This too shall pass

I recall thinking, when G was about 3 months old, about how I worried her cradle cap might never go away, despite the fact that I was scrubbing it with olive oil and a brush, and despite our pediatrician's reassurance that it goes away for all babies. I remember thinking (but not really worrying), but what if my baby is an outlier? What if she has cradle cap into her teens? Granted she'd have hair before then, and there are far bigger fish to fry than cradle cap, but this memory comes back when I think about milestones and what moving targets they are.

I think about these in my work life; I'm an academic with looooonnnnggggg lasting projects, some so long that they just sag against my neck and shoulders like old and decaying albatross carcasses (wow, what a rather gross or bleak depiction of cancer epi studies!), and I'm constantly having to create timelines, either for my many advisors (think bosses) or my own nagging anxiety. Point is, the deadlines (usually self-imposed and always unrealistic) keep shifting... backward. So the draft I thought would be ready in May isn't ready until July, the analyses that I should have finished weeks ago still loom undone. But not for lack of trying, slaving really, away at the computer until my eyes are bloodshot and my tendonitis flares. It's just that life (and well-meaning) coauthors get in the way, making things take longer than they "should."

But what is this "should" anyway? Hard work and good results take time. So does development! And each one of us has her own internal clock, but we forget this innate truth and compare ourselves to some higher standard of "should." So-and-so has this much done, these many publications, this much accomplished by this date, so I "should" too. Or, so-and-so's baby (or Baby ABC in book XYZ) is already smiling/rolling-over/crawling/walking/talking so mine "should" too. Whatever happened to variation? Diversity? Individual pace?

It's always been there, always will be, but so many of us subscribe to this idea of the "should." Yet, before you know it, the paper gets written, the cradle cap passes, and your baby sits up!

The Boob Juice Vacuum

“You know, there’s a kind of psychosis that acccompanies breastfeeding, and only moms that have gone through it and come out the other side really understand it.”

This was the beginning of the rather eloquent, rather humorous, and most definitely needed response I received from my ob/gyn as she helped coached me out of my four-times-a-day pumping bonanza. Yes, I often and regularly pump four times a day (during my Mon-Thurs work days – Friday I usually pump twice and feed Grace directly). Here, wait, let me walk through a typical day:

5:00am – M leaves, I contemplate rising and working out (this happens 20-30% of the time, otherwise I snooze on and off till…)
6:00am – Rise, as quickly as possible shower, blowdry, don work clothes
6:30am – Go downstairs to prep bags: usually 4: Grace’s bottle bag, my pump with cooler, my work bag, my lunch bag… more if I also have odds and ends like a diaper bag (if we’re going somewhere after daycare) or just stuff I need to bring for daycare.
6:45am – Make and eat breakfast as a I listen to G stirring and cooing through the monitor (NOTE: I have to eat something, as I am ravenous at this point)
6:50am – Go upstairs to breastfeed G, change her, and play for a lil bit
7:30am - Come downstairs, situate G in her chair or jumper, schlep bags to the car (note: in the dead of winter this also involved scraping ice and turning on the car (and pray no one steals it!) to warm and defrost
7:45am – Leave for daycare
8:05am – Check G into her room, sign her out, deliver her deliverables (bottles, extra stuff)
8:15am – Drive to work, usually get there at 8:45am
9:00am – PUMP #1
work work work…
12:00pm – PUMP #2
work work work…
3:00pm – PUMP #3
work work work…
4:15pm – leave work to get G at daycare, arrive at 4:40pm
5:15/5:30pm – Arrive home, depending on traffic gods!
5:30pm – begin arduous transfer of leftover bottles from daycare, lunch dishes, pump parts to dishwasher (and clean parts out of dishwasher), pumped milk into bottles for daycare next day, all while attempting to play with and spend time with G (unless of course she is cashed out from not napping at daycare… another topic for another blog entry!)
5:45pm – Feed G in her high chair the New Food of the Day (super fun)
6:00pm – Bath time, play time jammy time
6:30pm – Breastfeed G, settler her down
7:00pm – Rest her in her crib, tiptoe out, make some dinner and eat it while working/ catching up on email
8:00pm – start laundry/clean up, maybe sneak in some shows
9:00pm – PUMP #4
9:30pm – prep G’s dreamfeed – always a bottle, go in and give it to her
10:00pm – crawl into bed, usually a little wired and needing to read to calm down….
(repeat 4 times; Friday is my work at home day, and both Thursday and Friday we have an angel in the form of a part-time nanny who loves on G and gets her to make up for lost nap time at daycare!)

