Opening the bag...

As with many posts, I've been sitting on this one for awhile and sorting through emotions to see if I still truly feel what I feel, and whether or not I can share it coherently.  I've spent the last few months recovering from my mother's most recent departure from my life and analyzing the bigger picture to see if it was me or if it was her.  I'm leaning more toward the latter as I go over our history time and again.
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I am a woman with four moms. My friend's mom who was there to stand in when mine wasn't, my stepmom who was the mom I needed and really didn't have to be, my sorta-stepmom who still claims me even though she hadn't heard from me in nearly 14 years, and my birth mom who dragged me along for 15 years then left me for greener pastures... but still claimed a stake in my accomplishments and bragged like she was responsible for me doing well in anything.

I may have learned lots from my birth mom, but damn if I can find any warm-fuzzies for her right now.

I, as many of my contemporaries and peers, had a f*cked up childhood.  I helped raise my mom, and apparently, I failed.  I was born in 1980 to two early-twenties, blue collar folks.  Dad was a mechanic who could fix about anything with wheels and some things without.  Mom was a drifter who could weld and do just about anything a guy could do- well, up until she ended up falling at work and earned a full-torso cast until her back healed.  I'm still fuzzy on how they even came to be in the same town long enough for her to take notice of him, but they were, she did, they got married, and I was created.  Then things went south sometime after I was born and she took off with me on this grand adventure of f*ckery.

I could just be sad for the times I was told we'd go to the park and didn't, or play dolls and didn't, but there was sooooo much more wrong with our relationship and life than that.

By the age of eight, I had memorized the numbers for the police, the sheriff, and my two closest living relatives.  Not because it was something cool to do, but because occasionally, husband or boyfriend of the year would go off the deep end with the booze, or I'd wake up alone in the house in the middle of the night... neither are great scenarios when you're an eight year old.

When I was in third grade, I was not only qualified to help her make decisions on relationships (when to divorce/dump), but was also ready to take on house parties if her man of interest was also sporting a third grader.  Imagine my confusion when after being taken to a house party one weekend, I shared for show/tell what I had done that weekend, and my teacher said something to the effect of "I don't think that's an appropriate activity for someone your age to participate in."

By the time I was ten I had moved more than twenty times, usually because we were moving out of one of her relationships.  Some of the places we lived in were so far beyond an acceptable standard of living I wonder how none of the family members managed to call CPS.  It was an odd life.

When I was a freshman in high school, she dumped me.  Well, maybe not dumped.  She had run out of date-able men where we lived and had hooked up with some cowboy from the Oklahoma/Kansas border area and gave me the option of either moving away from my friends to come live with her and her new (and infinitely creepy) boyfriend, or stay in the town I grew up in with someone who she used to be married to.  I chose the latter.  A year after that I moved to my real dad's house though for some stability away from her.

When I graduated high school, she and her meth-head husband (whom we will refer to as #6) came to my graduation party, but had to leave early to go score 'meds' for him.  She was a rack of bones from shooting the shit herself, but the inner puppy in me was just happy mom came to my graduation.  I didn't want to see the situation for what it was... a photo op for her picture frames and another story of my success as a human being for her to share with others.

A year after high school, mom and #6 took me on a 'family' trip to Colorado.  I was 19.  #6 decided that after a long day on the slopes, the responsible thing to do would be to go to Blackhawk, CO for some black jack and craps.  All his (15 year old) son and I wanted was to find FOOD.  We wanted to eat a meal.  You have to be 21 to enter Blackhawk, CO.  Two 'adults' in the car, two teens.  She decided #6 had a great idea and told us that I was to pretend to be 21, the boy was to pretend to be 18, and we would sit quietly with a roll of quarters apiece until #6 had enjoyed himself fully and was ready to eat, too.  It's all fun and games until the Gaming Commission agents show up... yeah, interrogation by the gaming commission was awesome.  I was humiliated and ashamed for even allowing myself to go along with this idiotic plan.

When I turned 23, I married my first husband.  A couple weeks before that though, we visited her.  Come to think of it, we really hadn't even talked about marriage yet at that point... I did some stupid things back then, but I digress.  I was 23 and smitten with a guy.  I had brought him to meet her, and we were on our way to meet his mom.  Mine thought it would be a great idea to go to a party at her friends' house where there was going to be booze, fireworks, and eventually food.  The first two are always a bad combo.  I was the only relatively sober person there, and because of her stellar decision making, had to stay at a party that I didn't even want to be at.  I fell asleep in my chair and had to leave the party with third degree burns when her friend lost control of the drunken fireworks display.  

