Year in Review

Every now and then, it is important to reflect on your life a little to see how you're doing in the grand scheme of things...I certainly could never have guessed where life would take me years ago watching my mother desperately trying to scrape the money together for rent every month. I mean, I had some ideas that I'd like to be a rock star for a second before moving on and doing something more permanent and grown up. And I always said I wanted to find a love that was more like a burning ember than a roaring fire, since embers have a way of being warm and cozy a lot longer than roaring fires roar.

So, I became religious, then renounced God, then found spirituality in a whole new light by the time I was 14. I lived through adolescence and lived in technicolor for a good while through college and afterward...I fell in love a million times and made it my favorite pasttime...so addicted to how that heart bursting and heart breaking felt. I got to be almost famous for a second, and toured and recorded with awesome bands, and pushed my limits in every conceivable way. In 1997 I met a boy, and did my best to scare him off, but he wouldn't stop sticking. I railed against being with someone so sane. Would he take the shine out of my ethereal life? Would he help me keep floating away?

But really, at some point, the allure of insanity becomes less and less, and something happens where you start thinking about outcomes and "ever after" and all that. I had the sense to marry someone who wouldn't go away, who won't ever go away, no matter how terrible I am. He sees something good here that I can't see 99% of the time, and that is blessed. Not saying that it's all rainbows all day long, but there is a good bit of substance to work with. And we work, and we work on it. That's what building a life together is.

So, 2009 was a crazy year-exhilarating and exhausting and another piece of my life puzzle. We made a little drop of sunshine, most importantly, whose smile is like heaven breaking open, dropping diamonds everywhere. I fell in love, heart bursting all over again, with a tiny little life that I made with the man who wouldn't walk away (from the impossible kamikaze girl with clouds in her head, no less). Our Gillian, on the other hand, has tried us more than anything ever has; and we love her and we are wasted by her every second. No one had ever mentioned how boundary testing (in TODDLERS) is one of the greatest challenges of parenting. But I would never wish her to be anything except exactly what she is. It wouldn't suit me to have a docile lamb where I have a fiercely independent, imaginative, stubborn, willful girl. I don't want to break the spirit I admire and am in awe of, and I don't believe I could even if that was my aim. She's like bamboo. Bending but never broken, and all that.

I think about how the shifts and leaps and wild changes and accomplishments of the past few years, and I am so humbled that God entrusted me, ME, with these blessings. Most nights right before I sleep I meditate on these things so I can remember how I never thought I would be at THIS place. This little life of mine is so much bigger than I could have ever dared to hope for. I have a wonderful family and excellent friends, I have a career I love, an education I am proud of, and life experiences I cherish. Remembering where I came from puts everything in perspective, and I don't want for much different than I have.

I'll be drinking champagne with my husband tonight, hoping for more of this trajectory. Daring to believe into existence the blessings of a happy home, a happy career, and a lovely life. Maybe even dancing to that one song in our living room by the magical lights of our Christmas tree.

Happy New Year to all of you that we love, and to those of you who we have never met.

So big

Addie is growing like a weed. She is starting to look like, I imagine, what she will look like....differentiating out of the "amorphous baby blob" phase and into the baby/toddler phase...the one where you think "wow, [insert person's name], you look exactly the same" when you're looking at baby pictures of them. Though we are curious to know what she will look like with hair. It is crazy to think she is almost 6 months old.

We had playgroup here yesterday, and I have missed having the girls around every week now that I'm back at work. There is something liberating and awesome about sharing these moments and changes with other people at the same place you are. Like "the baby has suddenly started waking up four times a night", or "she nearly bit my nipple off with those razor teeth"...things you can't exactly stand around and talk about to people at work or to people without kids.

So, Addie might do a normal crawl...she gets up on her knees (something my crab-crawling Gillian never did), and she rocks like she thinks she wants to go someplace. She likes to pose in a Superman posture like she's trying to touch just her belly button to the floor. She will do well in yoga later in life. She has upward dog pegged too. Addie likes to talk and tell stories, and they are increasingly gibberish with sprinkles of enunciation. Watching a person become a person is pretty awesome and humbling.

Christmas is nigh and it is wonderful to enjoy the general goodwill everyone seems to have during the season. I love having Bill and Suzi with us, and Christmas has taken on an entire new undertone of specialness with our babies in this life. It's easy to believe that with the level of perfection in the universe for things working well most of the time (with limitless variables), there must be some unifying power, or God, or energy. My girls remind me of where I came from somehow, and how far I came to get here. And how lucky I am to be here. The holidays are a time to reflect on blessings.

Premeditated Lying

So, I am struggling with the whole "Santa Claus" lie. I have not specifically said anything to Gillian about the actual existence Santa Claus, except to ask her if she wants to go "see the man dressed like Santa Claus" at the mall. He freaked her out, by the way. I read her Christmas books that include things about Santa Claus, but she probably thinks about his role in them as she does any fictional character in any book she has. I feel like the absurdity of the story is almost insulting to her intellect... a fat guy with facial hair lives someplace no one could really survive long term with a team of mythical and definitely non-existant elves who toil for the entire year making toys (that look suspiciously like those made in American toy factories), with reindeer who somehow have the ability to fly (with no wings, which truly perplexes her), and pull a cart with the fat guy and a bag of toys that is bottomless enough to give a gift to every kid on earth (at least the millions that believe in him, and, obviously, the ones that are not living in poverty who have better things to worry about than whether or not they are getting gifts from St. Nick), and do it all in a single night (even with the time zones being where they are and starting where the 25th first appears is a fantastic notion). This part of the holiday season is probably one of the most annoying examples of American excess and I really kind of hate it.

But somehow, in spite of Sean and I not really pushing this story, it has seeped into Gillian's worldview. Maybe Anna has talked to her about it, or maybe Luella, or maybe the books... I try most often to read her the book about the birth of Christ, and leave the greed-inducing stories of Santa out of it. I guess I am railing against the Capitalist mecca of this holiday. It seems so insincere, and silly, and cheap to talk about Santa Clauses and flying reindeer and bottomless bags of gifts. My spine definitely stiffens when I hear people threatening no gifts for their child "if Santa finds out you aren't being a good girl". The gifts are better explained as a tradition started with the gifts brought to Christ at His birth.

All that said, there are memories everyone I know has of the excitement of Christmas morning and seeing the gifts "Santa brought". I remember trying to stay up and listen hard for the sound of hoofs on the roof (even though we didn't have a chimney in Florida), looking out my window for Rudolf's red nose glowing in the night sky, and finally passing out and missing it every year. I remember leaving out milk and cookies (that my mother never protested making) that mysteriously disappeared every Christmas Eve. But I also remember the hurt, disappointment, and anger I felt when I realized my parents lied to me for years about the fact that Santa was real when he wasn't (though when some kid told me he wasn't real and I asked my mom, she only said "he's real if you believe in him"). Kindof like when they told me my grandfather was going to get better and he died Christmas eve when I was 10 years old. Lying is unkind, no matter what. With Gillian, I try HARD to "tell the truth, tell the truth, TELL THE TRUTH." She deserves my respect, and this mammoth lie makes me more than uncomfortable.

I don't want my kid to be the one running around bursting the Santa Bubbles of other kids, either, but this is really hard for me. Is there some middle ground where we can enjoy the story of Santa Claus, tongue in cheek even, and have a "santa" gift every year knowing it is only in fun, while respecting the various levels of belief other people have in this tradition? I need more time to mull this one over...

Thanksgiving

Gillian on the dock at the Farm
View of the farm from the river

We got home a week ago from a lovely trip to Florida for Thanksgiving. We spent our time at Sean's family's river house down in Green Cove Springs, about 45 minutes south of Jacksonville. It was generally restful and a great timebeing with our family and friends. As I mentioned in my previous post, things started a bit rough with two sick little girls, but all in all the trip went about as smoothly as it possibly could have.

