butterflylike network

First nightmare, first time noticing hands, first time aiming hands at mouth, first quasi-giggle, first time distinctly looking over at a sound.

First week her eyes are definitely not blue any longer: they look to be green. I wonder if this color will stick or if it’ll keep on changing towards brown. That green eye color would be from me but the look around her eyes is, I think permanently, from A.

The quasi-giggle: while I was singing along to her to a CD I just got her of one of my favorite albums from when I was little. She likes being sung to. Oh and we are in Hungary for the whole month of August, which is how I’m able to acquire all kinds of books and music for her that I loved as a child and always imagined having for my own children. Looking over at a sound: my father was trying to get her attention with a funny mouth-noise. And he succeeded. My father was able to do this in part because see above: we are in Hungary.

I expect she shan’t giggle very much again or look over at sounds consistently for some time yet. As best I can tell such things first happen as if by accident and don’t get fully connected up in the necessary parts of her brain for a while thereafter.

All of this occurred during the twelfth week of Faustina’s life. She is exactly twelve weeks old today.

And we are neck-deep in motherhood here, as you can tell. I cannot imagine how people go back to work right around this time, and I think very many do in the U.S. I doubt I’d be able to go on breastfeeding as I am now, and, apparently: most women in the U.S. don’t (nyt).

At the book What to Expect the First Year. For the most part it gives some really sound advice but man, sometimes it reads like the how-to manual of maternal insanity.

To wit: not letting your child fall asleep while nursing so that you can put them down awake and they practice soothing themselves to sleep by themselves. Even the book admits that the part with the not falling asleep while nursing isn’t as realistic as it could be - because babies WILL fall asleep while nursing and there’s nothing you can do about it. They won’t wake up to pretty much anything - at least, once she’s got sleep on her mind, mine won’t. Besides, it’s so cozy an comfy for both her and me to hang out together for a while.

And that’s where my beef with the book lies. It took me a while to figure out why - but reading this kind of advice bothers me more than I expected it would so figure it out I did.

You see, the baby just feels cozy and comfy on her mom after having had a good meal. And she likes to be cozy and comfortable because it feels good. But if I don’t let her get used to this kind of comfort, then what am I teaching her? That feeling good is bad? That this is a world where, if you let on that something makes you feel comfortable, you will be punished by having your comfort taken away?

I will never teach her that, even if it makes her come to sleeping on her own later than other kids. She sleeps alone in her crib most of the night so I think there’s a good chance that letting her sleep in my arms for a bit after nursing is not wrecking her just yet.

There’s other bits like that in the book, all of them reflecting an attitude that you should raise your child to be okay with being slightly deprived. I bet they mean well but it reads so institutional. And even worse, it makes me feel like no matter what, I’ll be doing something wrong as a mother because there will always be some rule I’m not following, or if I follow it then I have to go against my instincts. Neither of which is a good place to be. And I think it’s irresponsible to claim authority and then give advice that’s pretty much unfollowable even by the author’s own admission, especially to new mothers, who can drive hemselves crazy just fine without any help from anyone else.

Have you heard of the problem of acid reflux? For babies, I mean. Because can you imagine how painful it must be for a baby to have heartburn? Not to mention loud. For the parents, that is: baby will let out piercing cries at random intervals while flexing every muscle and joint in her body when in the throes of an attack of heartburn.

Not that I blame her. I can’t imagine how awful and terrifying it must be to be gripped by a heartburn spasm and have no idea what it is or why it came when all you were doing is peacefully sucking on your mother. Or in my baby’s case, sucking like it’s a sucking sprint event at the Olympics. She’s just that good at it. And then, during the last week or so, her valiant race to the milky finish line keeps getting interrupted by acidic burning at the top of her stomach that makes her cough up the milk she’s just extracted from me.

So, following the doctor’s recommendation that holding her upright will make her more comfortable, I’ve figured out a way to breastfeed Faustina while she’s mostly upright. This is important since most of her reflux attacks occur while she’s eating. And it worked like magic: no baby heartburn for nearly 24 hours now.

