Two Weeks of Toys

Five Minutes for Mom is a blog run by two work-at-home moms, to promote products that moms use, and to promote other work-at-home moms. Toward this end, they are giving away a different toy every day for the next two weeks (well, the two weeks is almost over, but you can enter until May 7th). To see what they have to offer and enter yourself, click the banner below.

Good luck!

Reconciliation

I've been doing reading for my Bradley Birth certification, and it's making me doubt all the decisions I made up to my birth. The book I'm reading right now is incredibly judgemental and closed-ended in tone, which bothers me, and is part of the reason for my self doubt. More than once I've asked my husband to remind me how miserable I was during the last few weeks I was pregnant, and I keep wondering if I should have just stayed pregnant instead of trying to get the baby out. Was my c-section caused by my induction? If we hadn't done vaginal exams, or stripped my membranes, could I have avoided surgery? If we had avoided vaginal exams, would my water have broken? With my water broken, should I have avoided the Pitocin? I was six centimeters dilated without really doing any work, maybe I should have just let my body keep going. I got to eight centimeters with the pit, maybe I should have just turned it off for a while and gotten some sleep, then turned it back on and tried some more. Maybe I should have just turned it up anyways and let my uterus work without me. Maybe I should have actively pushed.

Then I remind myself: he had a knot in his umbilical cord. A true umbilical cord knot occurs in 1% of pregnancies. I was 43 weeks pregnant. Perinatal mortality increases sixfold after 42 weeks. And I did get all those vaginal exams, and the risk for interuterine infection, and thereby fetal infection, goes up exponentially after membrane rupture. I was ruptured for 26 hours when we decided to do the surgery, and 30 hours by the time the surgery was done. I didn't have a fever--yet. The baby's heart rate wasn't showing signs of distress--yet. Was it only a matter of time? Was I willing to take that risk?

I just feel like I can't advocate for unmedicated childbirth now that I've had a surgical delivery. For the application to the Bradley Teacher Training you have to say whether you had a Bradley birth or not, and whether you used any medication. A birth is only considered a "true" Bradley birth when it's unmedicated. And this book is SO JUDGEMENTAL and small minded. For labor starting, the author claims that there are ten ways that labor can start, and outlines ten scenarios. Only ten. Millions, nay, billions of women giving birth, and it can only start in one of ten ways. For pushing, she outlines six scenarios. Only six. See my previous objection. I believe that the Bradley Method works, and I believe that unmedicated labor and childbirth is the ideal option, but there are reasons why medications and interventions exist, including maternal fear. I don't want one of my students, after taking my class, to have extreme pain due to a physiological quirk (one mother I know had extreme pubic symphisis pain during her labor, another had terrible back cramps), and ask for medication to manage that pain, and feel like a failure as a mother. I don't want my students to decide, like I did, that the risk of continuing to labor was too high, despite a lack of current problems, and decide that a section is advisable, and then feel guilty about it. I knew what I was doing. Perhaps I fell victim to the cascade of interventions, and perhaps I didn't, but the bottom line is I made a conscious choice to accept the risks of surgical delivery, feeling that they were lower than the risks of continuing to remain pregnant.

I talked with Rebecca, my midwife, about it when I saw her on Wednesday, and she put it this way. If I was on top of a mountain, maybe, eventually, i would have delivered vaginally. and maybe I would have died. Maybe I would have delivered vaginally and died anyways, or my baby would have died. I could kill Liza, the midwife who attended my c-section, for mentioning how long my son's cord was, and saying that I probably still could have gone vaginally. Would it have killed her to keep her mouth shut and let me feel like it was truly too dangerous for my son to descend through the birth canal? But still, I don't know where the knot was, and we don't know what was going on with the rest of that cord. Despite the length, there was a lot of baby in my uterus for that cord to get tangled on, and he could have died. I've attended a birth where there was a cord knot, and it was scary. Rebecca validated me and said she thought I absolutely made the right decision, especially in retrospect, and I agree.

It's just hard not to feel like a failure.

Anyways, i'm at work, and I should get back to doing it.

I am so blessed

A friend of mine just had an abortion, because she discovered she was pregnant in the same week that her and her boyfriend broke up her boyfriend dumped her ruthlessly. At the dating sonogram, she discovered that it was not one baby, but two. Two babies. I would have left the clinic, cleaned out my bank account, and driven to Mexico, but she chose to terminate the pregnancy, wishing a better life (and better paternity) for her children than what she could offer her twins.

Another friend of mine just had her third miscarriage in the last year. She was trying, then she wasn't, then she was again. She can't get past the 14 week mark.

There are moments where I get so frustrated with my son that I want to do something drastic. I prevent myself from doing so, by picturing the series of consequences that would occur if I did it. Like, if I hit him, he would cry, and then he would lose trust in me that I comfort him when he's upset. If I put him outside (like I do with the kitten when she gets annoying), he would slowly freeze to death. And the thought of my life without him is so empty, so meaningless, it helps me deal with my frustration and be as good a mother as I can be, until I get the break I need. I love my son. I love my husband. I even love my cat. I am 27 years old, and I am married, I own a home, I have a car and a house and a husband and a son and a cat and I am so blessed. I even have a college education, even though I can't use it, and I have a job that I enjoy that puts money in the bank, even if it's not a lot.

