Just a Normal New Mama

It's been quiet around the blog lately, and it's entirely attributable to the fact that I'm a new parent. While pregnant, I fully expected my head to spin for the first few weeks of motherhood... little dude is 4 months old, and after a 2 week vacation over the holidays, I think my head *might* have just now stopped spinning quite so fast. It still spins, but the speed has decreased << at least that's what I'm telling myself in hopes that the whole 'self-fulfilling prophecy' will come to a head >>.

He's honing his inner love
child with the peace sign.

So... where to take you all today. You might have noticed in the progression of my posts during pregnancy that the process of growing a baby simultaneously provoked me to talk about the growth of my inner hippie. I'm happy to report that, as a new mom, my crunchy granola is overflowing the proverbial cereal bowl.

After that all-star analogy, allow me, if you will, to change the vocabulary I'm using here. As opposed to referring to myself as a tree-hugging hippie type of new mom, I'd like to simply state that becoming a mother has caused me to << desire to >> be more mindful of being a better steward of all the gifts, resources, and blessings that have come into our lives.

Me and my nursling on Thanksgiving morning watching
the Macy's parade after a pancake breakfast.

Breastfeeding For example, it's strange << sad and a little bizarre too >> that in some circles, breastfeeding a baby can seem like a "hippie" thing to do. It's NOT. It's a normal, natural, biological way of nurturing your little creature. Moms for millennia have nursed their babies, and if they couldn't do so themselves, there were wetnurses that would step in. I've nursed my son for over 4 months now. We've had a hellacious journey << I'll share in a later post what I mean by this >>. When I talk about the gifts and blessings of being a new mother, here's an example: when my baby arrived, so did my milk. I'm putting it to good use by feeding my nursling. I think it's unfortunate that boobs have been pigeonholed as sex objects so much so that some people get their panties in a wad when they see a mom feeding her fussy baby in public. Sure, boobs are sexy, in a certain context. They're also functional and the source of perfectly concocted nutrients in another context. Not to mention that sometimes the jugs are the quickest and easiest way to quiet an upset baby. I ran across a cartoon recently that gets at what I'm saying. It's not a weird, gross, inappropriate, hippie-thing to nurse your child. It's a normal thing. It would be great if our society were desensitized to seeing a baby nurse at the b@@b.

Stacks of freshly laundered, stuffed cloth diapers make me
and the hubs really happy. It's awkward how happy they make us.

Cloth Diapering Using cloth diapers might seem like a hippie, tree-hugging thing to do. I propose that it's not. It's simply one of many ways that were developed to catch the urine and feces little creatures expel multiple-- and I mean multiple-- times per day. We choose to use cloth on our creature for a variety of reasons. Here are a few.

1. To keep the thousands of pounds of diapers out of the landfills for the next hundred+ years. 
2. To prevent diaper rash on our boy's bum.
3. To save money in the long run (we'll use them on multiple babies and the diapers grow like he does).
4. We like them. A lot.

The truth is, our grandparents << and every generation before them >> used cloth diapers. 'Sposies weren't an option. My in-laws had the hubs in cloth in the South American village where he grew up. My parents had my sister in cloth because she had a sensitive heinie. Per reason #4 listed above, when we first researched cloth diapers, I thought it was weird how parents would type product reviews professing a deep love of the cloth. The affection with which cloth-diapering mama's offered their testimonials made me squirm.  Awkward, right? .. crickets chirping... Well, I'm one of those mama's now. We wash and re-use, and we feel really good about it. We enjoy stuffing the diapers, and we love how our little dude has a chubby bum in cloth. When he's at daycare, he's in 'sposies (that we provide). We send him in cloth, and they change him into a sposie once it's time. I'm not kidding even a little when I say that the first time he pooped in a cloth diaper, he grinned from start to finish.

Co-Sleeping We co-sleep with our son, and sometimes we bed-share. When I say co-sleep, I mean that the little guy is in our room in his own bed, a modern-day bassinet. My parents had us in a bassinet, although Mom tells me I was in the hallway just outside their door. When I have to get up and go to work all day (and be excruciatingly APART from my son), for me, it's more restful to pull the munchkin into the bed and nurse him when we're lying down during the 2 times at night when he wakes up to nurse. It's a comfort to me to know he's snuggled in close. It gives us more time together, even if we're both sleeping. Before I ever considered bed-sharing, I read a lot about how to do so safely. I read the pro's and con's, I weighed them in the context of our family and what works for us, and it's a better gig for all of us when the munchkin's within arm's reach, for now. That could change as he gets older, but for now, it's important to both of us that he be oh, so close. Again, this whole "co-sleeping" gig seems to be something many Americans might classify as hippie, but I'm just not willing to refer to pretty much every other culture in the world as "hippies culture" for their bed-sharing habits. This video is of the munchkin waking up in his co-sleeper.

