two-month-happy

Bram still likes to be worn. A lot. And he is still the sweetest.

He also rocks it retro-style.

Here he is with the novel that inspired his name: Burger’s Daughter, Nadine Gordimer’s fictitious retelling of Bram Fischer’s life (or more accurately, the life of one of his daughters). This is the first novel I fell in love with in grad school and it’s a big part of my voice chapter. If Bram doesn’t grow up loving books, it won’t be for lack of access.

Bath time: a big big hit in our cottage. (Naked time in general is a hit; the water is just a bonus.)

Okay, so the boy isn’t in this photo – and I’m not even sure J knew I was taking it – but seriously, folks: my wife is gorgeous. I’m more in love now than ever. I can’t tell you how sexy it is to watch her grow into such an amazing parent to our son. She really blows me away.

We’ve finally started to adore floor time (a great triumph for my back). We also adore Mortimer the Moose.

Me (and Hades) after J’s first day back to work. Boy is two-person attachment parenting easier than one-person. Still, we are figuring it out. And we are so so happy, if tired.

B and I sending our best love and luck to mommy on her first day of doula training. We just know she’s going to be awesome at this new gig.

Though it was threatening at first, this has become one of my favorite-ever sights. I adore seeing my two loves connect so deeply.

Our boy at two months! He’s quickly gaining on Ramona. And he steals our hearts more each day.

 

the other side

I recently received a comment that meant a great, great deal to me. I first planned to respond only to the woman who wrote it, but since part of what I love about this community is its ability to reach out to people we don’t even know are reading (this woman, L, has been reading Breaking Into Blossom for awhile, but I never knew), I thought I’d share my response here. L wrote that she and her partner also lost a daughter during pregnancy, that though she wants to desperately, she will not be able to carry again, and that they are switching to her partner’s body. She wrote that she has no fears about her ability to bond with a child coming to her in this new way, but that she’s heartbroken about all of the experiences she’s losing out on: the kicks, the nursing, the whole bodily deal. She wants to know how I have grieved this. What’s hurt. What’s helped.

This is a somewhat unusual subject position (a lesbian who wants to carry as much or more than her partner, but can’t). Until L contacted me, I’ve only known of two other women who share it, both of whom I’ve come into contact with via this blog. I’ll offer L – and anyone else who’s interested – my thoughts here, but if you’re out there, and you’re in this position, I’d love to hear what you think. How you’ve made peace with the loss you’ve faced (your child or children, your fertility, your bodily trust). Please share anything you feel safe sharing in the comments section of this post, or, if you have a blog, let us know so we can tune in. I think this conversation is worth having.

The infertility piece itself is one thing, and it’s a thing that deserves more attention. We should be talking about infertility a lot more than we are. Still, support is out there. I’ve wanted to get an infertility awareness ribbon for the blog for awhile now, but I haven’t known if it was right for me to do so. In my case, I could technically try again. I had a relatively easy time getting pregnant. They think there’s only around a 1 in 3 chance of what happened to Emmett happening again. Only, I’m still heartbroken over our little girl. I always will be. I can’t get behind 1 in 3; not where there are other paths. And with the thyroid disease that has surfaced since (as a result of?) my pregnancy, doing so feels dangerous. Pregnancy hormones wreck havoc on women with autoimmune disease. And what I want more than I want to carry is to raise Bram. To raise other children. So I never know whether what I have counts as infertility. I’m making this choice. What I do know is that the longing doesn’t go away. At least not for me, and at least not so far. I don’t even know that it’s gotten better. I do think, though, that I’ve made space for it, allowed that it will always be a part of me. It’s started to feel familiar. There’s an odd comfort in that.

The NGP experience, for a person who has struggled with this longing, is bittersweet. I compare it to adoption in my mind a lot, both because that’s where many heterosexual couples turn when they face what I’ve faced and because that’s where I hope we’ll turn for our next child. On the one hand, you get so many of the experiences that adoptive parents don’t necessarily get. I did J’s insemination, so I am as responsible for why B is who B is as much as J, or as our donor. A different moment or different pressure would have made a different child. And the memories of this pregnancy are so, so sweet to me. That first faint line, and the buzzing I felt in those early days. The protectiveness that sprang up in me. Nursing J through morning sickness. Watching the baby grow inside the woman I love most in the world. Cooking them nutritious food. Attending every single midwife appointment, and hearing all those heartbeats. All those heartbeats. The ultrasounds. The kicks, which I started to feel only one week after J. The reading and the singing to the belly. Those sweet hours in bed with my hand so close to his body. Just layers of beloved flesh away from my beloved son. The labor preparation, and the labor, and the believing my wife when she says that I was pivotal all those hours. Catching my son. Being the first person to touch him. Holding him when he took his first breath. These memories are the sweetest of my life. The level best. They are such a part of my love for him that I know I’ll mourn them deeply if we get to adopt our next child. In this way, queerness becomes a sparkling privilege, one unbeatable ability that outshines all of the rights we’re denied. If one womb falters, for whatever reason, there may be another womb there waiting. J and I were a team in making our children, and I feel with all of my body that we share them both equally. I know she mourns E as much as I do. I know B is as much my son.