My life is full of minor epiphanies these days.

Of course, as soon as I find one such solution, I’d better get myself ready for the next one because anything I come up with only works for so long. Like the carrier problem: I have to alternate between several different ways of wrapping/slinging/babybjorning. One day this works, another day that works, and no two days are alike: I’m thinking of sewing a Mei Tai too, for even more variety. Clearly, Faustina is a girl who prefers to keep her mother on her toes.

(Joining for the first time - because I’m finally awake enough!)

small tender raindrops -

a mother weighed down with milk

instead of fireworks

___

Also known as:

We were going to drive to a friend’s house to watch the fireworks by the beach. But it’s rainy and there are thunderstorms coming. So we’re staying home instead.

And:

This picture is now a week old but she is still just as pretty: the girl with the 80’s-style baby mohawk. She’s going to be six weeks old on Sunday, and in our town the fireworks took place on Wednesday since it’s assumed that everyone leaves for actual 4th of July. But since the weather kind of sucks… lots of people didn’t.

I’ve been evaluating how I am, since six weeks postpartum is also when the doctor will evaluate me. I have to confess that so far, I’m rather well. I find my baby charming and being a mother exciting. Sure, I’ll have to look for a whole new career now, in six months or a year, I’m thinking, provided money doesn’t become an issue before that. I’ve also been trying to see how I feel about this: I finished my Ph.D. and straightaway got pregnant and removed myself from the academic job market (which I’d been dreading anyway). And I don’t feel pretty much anything about it. I’m excited about having so much time with my child, and I’m excited about having lots of stuff to read in off moments, including the random research article here and there. Not at all on a regular basis, mind you. I keep running into people, old friends I’d lost touch with or people I knew who’d left academia before me, and they’re all happy and still living around here. I consider this a sign, and a positive one.

I know I’m not really talking about my baby but she and starting over are intertwined for me. And I feel okay about both.

The downside (because there is always a down side): my recovery has been slow. I think I’m good at faking it because people I spend time with generally have no idea. I don’t think it’s being tired - although I am, like any new mother. It’s that my body is very slow in getting back even half the strength it used to have. This is the only thing I get frustrated with: that I still feel so heavy and slow, that there’s still bleeding and my belly’s rather largish and I can’t bear the thought of my body doing anything just for pleasure, if you know what I mean. I feel triple bad when people, entirely well-meaning people, tell me that they’d recovered so much faster than I, in just a few weeks they were up and about, flying to Europe, you name it. That’s not been my experience at all: it’s only this week that, finally, just a few days ago, I began to feel like I really might get back to normal one day.

I took Faustina for her one-month checkup today. Where she also got the second installment of the hep-B vaccine.

I love her doctor: a young woman, perhaps a couple years younger than me (women her age always remind me of my sister and so I suspect I have a particular fondness for them), an immigrant (like me) if Indian descent (not like me) married to an American (like me, sort of). See how much I focus on things that are “like” for me? I like those. But more importantly: she takes as much time as I need, for questions, reassurance, even to chat, because that is how you make a new mom comfortable.

She was sick at Faustina’s first doctor’s appointment, the one two days after we brought her home from the hospital, and we got an older doctor from the practice. A sixty-something man, very kind, very old-school. I liked him well enough too, except that of the fifteen minutes he spent with us he took five to discuss Faustina and her health issues and ten to talk about where to go fishing in New Jersey with A. He even wrote down some the URLs of some fishing web sites he liked, on a piece of paper that (in hindsight) must have contained the vitamin information that our real doctor gave us again today.

Sure, he also noted that Faustina is beautiful, and completely normal, and has good suction (seriously: she does have good suction) and was clearly not going to worry himself over a baby who is completely fine. So it’s not that I was mad at him. And in a different time and different place, I’d have been very happy with him as our pediatrician. But I don’t live in that time or place and prefer our real pediatrician, who is chatty and young and talks to me about babies and children and is like a girlfriend. I’ve discovered I prefer girlfriend-ish doctors in general.

