Fighting Sleep

No one knows you like I know you
How your tiny left hand curls around my left index finger
Your ear folds against my breast
You fuss just long enough for someone else to give up
Before your miniature frame goes gooey in my arms
And your eye lashes bow to slumber

No one knows you like I know you
How we see each other as halves of a whole
Your toothless grin spreads honey-sweet
And lights my heart Like a slow sunrise
as you notice me in the doorway
Once again, completing you

No one knows you like I know you
What you need
Who you are
Because I still feel you kick in my womb
Hear your every sigh
Taste your breath
And see you. Really see you.

No one will ever know you like I know you
Except God himself
Who I am growing to understand
Is more like a mother than anything else

-Rachel

This Morning (8/19/14)

Rise and shine

Little lady

Give God your glory

Of your sleepy grin

And curling toes

A barrel belly

Full of hope

My heart dances

My eyes water

Today is
Already very

Good

Dad

Jokingly my friends and I call each other "dad," and have for longer than any of us have even had children. It may have something to do with the fact that we've all been aging, and all of the sudden we seem a lot more like our fathers. The shorts got shorter, the work hours longer, and then of course came the cooking skills.

All that to say- I'm now a dad in the literal sense, and it's still a little weird to say that. All of a sudden, this switch is flipped and everything is different. I think thats the hardest part of being a parent in the beginning.

Of course I knew the standard phrase new parents hear every day, "Your life will never be the same!"
I always thought that meant in 16 years I'm going to have to start chasing boys away, or that the only TV shows I'll be watching soon will be kids shows.

Boy was that shortsighted. EVERYTHING is now put into the context of how-do-you-do-that-with-a-child. Especially when they are super young and need to be asleep in peace and quiet.

This is something I'm still getting used to.

At different points in my life, I have entered into intentional situations in order to get closer to Christ. What I learned at the beginning of each of those situations was that I had to die to the parts of myself that were not Christ like.

Moving into my church's community house taught me to hold my possessions more loosely, and getting married taught me to put another's needs before my own, but being a dad has challenged me to surrender every moment to another's needs. It has reoriented my vision as to what my "needs" actually are.

You can't compromise with a baby and say, "Hey I'd really like to go out tonight. Why don't you do one of those 8 hour sleep stints so your mom can rest,and I'll go hang out with my friends."

A baby needs you the moment they need you, and it's unpredictable and out of your control.
I'm learning to die to my desires of wanting to do what I want to do when I want to do it.

Including determining when I get to poop.

Now to to clarify: this has been what God has taught me through the process of becoming a dad. I think God desires this for all people, not just the married, not just the parents, but everyone.

I do think however, that in order to enter into actually pursuing dying to our desires and insatiable need for control, that we will have to put ourselves into a community context where we pursue this together.

This is to say, a call to singleness or not having children will still allow someone to have a full and beautiful life, but no one is called to isolation and unintentionally.

Now having written all that, the best part is that dying to yourself is a whole lot more rewarding in the long run than it feels like in the moment.

Just last night, I didn't go out, I didn't do the normal things that would have made me feel loved, or entertained, or productive in the past. I just sat there and watched my daughter breathe for two hours while she slept with tears in my eyes.  It was so beautiful just watching her.

I was just thinking about what a gift it was that I had parents who held me and protected me as a child. I was thinking about how every little breath is a gift from God.

I still want to hang out with friends, and I love playing board games, and it's important for me to do things that bring me life. However, I never thought staring at a child sleeping would be added to this list.

3 weeks 3 days

I'm finally able to share this. Before you read this very very honest confession that I wrote almost a month ago, know that I am better. I am joyful. I look at my daughter and think she is lovely and have to actively stop myself from kissing her all day. 

Still, I think this might help some new parents to know that they are not alone. So I share it, now as different person that the one who wrote it. It is ok to let yourself vocalize these things. I had to before I could let it go.