Our fabulous neighbor and Gillian's surrogate aunt, Darla, took us to the airport and picked us up when we got home. I want to take a second and extoll the virtues of Darla, for whom I am eternally grateful. Gillian has no family here and Gillian has decided Darla is our family. Darla takes Gillian on dates and for walks and bike rides around the block. Darla brings Gillian Peanuts holiday specials to watch and makes her dresses. Gillian loves Darla and Darla loves Gillian. So, Darla took us with about a small apartment's worth of stuff to the airport. We had:
3 duffle bags
2 car seats
2 instruments
1 purse
1 backpack
1 breast pump
1 camera bag
1 DVD player and bag
1 stroller

If you had seen us, you would wonder if we were moving an entire household or just most of one. It really is silly how much one has to bring for a 5 day trip when there are two kids involved, one of whom was 4.5 months old.

Anyway, planning for the worst, we left three hours before the flight. We ran into no traffic the day before Thanksgiving at 8am. Weird. We got there with a comfortable 2 hours before the flight and there was no one waiting in the ticketing line the day before Thanksgiving at 9 am. Weird. We mosied through the ghost town that was security, and got to our gate. Gillian ate her breakfast, and we had an uneventful flight. The connecting gate was next to the arrival gate, which was good with our 30 minute layover. We got in to Jax and so did our luggage and life was good. Addie didn't even lose it until 20 minutes before we got to the Farm.

Wednesday we spent the evening with Sean's parents, grandmother, and fabulous cousin William and his intelligent, beautiful new wife, Erin. Sean and William are both musicians and played for a long time by the fire after some of Suzi's delicious etouffe for dinner while Erin and I talked for hours. Thanksgiving day, the rest of the family arrived, including Auntie Kim and cousin Liz...about 20 in all, I think. There was lots of food and drinks and catching up, and shooting clays off the dock. It was a great day and the food was phenomenal. I don't think Suzi came out of the kitchen until Friday. Friday we relaxed in the morning and left Gillian with Nonni and Grandaddy while Sean, Addie, and I headed into town to visit my brother's daughter Amber and my sister-in-law and then we had a great dinner at William and Erin's place (William cooked us an amazing Thai dish).

Addie with Auntie Kim

Sean and William
Addie with William and Erin

Saturday we had a great, albeit short, visit with one of my oldest and closest friends and her family. Gillian would have loved to keep Laurel, but Laurel was shy. Laurel was just starting to enjoy herself and warm up when they left. Needless to say, we blew bubbles, planted an imaginary garden, and made playdough monsters before that. Unfortunately, a sick and overtired Gillian threw one monster fit before that that lasted an hour before she went down for her nap. Well, it's never perfect ;-) Suzi and Bill cooked a wonderful dinner for all of us and the girls ate at the kid tabel and watched a Christmas DVD. Suzi overhead Gillian lean over, tap Laurels plate with her fork and say "Eat Your Dinner, Laurel." (enunciating with each tap) As if. Gillian has the appetite of an inchworm. Laurel could run laps around Gillian's eating habits any day.

Gilly and I with Martha and Laurel
Beautiful Laurel

Sunday was Addie's big day and she was baptized at the church where Sean was baptized 36 years ago. We were so blessed to have both her godparents there (Kim and William), her grandparents there, and both of her great-grandmothers for whom she is named. Also, lots of other friends and family joined us to celebrate both at the church and at the restaurant where Bill and Suzi hosted a wonderful brunch. Gillian had another run in with her Licking third cousin (Cooper) who said to his mother "But, I LOVE her." Gillian runs him, and he takes it. Sounds like it's meant to be. She definitely played hard to get with him, telling him when he came to our table during lunch, "go back and sit in your chair and eat your lunch, Cooper." Bossy. But, in the end, they had a lot of fun together picking flowers and playing chase.

with grandparents and greatgrandparents
Gillian and Cooper
Adelaide with her great-grandmother Adelaide and her awesome Nonni!

Sunday afternoon when we got back to the river, we took Gillian for her first boat ride in a decrepit old boat Sean and Bill nursed back to health and enjoyed a gorgeous view of the river and a natural creek, but on the way back the engine died. Luckily, two very nice men docking their own boat gave us a tow back to our dock. Gillian told me "I like the big boat better". Well, it was clean, didn't have a leak, and didn't have any spiders, so I did too. But we were glad to have had a chance to see the river that way. It was a lot of fun, and Gillian is not the least bit afraid of jumping up and down in a boat cruising along the river. Monday we got up and left, and went to the playground Sean played at as a child, had lunch, and went home.

View of the creek from the river
G and I

Sunset

All in all, we have a fantastic trip. Addie didn't mind being passed around, Gillian soaked up the attention of her scores of admirers, and we enjoyed the company of people we love. We are truly blessed and appreciate everything Bill and Suzi did to make it such a special, stress-free vacation!

Gillian basked in the sun of Bill and Suzi's affection!

House of Ill

Things have been rough around here on the health front. Addie has had some serious eczema from the dryness up here (Sean and I have regular bloody noses-ah, radiator heat!). Sadly, she didn't get that gorgeous Charbonnet skin. Nope. She got freckly, fragile, crow-feet ridden Irish skin. So, soap irritates her skin, and moisturizer irritates her skin (even 98% natural Burts Bees baby lotion). So, we had to do steroid cream for 2 weeks to get it under control and now we slather her with Aquifor twice a day. The doctor said to "bathe her less than once a week if possible." She also said that we already clean the part of her that needs to be cleaned eight times a day. Touche.
In other news, Gillian and Addie got sick the night before we left for our trip to Florida for Thanksgiving. In usual fashion, Gillian was miserable (at least physically) during our entire trip. I can honestly say, of all our travels to visit Nonni and Grandaddy, Gillian has been well exactly once. It started with congestion and progressed to coughing, then to vomiting and nausea. Just to be generous, she then passed it along to the rest of us (and by "us" I mean her own family + two others). Sean threw up all day Thursday of last week, and Thursday afternoon at work, I threw up on the floor of the lobby when I was on my way to catch a cab home (trying to get home before the inevitable flat didn't work). If you doubt how serious my concern that I might be dying, consider that I paid $30 for a cab ride home when I have a free train pass. Of my own money.

Addie threw up a few times Friday morning and her weird listlessness freaked my bean. I was stressed about dehydration. But, all in all, the vomiting was short lived- Gillian threw up for 18 hours, Sean for about 6, Addie for 1, and me just the once. The nausea persists for all at the moment. The doc said it is likely an adenovirus, known for starting in your eyes/nose/throat and working it's way down. All I know is that is was the most aggressive onset of any illness of my life that wasn't food poisoning. Thankfully, it wasn't worse, and no needed IV fluids or died. I have read about the joys of families passing bugs around and now there's four of us to share the love.

TEETH!

Addie has been a little neurotic the past week. She has been soaking everyone and everything with drool since the end of September, so I thought it was just the age. But in the past week, it has been almost impossible to get her to sleep, she has been hard to feed, and has not napped well at all. Thinking it might be teeth, we gave her a frozen teether the past few days and she acts like an addict and is all spastic trying to force the entire thing in her mouth. Tonight she chomped while nursing several times, and I had to pull her off...obviously she needed pressure on her gums.

At bedtime she was manically trying to suck on ANYTHING after nursing and getting a bottle so I gave her my finger, and voila, I felt two pointy little razorblades poking through. I thought "WHAT???!!!" She is just 4 months + 11 days old. Gillian, for comparison, was 9.5 months old (7 gestational months) when she got her first teeth. It seems standard that very first teeth are bottom center teeth.

Off to sleep. I am delirious!

More videos, because we have had a drought around here

Because imitation is the best form of flattery...


And this is just a day in the life of Papa and the girls on a Monday:

Leave of absence

Sorry, friends and family, for being so ghostly lately with appearances. Life has been particularly hectic with going back to work and all. And work started back with a bang and hasn't stopped. It's hard going back, but not hard like it was the first time. At least I know that Addie has a wonderful, dear woman looking after her all day, so I know she will be fine. It is generally nice to go someplace where something as simple as going to the bathroom doesn't require strategic planning. It is nice to use my brain. I think I will try to do more publications and presentations, and peer reviewing this year. I'm up for promotion and need to earn the new position upgrade I am being put in for. Plus, I suppose it's time to act like a person with a PhD with all the academic stuff. Not that I won't still do plenty of applied public health, but I need more scholastic efforts too.

