Crouching Tiger; Hidden Dragon....

Sleeping baby. Today Sadie fell as asleep while I was putzing around the house. It was sublime to have such effortless time with her. I am falling hard for this kid.

One MONTH

Jeff did his one-month photo shoot of Sadie yesterday on her official one-month birthday. Mommy had a tough day yesterday. I woke up feeling pretty good, but then I turned a dark corner and decided I was fed up with being fat and ugly and out of control every second of every day. And then my uterus starting hurting again and I just kind of lost my ability to comprehend that all of this is temporary and could change as early as sundown. I wanted to snap out of it and enjoy the beautiful day with Sadie and Jeff, but my perspective was hopelessly lost in a way that I could not regain it until I had either had a weekend at Canyon Ranch or at least 7 hours of sleep.

I rallied in the afternoon when a colleague from work and her husband brought us hamburgers with brie and truffle oil, along with homemade guacamole and salsa. We felt so cared for and so understood when they swooped in and had all the fixings for a feast. And, brilliantly, they brought six of everything so that we could all share the meal and there would be leftovers for me and Jeff. They had a very smooth routine, which they learned from having their own little boy about 4.5 months ago. I am so enternally grateful for their generosity and for the chance to compare joys, questions, and frustrations with another set of new parents. I look forward to paying that kindess forward someday.

And Sadie. Then, there's Sadie. My therapist asked me today how I feel when I am with Sadie and I was totally taken aback by the question. I feel everything when I am with Sadie. When she is nursing and we are staring at each other I feel happy and joyful and still. On the occasions when my nipple is sore the nursing sometimes feels like torture, but it never feels like Sadie is torturing me. If I nurse her right before a nap and she gets really tired on my breast sometimes she'll snuggle up and fall asleep right on my neck. That's my favorite. That's exactly the feeling of closeness and tenderness and quiet I used to chase in numerous cartons of ice cream or from any number of "bad boy" boyfriends. When I feel her sigh and relax into me with her face buried in my body, I feel something more sacred and less trite than joy. Joy is only three letters and is sort of simple sounding for something as complex as feeling my baby daughter start to trust me and relax into me for a long nap. I think of joy as a loud and boisterous emotion-- it reminds me of Christmas carols sung with full choirs and bells gonging for accent ("Joy to the world, the Lord has come.") This is more subtle, more enduring. This is more like a acapella duet sung by me and Sadie with our spirits. If I ever end up in prison in Texas and on death row, I don't give a hooey about any last meal. What I want is that feeling with Sadie at 4 weeks and 4 days old full of my milk and drowsy on my shoulder with nothing to fear in me, her little sigh saying "I know you love me and I know you'll take care of me and now, completely defenseless, I will sleep."

So, I love those moments.

This afternoon after her 4-hour nap (and my 45 minute nap in a chair) I tried to snuggle with her every which way. Finally, I laid her down on the ottoman beside my chair and she was so happy she lit up like a Christmas tree. Snuggling = mama's agenda and chilling in her own space = Sadie's agenda. I like that she's got a huge range of moods and preferences. I feel pride that she seems very clear and pretty damn direct about what she wants, especially for someone with no language skills yet. When I feel us learning something new about each other, I feel happy and relieved and joyful about our unfolding relationship. I told my friend Camille, a veteran mother of a 2 year old and an 4-month old, that when I am away from Sadie, I sometimes feel a longing for her that borders on urgency. She said, "you're falling in love; of course it feels urgent sometimes."

And, I am. I am falling in love.

When she's in distress and really worked up crying like her beloved pet has just been run over I feel a deep sadness about not being able to comfort her. I keep reading about letting babies have their feelings and the wisdom that makes sense to me on the subject is that babies feel as intensely as we do (God, help her if she's as intense as I am) so we should be with them when they have their feelings and not be so concerned with trying to STOP it or CONTROL it. I have been practicing that all day. I feel more centered and more capable of supporting her crying when I sit with her without the goal of trying to make it stop. Besides, I have already learned that doesn't work. I feel sad and anxious when she seems to be in pain and I also sometimes feel lonely when she sleeps for a long time.

And like any real relationship sometimes I feel angry. I feel angry when she gets really spazzy on my breast and starts head butting my nipple with a really angry look on her face as if I suddenly filled my breast with castor oil just to fuck with her. I feel frustrated when she won't go to sleep at 3:00 a.m. Frustrated is another word for angry. I sometimes feel despair at the relentlessness of this: Will we ever understand what the hell she needs before she has to pitch a fit for 10 minutes? Will she ever understand the difference between night and day? Will she ever sit up and watch Mad Men with us and scream at Pete Campbell with me? Will she ever join me in my dignified and righteous road rage?

Of course she will, but there is a lot to do between here and there. The real goal of all this is to be present for all of it and savor it like the lifesavers I suck on hoping they will last my whole train ride to work. They will never last if I bite them and chew them into tiny pieces. One second at a time, one stop at a time, I concentrate on NOT biting and enjoying the flavor-- on past Damen and Chicago and Grand... this chewer and devourer of all things practices sucking the candy so she can emerge from the darkness with a little bit of sweetness on her tongue.