When I divorced my first husband at 26, she was divorcing her seventh husband at the same time.  She took it as a sign that we were like totally close and in tune and stuff.  I took it as a sign that we both made REALLY BAD DECISIONS and that I had a cycle to break.  Being 26 and starting over again from scratch sucks, but seeing a woman nearing 50 and starting over again and again and again and again... having nothing to show for all those years but a trail of paperwork of bad decision making and horrible financial management skills, well- that wasn't for me.

When I was in my 28th year, when I became pregnant.  I lost the first pregnancy that year, but a month later conceived again.  When I lost the first one, she was angry because she had already told all of her co-workers that she was going to be a grandma and now she wasn't.  I was angry because she had the gall to say *that* to me as well as demand that I have a D&C done just to make sure "nothing was left behind"... believe me, after what I went through, nothing was left behind.  I did however leave her behind when we conceived again.   I left her out of the loop until around, oh, 14 weeks or so.  I didn't even want to tell her then, but I slipped up and you can't un-ring that bell.
I spent the rest of the pregnancy with weekly phone calls from her demanding that I tell her names we'd picked out, the sex of the baby, and everything that we weren't even telling our *close* friends and relatives around here.  I hated it.  I hated talking to her because every call spiraled down into her demanding that we give her *something* because she's my mother.  I wanted to give her nothing, because she was more of an anchor around my neck, or a group of crabs in a bucket, than she was the wind beneath my wings.

Four months after our son arrived (it's not like it was a surprise, she knew he was coming but didn't prepare or save any money for a trip up here), I had to spend $300 to get her up here to see our son.  And it was like a negotiation to get her to plan for time off for this trip.  Then she spent the time she was here either shit-faced, smoking, or obsessively cleaning our house.  She managed to tell my husband that his depression was going to make me divorce him (yeah, because I was totally bluffing when I said "for better or for worse" in my vows...).

Fast forward to April of this year.  After nearly two years of hearing every week how she wished she was closer and that she'd like to be a part of my and my son's life, she decided she was going to move here.  To my house.  We didn't believe her until she actually did it... and it was terrible.  First came the obsessive cleaning.  Then came the man-bashing.  The re-telling to my husband that she was sure I'd leave him someday.  Her pets destroying property.  Her meltdowns.  The confession that she was really drying out because her last week before she moved she spent in a drunken daze with the boyfriend she was leaving.  The smoking.  Ignoring her only grandson in favor of being on the phone all her waking hours.  Telling people she shouldn't have given away her horse to move up here.  Telling me that if there were ever a custody battle that no one would back me and she'd be all I had to help me keep my son.  Telling me that she's never given up a pet, they're too important (but she's given me up three times now).  Telling me that I just don't know how hard it is to quit substances (yeah, I totally don't.  That's why I've been sober for five years and some change.), and that she just can't do it.  She left me for the last time in June.  After saying horrible things about and to me, my husband, and my child.

I'm sure some of her behavior could be explained by some psychiatric/psychological disorder words: narcisistic personality, bipolar disorder, disociative personality disorder, etc.  I suppose she could be considered the reason I have a BS in Psychology, because I spent most of my life wondering what the hell was wrong with her.

I guess I can't say she didn't do *anything* for me.  Through her bizarre behavior during my childhood, she inadvertently taught me several things.
1.  Other people are not responsible for my happiness.  Not spouses, friends, children, or even pets.  I am responsible for choosing to either be happy or not.  Nobody deserves that kind of expectation placed upon them, and by placing that expectation I will only be disappointed.
2.  Commitment does not mean constantly looking for loopholes and reasons to leave.  Commitment means being fully present and unswervingly dedicated to something- whether it's to a cause or to a relationship, if you're in, you're in. (yeah, I didn't learn that one from positive examples)
3.  Marriage is between two people.  Not two people, plus whomever would make one happy in the moment or would be a great piece of revenge.  (see #1 above)  Plus, it's damned complicated to add more than one person to a marriage...
4.  Parenting is important.  A full social calendar is not.  My son will not be waking up completely alone in the house during his childhood, because I will be here.  If I am not here, there will be someone here.
5.  People are more important than things, pets, and the like.  If it comes to a choice between a cat and my child or husband, I'd willingly put down the pet for them.  Hell, I'd sacrifice the pet on an altar if it guaranteed my family's safety or something like that.
6.  There is not a substance on this earth that can replace real love and happiness.  Nothing will ever come out of a bottle to do that, and it's pointless to keep trying to find it there.  So I don't.
7.  There is no statute of limitations on the hurt you cause your child.  Make commitments and keep them, no matter how small.
8.  Just because you're related by blood does not mean you have to keep taking the same crap.