Anyway, life is good around here, and Gillian is being a human being again. She has been quite sweet and well mannered these days, and I think we might just come out of the acclimation period in a single piece. Addie genuinely adores Gillian and it makes Gillian endlessly happy to be so important to Addie. Oh, I also don't worry about Addie being railroaded by Gillian's gigantic personality. She can give it right back.





I have been remiss in my reporting of Addie's development so, here are the highlights:

1st smile: 4 week 2 days
1st laugh: 8 weeks
Discovered her hands: 7-8 weeks
Discovered her feet: 12 weeks
Able to grasp something she wants to hold: 12-13 weeks
First dolphin sound: 12 weeks (now a regular sound around the house)
Current favorite thing: squealing with delight, all day. Squealing out, making weird gasping sounds in, then laughing at her own cleverness. I need to capture this on video, because it is hilarious



Gillian has reverted to calling her little baby doll "little darling". As in, "Mama, where's my little darling?". Or, "my little darling is sleeping, we have to be very quite". Not sure where this title came from. The only think I can think is the fact that months ago, I think I sang "My Dixie Darlin'" to Gillian. Otherwise, I have no idea where Darling came from.

Anyway, I promise to be more present. After all, I am keeping this blog for us too!

We're back in business

Thank dear God we have a computer again that I can upload photos from!!!! Lots of videos too, but I need to figure out my new fancy editing software. In the meantime, maybe I'll try finding the disk for the old software just so I can get some videos up here. This photo was from a week or so ago at the park. The fall leaves are so pretty, but I got this one of both girls and it looks great in sepia...

In or out

Today we met Amanda and AJ at the playground at Addison and Lincoln. That might not mean much to you out-of-towners, but that is a train and bus ride away. Since Sean works downtown sometimes, we resorted to public trans, which is not something I have done with both kids until now. Obviously, Gillian should get good and use to the train and bus since that is the way of urban life...I have taken it to work nearly every day of the past 8 years. It is a bit of a challenge to haul a stroller, even a Metro Lite, up two flights of stairs with a baby strapped to your chest, so we headed to the station south of here because it has an elevator. Then the train took 15 minutes to arrive (non rush hour delays). An uneventful ride, and Gillian was good...no, she was great. She must subconsciously know about my prior entry whining about her behavior and want to prove me wrong. Anyway, we looked out the window and saw the buildings and I showed her my favorite tree, and she flirted with people on the train. The downside was the 20 minute wait for the bus outside the train station, but Gillian was wonderfully patient. Addie slept. It was a quick trip down Addison, and we went to the playground in Yuppiland (Roscoe Village) packed with Bob strollers and Starbucks-adorned Mamas and stylishly clothed toddler. Besides ours I saw four other Baby Bjorn carriers and started to wonder...."am I a yuppie too??!?" I mean, I have a ghetto Graco stroller and my kid wears Old Navy and consignment shop duds (and I had a Dunkin Donuts coffee), a couple notches down on all accounts, but there I was. There were plenty of baby bumps besides Amanda's too.

Are we yuppies? Roscoe Village is rife with jet setting 20-30 somethings who have young families and live in overpriced houses (think close to a million dollars). Amanda says her block party conversations revealed only one other woman who had a job outside the home, and most of the husbands were lawyers or finance guys. I like to think of myself as a pretty frugal person on most levels and I'm not impressed with name brands, but I like what I like, and I often like things like the Baby Bjorn or Ergo carriers. I buy organic meat, yogurt, eggs, and milk for Gillian, and really like farmers markets where I can get fresh organic produce (is it so wrong to not want my 8 year old wearing bras and having a period because of all the growth hormones??!). I do yoga and read the news. I don't like my kid to put non-wholegrain stuff in her precious mouth. I pureed organic veggies for Gillian when she first started eating solids because I thought Gerber Baby food was death in a jar (before I discovered that Earth's Best was also organic and less time consuming to feed her). Addie even has some organic cotton pajamas (from a consignment shop, but still). I get my hair cut and colored at a salon (usually, though it looks pretty rough at the moment). I even like to go to Sam's and get a few bottles of wine every now and then because they have a better selection and better prices than the grocery (Binny's is buying Sam's!! Oh, the lament-prices already went up!).

I mean, the grounding things are that we live in a condo, we only have a part time nanny, I have terrible fashion sense, and I clip coupons. Aside from my taste for the well-made in life, I don't like WASTING money. I mean, one year I tracked my coupon savings (saved every grocery receipt) and it was $1560. That's a lot of money that didn't take much to make (I have pretty recently discovered that Target groceries, while limited, are usually about 40% less than the grocery store, so I get as much there as I can). I don't care if my sweater is Last Season if it saves me 75% off the original price. I almost never buy things at full price, except shoes for Gillian. But even that has changed. I bought a lot of 6 pairs off Ebay that were gently used-$50 for 2 pairs of Stride Rites (1 pair was a cute set of boots), 2 pairs of Saucony tennis shoes, a pair of Primigi mary janes, and a pair of dress shoes. They are fine, and I am benefitting from the fact that the kid who wore them wore them hardly at all.

Somewhere along the way, I decided that kids don't NEED new things. Poor Addie. When Gillian was born I would have no sooner put her in a used carseat or high chair than moving to the North Pole, but things have changed. Kids are hard on things and they depreciate quickly. No reason to spend that money when I can benefit from someone else spending it. Like Addie's new playmat I got from Craigslist for $15 (originally $79.99), which works just fine and is nice and clean. I'd like to tell you I do these things because it is greener to buy used, and my environmental conscience is the driving factor. Really, it's mostly because I feel like paying full price is getting scammed, and I hate getting cheated.

So, what is the vernacular for a cheap yuppie? Chuppie? Yugle? Grown up?

A wrinkle in time?

Gillian is saying interesting things about "when [she] was a baby" or "when [she] was a little girl". Sometimes it's all mystical, like "when I was a little girl, I slept inside the purple sun and he wrapped his rays around me like a big hug". Sometimes she says things like "when I was a baby, I use to say "guh...guh...guh" because I couldn't say "garden", remember mama?".

Today she said "Mama, when you were my baby, you use to like wearing a yellow dress with a flower on it". She went on to tell me that as a baby I also liked to eat bananas and play in the bathtub. I really don't like to dismiss these things because I think she has demonstrated a really remarkable memory. I mean, she remembers things that actually happened when we were at the beach in June of 2008...selectively, but still (out of the blue she will say "remember that time we were at the beach and Nonni hurt her foot?" or something like that). So, when she says "when I was a baby...." I want to think she might actually remember not being able to say "garden", or whatever. But it kindof freaks me out to think she might remember a past life where I was her baby. I mean, the whole kindred spirits thing might not be complete foolishness; I try to keep an open mind about these things. Besides, everything she says might be true given how terrible my memory is about life's minutia (Gillian and Sean have tht market covered). That is why I blog.

In other news, I think I am going to decorate my house with her art because I LOVE IT. It's like modern art with an edge. I seriously am going to frame a few things because they blow my mind. Some are simple paintings that look Miro like (my favorite artist in the world; the pilgrimage to Barcelona to go to his museum was worth it!!) and some are more abstract and complex, all with names as beautiful and strange. I will upload some photos of her art when I am able. Have I mentioned how hard it is to not be able to get at the pics on my camera?