My days are a blur, and I dread the night. This morning, I had a machine strapped to my breasts milking me while I awkwardly leaned over my coffee table in an attempt to eat breakfast with my free hand alternating between bouncing my 3 week old daughter and editing photos on my laptop.  If that sounds insane, that’s because it is.
I am going insane.
Last night, she ate at around 2 hour intervals… which left me about an hour available for sleep between feeding sessions IF I could fall asleep. Every time I feed her, she is gassy and scream/cries approximately 20 minutes afterwards. Not FOR 20 minutes (the time is indefinite), 20 minutes LATER she will cry. Let’s do some math, if the child is eating at 2 hour intervals from start to start and eats for about 20 minutes, gets burped for 5-10, is soothed to sleep for 5-10, and then wakes up gassy and fussy needing to be put down again, that leaves a window of 20 minutes for sleep, followed by a second window of 1 hour and 10 minutes MINUS the time it takes to get gassy girl to be quiet.
Sometimes, I am just awake for the entire 2 hours and it begins again.
During the day, I usually sit with the baby in our living room with the windows drawn (since I have to pull a boob out at regular intervals), and “calming” music playing. Here’s the thing, when your child will only sleep in a room with white noise, there is never a moment of silence.
I have an eternal headache.
As an extrovert, with the need to achieve, the whole alone-in-a-dark-room-all-day thing is really really depressing. Sure, I could get out while Margo is napping, but then I would have to sacrifice my own ability to nap while she is napping… even if it is light and fitful. Also, I would have to cry in front of strangers. That is such a buzzkill.
I was so focused on labor and delivery that I didn’t give much thought to what it would be like afterwards. Pregnancy is hard. Delivery is harder than pregnancy, and life with a newborn is infinitely harder than delivery.
Maybe I will post this someday later when I can put a positive spin on things. People say that this will get better, but right now, I’m living in anticipation of the stress in the minutes to come. I find myself watching the count down clock in my breastfeeding app, begging it to slow down so that I can get away.
I would never leave my family, but now I understand why someone would. It’s not even about them. It’s about me. I am selfish. I want to be my own person and do what I want, when I want. I want to sleep through my daughter’s screams. I can’t… but I want to. I want to go to the freaking mall and get some clothes that hide my postpartum belly flab, are suitable for nursing, and are not sweatpants and t-shirts. I want to take back my “mom bob” haircut, as someone so graciously called it, and look like myself again.
Eveything is stripped away.
I am complete emotional nerve endings… like my daughter.

Good news! At 7 weeks, Margo is sleeping much longer during the night, and we are getting adequate sleep. She is smiling. It is amazing. 

I have much more freedom to leave the house since she does wonderfully in her car seat and takes bottles easily. I feel like myself. It's a new me, but I like her.

A Response to a Friend: Labor, Delivery, and Breastfeeding

A facebook friend wrote me about yesterday's blog post: "Hello, I personally am glad you wrote that blog. I am so scared and the more I think about it the scarier it becomes. When I read what you wrote it helped me relax a little bit and think maybe I can do this. Your little girl is so precious!! I am excited for the next step in this wonderful journey and yet I am still scared a little bit when it comes to being able to feed him naturally. So if you have any more helpful tips or tricks sharing them helped me I could only imagine how someone else feels. Thank you! and Congrats to you and Colin on Margo."

I thought my response could be helpful to more people as well :) 

Wow, I'm so glad you found this helpful. I too was terrified of labor and delivery for a really long time. I read a book called "Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Natural Childbirth" and it changed EVERYTHING. I honestly didn't know if I wanted to do things naturally at that point, but wanted to know about all the comfort methods and have as much prep as possible. The best part of that book is the first third. It is FILLED with positive birthing stories. Some of them are pretty insane. Like, I've heard of at LEAST 3 people birthing breech babies on their own at home naturally and with little pain... in fact, one of those stories was from a close friend that lives in Germany and even had her cord come out first. The baby (Amara) is perfectly healthy. Our bodies are crazy amazing. It's just a perspective shift from the American medical system.

In the traditional American hospital, Epidurals and Pitocin are almost always used. They do this to make labor as fast and painless as possible. Honestly, if all goes as expected, I would imagine it to be a pretty sweet gig in the moment. The problems come after. Because you can't feel how to push, it usually takes a lot longer and tearing, episiotomy, or forceps/vaccum are used frequently. This makes recovery longer for you.

Here are some suggestions on how to make things easier (feel free to ignore any and everything lol).

Have a birth plan and keep it simple. Think about it as a thesis. Ours was "We would like as natural and peaceful birth as possible, but are open to suggestions. If natural comfort measures are not sufficient, we would like the freedom to request speedy medical intervention."

Think of contractions on levels of intensity, not pain. They are like waves that you are surfing. The intensity will crest and then you can rest.

I made notecards with positive affirmations on them to remind me of all the things that I knew to be true but might not remember if concentrating on other things. They are pretty hippie, but seriously so helpful. My favorite was "my labor cannot be stronger than me, because it is my body doing it." You can find some great ones here and here: http://desertbirthandwellness.com/pregnancy-and-birth-affirmations/ http://www.positivebirthstories.com/affirmations/

For the labor Coach: bring a book, get sleep, count her through contractions so that she can focus on breathing, repeat positive affirmations (you're getting there, you're doing great, you're so beautiful, you'll meet her soon, you're progressing), when she is about to push: remind her that she is almost done and her body will feel better when she pushes. Contractions slow down and pushing feels good.