At today’s visit, Faustina got weighed and measured. She’s smack in the middle of all charts, in terms of both her size and her growth curve: she’s that elusive Completely Average-Sized Baby. Then the minute the weighing was done, when I picked her up off the scale and held her small naked body close so she wouldn’t get cold, she sprung a leak and peed all over me. Fun, isn’t it? Lucky that a month-old baby’s pee is just a clear, odorless liquid that dries within minutes. Because as soon as that was dry, my right boob decided it was time for Faustina to eat and joined her in leakage.

After that, the only thing that remained were being told she’s fine (again), being given the infant vitamin information (again), and Faustina getting a hep-B shot (again). That last part did not go as quickly as last time because right after she got it she began wailing like she’d just experienced the greatest, most unfair betrayal of her young life. Which I suppose is just about right. Except that afterwards it all got better because my right boob won and Faustina got fed in an empty examination room. I’m finding I’m becoming more selfish and demanding as a mother because I totally made the nurse who gave her her shot carry all our stuff over to the empty exam room for us. Because I had to focus on holding only my sweet little baby and nothing else.

She is still my little beauty.

Despite a heat rash (passed in a day), newborn acne (beginning to clear up), and the loudest farts I’ve heard in my life. I even think there’s beauty in the way she cries.

It still feels strange to talk to her: it’s like talking to a doll. But I’ve begun to slip into it sometimes. She has a sense of humor, you see. Smiles and laughs pass across her face, such beautiful ones too. Glimpses of the future, they seem to be. Today she was looking right into my face when a big smile erupted. She’d made the funniest explosion down below and I made up a rhyme for it. A Hungarian one, and as such: untranslatable. But I will swear for the rest of my life she smiled right at me because she thought it was funny.

She can spend lots of time looking, just looking - at the ceiling with sharply contrasting beams, at the one sun-yellow wall in her room, at the pattern book I place in her bassinet sometimes, at the black-and-white drawing of a cat’s head I’d put by her changing table.

And she makes funny noises when she’s not sleeping real deep, like right now.

She was born on Sunday, May 25.

I went into labor on my due date and, a scant 36 hours later, I had my baby. I only got the epidural 22 hours in - and I have to confess I felt prouder of myself for getting one than for getting through all those hours of relentless, unchanging contractions. You see, pain is not something I’m afraid of. What does scare me is a needle in my back. But, it turns out, what scares me even more is hours and hours of endless, unchanging, non-progressing labor. In 22 hours I progressed from a little over 3 cm dilation to a little over 3 cm dilation. At which point it seemed to me much more reasonable and somewhat less scary to say: bring on the epidural! Well, I was so scared I cried. I’m not ashamed to admit it. But really, it didn’t feel like anything and once it was done I could finally rest a bit.

Then a few hours later, still at barely more than 3 cm dilation, the doctor began to give me pitocin. Clearly, my uterus was not up to the task of getting labor going on its own. But the pitocin was not bad at all because - see above: I already had the epidural. What I did mind? The hunger. The whole damn time. Before the epidural I snuck some potato chips but they didn’t last me very long.

And then there was the pushing. And then the baby’s head popped out. Which was incredible. I didn’t watch in a mirror but feeling it? Amazing. The question of pain or no pain didn’t matter anymore. A. said her eyes were open and she was looking around, all interested, even before the rest of her body came out.

And that is how Zsuzsanna Lila Moore, my daughter, was born at 2:35 pm on Sunday, May 25, 2008. She will remain Faustina on this blog.

She was beautiful. She still is beautiful. She spent an extra week in the hospital on suspicion of an infection for which she needed antibiotics. By IV, for a whole week. My interpretation: the hospital kidnapped her because she’s so beautiful one can look straight at the sun but not at her. That’s a Hungarian expression, if you must know, and it means - I think you get what it means. I hated that week. I hated going home from the hospital crying because I had to leave my baby behind.