My relationship with Sadie is very real and full of every emotion, not just the blissed out and starry-eyed goo-goo-ga-ga I thought it would be. I sometimes want to hold her and she wants her own space. Sometimes she wants to be held and I want to go to sleep. My breasts may be leaking like a geyser, but she may be sleeping for another 3 hours. I am no more in contol here than in any other relationship. I feel a lot of love for Sadie. When I come home and find her in her swing after a few hours apart I feel like I could stare at her forever and kiss her face a million times. In those moments I feel the joy of loving my baby and also actually liking her, which is not always easy.

I am glad I was asked the question and will keep thinking on it as our relationship deepens.

The Stare

Right before Sadie takes a nap, she gets really fussy. I mean fussy at the breast, at my jokes, at my singing-- all of it. She just won't settle or be still. That's when we give her the ultimate treatment: We swaddle her with two blankets that we *may* have stolen from the hospital and bounce her around until she finally lets her eye lids droop so she can sleep.

When she's in her last few moments of pre-sleep, she stares off her right shoulder and there is no distracting her. I could sing Broadway tunes at the top of my lungs, but she wouldn't look away for a nanosecond. It almost seems like she's meditating and in the most peaceful place in her little mind. Then, in the next moment, her eyes are closed and we have to do without her pleasant company for a few hours. It's always bittersweet because when she sleeps I miss her, but it's a chance to take care of business around the house or join her in sweet slumber.

THAT Mom, an explanation

I got interrupted during my last post before I could get to the part about my being "that" mom. I was referring to the fact that I went through an entire (week) day without taking a shower. That felt like crossing a certain threshold. I can remember hearing my mom friends say, through the years, that they had days where they didn't take showers, but I thought that was like a myth. You know, like Big Foot or straight male hair dressers.

It's no myth. It's actually really easy to just pick something else to do besides shower. The obvious choice is to sleep. I used to be unable to sleep if I was not clean and smelling good, but now I just rub some of Sadie's spit up on my face and snuggle under the covers for any shred of shut eye. It's so totally insane how much I covet sleep. There must be a better way to do this. I keep meaning to look up what anthropologists or Biblical scholars say about why the sleep piece is so difficult with a human newborn baby. When the baby wakes after 1.5 hours in the middle of the night and I am in my darling toile rocker wondering how a baby can eat through two breasts at 3:00 a.m. AND at 4:30 a.m., my mind goes to strange places. Some of them are dark. I wish I had religion in those dark and desperate hours. Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions, the journal of her son's first year, is like a Bible of sorts to me these days. I envy her deep religious beliefs, which led her to think about Jesus' compassion on those long colicky nights with her son. I mostly just think that I am going to go insane from the strange burden of being on call all night long with my breasts exposed and my baby daughter crying out for reasons that are more mysterious than whatever reasons made my ex-boyfriends date me when so many of them were clearly gay. (They had to be or why would they break up with me.)

So, I look for religion. Then I think bitter and vengeful thoughts about people whose children sleep through the night. Out of my reverie Sadie may made a heartbreakingly vulnerable sound that reminds me why I am sitting on a toile chair with a burp cloth on my shoulder. Sadie. Oh, you're still here. I like to ask her in a sing-song voice -- since babies allegedly love the sing-song voice-- what it feels like to have a self-obsessed martyr for a mother. Then I tell her that I will work as many jobs as I need to in order to be sure that she can have a great education, go to summer camp, and have as much therapy as she wants. It's the least I could do.

Last night, my entire world tilted when Jeff suggested that I sleep for the night on our first floor and let him handle the night feedings with Sadie. I was just ragged and twitchy enough to take him up on it. I figured it might feel far away to be two floors from my family for the night, but it would be closer than the psych ward, which was my next stop. I fed Sadie at 10ish and then she and Jeff said goodbye and left me in the quiet darkness surrounded by nothing but pillows and my own thoughts. Luckily, I fell asleep right away. I slept from 10 until 4, when I could hear Sadie crying upstairs. I tried to pretend I didn't hear it so I could keep sleeping, but I am pretty sure that biology is rigged so that a mother can't "forget" her baby crying once she hears it. I went upstairs to visit Jeff who was giving Sadie a bottle. I am pretty sure Jeff hadn't slept much at all since we parted at 10, but he was sitting up looking competent and happy anyway. That's the good thing about parenting with someone who used to do M&A work for a large law firm-- he's used to no sleep for days on end. God bless him for being able to run on no sleep and still be nice. The first time I worked an all nighter at work I wanted to quit. Not just the job, but the whole human race. I am not cut out for work that happens after the sun goes down.

And then I became a mom.