Postnatal physical damage assessment

Arms, legs, face: Back to normal (thank God since my nose was spread across my face those last few weeks), thankfully no vericose veins.
Hair: telogen effluivium, again. A sweater's worth every shower or hair brushing, though I must admit I get all fuzzy inside when I see the number of white hairs falling out. I really need a trip to the salon.
Round ligaments: have been giving me hell for a month. Time to get use to being back in their rightful place again. Please stop making me feel chronically menstrual.
Moles, skin tags: alive and well and more plentiful. SEXY.
Belly shape: soft, 3-4 month pregnancy pooch. Diastasis recti. Separation of the rectus abdominis muscle into right and left halves. My linea alba has torn asunder. If I lay flat and flex my belly, I get this little hill that rises up between where the muscles are (I can see lumps that are intenstines through the muscles when I lay awake on my back in the mornings plotting my escape from The Madness). You know, the parts that use to be joined. This is supposed to improve, but may never be the same. I should exercise the transverse muscles more to help things get back to where they go, but I have not gotten around to that yet. That and Kegels, which I really should try harder to get around to.
Belly skin: sad. stretchmarks and loose; I am told things will improve. The poor little belly button might never make it back to it's original position. I could use the extra belly skin for a small purse, or a day planner sleeve. Maybe after my post-final-baby-tummy-tuck....
Breasts: about the same as before, but more functional (no weird increase in size this time)
Eyes: chronically bloodshot from utter exhaustion
Weight: 57 pounds down, 3 pounds to go. Yes, I gained SIXTY pounds with Addie, 45 of which was gone within 3 weeks-must have been water (did you SEE that entry with the cankle/fat sausage feet I had? each ankle had three chins!!). At this point, I have no desire to lose much more because I have a milk supply to keep up (that is my mantra when I'm having a little extra treat). I want to get back into yoga, but no cardio just yet for that reason (which is great and not so great at the same time)...
Feet: shoes are pretty tight. I think the hormones might have relaxed the ligaments enough to up me a quarter or half size.

All in all: it could be worse.

By the way-the computer has been dead a couple weeks and our new one should arrive within the next week, at which time I will upload many pictures and videos for your viewing pleasure.

Survival mode

My GOD I am tired. I didn't appreciate the exhaustion of having Gillian and a new baby. Well, having them BOTH at the same time. It's kind of like when Andrea was here and Gillian was running around like a maniac and then planted herself on the couch, feet up the back and head hanging off the seat toward the ground. I just stared at her, nodding when she said "look at me, Mama! I'm upside down!!". Andrea, noticing my glaze, said "look at me Mama, I'm about to fall on my head". The truth is that my life is a lot like this (watch the whole thing-it's priceless):

Gillian has limitless energy. She is a ball of energy. All the time. When she wakes you up at 6 am, she's all shiny, bright, and happy asking you to do something inherently absurd...Tuesday morning, when I had to get up and go to work in an HOUR (I lost that precious hour), she comes in and says something like "come dance with me Mama, you want to? I want to wear my princess to dance in because it twirls around like I like, but I don't want to wear any pants with it, OK Mama? Cause it's not too cold in here, OK? C'mon let's go dance Mama. I dreamed about purple tights last night. Can I wear purple tights with my princess dress? Can I Mama? CAN I? I need help putting on my underpants and my tights and dress...C'mon Mama, WAKE UP!" So, the day starts like that, and it goes all day like that. And, as much as she wears me out TO DEATH, it wouldn't be so bad if she didn't get jealous in the least delightful way.

If I don't give Gillian undivided attention, she does things like deliberately trying to kick the cat or chases them around yelling...or maybe she will scream near Addie while she is trying to sleep. On the way to Michigan to pick apples, she yelled in Addie's face until Addie was crying inconsolably, and she had a timeout on the side of the interstate, semis rolling by at 70 miles per hour. Sometimes she hugs Addie too tight on purpose, is too rough in her playing with her (she looks at us to see what we'll do when she knows she is being too rough), or tries to pick the cat up by her neck. The other day, I walked away from her and Addie on the bed for 5 seconds, only to hear Sean exclaim "what are you doing, WHAT ARE YOU DOING??!!?"; Gillian had a plastic bag over Addie's face. I want to feel sorry for her plight, I really do, but I am a broken record. "Gillian, no yelling at the cat"; "Gillian, gentle with Addie"; "Gillian, Addie is trying to sleep, use your inside voice"; "Gillian, when you yell, it hurts our ears"; "Gillian, please do what I asked you to do"; "Gillian, please eat your dinner". I am completely, utterly wiped out. I am emotionally exhausted.

Dinner is a fight. If we pretend not to notice that she isn't eating, she says things like "Look, Papa, I'm not eating my supper". If we remind her that she doesn't get dessert unless she eats dinner she says things like "I don't want dessert tonight." She'll say "I need help. I need you to feed me". I would love to tow the hard line with sending her to bed with no dinner, except we are the ones who suffer all night with no sleep when she wakes up crying because she is hungry. Bedtime is a fight too. Every night we have the same routine (dinner, bath, playtime, books, tucking in). Every night she tells us she's not tired and that she doesn't want to go to bed. Every night we have to tell her we are leaving now, and every night she pretend cries and says some well articulated poignant thing like "but I don't want you to leave me" or "I don't want to be in here all alone...I'm scared PLEASE STAY WITH ME BECAUSE I LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU....". Every night the end result is the same and she is in bed, and we sit here like slugs on the couch, cross eyed from all the hell a three year old can pack into the two hours between dinner and bedtime. Entertaining her is a chore too. Our imaginative play has evolved to skits where she is the director. She tells me what to say. "Ask me why, Mama". "Say "I like to eat toes". SAY IT, Mama". If we ask her to do something, she will often say "NO!" and when you ask why, she'll say, "because I don't want to". If you ask why she did something she knows you disapprove of, she'll say "because I want to" (this is infuriating when she hurts Addie and you ask her why she hurt Addie). Tonight she said "I hate you" (I have absolutely no idea where she learned that). Nice. She's 3 going on 15. Can't wait for 15.

We are sometimes uncomfortable with how weirdly attached she gets to older women she doesn't know. At Christmas, she was rolling around on the carpet at Suzi's sister's feet saying "Whoa Leecey (Alyce's grandmother nickname), look at me!" She did that for 15 or 20 minutes, desperate for Alyce's attention. There were no less than 15 other kids between the ages of 1 and 6 for her to play with, and she spent her time trying to get attention from a great aunt. The same thing happened in August when we went to Lake Wawassee in Indiana to visit with Suzi's sister Chee Chee's kids and grandchildren. Gillian was on Chee Chee's lap the entire time, even though there were several sweet little girls to play with. More recently, she monopolized Teddy's grandmother at his birthday party, yelling "Hi!" to her over and over again across the dinner table. Lucky for Gillian, Suzi (ironic that Teddy's grandmother is also Suzi) was a good sport, and was great with her and assured us she was not bothered by Gillian the few times we asked if we needed to take her home.

Sleep is a joke. I am desperate for some alone time when they are both finally asleep that I stay up too late...and since I've been at work twice a week this week and last, Addie has been waking up to nurse 2-3 times every night (we were down to once, at about 4am before that). Most nights for the past month or so, Gillian has also been waking up once or twice a night...because she peed in her bed, or she has a bad dream, or because she dropped burpy on the floor and wants someone else to get it, or because she wants you to cover her up, or because she's lonely, or because she wants a hot washcloth for her face (thanks for that indulgence, Papa). So, do the math. Addie wakes me up a couple times a night, and Gillian does too. I am a zombie.

I hate feeling like this because Gillian is such a wonderful child in so many ways, but this boundary establishment part might kill me. How long does this part last? I spend half my time feeling guilty that Gillian's behavior is clearly due, in large part (the other large part being that she is three), to acclimating to sharing our love and attention with another child, and the other half feeling guilty that Addie hasn't gotten 1/10th the amount of attention Gillian got as a baby. Addie is a sweet baby, and is generally mild mannered, and she deserves better than what I am giving her. And I don't want to give the impression that Gillian is a hellion, but I am honestly in survival mode. We talk all the time about whether our parenting choices are what is causing this behavior. We second guess our decisions on how we discipline her (timeouts, for example), we second guess what we say and how we say things. We feel like we're navigating in the dark here, and we hope to God things are OK on the other side. I say this as I make my second trip to a crying Gillian in her bed since 8:30 (it is 11:30). Another bust night for sleep, it appears.

Sometimes parenting seems monumentally difficult. Shouldn't loving them be enough?