That's right.  I have committed to breaking the cycle.  I have no desire to even have her in my life anymore because it always ends with me being a bragging point for her and her leaving me for whatever makes her happy in the moment.  So, it may seem cruel and callous, but I haven't talked to her since the day she left.  She doesn't need or want me in her life, she wants the idea of me in her life.  I'm sick of just being an idea.  I'm more than an idea.  I'm a person, dammit.  I'm a person who deserves to be loved and cared for, who deserves real and meaningful relationships, not just some pretty postcard bragging right status.

After thirty years, I've established that I deserve better.  So I have better.  I still have three moms who are all of that and more.  

Mama nose.

My husband thinks I'm crazy.  I sometimes agree.

Something interesting happened to me when we conceived our son.  For the first time in my life, I had a keen sense of smell.  One would think that's a given- those who have met me know that my nose is out there a ways... a nice legacy of native American, German, and English heritage sloping off my face, but no- usually it was mildly stuffy and missed plenty of things.  It was sudden.  I went to bed one night perfectly fine, oblivious to the world of scents and was quite fine with that.  The next morning, thanks to the hormones, I could smell the dog two floors beneath us.  Or maybe just her bed in the corner of our room.  Then my husband put on cologne, and I thought my head would explode.  Then I arrived at work and was greeted by a cacophony of smells- body sprays, lotions, air fresheners, colognes, foods, dust, moldy office carpet, computers, printers, and a weird smoky smell that apparently I was the only one able to pick up... I smelled that alllll 39 weeks.

Now I'm 15.5 months postpartum.  I still have a sense of smell like no other.  It's like a bizarre evolutionary characteristic.  I'm sure that at some point in the distant past when we were all living in caves and grunting at each other that this was a useful means of detecting whether a food source was going to help or harm one's offspring, but in our new and modern world... maybe not as necessary?

I love it sometimes though... I can tell about 30 seconds before my son gets upset about his diaper that it's wet.  I can easily pinpoint what's gone funky in the fridge without much effort.  I can tell my husband has been eating fast food before dinner (occasionally he stops for a 'snack' after class), and what he had to eat.  I no longer have to measure aromatic spices for things like spaghetti, pumpkin pie, chili, tacos, or oatmeal raisin cookies because I can go by smell.  I successfully discovered also that my husband had loosely connected the gas line on our stove when he installed it, it had passed the bubble test but still had a small, slow leak.

I am also not a fan of this superpower some days... like when my husband insists on putting fabric softener in the laundry, or wear cologne like he used to- I just prefer the smell of him, not covered in 'stuff'.  I can smell my mother-in-law's perfume/air-freshener/laundry detergent/fabric softener combo when I walk in the door on the days she watches E... and can smell her on him for hours after she goes home.  I am very sensitive to perfumes and some of them are quite nauseating still.

Anyone else deal with this?  Does it ever go away?

Still going.

I just realized this week that I have officially been pumping at work for one year and one month.  Thirteen months of pumping in the tiny, windowless, dim room at work.  I have raised some eyebrows.  I have irritated some people.  I have persisted through nursing strikes, teething, supply ups and downs, stress, but I have kept going.  Probably to the detriment of any semblance of career growth, especially if I were to believe this lovely work of art: http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Breastfeeding+moms+viewed+less+competent/4518650/story.html

but I persist because it's right for me, it's right for the little guy.  

Occasionally I feel it.  I feel like I'm the idiot for swimming against the current (and following WHO guidelines)... then something happens, like a couple weeks ago when little man got hold of a nibble of cheese and turned into the kid from The Exorcist.  Dairy is still not our friend.  Mama's milk still is.  And I'm not less competent or less intelligent because I nurse my son and pump when I am away from him.  No, quite the opposite, actually.  

So, here's my response to those who feel I (and other breastfeeding, working mothers) am not worth the investment, career-wise.