After our 4 am visit, I ended up downstairs again sleeping until 6:45 a.m. So, today was a very blessed day. The sharpest edgy desperation lifted with that spell of more sleep than I have had since Sadie was born. I felt lighter and more positive about everything. When I relieved Jeff at 6:45 a.m. I felt so happy to hang out with Sadie. We had a great morning-- I took 400 pictures of her, 3 of which are actually in focus. For the first time ever, I laid Sadie on the bed and she just laid there turning her head toward the night. No crying or fussing. Just hanging out. I never thought we'd be able to do that. At one point I picked her up so that she would know that I was game for doing the whole cuddling thing, but she didn't want to cuddle with me. She wanted to lay on the bed while I folded the clothes and sang old New Order songs to her. It was simple and it was a blast. Moments like that will go a long way on the road to having a normal schedule and having her sleep 7 hours at a time.

I also did a little fashion show for her. I showed her how my pre-pregnancy jeans do not yet fit me, which wasn't a huge surprise. It's only been 4 weeks. I do wish the swelling would go down so I could wear my engagement and wedding rings. I think it's been long enough and I am ready to get my bling back on. Other than that, I am happy to run around town in Old Navy jersey skirts and flowy dresses. Jeff says that my swelling will go down when I get to exercise. Judging by how much my uterus still hurts, it's going to be a while before I can really do any cardioo exercise. Right now, walking to the train and getting to therapy is about as ambitious as my fitness plan gets.

Oh, and speaking of therapy, whose idea was it for my therapist to be out of the office for THREE (3) weeks in September? That person needs to be booked on one of those flights that sits on the runway for 9 hours, in a seat next to a toilet that overflows. It's a bad idea. What if I develop serious post-partum depression? I am an overwhelmed, overtired new mom and now my therapist is leaving for three weeks. As the kids say, WTF. In all fairness to him, he is having surgery, so it's not like he's taking the money I give him and going to Bermuda, but hearing he's having surger is not exactly comforting, especially when I have a tendency to think about the worst case scenarios. There are moments in my toile chair when I think about him being in hospice and my having to look for a new therapist with all the other things on my plate. It's not like I imagine him having hair plugs or his appendix taken out. Behind my jokes that he's getting his nose done is a vibrant hum of neurotic fear that he'll die on the table, which would be terribly inconvenient for me and probably not good for Sadie either.

So glad our work on my extreme thinking and my flair for making everything about me is paying off.

Am I THAT Mom?

Don't be deceived by how my arm looks in this picture. I am getting some serious guns from bouncing Sadie in her preferred style: bouncing in my arms up in the air. When the lactic acid builds up and I start to see stars, I sometimes try to "cheat" by putting her on my knee and bouncing her from there to give my arms a break, but she catches on in about 3 bounces and starts crying, so back up we go. I didn't know that having a baby would be the route to my Linda Hamilton biceps. Having a child is a full body experience and I am not just talking about the breast feeding.

Speaking of breastfeeding-- what a difficult and complex thing it is. Holy milk maids, it's really hard. At three weeks, I almost gave up because the pain in my right breast (that, incidentally we named Fred Couples after the famously down to earth golfer). Then, just like the nausea of the first trimester, it became bearable. Now, I almost can't tell the difference between Fred Couples and my left breast, which bears the name George Hincapie, after the hot cyclist. If someone asked me for advice on breastfeeding, I would say two things: 1. Get as much support as you can to hang in there because there may be a magic moment when the pain lightens and 2. Name your breasts after famous sports legends because it might just be ludicrious enough to help you shift into a more pleasant phase of a really difficult part of early motherhood.

Is it any wonder so few people ask me for advice?

Right now I am flush from victory. I have spend a great part of the day with Sadie, culminating in a new high: I comforted her to the music of my choosing (Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror (or Baby in the Mirror at my house)) and she is now swinging peacefully in the swing while adult music is playing. What's this emphasis on adult music? Usually, when Sadie is around we listen to her CD. Her CD is a 5-track musical abomination-- it's actually "white noise," such as rain falling or a blow dryer. It's supposed to soothe Sadie by reminding her of the sounds she heard in the womb. All I know is that we have a copy of Sadie's Soundtrack in our house and in our car. Nothing like cruising down North Avenue to the rousing tunes of the blow dryer hoping that Sadie will STOP melting down long enough to catch her breath before I crash the car into the Hollywood Diner.

So, it's a big deal that I made an executive decision to sing actual music to Sadie and if she knew what was good for her she would surrender to sleep because I was going to just keep singing in her ear. My Michael Jackson falsetto impression isn't pretty. And, Sadie is smart so she surrendered quicker than ever to the sleep that she earned by listening to me sing. It's funny-- the books say that babies like to hear sing-song voices at this stage. I keep trying to think of songs to sing her her, but the only songs I know all the words to are just plain inappropriate. There are some Bible songs, but I feel guilty singing those to her since I can't say exactly where I stand on the Bible and then there's the whole "Sadie, your dad's Jewish," which would only further muddy the waters. Then, today this song from local band Moonshine Willy popped into my head. It's beyond inappropriate because it's about a woman who buried her baby alive. Um, nice, Christie. I tell myself it's ok because look at all those old fashioned lullabyes-- they are all about harm befalling little ones. "Rockabye baby in the tree tops, when the bough breaks the cradle will rock." That's really nice. Hey, everyone, let's sing songs about babies falling out of treetops. And then there's Ring Around the Rosie, which is a celebration of the plague, which basically oblitered the population of Europe. Looks like I am not the only one who has struggled with ambivalent feelings toward my offspring. I am in good company....with all of Western Civilization.

