In and out: the nine-month mark

I have plenty of other material for blog posts, but this will be a short and sweet post. If you are struggling right now, this one is all about unicorns and butterflies, so feel free to skip. I will come back with angst later. Oh, I do angst really well, and I promise you more. But for now, let me revel in my beautiful daughter.


This is Gummy after 9 months in-utero (well, 38w2d)

Gummy Girl, what do you see over there?

And now, she has spent 9 months ex-utero

Sitting with her is Big Hoot, her favourite owl

They aren't kidding when they say 'kids grow up so fast'. Gummy is about 29 inches long already. She babbles with great intent, and wants to grab everything in her vicinity, including poor Chicken's fur and ears. She is happy as happy can be (except when she's not). And she still makes us cry tears of joy and gratitude when we put her to bed. We are so lucky.

questions answered: sunshine award

The lovely Suzanne, at Our journey to a baby bump nominated me for a sunshine award. Thanks, lovely woman.

I'm not really all that good at following rules around these things, but I did want to make an effort and answer the questions that Suzanne drafted. Otherwise, I nominate anyone still reading this blog for this award. And if you feel like it, you can answer Suzanne great questions, because my brain is apparently not coming up with its on (did I mention I was trying to do NaNoWriMo?)

Here goes:

1) Was there a particular moment in your infertility journey that made you realize that you wanted/needed to start blogging? 

We started looking into things in 2006. We knew we wanted children, but I also knew it would be a struggle. We treatments in early 2009. We already knew that the problem lied within my reproductive organs: I had never menstruated without the assistance of medication. We were told that a medicated IUI would be the first thing to try and so we did. The first one was in June 2009 and it was over almost before it begun. The menop.ur wasn't doing anything to my ovaries. Second IUI was in September 2009, after a long priming with estra.ce. After higher doses of meno.pur, still there was no waking up my sleeping ovaries. The cycle was a bust, and there was basically nothing the clinic could do for us unless we found ourselves a donor. I was in a grief-stricken state of shock for a few weeks. And was quite depressed for months. I felt isolated and I needed to talk about this experience. So I started writing on this blog. That was October 2009. 

2) What was your favorite vacation spot ever? 
I think my trip to the Yukon and Alaska when I was 25 was the most inspiring trip I ever took. I love hiking/backpacking and find myself at home in the mountains. It was awe-inspiring to be amidst the deep, northern wilderness. The highlight of that trip was a 7-day backpacking loop to the Donjec glacier in Kluane National Park. It was the most intense backpacking I've ever done, and it taught me much about my own strength.  

3) What food could you never live without? 
Yummy kitchen sink-type salads with my own dressing, honeycrisp apples, peanut butter, dark chocolate, coffee, club soda and red wine. 

4) If you could spend one day with anyone (dead or alive) who would it be? Why? What would you do? 
It sounds weird, but I'm thinking I would pick Carl Rogers. I'd want to talk to him more about how psychotherapy has developed since his client-centered approach was hatched. 

5) Favorite article of clothing? 
Right now it's my oat-coloured cowl neck wool sweater, but my preferred article of clothing changes regularly.  

6) We have so many tears through IF...do you have a REALLY funny moment that you've shared with your husband through all of this? 
That is such a great question, Suzanne, but I'm racking my brain and can't remember any funny moments. Just dreary dread and sadness. 

7) Your child's 16th birthday present...a new car or a nicely wrapped stack of fertility bills and  bus pass?? 
Neither. Probably we would want to host a dinner with her friends, and let them drink wine, and ask about what dreams they are holding for themselves. 

8) What one thing would you go back and tell your 20 year old self? 
Find a way to be on your own team, 'gusta. Seriously, you have to find a way to make friends with yourself and SOON. Figure out all the ways you are awesome and focus on that, instead of thinking about all the ways in which you are not enough. You ARE enough. Now, keep going and have a great life! 

9) You are going on a trip and lose your suitcase. What one item are you going to replace first the second you get where you're going!?
my estr.ace and prom.etrium 

10) What is the best part of blogging your IF journey? 

The amazing connections I've been privileged to have with other women, and the sense of being held in the warm care of an amazing community. I remember sometime after I started blogging going to our clinic to have some procedure. I was tense and apprehensive, and trying my best to hold myself together. I went to the bathroom and on my way there, I thought about all of my online friends who would be thinking of me and hoping right along with me. Just thinking about that gave me a huge boost on that day, and so many days after that. I stopped feeling so isolated in my IF journey. I also could borrow from other women's hope for me when I had none left for myself.  

Eat

Gummy is eating food. Not just delicious sim.ilac, but real, honest to goodness food. Much to her mama's pride.

