm paying attention to all her sleep signals and rocking her and feeding her and changing her and trying to get her to take the darn paci! (ARG!!!)

And because she hardly naps during the day, she doesn't sleep at night, either. Because overtired babies don't sleep. And they also wake up their older sisters with their crying. And their older sisters wake THEM up when they finally DO drift off for a brief snooze because of the monsters in the closet (obviously). So, basically, no one in our house is getting any sleep.

Do you see why I'm sounding slightly crazed??? And using multiple question marks at the end of my questions?????

So here we are, Z and I, back to figuring out how to get our newborn to sleep so that WE can sleep. Because that is basically the ultimate goal of the first few weeks (or months?) of parenthood - figure out how to GET. MORE. SLEEP. (Or how about just 'get ANY sleep?')

And obviously having M - who is now three years old, by the way - in the mix is NOT helping the matter.

I'd like to think I will continue writing here. I want to keep this blog going longer than I did when M was a baby.

But it might have to wait until I stop obsessing about sleep.

...If I make any major breakthroughs in the 'getting sleep' department, I will be sure to let you know.

After I sleep for several days straight, of course.

Who Is She Talking To?

Below is a comic I drew depicting an actual event that happened between my daughter and me a few weeks ago. The comic is clearly just in the "rough sketch" phase, but as I'm not a comic artist, it will probably stay there. Also, notice some scribble at the bottom and some crinkling at the top corner, courtesy of my two year old. This comic is authentic toddler.

Wobbly Balance

I know it's been five million years since I've written here.

(Okay, so maybe a slight exaggeration.)

But I am trying to get back into the swing of things for a few reasons.

Firstly, M is now two years old and there is SO much to write about. Potty training is around the bend!

Secondly, I am trying to build my career as a writer (yeah, me and the rest of the world...) and what better way to feel like I'm doing that than writing? Okay, so it's for my own blog and I'm not getting paid for it. But still.

Besides, I miss writing.

So here goes.

Parenting a toddler feels like you're standing on one of those wobbly balance boards that OTs and PTs like to use when you have bad handwriting. (Oh, was that just me?) I think it has more to do with core strength than with handwriting, but they tell me everything is connected. It's an apt analogy though because, especially as a first time mom, I feel like I am strengthening my core parent muscles. Before toddlerhood, parenting was pretty much about feeding and changing the baby. She didn't need discipline. The most structure she needed was mealtime and bedtime. Now, I feel like every time my toddler challenges me or pushes me to see what I will allow and what I won't, and how I will react when I don't allow something, I am defining every future head-to-head we will have together (against each other?). I know that sounds dramatic, and it's probably not entirely true. I am sure that at this stage, I can change my mind about how I feel about something and M will adapt easily. But the thing is, when she's checking to see how I will react to things, I'm checking to see how I will react. Because I don't know, either! And sometimes I find that I've hesitated too long trying to figure out the proper way to react when my daughter starts jumping on our big, couch-like ottoman (On the one hand, she shouldn't be jumping on furniture, but on the other, it is big and couch-like, and do I really want to be that parent who is constantly saying no? And it means I can go start dinner...), that the moment has passed and M has moved on to emptying the toy bins.

It's hard to find a good balance between being relaxed yet also firm. We need rules, but we don't have to be that family where the kids aren't allowed in the living room. So how do we find that balance?

...I will let you know once I've figured it out!

Imagining myself on a balance board seems to work. There's room to lean to one side or the other, but you don't want to lean too far from the center or you fall over. (See how deep I can be?)

Speaking of strengthening your core, aside from writing on this blog I am also trying to get back into exercising. When I say get back into, I mean back into starting. Because I never really got farther than about one week into any program I have attempted. I am working through this program called MuTu which stands for Mummy Tummy (it's British). You see, I have a diastasis from my pregnancy with M.

What is a diastasis, you ask?

It's really called diastasis recti and it's when a person's core/stomach muscles (also known as the rectus abdominus, or your six-pack muscles) have separated because of internal pressure (like a baby!). It's common after pregnancy yet many women don't even realize they have this. Men can get it too if they work out a lot and put internal pressure on their core muscles. An obvious sign of a diastasis is when your stomach pouches out but it's not due to weight. It gets worse throughout the day as you eat and is a real bummer.

