If You're Happy and You Know It

Dave and I celebrated our seven year anniversary yesterday. Three months late, of course, but that's what we planned. See, our real anniversary is in April, but this past April I was almost eight months pregnant and diabetic, so nothing was comfortable and a dinner out was wasted on me. We decided it would be better to wait until after the baby was born to celebrate, and that's what we did.

So, yesterday afternoon I drove Dessa over to my mom's and I left her there for the evening. I've gone out without the baby before - once to the Kaiser lab for blood work and once to the grocery store - but never for this long. It was easier than I'd expected, which was, I think, mainly due to it being my mom that I was leaving her with. I don't really think I'm capable of leaving her with anyone else right now (Dave, of course, excepted), but Dessa knows my mom and my mom knows Dessa's ways and I figured she'd be just fine.

And, of course, she was. Dave and I had a lovely afternoon together and then went out for dinner at a nearby Italian place. It was strange to be out without the baby, but not in a bad way. Just... strange. We've adjusted to being a family with such ease that being just a couple without having one ear out for the baby was a noticeable difference. I wondered, as we were planning this outing, if I would feel compelled to call my mom every hour to check on Dess, but I didn't. Once I drove away I knew she was in great hands and I just relaxed and enjoyed grown up time with my husband.

I never expected us to be "those parents" who, when away from their child don't stop talking about her, and we weren't, exactly. But, as Dave pointed out, it isn't like I've been off deciphering the human genome these past few months. I have precious little else to talk about, and neither does he. We spent a good bit of time looking at Dave's baby pictures, actually, trying to find his features in Dessa. We've decided that she has my nose and long fingers, Dave's skin, hairline and ears (though Dessa's are more elfin) but that she actually looks most like my sister. AC was a beautiful baby, I knew that even when I was five, and it's funny that Dess should look like her because I looked most like one of my own aunts when I was a child.

After our dinner, we went back to mom's. Dave took Dessa outside since the weather was nice and mom filled me in on their evening. I was very proud of myself - I didn't go running into the house, grabbing the baby or anything neurotic like that. I itched a little to hold her after so much time away, but it wasn't anything crazy. Dave had her and all was fine.

The real thrill of the whole night, though, was when I did catch Dessa's eye. Dave was holding her and I leaned in to say hello to my girl and when she saw me, her face broke into the biggest grin you ever saw. She was happy to see me! It's a truly remarkable thing, this bond, and I know it flows from me to her, but I'd not really had the proof that it went the other way as yet.

Now I do. And it's amazing.

Posted by GoddessKristin on 07/29/07 at 12:11 PM [link]

Small Victories

In a major departure from the norm, last night Dessa slept in her Pack 'N Play. I knew I should make the effort towards this, but always felt too sleep deprived to try it. It turned out to be much easier than I'd expected.

See, we've gone through quite a progression of sleeping spots so far. On the night she was born, I was too exhausted and in too much pain to reach her in the ridiculously high hospital container she was in. I guess it's all done for the convenience of the nurses, but the little plastic holders that they stow the babies in while you're rooming in with them? You can't reach the baby unless you haul your ass completely off the bed and stand up. Which, directly after giving birth and with a fresh episiotomy, was nothing like quick and easy. God help you if you've had a C-section, though I suspect they give you better drugs but still. Stupid design.

So I couldn't easily reach the baby when she cried and I couldn't stand to have her cry for longer than absolutely necessary, so I brought her into the bed with me. I knew I wasn't going to be getting much sleep and I felt better holding her, so I did that. Once, a nurse came in to check something or other (they barge in all night long to check either you or your roommate, which is how I knew I wasn't going to be sleeping much), and asked me, "Are you feeding her right now?" and when I said no she was a bit taken aback, but I didn't much care.

I continued to hold Dess through the night for the first couple of weeks. I simply couldn't bear to put her down. While we fought the breastfeeding battle it was simply easier to have her there when she was hungry. If you're feeding every hour or so it starts to get really old to have to get up out of a warm bed and trudge to wherever the baby is. We spent the first two or three weeks camped out on the couch and I held her all night. I liked that.

Finally, though, I was exhausted and Dave convinced me to try to put her in the bouncy chair. We'd tried, unsuccessfully, to have her sleep in the Pack N' Play, but she didn't like all the space and would startle herself awake almost immediately. The bouncy chair cupped her and she slept more soundly in it, so we stayed with that.

