Reality

At my doctor's office today for an infected toe. "Oh my gosh! You look great! How's mommy life?!". "Great! She is amazing, G is amazing, aside from three months of thrush its a dream come true, really.". "Mah!, thrush is no big deal. Once you stop nursing it will go away.". I love my doctor but that was such a dude thing to say. Even the nurse rolled her eyes when he left and said "You can tell he never nursed!"

7 Months

You are strong and opinionated
You are wise and very old
My favorite traveling companion
The sweetest touch to my cheek
My alarm clock and my lullaby
Story teller and audience
A tiny mirror to my best intentions
My motivation to work harder, to love myself more, to try try try

In the past seven months you have crumbled old walls and awakened the siren call of a future I had nearly forgotten to go get. Everything is different my dear.
Faster and less busy
Exhausted and more alive
Simpler in this complex new web
I thought "this is survival!" but I now understand this is living.

You have expanded us and boiled us down to what is more important. We walk just to walk now, not only to arrive. You have made it clear to us, the walk is just as rich as the arrival.

Thank you for my home, my family
Thank you for this new love pouring out of me and my new eyes
It is beautiful here
All sleepy and grinning
I kiss your head and fall in love
A thousand times a day

The Space Created By Exhaustion

Having a baby is a lot of work. News flash right? I thought so. But truly. The first three months are weapons grade exhausting and then things get easier just for a bit while life starts to catch up. I went back to work at five months but the Hubbs stayed home for six weeks so I came home to dinners and a happy baby and didnt have to worry about child care... Pretty dreamy. In addition, he is an amazing dad so I only really had to worry about me. Tiny girl hardly noticed I was gone.

Anyway, this past few weeks have been totally beautiful and exhausting. Tiny girl is learning to crawl. She gets up on hands and knees and rocks back and forth. She works so hard. She has been waking up at night to practice this too. She wakes at 1 and is up until 3 or 4. It is insane. She is happy and chirping and awake.

I occasionally freak out in the middle of the night when this is happening. I loose my composure and the sleep deprived self centered teenager erupts saying things like "I cant take it! She wont go back to sleep!" and "This is bullshit! Your turn" followed by me handing a happily squawking baby to the Hubbs and bailing out to the guest room for at least a few hours before she needs to nurse again. In those moments I feel so much emotion bubbling up inside and I just spark like a blown fuse. I loose perspective in the grey half light of dawn.

I have been reading a really awesome blog https://unraveledword.wordpress.com
And this mother is exploring spirituality through the lens of parenting. She has some really amazing observations but none yet have struck me as deeply as that about parenting, exhaustion and the work it does on ego.

I lived my entire life in a state of duality. I thought about everything all the time. How I looked, what I wanted, what my thoughts and desires said about me. I was constantly observing myself and levying judgement upon myself for every little thing. In addition I spent a great deal of time labeling things good/bad/neutral. I would find myself happy or sad or exhausted and very self indulgently spend all day grasping or rejecting or ignoring whatever it was. I was working hard to manage and control my experiences. Then I had a baby....

I have never spent so much time being totally present. It is very much as if there is nowhere else to be. I find myself too exhausted to manage and to in love to reject. All that is left is being right on the spot. Loving something so much and being so exhausted seem to cancel out eachother. I am pinned to the now or maybe freed to the now is a better expression of it. It is amazing to feel myself want something or need something but then to know that it is just not going to happen right now because Tiny needs something mire important. In my past that would have been too much. I would have bitched and whined and been miserable. The constant demands on me physically and mentally are grinding away at my sense of 'Me' as I have known for so long. I no longer think of myself as the pinnacle of importance I once did. Now, I have others I want to give to. Others I want to see happy and at ease. This is not to say I dont care about myself or I no longer have an identity. No, I still have some of that. It just doesnt seem to hold the same value anymore. It is no longer SO important to protect my 'ME'. She is tough, she is soft, she loves others more than herself (most of the time). These glimpses into 'Now' and more distilled Bodichitta are beautiful and quite ordinary. I find them most clearly in the days following the most sleepless nights. I have no choice but to get up and once I do there is so much to fall in love with it becomes hard to remain miserable.

Learning to trust myself

A little while ago I was sleep deprived and looking for answers to help me help tiny sleep better. She has never slept through the night. She is six and a halfish months old and I was certain it was my "fault" that she was still waking 3-4 times between 8pm and 6am. I was looking through my library and found a book on all things baby. It promised to help me troubleshoot everything from sleep to solids. Awesome. After reading about half of it I started to feel a cold panic set in. It talked about co-sleeping and night nursing as obstacles and encouraged a modified cry it out method to help teach my baby how to put herself to sleep. I started to feel like a bad mom. Some of my favorite things about our laid-back attachment parenting approach (co-sleeping, nursing on demand, no rigid sleep/wake/feed schedule, lots of cuddle time) were being listed as potential roots of my baby's "problem". I started spiraling into a tornado of self doubt.