What I am doing shows perseverance over time and against adversity.  Dedication to a project that others do not want or cannot take on.  The ability to research and think outside the box in order to solve problems as they arise.  The ability to deal with criticism.  The ability to educate and be an example.  To set goals and meet them.  To manage time better.  To put someone else's needs before my own.  To multitask.  To be two people, a mother and a worker, and strike a balance between the two.  I think all of these things rock as traits for employees- and I'm working them like a rock star.

What I do each day is not easy.  If it were, more people would be doing it, and my small room would likely be a line of stalls with a shelf and a comfy chair each, instead of one room with a chair.  There would be few women who would tell me, "I could never do that" or "I tried, but my supply went away and I had to quit" or "I never had milk so I never had to worry about it".  But, it's not hard, either.  Perhaps uncomfortable and inconvenient, but not as bad as so many people told me it would be.  I do feel self-conscious sometimes, and I answer awkward questions about it, but it's so worth it.  

I may be away from my desk for 15 minutes every two hours, (less productive) but it makes me both a better employee and a better mom.  Seriously, if I were at my desk that extra time, I'd get less done.  This forces me to focus when I am at my desk and get the work moving so I can make it down to the pump room before my breasts start leaking.  Plus, it takes me out of the moment to gather my thoughts on the rough days when I want to reach through the phone, bringing me back to level before I approach customers again.

I know it's not for everyone, and it may be easier for moms to just crack a can of artificial baby feed and go back to work, but doing that doesn't make us better employees anymore than pumping and nursing make us worse employees.  I personally enjoy the challenge and the time away from my desk (which finds me quite often talking to my son on the cell phone while I pump).

-L.

processing.

So, you wanna know a secret?

It's not really a secret.  It's just something no one talks about, really.  Well, I need to talk about it.  Finally, after a year, I finally found a way to verbalize what's been bouncing around my head.  What it is is pregnancy after loss, and how it affected me.  Sad that it took a fight with my sister to finally break the ice floe loose in my brain.  It's like I'm awake from a foggy, groggy sleep.  And I've been working on this post for just shy of a month... how's that for slow?

I mentioned in a previous post awhile back that I felt like I was robbed of some of my joy from my pregnancy with my son because of previous losses.

It happens.  I know I'm not alone.
I can't honestly say how many losses I had before The One.  I was so elated the day the cross-hairs showed up on that little purple pee-stick.  My husband and I had just come home from raiding a flea market for a table saw we found on craigslist.  I just decided I needed to test.  And I did.  And it was positive... planned for the first time and soooo wanted.  And we danced in the kitchen.  Then we started telling people.  And we set an appointment with the midwife.  And we were so happy about it for about a week and a half.  Then everything spiraled down the Saturday my husband had the car torn apart in the garage (literally, he had to dismantle the entire front end of the little VW Cabrio, our only car, to replace three parts), while I tried not to panic as it ended quietly with a whimper.  I felt cold and empty after the time we spent in the ER, and broken.    You've read the story if you keep up with this at all.  I covered it all in that post about losses a couple months back.

Then an amazing thing happened when I felt most broken.  We decided to just let go of precautions and if it was meant to be, things would go, if not, they wouldn't.

Then came *another* positive test almost a month after the loss... and I didn't know what to do.
I calmly handed the stick to my husband that morning before work and while I felt hopeful, I was also oddly detached.  I was about to enter the rollercoaster of pregnancy with a whole bunch of baggage from the last ride.  I didn't know if I could trust my body to hold on to this baby.  I wanted desperately to have and hold this child, and prayed with every fiber of my being.  I didn't even know if I could depend on the Almighty's help with this one.  It's hard being in that spot where I neither trusted my body or my God to get me to the finish line.  I felt broken and untrustworthy, like my old car- you could always trust it to start, you just couldn't depend on it getting you safely to point B.

While I can tell you everything about the moment of implantation (yes, I felt it), and how grateful I was for every symptom and every good beta test, and how I enjoyed knowing that there was indeed a baby growing in there, I cannot tell you that I believed that this time was going to be different.  My history hung there like a big black cloud overshadowing my joy.  I was disconnected from my darling baby because I didn't want to hurt like that again if we were to lose him... but he kept growing and growing, and every day there was something new and amazing reaffirming that he was there and staying there until he was done baking.  Unfortunately, I had already retreated into myself before he was conceived.  I put distance between my husband and I, because I felt like I was guarding not only my feelings, but his too.  If he couldn't spend time around me, he couldn't spend time around this baby who we may not get to meet.  It's warped logic, but it worked at the time for me.  Maybe not so much for him.