Until yesterday. Yesterday I decided we needed to start moving towards having her sleep on her back in a proper bed-like situation. We're closing in on Dessa's two month birthday and I think enough is enough. The Pack N' Play is set up in our bedroom (you didn't think I was ready to have her sleep down the hall all night, right? Enough may be enough but there are limits) and with much ginger maneuvering and judicious use of the swaddling blanket I actually got her to nap in it for about an hour.

The big test was overnight, but it was anticlimactic. Again, I used the swaddling wrap, rocked her until she fell limp in my arms and then gently set her down. She was out, and stayed that way until she woke to eat. I fed her and then we fell asleep on the couch for about an hour before I took her upstairs to return to bed.

She's back in the Pack 'N Play at the moment, sleeping happily. Today we tried the vibration option and she seems to really like it (there's a little battery powered pack that sits under the bassinet part and vibrates for up to 25 minutes).

This whole victory is attributable to my mother-in-law, who got us both the Pack 'N Play and the Miracle Blanket that makes swaddling Dessa a breeze. My little Dessa burrito is happily conked out in the other room - the other room! I am making progress too! - sleeping like a regular baby.

Next step? The crib, of course, but honestly I'm in no rush. This is about as grown up a baby as I need at the moment.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 07/24/07 at 08:14 PM [link]

Cue the Music

OK, it's time to come clean. I know I'm probably risking having Social Services or the Literacy Police or someone like that knocking down the door at any moment by revealing this, but... here goes.

I have not yet read Dessa any books.

This is not because there is any lack of books in the house. No sir! Before the baby was born Dave, my Mom and I went to the Scholastic warehouse just down the freeway and bought a plethora of tomes. This is one of the major perks of being a teacher - the Scholastic warehouse sales. Twice a year there are major deals to be had! We got items appropriate for babies ("I Love You Always and Forever", "C is for Cat", etc) and for an older child ("Bats at the Beach", "Bad Kitty" - the former is beautifully illustrated and fun and the latter is freaking hilarious).

But since Dess was born? I haven't read them to her.

A lot of that has to do with the fact that she's squirmy and has virtually no attention span (what's wrong with her!?). Sitting in the glider holding her and holding a book open at the same time is a little tricky. Plus, I know we'd never actually get through any of the books yet and if there's anything I hate it's breaking off in the middle of a story arc, even if I do know how it ends (spoiler alert: the little red hen gets all snotty and eats the damn bread herself). Dessa's only been able to see more than a foot in front of her for a little while now and I suspect the illustrations would be lost on her in any case.

None of this is to say that I haven't told her stories, though. Because I have. They're just... odd stories.

It all started with Dave, as so many things of this sort do. One day he was holding the baby and said to me, "I guess we should start reading to her, huh?"

"Yeah," said I. "Or at least tell her stories. It's the language that she needs right now. It can come from a book or not for a while."

He gazed at his daughter thoughtfully. Then, with a dramatic flair that will never come out in writing as well as it did in reality, he dove in to his first story telling foray.

"Now. This is the story of a man named Jed. A poor mountaineer - he barely kept his family fed!"

I cracked up.

It's a handy trick, though, these Sherwood Swartz-ian TV intros. I admit to dramatic recitations of the Brady Bunch theme at 3 in the morning because it's all my brain could come up with. I've bemoaned the fact that I didn't watch "Gilligan's Island" because I don't know all the words. When I try to tell that one, it comes out badly ("Now sit right back and you'll hear a tale. A tale of a fateful trip. That started... on a tropic isle? Aboard... a tiny ship! Hmmm... I'm not sure it started on an isle. But there was a ship. A tiny ship! The mate was a... kind of sailing man. The skipper... something sure. Then something happened and they went... on a three hour tour!")

Look, it's not like Dessa knows the words!

There really aren't enough story songs, though. Most shows don't have theme songs with words that actually tell a story and others are hard to hum (can you hum the theme to "Magnum P.I."? I dare you. Also, if you're going to try it, call me so I can listen to you and laugh and laugh). "The Jetsons" works, but it's short. Ditto "The Flintstones". I'm happy to sing to the baby, and lots of TV theme songs work for that, but I'm really trying to focus on talking to her these days.