Breastfeeding: I've been so lucky to have a really easy time with it. When your milk comes in, it's pretty uncomfortable. Keep nursing through it, and believe it or not, cold cabbage on the breast helps a TON. I have has zero nipple pain, which I feel like a lot of people talk about. Margo must just have a wicked solid latch. If your hospital has a lactation consultant, get them there as close to delivery as possible to start off on the right foot. I personally love the "football" hold. They can tell you about it. It makes it super easy to control both your baby's head and your breast at the same time. You WILL need both hands at the beginning, so don't expect to be able to have a hand free. We watched a DVD called "Simply Breastfeeding" that was super informative if not all that exciting.

Feel free to ask me any questions if you have them. Everything is still really fresh in my mind.

Labor and Delivery: 9 Days Later

It started at 5:00. I was waiting for Teaching Pool (my church group that meets to help whoever is preaching process the scripture for that week's sermon) to start and felt fairly rhythmic contractions that started in my back. I felt like things were happening, but I could talk through them and concentrate on the conversation. When I got home, Colin had made steak and veggies for dinner. After eating, we went on a walk around the Huntington University lake (about a mile). I bounced on the yoga ball, took a warm shower, and tried to relax in the nursery as contractions intensified and began timing them. I thought they were pretty bad (I had no idea) and was having some difficulty talking through them. I began my breathing techniques and found that “dancing” or swaying through them helped with the pain. I wouldn’t allow myself to call it pain. I tried to think of them as an interesting sensation and spoke about them in terms of intensity rather than hurt.

At about 1:00 I called the hospital to see if I should come in since I was timing contractions at 50 seconds and 2 minutes apart. Dr. Harrison, the doctor on call, said that I could come in or wait a little while if I wanted to try to have a natural birth (the less time at the hospital, the less chances of medical intervention). Colin ran to the store to pick up miso soup so that I could have something to eat that still fit the clear liquid diet I would be on if I was in active labor. When he returned, it was about 2:00 and we packed the car and headed to the hospital.

I was admitted to our room (103) and contractions continued to intensify. I was calling them 6s and 7s out of 10 on the hospital pain scale. The nurse checked my cervix and said I was only 2 cm dilated. I was crushed. I asked to take a shower to help cope with the contractions and hope that it would also release more oxytocin and speed up labor. After an hour in the shower, I hobbled back to the bed and continued to breathe through the contractions. Colin helped by counting me through them as we tried to play cards and watch shows on Netflix. I was too distracted and getting exhausted. I’m not sure what time this was, but I think it would have to be about 6:00am. I was told my obstetrician Dr. Stamm would come check on me about 9:00, but he had a C-section and didn’t make it. The nurse said he would be by at about 11:00. I was pretty discouraged about it because my pain was getting much worse and I was making no progress in dilation. I had decided that I wanted him to break my water to try to get things moving along.

By 11:00 contractions were so intense, and I was so exhausted that I no longer felt that a natural birth would be peaceful. I resigned myself to a medical birth without too much disappointment, as I knew that things would go much more smoothly if I could get some rest. At this point, I had been in labor for 18 hours and hadn’t had sleep in 26.

11:00 came and went with no sign of my OB. He had another C-section and I would have to wait until 2:00 for him to come. I still had only dilated to 3-4cm. I was crushed. Colin kept helping me count through the contractions, but I was losing it. I felt hopeless.

Finally, Dr. Stamm was able to leave the OR and visit me. He approved an epidural and the anesthetist arrived promptly. Getting the epidural did not hurt at all, however, I experienced some “shocks” that I wasn’t supposed to that made my left leg bounce around uncontrollably. I could still feel my contractions although my legs were completely numb and heavy. Even having my legs numb did help a lot since I have restless leg syndrome and couldn’t get any rest between contractions because of that discomfort. They kept giving me bolsters since the epidural wasn’t touching my contractions and tried to convince me that it was going to work.

I slept between contractions for about an hour before I consented to Pitocin under the impression that the epidural would balance them out if I could just get enough medicine. Apparently, the epidural only ever really took in my legs… specifically my left leg. Every bolster just went there. It was my worst fear: Pitocin without an epidural.