I effectively spent the first three months of the pregnancy in bed or cocooned in my home office when I wasn't at work.  Those were my safe and sacred places.  Part of it was because I was so tired, and part of it was that I didn't want to be around him because I felt he couldn't help me get through this.  Some of that was because he stopped going to school after we lost the one, while I put on my brave face and went back to work.  I can't fault him that, we all have our ways of grieving, mine is to soldier on, his is not so much.  Anyway, I built walls.  I reinforced those walls mightily.  I thought through how I'd deal with each scenario from potential losses to things potentially going wrong in birth.  I'm morbid like that.  But, my morbid mind was only protecting me from emotional pain as it has my whole life.  (Someday I'll talk about my childhood, but that's a bag I'm not ready to unpack...)

Anyway... so, there I was, the wall-building cocoon artist, watching the sun set most every night from my bedroom window.  Spending my waking hours either working or researching pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting survival tips, all the while not sure if I was going to be using much of the information I was absorbing.  It was during this time we met with my family doctor, who recommended we go see his favorite sOB... who the nurse guaranteed allll the ladies loved this guy, and we most certainly would as well.  I showed up at that appointment with my fertility folder full of cycle charts, from the previous cycle with the loss all the way up to that day of the current pregnancy.

I wanted answers and to see things from a professional angle, to have reassurance.  I needed to be safe, and while I didn't totally trust doctors, I still felt *some* safety in the doctor's office  Instead, I had an arrogant ex-Marine, sOB reminding me that a) no pregnancy is a sure thing until sometime after 20 weeks, and b)those things are pretty indestructible, there's probably nothing wrong with you. That was after he asked why we were there.  After we'd spent two hours in the waiting room.  After we'd spent a half hour filling out forms and answering questions for the nurse.  While he was staring at my chart.  The man argued with me about when I had conceived this child (yeah, 'cause he was totally there for the event), and told me my estimate was off on when this child would arrive (Ha! I was right!).

I called their office for three separate spotting episodes and was treated like a flyspeck each time, reminded that I had yet to set my "Nurse Appointment" which is apparently a big thing- where I tell the office nurse all about myself (it was in my charts!! did hooked on phonics just not work for these people?) and let her tell me all about what the doctor 'expects' of his mommies-to-be.  I wasn't supposed to spend time talking to doctor.  Apparently the guy who spends his time sticking things up your old 'ginny isn't supposed to know jack about the women who hire him.  He pays a woman to know the women, and he gets to show up whenever he pleases.  I fired him after the third spotting incident.  When my husband almost hit him with a gun butt... yeah.  It was bad.  My midwife was much better.

I don't know really what was going on with my husband... other than he was pretty protective of me.  My husband the handicapped evolved into my husband the handiman.  He wouldn't let me lift heavy things, wouldn't let me work long in the garden, took over many things that I normally did because he didn't want to risk me harming myself or our offspring.  We had a few fights about this because I am and always will be independent and driven to do on my own.  He spent lots of time talking to friends on facebook during the day while I was at work... well, up until he announced that we were doing a homebirth and almost all of his female friends attacked him like a flock of angry birds.  That's a story for another day...

Obviously, this all turned out well.  E is a healthy, active, intelligent little boy... tenacious like bull, really.  Has been since the day he implanted, all the way up to now.  I worried so much about losing him through pregnancy, but he made it all the way here.  Some part of me knew I just had to trust the process and let go.  Perhaps I had so much fear invested in making it through the pregnancy, that I had little to no fear left by the time birth rolled around.  But, I wonder, if I had not had the previous experiences, would there have been any fear at all through the whole process?  Would I have perhaps plunged into the whole process as most American women do, kvetching about every ache and pain and miserable because that's what a woman is supposed to be?  Or would I have treasured each symptom, cradled each wiggle, or rubbed those tiny feet that poked so insistently at my right ribcage like I did?  Maybe that's the good that came of all the not-so-good there.  That I treasured every second of my pregnancy.  I laughed about it.  I slowed down and let life wash over me.  I actually took care of myself for a change instead of everyone around me.  It's what I needed.