Thrush

Addie and I have thrush. Thrush is *just about* one of the most miserable physician conditions you can share with your baby. It makes the inside of the baby's mouth raw and sore...adults describe it as feeling like their tongue and cheeks are "on fire".* So, I suppose the fussing when she's nursing sometimes is from thrush. On the mother's areola, it looks raw, red, and sometimes like blisters...it causes horrible shooting pains in the nipple if the yeast gets inside the milk ducts. It looks like little white patches on the baby's tongue, inner cheek, lips, and sometimes even their gums. If you try to rub the white off, as any self respecting mama might do in the bath when she assumes it's milk, it is tough to do, and if you succeed, it is red and raw underneath. It might even bleed. The worst part is you still have to nurse while you are treating yourself and the baby, both of you in considerable pain.

So, I knew this was coming. I mean, I did get a horse dose of Clindamycin in the three and a half hours before Addie was born because I tested positive for Group B Strep (three times in spite of my efforts to populate myself with a planet's worth of Lactobacillus GG with probiotics galore). Now, I am not convinced this was even necessary and I told my doctor (and I quote) "I am just very concerned about taking such a huge dose of intravenous antibiotics and the risk of thrush while I'm trying to establish a nursing relationship with a newborn". After all, you know the propensity the medical community has for using the proverbial pharmaceutical crane to crush a fly... See, there is no real fool proof evidence that the antibiotics work, and the risk of infection is next to zero (it is a normal skin bacteria, which one would assume many many many people have exposed their babies to for millenia in labor with no ill effects). However, considering the severity of illness with babies who have Group B Strep infections from exposure, I decided not to take any chances, even though I felt like a tool for buying into the hysteria justifying overmedicating people in labor. Plus, we saw first hand how serious it could be when Gillian contracted it in the NICU, and when sepsis started making her desaturate she required two blood transfusions. So, we weren't messing around. I mean, I don't begrudge being treated for something as long as we know it works.

Speaking of which, we started a Nystatin marathon yesterday when I emailed my doctor and said I KNEW IT. I, ever sensitized to the possibility of this happening given how much IV antibiotics I got in labor, had looked at pictures before Addie even made it into the world to educate myself on what to look for. I was required to take Addie to a "newborn clinic" when she was a week old. It annoys me that I had to do that, because I have a pretty good handle on how to be a mom now that I have been one for three whole years. Plus, the people who see you are medical residents, and I'm pretty sure I know more than most of them about newborns (I am also sure if you took a poll, 99% of them aren't parents at all, yet they are giving parenting advice). Anyway, the clinic cleverly makes this the visit where you register your baby as a patient to force the issue. So, I saw two residents and a behavior specialist/lactation person (clearly not an expert if she didn't know thrush when she saw it either). One resident, who was maybe 24 and a female, said "Poor Thing" to me when she saw my PUPPPS rash (can I tell you how much I love condescending sympathy from a person that much younger than me?? a simple "that really sucks" would do). She didn't even know what PUPPPS was. I explained it to her. The other resident, the more seasoned one, did Addie's exam. I told him I thought she had thrush and explained that it wasn't too crazy a possibility given the GBS treatment. He took a quick look and told me the white stuff in her mouth was milk. I told him Gillian never had that in 16 months of nursing and told him I thought it would probably wipe off if it was milk. He told me something else justifying his opinion, and I just let it go.

I feel like Mother of The Year, if you really want to know, for not trusting my gut on this. Because of that resident's incompetence and my stupidity, Addie and I have suffered for nearly three months. I have thought a million times, "I certainly don't remember nursing being this miserably painful with Gillian". Addie is often fussy when she eats and pulls off and arches her back and whines and cries. I thought it was just the witching hour, or that sometimes her stomach was upset. I never considered that maybe her entire mouth might feel like it was full of fire blisters. My breasts look like they have giant red ring worm circles around the nipple. I have been slathering myself with Lanolin, hoping to ease the pain, but ironically, that just makes it worse! Oh, the irony-yeast like nothing better than locking in moisture with the tar like goo that is Lanolin. I am almost through an entire tube of that, and I didn't even get through an eighth of a tube in 16 months of nursing Gillian.

The worst part of this whole deal, besides the unnecessary Pain and Suffering, if the fact that this infection (candida albicans, if you want to know) is VERY HARD TO KILL. Like, think lice with sterilizing your entire house. I know several women who have had to take weeks of antifungals, while concurrently dosing baby's mouth to eradicate the yeast (and you have never had fun until you try to give a baby several milliliters a day of any liquid that is not food-think 2 mL in, 1.75 mL out; choking and gagging...God love her, Addie keeps smiling at me in spite of the fact that she must be convinced I am trying to kill her...). The worst part is that I know as many women who have fought it for months, with no success. They and their baby just keep reinfecting each other. All I can do is pray it dies off for good. And that my nipples stop feeling like Addie is a piranha when she nurses. And that when Addie is better, she will magically love bottles (that struggle is a whole other post). Because I am going back to work in two weeks. Ack.

I am Glamorous

See what mothers go through?? There has been a good many blowouts this time around. Nothing says "VOGUE" (or, as it were, screams "I AM A MOTHER") like runny breastmilk poop on your pants (except poop-that-really-wasn't-that-much-so-you-didn't-feel-like/have-the-time-to-change and now there's a little dry yellow stain on your person somewhere).

I love Addie, but I am mystified by the thermodynamics that must occur to make the poop miss inches of diaper only to reappear on the lower back or thighs. Amazing.

Gilly's Baby Mama

So, for most of Gillian's short life, she could careless about baby dolls. For example, she prefers to put diapers on or give bottles to her stuffed animals, or pretend to put them on her Ra-Ras (her hands aka monsters), or her feet-basically, anything inanimate that doesn't even slightly resemble a human being. All this nonchalance towards babies has changed the past two days when she suddenly decided it was great fun to nurse her baby doll and give her medicine "for her tummy ache" (we give Addie Zantac for reflux)...she even takes rides on the baby doll stroller that we had to dust cobwebs off of due to neglect (well, you get the point). The medicine, by the way, comes out of a harmonica onto a spoon. Musical elixhir. I like that.

Anyway, this is all sweet and awesome and womanly-reservoir-of-experience of her until you hear who baby IS. Gillian says the baby is me when I was a baby. Huh? She says things like "Mama, you're hungry and want A BOOB" (if you're wondering, NO, we did NOT teach her the word BOOB), or "Mama, your tummy hurts and you need some medicine", or, "Mama, baby you wants to go for a walk. Come with us!". To this initial role playing at playgroup, her buddy AJ looked completely bemused and continued eating his rubber donut in Gillian's kitchen. It is confusing to follow, even for me.

So, I am wondering what the significance of HER taking care of ME is. She only nurses baby me...(there are two more dolls-one is also Baby Gillian, and the other is Addie "as an even littler baby", but they get bottles, not boobies; and even that is few and far between). Only I get to go in the stroller. Only I try to poop on a little pink potty. And what triggered this all of a sudden? Either way, she is finally getting some use out of her pretty baby dolls!

Exhibit A

You Should Be Grateful

This resonated so much with me. For all of you who never quite understood while Gillian's birth was so hard on me...this is posted by the author, Gretchen Humphries, at http://www.birthtruth.org/grateful.htm
*************************************************************************************
You should be grateful, after all, you have a healthy baby.

How many times have we heard those words? How many times have we said them? It seems so obvious, you wanted a child and now you have a healthy child. You are alive to enjoy that child. You should be grateful. Right?

That phrase (or the similar, "All that matters is a healthy baby") did more damage to me than anything else said to me after my cesarean section. Because on the face of it, it seems so true. My husband and I had struggled with infertility for several years. My pregnancy came after at least 2 miscarriages and drugs to make me ovulate and then to maintain the pregnancy. I had beautiful twin boys. Why was I so upset? Wasn't I grateful? They were apparently healthy and so was I, if you discount the physical devastation of major abdominal surgery on top of the exhaustion taking care of newborn twins brings with it. My recovery was, after all, uncomplicated by medical standards. Physically, I was healing well. Wasn't I grateful?

