On New Motherhood

A good friend had a baby a little over a week ago. I visited her and her beautiful brand new girl in the hospital last week, and I emailed a bit with her over the weekend. Our visit at the hospital went fine; she looked a little frustrated with her attempts to breastfeed, but otherwise seemed calm and composed.

I remember those days in the hospital. I probably seemed really with it those first couple of days after Caetlin was born too. The thing about the hospital is that it is a haven of safety. No one will let your baby die in the hospital, at least not as a result of your ignorance. You are not left working without a net, alone, charged entirely with this beautiful fragile thing's well-being. You are surrounded by people who have seen it all and done it all a thousand times, who never panic when the baby cries because she's hungry or frustrated.

The email I received from her over the weekend brought a shock of recognition for me. I could sense the underlying desperation in the email, her disorientation in the new world of endlessly crying babies and pain and sleep deprivation. The feeling of not knowing which way was up, of being completely disconnected from anything other than recovery from childbirth and the all-consuming care of the infant. One forgets what it is like to be among other adults, to think about politics or pop culture or work or friends. One becomes a creature of the body, instead of the mind, descending into a milky physicality that is everything. The absence of the relief you thought you'd feel at her physical separation from you is part of the confusion, because it doesn't happen like that. She is not separate from you yet, despite being outside instead of in. Whether she is literally attached to you- to breast or shoulder or tummy- or not, you and she are still one in a way that is utterly unexpected and baffling.

Her email had that feeling of scatteredness about it. Maybe I am reading too much between the lines, and maybe it's just hard to write a good email on a Blackberry. But it seemed to me that she is in that place where she feels like she is underwater and doesn't know which way is the air. That place where there is pain in places that have never really hurt before, not like this. Where every small thing is magnified beyond belief, where being unable to breastfeed is the scariest thing in the world, where one must obsessively chart feedings and wet diapers and bowel movements, lest the baby fail to survive because of your inability to pay attention to these things. Where finding the right bottle is of paramount importance, because otherwise how will she eat? Thoughts that have a tinge of hysteria around the edges. Minutiae that don't matter in the slightest once you can get a little distance from them, but seem so huge and important right then. Like the baby herself, they are little yet they are everything.

I don't mean to suggest that she is wrong to feel these things so keenly. I did with Caetlin, and I expect to with Segunda, though I hope with a little less flailing. I only write these words with so much sympathy. I wish I could offer her the hand she needs to pull her up and find the air. I'm afraid that only time will allow her to kick to the surface, though, time and the ability to get to know her baby a little bit. It turns out that knowing the baby from the inside is so much different than knowing her on the outside, and that is something that none of the books or parenting websites ever conveyed to me.

My friend will manage and will muddle through for days that will turn into weeks, and then months, and one day...it won't be as hard. Something will be easier. She might still only be sleeping in 90 minute shifts, she might still be changing 14 diapers and running at least one load of laundry a day. She might still be facing the witching hour of 6 p.m., when the baby just cries and cries and cries and nothing seems to help. But something will be easier. Maybe it will be the random middle-of-the-day trip to Target that made her feel as though she rejoined the human race, only with a baby in tow this time. Maybe it will be the one miracle night she sleeps 5 hours in a row. Maybe just a walk around the neighborhood in some cool autumn air with the smell of burning leaves around the edges will do it. Maybe it will be the first feeding that doesn't hurt.

And it will continue to get easier for her. I so wish I could convey this to her. I wish I could download this truth into her heart and help her know that it will be okay. That we're all like this in the beginning. That it gets easier. She'll move on to different challenges, no question- but it will never be like it is at the very beginning, ever again.

I can't give her that understanding, though, at least not in her heart. Her head, I'm sure, intellectually understands this. For now, all I can do is try to offer what advice and support I can. Be there for her if I can do anything, even just listen. Pray for her and her family.