But now, she’s home, sleeping, eating, crying, pooping. In that order. These days she breastfeeds like nobody’s business, and I hope she keeps that up. There she is right now, sleeping in her car seat, dreaming of something that makes her want to complain a little. And then dreaming of something that made her smile. I know: I’m a terrible mother, I still haven’t gotten a more appropriate neck support for her car seat and she’s doing the newborn-neck-crook thing in it.

As for me - I am healing. Slowly. The first week I couldn’t really sit, now I can do that. Not that I like to think much about my bottom just yet. Too many unusual things going on. I still don’t walk like I used to because my hips became so stiff from carrying around a baby in my belly. On the plus side: I’ve already lost 19 pounds. On the minus side: that leaves 16 pounds to go (I gained a full 35 pounds exactly). And I bet those will be the hard ones. I am wearing non-pregnant clothes quite often now, mostly in the long, tie-waist skirt plus peasant blouse variety. I make a point of emphasizing my boobs (which are giant becase - see above: breastfeeding - one for the plus side) to distract from my gut and currently oddly-shaped butt. That’s two minuses. On the plus side, however: I’ve got amazingly lustrous and rich hair. I suppose it’ll begin to shed when the rest of my body starts to feel more normal. At least, that’s my hope. Because a good hair day every day does a lot to make up for an oddly shaped and odd-feeling body.

About breastfeeding: I have to confess I’m rather enjoying it so far. Not that every minute of it is pleasant. But it’s nice to have one thing go right, at least - to date. Notice how I count my blessings in hindsight now? Because who knows what tomorrow will be like. My milk began to come in while Faustina was still in the NICU. I rented a pump and pumped like a good little girl, though not nearly as often as the lactation consultant said I should. Because every three hours, even at night? That’s just fucking crazy.

I do feel there’s an odd double standard about formula vs. breastfeeding going on in hospitals. They really push you to breastfeed, providing literature, classes, lactation consultants and so forth, but if you say you want to, it is suddenly all about how hard it will be, how much you have to pump to get enough milk (every three hours, including at night. Right.), how you’ll probably have to feed every 2 hours (including at night) instead of every 3 or 4, like with formula. So (they add), you’re better off supplementing. At which point you say to yourself, I’m really confused. I thought this was supposed to be about helping me learn to feed my baby but instead… what just happened? Do you want me to breastfeed or do you want me to kill myself? Do you want me to give formula or do you want me to feel guilty about WHATEVER I DECIDE TO DO? One doesn’t ask these questions out loud, of course. Instead one nods sweetly and pays polite and close attention to the demonstration of how to use the breastpump. Which in my humble opinion is just like a bizarrely pastel-colored sexual torture device. In other words, if you resist the formula-industrial complex, you will be punished. In some very unpleasant ways.

The breath of fresh air, and sanity, in all this madness about breastfeeding came from the nurses. Both the labor and delivery nurses and the NICU nurses kept saying, just rest. Don’t worry, you’ll have milk when you need it, and sleep will help it come in. Whereas the lactation consultants are, apparently, only meant to drive you insane with anxiety and guilt because there’s no way a new mom can do what they say she should do. Not even after less than 36 hours of labor.

For my part, I went to the hospital for as many of Faustina’s feedings in the NICU as I could. But I made a point of resting, too, and I pumped a little bit only. Just enough to make me feel like I’m doing something for her. And never overnight: nights are for sleeping.

And that brings me to my last observation: sleeping. Faustina is working on it but doesn’t always succeed. We can’t quite figure out what keeps her from sleeping when she can’t sleep but there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it. And about once a day she just cries for 45 minutes or so, no matter what anyone does. Colic doesn’t seem to be the cause, that sounds and looks different, and doesn’t last as long for her. Instead more like Faustina’s got an awareness of the world that she just can’t let go of but also can’t quite respond to, not yet anyway. I’ve gotten her a few black-and-white images to look at but she’s so young she can only do that when she’s not sleepy at all. Which is very little of the time.