But there’s another side to these moments, which is watching your beloved experience each and every moment of something you wish you could do. Watching her feel those first kicks. Watching her grow. Watching strangers congratulate her (leaving you completely out of the conversation even when they know you’re together). Noting her cravings and aversions. Learning about labor with her in spaces that make it clear that you’re very much secondary. Watching her labor with, and then deliver, your child, and feeling none of the pain. Being surprised that you don’t feel the pain. There’s privilege here, but the intimacy of being oh-so-close to pregnancy, and yet not being pregnant, is not without deep sorrow. I often think I had to grieve my infertility more fully as a result of J’s pregnancy. Had we gone straight to adoption, there’s so much I would never have seen, never have known I was missing. All that beauty would have been enough out of my reach that it just might never have haunted me. It did haunt me, though, and it made every second of J’s pregnancy complex. Neither of us could just revel in the glory of it. It was all double-edged, even for her, which broke my heart. We’ve had to grieve that too: that trust. That simple excitement.

If you might occupy this subject position in the future, you should know that the pain you’ll likely feel will be pretty much invisible. Even more so than infertility or pregnancy loss, and those are pretty invisible too. Very few (deeply empathic) people in your life will understand the complexity that is a subsequent pregnancy, not of your body. People will be insensitive, not because they’re cruel but because the subject position will be so far outside of what they can grasp. If your partner struggles with pregnancy (if the hyper-femininity of that subject position is foreign to her), you’ll have to work through that too. You’ll have to sympathize with her, stay compassionate about the parts of pregnancy that are daunting to her, all the while struggling to put down your own jealousy. There will likely be much talk about irony. You will both feel hurt and isolated sometimes.

So that’s some of what you might face. How you get through it, though? I don’t know. I can tell you what I’ve done. I’ve searched for power in the loss, in the vulnerability. I’ve come to understand that this (my infertility) was the only path to this child, and I will say this: this child is the most incredible creature I have ever known. I don’t believe in destiny, but I can’t imagine a wider joy than being my son’s mother. For this reason, I can’t wish away a moment of what it took to get here. I’ve also investigated the assumptions I held about womanhood, and I’ve let lots and lots of them go. I’ve noticed, from this place, how left out fathers and other NGPs are from the pregnancy and birth experience, and I’ve become an activist in that arena. J and I have stretched and grown into roles we weren’t sure we’d be any good at filling. As a result, we’ve discovered that our capacities far exceed what we assumed them to be. She found her female body empowering for the first time in her life. That’s just huge. And I found deep pleasure in nurturing both of them, which I could not have done if I’d had the inherent self-absorption of pregnancy. J found a calling: she’s attending doula training now, and she wants to become an advocate for LGBT parents. To offer consultations, family-inclusive childbirth classes, and doula services. And I found a calling, too, in advocating not just for NGPs but for a redefinition of family that is not about blood. I am passionately devoted to undermining the weight those around me place on biology. Family is about so much more.

I think it would be easy to miss all of the unexpected beauty this experience stands to offer. To stay in the hurt, the resentment, the bitterness so that your eyes are closed to all that you’re being handed. Sometimes I’ve done that, and I think that’s okay. More often, though, I’ve rediscovered myself. I’m proud of who I’ve become through all of this. When I first lost E, I felt like less of a woman. Now I feel like more of one: I am resilient, adaptive, and generous. I am open to vulnerability. I hope that if you’re reading this, and you share this position, you’re able to find a path through that brings you more fully into yourself. I hope that you find a path to motherhood that is full of more joy than you ever could have imagined, even if that joy comes alongside sorrow. And if you ever want to talk, please seek me out. It can be lonely work, this grief business. I’m here if you need a friend.

 

polyester

is a fabric that Bram does not enjoy. In fact, he seems pretty allergic.

Here’s what happened: We recently switched B from newborn to size small cloth diapers. All of our diapers are hand-me-downs (thank you Erica, Jessica, and Jill!), so we have several kinds. In the newborn size, we have all-cotton pre-folds and 90% cotton/10% polyester fitted diapers, and we used polyester covers with both kinds. Though he’s prone to rash (despite our changing him about fifteen times a day), he mostly did alright with that arrangement. Then we switched to the small diapers. In this size, we have all-cotton pre-folds, 80% cotton/20% polyester fitteds, and some amazing 100% polyester pocket diapers. When he first grew into the pocket diapers, I was thrilled. They whisk away moisture in a way that I thought might clear up his usually-slightly-irritated skin. But within a day, he had a red, raw, raised rash everywhere the diaper touched him. We’ve since experimented and discovered that the rash fades only when we use the all-cotton pre-folds, and even then there’s a small rash where the covers touch him. This includes all-natural disposables, which also leave him red and swollen. Enter sad mamas. Enter a need for some new diapers.

Here’s the question: We’re content to use pre-folds most of the time, but we’d love the flexibility to sometimes use fitted diapers too. Right now, we don’t have any of those that will work. We’d also love to find cotton covers, but since those may not exist, we need to be able to alternate fitted diapers with pre-folds so that the irritation doesn’t get too bad at the edges. We’re looking for all-cotton fitted diapers that fit well into similarly shaped covers so that the polyester in the cover doesn’t touch him as much as it does in the pre-fold. Does that make sense? Does anyone have any suggestions for this? Has anyone experienced polyester allergies?