So, Sadie is sleeping away. We had a nice morning at the Green City market, which was so pleasant and happy and kid-friendly it almost broke my heart to be there. I felt so lucky to be sitting in the shade with a sleeping Sadie, hanging out with a good friend, surrounded by all manner of organic food stuffs, watching dozens of kids run around in the cool breezes. How could I improve on that in any way?

She's doing great taking the bottle and we can spend more time with her where she's just hanging out with us. Every now and then it looks like we get a smile from her. Usually she smiles when she's sitting on the changing table, which may be because she associates that with having her diaper changed and being warm and cozy. I love just hanging out with her and the times when she's crying are getting easier to handle. When I start to get edgy and desperate with a desire for her to STOP. CRYING. RIGHT. NOW. I visualize her working out some emotion or energy that is really none of my business. I can picture her and her Higher Power deciding that crying and screaming is the next right thing for her and my job is to let go-- once I am sure she is safe, fed, burped, comforted, and I have made my presence known, my job is to back off. Her spells of discomfort seem to pass more quickly when I keep my cool and trust her little process. Easier during the day than at 4:00 a.m., but I am working on finding my mama zen place at any hour of the day.

YaYa and Pops Visit

Sadie had her first visitors from the southside of the Mason Dixon line. My parents, YaYa and Popps, came to fawn over their newest grandchild. Grandparents sure have a way with grandchildren, and Sadie is loving the new attention and the new tricks my parents have brought. Their skills have been honed by Preston, Patrick, and Lucy, my siblings' kids who were kind enough to break everyone in before little Sadie arrived with her cry that could clear a crowded auditorium!
The consensus is that Sadie has my hair line and my pouty style when she's about to start wailing. She's been a real trouper-- having her first restaurant meal at Wishbone and her second at Bongo Room. She's a big fan of a brunch menu. Speaking of menus, Jeff and I had our first post-Sadie's-birth date last night. We went to dinner at Buona Terra in Logan Square while my parents babysat Sadie for us. We were gone about 1.25 hours and the report is that Sadie slept the whole time. Jeff and I toyed with the idea of going out again tonight, but I confessed last night that I am too plum tired to go out again. I really just want to hang out and have someone cook for me so I can eat it on the couch in my milk-stained clothes with my disheveled hair thrown in a pony tail. Ah, the magic of asking for what you want and throwing in a little something about your recent "major abdominal surgery"-- it really opens doors.
It was great to see my parents with my daughter. And don't think that my bawling my eyes out every night is a sign it didn't go well. It did. Something about being the middle part of three generations just really gets me. Then, my mom brought a DVD she made last fall for my father's 65th birthday, which showcases all of the parts of my dad's life, complete with 800 pictures from his rural Texas roots, through Vietnam, the early family years, and through the current time. I cried from the minute it started. We watched it twice through and I cried all the way both times. I am not sure what's up with the waterworks but there is something about family and connection and healing and hope and, as always, the sheer exhaustion which has always been a stimulus for my tears.

My parents stayed at a cute little B&B in Wicker Park and made themselves available to whatever we wanted or needed the whole time they were here. I really appreciated it and while it was hard not to play hostess or have a bunch of stuff planned for all of us, I was grateful they were cognizant of my somewhat diminished physical capacity and were happy to sit and hold Sadie for hours at a time.

There's way more feeling stored up about all of this, but my bed is calling and Sadie has grown fond of waking up at about 4:45 p.m. I have to get my beauty rest. Sadie also slept for 6 hours yesterday and that was a revelation to me. She then followed that up with 2 stretches of 3 hour sleep. If I seem like I am obsessed with sleep, I am. Good catch!

Multi-tasking

Moms are famous for multi-tasking; it's practically a cliche. I think I am being initiated into the art of multi-tasking, and to brag for a moment, I am getting good at it. Yesterday, I was able to walk around with Sadie while breastfeeding. Yes, nursing my 3-week old daughter while moving both of us from the first floor to the second floor. All me. Kind of creepy, but when time and expediency matters, I let myself be as creepy as I need to be.

And, right now. Sadie is sprawled out on my lap and I am typing away. I can Facebook and mother at the same time. I can take a phone call while nursing. It's the little things in life.

Today is Sadie's three-week birthday. Three weeks ago today I was itching like a flea-infested dog because the post-op drugs had the side effect of making every inch of my swollen body tingle and demand a good old fashioned scratching. How lucky for my hospital visitors to see that show! I believe the last of our visitors were leaving right about this time and Jeff and I were settling in to our first night with Sadie. How how good you have it when you are in the hospital with 24-hour care! I can hardly believe that was only three weeks ago! Sadie's little cheeks are getting fuller and she can sleep for pretty long stretches of time, which makes everyone very happy. My nerves still jangle when she's crying and I can't tell why. I feel guilty for wanting it to stop, but it would be sort of cruel if I wanted my baby to cry all day, so I guess it's natural that I want my baby not to cry.