This exercise program is supposed to help close the gap between the stomach muscles, which I hope will make me look less pregnant! You know it's bad when the cashier at The Limited wishes you congratulations and you're like, wow, they're so festive here, no one's ever wished me congratulations on buying a dress before! And then, after a beat, you realize what she means. And you're like, man, now I don't even want this dress anymore! But you already bought it, so you just mumble thank you (about nothing) and leave and vow to never go back to The Limited again. (That probably won't happen.)

Anyway, today was day 1 of re-starting the MuTu program. I've started and re-started about three times already, but I figure if I write about it, maybe I'm more likely to continue it.

So not only am I wobbly about my parenting limits and how I handle things (right now M is watching the Mother Goose Club on my husband's computer so I can finish writing this), but my legs are all wobbly from exercising.

A great start to the day!

No, but really, thanks to M I actually have to stick with exercising, something I've never really done before in my life. Hopefully I will see the program through! And figure out balance as a parent. :)

Formula Feeding is Just Fine, Too

When I was pregnant, I was set on nursing my baby until at least the age of six months, which is the recommended amount of time as stated by the American Academy of Pediatrics. I read about the pros and cons, about latching, mastitis and how to deal with it, and researched what kind of pump I should get. I eagerly looked forward to holding my newborn skin-to-skin immediately after being born and getting her to latch on for our first precious moments of parent-child bonding.

Then M was born via c-section and whisked away to the NICU.

After about two hours in the recovery area after surgery, I was finally brought to my room. It was about two thirty in the morning. The main requirement for leaving the recovery area was ability to move my legs because the hospital transport personnel were not allowed to help me from the transportation bed into my hospital bed. When we got to my room, I somehow maneuvered myself from one bed to the other, relieved to finally be able to go to sleep. I had never felt so drained and tired in my life.

Then the NICU called. It was time to feed my baby. Did I want to come try and nurse her?

Yes! Yes, I did! But I was so tired and could not move. Like, at all.

"I have to go nurse my baby," I said to the night nurse, who had brought me a whole pitcher of water and a stack of cups.

She looked at me and almost laughed.

"No, you don't," she said. "You're not going anywhere. You're going to sleep."

Too exhausted to fight her, I downed the pitcher of water instead. Besides, she was right.

The next day, the pain from surgery set in. I didn't let that stop me, though. I was determined to nurse my baby! I waited about an hour and a half for transport to come wheel me her.

There she was--the healthiest baby in the NICU. She wore a cute yellow knitted hat made by some old ladies who donated their knittings to NICU babies (even healthy NICU babies who are only there for precautionary measures). Her skin was so pale it was almost translucent. Her eyes were like blueberries. She was beautiful. And she was hungry.

A nurse handed her to me and I tried to have her latch on. It worked, sort of. But she was screaming out of hunger. I wanted to nurse her, but she was not getting anything from me and I was afraid she was starving. I was also still exhausted and in pain. I just wanted to feed my baby and snuggle with her, whether it was through breastfeeding or bottle. At that moment, I didn't care.

So bottle it was. I cradled her as I fed her from a tiny two-ounce Similac bottle that looked more like a test tube with a nipple on the end. She was my beautiful baby and I was providing for her. Who cared if it was through vitamin-enriched, iron-fortified formula?

Throughout my stay in the hospital, I continued to try and breastfeed my daughter. Because she wasn't in the room with me, I also had to pump. This was where the real trouble started.

I hated pumping.

I felt like a cow hooked up to a milking machine.

There was also never a good time to do it. People were always coming in and out of my room, whether it was visitors, nurses, or doctors. I hardly ever had a stretch of privacy time where I could feel uncomfortable by myself instead of in front of an audience.

By the time we were discharged from the hospital, M had been exclusively formula-fed.

After about a day at home, my milk finally came in. But by that point, I was in pain from my incision and healing muscles, exhausted from staying up all night with my newborn, and overwhelmed by the thought I might never sleep again. I thought about starting to nurse. Then I thought about the pain of it and the complications. It was too much. M was so happy and thriving well on formula. I was happy others were able to feed M when I needed some recuperation time. I didn't want to throw another wrench in the mix when things were already difficult.