Finally, B will give you his cute pirate eye in thanks for your bum-healing suggestions:

 

leap day

It’s a lovely day here in our part of the Midwest: Cloudy but warm, in the 50s this afternoon. The light filtering in through the windows of our little cottage is tempting us out and into the day. It isn’t spring yet, but this air tells us spring’s coming. Things aren’t easy, but they’re getting there: J is feeling more peaceful, Bram is interacting more and more. He’s only had two long sleeps so far, but that’s a start. It’s a promise of more. He loves high contrast board books. He’ll sleep in the MamaRoo for twenty minutes or so twice a day, and it’s startling what you can do with twenty arms-free minutes. He can’t get enough of music – jazz, classical, folk – so we sing and dance our way through each day. He’ll be six weeks tomorrow, and in keeping with this “I heart rain, it makes the grass grow green” onesie, the boy is growing.

He must be nearing eleven pounds. He’s too long for nearly all of his zero-to-three month clothes, and for his newborn diapers. He still loves our sling carriers, but he’s spending more and more time awake and alert, his first attempts at play, which involve grabbing at or pushing away our hands, discovering his own dangling limbs, reaching for (but not clasping) rattles, and smiling when we bestow loud, loud smooches on his finally.healing cheeks. He’s busy learning about this world, a concentration you can see in his furrowed brow line.

I love how much of his life he shares with us, but I also adore watching him in his own, private world, the one we’ll never fully grasp. It’s not a lot, but he does have some autonomy. Before he came, I wondered how I’d gauge his consent: how would I know for sure if he wanted baby massage, or yoga, or kisses? But we don’t need language to read each other in these ways. And he doesn’t have to cry for me to know he doesn’t grant consent. I watch him, and I know. We ask for his permission to do things, and then we watch to see if we have it. Respecting him – both his needs and his boundaries – is a great pleasure to me. It might be one of the greatest of this whole journey. I don’t want to shelter my child from grief, or sadness, or even pain (it hurts him to digest, but I know that’s just part of it; it’s just hard to be a new person with new little organs and new, unpracticed flesh), but I pray with all of my might that he might always know respect, that he might always respect others.

I love co-parenting with J. She is a remarkable parent, and I believe we are doing well by this child. Second only to honoring my marriage, this is the strongest calling in my life, and meeting this calling is thrilling. I don’t always feel great at parenting, but I do always feel that I’m mothering him in a way that is consistent with my values, my beliefs, my intentions for my family. I believe that J and I are a great team. I listen to The Swell Season’s “In These Arms” * and believe that I was born to hold this baby, to guide him. It is more of a privilege than I can describe. When he’s grown, someday, I hope he’ll read this and think these words have been born out. If he does, I’ll believe I’ve used this life well.

* Thank you, MJB. You and your music bring us much light.

 

.what could have been.

I’m sitting here with a sleeping Bram in my sling. I love feeling the soft, warm weight of him against my body, and the hands-free mobility that the sling provides is a welcome relief for my arms. I thought I’d take a few minutes to write, as I’ve been struggling through some postpartum depression in recent weeks. There’s been a lot to process alongside my hormones: breastfeeding/colic troubles, sleep deprivation, cabin fever, changes to my diet, etc. I think that having Bram with us has also cast into stark relief just what it is we lost when we lost E. To know that if the dice had been thrown differently, that she could have been with us in these ways, that R could have known full-term pregnancy/birth and a breastfeeding relationship, and that I could have known myself in an NGP role, these have shown themselves as more fully realized losses to grieve. I know that postpartum depression loses a lot of power when you talk about it openly and take proactive steps to treat it, so I’ve begun to open up about where I’m at emotionally. I’ve also started taking additional EPAs and DHAs, started light therapy again (as I think the winter compounds the problem), committed myself to a more rigorous exercise regimen, and made an appointment with my therapist to talk this stuff through. I’ve noticed a significant improvement over the last three days since putting some of these changes into action. I’m hopeful that this will result in an upswing, as I don’t want to waste any of these early days with Bram locked into sadness and irritability.

In other news, Bram’s rash seems to be getting better, as does his night-sleeping. I really attribute this to taking all of the dairy out of my diet. Also, he has let us put him down for a few long day naps in the Mamaroo swing, which has been wonderful (though R and I have a hard time pulling ourselves away from watching him in order to accomplish the work we need to do). I find myself transfixed with watching him all the time. He’s just such a miracle, you know? This recent post over at Insert Metaphor has me remembering the day we conceived him. We were only three months out from losing E. It was the day after my graduation from my Master’s program. My parents had visited and just left. We’d been taking OPKs all weekend. We had only ordered one vial of sperm that cycle (the only cycle that was ever true of). R had an instinct not to ask them to send the most potent vial available (again, something we had always done), instead she wanted to leave it to chance what vial we were sent. We planned to inseminate the night we surged, but R had an instinct to wait it out until the following day, which we did. I think that if we hadn’t trusted all of her instincts about that cycle, Bram would never have come into being. I am just so very grateful to have been able to make this particular baby with R at that particular time. I feel like we were always meant to be his mamas; we just had to wait our turn to pluck his little self out of the ether.