At that point, I had resigned myself to a medical labor and was no longer prepared mentally for the intensity of the contractions. Especially considering I was having both natural contractions and artificial Pitocin contractions back to back. A normal contraction feels like an ocean wave, and before Pitocin, I knew that at some point, it would peak and begin to decrease. Pitocin feels like a surprise shove into that ocean. I would have a minute to minute and a half long artificial contraction followed by a minute long natural one with about a minute break between. Colin was trying to count me through them, but I could no longer focus. I began to shake uncontrollably and had a small panic attack where I didn’t think that I could breathe although my oxygen levels were normal. Colin told me to squeeze his finger as hard as I could, and it actually made the shaking stop. I toyed with the idea of asking them to take me off the Pitocin, but also wanted to whole thing to be over as soon as possible. I stuck it out, more because I couldn’t speak during the contractions and needed to breathe between them. I could tell that I was making HUGE progress, but because it had been so slow moving the nurse was hesitant to check me.

At about 8:00pm, I vomited during a contraction and knew that it was almost time to meet my daughter. My nurse told me that I was fully effaced and dilated. We started to do some “practice pushes” along with the contractions and because I could feel everything, I knew exactly how to push. Once I gave over to the idea that I had no choice, and had to finish delivery, I felt myself surrender and relax into the pain. Those “practice” pushes brought baby Margo almost to crowning, and the nurse had to run out of the room to call Dr. Stamm. I actually had to actively NOT push through a couple contractions (which was extremely difficult) so that he could get to me.

At 8:30, I began to push. Breaking each contraction down into 3 ten second intervals where I would breathe in, hold my breath, and bear down. Everyone kept saying how great I was doing, and after only a half hour at 9:00pm, they put my daughter on my chest.

I was stunned. I didn’t think that she was ever going to make it. I had been terrified of delivery because I thought that I would feel empty and hollow after pregnancy was over. Unknowingly, I had believed that if she would just stay inside of me, I could protect her. With her in my arms, I felt like I was in a dream. She was healthy 7lbs 14oz, 20.5 inches long, and perfect.

9 days later, she is sleeping next to me as I write this. Her face is more defined and I’m learning so much about her. She loves to have her arms outstretched, even out of a swaddle. She has the most beautiful eyes and lips. Although I don’t know much, I know how to feed her, and it brings me such joy to have her close. Nights are hard with a maximum 2 hours of sleep at a time, but I love them because it’s just her and I in our own little world.

I love her more every day, and although my labor and delivery was 28 hours long and I had no sleep for 36, I am happy, easily recovering, and amazed by the capacities of my body. Even though it was my worst fear, I am fine. My baby is safe, and I could do it again. God has designed women for this. We are capable. We are strong.

A Blog about a Blog

This morning I stumbled upon this. The post is called "On Daughters and Dating: How to Intimidate Suitors" and provides perspective on how to best protect girls from the wrong kind of suitors by building walls of intimidation. It was a fascinating read.

"Instead of intimidating all your daughter’s potential suitors, raise a daughter who intimidates them just fine on her own."

Yup. That was me. It still is me.

Here's the thing: I'm not sure that I became this way through the parenting techniques described in the article. I think that I became this way out of fear. There is a delicate balance in having healthy boundaries, and isolating yourself from others. Unfortunately, I have used a facade of strength and confidence to intentionally intimidate others (especially my brothers in Christ) and keep them at a distance. If they don't get close to me, then they can't hurt me, but they also can't teach me.

It makes me uncomfortable how the article speaks of my brothers. Sure, there are some dudes out there that I wouldn't want within a mile of my daughter, but there are just as many ladies that I would feel the same way about. Why does someone's gender necessitate cautionary defensive measures?

I have NO IDEA what balance looks like. I would love if my daughter had the experience that I had when seeking a spouse (if she wants a spouse). Colin was my first date, my first kiss, my first everything. No one else on Earth knows me like he does. Still, it was a painful journey to him and although I never loved another real man in the way that I love Colin, I had crafted over years the image of the "perfect" man and I loved it. To this day, it is a huge temptation to project this onto my Husband. That image is essentially Jesus (or my perception of what Jesus would be like) and no human can ever hope to reach it.

Moreover, I really struggle to have positive relationships with men who are not my husband. Group environments are totally fine, but even a purely academic conversation with one of my favorite male professors can make me very uncomfortable. No matter how safe an appropriate the environment, I am still consciously putting up walls of "protection." It makes me sad that I see all men as potentially dangerous. It brings to mind the #yesallwomen campaign on twitter.

So little Margo... my unborn daughter and great love... I want you to have the "Strength and dignity. Deep faith. Self-assuredness. Wisdom. Kindness. Humility. Industriousness." that the article talks about, but I also want you have a gate to your walls. I want you to be strong enough to listen and learn from both your sisters and your brothers and to realize that true strength does not come from isolation. That doesn't mean that you should date all the people. It just means that they are more than potential love interests. Listen and discern with an open mind before putting up walls. Sometimes real strength is being open.

-Rachel