My favorite thing she does is wake up from her long stretches of sleep. She has a fairly elaborate method of waking up, that includes stretching out her arms and her legs over and over again. She makes the same faces each time: first she starts with a general yawn, and then she makes different faces with her lips, including this one face where her lips form a perfect little "O" as if she is trying to blow smoke rings. I am so in love with those little lips I can hardly keep myself from gobbling her up when I see her little O rings!

We have done a little research on babies and discovered some interesting information about how they process information that comes at them all day long. Turns out that babies are quite sensitive to emotional energy around them because they do not yet filter any information out. Because they lack filters, they absorb or take in everything going on at once. As adults, we can screen, filter, or ignore certain dynamics or people or energy fields. Babies can't. I think of the prospect of NOT being able to filter out certain aspects of the environment and I get overwhelmed and want to shut down and cry too. Poor little thing. Makes me think twice about where I will take her in the upcoming days and how I will respond to her reactions.

We also learned that when babies get overstimulated they cry in order to protect themselves and reduce the interactions. I do notice that when Sadie is crying heartily there is not much I can do to "reach" her-- the research I read said that's the point: She's trying to make herself unavailable until she can get comfortable or reduce the stimulus coming at her. Well, that's one possible explanation so long as I also rule out a loaded diaper or the ubiquitous gassy stomach possibility.

I find all the information about babies very fascinating. I mostly wonder how the hell anyone purports to know what is going on in babies' minds. I sure can't read Sadie's mind, though it's not for lack of trying. I like the explanations I have heard and they engender more compassion and empathy for the experience of being new on the planet, so there is no harm in just embracing it for now. I also wish I had gotten a Ph.D in early childhood development before having a child so that I would have more knowlege about what is happening. And, as always, I think that having more knowledge would give me more control. You would think that having an newbornn would disabuse me of that fallacy once and for all, but I cling tenaciously to the idea that if only I knew more, I could control this.

Sadie will have the last laugh-- there's no doubt about that!

Bottle This Feeling

Big big day at my house. For approximately 20 minutes, I left the house BY MYSELF. No other living being was with me. That's the first time in 3 weeks that has happened. And I liked it. I liked it a lot. I also cried for the first 12 minutes of my walk. It's so freaking emotional to do anything right now. I left the house because Jeff was giving Sadie a bottle of my breast milk so we could experiment with me being able to run errands without her or allow Jeff to take a night feeding or let my parents feed her during their visit this weekend so Jeff and I can go out alone. Before I left the house, I was afraid she wouldn't take the bottle and I would have to deal with my feelings of being trapped and needing some more space or having to confront using formula.

When I walked out of the house into the coolish August breeze and everything was still outside my front door, I felt afraid about letting her go, loosening my grip on her as her ONLY source of nutrients, food, and the comfort that comes from a full belly of milk and a full mouth of breast. It's my first letting Sadie go so that others can be important to her. It seems entirely appropriate that Jeff would be able to take a turn feeding our daughter, but for three weeks the role as the ONLY feeder had a psychological grip on me that I didn't know until I stepped out this morning.

I walked through my neighborhood at a slow pace, partly because I was crying and partly because I am still incredibly tender and sore and sometimes in pain from the C-section surgery. I called my friends and left messages about the heroic action I was taking by letting my husband give Sadie a bottle of my pumped breast milk. I finally got ahold of my friend Bobby who is a father of four with another little boy on the way. He was incredibly supportive of the process of having lots of feelings about letting go and letting Sadie have new experiences that do not include me.

I also had the pleasure of confronting my own control issues. It was suggested to us that I leave the house so that the baby can concentrate on the bottle and not be confused or sense that the breast was nearby. In all honesty, I left the house for my own sake because had I stayed, I would want to "consult" (read control) and interfere with the process because of course, who knows better than I. Turns out that lots of people know lots of things and I don't need to monopolize the information about Sadie's food or pleasures or anything else. Sometimes, I just need to get out of her way.

Jeff called my cell about 5 blocks into my walk and said that everything was great and that she sucked down the 2 ounces I pumped very quickly. In fact, he thought she might be still hungry so I should probably head home.

Ahhh, the universe has mercy on me. It was the best possible outcome. Sadie and Jeff managed the bottle just fine; I got to get out of the house to peruse the neighborhood for a few minutes on my own while connecting with another compassionate parent who has been around a block or two; and Sadie still needed me. When I got home, there was an empty bottle, a happy dad, and a drowsy, but still game for more food, baby.

This is so good. I am breathing more freely. I am feeling excited about not having to drag Sadie to every drug store, therapy appointment, and errand around town. The whole point of having Jeff home during the beginning of Sadie's life was to give him and her the chance to build a relationship. I don't need a psychology degree to tell me that allowing them some space where I am not hovering around is a healthy dynamic for my whole family.