Yes, the days do vary, and occasionally I only squeeze 2 pumps in at the office, but 3 I the norm. Wow, makes sense I’m tired, right? So when my obgyn gave me “permission” (yes, I needed it) to cut back on pumping, I literally walked out the door 2 inches taller. Which is good, since according to today’s measurement I’ve shrunk a quarter inch this past year. G is almost 7 months, and pumping this much is really overwhelming me. And I’ve needed to pump this much to keep up with what we feed her during the day, because I can’t keep getting up in the middle of the night to give her the extra calories she needs to thrive and grow AND be the least bit productive at work. I sit in front of a computer and have meetings with really smart people and I need to at least fain cleverness, if not actual ability, which I can’t do when I’m waking up 3 times a night (I was doing this for about 2-3 months before we instigated the dreamfeed and a little bit of sleep “coaching” as my yoga studio likes to call it, yes, it’s just ferberizing). Now we’re stuck with the legacy of the dreamfeed (which we’re slowly easing out of).

But the point of this (now rather long) entry was to focus on the conversation with my obgyn and the moments of clarity that followed. Dr. L also began to tell me of the travesty that is parenting today, that we’re all so hell-bent on the perfect we’re missing the really good stuff, as she put it, the “messy.” And parenting is messy, she continued, and needs to be. But we’re all too wrapped up in our own little tight, pressurized cocoons, trying to do parenting as best as we absolutely can. So we kill ourselves in the name of doing what we think is Best for our Children. We think we can be the allstar we always used to be at work, albeit with our pump sessions (which we of course do with a handsfree pump so we can work along with… I shudder to think if at this stage I had a treadmill desk!). We can be supermoms and steam and puree organic farmer’s market food veggies for our little ones. We can even get back into shape by working out at 5am during the week to workout videos and jog strolls on the weekend. And although we can’t go out to much any more, at least we can make sure to update those web-based photo albums every month to keep everyone abreast of our babies and our families and our witty witticisms! Okay, I’m inserting a little (a lot!) of autobiography here. But in the interest of honest, sanity, and community, I’m coming clean, or at least trying to.

Rant’s over. I am that person on some level, but I am also the person who can step outside and see this crazy, earnest little mom… and love her all the same.

And this little crazy mom is going to wean herself, bit by bit, from her boob juice vacuum.

I wish 30 days hath May...

Or less! M is off to Pittsburgh this month for a rotation at Mercy Hospital, so it's just us girls at the house. We're having a lovely time, but we miss Daddy. He'll be home on the weekends, so we just have to tough it out.

I've often heard and read about the fears that some couples have that having a child will change your relationship. Presumably the fear is of drifting apart or losing romance in the constant upheaval of raising a child. Although I suppose I can understand this fear, the fact that people forego having children over it has saddened me. In my opinion, of course having a child changes your relationship; but if there was any way to deepen my love for my partner, it would be to watch him become a parent and to watch him fall in love (and fall hard) with this tiny little human that I am also so in love with. To have someone to share in all the triumph, heartache, and overwhelming oblivion of becoming a parent is the greatest gift I have ever received from my marriage. I of course recognize that this is my experience and my interpretation; I know that not every relationship has the same goals or investment. I am sad for those that do not, however.
So yes, my relationship is changed; where it was once unidimensional, a continuum stretching from M to me, it is now become multidimensional, with energy stretching out in these three, intersecting directions. I love that I will get to watch M and G's relationship grow as much our own relationships grow. I love that we are a crowd, a trinity, a family.