And on a closing note, some new cute pictures of this particular Rabbit:

                                                  Bram at home in his space-pod-esque Mamaroo!

                                                         This boy LOVES his Saturday tub bath!

                              I call this his Hobbit-look. Melts my heart every time he gives me those eyes!

 

Bram Grows! (and other nearly.five.weeks business)

• We are so thankful for your suggestions about Bram’s allergies. Not only have we put some of them into practice, they’ve helped us feel less alone. This last bit cannot be overstated, as this early work of parenting can be isolating. So, thanks. Our nurse practitioner wants J to wait on the elimination diet to give the dairy-free diet a bit more time to work. And in fact, it may be starting to help. Bram’s rash is still really bad (it’s spread to his neck, shoulders, and chest), but it’s gotten quite dry and looks less inflamed. We pray this means it’s starting to heal. He still won’t let us put him down except at night, he’s still spitting up in great volume, and he’s still upset a lot of the time, but it feels like we’re making slow strides. Some of that sense may just be us accepting how difficult these next weeks/months will be, and that’s okay too. It’s of great comfort to know that these particular struggles won’t last. I’ve begun to think of each crying jag and each long night like I thought of each week of pregnancy or each contraction: one less we have to get through and that much closer to an easier time. (To spring, which has never sounded so glorious.)

• We also learned that Bram still has jaundice. His bili levels aren’t dangerous, exactly, but there’s some concern that since it now looks like breastfeeding-induced jaundice, it may be very, very slow in abating. The quick way to fix this, we’re told, is twenty-four hours without breastmilk (i.e. on formula), but we’re not big fans of this approach, nor is our nurse practitioner. The plan now is to check his bilirubin again at six weeks and discuss options then. Anyone have experience with this?

• In other news, B (and by proxy we) slept for an (unprecedented) CONSECUTIVE 4 hours and 40 minutes last night. I wish we could have videotaped the look of shock on our faces when we saw 4:40am on the clock. I had enough energy for a dance of joy with our son (not something I ever thought I’d do at 4:40am), and I caught a glimmer of what life will be like when we’re sleeping again. Oh, sweetness.

• It’s Ash Wednesday today, and though we’re not Christian (and we’re certainly not Catholic), we practice a kind of secular Lent. I’m sure this annoys people for whom this is a religious practice, but they have plenty of beliefs that more than annoy me (birth control. gay marriage. the whole animals.don’t.have.souls business), so I’m okay with that. I do it because it’s the easiest time of year to give things up. If you’re in a restaurant, for example, and you say you need something taken off of a dish because you’ve given it up, it’s easiest to say it’s for Lent. I also enjoy the community of knowing that so many others are going without things too. This year was a little tricky because with the elimination diet looming, giving up any of the few foods we can eat (since I cook for us and don’t have time to cook two meals, I’m giving up whatever J gives up) seems cruel. So we decided as a couple to create some mindfulness practices instead. Here they are: The first is resentments. We both feel like we’ve been nursing some resentments lately, and those aren’t healthy for anyone. I mean, we barely have time to brush our teeth; there’s certainly no space for dwelling on hurt feelings. So when we find ourselves doing that (either in our heads or with each other), we’ve committed to moving on. It’s happened a couple of times today, and I’ve found it pretty easy to avert my attention. I mean, there are plenty of thoughts more deserving of my time. The second is bickering. When you’re barely sleeping, bickering is an easy habit to fall into. Not fighting, just being short with one another. Being petty. Being critical. So the same rules go: for the next forty days, if we notice we’re doing it, we just move on. No snide comment we’re inspired to make at 2am is worth saying. The third is internet time. When you have a baby who won’t sleep anywhere except your chest from 9am to midnight, you bond with the internet. And when it come to watching How I Met Your Mother on Netflix Instant (we can’t handle the seriousness of our usual style of television when we’re up at night, so we’ve settled on the lightness that is HIMYM), or writing blog posts, or keeping up with friends on Facebook, that’s okay. But the bleary-eyed hours we spend just surfing? Those seem like a waste. So we’ve both committed to five-minute checks. When we’re stuck sitting still until the boy wakes up, there are better ways to pass the time. For example, I can read for my dissertation or for the class I’m teaching, and J can read the texts she has to finish before she starts doula training next month. Has she told you about doula training? Oooh, you should get her to share! It’s exciting news. Anyway, we’re hoping that forty days into these practices they’ll have become habits. Because, really, who ever has time for nursing resentments, bickering, or pointless internet surfing? Especially when there’s a Bramble Bunny there who needs baby massage, and baby yoga, and songs, and snugs, and high-contrast books, and walks, and lots and lots of smooches all the time!

• In work news, my union (how blessed am I to be at a university with a teaching assistant’s union?) is bargaining, and I feel badly for not being there (rallies. negotiations.) in solidarity. I haven’t been involved enough since we started TTC in 2010, and right now the only rally cry heard around these parts is: “What do we want? Milk! When do we want it? Now!” But I look forward to B being big enough for marches and rallies soon. I hope we keep our revolutionary spirits. I hope Bram is the son of activists, and not the son of former activists. I hope he makes us even more committed to social justice.