So it's a limited field. Never fear, though, because there are other stories to be told. As I told Dave, it's the language that she needs to hear - the content is pretty inconsequential these days. Sometimes I'll just recount her day to her. I know she was there for all of it, but she has the memory of a goldfish so I tell her everything she did. Yesterday I did that while she was having a bottle and she listened so intently that she forgot to eat after a minute. Sometimes I tell her the story of Daddy and Mommy buying our house (a more interesting tale than you might think, since I was in Africa when escrow closed). Other times I'll recount trips I've taken, or what we're doing tomorrow or anything else I can think of.

Lately I've started a very long, continuing story that I'm really enjoying telling. It's a story I know very well and it's long enough to take care of many a sleepless night feeding. See if you recognize it...

"Once upon a time, on the day of his daughter's wedding, Vito Corleone was granting favors to all who came to see him..."

My father would be so proud. Dessa? She doesn't seem too sure...

Posted by GoddessKristin on 07/20/07 at 10:35 AM [link]

A Tale of Two Lawyers

Until this year I was not someone who had had much experience in the legal arena. I've had things notarized, sure, and I went with my mother to see a lawyer about having her trust changed after my father died, but beyond sitting there and nodding I had very little to do or say. I'd never needed a lawyer for anything and never suspected I would.

That all changed, of course. In the last 5 months I've gone from having no lawyers to having two.

Actually, technically, one of the lawyers is not mine. He is Dave's. But since he and his legal whizkid team have prevented the slow and sure burning up of our life savings? I feel an affinity and closeness to him. It's understandable.

We have names for the lawyers that are not their legal names. We call them Scary Lawyer and Nice Lawyer. I sort of love Scary Lawyer, even though I haven't met him.

See, Scary Lawyer came into our lives when Dave got sued. I obviously can't say anything about the suit beyond noting that I think it's all monkey doo-doo and without merit and there is starting to be some evidence that I am correct in this belief. However, after Dave was served and subsequently contacted his insurance about the suit, his insurance company came back and said that they weren't going to cover him for various reasons and thanks for paying your premiums, but you're screwed! Haha! Bye bye! Also? You need to pay your premium again to keep the coverage we may or may not honor if you get sued again in the future. Hehehe! Little joke there! But seriously? Time to renew.

This was terrifying. Paying for a defense out of your own pocket is not cheap, people. Worst case scenario was having to pay for the defense ourselves and then having to pay for a settlement or damages or whatever completely out of our savings. We were, frankly, freaked the f*** out. We worried about losing our savings, which is not that huge but we're sort of attached to it. We worried about losing the house. And did I mention I was 6 months pregnant when we found out about all this?

Yeah. Terrifying.

So Dave went out and found Scary Lawyer. We didn't know he was scary at the time; he was just recommended. But after listening very closely to Dave, Scary Lawyer sent the scariest letter I've ever seen in my life to another person involved in the situation, telling this person to contact their insurance and have them cover Dave. The letter was all full of lawyerly terms such as "whereas" and "heretofore" and "precedent" and "we demand" (lawyers do not "request". They "demand") and it made lawyerly threats to sue and counter sue and create lots of scary problems if the "demands" were not met. And it worked! Then, to top himself, Scary Lawyer sent another letter full of precedents to Dave's original insurance, who also rethought their original denial and agreed to cover him. So Dave went from no coverage to being covered by two companies!

You can see why I'm a little in love with Scary Lawyer. We like him a lot and read everything he sends to Dave with great interest because, if he keeps this up, pretty soon the insurance companies are gonna be paying us to cover Dave. That would be a hell of a trick but I wouldn't put it past him. Scary Lawyer is that scary.

Now Nice Lawyer is a different story. I contacted Nice Lawyer a couple of weeks ago because, after Dessa's birth, I thought it was time for Dave and I to have a will and a living trust established. I wanted to formalize everything that we've verbally agreed to over the years.

So we met with Nice Lawyer two weeks ago and he walked us through all the elements of a living trust, a will, guardianship, durable powers of attorney and an advance medical directive. We sent him some information about our estate (such as it is... it's not like we're the Rockefeller's over here. But there's the house and the aforementioned life savings so well protected by Scary Lawyer) and then we met with Nice Lawyer this morning to sign everything. Again, he walked us through all the paperwork, explaining everything in Real People Language, and then we signed it all. I now have the legal power to pull the plug on Dave and he has the same for me (though Nice Lawyer pointed out that we only have this power if the person on the machine is actually incapacitated, which led to a round of Monty Pythonesque, "I'm not dead yet!" jokes. It's all gallows humor when you're signing your will, baby).