I can’t wait for her to grow, even while I love how she is right now: small and cuddly and sweet-smelling. I can’t believe I suddenly have my very own child.

I knew I was pregnant just a few days after I conceived. There’s no magic to it: there were only two possible occasions when it could have happened. And I could tell that something had happened: my body felt different. Nothing bad or strange, just… different. There was a fullness to it, something it never had before. I found out for sure a couple of weeks later. I remember feeling everything within a few minutes of looking at the little pee-stick with the extra line: elation, fear, wonder, shock. It was a Friday afternoon, sunny and warm, the air conditioner was running. A bit later I called A. at the studio and told him, and then we set it aside for a while because it was very early in the game, when nothing is certain yet, and one can’t at all count on ending up with a living, breathing baby.

One thing I remember thinking was how finally, after so many years of waiting, I’ll be a member of the club of motherhood. A. said something similar - it is finally happening for him, he doesn’t have to experience it through other people anymore. If all goes well - which is a thought I still append to everything I say, feel, or think about my soon-to-be-born child (who I hope will be, if all goes well, healthy, too).

About two weeks later my mother told us she had cancer. Continue Reading »

I rather loved the dooce interview on the Today show this Wednesday. Not because it was good. It was awful: Kathie Lee Gifford ought to be ashamed of herself. But Heather Armstrong (dooce) handled Kathie Lee’s stupidity SO elegantly. The woman is a gem, and she is also right: what she’s doing is important, it is something that makes public and visible a huge part of women’s lives that has, up to now, mostly happened in the isolation of the home, in secret, without anyone bearing witness. For the most part, mothering has thus far disappeared into silence. And all Kathie Lee could think of saying was, won’t your daughter resent you for blogging about her? Well, I don’t think Kathie Lee is really one to talk… if her children don’t already resent her for just existing, they will surely resent her for ever having asked that question.

Wordpress, I am sorry I cheated on you. It won’t happen again (or at least, not until the next time…?).

I don’t know whether the theme I’ve got now for this blog is permanent or not. I think not. I think I’ll test it out for the rest of this month, then choose another in June. It is transitional, and I’m transitional at the moment, so it all seems appropriate.

I won’t be restoring the comments I’d lost, nor the archives prior to November of last year. That month I became a U.S. citizen and made my pregnancy public. That’s when I knew I’d say goodbye to academia for good, and not give the academic job market another go-round. Once was quite enough. That November is the month a new me was born, so it seems as good a beginning as any for this blog.

Have you ever had one of those mornings when you wake up and suddenly you know what to do? That’s the kind of morning I had today. I’ve been struggling with a largish long-term project that kept refusing to become coherent. This morning I woke up, and suddenly, hey presto-ish, its parameters were clearly there.

I am also well aware that I won’t be getting much further with it for the next few months, not unless I turn out to be Supermom. Doubtful, that. It’s probably best to just let things go along their merry way. My mom told me, when I worried to her that I don’t know how I’ll handle having a newborn - what with the sleeplessness and all - to just relax because my body will take over. If I let it happen, it’ll be easier
than I think.

I worry about what will happen after but giving birth? It really scares me. My body and its needs will have full control of that one. That’s not to say I believe in natural childbirth. It’d be lovely to have one but… childbirth is dangerous business: before much research and experience developed the methods of medical intervention we know so well today, it was a huge killer of women. If you were a woman living in colonial America, chances were 1 in 8 that childbirth would be the cause of your death. So I think I’d like that medical intervention right there at the ready, thank you very much, even if I hope none of it will have to be enacted upon me. No birthplan for me!

When I manage to think of childbirth in these terms, I feel a bit less frightened. I can focus on the bigger picture, and know that what’s important will begin afterwards, on the other side of that great divide. And somehow that also lets me muster the certainty that my own life, too, will go on, and I’ll even get my project done, it’ll just have to happen in a way that I can’t quite imagine yet.