• Finally, here’s Abram Adrien at one month – February 19th – which was the one-year anniversary of the small memorial we held for Emmett Ever. We got the idea to take a photograph of B (next to a teddy bear) on all of his month-iversaries from a fellow blogger. We’ll photograph Bram growing on the glider my mom got us, and next to Ramona, the sweet sweet Vermont teddy bear J’s mom sent along (in keeping with one of her family’s traditions).  That look of curious surprise has become a standard on B’s face. Gods, how I love this child. I feel like I’ve known him all my life.

 

.allergies.

Since R’s last post, Bram’s seemingly painful digestive issues have gotten worse. He often cries out during/after feedings, he’s spitting up much more frequently (and projectile vomited once last Thursday), the sleep “routine” that he had been in since coming home from the hospital is now disrupted, and he will no longer lay on his back for naps during the day (he never did this well, but he would occasionally). Also, he has a red, splotchy rash all over his face, scalp, and neck. When it first appeared, we assumed that it was the onset of baby acne. However, it quickly became quite inflamed and spread beyond just his face. After a good bit of research and a call to our lactation consultant, our hypothesis is that he’s having an allergic reaction to something in my diet (most likely dairy). It seems that allergies can actually induce reflux. On top of that, my oversupply of milk and overactive letdown are compounding the issue, making feedings that much more unpleasant.

As of last Thursday, I cut all of the dairy out of my diet in the hopes that it might resolve the issue. I’ve also eliminated or moderated some of the other “colic” culprit foods, though I’m not doing the full elimination diet at current (out of the hope that it’s simply a dairy allergy). We’ve also been keeping him upright for at least 30 minutes after each feeding and we raised his changing table to a 45 degree angle (since this was a place he was spitting up frequently). Because of the overactive letdown, I’ve already been feeding him exclusively upright (in the “biological nurturing” position). Still, he seems to not feel good during most of his waking time these days. It just breaks our hearts to not be able to take his pain away. He cries real tears and screams out at a high, warbling pitch. We’ve tried infant massage, baby yoga, playtime sitting up in the boppy, allowing him to take all of his daytime naps laying on us, etc, but nothing satiates him for more than a little piece of time. We also ordered a Mamaroo swing through Amazon yesterday, which is supposed to mimic parental movement. We’re hoping that if he’s comfortable napping in the swing, we might be able to put him down for stretches during the day. As it stands, it’s hard for us to get much work done. This is especially difficult for R, as she has grading, prep, and writing to do. Not easy tasks while holding (and trying to only jostle just enough) a 10 pound baby on your chest.

We’re planning on making an appointment with our FNP early next week to get a professional opinion. In the meantime, though, we’d love to know if anyone in blog land has dealt with these sorts of issues. We know that they aren’t major issues, but it would be great if anyone had any tips or tricks that made this time more bearable for Bram and for us…

 

certainty

Bram has been with us for four whole weeks. Right now he’s breathing loudly (he’s a little congested) on my chest in my sling carrier while J sleeps a little more upstairs. This has become our new morning routine, and I could sit here and listen to him all day: his sweet sighs, his quick intakes of air. We spend a lot of time this way (me wearing him in the carrier) because B loves to be worn. He always calms within minutes, and I can tell how awake he is by the feel of his fingers playing against my chest. I know he won’t always be small enough to carry this way, so I try to savor this time now. It is immeasurably sweet.

In fact, the fleeting nature of this time has had a pretty profound influence on me overall. It’s worked better than anything else I’ve ever tried at getting me into the moment and out of my head. What I want now is born of the present: the hours of getting to know him, what he needs, what it means to be his mother. And this makes sense, I think, because babies are prefect at just being. They exist in that state of mindfulness that the rest of us (older folks) have to work to cultivate. I love this about B; he’s a great model of present-living. I also love his uncensored willingness to ask for what he needs. He feels no shame (the only learned human emotion). No guilt. No sense that his needs are in any way a burden on those who love him. I hope this lasts well into childhood. I hope no one tries to introduce my son to shame or guilt, especially shame, which serves us in no way I can see. I adore his clarity.

I also love his love of music. He digs classical music or quiet jazz in the mornings: easy time with whatever NPR gives us, or with one of the two delightful mixes Madeline made for him. We also sing a lot because if I’m not wearing him, and J isn’t nursing, it’s one of the only sure-fire ways to calm him down quickly. I’m not much of a singer, but this boy does not care. He’ll stop fussing the second I start a song and start fussing again the moment I finish. Song after song after song. This has led me to scour the recesses of my memory for any and every song I’ve ever memorized, and has led to some strange resurfacings. We sing a LOT of Tori Amos. We sing Cowboy Junkies’s “Mining for Gold” and “Misguided Angel.” We sing Leonard Cohen and Ani DiFranco. We sing Dar’s “After All,” Simon and Garfunkel’s “America,” and John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery.” We sing Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You,” and Elton John’s “Your Song” and “Tiny Dancer” (the last of these because this boy’s moves continue to be rhythmic and dancer-like). Aunt Nancy, we sing lots of Melanie: mostly the sweet stuff like “The Good Book” and “Beautiful People,” but when I get desperate I find I remember all of the lyrics to that song about Psychotherapy too. We sing songs my parents sang when I was little. We sing “Brown-Eyed Girl.” We sing Wyclef Jean’s “The Stripper Song,” for Pete’s Sake. Anything will do; the boy is just not picky and he doesn’t mind my proclivity towards melancholic tunes. He also likes lullabies in the early evening: especially his new favorite – Laura Veirs’s Tumble Bee – which the awesome mommy and mama over at Love Invents Us just sent him (along with glow-in-the-dark baby legs, SmartWool booties, and some sweet, sweet reading materials). The boy likes a song.