I am a little disappointed that my will is so, well, boring. I was kind of hoping I could include a Crazy Old Lady tirade about those who have wronged me and therefore were Cut Out of The Will, but you can't cut people out of a will you're just creating, so that'll have to wait. Plus, I only have one heir (that's such a weird thing to consider. I have an heir now) so there's nobody to cut out anyway. But even if I had nobody to be vindictive about, I was kind of hoping to be able to be eccentric in my will. Nice Lawyer told us about a guy he read about who, in his will, decreed that his skull should be preserved and used on stage in productions of Hamlet. The guy wanted to be the skull of Yorick in perpetuity. I think that's fantastic and am seriously considering what could be done theatrically with my own remains. I'm taking suggestions.

So now, like actual grown ups, we have wills and a trust. I am confounded by my own adulthood about this. It is beyond strange to me to have a will. I can neither be old enough nor have enough stuff to need one. And yet, of all the stuff I have, having Dessa makes it imperative to me to have my ducks in order. I don't feel any more grown up for having had a baby (for example I will still drop everything and watch Tiny Toons if they are on) but it does change things subtly. I am aware of my own mortality, of Dave's, and I am fiercely protective of my child. Plus, I am a control freak and need to know that everything is spelled out and people have to do what I say even after I'm dead. I am maybe a little bossy. Actually, let's be honest here. That's what it's really about. I want control from beyond the grave! Pull the strings! Pull the strings!

And if you don't do as I say, I have a Scary Lawyer you should talk to.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 07/19/07 at 12:26 PM [link]

As Done As It's Gonna Be

I finally got around to hanging things on the walls of the nursery last week. Quit looking at me like that. The plan was to hang the stuff the weekend of June 1 and, well, we were indisposed, what with Dessa being born on May 31 and all. Since she doesn't sleep in the nursery, because I can't bear the idea of that yet, it hardly seemed imperative.

(This from the woman who had a meltdown because the wardrobe from IKEA might not be delivered before May 3 and I had a June 6 due date. You can shut up now. I'm talking to you, Dave.)

Anyway, the nursery is about as done as it can be, with the exception of shelves in the bookcase next to the crib, which are being finished as we speak. One shelf is done and in the garage and the other shelf is all warped and broken and needs to be replaced because I am a dumbass and bought the whole bookcase without really looking very closely at it. What can I say? It was on sale and I was 8 months pregnant and what do I know from shelves?

Anyway, I thought I'd share, because I am a giver and also because I am inordinately proud of how well it came out. I did very little work, other than conceiving the idea - Mom and Dave worked their hind ends off painting, putting up the border, building furniture and sewing new covers for the glider.

Here's what you see as you walk into the room:

The crib is against an inside wall so as to avoid any chill (where do I think we live? Antarctica?) and there's the infamous unfinished bookshelf ("It'll only take an hour or two to finish and it cost $150 less than the finished one!" said I. "The honey-do list is already so long I won't finish it until I'm 80 and now you are adding a new item to it!" thought Dave. And thus, the bookshelf is still somewhat unfinished. My bad.)

Turning right:



Here is the infamous Very Expensive Tinkerbell Blind that I have to tell you? I love. I think it totally makes the room and I really don't care how much it cost. Please note the rocking horse under the window. His name is Apache and my Aunt Bean insisted on buying him last Saturday, despite the fact that Dessa will need to be 15 - 18 months old before she can possibly play with him. It was a better alternative than the real pony she was threatening to procure (and still wants to buy, though we will be drawing the line at that). The thing about the horse? It talks. And sings. And moves its little mouth when it does these things. It seems to be possessed (what sort of horse sings?) and I find it a little creepy, but in a cute way. I suspect Dessa will love him when the time comes.

Continuing the tour:



Here is the extremely infamous IKEA wardrobe, which came out so fantastic I can hardly tell you. It has cunning little Tinkerbell knobs that I ordered specially from Disney.com and which cost the earth but! I! Don't! Care! This is my daughter's nursery and if I wish to spend my hard earned cash on blinds and drawer pulls, I shall! We only pass this way once.

