In which I fit three weeks into one post

It turns out that there's a certain combination of busy and tired that makes it difficult to sit down and write what you want to write into your blog.

Our week of vacation for Fletcher's birthday (and a visit from Uncle Jeremy) went quickly. We didn't take any big trips or "do" anything memorable. Still, it was a turning point for the little person and much has happened for him. Since his birthday...

FIRST:

• Birthday party
• Trip to the zoo
• Seriously walking, even if he looks like a smiling zombie 
• Whole milk and several new foods
• Climbed onto a coffee table
• Played in the McDonald's play area
• Pushed open the screen door and climbed down the concrete steps to get outside
• Went to the pool with Daddy
• Waited until we weren't looking to climb over the barrier to the stairs, which he then climbed and ran around the upstairs hallway by himself with the cats' water dish

 
I'm sure I'm forgetting things; it has all been a blur. I also had a first -- first time I spent all morning making (pureeing) fresh food for Fletcher, which he then refused to eat, and I could swear my mother was out there somewhere smiling as this justice was delivered.

At his doctor appointment he was still underweight at less than 20 pounds, and average for height. In the past week, however, he has shot up like a beanpole.

Since his birthday, he has only nursed once a day. Yesterday, June 10, was my last time breastfeeding. This ending is like cutting off a limb. Also? HORMONES SUCK.

Here comes a crap ton of photos.

BIRTHDAY PARTY:

Checking out Uncle Jeremy

ZOO:

Family photo with elephant ass

RANDOM:

Scrambled eggs make excellent confetti

Wiped out

Climbing onto the diaper box

Climbing the table, finally capturing the iPod

Tuning up the lawn mower

First trip to the pool

advice to new moms

At a recent baby shower, we were asked to write down a piece of advice for the expectant mom. I casually filled up the card with lightweight things like "enjoy every minute of your maternity leave" and "sing to the baby."

I regret it now. I've had a chance to think through the question and determine one important bit of advice to new mothers. Then it was made all the more important to me after reading this perspective.

Ready?

Childbirth and all its powerful hormones will do crazy shit to you.

Okay, that's a fact, not advice. The advice part is to accept that this is happening to you and forgive yourself for it, and to seek help when you need it.

I'm not just talking about being emotional ala crying during TV commercials. The confusing hormones that course through you during pregnancy are heightened – taking even more control over you – after.

I remember a part of me acknowledging that the way I felt was not right or natural or logical, but there was nothing I could do but sink into this emotional pool. It may have had a role in making me feel so desperately attached to my baby that I could barely breathe any time I left home without him.

Does anyone really understand how the mind works? Add in body chemistry, and things get crazy. We don't give chemicals, natural or introduced, enough credit for what they do.

I started birth control pills at a young age to control primary dysmenorrhea, and for years I wondered if that was the cause of certain changes in my personality, libido, and the way I felt in general – like a complete leveling out of extremes. Just feeling less.

I didn't notice a change when I finally went off the pill ten years later, but once I was pregnant I was back on that roller coaster of emotional extremes. I had never felt so fierce as I did during the first weeks or months with my baby, and I am so thankful to have had that experience. Even the unexplainable tears. While breastfeeding continued (and still continues) to propagate certain confusing hormones, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I know how lucky I am to have this.

But if I, who did not have postpartum depression, still felt and continue to feel the odd control of such body chemistry, what must it be like for the half of new mothers who do get postpartum depression? How must it affect the quarter of the population suffering through any other mental disorder?

I'm not an expert of anything. I just know that I'm lucky. And I know what to write down at the next baby shower. Take care of yourselves, new moms.

Oh, and if you're buying a nursing bra while pregnant, opt for stretchy elastic. There are changes ahead.

Also? Ignore all advice. Including mine. Every mom and every baby and every experience is different. Own your own way.

12w 5d fear

I don't know how soon I was supposed to return to being a completely calm, confident, well-adjusted, happy person.

What's wrong? Why are you sad?

I still have horrible moments, sometimes horrible days, where I'm so completely happy that I have Fletcher, and yet so irrationally wrecked. I can feel, almost see, the waves of hormones washing over me, the undertow dragging me through my lowest emotions.

Sometimes, it comes in a flash and I'm able to soften it just by thinking happy thoughts. Maybe not enough to fly like Tinkerbell, but enough so that I avoid the What's wrong? questions.