Can it get any sweeter?

Baby Wearing My favorite way to run errands involves wearing my sweet boy. We have a total of 3 carriers: a sling, a strappy/clip kind, and a flexible, fabric one that ties on. I love them all for different reasons, and I absolutely hate lugging around a car seat with a baby in it. I always slam the seat into things like walls, human calfs, chair legs, etc. The car seat in the stroller is tolerable when there's plenty of room to navigate it, but sometimes it's just easier to strap on the baby and go. If it's a few groceries from the store, baby goes in the Bjorn. If it's a walk outside, baby goes in the Moby. If he's sleepy but fighting it, he's in the sling wrapped around my torso. All this baby-wearing has a few consequences. First, the hubs and I both have strong arms and backs. Second, baby and I get skin-to-skin contact while I get to be hands free. In these cooler temperatures, we keep each other warm. When he's a little fussy or not feeling well, he settles down fast when he's being worn. And perhaps one of the best reasons: in public, strangers are less likely to invade my personal space to touch my baby << sorry, but I am, in fact, one of those moms... if I don't know you, don't touch my baby >>. I no longer think it's all that crunchy to wear my munchkin. In many many cultures, babies get slung over the shoulder of working mama's and life goes on. My mom used to wear me-- she said I used to sleep through Sunday school and most of church too.

All in all, I no longer think of myself as a tree-hugging, granola crunching hippie new mama. I'm just a normal new mama married to a normal new papa, and we're doing the best we can to figure out our new normal. We do ourselves a disservice to claim that some of our techniques are outside of the realm of normal. The more we talk with other parents, the more we realize there are plenty of breastfeeding mama's, cloth diapering papa's, baby-wearing auntie's, and co-sleeping babies. We're all just trying to figure out what works best for us and our baby. I'm sure that whatever works with this munchkin might not come close to working with our next one. And that's cool. Just don't call me hippie.

New Parent WIN or FAIL? You Judge

Much to my chagrin, our little dude spends some of his hours in daycare. If I could have it my way, I'd be a full time stay at home mom, and I'd work full time too.  I just flat love both my jobs, there are no two ways about it... Since my wish for double the hours in a day is yet to be granted, the hubs and I have worked out *the best possible schedule* to minimize little dude's time in the arms of other caregivers while still allowing both of us to work full time.

He's been at daycare a few weeks now (I've been back at work that long too), and during the first couple weeks, I would drop him off and promptly cry my way to the office, which is a 2 minute drive << it's so close I could throw a stone and hit the daycare>>.  One word: MISERY.  After the initial 2 weeks I think it sunk in to a certain degree that this is our new normal, and I find myself feeling better about the setup.

There are 2 women who care for the babies in the room where our little dude stays, and I like them both very much. They're great with the babies, and I trust them with my son << those are HUGE words coming from the mouth of a new mother, FYI >>.

Here's a recap of a recent happening:

I arrive at 1:30 to pick up the munchkin, and Miss L tells me they made an executive decision not to give him his second bottle because he had *just* started asking for it and they thought I'd prefer to feed him  << our little dude is breastfed exclusively, whether it comes from the boob or the bottle >>. Little did they know I had *just* finished pumping at work before I went to pick him up. Effectively he had an empty tummy and I had empty milk jugs <<that's actually a myth- when nursing, the "girls" are never actually empty >>. So I pop the little dude into his car seat thinking it'll be a quick drive home and I can feed him a bottle from the comfort of his rocker.

WRONG.

Two minutes into the 10 - 12 minute car ride home he is fired up, and I mean FIRED UP.  The poor kid was wailing. Now don't get me wrong- baby crying in the car is not uncommon, but when I know he's crying because he's starving or sitting in a lake of pooh or some other discomfort that I can remedy, it's heart wrenching.  And I knew for a fact he was hungry.