I told the Hubbs that we needed to start her on a more strict schedule and we needed to start putting her down and letting her fuss a bit more if she wakes up at night. I told him we need to start trying to get her to sleep without feeding her. I was feeling dizzy with anxiety and insecurity. I was a horrible mother! I was coddling my baby and ruining her!! I collapsed into bed on the fourth day, crying and feeling utterly crappy. Then I called my mom buddy J. I told her everything and told her what the book said and how awful I was and what a terrible parent I was. She said "Listen to me and don't get upset but this might sound harsh and I don't mean it to. You are one of the most intuitive moms I know. You have a great relationship with R and she is a happy, confidant, well adjusted kid. She is little. If she needs you she probably needs you. She's not waking up to be a jerk. I dont think this book knows you or your baby. It doesnt sound quite right for you". I was taken aback. She was right. I had made it six months without killing or obviously damaging this tiny person. Hell, for a six month old she was really very happy. Hardley ever cries, happy with other people, puts herself to sleep really REALLY well. So far, all signs point to "doing a pretty good job with this mom thing". Why, all of the sudden, am I now going to trash all of that and decide I am a horrible parent who is ruining my daughter?

I decided to take my dear friend's observation and advice and continue to listen to my own inner compass and intuition. I know my baby and she knows me. She trusts me and G to be there for her, to feed her when she is hungry, cuddle when she is in need and not to abandon her at night or any other time. Sorry baby trainer lady! It just wasnt going to work for us. I know a lot of parents who have had success with varying degrees of cry it out but I just couldn't and really didn't think it was necessary. I opted to trust myself, trust my baby and take it day by day.

We dont nurse to sleep. She has her own sleeping space. She is allowed time to self soothe and fuss a bit without anyone rushing right in. But we dont let her cry. Her fuss and cry are very different and she really only cries when something is wrong (diaper, hungry, cold, pain, very tired, too long in car seat). I dont want her to have to feel like bedtime is so sad that she has to cry. I DO want her to learn to calm herself and soothe herself. So here is how we do it and it is working like a charm. Around 7-715 she gets changed into jammies and disposable diaper. We then head upstairs and sing a few songs and maybe read a book. Final top off nursing is next and then she goes into her bed (sidecar co-sleeper). While she is calm and quiet I let her roll around snuggling up to her "sweet puppy" blanket. I lay in bed nearby but dont interact. I dont talk or pat or shush or anything. If she seems to be wound up and struggling I will put my hand on her back and discourage her from rolling all over and say "its time for sleep. I love you" once. I keep my hand there only until she stops struggling against it as I want her to fall asleep "free" to move in any way she feels most comfortable. Most nights she doesn't need my hand or any words at all but plenty of nights she'll doze off and wake up and look to see if I am there. Once she sees me she falls quickly back asleep.

The bottom line is she is a baby. She is only 6 months old and she still needs us. I dont have a problem with that. I do want to keep working on expanding her capacity for independence ESPECIALLY emotionally. I want her to trust we will always be there but also feel confidant that she doesnt always need us. I never imagined cultivating and supporting a strong, tender nature would start so soon. But maybe thats the ticket. Dont wait until your kiddo is three or seven or fifteen to try to teach independence, self reliance, trust and emotional intelligence. Start the day they are born. Listen to them (different from listening to your wants and wishes for them). Listen and observe what they are asking for and what they are capable of on their own. It will delight and astound you.

Baby steps...

So, the breasts are still a mess. I talked to my mom today and apparently three weeks of ground glass breast pain is "pager worthy". I got ahold of my Midwives (who I worship like the magical goddesses they are) and tomorrow I start two weeks of meds for this icky stuff. I think my boobs feel a little better tonight just knowing help is on the way. The funniest part of the whole thing had to be when I told her I had been hurting for three weeks and the Queen of the midwives (the toughest, smartest, sorta socially awkwardest) said "oh Honey! That sounds horrible!". And then went on to lament lactation consultants who try to treat systemic yeast with "boiling things and topical creams! It drives me crazy!" It made me laugh.

So, this morning after a totally wild night on the part of the starfish, I pried myself from bed just about the time she decided to nap. I got a wild hair and set to work with phase one of baby-proofing. In this phase you have to purge some shit and move some other shit and make space for things you don't want in the baby's paws or mouth in other rooms while trying to maintain some semblance of "adultness" about the house. I have begun this process in the most predictable way. I found some free furniture on the side of the road. No? Not predictable? Huh. Anyway, I was out running with tiny and this guy was just putting this cool old dry sink out with a free sign on it. I told him I wanted it and boggied home to get the Jeep. This piece is ideal because it has doors and is thus babyproofable. It has replaced an open book case that was our ever cluttered front door catchall. Today I cleared out the bookshelf and yadda yadda yadda moved a ton of stuff to better homes and tossed a big box of crap. It felt soooo good! I have been following the tumblr "unfuck your habitat" and it is all about tiny steps to help us mere mortals live less messy, chaotic lives. It recommends 20 minute cleaning flurries and simple daily tasks to help avoid the overwhelming super cleans. All morning I just kept telling G "I just want to finish unfucking the front room, the baby room, the kitchen, the WORLD!!". I was on a roll! It was amazing. I am happily sitting in the living room (not totally unfucked yet but waay better) enjoying a cocktail feeling pretty good about life.