So I guess this post is just to say that things are good. Though this newborn time hasn’t been easy, I think we were well prepared for its challenges, in no small part because of all the insights this community has shared with us. And by the way: thanks for that. Though we’re dealing with some digestive problems, overactive let-down, and possible dairy allergies, Bram is a pretty laid back soul. He seems like he’s in pain sometimes after eating, and he’s spitting up a lot, but he’s usually consolable with lots of upright movement, white noise, pinkie-sucking, and snugging. He rarely sleeps more than one 3- or 4-hour stretch followed by two 2-hour stretches at night, but that feels surprisingly sufficient most days. He sleeps at night in his crib (the portacrib in our room), but he’ll only sleep there when he’s swaddled, and we don’t swaddle him at all during the day, so he takes all of his naps on our chests. I know we’ll be more productive once he starts day-napping in his crib, but for now I’m happy with all this connection. And he’s growing so much! By three weeks he was up to 9 pounds, 4 ounces (the 52nd percentile) and 22 inches (the 82nd percentile). His fingers are going to be long and lean, but right now they’ve chubbed right up: fat and adorable. He has HUGE thumbs and big toes (just the big toes). Sissy Hankshaw thumbs, for you Tom Robbins fans. His legs are still skinny, his knees still knobby, his ears still big. For weeks J was worried about his hearing (they forgot to give him the hearing test at the hospital, so he still hasn’t had one), but he startles every time I blow my nose, so I think we’re in the clear on that one. (J will tell you that my nose-blowing is louder than a train whistle, which is rude, but probably true.) Maybe this is too much detail, but this blog is where I keep track of things, and I don’t want to forget these little details. I know they’ll go by too quickly.

This four-week mark also finds me settling in with more confidence to my equal role as a mom. Because this boy needs me every bit as much as he needs J, and that is clear in the way he settles into my arms, in the way he looks at me, in the countless mama-son hours we spend. I loved him immediately, and I was confident right away that I knew (more or less) how to parent him, but it’s taken me awhile to stop worrying about the fact that others consider me secondary. At first, I needed a lot of reassurance that I would be respected as an equal in all of this. And I needed it from people who are acculturated (hello: American media) to see biology as primary in the parent-child relationship. What I’ve started to realize is that it doesn’t matter what they think. What matters is how we live, our day.to.day reality, the unrivaled bond I already share with this creature. Because unlike so many, Bram won’t grow up to think that biology defines family. And, since any other kids we’re blessed with will likely come to us through adoption, B will probably only share a biological connection with one of his family members, so it will take on even less importance as time goes on. Anyway, what I mean is this: I’m all done needing others to validate my status as a mother. This child is my son in every way. I know we’ll face all manner of unequal treatment, but none of that can undermine this bond. We are an us, our little family of three. And it is sweet.

 

three weeks with an abby-bear

• They say (those who research such things) that it takes twenty-one days to make a habit. If this is right, J and I are now in the habit of parenting Bram. And there may be something to this, as I feel like we’re finding our stride as a family. Learning each other. Learning ourselves in these new roles. What a life changing three weeks it has been. Also, this just in: we have a three-week-old son!

• I started teaching again on Tuesday night. I cried all the way to campus. Then I got over myself. I’d love to take a few years off with this boy, but I can’t. And, I mean, you can’t really have everything you want. What I do have is a super flexible schedule and a job that – when I have to be out of the house – is so all-consuming that it’s hard to think about anything else. I always thought I’d raise at least one child I gave birth to. I always thought I’d stay at home for a period of time. But when those were my dreams, I didn’t have this: a rock solid marriage, a son I adore, and a job that I’m good at, that I make a difference in doing. I am one of the lucky ones. This is better than my life would have been if all my first dreams had come true.

• Your comments on our birth story meant a lot. It should have felt (maybe?) strange to send such intimate details out there to be read by strangers, but you don’t feel like strangers. You feel like our people.

• Bram took his first tub bath last night. J got in with him and nursed him throughout, and he LOVED it. We seem to prefer our baby a bit on the unclean side, but it was fun to wash all his bits a bit more officially than one can do with a wet washrag on the changing table. I think we’ll try it again.

• We also started introducing a bottle (of breast milk) yesterday, which was a great success. J is an AMAZING breastfeeding mom, but she’s been feeling a little oppressed by the ever-present necessities of the breast-feeding relationship. I think the occasional bottle will give her just the break she needs, and it was a joy to feed my son for the first time. I cried. Oh, the hormones. If you drive by, you can probably see a cloud of them hanging around our cottage.