Arriving to a loooong red light intersection just as it turns red, a brilliant idea also arrived to my mind.  I grab the bottle that he did eat from at daycare << that I know for a fact Miss L rinses but doesn't wash >> and I put in exactly 4 oz of my still warm, recently pumped milk.  I reassemble the bottle, push the front passenger seat as far forward as it will go, and I pull the little dude's seat as far forward as it will go too << our compact SUV has a back row of seats that can be moved forward or back just like the front seats >>.  I flip his sun cover and pop the bottle into his mouth. He's not big enough or coordinated enough to hold the bottle on his own, so I drove home holding a bottle in baby's mouth with one hand while driving with the other.

To my credit, there was no music or phone to distract me, and I was entirely focused on safe driving skills while my little man sucked down his milk as if he hadn't eaten in days.  The drive home consisted of a short stint on the interstate (I had to merge right once), a merge to the left off the interstate, followed by 3 left turns (2 of those at traffic lights), and 1 right turn. It was about 1:30 in the afternoon- not exactly a high traffic rush hour.

Baby was quiet and even a little bit sated by the time we got home, at which point I finished feeding him properly. 

Does this one count as a New Parent Win or a New Parent Fail?

Baby's Got a Green Bum

One surprising effect being pregnant had on both me and the hubs was that it brought out our crunchy, inner granola.  Among our other efforts to reduce our impact on the planet as we cultivate new life, we decided to explore the possibility of cloth diapering our kiddo.

Light blue bum pictured here

It's official: baby's got a *mostly* green bum.  We've officially made the switch to cloth diapers, and it's pretty fab after just a couple of weeks << this coming from a girl whose mother taught her to recycle before it was cool to recycle, when the cheesy "3R" commercials were still in rotation >>.

Maybe you've heard it before, but it bears repeating: cloth diapers today aren't your momma's cloth diapers... no pins, no folding, no need for the use of a diaper service.

We started out with a pack of 12 bumGenuis 4.0 All in One diapers. The idea with this particular style is that the diaper can be snapped down small enough to fit a newborn rump and then unsnapped big enough to fit a potty training kiddo.

In theory, it's the only diaper you'll need.

We turned our little dude's bum green when he was 8 weeks, and so far, so good.  We have had exactly ZERO poop explosions << someone please knock on wood >> and  just a couple of damp onesies while in the cloth.  When I'm in on diaper duty, if he happens to be in a disposable (for day care, 2 mornings per week) and decides to poo, I almost always end up changing his whole outfit.  If he takes a dump in cloth, the poo stays right where it's supposed to.

The only downside we've identified is that if he's got a really wet diaper, the area around his legs can get a little bit damp.  Our solution has been to either double up with the liners or change him a little more frequently (which is still *not as frequent* if he were in a disposable).

Before we switched, the hubs would empty the diaper pail on a weekly basis and it just about took both of us to haul the load out the curb.  Easily 35 pounds of waste was being sent to the dump every week. Now, taking into account his day care diapers, we're probably talking 3 - 5 pounds in the landfill, tops.

Also, it doesn't hurt that the diapers are so stinkin' cute.  Little man's monthly "watch me grow" photos are going to be in these. Win!

2 months and he's already working on his Buddha Belly

Baby's First Halloween

I'll just go ahead and admit it. While pregnant, I spent more time pondering what I would dress my newborn as for his first Halloween than I spent thinking about child care.  In the end, both costumes and care providers were established in a timely fashion.  Here's what transpired yesterday...

This is what I sported at day care. It's in the shadow,
but my hat has a pumpkin stem!

Naked baby says, "Ribbit, ribbit!"

Me and Big Brother had a great time in costume while Mama and Papa handed out candy to the neighborhood princesses, goblins, gangsta's, and pirates.

Happy Halloween!  Now bring on Thanksgiving!!!

Early Adventures in Parenting

Newsflash: kids don't come with instruction manuals.  They do, however, produce an enormous learning curve for their parents upon arrival.  Here are a few anecdotes and lessons that we've learned in the short time we've had our little man.

Burp like a man!
One of the many joys of baby-rearing is feeding and watching him grow.  Part of the feeding process involves burping.  And burping my son is, at times, altogether hilarious.  There's a variety of ways to burp a baby, and having a kid with chubby cheeks makes one of those ways very enjoyable.  To achieve said enjoyment, you must sit the kid up with one hand underneath his chin holding him upright in a sitting position, freeing your other hand to pat him on the back.  By holding his head up from his chin/neck, his chubby cheeks seem to just *multiply*. And our little dude always gets this un-thrilled look on his face as if to say, "Mom, the clock's ticking. Knock off this crap, and get me back to the goodies."