So formula feeding it was. And still is.

M is currently ten months old, crawling, babbling, cruising, climbing stairs, eating solids, playing peekaboo, and generally adjusting to life beautifully. She, I, and my husband have a tight family bond. I would not change a thing about the way we are raising her--including bottle feeding.

I felt guilty about not nursing my daughter for a long time. But the fact is, breast is not necessarily best. You have to take all factors into consideration, and it is always good to be skeptical of blanket statements about absolutes (something is not usually "best" or "worst," just like one should avoid making statements about "always" or "never.").

Lucie's List, an excellent resource for new parents, linked to two articles that came out in the past year about how new research shows that the claimed benefits of breastfeeding over bottle feeding are not necessarily accurate. In a study about siblings where some were breastfed and some were bottle fed, no significant difference was found regarding intelligence, BMI, reading and math skills, and hyperactivity. An article on the New York Times blog writes about the same (or a similar) study, suggesting that it is not the way a baby is fed but the kind of family the baby is born into that brings about the benefits attributed to breastfeeding; apparently women of higher-class families are more likely to breastfeed, which skews the studies about breast vs. bottle fed babies, as there are other significant variables to consider.

Breastfeeding is good way to feed your baby. So is bottle feeding. As long as you are making the healthiest choice for you and your baby (nutritionally healthy as well as mentally and emotionally healthy), you are doing what is "best."

So that Similac commercial everyone is commenting on? I think they got it right. In the end, we're all parents trying to make the best choices we can for our children. It's not about how we feed them. Or diaper them. Or tote them around. It's about loving them and being the best parents we can be to them, taking into account our different personal and family situations.

Because taking into account the overall health of our families? That's what's best.

The Working Mom Post

If you google "working mom" or "working from home" or "stay at home mom," a myriad of posts will pop up. It seems like every mommy or daddy blogger out there writes about this topic - probably because there is an incredible amount of pain/guilt/ambivalence/relief/joy/name-your-emotion-here about going to work, working at home, and leaving your career to stay home with your kid(s).

I haven't updated this blog in a few months - I do apologize! Though one thing I had resolved not to do a long time ago was to apologize for not writing. I used to apologize in my own personal journals that no one else was reading (as if the journal cared!) and it would keep me from getting back to writing; I would feel like too much time had passed and there was no way to catch my writing up. Well, with that attitude, I would never grow as a writer. I just have to pick back up and get going again as if the large gap never happened.

Back to the topic at hand, the first time I left M with the babysitter to go to work, I felt this knot start to tighten in my chest. I wanted to turn right around, let the babysitter go, and stay with my M forever. The knot slowly loosened as I started my first day at work. I became involved in teaching my classes and getting through my first day.

By the time I picked M up (we bring her to a shared babysitter), I was in a much better mood and so excited to see her. She, being only five months old at the time, barely reciprocated, batting at the hanging toys on the play mat instead. I could not wait until she was a few months older and would greet me with a gummy smile and gleeful squeal.

Well, now we are a few months later--M is nine and half months old and it is even harder to leave her! She suddenly started noticing the people in her life and watches me leave with this blank expression on her face that I take to mean, "There you go, leaving me--again." Is the reward of her happiness to see me later worth the sadness and guilt of leaving her in the first place?

So many parents ask this question and there doesn't seem to be a simple answer. Some quit their jobs and rave about all the time they can spend with their kids. Others warn not to become a stay at home parent because you will go crazy with the kids all day and have a hard time getting back into the working world later. Some lament having to go to work. Others feel guilty about admitting that they enjoy those hours with other adults and without having to take care of a screaming baby. Yet others complain about working from home and ignoring their kids.

I am lucky enough to work a ten minute walk from where we live. I spend the mornings with M, then drop her off at the babysitter and teach in the afternoons. It is still hard to leave M every day. I don't necessarily feel that freedom from kids when I leave her, as I then go and spend my afternoon with 90-something students. But at least they're not babies, right? Still, I miss M when I'm not with her. In between classes, I turn on my phone just so I can see her picture on my lock screen background.