I hope and pray that none of the women in my life have to go through a loss like this.  I hope if they do that they are surrounded with love, understanding, and support, and that their next time around goes off without a hitch and with every possible ounce of joy packed in to make up for it.

-L.

Month twelve.

So, a year ago right now, I was laying in my bed staring at this marvelous lump of love and warm named Elijah.  Still fresh and new with tiny flecks of vernix and pruny hands and feet, covered in that new baby smell.  He was only a few hours old and the earthside journey had just begun for us.  In our house.  How incredibly awesome to have had that choice available to us.  I know I might not have had that choice anywhere else I've lived, nor would it have been as supported as it is here.  Oddly, my little corner of Indiana has some awesome midwives, doulas, and birth advocates.  So, there I was, cuddled up with my son and husband in our bed, so in love with the two of them and knowing we were as close to heaven as we humans get in this life.

After the intensity and speed of labor, I should have been exhausted, but after waiting so long to meet this wonderful boy I couldn't sleep.  I lay awake watching him so peacefully asleep between us on the bed knowing that what lay ahead of us was a great adventure.  About this time a year ago, my wonderful midwife and her lovely assistant were just packing up and leaving after having assessed us, starting a load of laundry, and having helped empty out our birth pool and some straightening.  My new life began at 6:30 PM when he entered the world, but it was official once the door locked behind my midwife and it was just Barry and Elijah and I.

We've now made one full trip around the sun as a family.  In that year we've watched a boy blossom from a sleepy, blinking newborn with that wonderful look of awe and confusion to a rambunctious and inquisitive toddler.  We've watched him change and we've watched him change us.  We've begun to see the world as he sees it.  Every experience is new, every occurrence is exciting.  We sat with him through his first thunderstorms, first sunrises and sunsets, first full moons, first spring, summer, fall and winter.  We've watched him explore grass, dirt, sand, fallen leaves, plastic tarps, concrete, rocks, and snow for the first time as though it was our first time as well.  He delights in these mysteries the world has to offer us, so we find delight in them too.  We've sat up with him through night terrors and teething, odd sleep-wake cycles, and reverse cycle nursing.  We've had so many firsts.  I've documented many of them here.  I love how he's changed us.

What is the boy up to now?  He now has eight and a half teeth, is a little over 31" tall, is somewhere around 24 lbs, is strong as an ox, has the stealth of a herd of elephants, and loves to ambush the cat every chance he gets.  He is the embodiment of love and joy and curiosity.  His life very much reflects his birth in the uncomplicated, intense, and fast-forward way he approaches everything at this point.  His favorite playthings are his new toy trucks and cars, wooden blocks, tractor, and a stuffed horse named Pferd.  He also likes to empty my plastics cabinet in the kitchen all over the floor while playing with all of those things listed above.  I plan to get him a toy kitchen in a couple months when we can afford it... something along the lines of http://www.littletikes.com/toys/super-chef-kitchen.aspx, because he enjoys his time in the kitchen with his mom and dad.  He may ransack the cabinet, but he also helps us put away the next day's lunches and his next-day mama milk.  

While he plunges forth into the world in just about everything, he's not 100% fearless.  He's afraid of the vacuum, the blender, the lawnmower, the big mixer, and the cordless drill.  Correction... he's afraid of the sounds they make.  He doesn't mind pushing any of these things around, but turn them on and he has a meltdown.

Our first year as parents has been amazing.  Non-traditional, but amazing.  Barry's got SAHD-hood down to a fine art, even if he's not fully up on what the home-parent's job description is some days.  I'm finding more balance as the WOHM.  (that's stay-at-home-dad and work-out of-home-mom for those on the outside of the terminology)  We're so incredibly lucky to have the kind of family life that allows us to not send our son to daycare.  I still would just about give a limb to trade him places, but our life is working so far.

I know that in the grand scheme of things, it's no big thing that Elijah's a year old.  Babies are born every day.  Parents are made every day.  There are birthdays and milestones every day.  Everyone's experiencing a first and everyone's experiencing a last somewhere in the world.  Maybe my fascination with the whole process is part of the culture I am living in, or perhaps it's the long path we took to become parents.  In any case I pray that the conscious decisions we've made in this first year have lain a sturdy foundation upon which to build the next eighteen years or so and carry him forward with a sense of strength, leadership, and make him a contributing member of society.  I have big hopes for him already even though he's just a toddler.  He seems game for whatever the world brings him.

Onward to year two, and all the adventures within.  