Purple mouth
The rugrat recently had his 1 month appointment, and he got a good report on all fronts.  After meeting with the Peed << that would be short for Pediatrician, folks >>, the Lactation Consultant wanted to see how we're doing with the breastfeeding. She also gave us a good report, however I've been dealing with something known as thrush for a few weeks now. My milk jugs were given a treatment of "purple paint" with the instructions to let them dry for a half hour and then it would be fine to feed the baby.

Later on baby wakes up ready to eat.  I latch him on and he starts in... he detaches briefly and all I see is purple!!! His mouth, his tongue, his lips, and when I go to wipe, it got ALL over his cheeks too.  Epic New Parent Fail.  I was mortified. I imagined he'd be painted purple for a week!  I kept thinking people would see him and wonder why he'd been given a lollipop.

Here's a video showcasing both the burp method and 

the poor little dude with his purple mouth.

He's sleeping... Momma can't move.
Everyone tells you to sleep when your baby sleeps.  And sometimes I do.  Other times I capitalize on time to do things like put on makeup, fix my hair, wash some laundry, and even eat.  I had a fussy baby one afternoon when I was flying solo << the hubs had already gone back to work >> and I was trying a variety of positions to get him to fall asleep.

The magic position that hour ended up being for him to lie flat across my lap on his tummy.  Worked like a charm.  Until I realized that it was close to 2 pm and I needed to warm up some leftovers to call lunch.  *Facepalm* Despite my hunger pangs, I did think to take a photo.

Eventually I did get the courage to gingerly relocate him so that I could eat.

Baby Came In a Hospital, Part 2

Check out the previous post to orient yourself to this one...

It was D-Day and we arrived to the hospital at 5:15 am. They started the Pitocin right away, and contractions were coming full force by 7:15 am. It just so happens that our nurse on the 8a - 3p shift had worked as a doula at the birthing center for 5 years prior to going to work as a labor and delivery nurse in the hospital.  We *loved* her! She was on the exact same page as we were.  When I mentioned to the nurse how asking someone to run a marathon and telling them all they can eat is popsicles and ice chips to fuel their efforts is a little ridiculous, she agreed.  She agreed!  I went on to ask her, hypothetically of course, if a woman were to find herself in labor and were to eat a spoon of peanut butter and have some G2 for fuel if that would be a good choice. She hypothetically said yes. You know how I said at the end of this post  that despite our disappointment at not delivering baby at the birthing center that God showed up? I'm just sayin'...

Okay, back to labor... I had the best labor coaches in the world- the hubs and my sister Jules, with the occasional cameo from my mom.  The nurses were also great support, and one of the midwifes from the birthing center was in and out all day too.  I felt such support surrounding me and felt so well cared for that it was extraordinarily easy for me to be entirely focused internally on the process my body was going through.

If you've never had the experience, contractions offer a finite amount of pain as your body goes through the process of preparing to deliver a baby.  During each "rush," the whole point is to tolerate the pain until it passes. The actual pushing doesn't come until the very end.

Looking back on it, I think the hubs and I would both agree that the day existed outside of normal, linear time.  During each contraction I had my eyes closed << in anticipating labor, I thought I would want to focus on something visually, but not so much when it was go time >>, and at first they came not too hard and about 5 minutes apart. Of course they ramped up in frequency and duration as the pitocin continued to drip.  I would do a variety of things to get through each contraction: focused breathing, walking, moving around on the exercise ball, listening to the music playing, talking and laughing.  Sometimes the midwife and the nurse would offer counter pressure on the back of my hips which provided great relief, even though I didn't have back labor << thank God! >>.

So I labor, and labor, and labor some more.  Periodic checks indicate slow but fairly steady progress, and shortly after lunchtime we agreed to have my water broken.  Around mid-afternoon I had some significant nausea and even threw up a couple of times.  For a while I labored in an over-sized bathtub which was glorious. As we got further into the evening, I was showing all the signs and symptoms of a woman close to delivery.

A check at 9:15 pm indicated I was dilated to just 6 cm, and baby still hadn't descended all the way into the birth canal.  By this point I'd been laboring for 14 hours straight, and get this: I fell asleep for 15 minutes.  Fifteen minutes! The contractions didn't slow down or stop during that time- my exhaustion masked the pain in order for my body to rest... remember how I said insomnia hit hard at the end of my pregnancy?  I was in labor after 2 nights in a row of just 3 hours of sleep... I'm still amazed thinking back that I slept through 6 or 7 hard contractions.