• We took our first real outing today: running a few errands on my campus (J and B stayed in the car) and heading to our favorite lunch spot with B’s Aunt Adrienne. It was lovely to see the sunshine together. To see our little town as a family of three. A glimpse of the sweetness to come.

• I’ve thought a lot lately about a phrase Gail used in a post over a First Time Second Time. The phrase – “tilting at windmills” – comes when Gail discusses Lyn’s initial reaction to non-gestational parenthood, “how invisible she felt, how afraid she was for the future, cherishing the process of becoming a mother but feeling left out of it. We talked and talked, because, frankly, that’s what we do. Sometimes I heard her. Sometimes I thought she was tilting at windmills (she wasn’t).” This is the part I love: Sometimes I thought she was tilting at windmills (she wasn’t). I sense that people think I’m doing this. Not so much (though sometimes) J, but some of our friends and family. I think there’s a subtly with which NGPs are left out that’s just invisible if you’ve never been one. Some judgment about how often I’m holding him in our professional photos. A preference for photos with only the two of them. The occasional narrative that (accidentally?) leaves me out, that almost makes it look like J is a single parent. An emphasis on their shared looks (which: boy does our boy favor his mum; it is BEAUTIFUL to see, though threatening). Is it just my insecurity that makes me notice this?

• Things I simply love: Bram’s breath, and the smell of his head. How quiet and sweet he in the morning, and how we share this. How he prefers a cool room to a warm one (my winter boy). Listening to J and B together in the next room. Folding stacks of clean diapers and putting them away again. All of his hand-me-down clothes, and picturing the other kids who wore them. How his big ears get caught on his clothes when I change him. How much eye contact he’s starting to give us. How he loves my singing even though it’s always off-key. Every single second of quiet wakefulness. The new intimacy of co-parenting with J.

• Things I’m looking forward to: Our CSA starting up again. Asparagus season. Taking the boy to this wedding in July (Bram’s Aunt Laura is getting married!). Seeing our nearest Great Lake with him in the spring. Regular outside walks together as soon as it warms up a bit. Traveling back to Charleston in August: B’s first ocean-sighting, peninsula walks, time with our great, great friends there, a visit with his Grandmom Sarah. Heading up to Aunt Kippie’s city for mama’s favorite vegetarian sandwich this side of the U.S./Canadian border. Bram’s first Art Hop. A movie date with my wife in the spring. His first (intentional) smile.

• Oh, and here’s a slideshow of Bram’s newborn photos. Have we mentioned how much we adore our sweet and talented photographer?

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Bram’s Birth Story: Part One

We decided to write Bram’s birth story now while it’s still fresh in our minds. Our minds, however, aren’t all that fresh, so you’ll have to forgive us any subpar writing (or, for readers who were there, inaccuracies). We also decided to write this together – our first joint post on Breaking Into Blossom – as bringing our son into the world was a team effort. Since our labor stretched from Monday until Thursday night, it seems most logical to separate the days (though they all run together in our minds). J wrote the regular (un-italicized) text below: she is the keeper of dates and details, apparently even in labor. R’s impressions of the NGP labor experience are in italics (a style borrowed from N and Lyn, whose strong voices lent shape to the NGP thoughts here). The photographs were taken by our heroic doula. We’ve split the birth story into three parts so as not to overwhelm readers. We’re publishing all three parts at once, though, so read at your convenience (if you want to read at all). Our beloved Christine wrote about being on our birth team on her blog, too, if you’re interested. She’s a beautiful writer. She kept notes throughout the labor, which are invaluable to us now.

Monday, January 16th, 2012 

I should probably have suspected that something was “up” on the Sunday before labor began. I desperately wanted to get manicures and pedicures with R (an experience I’ve had exactly once before in my life, namely, before our wedding).  I then proceeded to drag R clothes shopping (again, an activity usually reserved for never). If R hadn’t put the brakes on our afternoon, I would have then taken her to dinner and a movie. As it was, she was exhausted and wanted to go home. Back at home, I went into furious nesting mode, including baking impromptu from-scratch brownies. Again, I should have recognized that something was “up.”

The last pregnant (pre-labor) photograph I have of J is of her making those brownies. And she wore me out that day, which I too should have registered as significant. It just seemed impossible that after all those preparations, the baby would actually come.

On Monday, January 16^th, I didn’t have to work because of the MLK holiday. We had had quite a bit of snow, so R and I decided to lay low at home for the better part of the day. By evening we were getting antsy, so we decided to go the local mall to do some walking (both of our gyms were closed for the holiday). While at the mall, I lost my mucous plug in the bathroom. I remember feeling strangely elated. I knew that the mucous plug could come weeks before the baby, so I wasn’t really expecting labor to begin straightaway, but it was still thrilling that things were “progressing” toward the birth of our son.

We finished our walk at the mall, came home, and went about our normal nighttime routine. Around 10:45pm, just after finishing some night reading, I started having my first contractions. Initially, they were about 10 minutes apart. I had some minor bloody show and a lot of wetness (we weren’t sure at the time if my water had broken – in retrospect, I think it was just more mucous).  Those initial, intermittent, mild contractions were quickly replaced by more intense contractions coming as quickly as two minutes apart. They weren’t super-consistent, but I felt like early labor was slipping too quickly by. I felt panicky at how fast things were progressing and I didn’t feel like I had time to adjust to the contractions.