Anyway, the deal we got on the glider more than made up for any reckless spending I may have done in other arenas. We got that glider for $25, people. And it's in lovely shape. I'm a bargain hunter from way back! That whole corner turned out better than expected - I only put up the toy hammock last week. Until that time the stuffed animals were colonizing the crib, and that was fine until I started wanting to, you know, actually put the baby in the crib (for mobile admiring purposed only! She does not sleep there yet! What do you think I am? Crazy? Putting my baby in her crib to sleep... for shame, people!).

Last but not least:



The changing table, which Dessa adores This kid loves to lay there and get changed. I suppose I would develop an affinity for the place where my poopy diapers were whisked away as well; it only makes sense. I've gotten some of my best smiles from my girl right here.

For those of you who didn't believe me when I said this kid has a lot of clothes? Try this on for size:



Those are only the clothes up through the 9 month size. I have an entire bin full of 9-12 month, 12 month and 18 month clothes in my own closet because there is not enough room in the nursery for them. Plus, the drawers in both the wardrobe and the changing table have clothes in them.

It's a good thing she's not spoiled.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 07/18/07 at 03:00 PM [link]

Marking Time

The week after Dessa was born, my Aunt Ro and Uncle Bill came down to see her. They brought with them some presents, including a really nice baby book and a Baby's First Year calendar. The calendar has little stickers to commemorate things like "First Doctor's Appointment", "First Smile", "Sleeps Through the Night" and "First Tooth". It's a cute and easy way to keep track of what happened when since, even if there's no sticker for the event (such as "First Time Making Sausage" - hey, it's an event. And she was in the Baby Bjorn with me while we did it...) I can simply write the event in the designated day.

I think this idea could be expanded to parents as well, and I could make some extra cash. My "Parent's First Year" calendar would include stickers for events that first time parents might not recognize as celebratory before they became parents, but by God they deserve a toast now. Examples include:

First Uninterrupted Dinner Alone - Dave and I can eat dinner at the same time at my Mom's house because there are generally at least three people there who want to hold Dessa. And even if we were there without a crowd, my sister would probably be there and between her and my Mom I would be hard pressed to get my hands on the baby. But at home? When it's just Dave and I? It's a different story. Dessa has an uncanny sense of timing and likes to have her active, meltdowny time when we're having dinner. We've gotten good at passing her off between us. I'll eat my dinner, bolting it down as though a Turkish prison guard might arrive at any moment to remove it and Dave will hold Dessa. Then we switch. We eat in the same room as each other, just not at the same time. The first time we ate simultaneously I was wearing Dess in the Baby Bjorn, which worked, but was a little awkward for me (and I got crumbs on her no matter how hard I tried). The first time she sat in her swing, happy, for a whole meal I was thrilled. It hasn't happened since, but I have high hopes.

First Successful Distraction of Baby - The first time you pull your baby's attention away from the crying fit they were about to break into by giving them some toy or other stimulation is a powerful moment. It's a milestone for the baby, sure, but even more so for the parent because it allows you some measure of belief that you're in control of the situation. You're totally not, of course, but mild delusion is part of surviving parenthood and if this does it for you, I say mark the date!

First Time Baby Doesn't Interrupt "Intimate" Time with Your Spouse - Halle-freaking-lujah. Need I say more?

First Sleep Where Mom Doesn't Check for Breathing - I haven't hit this milestone yet, but I'm awaiting it eagerly. It's universal, I think, for new moms to check the breathing status regularly when the baby is sleeping. They look so calm and peaceful that you just have to poke them or hold a mirror up to their nose or something. It's compulsive. I know I'm not the only one. Right? RIGHT?

First Blog Entry Completed Before Baby Started Crying - Haven't hit this one yet either. Maybe tomorrow. For now... must run. The battle between Dessa and her sworn enemy, the mobile, has begun.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 07/16/07 at 12:02 PM [link]

Six weeks

I don't know how long I'll have to write this because the baby is in her crib gazing lovingly at her mobile. In the past week she's fallen in love with her mobile, a Suessian device that looks like this. She tracks its motion now and kicks and coos at it, which is fun for me to watch, but then after a time she decides she hates the mobile, the mobile is her sworn enemy and she wants nothing more to do with it. "I have used this up! Take it away!" is her message, which she delivers via nothing more sophisticated than a simple scream.

Which I jump up to answer, so I guess she's got me trained.