And I have to add that I'm sure that this is not exactly a ringing endorsement for children. The thing is, this is all you'll ever see if you don't want children. I believe strongly that the downsides to having kids are so much more easily perceived than the upsides. The downsides are completely obvious- the sleep deprivation, the lack of a social life, the inability to continue caring for oneself first. The upsides, at least of those first months and years, are harder to see until you've taken the jump off the cliff and decided to bring a new being into the world. There is something about the dependence of a newborn, the way her head turns to your voice, the way only you or her daddy can make her quiet when she's unhappy, that makes it worth it. There is something about seeing your husband's nose or eyes on the face of this tiny creature, about imagining her future and realizing that she is half you. There is something that is probably hormonally driven to an extent and can't rightly be called love, but is a fierce protective instinct. You would give your life for hers, even when she's only a few days old and cannot give but can only take.

By the time the upsides start to become more evident- the smiles, the laughter, the milestones, the emerging personality- you are already so ensnared. Unfortunately, I can't convey it to my childless friends any better than that. It's such a cliche to tell childless people they just don't know what they are missing, as if that gives us parents some kind of moral superiority. I don't agree with the superior part at all, but the first part, the can't know part- I think that's probably true. It's not like anything else. And it makes all the hellishness that my friend is going through worth it.

She- they- will be just fine. We mostly all get through it, and she's a smart and caring woman with family and friends who love her. I hope she can see through to the other side soon. I hope she can kick to the surface and get that first deep breath of air, that one that will give her strength and help her understand, in the most fundamental way, why she's going through all this.

Boring. But Pictures!

I haven't posted lately, not because of anything going on like was happening here, but genuinely because nothing much has been going on. So, either this will be about the shortest blog post ever, or I'll come up with something to natter on about.

Oh, I know! I've started feeling Segunda move regularly! She's such a wiggle worm, I'm not surprised. I don't feel her all the time yet, but definitely at least a couple times per day. I'm also really starting to look pregnant (as opposed to just fat, ugh). I'm only able to wear my "fat" clothes, and even they are getting uncomfortable. I imagine I'll move into maternity clothes next week. I think I've "popped" over this weekend, which coincides with a growth spurt of Segunda's, according to Babycenter. It's interesting- I apparently just don't show as quickly as some women. I wasn't into maternity clothes until about 20 weeks with Caetlin, and I'm 16.5 weeks with Segunda and still wearing my usual clothes, albeit not the ones I wear at my slimmest. One of my girlfriends (who is going to give birth any day now) had to switch to maternity clothes at 11 weeks, and it is her first baby. I must just be built differently.

Bleh. I'm boring myself. Maybe I'll just post some pictures instead.

Here are Caetlin and Bruce at the northernmost point in the United States, Point Barrow, just north of the main settlement in Barrow, Alaska. That's the Arctic Ocean in front of them.



Caetlin plays in a whale skull.



And picks flowers at Creamer's Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge in Fairbanks.

...And You Smell Like One Too

Today is my birthday. I'm 32. That's not terribly noteworthy, I suppose, though as I am the sole proprietor around these blog-parts, it's pretty momentous in this little electronic universe. But nevertheless, it remains merely noteworthy to me at least, and probably very little to anyone else.

I like birthdays. I like when people make a fuss over me and I don't have to be all modest and waving it off, like, no, really, you don't have to do that super nice thing you're doing for me. And I don't mean falsely modestly. For example, a friend recently gave me a very nice gift as a thank you for having helped organize her baby shower. I really meant it that her gift and her thanks and her gushing over the lovely party was not at all necessary, and a little embarrassing to me (though the gift- a snack survival kit from one pregnant lady to another- was and is fabulous). But really, I would do it all again. I like doing nice things for people. I don't do it to be thanked or gushed over.

On my birthday, though, people can make as big a fuss as they like. I like it. I've done absolutely nothing to earn it, of course, other than staying alive another year, in which I have a sort of vested interest. But I guess that's what makes it so great. People tell me happy birthday and do nice things for me just because they care about me. I always feel very loved on my birthday.

Today was no exception. Bruce took me to a nice lunch, and then turned around and surprised me with lovely dinner reservations. Afterward we went to a Barnes & Noble, where I totally indulged and bought like 6 new books (I'm trying to cut back and use the library more). When we got home, his other gift to me was waiting in a box by the door- a Slanket! It's one of those things that so fills a need in our house. I'm always cold, and trying to read or blog or work under an afghan is not easy. Now my arms can remain toasty warm and still useful!