After "The Great Unfucking" as I will be referring to it, we went hiking. We did a 5mile hike in the beautiful woods downtown. Starfish was quite happy to ride in the backpack and we kept up a hearty pace up and back. It felt awesome. There is a big part of me that feels like being pregnant was such a cardiovascular demand that I never really stopped working out. I swam and hiked and ran for the first half too. I didn't really slow down until after R was born. In fact, the day I went into labor I swam in the morning. It was more about managing the swelling but I swam for 45 minutes none the less. Thats right, I was a giant swollen tough girl. :)

Anyway, my point is that my recent workouts have been much easier than expected. Pushing the jogger is fun AND leads me to better posture making my back much less sore. But best of all, it makes working out something I can do with tiny. I was so afraid that I would be too lazy or weak to be one of those women who worked out after baby. Well, this girl is a smaller, less swollen, flabbier version of the badass mentioned above and she IS totally the kind of mom who runs long distances with a kiddo in the jogger! I meant what I said about making a serious effort to be a positive body image role model for my daughter and well, it isn't going to happen on its own. So tomorrow is another day, full of things to do and spaces to baby-proof but happily it will start with an early morning run. One foot in front of the other.

If everyone knew how glam breastfeeding is they'd all be doing it

So, I have been back to work for a month now and all in all its going pretty well. Pumping is hugely inconvenient and way more stressful than I had anticipated. That said, I am thrilled to be producing enough milk to more than keep up with her demand, no matter how crappy it feels to have to put my ambulance out of service to pump OR worse yet, to be trying to stealth pump without going out of service and to get a 911 call as soon as I manage to let down. Ffffff! Its the worst.

Yes, I am managing, even with the crazy crazy heat, to keep up. I am not however, managing to do it without a price. I have a totally awful yeast infection (breast not lady land) and it is 1.Super hard to get rid of and 2.Makes me want to drive my car off a bridge. Seriously! I have painful lumps and sore pink nipples and owie owie owie!
I saw a lactation consultant last week and she gave me ideas. The problem is that during the work week I dont have time to take proper care of my gear or my "gear". If I am pumping in back of the rig (ewww gross! Hate soo much!) I dont have access to a sink or any other way to clean up. When I get to a hospital and get to pump in a real pumping room I have only so much time and thus rush around maybe getting to steam my gear maybe not. It sucks to feel so rushed and to have to hurry to the point of giving myself this infection. I hear people when they say "you have to just do what is best for your baby and work can wait" but unfortunately that just wont work. I need to be a team player. I need to keep my dispatcher happy. I need to write charts, and care for patients. Like I said, this is a LOT harder and more stressful than I ever expected. So, here I am. I think I need to call my midwives. I think I need some meds to help with this. I am sore and exasperated. I feel like a failure for not keeping clean and healthy. I want to just go back to being home and not pumping four times a day. I want a money tree in the back yard.... And a pony.

Then you wake up to a 6 month old!!

Tiny girl turns SIXMONTHSOHHOLYSHIT! Old next week. I have been back to work for three weeks and Papa has been keeping the home fires burning. He is doing a phenomenal job too. He cooks, cleans, caters to our ever increasingly demanding, MOBILE ( more on that later) daughter with tenderness and insight that moves me to tears. He is loving, adventurous and kinda hot as a "dad". He is also being super honest with me about how tough it is to be 100% present for the baby for 13+ hrs a day for multiple days on end.

At first I was frustrated. I heard a loud voice in my head anytime he expressed feelings of tiredness or overwhelmedness. "You think YOU're tired?! I have been growing this critter and now feeding her for over a year! It has LITERALLY been I don't know how long since I have slept for more than 4 hours! You have absolutely NO concept of tired or overwhelmed!". Then I stopped, shook it off like one of those St Bernards in Beethoven part 2, and realized that it is ALL about context. He is tired. He is overwhelmed. This is the most a lot of things he has ever been and he is just as entitled to his feelings as I am and a good partner puts that bitchy "let me tell you..." voice in timeout and hears her partner out with a quiet mind and a soft heart. This shit is tough folks. There is a lot that we cant fix. There are even plenty of things that we cant take the sting out of *coughmyutterlackofsexdrivecough* but we (I) can try harder to show up for him. I can dig deep and find a few more bits of energy to give to him.

Equity will look very different for a while still. I am trying hard to get my body back in good shape for work as much as for vanity and I am still pumping and nursing. It takes a lot of time and I am not sleeping so I am pretty wiped out but it is time to toughen up and adapt for the Huz. He needs his teammate back and I dont think it is too much to ask.

In the words of The Weepies "the world spins madly on". Ramona started crawling, summer is wrapping up and life is fuller than ever. I would not change this life for all the gold in the world. It is both harder and richer than I could have ever imagined or hoped. I can see the days pass and tiny grow bigger, stronger, more curious right before my very eyes. It is a wild and wonderful fog of wiggles and diapers and soft chubby limbs. At six months I can say I have never known this kind of love...now to get the rest of my life back together :)