Baby Sleeping

My two favorite moments of the day : when Sadie is fast asleep and I know that I can talk as loud as I want to crank up the stereo and she won't budge. It's the nearest bit of freedom I have these days and I really relish it.

Second, this afternoon I made lunch for me and Jeff and brought it upstairs on a tray. We were having a little picnic on the bed-- (Note to self: order new linens after we pass through the newborn phase)-- and Sadie was sitting on my lap just relaxing and looking at Jeff. I was able to hold her in my lap and eat my lunch, which was a new trick for both of us. Next thing I know, Miss Sadie, the Mistress of Manners, starts with her farting and suddenly there is literally poo coming out of the top of her onsie. By top, I am referring to the part by her neck. I have heard parents talk about this, but who can believe this is really something that a little person can do until it happens to you? I was wondering what it would take for her to sit with us while we relax and have a meal. Now I know: explosive diarrhea. Hell, I guess it takes what it takes.

And, because the poo bore a striking resemblance to the food I was eating, I wasn't sad to leave my half-eaten plate in order to change her and when we saw the extent of the damage, we went straight to the bath. Sadie still hasn't taken to the bath yet, but we hold out hope that one day she'll enjoy being submerged in lukewarm water and having her hair washed. I kept explaining to her that taking baths were just one of many things to come that we would subject her to that she would not necessarily like, but that we would insist upon. I love her and I love her when she calm and peaceful, but I really can't have her lounging around with her own feces caked on her hair and her ankles.

She's in one of her long nap stretches right now. It's really peaceful and I am glad she can settle down for these 3 and 4-hour stretches. And, not just so that I can get on line and order more comfy maternity leave clothes, but also so that her little brain can develop along with all the associated neurological systems. I have addressed the birth announcements, but fear that if I send them out this early-- before she's even three weeks old-- then people won't believe me when I say I am overwhelmed and maybe have a touch of the baby blues. Look, just because I am organized and want to get the word out about the baby does not mean that I am coasting along and don't need lots of love and support and encouragement from anyone and everyone.

Ta Daaaaa!

She's got flair, this little 9lb daughter of mine. Jeff captured her sense of drama in the latest photo shoot. This picture makes me laugh thinking about what kind of a personality she will have at 4 or 10 or 15. So far she seems curious, spirited, feisty, and very into automatic gratification. She's exhibiting more of my personality than Jeff's so far, much to my chagrin and amusement, depending on how much sleep I have had.

I have always known that change is very difficult for me. I don't like haircuts or rearranging the furniture or having a new schedule. It's no wonder that those little paragraphs in the parenting books about how a new mom may be "anxious, depressed, moody, irritable and struggling with the responsibility of caring for a newborn and the loss of her old life and freedom," applies to me with a shattering accuracy. Before Sadie was born, I skipped over those paragraphs, cockily assuming that having a great husband and a wide, competent and compassionate support network would bring me through with all smiles and a cute outfit everyday. And, while all those things are true, I have struggled to make sense of my feelings of sadness and despair when I wonder if I will ever sleep in again or if I will ever get to lose myself in the aisles of Dominick's grocery store by myself. I think the hardest part for me is the feeling that I always have a sense that there is a clock ticking and that at any moment the baby could wake and need to eat and for now, in these early exclusively breastfeeding days, it's all me. It intimidates me and brings up lots of feelings: I feel proud of my availability and my willingness to give her every single nutrient she needs; I feel happy my body is on board with my wishes to breast feed; I feel angst about how much my right nipple hurts; I feel resentment that no one else can do this at 3:00 a.m.-- and all of this I feel at an intensity of a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. There rarely is a medium speed for me, and now it's all 10 or 0.

It's a confusing time. I thought I would feel differently about everything. I didn't know I would miss being alone in the car listening to the Indigo Girls and sucking on a Crystal Light from a straw. I had no idea that running through Filene's Basement or being able to decide on a whim to do something crazy-- like go to the Post Office-- would vanish and I would cry about it for a weekend. How could I know this? Now I can't imagine having whims that involve me being farther than 20 yards from Sadie. And, it's not exactly a complaint because what did I ever really get at Filene's and the post office always pisses me off with the workers' horrible attitudes and those long lines. It's not even that I wish I was doing something different exactly, it's more than my daily life is so radically unrecognizable from what it was on June 30, which was only about 5 weeks ago. I think I am adjusting the best that I can. I cry a lot, which helps me relate to Sadie. Just like her, sometimes I just need to blow off steam and let it all out. She does the the same thing sometimes and it's more tolerable to hear her cries when I trust her process of crying is as important as mine is. I never wanted to raise a daughter who was afraid or ashamed to cry. Happily, I can report that doesn't seem to be the case with Sadie.

I am also happy about the good humor I have about having breast milk all over my clothes. I don't bother changing them, because I will just get more clothes dirty. I do, however, plan to burn these early motherhood clothes because I wear the same few things all the time. It reminds me of the clothes I wore during my month-long backpacking trip through Europe. Man, if I ever saw those Birkenstocks and that green pocket tee from the Gap, I was going to spontaneously vomit. It's actually hard to look at the pictures to this day.