I am so grateful that I have these things, and I hope to heaven that I can live my life to be deserving of them.

It's not different

I want to go back to every single person who told me, when I told them I'd done a lot of babysitting so I kind of knew what I was getting into when I said I wanted kids, that "it's different when it's yours". I heard that about whenever I talked about anything from pregnancy to childbirth to parenting, "well, you don't really know, until it's your kid" or "That's nice that you've done all that research/babysitting, but it's different when it's yours." The implication was that I thought I knew what I was doing, but in reality, it was much, much more complicated and difficult, and I would never be prepared for it until after I'd done it once.

I should add that it was said to me by people whose choices I did not, generally, approve of.

But here's the truth: it's not different. Not even a little. The choices I make to the feelings I feel, it's not different. When I got pregnant, I didn't suddenly abandon all my knowledge and research in favor of seeing a condescending obstetrician, and I wasn't suddenly so afraid of childbirth that I ran to the hospital. When I was in labor, it didn't hurt so badly that I wanted the epidural, and while I don't regret my choice to move to the hospital and have a c-section, I don't feel that those actions were inevitable. When I did go to the hospital, it was not because anything went wrong, but because the risk was too high for my personal comfort level. And now that I have a baby, I'm not overwhelmed with indecision. But more frustratingly, I'm not overwhelmed with wisdom, either. When I was babysitting, there were times with the children where I was just all tapped out, and it was all I could do to hold together until their parents came home. The difference, now that it's my child, is that there ARE no parents to come home. There is no superior wisdom I can bow to, no higher authority to cede decision-making to, no scapegoat to blame mishaps on. I can't blame my failure to comfort my child on not being the child's mother, because I AM the mother. When I look at the clock, there is no relief hour where I am no longer in charge. I get no breaks.

My feelings toward my son are no different, either. I had one mother tell me that her sense of responsibility toward her children was stronger, and her feelings overall were stronger toward her children than they were toward children she babysat for. But I don't feel more love for Matrim than I did for my babysitting charges. When I realize that he's my child, the only feeling that I think is different is one of exhaustion and weariness. I get frustrated with my son just as much as I got frustrated with other people's children. I wonder if this makes me a bad mother. Is there something wrong with me that I don't love my biological child more than I loved children that I was only borrowing? Is it bad that I have the same instincts now that I did with everyone else's kids? Should my feelings be enhanced? Is there something I can take to fix that?

Does some other mother deserve my child more than I do?

I realized last week, while visiting with the therapist that I didn't end up firing, that in many ways, I don't feel like I'm really Mat's mother. I don't feel like I'm a mother at all. I want to blame my c-section for this--not feeling him leave my body, not physically seeing him attached to me via the umbilical cord, not holding him for more than an hour after his birth--but maybe it's not the fault of the surgery. Maybe I just shouldn't be a mother. Maybe I was only meant to take care of other people's kids.

I've felt my whole life that motherhood was my calling. Children everywhere have always tugged at my heart, and I felt a fierce possessiveness towards them. When my siblings were babies I did as much as I could in the way of parenting them, from changing diapers to soothing night wakings. As they grew, so did my responsibilities. In high school, I was the third parent: planning meals, supervising playtime, monitoring television usage, and chauffeuring to and from various extra-curricular activities were all under my purvue. I was told over and over that it would be different when they were my kids, and now I'm wondering: when will it be different? If it's not different now, will it be different when he's in school? All the difference I can see from here is that I'm going to have to make more decisions, so what? That's what GROWING UP is. It's the difference between kindergarten and first grade, but big deal.

I just wish I didn't feel like I was missing the keystone to the parenting arch. Why isn't it different?

Silent Poetry

Lying awake between
My two boys (husband and son)
I feel my womanhood
My motherhood and my power
And I am privileged and proud
to share it with them.

More on Silent Poetry Day.

Helicopter

So, tonight, I'm playing with the baby, and we're playing Helicopter. You know the game, where you hold your baby under his arms and then swing him up in the air, over your head, then bring him back down again. And he was LOVING it. Truly. Then I swung him up--and he spit up all over my head and face. Eew.

That's what motherhood is, being slimed in the eye. I wouldn't give it up for anything.

Generational Gap (with pictures!)

I had a second interview this morning at 9am. I got up at 0730 and dicked around on the internet for a while, then got dressed and left. After the interview I called DH to see how he was doing home alone with the baby. He told me the baby was hungry, and I regretted not pumping some breastmilk in the quiet of the morning instead of playing on the internet. However, I was home in 15 minutes, and I nursed the baby to sleep. He woke up not long after, and I gave him a bath and got him dressed, and nursed him again, and this time he fell into a deeper sleep, so I packed him up and we headed to my old job, to say hello and goodbye to my residents there.