So many people said it to me, I started to wonder. People I trusted, people I respected, people I loved. Women that had cesarean sections for their children and trumped the advantages of it. Maybe I wasn't grateful for my babies? Maybe I didn't love my babies as much as I should or as much as other mothers did? Maybe I was being selfish and petty to be so upset about the birth and not blissfully happy with my babies---after all, other women seemed to "get over it" so quickly---so quickly in fact that I had to wonder if I was really crazy to think there was anything to "get over." What was the big deal?

Part of the problem was that I actually didn't feel overwhelmingly grateful, nor did I feel overwhelmed with love for my boys. I knew that if anyone threatened them in any way that I'd do anything to protect them. I'd already proven that in negotiating a less traumatic cesarean than they would have normally experienced. I could protect my children but I didn't feel a lot about them. I was depressed. So for several months I wasn't feeling much of anything. It wasn't hard to believe that I wasn't grateful enough, that I didn't love them like I should. But I still had to wonder, even as the depression lifted, why hadn't I 'gotten over it?' What was wrong with me?
Then I began to realize how evil it is to tell a woman who's experienced a physically or emotionally traumatic birth that she should be grateful because when you say that, she hears that she isn't grateful enough for the precious baby she's been given. And that cuts to the quick. She may already be wondering what was wrong with her that she couldn't have a normal birth and now you've told her that she doesn't love her child enough. It is evil to say, "All that matters is a healthy baby," because you are saying that her pain, her damage, doesn't matter. You are telling her that not only is her body broken, but so is her mind. That if she is physically healthy, that's all that matters, and to be concerned with anything else is somehow wrong. That the means to the end doesn't matter, she is expendable.

The truth is a woman can be absolutely grateful and full of passionate mother love for her child and be enraged by how that child came into the world. Hating the birth, hating what happened in that cold impersonal operating room or delivery room has nothing to do with the child. It is possible to be both full of rage and full of love. When that rage is turned inward, a woman is depressed, and likely to believe you when she hears you tell her she's ungrateful and unloving toward her child. And if that rage turns back outward, it will spill over to you, because you told her a lie and she believed it because she trusted you. If that rage stays hidden, it will fester, and eventually there will be a place in that woman's heart where she no longer goes, because it just hurts too much and makes no sense. Good mothers just don't have those feelings, and she's already afraid she isn't a good enough mother. And so she loses something precious, and so do we all.

I discovered that there are a lot of women out there who hated the birth of their child; women who had bad surgeries, women who had good surgeries, rarely women who had necessary surgeries, women who didn't have surgery at all but did have horrible things done to them in the name of birth. I'm not the only one. There is a vast hidden ocean of pain in women who've had horrible births but do love their babies and continue to wonder, "What is wrong with me? If I just loved my baby enough, I wouldn't feel this way."

I was freed by the knowledge that there is nothing wrong with me! I underwent the surgical removal of my children from my body---a procedure that has nothing to do with birth, that completely circumvents what my woman's body is made to do. If it felt like an assault, then it was an assault, a very sexual assault. And if I'm not upset about being assaulted, then there really is something wrong with me. And that nothing that was done to me has the power to keep me from loving my children with passionate mother love.

I am grateful, grateful beyond words for the blessing of my children. They are miracles. The day they were taken out of me was one of the worst days of my life. Yet I am grateful for them, though not for what was done to me. My physical body might have recovered well enough to be called 'healthy' but my spirit was deeply wounded and then neglected. I was not healthy. I know my children suffered because of that. I have a lot to be grateful for but not for their birth, never for their birth. Understanding and accepting that makes me truly healthy. Admitting the horror of their birth frames the love I have for them in a way that astonishes me----amazed at what I went through because of my love for them, I now know I really would die for them if needed.

Now, when you tell me that I should be grateful, I realize that you are showing me how frightened you are. That you are afraid to look at my pain. That you are afraid to admit that maybe I have good reason to be angry, that maybe women are truly assaulted in the name of birth. You are telling me that it's okay for women to have birth ripped from them, that it isn't acceptable to look for a better way or to mourn what was lost. I know you now. You may not know yourself, but I do. And I pity you.

Le Petite Fleur

Irony. Addie has a hand-me-down floral onesie that, in tiny letters, on a tiny piece of material in the middle of the chest, says "Le Petite Fleur", the little flower. Oh, how I laugh to hear my little flower being so not a little flower, particularly when she's wearing that precious outfit. You see, Addie could quite possibly be the Gassiest Baby Who Ever Lived. She spends hours each day writhing in agony, legs pulled up, face red with effort, blood vessels bulging from her bald head, grunting these gutteral, gravelly, horrible grunts. The grunting sounds like I must have sounded in labor with her, or maybe the way a 250 lb man might sound making a monster poop. Sometimes she makes toots, sometimes toots with accompanying loud, blowout-style poops. Sometimes these relieve the discomfort, sometimes not. Mylecon and Gripe Water don't seem to do much, and my diet doesn't seem to make a difference thus far. I did note in a video of Gillian at the same age, that Gillian "made sounds like this [grunts] or cries" for 6 hours a night starting at 5pm, which makes me feel a little better. But Addie can grunt herself hoarse. Pobrecita!

Gillian calls her "the little tooter". Papa calls her "motorboat". Whatever the nickname, her efforts don't make her the posterchild for the Emily Post Institute, but I digress. MY little flower knows what she has to do to take care of business, and I am proud of that. I wish her little tummy didn't so obviously hurt with such frequency, but I think that is the lot of the newborn.

So, if you happen to be holding her when she contorts her precious face in pain, and graces you with a toot or a full scale blowout, don't say I didn't warn you. Addie is hard core. I remember several instances where Gillian had blowouts at inopportune moments which covered her or both of us in mustard poo, and I am not the only one. The poo gets everywhere, so runny-but-elastic and adherent it is. On my sleeve? How did THAT get there? On my elbow? How did that get there? On the back of her head? SHE REALLY NEEDS A BATH and How did THAT get there? Every day, a new wonder.

And I just noticed some Addie-induced tell-tale mustard stains on my shirt. Awesome. How does it escape these diapers?

*sigh* I forgot this delightful part of parenting a young baby.

POOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As of three days ago, Gillian, for the most part, is now peeing AND pooping in the potty!!!!!!!! There are so many benefits to pooping on the potty. It's cleaner (less wiping, though she still prefers baby wipes on her delicate backside), which we all like. She noticed one yesterday looked EXACTLY like a snake (her words). Today, there was a mama snake and three baby nuggets in the potty at Chipoltle (a public potty, no less; my girl is not pee shy!). So, not smooshed against one's bum equals being able to see the shape God gave it. What's not to love there? Position is hand down better sitting over an open hole than standing with legs slightly apart, or God forbid, sitting with the diaper on! And, as Papa taught her, you can read books if that particular poop requires a bit more concentration and relaxation.

Life is good. With the baby, even. Regression, schmeeshmession.

They ARE listening after all...

This morning, Sean was irritated because he couldn't find his flip-flops on the way to the beach. He made some reference to the fact that he only owns three pairs of shoes, and it shouldn't be so hard to find one of them...

Then our Gillian-so earnestly-said, "I keep MINE in my drawer." She was just sayin', Papa.

Acclimating is no cake walk

We started talking up the whole baby thing 8 months ago to Gillian..or around the time we thought it was safe enough to hope she would stick. I dutifully purchased some not-angry-at-the-new-baby books and one even showed fetal development to help Gillian grasp the whole baby-in-belly concept (there are lots of "I hate the baby" books, but I figured we don't need the negativity). The concept was completely abstract for a good long while, but along toward the last month or so, Gillian started acting out a little. I'm not sure if it is because of the age or because of the impending doom of change that is rocking her little world right now. I mean, kids that are almost three are hard to deal with without a family addition. They challenge you, test boundaries and rules, and try to see where your edges are if they push far enough. They need to find the edges so they can reasonably construct a world view that includes norms and acceptable behaviors in their immediate environment.