My favorite thing that Sadie is doing now is allowing me to cradle her and rock her after we feed. When I am trying to burp her, she always squirms so that her head ends up in the crook of my elbow so we can look each other in the eye. I talk to her all the time, but during those moments, I actualy shut my mouth and memorize the look at her face and the feeling in my arms because she won't be 9lbs forever and she won't be at my breast forever either. Those are the moments when I understand what is great about being a mom, especially Sadie's mom. I forget about the loss of solitude or the pain from childbirth and the whole world is just me and Sadie and staring into those deep blue eyes hoping I am worthy of what will develop into her love and affection of me. It's easier to talk about what I am missing because it's hard to describe this new relationship with my daughter. I want to get better at describing my love and attachment to her, but for now I will stick with the image of my little baby cradled in my arms and the hope that she can feel that I would do anything for her health, safety, and well being and that I will continue to work out my intense feelings about the relationship so I can remain ever present to her as we grow together.

Tired Is The New Black

Sadie is over two weeks old, well past her birth weight (11 ounces past to be almost exact), and we have had a dizzying week of firsts. Pictured above is our first visit to the pediatrician. Sadie, our champion, peed when they weighed her and then screamed loud enough to curl the linoleum in our little examination room. Yes sir, that's my baby.

We have plumb tuckered her out. Yesterday, she went to her first meeting with mama and then went to her first retail store (Old Navy-- don't judge me) and her first grocery store (Dominick's). So many firsts, is it any wonder this child can sleep 4 hours at a stretch? Now, if only those hours were at NIGHT!

The pediatrican asked us if Sadie knows the difference between night and day. Jeff and I just stared at each other. We barely know the difference and we sure as hell don't know how to tell if SHE knows if it's night or day. I admit that question made me wonder if there is something I am supposed to be doing to teach her the difference between night and day. Do I need to be reading about this? Asking around? Somehow I think me getting a system or "right way to do it" stuck in my head is a very, very bad idea. There are very few absolutes in my mind when it comes to my relationship with Sadie, but one of them is that if I try to exert my will on her, we will all end up miserable. For now, I will just trust that it will all work out at some point. I did tell her all day, "it's day time," and when the sun went down I started saying, "it's nighttime." Here's hoping she's a very verbal learner!

The fatigue is starting to catch up with me. I have that low grade headache all the time and almost always feel nauseated. I also finished the Norco. Actually, there's a bunch left, but I haven't taken them in over 48 hours so that little chapter in my narcotics history is closed. Ever since I stopped taking it, my appetite is vengeful. All I want is a blizzard, and I am not talking about snow. I am also not talking about yogurt or low calorie or low fat ice cream. I am talking about full fat creamy ice cream with cookies in it. Oreos. It's the first craving I have had since Sadie was born. Once I decided I have no idea how to manage getting a stupid blizzard, I decided I had to have some macaroni and cheese. I got neither today, but tomorrow is another day.

The biggest consequence of letting go of Norco is being able to drive. Today Sadie and I drove by ourselves downtown for a doctor's appointment. We listened to the CD that is a recording of a blow dryer, which saved the ride. It was a big step towards getting out and about with my little baby. Not sure what our next milestone will be, but for now I am celebrating being able to get around and be out and about with Sadie and being able to endure the pain of the C-Section armed only with Motrin and my sunny disposition.

Recovery

Right behind me, Jeff has Sadie draped in a black velvet cloth and is doing a photo shoot with her. (Results above.) She's being unbelievably game for this exercise, and he snapped about 800 shots before she called it a day. I am having a moment. I just read an account of a woman who was able to have a drug-free vaginal birth-- she went into pretty great detail-- and a wave of sadness has just descended on me. Actually, I already felt sort of sad because my uterus still hurts and so do my nipples. Happy to report to anyone who cares that Preparation H seems to be a miracle in a tube, but still. I want to have more energy and I want to not have this troublesome pain in my right abdomen, that is likely the site of the stitches in my uterus. I have been trying to wean myself off the Norco, the drug that the doctor prescribed for me. I am allowed to take one every four hours, but I am now doing about every 8 or 12 hours. Um, maybe that's why it hurts.

But I don't want to be on opiates anymore. I can't drive as long as I am on them. My appetite is all funky when I am on them and I am not keen on taking them while breast feeding Sadie. The result is that I have pain and I get all weepy and withdrawn, which even in my condition, does not seem like a family friendly alternative. Tomorrow is two weeks since Sadie's birth and when I think about what happened to my body, it seems like that it's not outrageous that it still hurts. I have taken yoga classes that took weeks to recover from. In the back of my mind, I wonder if I just let myself have the meltdown about how Sadie's birth transpired-- just let it all out once and for all-- maybe I would make better decisions about how to proceed with the pain and the recovery and I would take better stock of my options.