Like I said in my very first post on this blog, I am not here to provide answers. If you're looking for solutions to parenting issues, you will not find them here. I am only sharing my experience in the hopes that you will be able to relate and feel you are not alone. I hope this post does that for you.

Respect the Nap

During the first few weeks of M's life, I could not understand why people would say to never disturb a sleeping baby. I disturbed M all the time and she just went right back to sleep. That's the thing about newborns - they sleep all. the. time. Often, M would fall asleep while eating and, no matter how hard I tried, I could not wake her up to finish her bottle. I tried stroking her cheek, calling her name, kissing her, tickling her, changing her diaper, and any other way I could think of 'disturbing' her. She just would not wake up! The only thing that occasionally worked was the diaper change, probably because it was cold.

Then, at about 6-8 weeks, M began screaming uncontrollably in the late afternoon into the evening.

"It's the witching hour," veteran moms would nod, giving me that knowing, sympathetic look. So I chalked up the frantic crying to this so-called 'witching hour' and thought we would have to deal with the screaming every night until the magical age of three months, when babies apparently suddenly become better adjusted to things like sleeping and eating.

Several times, I called the doctor in a panic because M would not stop crying and I thought she would just cry herself blue. The doctor called it "colicky behavior" and suggested wearing her in a front-carrier in the afternoons (I think I did this one time), holding her upright after feedings (we always did this), and burping her several times throughout her meals (we did this since she was born).

Then I read something life-changing online. I can't remember exactly where it was, but somebody wrote about the importance of following your baby's cues. After all, especially when they are so young, babies act on instinct. They don't get hungry or tired because they are bored; they get hungry because they need food and they get tired because they need sleep! It is very important to notice when your baby tells you she is hungry or tired and to respond to her needs. If you learn your baby's cues, you will be able to give her what she needs BEFORE she starts crying.

Unbelievable.

Young newborns often show they are hungry by sucking on their fingers. M used to try to eat my shirt. (She still does this, but now it is because she constantly tries to eat everything.) Babies show they are tired by yawning, rubbing their eyes, fussing, or just lying amongst their toys staring but not playing with them.

Once I learned to notice M's cues and respond to them almost immediately, her nighttime screaming stopped. I realized she had been crying so hard because I had let her get overtired. I was so used to her falling asleep instantly in the first few weeks of her life that I wasn't yet trained (yes, trained!) to put her to bed for a nap when she needed it. As babies mature, they become more like us--they need the proper environment to sleep. M sleeps best in her crib while wearing her sleep sack and sucking a pacifier. We keep the fan on a low setting to circulate some air and provide some white noise to help her drift off.

Now that M gets her naps when she needs them, she has been sleeping much better at night and is usually in a happy mood while awake. That's not to say there aren't days when she still gets overtired (especially if we are out all day--she does not nap well in her stroller) or cries at night for other reasons, but overall, if I listen to the cues she gives me, she is a much happier baby--which makes me a much happier mommy!

Our babies can't talk, but they can definitely communicate--so pay attention to them!

And respect the nap, people. Respect the nap.

Expect Anything: Part Three

When we last left off, I was in labor and found out I had a fever. Though I was not feeling sick (aside from feeling freezing) and I was still comfortable from the epidural, I became anxious to get the baby out and make sure she and I were okay.

For another several hours, I lay on the bed waiting. The nurse turned out the lights and told me to get some sleep. According to her, it would be the last time I would be able to get a real restful sleep for a while (she was so right!). Unfortunately, I was so worried about my fever causing complications that I couldn't sleep much.

Finally, my doctor came in, checked my cervix, and declared it was time to start pushing. She turned the lights on and dropped the end of the bed. The change from being in labor to getting ready to push seemed to happen out of nowhere since the epidural prevented me from feeling contractions.

The proper way to push, the nurse said, was to wait for a contraction, then take a deep breath and push while counting to ten. Though in movies and on TV, women often scrunch up their face to push, the nurse said not to push with my face but with my body.

I severely underestimated the difficulty of pushing after having an epidural. Though they stopped the epidural medication, I did not gain back enough feeling to have an "urge to push," as many people describe.