I was prepared for comments about taking the baby back or not wanting her around, but not for the anger toward me. It makes sense. Constance says to imagine I came home to Sean and found a new wife in our bed, and he said "don't worry, I'll still love you just as much". That kind of betrayal. That is the look I saw, that hurt, when she woke up from her nap, came around the corner, and into my room while I was nursing Addie our first solo day (me and the girls). I wish I could explain express how that ripped my heart right out. So, the acting out included things like pinching me, standing on my feet, digging her elbows into me (on purpose), hitting me, telling me she doesn't want me/to go away, and kicking me. This pretty much started after Sean's dad left, and during the time when his mom was still here. She really enjoyed pushing the limits with his mom here, since she could get away with more...obviously people don't know all your rules when they come to visit, and you can't expect them to want to lay down the law the way you do, so Gillian found a little loophole and went with it. She got to the point at the end of Suzi's stay where she was holding her poop and pee until she was in physical pain and for about 10 solid days said, all day long, "My tummy hurts" and ran to Suzi saying "hold me" or "rub my tummy", which happened, reinforcing Gillian to keep complaining (attention, even bad, is still attention). She began refusing naps and bedtimes, saying she didn't want to go to sleep, wasn't tired, and pulled out all the stops procrastinating going to bed. She would get out of bed 5-10 times and was throwing fits for 1-2 hours at bedtime. She was getting up between 1-5 am and going to Suzi's room to sleep with her. She lost her ability to self-soothe.

Suzi was here for three weeks, and was a tremendous help to us (I honestly don't think I would have managed even half as well without her). The mistake we made is to try to let her fill our roles almost completely, because that is usually what Gillian wants during Suzi's visits (and it's not usually a big deal for a long weekend/typical visit). I was working or running around tying up loose ends, and Sean really was busting his tail working when he could do crazy long hours. Had we tried harder to maintain Gillian's normal schedule, with me giving her a bath and putting her to bed, it would have helped...also, we didn't do our normal morning snuggle time/breakfast together, and she wasn't seeing her babysitter/kids three days a week. This further fragmented normalcy for Gillian, even before the baby came. I knew Suzi enjoyed doing all these things for Gillian, and we were happy to let her do them so we could rest and work, but looking back, we should have been more present for her. She probably felt abandoned even though she told us she wanted Nonni for just about everything.

Suzi left, Gillian now spends three days a week with Anna and the girls, and we had started dosing Gillian with Miralax in her evening milk sippy before that to make the poop unavoidable and not too painful to pass, so the poop issue started to work itself out with daily events...Sean and I now make sure I am available to Gillian for a morning snuggle that is just us (Addie is with Sean), and each of us has some alone time with her every day. We have had to rework bed and naptimes completely, and we are not having the trouble with getting her to sleep now that the routine is back in force. For the past three days, Gillian has stayed in her bed until 7 am, which is wake up time. Before that, if she woke up in the middle of the night, Sean was allowing her to stay in bed with him since I am currently sleeping in the guest room with Addie-in an effort to make me the only sleep deprived person in the house (we figure it's a delicate balance to require her to stay in her bed alone when the baby gets to sleep with me...so we were trying to give her nothing to oppose).

So, she is eating, pooping, sleeping, and is generally doing better, but we have our moments of 3ishness that are all kinds of trying. Gillian seems to truly have affection for Addie, and we try to encourage that. But she also has moments like when I asked her to get Addie's blanket for me and she said "No!" and I asked why and she said "because I want her to be cold". Time outs got trying for a couple days when she would pee on the floor when she got one (until we gave her the stuff to clean it up herself). But, all in all, we always have to keep in mind how important her routine is to her, and protect it as much as possible. I also don't know if I can quite forgive myself for abandoning Gillian, forcing Suzi to fill in while I was super pregnant...

All I can say is that I look forward to posting about our girls and all the silly things they do together, when they are the best of friends. Until then, we will continue to manage this transition the best we can.

Gillian's newest fetishes

Everything that spins is a ballerina ("fan" on the ceiling is a ballerina... wheels are ballerinas... leaves are ballerinas)... Gillian recently reinvented a baby toy from when she was a year old, as, you guessed it, a ballerina.

Star is so special she even has earrings (another big fetish lately-her favorite big sister present is by far the collection of clip on earrings she got at Addie's birthday party). Jen showed us the starfall website, and Gillian loves it. She can now operate the computer touchpad and mouse and can do the alphabet and number games herself. This is her after bath activity before bed, and she adores it:

I have so much on my mind with our transition to a 4 person family...more later!

The Birth Story of Addie and Me

Adelaide Miriam-2 hours old

Born: Friday, July 10, 2009; 8 lbs., 3 ozs., 2o inches long

On Monday, July 6th, I went to my 41 week doctor’s appointment (his gestational 41 weeks based on my last menstrual period, whereas mine gestational 41 weeks was Wednesday the 8th based on ovulation day). I was silly enough to let him start checking my dilation and effacement (out of sheer curiosity) a few weeks before and was disappointed that, at 41 weeks, I still had not dilated at all, though my cervix seem soft and thin (no way to tell if you can’t get inside the inner cervical os to check)-he estimated 30% effaced, baby at -3 station. I called my doula with the bad news and she reassured me that most first time vaginal births do not start dilating before labor begins. That afternoon I went to an acupuncturist and had some electro-stim to try to help labor come on, and went for a 3.5 mile walk to Evanston on Tuesday. The walk seemed to make the baby feel like she lowered a bit more, and I enjoyed listening to my self-hypnosis scripts on the walk, with no distractions. I listened to them every night as I went to sleep for several months, as I used Hypnobirthing as my coping mechanism in labor.

I woke up at about 4 in the morning on Wednesday July 8th with a recurring menstrual cramp sensation…I realized that these must be the notorious contractions that I wasn’t sure I would know when they happened. Sean and I got up and walked up to the beach and through the park and home to encourage things to move along. The contractions were 7-9 minutes apart all day, and didn’t seem to be getting any closer together or strong (though they were lasting 60+ second each). At about 3:30, my fantastic doula, Tricia, advised me that they might be prelabor and not the real thing and suggested I take a bath and have a glass of wine and go to sleep. Before that, I took Gillian to ballet class and walk a mile and a half home to see if it might help move things along. The times I woke up through the night, I noted that I was still contracting, but not with enough discomfort to keep me awake.

Thursday morning, the 9th, I woke up at 6am to a shiny happy Gillian who abandoned us shortly after waking us up (so much that we couldn’t go to sleep to go play with her Nonni-who, thankfully, was willing to stay with us for several weeks to help us out). Around 6:20, I noted stronger contractions that were now 5 minutes apart. I got up and noticed that when I was up and about, the contractions were 3-5 minutes apart. I excitedly texted Tricia with the news and she told me to let her know when they were consistently (for 1 hour) 3-5 minutes apart and lasting more than a minute. I texted her back and told her we would start timing them after breakfast and a walk to the beach. We started timing them at 9:02 am and over the next hour they were all 5 minutes apart or less and all were 60 seconds or longer. We called Tricia at 10:15 and told her we thought this was it. She thought it was a good idea to still go to my biweekly post date doctor visit and get my dilation checked to see where we were in labor (I had one scheduled for early afternoon); she guessed by my behavior and the length and intensity of the contractions that I was ~3cm dilated. We called ahead to the doctor’s office and they were expecting us. My doctor checked me and found I was 2-3 cm dilated and 80% effaced, a huge difference from Monday. I was a little disappointed, but Tricia thought we were going to progress quickly and we went back to our house to labor. We labored on the birth ball for an hour on our return home, listening to the hypnobirthing scripts.

Laboring on the birth ball with Sean

Sean applying pressure to my palms

Around 4pm, my labor got increasingly intense after an hour-long shower (which Tricia said could help push me into active labor-and it did) and I continued to breathe and focus on my hypnobirthing scripts. Sean set up a surround sound system in the bedroom with old computer speakers to really support my immersion in them. I managed very well, breathing calmly through contractions as my body continued to open up. Sean helped me labor in bed and on the birth ball, while Tricia reminded me to breathe deeply and helped me labor with encouragement and also added aromatherapy oils to help things progress. At 5 pm, I started having cold and hot flashes and became nauseous. At around 6pm I lost my mucous plug (I had been waiting for that for weeks, and it happened during labor!) and had a lot of bloody show. At about 6:15 pm I got in the bathtub, and it was there that I labored for an hour and began vocalizing. My version of vocalizing (which was completely instinctual and involuntary) was a low “Ommmmmm” sound, which I accidentally discovered released a lot of tension with each contraction. Tricia added oils to the bath and dumped the hot water on my stomach with each contraction, gently reminding me to breathe in deeply, to breathe in and out with long soft breaths. She told me she thought I was at or near transition. My contractions were very intense at that point, some had two peaks, contorting my belly into tight mounds, sometimes for more than two minutes at a time (I now wonder if the red raspberry leaf tea three times a day from week 36 made the contractions super-efficient and intense).