Stimulation is starting to entertain her for more extended periods of time now. The mobile is the clear winner, but she's beginning to interact with other things as well. She actually let Dave and I eat dinner together the other night while she sat in her swing and she fell asleep in it this morning. She recognizes her bottle and her pacifier and, if she's not too hysterical, will quiet a bit and open her mouth for them. She is extremely enamored of her changing pad and loves to become Naked Baby. I think I actually got a smile out of her while I was changing her today but it was fleeting. I wouldn't say she's exactly smiling yet, but she's thinking about it.

There are all sorts of signs that her little brain is coming online. In the past couple of days she's been sleeping a lot and eating a bunch and last night was the payoff. Dessa slept through the night last night. I put her down at eleven and she cried for a bottle at 7:30 am. Today is her 6 week birthday, so clearly she is brilliant and also she has great compassion for her poor exhausted parents. Right?

Well, just because she slept through the night, do not think that I did. It wasn't exactly Dessa's fault, although I think that through the gift of Mommy Guilt I can probably make her feel like it was her fault when she's 16. I'm going to work on that. In the meantime, let me tell you exactly why I slept so badly last night. First off, Dave was snoring so that was strike one. I can fall asleep to the TV, the radio and the occasional iPod, but snoring makes me In. Sane. Then, the dog was snoring, so double fun. Also, Riley was in Extreme Cuddle Mode, which I'm used to and don't mind much unless it includes His Highness wanting to sleep with his head ON my pillow, which of course last night it did. So after much tossing and turning on my part I think I fell asleep somewhere around 1 am.

But the real reason it could conceivably be the baby's fault is that I then proceeded to wake up every 45 minutes or so because I've become the world's lightest sleeper. Even with earplugs in I hear every sigh, coo, shift and fart that my daughter makes (do not underestimate the power of the fart. It is massive and it is impressive). I'm incapable of sleeping through any noise she makes; I am on high alert at all times. I don't know when, or if, this changes as a mother but I'm not counting on it being any time soon.

So I'm a little tired today, but triumphant. Six weeks old and my baby slept through the night! I don't expect this will happen every night, since it's early days (though I slept through the night at 6 weeks... like mother like daughter I guess) but it's a start. We're making progress.

Now if we could just convince her to make her own breakfast I think we'd be in business.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 07/12/07 at 04:39 PM [link]

Learning Curve

Well, Dessa is now officially over a month old. Because she was born on the 31st of May, in months that don't have a 31st (September, April, June and December - and yes, I had to say that "30 days hath September" rhyme to recall them all...) we can either pick the 30th of one month or the 1st of the next to mark the date. We chose the 1st of July. Not that we had a party or anything to commemorate the event. Actually, mostly what I did was cry when I thought about how her first month has gone so amazingly fast and then I cried some more when I noticed that her sleeper fits very differently than when Dave brought it home from the store the second day she was home. We thought she'd be so much bigger than she was that we had very few newborn outfits for her to wear and she was swimming in the 0-3 month size. She still swims in many of those outfits... but fewer of them. Hence the crying. Soon she will be married.

Everybody tells you that the first month is hard but it's tough to understand just how and why it's so hard until you do it. The screwed up sleep schedule is part of it, for sure, and that does get better. Last night we got Dessa to sleep at around 10:30 pm, crawled in our own bed at around 11 pm and everyone actually slept until 5:20 am. When I realized how late it was I almost freaked out ("Is she OK??? Why didn't she wake up earlier!?"), but then realized that Dessa, by definition, had to be fine because she was screaming for breakfast - that's what woke us all up.

Anyway, the sleep deprivation is part of it. You're utterly exhausted from the birth, in a good deal of discomfort or outright pain, and you're not going to get any extended sleep for weeks. It feels like you're going crazy, and in no small way, you are. Because the hormone fairy, in the big performance that she's been waiting a lifetime to dump on you, arrives with a scary ass dose of Instant Insanity. If you thought you had cornered the market on worrying during your pregnancy? It will not hold a candle to the worrying you will do in the weeks after giving birth. EVERYTHING becomes scary after you give birth. For example, Dessa wakes herself up when placed on her back in a crib and she sleeps much better in the bouncy chair. Consequently, so do we. We're working on it, but for now she sleeps at night swaddled in the bouncy chair and likes it quite well.