Oh, was I devoted to J getting some sleep. To BOTH of us getting some sleep. All those childbirth classes where our doula stressed how important it was to sleep during early labor. And I just kept thinking “I don’t know if I can do this if we don’t get a little rest. Oh, please let us get some rest.” I pleaded with her all night. We never did, though, and at first that really panicked me. I doubted my ability to be a good labor partner sans sleep. I also found her first contractions unsettling. By the next morning I knew what to expect: how her body would move during them, how she would look. They stopped scaring me (until the last day). But at first they frightened me a lot. I felt small and useless in the face of them.  

R and I were both overwhelmed by how fast things seemed to be moving along (little did we know how long we still had to go), so we called in our dear friend Adrienne to be with us through the night. Ad came over at about 2:30am and, upon laboring with us for 30 minutes or so, agreed that it might be time to call in our beloved doula, Jessica. It’s worth noting at this point in the story that we had only finalized our doula contract with Jessica at lunchtime on Monday. She had been our natural childbirth educator, but we had been on the fence about using a doula until very late in the pregnancy (not because we doubted a doula’s immense benefit, but because we were working on a tight budget). I am so so glad that we made the choice to have her with us. I truly believe that the consistency of her patience, presence, and expertise throughout spared us from having a c-section (though no-one on our hospital staff ever brought up the possibility of surgical birth, nor did we ever feel rushed to labor on anyone else’s timeline).

That we should absolutely.without.a.doubt hire Jessica had occurred to me about five days before J’s labor started. I’m pretty sure I woke up to the realization. It wasn’t that I was scared, I just felt sure we would be better off with her by our sides. I wasn’t sure J would go along with it, so I tentatively broached the subject on a walk at my university’s track. She was all in. We called Jessica the next morning, with not a day to spare. 

So Jessica came over to the house at about 3:30am. We all labored together at the house until about 6:45am.

At that point, I was feeling very eager to know whether or not we were making cervical change, so we decided to venture into the hospital. I think that we were all expecting that I would be at least 3 or 4 cm dilated. So when we went to the hospital to get checked, I was very disappointed to find out that we were 0cm dilated, the cervix was still anterior, I was only 50% effaced, and it was possible that the baby was in a posterior position. This was the first of many painful and disappointing vaginal checks to come. The on-call midwife joked that she had to reach up to my tonsils to get at the cervix. Until Bram shifted much later in labor, the vaginal checks were really painful because they literally had to go around the baby’s head to find the cervix.

The midwife, though, felt confident that progressive labor was imminent, so she let us leave while remaining registered (she even let us store our suitcases in her on-call sleeping area). Throughout this story, I hope I’m able to convey how supportive and generous all of the midwives and L&D nurses that we interacted with were during the course of our stay. Of the eight rotating midwives in the practice, we managed to work with six of them during our stay! This is impressive considering that they work in 24-hour shifts.  After the vaginal exam, R and I decided to head back home around 9am. There was a lot of crying on the way back home. It felt so defeating to be where we started after nine hours of difficult contractions.

I remember checking in at the hospital early on the 17^th, and thinking, “this isn’t right. Rabbit isn’t coming on the 17^th.” Though it was disappointing to head home, it made sense to me. This was a much bigger blow to J than to me.

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Tuesday is sort of the lost day in my memory of the laboring sequence. My contractions were present but irregular throughout the day. Sometimes they were 10-15 minutes apart, during which points I was able to rest between peaks. Sometimes they sped up to being 2-3 minutes apart again. We had been advised to wait to return to the hospital until they were 2-3 minutes apart, lasting 60-90 seconds, and staying that way for more than 2 hours. Throughout Tuesday, R and I tried to rest, watched Buffy re-runs, and ate a few small meals. That evening, around 9pm, our friend Jessica (not our doula) came over to the house and labored with me for an hour or so while R tried to get some sleep. I really think there was a circadian rhythm to my hormones, because every night between about 10pm and 3am, things really picked up. Again, we found ourselves having regular, stronger contractions in the middle of the night, and, again, our friend Ad and our doula came over in the night. This time, everyone felt pretty sure that we would be 4 or 5cm by the time we went back in, so I was feeling equally optimistic…

We only managed to watch one Buffy re-run, but it took all day to get through. We slept spooned together so I could apply counterpressure and give J reassurances every time I felt her body tense up. I think her contractions subsided long enough for one 2 ½ hour nap in the afternoon. I baked sweet potatoes when we woke up, and J devoured hers. This is something she did really well throughout labor: eat. It was impressive. I only got a few bites down at a time. Leaving this second time for the hospital was so much better, since all of our baggage (there was a lot, though to our credit we ended up using almost everything, and still needing my mom to bring us some things) was already there. I remember taking the time each trip, though, to straighten the bedclothes and the couch cushions, and to stack rinsed dishes neatly in the sink. Somehow the thought of bringing a baby home to mussed-up bedding was too much. I needed at least that bit of order.