Also waiting for me were flowers from our dearest friends in the world, as well as a gorgeous book filled with photos from our joint vacation last fall. Everything brought tears to my eyes, hormonal pregnant lady missing her friends that I am.

I also spoke to my dad and my brother today, and got a lovely card from my brother and sister-in-law yesterday. Two lovely ladies at the office are taking me out to lunch tomorrow as well.

It's been a good birthday, even though my sister has, at this writing, failed to call. That's okay. She forgot my birthday last year too. I'm okay with it. As I said, with all of these nice things happening, how can I help but feel very loved? It's a good feeling. Happy birthday to me indeed.

Suspension

I'm sorry for the lack of posting. Here's why I've been unable to write recently.

For the last week and a half or so, I've felt suspended. Like I was running on a treadmill and somehow I got pulled off and remained stopped, hanging in the air above the still-moving treadmill. Frozen. Not twisting and turning, not moving at all, just- suspended.

Thursday before Labor Day, we went in for the ultrasound follow up that I wrote about a few weeks ago. We saw the baby duly wiggling around, and the doctor came in and looked at it, and then said, here's a towel to clean up, and when you're ready, come sit in this office next door so we can discuss your test results.

I was happy and bubbly, excited about having seen the baby move around so much, marveling about the way we could see tiny hands and feet. Bruce was more nervous and I kept telling him to relax. Finally he started to make me nervous, and so we waited anxiously for the doctor.

The doctor came in and began talking, and it was a bit of a blur thereafter. Something about abnormal blood work. The hormones they had tested for- one was far too high, one was far too low. The numbers he was quoting jumped out at me. Normal chance of having a Down Syndrome baby for someone of my age and no risk factors: something like one in 450. Based on my blood, Segundo's chances of being a Down Syndrome baby: one in 5. You don't realize how 80% can fail to comfort until you're in that scenario.

I asked some questions and probably looked fairly composed as we discussed the options for further testing to get a definitive diagnosis. Then I went back to the office and started reading about Down Syndrome, and the testing, and people who had terminated their pregnancies for medical reasons. I started to cry, thinking that I was being selfish for not wanting to have a Down Syndrome baby, but remembering the way I saw its legs kicking on the ultrasound that morning. If we chose to terminate, I couldn't deny that I was killing a living baby, one with tiny feet and hands and a beating heart.

I pulled myself together and resolved to think about it no more until a diagnosis was received. After all, I was imagining killing my baby after having only heard odds, odds that objectively weren't that bad. It was no more than numbers. Cross the bridge when it is in front of you.

Bruce and I discussed our options for testing and decided to have a chorionic villius sampling done, rather than an amniocentesis. Despite a relatively higher rate of miscarriage from the test, we went with CVS because it would be done more quickly. As I lay in bed that night after having had the initial testing, I told Bruce that I could feel myself pulling away from the baby, resenting it even, at least trying not to think about it too much. Amniocentesis can't be done until at least 16 weeks, and I was only 13 weeks. I didn't want to spend that kind of time feeling so alienated from Segundo. Also, and this is terrible, but if the news was bad and we decided to terminate, I wanted to be able to do it before I could feel the baby moving regularly. I know: I'm a coward.

Not that we had decided anything. No matter how much we talked about it, I knew I would only be able to truly decide when faced with the actual situation. We had our ideas, our theories, but I knew that I would not be fully committed until I knew what I was committing to.

The CVS was scheduled for last Friday.

We went out of town over Labor Day weekend, to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, after first dropping Caetlin off with my parents. I stayed nauseated the whole three hour drive to my parents' house, my stomach roiling. I ate little when I got there, and the next morning, breakfast didn't go down well either. We had a two and a half hour drive to Gatlinburg, which ended up taking 6 hours because of a wrong turn that sent us an hour out of our way. And then because of the traffic around Sevierville and Pigeon Forge. As we crawled along at 5 miles an hour, we looked at all the flashing signs, the tourist traps, the ticky tacky. We had no idea it was a countrified Las Vegas. We hated it.