The first night I gently set her down in the chair, buckled her in, spent 5 full minutes futzing with the blanket around her so it was nowhere near her nose and then moved everything in a 6 foot radius that could, in the event of an earthquake, fall on or near her. Honest to God, in retrospect, I was moving things that, if they fell over in an earthquake I'd have a LOT more to be worried about because it would take a hell of an earthquake to move them. But you don't think that way at the time. It makes perfect sense... at the time.

That's not the only example of worrying, of course. I worried about everything and still do worry about quite a bit that I have no control over. That said, I do feel I'm much better than I was the first few weeks. I still cry for no reason, but only every few days instead of every two hours. The hormone fairy is slowly leaving town and good riddance to her.

So you've got sleep deprivation and hormones going for you. And then there's the fact that you've become a slave to this tiny little dictator who doesn't speak your language and with whom, in fact, you have no commonalities at all. There is no middle ground with a newborn. You can't even point to a bottle and raise your eyebrows in an inquisitive look to see if she's hungry like you could with a normal person who doesn't speak your language. She has one mode of communication - crying - and you have a very small range of possible responses. Hurt, hungry, wet, tired or lonely - those are the basic five to choose from. And God help you if it's "tired" because when a baby is overtired and wants you to know it? It's going to go on for a while. They don't seem to understand that crying about being overtired is easily remedied, i.e. Go To Sleep. Babies seem to think that when they are overtired it is their sworn duty to tell you about it in the loudest and longest possible crying jag they can muster up.

I tell you, it doesn't make any damn sense.

So now, along with being tired and crazy, you're quickly becoming convinced that your child is miserable, and anyone, anyone could comfort her better than you. Probably you have already screwed this child up in ways that will take years of therapy to overcome and it's only her two week birthday. This, in itself, is an exhausting thing. Taking care of a newborn is every bit as emotionally exhausting as it is physically exhausting and I think that's the part that people forget to tell you about. There's all these doubts and fears and this overwhelming love that just knocks you out. I've never been so emotionally full in all my life. And it doesn't let up.

Then I couldn't breastfeed. Not being able to nurse Dessa was the worst - absolutely the worst - thing that happened in this first month, and it was a doozy. Along with the fatigue and hormones, the fight I was having with my boobs heaped an unhealthy slathering of guilt, disappointment, anger, frustration and shame on top of an already precarious mothering situation. I was, to be quite honest, in the Bad Place and it would have been very easy to slip into a real depression. I was teetering.

One thing we've learned about Dessa (and we have learned several things this month, thank God) is that she is a cuddler. She prefers to be held and, if that's not possible, to be swaddled and tucked up in or next to something (see "bouncy chair", above). This, as you can probably imagine, puts a distinct cramp in one's style - it is hard to do much of anything when holding an 8 pound newborn in your arm(s). And she notices when she's set down and starts crying, which breaks my heart. I remember one night, after trying to put her to sleep for over two hours, just sitting on the bed with her in my arms and whining to Dave, "I can't put her down!" I distinctly felt like, "You've taken my sleep and my sanity... why must you take my arms as well??"

Enter the Baby Bjorn.

People, this thing has saved my life. My friend Sage loaned me hers because they are wicked expensive but I would go out and buy one in a heartbeat if I had to. Some babies, I suppose, don't like them, but Dessa is crazy about this thing. Basically it's a front pack that holds the baby to your chest and distributes the weight along your upper back very comfortably. I'm wearing it right now and have been for hours. We went to the grocery store today and ran errands with it and she sleeps like a log in it.



I have both hands free, she's happy as a clam and I can look down and check on her as often as my panicked little heart desires (I admit to checking her at least 3 times at Safeway to make sure she was still breathing. What? I admitted to the crazy earlier).

It's been a hell of a month. We've gotten a bit of a schedule going, we're learning what Dessa's different cries mean and Dave and I have a teamwork thing going that is working really well. I've worked through a lot of my anxiety and disappointment over the Great Breastfeeding Crisis of 2007. I'm resigned to bottle feeding, if not exactly thrilled by it, and there are some benefits. Dave has been able to do the early morning feeding ("second shift" as we call it), which gives him some bonding time with Dessa and gives me some sleep. I'm not hurting anymore and Dessa is growing well (don't remind me how she's growing. I will cry). But even if I can't breastfeed my daughter, I can wear her often and it's something we both enjoy. She is close to me, I am close to her, we are both content - and I can do things too.

I guess we're learning what makes everyone happy.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 07/02/07 at 04:20 PM [link]