He woke up about the time we got there, and so the first thing I did was change his diaper and nurse him, but then we went around and saw most of my favorite residents (one was in the hospital). It was so nice to see them, and my son was SO GOOD. Seriously. I changed his diaper twice before we left, and nursed him twice more as well, and I took pictures of my favorite (you're not supposed to have favorites, but of course I do) residents holding him. We also saw the nurses I had worked for, Wraye and Ed. I listed Ed as my supervisor at the jobs I've interviewed at, and Ed told me that he had already been contacted by the hospital people, and he was calling them back to tell them I was wonderful. I figured he would anyways, but it's good to know. By the time we left, Mat was exhausted, and he slept for the whole ride home and enough after we got home that I was able to eat my lunch, which was leftovers from dinner at the 99 the night before.

Speaking of dinner, can I tell you I have never been more uncomfortable at a restaurant with paper napkins in my life. I wrote a letter to the corporate office, even, that's how disenfranchised I felt. When we arrived, we asked for a table that was out of the way, and for a high chair. The girl put us in a high-traffic area, and the high chair, which I was going to flip upside down and put the baby seat in like I do in every other restaurant, had a big sticker saying the seat couldn't be turned upside down for any reason. I thought those damned chairs were DESIGNED to fit an infant seat in the bottom. Truly. So we put him on the top of the high chair, but within minutes of placing our order the manager came up and told us that their insurance didn't allow for the baby to be there at all. Instead, we had to take the car seat and place it on the bench next to me, which shoved me off to the edge. DH was uncomfortable because people were moving around behind him, I was uncomfortable because I was nearly falling off of the bench, so we left with our dinners half-eaten and packed as leftovers. It was the shortest dinner outing I've had in years. I told corporate in my letter that we wouldn't be back to their restaurant as long as our children were small. They have a satisfaction guarantee, so I bet I'll get coupons or something.

Okay, y'all want to see pictures, so here they are:


Mat in his swing. See how big he is? He's even bigger now than he was when I took that picture; his head is to the top of the back of the swing. I'm not sure how much longer we'll be able to use it. Yikes.


I love his face here. Such an expressive baby.


Here he is, the newest member of the Pooh Klux Klan (tm DH)


Here he is with a friend of ours. She watched our house and Peanut last April when we went to Texas for DH's Cousin's wedding. She's such a sweet girl.


This is from today. This is Bob, one of my residents. I used to visit him in the mornings to put his compression stockings on. On Monday and Thursday, he took a shower after breakfast, so I wouldn't put his stockings on those days, but he would frequently forget, and when I would put off visiting him until late, he would come out and terrorize the staff, demanding to know where the person to put his stockings on was. I would always go in after that and tease him about what day it was, and he would be sheepish.

I would also tease him about the state of his bed every morning, which I made. He would rumple his sheets terribly, and I would joke that he had hookers over helping him mess them up. He, in turn, joked that he was the father of my baby. It was fun, and I miss him.


This is Lee. She is such a fragile woman, kept apartment-bound by intense anxiety. She cried a little when i came in, she misses me so much. I nursed Mat in her apartment while I talked with her. I feel sad that I'm not going to be visiting her much, if at all, but as much as I treat my residents as I would treat my family, they're not my family, and my energy is better spent closer to home. When I can spare it, though, I'll go down and say hi. What a lonely, sad woman. Her family takes good care of her, but she is still lonely.


This is Rhoda. This woman is blind, has died at least once, her husband is gone and now her friends are dying off one by one. She is the brightest, happiest woman I know. She keeps herself informed of worldly events, listens to audiobooks to keep her mind sharp, and enjoys every minute that life gives her, while not being afraid at all of death. I hope, when I am old, that I can live life like this woman, with no regrets and joy in each moment. She's now on hospice care. She wasn't doing too well at the end of October, and I wondered if she'd live to meet the baby, but she promised me she would, and now she has. I wonder how much longer she'll last.

Now, from the baptism:


Mat in his gown. I didn't get a better picture of this, I'm sorry, but I was in a hurry to nurse him before the service started and I ran out of time.


At the font.


Being anointed. My mother told me that a congregation member placed three drops of water from the Jordan River, where Christ was baptized, into the water before the service. I am humbled and honored. Another parishioner got a picture of a ray of light coming through and illuminating my mother with my son. When I get that picture, I'll post it. Amazing.


The prayer at the end, after my mom walked Mat through the congregation and charged them with the spiritual upbringing of my child and all children.


After the service. Mat is no longer in the gown, since he'd been having poops that escaped the diaper at that point, and I didn't want to risk it being ruined.


More after the service. That's my in-laws in the background, behind my DH. I'm in the foreground anxiously catching up with Mat's Godmother in the little time we had together. We've promised to arrange a time before St. Patrick's Day to meet in the middle of Massachusetts and catch up.

Family Pictures:










My Aunt holding my son. She made his christening gown, from fabric left over from the making of my wedding dress.

Okay, that's it for now. :)