I found a hair today. That's all it took to set me off. That one little hair, which had come from my baby's head, made the dam holding back a build-up of surprising emotion crumble.

Having that strand of hair meant so much to me now, when I'm just 6.14 miles from home, where he is healthy and happy with his father.

What if he wasn't? my morbid thoughts wondered. What would finding this hair mean to me if he were gone?

When writing a story, I've always felt that it's important to be able to pinpoint a main character's absolute greatest fear. And then to have that fear come into play in some way during the course of the story, as an obstacle or a kind of villain that the hero has to overcome.

For myself I never had, or never knew of, a "greatest fear." There was too much gray area in the haphazard collection of things that I feared, everything from abandonment to bankruptcy, from disfigurement to not being liked, from death to making mistakes. It was all a murky cloud of awful, which I tried to come out from under, in order to live my life without constantly looking up at that potentially-falling sky.

Is it better or worse now that I have and know my absolute, 100 percent, greatest fear? The one wrong that would trump all others, the one disaster that would render me useless, broken, destroyed?

Does it make all the other fears milder or less oppressive by comparison? Now that I know there is a single thing that would kill my soul, a single thing that I can't survive, can I be relieved knowing any other horror can be survived?

I haven't been able to step out from under this particular dark cloud, though. I've read that morbid thoughts are common for new mothers, whether they have depression or not.

They say it's a mother's job to worry, but when the fear rises up my throat to choke me, it isn't a "job." It's the villain of the story.

5w 2d grief

Shocked disbelief has turned to anger. This has brought to mind the stages of grief. It's quite melodramatic, isn't it, considering how lucky I am to be with my baby for a short while during my lunch hour (most days) and then all night? No one has died. No one has left me.

But I am angry. Punch-something, pull-out-my-hair angry. I cried a little less today, but I can't say it's because "things are getting better." I wish I could.

I want something to blame, something to be mad at other than "circumstance." But there's nothing. I keep asking why this is the way it is, but there's no answer.

If it is a kind of grief, when will I reach acceptance rather than just bearing it quietly? I keep thinking that if this were temporary -- if it were a day spent away from him, or even a week -- this would be easy. The fact that this schedule is forever makes it impossible to accept. (Am I at the bargaining stage already?)

Fletcher, our baby, so dependent on us... and now I, so dependent on him...

Of course, four hours of sleep and an empty stomach do little to mollify this new pissed-at-the-world temperament. I'll find a snack, get to work, and return to the quiet enduring.

4w 2d scare

I had a lighthearted post almost finished for today, outlining the symptoms I've experienced so far.

I'm not feeling particularly lighthearted at the moment.

One such symptom, cramping, I've had for several days. Since around the time of my first positive test, in fact. It didn't worry me because this cramping felt different than my usual PMS.

That changed a little today. The cramping became a little more like what I'm used to, more localized and "serious." I became a little worried.

When I spotted, I became hysterical. Luckily it was my lunch hour and I was home, alone, where it didn't matter how loud I sobbed.

"Please, don't do this to me," I kept saying. I think I was talking to God.

The spotting wasn't obvious. I didn't stain any clothing. But during the trip to the restroom, I saw what I usually see on the day before a new cycle, and it felt as if my life had suddenly and completely collapsed. For a while, I couldn't function.

Once I calmed down a little, I decided to take the advice of my nurse friend. I went in for blood work this afternoon. Now I'm stuck waiting for results.

But I'm hopeful once more -- At the end of the day, I fell back on my old standby. When in doubt, pee on a stick. It wasn't the suggested first morning urine, but I couldn't resist.

I got my darkest positive yet. This doesn't mean that something dire is not in progress with the delicate life that I carry. But, for now, I have the hormones I'm supposed to have, and I'll face tomorrow when it comes. It's not like I have a choice.


As a side note, I've always taken a lot of comfort in finding (or stumbling across) a song that suits my current emotional climate, especially when I'm in turmoil. Here are lyrics from the song that owns today... "Sleep" by Anousheh Khalili.

Steady now,
Your body's caving in.
Shoulders out,
Let the ground know who's standing on him.
You're not better now,
Just monumentally more fit
To tell me how to make it to the end of all this.