My friend Amanda is a family practice physician and told me she would check my dilation before I went to the hospital to ensure I didn’t get there too soon, and help me avoid medical interventions. She arrived at 7:45 pm and I was really actively withdrawn into myself and away from the world by that time. The seconds and minutes and hours were warped and fragmented and I had no concept of time (thankfully, I know when things happened because Tricia kept excellent notes). Amanda checked my dilation and told me I was 7cm dilated and 90% effaced, my bag of water was bulging, and that it was time to go to the hospital. We left for the hospital at 8:25 pm.

The ride to the hospital was rough, particularly with our post-winter-from-hell pothole ridden streets. I always hate potholes, but I hate them a whole lot more when I am in transition. We arrived after pulling over fairly frequently during strong contractions, and made it there a little before 9 pm. I would think the scene of us entering the ER would have been very Friends-episode-like, with the intensely laboring woman in the wheel chair entering and, upon realizing we were far into labor, the staff quickly abandoning protocol of asking 20 million questions to take us directly to OB triage. We went some crazy back way, all the while, I was “Ommmmm”ing loud and not giving much of a damn who heard me. Turns out Sean knew the registration guy wheeling us there from a playgroup in the neighborhood, which I now find ironic. We went to OB triage, where I gave them a urine sample and got a heplock and undressed. I had the hypnobirthing scripts on in my iPod, and was doing my best to dissolve into, despite the distractions. When the nurse asked me what I wanted to control pain, I said “nothing” as firmly as I could muster. No one mentioned pain medications again during my labor.

We went up to a labor and delivery room, and as I had asked, the lights were dimmed. At about 9:45 I resumed a more focused labor after another check where I was about 8 cm and 90% effaced, with a bulging bag. I labored on my birth ball, I labored leaning on Sean, and I labored on the toilet. At 10 I said “I don’t want to do this anymore” (which I later found out is a very different state of mind than saying “I can’t do this anymore”). At 11:35 I had a spontaneous push and ruptured my bag, and the amniotic fluid went everywhere. I know that rupturing the bag makes labor more intense, but I had already been officially in transition for 4 hours (counting when Amanda said I was 7 cm) and maybe longer, so I didn’t notice if it did get more intense. I find it amazing that some people can fight the urge to push, since my urge was so completely instinctual that I didn’t even feel it coming…it was like when you vomit or have a stomach cramp and diarrhea on the toilet-that kind of involuntary reflex. There was no holding back. When a contraction came, I pushed, HARD. I pushed on my side, on my hands and knees, and semi-sitting/squatting. The baby came fast, and I was surrounded by gentle encouragement…they told me they could see her head, and I reached down to feel it. It was hard and weird and warm, and not part of me. I kept pushing and she crowned and came out in one push at 12:50 am. She was on my chest, and perfect, and beautiful…8 lbs and 3 oz and everything I prayed for. She was pretty phlemy and a little blue, so they took her to suction her (she hadn’t “spent enough time in the birth canal to get that wrung out of her”) and Dr. C proceeded to manually help the placenta out (they did hook up the pit to my GBS antibiotic line to help), and then he began repairing my destroyed perineum. I had third degree tears, probably because of the power of and my inability to control my pushes. It took about 45 minutes for me to get sewn up, and I was shaking from the hormones. When Addie was done getting suctioned, she nursed for the better part of an hour, and she kept me from shaking during my repair. The mood in the room was celebratory-everyone on my birth team knew our first birth story, and every one of them wanted us to have what we wanted. Somewhere, our victory was also theirs, and it was exciting and energizing that we banded together and made it happen.

There were moments of humor, some of which were funny (Dr. C raving about how youthful and good looking my placenta still was-he would have guessed it to be about three weeks younger than it was, or Sean eating a bag of goldfish while watching me get sewn up) and not so much (Sean telling me to “grind it, baby” when I was on my hands and knees pushing- NOTE: TRANSITION IS NOT THE TIME TO MAKE SEXUAL INNUENDOS TO YOUR LABORING WIFE). After that I was starving (all day I had eaten 2 probiotic shakes, two pieces and two bites of toast, and two bites of banana- the two bites of toast and banana being all I ate after breakfast). Tricia got me a snack box and raided the vending machine for candy per my request, and we rested waiting for a recovery room. At 3, we arrived in our room, coming off our high. This time, my healthy baby slept next to me, and no one whisked her away from me to intubate her in the NICU. This time, it was as it should be. We left the hospital 36 hours later-all of us-me, Sean, and our healthy, beautiful, full term baby.
**********************************************************

Reflections:

I did it. Vaginal birth after c-section. And I did it well. It was hard, but the experience is mine and I am proud to own it. I want to add another positive story to those that make a case that regardless of previous complications, our bodies are beautiful machines that know how to have babies. Every woman deserves to see what power she is capable of, VBAC or not.

Self-hypnosis was a very effective coping mechanism for my labor. I was able to control my state of mind and breathe into the surges until instinct took over completely. I never lost control of my labor. I never panicked. I stayed at the center. I thank my preparation and my doula for that.

Tricia ensured I got the birth I wanted. I would never birth another child without a doula. She was calm, reassuring, and is an expert on birthing…birthing is a woman thing, and women need to be with women when they are having a baby. The first time I met Tricia I felt like she was an old friend and I had known her forever, and I was completely comfortable with her. She will soon be off having her fourth baby, and I wish her the best :-). If we do this again, we’ll be calling her for a repeat service!

Dr. C is the best doctor on the planet. He calmly hung back, and let me do my thing. Tricia told me in the hall that he asked her about rupturing my membranes if things didn’t progress, but he didn’t push the issue. How many doctors can hold their desire to interfere and let nature take its course? He is funny, smart, empathetic, and talks to me like a peer, not a patient. It will be a very sad day when circumstances take him out of my life.

I found that I was more internal during my labor and didn’t really interact with the people around me. I didn’t do much leaning on Sean or looking into his eyes, though I was glad to feel his hands on my shoulders or him squeezing my hands during contractions. I went internal early on and stayed there. I suppose that is part of using hypnobirthing in labor.

Labor is surreal…waves of a fascinating kind of pain. You become instinctual. You can’t live in your head in labor or you will panic. You have to journey so far in. I found strength and a rock solid core I glimpsed before but didn’t know the breadth of. That is what is empowering about a natural labor and delivery. I feel like I joined some sisterhood of the ages or something, millions of years of women birthing a species as God intended…it is the proudest and hardest physical work I have ever done. Instead of saying “she was delivered” like I do with Gillian, I say “I delivered her”.

Sean was supportive, positive, and a rock for me during labor. He played the same role in our labor as he does in our life together-he creates space for me to exist and move in. He makes it safe, and he is a guardian. And I am grateful for that.

Suzi (my mother in law; Gillian’s “Nonni”) being here for Gillian was a Godsend. I labored here all day Thursday, and Gillian thought I was at work. We left for the hospital when she went to bed. I have so much gratitude for the help Suzi provided before and after Addie was born.

Lots of stars align to make a natural birth more likely. Addie allowed us a full night’s sleep before she kicked things into high gear. I worked well with my chosen relaxation technique and practiced it for months before the Day Of. I had a doula that was phenomenal. My bag of water stayed intact until I was pushing. My uterine contractions were regular and very effective (again- red raspberry leaf tea??). My baby was in the optimal position. I had people who could help me labor comfortably at home until it was time to go to the hospital, and a doctor who wanted this birth to be what I wanted. I know I am blessed, and I know that God was there.

Tricia and I a week later