I also just read an article in the New York Times about a woman who describes herself as very tough. Her proof that she's not a pushover? She's had a drug-free vaginal birth and then refused drugs after a C-section. She's perfectly articulated my underlying beliefs: using drugs makes me a pushover, a woman who is not strong, a woman who copped out or didn't do her homework or didn't love her baby enough to growl, grunt, and chant through a natural childbirth. I am wimpy because major abdominal surgery laid me out so completely that I took drugs to recover from the experience of having my uterus stitched up while it was out of my body and sitting on the outside of my stomach. It's just one of the legion of debates that women engage in-- to work or stay home? Breastfeed or bottle? Pacifier or no? Drugs after childbirth or not? To indulge in the Bob stroller or "settle" for the $238.00 MacLaren?

Enough already. It wasn't a political statement for me to have a C-section. I don't really care what other women do/did/will do. While the personal may be political, for me, the only thing that matters is the personal right now. I don't really have time for all of this perseverating. I would rather be watching my daughter in her swing or talking to Jeff about Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s arrest for disorderly conduct. Or, most importantly, get some sleep so I'll be ready to be present when my daughter needs me in a few hours.

Have I Told Ya'll Lately That I Love You?

I do. The loves of my life: Jeff and Sadie.

And yes, that's a sweater onsie with a sweater hat in July because it's 66 degrees! How cute is my little eskimo?

Sunday Blues

Let's get one thing straight: I adore my daughter. I love every inch of her and could literally spend hours staring at her tiny features and her hands and feet. There is nothing I would not do for her.

And.

And, this is really hard. By "this," I mean being a new mom to a new baby and spending hours a day not knowing what I am doing, what Sadie is doing, what she needs and how to comfort her or give her what she wants or needs. The ear-piercing crying is like a red bull shot to my heart. She used to have a cry that was a slow build up to the full-out, I-am-going-to-rock-this-entire-zipcode-with-my-tiny-vocal-chords, and now we skipped all the foreplay and she just opens her mouth and screams as if I was threatening to leave her with Michael Jackson (when he was still alive). It is hard to get used to. I was hoping she would not make this a habit, but it started yesterday, and she has perfected it today. She also started doing her champion screaming during her feedings. I am still recovering from having her little head pop off my breast and launch into this distressed scream. Not exactly the reaction I want to have when someone has sampled my breast.

So, here's how I have handled this new development. First, I catastrophize in my head that she'll scream all day every day for the rest of her life, which is going to make her career at Yale very trying. Then, I start to cry silently until Jeff tries to interact with me, at which time I start to cry openly and unabashedly. The next step was to put out the S.O.S. on Facebook letting every parent who can see my status update that my sweet little Sadie has been permanently affected by something horrific and irreversible that I have done in her first 10 dayys of life and that I am decidedly ON THE EDGE. Then, I turn to the telephone and start calling all of the moms I know to ask them (1) why my child is screaming hysterically after NOT doing that for the first 9 days of her life and (2) what do I do to make it stop so I don't have to feel ashamed that I ruined her whole entire life. This last step was seriously frustrated because I accidentally put my cell phone in the washing machine this morning when I did a load of laundry. The phone is not going to make it. Thus, gone are the numbers of my mommy friends-- washed away like the soil on our sheets. To remedy that aparent tragedy, I turned back to my lifeline, Facebook, and posted that I lost my cell phone and the only way to contact me is through email or our home phone.

And, then I took my little Sadie in my arms and I told her the following:

"Sadie, I love you. I love your feelings and fully support you screaming at the top of your lungs. It's good to feel feelings and to express them. You are doing a good job being a baby. You are supposed to cry to communicate with me. It's my job to figure out what you need and want. Mommy may have feelings about your screaming or crying, but it's not your job to take care of me. I have lots of support in my life-- people who can help take care of me so I can take care of you. I am not going anywhere no matter how long or how loud you scream. We are both learning and there are new things every day. I will probably disappoint you a lot, but you will not disappoint me. You are the perfect baby for me. You and all of your feelings and all of your expressions are welcome here. They are essential for your emotional development, which is important to me. Thank you for letting me know when something is not right with you or when you need someting you don't have."

She kept on crying, which is basically what I told her to do. It's very important to me to raise a daughter who feels safe and comfortable being loud or angry or vocal or lonely. I want her to know that I honestly do support her having feelings and that they are beautiful-- and any failure on my part to embrace the parts of her that need to wail or blow of some steam or just plain bellow is just that: my failure. It's my job to get more support to deal with my own feelings around the intense moments around here. It's not her job to be quiet. She's not a church mouse; she's a baby. And at one point she was wailing so loud with her mouth so wide open I thought I could see China, a small part of me was cheering her on: "Go Sadie, scream it out. Start early. Do whatever you need to do. Don't let anyone's discomfort with your process stop you from going bold and balls out and just letting it all out. You are definitely my daughter and this is healthy and adaptive."

Someone please remind me of this down nthe road when I can only hear the voice that says: "Christie, you failed. You fucked up your daughter and ruined every second of her life. There is nothing to do now except give up, accept the greatest defeat of your life, and never ever forgive yourself."