We finally got to the bed and breakfast where I collapsed, grateful to be lying on something that wasn't moving. We went out to dinner, crawling along Gatlinburg's ridiculously crowded main drag. We had a 45 minute wait for dinner, during which time we window shopped but really I went from bench to bench, trying to avoid the cigarette smoke and the smell of food. I made it three bites into my salad before leaving to go lie across the back seat of the car. I had Bruce wrap my food up, convinced I was just having some severe pregnancy issues. I ended up throwing it away two days later.

I spent the next two days trying not to barf with mixed success, sleeping a lot, and occasionally sitting on the toilet and feeling my insides empty out. I got to read a lot, which was the only benefit of the "vacation." Jello and crackers became my only real sustenance (I weigh less now than I have in the past three years). Yes, I had the same intestinal bug that made Caetlin have runny diapers and no appetite for a week. And made Bruce ralph for about 24 hours and also do the toilet thing for another few days. The timing was impeccable.

I was feeling a bit better on Monday morning as we made our way back to my parents' house to pick up Caetlin, and then back to the ATL. However, not the kind of better that 5.5 hours in the car couldn't take care of! Bruce and I had dinner plans on Monday night that we scrapped, mostly because I couldn't face getting back into the car. Even without the illness, we did a lot of driving over the weekend and I just reached my limit.

The week passed in a fog, waiting for the CVS. I arranged to take Friday off, since I knew rest would be recommended. I continued to improve, but I still, even now, don't have a great appetite. I moved through my routines as if they had suddenly been drained of color. It didn't help that I had next to nothing to do at work. I spent my time alternating between reading about CVS (odds of miscarriage from the procedure varied, but my doctor had given them as 1 in 150) and trying to think of anything besides pregnancy, Segundo, CVS, miscarriage, the whole shebang.

Friday we drove to the clinic, and I showed up with a full bladder, as instructed. After a lengthy ultrasound, in which the tech determined the baby wasn't too big to do the test, during which we watched the baby wiggling, and spinning and kicking, and showing us hands with 5 fingers and feet with 5 toes, the doctor pronounced that I needed to let my bladder fill a bit more. And then it was time.

I was undressed from the waist down. The ultrasound transducer was on my stomach the whole time. When the doctor pinched my cervix open, it hurt, sharply, stung enough to bring tears to my eyes. The catheter through that opening into my- Segundo's- placenta felt like nothing while I tried not to watch the wiggling baby, who appeared curious about what was going on, turning its head toward the cervix and the invasive catheter. The doctor grabbed a sample of the villius- small fingers of flesh on the surface of the placenta- and then I had my body back, intact, and could empty my filled to pain bladder. I had to get a shot, something to do with Rh factor in my blood versus the baby's. We were told to expect preliminary results late Monday or Tuesday, provided Hurricane Hanna managed to miss the lab in Tampa.

I was told to watch for spotting and cramping, and that a little of both were normal, but a lot of either was pretty bad. I spent the day in bed, working, since the only time I could manage to get anyone in the firm to pay attention to me was the day I just wanted to hibernate in bed.

The weekend was pretty normal, except that I spent as much time as I possibly could in bed. I still had that feeling of almost sleepwalking through everything. Caetlin was pretty needy, in part I'm sure because she had to go to daycare for the first time on Friday (her nanny had the day off Friday and Monday), and she had been not a little freaked by the whole thing. (She had a much better day on Monday.) We did the usual- park, out to breakfast, more park. Sunday we went shopping. And we waited.

All day Monday, every time Bruce saw me, he asked me if I had heard anything, because of course I would keep it all to myself. I was oddly calm when the phone rang and I saw the clinic's number pop up.

It was the same tech who assisted with the procedure- I remembered her name, since she had been so nice. When we hung up, I walked down the hall to Bruce's office on tottering legs, with shaking hands.

Everything's okay, I said. And it's another girl.

And with that, suddenly I dropped back onto the treadmill and began to run again, unaware of how I had been suspended until I no longer was.