Midwives

My book of the week (because I am a nerd and read as fast as I can cram words into my brain) this week was Midwives by Chris Bohjalian.  It wasn't a record reading for me, it took me all of eight days to get through the whole book- you know, I have that job thing to do during the day, kinda takes up some time here and there.  Ordinarily, I don't really have much to say about a book because there's not much that sticks with me.  I remember characters and emotions, sometimes situations in the book that are striking, but nothing really sticks for me because it's not personal.  This book hit on something near and dear to me: homebirth and the midwives that provide care for women who choose it.

I loved the way it approached homebirth as normal, that things do go wrong, and hated how outsiders' perspectives, namely doctors and other 'experts' referred to homebirth midwives as unskilled, untrained pseudo-practitioners (it was a court scene) who are reckless and dangerous to all they encounter.  I feel that most midwives (caveat being that regardless of the profession in question, there are varying skill levels across the board and some people just don't have 'it') actually better at what they do, especially in a homebirth/ out-of-hospital situation because they do not have massive amounts of technology at their disposal.  They must know their clients, they must have actual knowledge, and they must *gasp* touch people.

One thing that stuck out in my mind as I read was a passage talking about the types of people the midwife in the story had assisted- artists, blue collar folks, tradespeople, clergy, etc.  All kinds of people from every walk of life, but she'd never delivered the babies of bankers, lawyers, or doctors.

Those were the types of people who generally feel safer in hospitals.

That made me smile.  See, I work in a bank.  I thrive on policy-following, I'm very type-A (if such a thing exists), and I crave structure in my life almost as much as I need oxygen to function.  I am surrounded by bankers all day long, five days a week.  You can imagine the tsunami of fear that rose in the cubefarm when I announced that I would birth my son at home.  I might not have said anything at all if it hadn't been for the chorus of "YOU'RE GOING TO WANT AN EPIDURAL!!!" and "how long will your doctor *let* you go?" and myriad horror stories about birth I was treated to throughout my pregnancy.  I calmly and rationally explained that no, birth is safe and if at some point that changes, I'm only 5.35 minutes from the hospital.

That's right.  A banker birthed at home!  (and it was awesome)

I only wish more women were comfortable with birth, viewed it as normal and safe and right, rather than a horror of pain and discomforts.

Wouldn't it be lovely if everyone could know the love of a midwife supporting them through pregnancy, labor, and postpartum time?

I made cookies... you can too!

Tonight, I made my own lactation cookies.  My own recipe.  I'm kinda proud and want to share because they're tasty and I'm thinking someone out there somewhere could use it.  They have no name, they're just my version of something that was already awesome- oatmeal raisin cookies!

You're probably skeptical.  You're probably thinking, "cookies, lady? Really? You're gonna make more milk by eating cookies... I dunnnno."  For me, it's working.  (along with my tea, my capsules, gallons of water, enough sleep, co-sleeping, frequent nursing/pumping, stuffing calories all day... this replaces my bowl of oatmeal and milled flax every night!)

*Oatmeal and molasses can help boost iron, which we all need as women, but more so as pregnant or nursing women (I'm only nursing, so don't anyone get too excited!), because our bodies are doing so much for our little ones as well as all of the amazing things we do for ourselves and our partners.

*Flax is a great fiber source that can help lower cholesterol, which is great for your heart and other parts... somehow by moving things along with more fiber our bodies make more milk.

*Brewers yeast gives you a boost to your B vitamin content which can boost your mood, energy, and not surprisingly with those you might also be making more milk!

*Calories in general are something we all need if we're going to make milk.  This has calories.  This also tastes good.  So, good calories.... there you go.

The recipe:
lactation cookies, my version: 
1C honey, 1 C brown sugar, 1/2 C butter, 1/2 C peanut butter, 1 or 2 T blackstrap molasses, 2T brewers yeast, 2 eggs, 1t vanilla, 2 C flour, 2 or 3 T milled flaxseed, 1t baking soda, 3C oats, 1 C raisins (or chocolate chips... or craisins, etc), 4T water.

Mix flax and water, set aside for a few minutes.

Mix wet ingredients + butter, then add soggy flax.

Mix in dry ingredients, then oatmeal, then raisins or other edible shrapnel you might want to toss in there.
Bake 8-12 minutes at 375 degrees fahrenheit.

You can also add ground fenugreek if you're into that. :-)