A little while later Dr. Midwife comes in and talks to us about the sitch.  Despite hard contractions that were no more than 1 minute apart, baby wasn't making his way down << oh wait... let me guess.... could it be because he's a stubborn little fellow who likes to do things on his terms and in his time? >> .  Effectively, labor stalled and baby said, "I'm not budging."

One option was to increase the pitocin and monitor the contractions from the inside to keep a closer eye on progress and on the baby; however, because the baby hadn't descended into the canal enough, it wasn't definite whether or not this intervention would ultimately lead to a natural childbirth.  The other option was a C-Section.

If you'd asked me before I was in labor how I felt about the possibility of having my baby surgically removed from my body, you would have gotten an ear full.

After experiencing 15 1/2 hours of labor after a week and a half of trying every possible natural labor inducer, the hubs and I had total conviction that we had tried absolutely everything to get the baby out naturally. In that moment, we were both filled with peace that God had other plans, despite the plans that we had made.

In the end, little dude ignored his Final Eviction Notice and the officials had to go in and force him out, belongings and all.  At 10:35 pm we agreed to a c-section, and baby boy arrived at 10:54 pm.

Get this: in the OR, doc delivers our son and he hands the "scissors" to David to cut the umbilical cord.  Afterwards the nurses were like, "Oh my gosh, Dads never get to cut the cord in the OR!"  That's just one example of how blessed we were through the whole process- our OBGYN broke all the rules to follow our birth plan as closely as he could.

Now let me just say that when I laid eyes on our boy, I blubbered like a baby << just not like a newborn baby- did you know newborns don't cry actual tears? >>.  All of the effort, the emotion, the excitement- all of it brought me to this glorious moment when I fell in love all over again and for the first time ever, and new heart and brain matter began to form that just didn't exist before my son.

When we're coming out of the OR, I couldn't take my eyes off of our son, wrapped snugly in my arms.  I do recall hearing our dear friend's 4 year old son say to his papa, "Look! They found Joaquin!"

Baby Came In a Hospital, Part 1

In the last post  I shared what I went through the week or so before our little dude arrived as we tried everything under the sun to provoke labor in order to deliver at the birthing center.

Nothing worked. When 41 weeks came and went, we were instructed by the birthing center to go to the hospital to be induced.

Here's a joke for you:
What's the quickest way to make God laugh? ...........................
.................................................................................................................................................................. Make your own plans!

The day before induction day, we went to the hospital for a tour and brief orientation so that we'd know where to go and what to do at 5 am the next day.  So we're standing at the reception desk downstairs, and there are 3 women waiting for the elevator... it just so happens that 1 woman is the chair of the Board of Directors at the birthing center, the 2nd woman is a midwife who works at the birthing center, and the 3rd woman is a midwife interviewing for a job at the birthing center.  This was surprisingly comforting in light of our hearts desire to deliver at the birthing center and our deep disappointment with the news that under no uncertain circumstances we would be delivering at the hospital.

Did I mention that first woman, the chair of the Board, is the wife of the doctor who would attend our birth? He has a real name, but his nickname is Dr. Midwife. It's rumored that the guy keeps an inflatable tub in his vehicle in case a patient wants a water birth. It also just so happens that he delivered my cousin and my step-brother.  You know how I said at the end of the last post that God showed up? I'm just sayin'...

These 3 women were like mother birds taking us- 2 scared little baby birds- under their wings and upstairs for a tour. They were encouraging, they were supportive, and they set us up with a nurse who was able to take us around and show us what we could expect the next day.

Let me clarify something.  We're not anti-hospital, and we don't oppose medicine or medical practice.  Simply put, we wanted the most natural childbirth experience possible, and we believed that we'd achieve that without a lot of extra effort by delivering our son at the birthing center << example: 90% of women who deliver a baby in the hospital ask for an epidural... call me crazy, but I didn't want one- didn't even want to be offered one >>.

So the long and short of it is, after months and months of planning, hoping, wishing, and praying for a natural delivery at the crunchy granola birthing center up the road from our house, we were destined to deliver baby in the hospital.

That night I think I slept about 3 hours, which was the same amount of sleep I'd had the previous night.  Insomnia hit me hard at the end of the pregnancy.  Let me just go ahead and put it out there now, folks, they call it labor for a reason- it's HARD WORK. Even harder to do with not a lot of gas in the tank.

Again, folks, favorite joke of all time: quickest way to make God laugh is to make your own plans...  Read on for delivery day details!