My daughter was +2 already by the time I started pushing, which meant she was in the birth canal and I just had to get her past the bone. No matter how hard I pushed, she would not budge. After a few minutes of trying, my doctor said the baby was not tolerating the pushing. Her heart rate went down significantly every time I had a contraction. Hearing that scared me. The nurse gave me an oxygen mask because "more oxygen for mommy means more oxygen for baby."

"We're probably going to have to do a c-section," said my doctor.

A c-section! I was not prepared to get a c-section! Not mentally, not emotionally...I was a mess.

Yet, I had a fever, the baby wasn't tolerating the pushing, and she wasn't making any progress in the birth canal.

"I really don't want a c-section," I insisted. After all, I had only just started pushing! Maybe I would get better at it.

Thankfully, the baby responded well to the extra oxygen, so I was allowed to continue trying to push her out. My doctor left for a while, but the nurse stayed. She was amazing. She shouted at me like a coach shouting at her star player. When it was clear I needed more help, she tried various strategies to help my pushing along, such as elastic things for me to pull while pushing.

I kept having to take off the oxygen mask to push, then put it back on while I caught my breath and waited for the next contraction. I was starting to feel the contractions again, but could still barely feel enough in the right areas to push effectively.

After about an hour and a half of pushing, my doctor returned.

"We need to do a c-section," she said.

Sweaty, exhausted, and frustrated, I started to cry. But I nodded my head, because I was tired of all the hard work with no progress.

"Don't cry," said my mom. "It's perfectly okay to have a c-section. As long as the baby is born healthy, that is all that's important."

I was scared of having surgery, and I felt like a failure in the pushing department, but I was also a little bit relieved as they wheeled me into the maternity operating room. I was so tired.

The operating room was at the end of the hallway in the labor and delivery ward. Z changed into scrubs and came with me. At this point, my father had arrived at the hospital--he and my mother waited in the family waiting area.

Thankfully, they started giving me epidural medicine again (those contractions were starting to get painful!). They also took away the oxygen mask and gave me oxygen through my nose instead. The anesthesiologist joked around with Z and me, and generally made us feel much more comfortable. Truthfully, Z seemed pretty comfortable anyway and mostly excited to finally have his baby.

They dropped a blue paper curtain down at around my chest area, blocking my and Z's view of the actual surgery. Several surgeons surrounded the lower 3/4 of my body. I could hear them talking and felt some odd tugging and pulling. The anesthesiologist gave us some general updates in his good-natured manner.

"This is it!" he said after a while. "You're going to feel a lot of tugging now!"

"There he is!" said my doctor. I felt a big tug and then heard a cry.

He? I thought. I knew what we were having, and it wasn't supposed to be a he...

I could vaguely see my doctor hold something up and declare, "Ooooh, he is a SHE!"

That was more like it!

They showed me my red, screaming baby with a cone-head from the pushing and I could hardly hold back my tears. Then they took her to another part of the room to clean her up.

Things got quiet for a little bit and then a bunch of doctors came rushing into the room.

"Is this a real code?" One of them said.

"Yes! A real code!" Someone else said.

"What's going on?" I asked the anesthesiologist, who was still hanging around by my epidural as the doctors sewed me back up.

"Oh, everything's fine," he said cheerily. "You'll see a bunch of doctors come in but that's all."

Several more doctors came in, then I heard my baby crying again and a general relaxed feeling permeated the room as the other doctors headed out in a more leisurely manner than they came in. I later learned that M had stopped breathing briefly, but she was fine. Apparently, this happens a lot. It's called a Code 100.

Finally, my doctor brought over my daughter all bundled up and in a snug little hat. Her skin was so white it was almost translucent, and as I took her in my arms, she stared at me with huge, round, bright blue eyes.

I could not believe I was actually holding my daughter.

...I could not believe I had a daughter.

After all those months of pregnancy and kicks and hiccups and worries, here she was in my arms.

Finally.

After I held her, Z held her, and then they took her away to the NICU.

Z was sent out as they finished sewing me up. They took out the epidural, but kept in the IV and the catheter. Then they wheeled me to the recovery area, where I met my parents.

I smiled at them.

"It's a girl."