We started in the summer, when she was 5 1/2 months old. The WHO tells us to introduce solids at 6 months, but she was ready 2 weeks early. I wasn't going to make her wait, seeing as she opened her mouth every time I took a bite of something and then looked at me quizzically when I failed to put something in her baby bird beak.

I took that gift certificate for a big chain baby store and ordered me a high chair. It arrived. I put it together the same day. And we started.

Well, I should say that Gummy had carefully been given fruits and veggies to lick prior to that. I would hold a piece of apple and let her put it in her mouth, without letting go.

But it was time to let her try things on her own. I decided that baby-led weaning (BLW) was our method of choice. I knew a number of women I admire use this with their babies, much to their delight. I looked into it, and it seemed to fit with what I imagined feeding would be all about.

My main concern was the potential for choking. I had to review the infant cpr techniques we learned last fall when we took the class, and watch some youtube videos to see what the difference was between gagging and choking (well, I didn't see any babies choking, but I saw plenty of gaggers, and could extrapolate what choking might look like). I was reassured to hear from moms who were doing BLW and had seen their babies gag several times, without dire consequences. One of my local mom friends did say she and her husband grabbed the tray of the high chair, ready to take their baby out expeditiously a few times, but never needed to, as it was always just gagging and never choking.

The fear of choking remains. Yesterday was the first time in 2 months where we actually pulled Gummy out of her high chair because her gagging was starting to look like choking. But she gagged and was alright. She continued eating happily thereafter.

There are several things I like about this BLW:

1) The three of us can eat together at the same time. Because neither Mr. A nor I has to spoon feed Gummy, we can all focus on eating and conversing, instead of only one adult and one baby eating, while the other adult plays open-the-tunel-for-the-choo-choo-train with the spoon.

2) The preparation of Gummy's food is minimal. I quarter an apple, and take off some of the skin. I steam some green beans. I slice a watermelon and take out the seeds. Done. We also sometimes feed her exactly what we're having. She had rice pasta the other day, and rice and beans last week. She loved it! In fact, she has tried EVERYTHING we've put on her tray so far (I know this can change).

3) I am not the one deciding what goes in her mouth: she is.

That last point, it turns out, is the most important to me. I want her to grow up trusting her own biology. I want her to know that her body will tell her when she's hungry and tell her when she's had enough. That sometimes she'll miss the mark on that by eating too much or too little, but that it will all even out if she keeps listening to her hunger and satiety cues. I want her to trust that if one day she is craving tons of fruit, that's fine. And if the next day it's fries, that's fine too.

I've been reading this book (recommended by Bunny*) and it is GREAT. The main premise is that there exists a division of responsibility in feeding our children. Parents are responsible for what, where, when their children eat. Kids are responsible for how much and whether they eat. And this is based on the fact that we can trust our biology, starting in infancy.

I think that's the ticket.

I say that as someone whose done academic research in the area of obesity and eating disorders.

I say that as someone who has treated adolescents and adults with eating disorders.

And, of course, I also say that as someone who had an eating disorder and recovered fully.

In other words, I say that I like this philosophy of feeding children based on the fact that I have spent A LOT of time thinking about eating. An obscene amount of time, to be honest. And after all that, the only thing that I'm truly convinced of is that trusting hunger and satiety signals, which are inherent in everyone but can be silenced by loudmouths like 'societal pressures to be thin' and 'your mother who thinks you need to have one more slice of pie', is the way to have a good relationship with food, and to have a healthy body. There are other important things for health, to be sure. Vegetables. Exercise. Etc. I don't disagree with any of those, but it comes down to eating when you're hungry and stopping when you're full.

It took me over 30 years to learn that. Closer to 35.  

I guess I knew it at birth, but I unlearned it. My poor 23-year-old mother was overwhelmed and figured out that dipping my soother in honey would shut me up (it was a different time in the early 70s). There is this family story about how I was such an overweight baby that my doctor told my mother to put me on a diet. And then there is my mom's own chronic eating disorder and it's impact on how she fed me. And seventeen thousand more layers on top of that, layers that made those hunger and satiety signals inaudible.

I want my daughter to hear her signals. I fear so much that she would ever go through the hell I went through. Bulimia. Anorexia. Cardiac issues. Suicidality. Psychiatric institution for months. I never want her to become familiar with any of those. I know that I can't stop society's influence on her in terms of body image (although there are things I can do to help mitigate its impact). But I can give her the chance to have a good relationship with food by following her cues. And right now, letting her decide what goes in her mouth feels like the best way to do that.
    


* Bunny who swore off reading parenting books, so when I saw that she was reading this one, I figured it must be damn worth it. And it is. 

Thanksgiving

Yours may be 6 weeks away, but today is Canadian thanksgiving. I have so much to be thankful for. We are spending a quiet weekend just the three of us, and I love it. Mr. A's parents did come over on Saturday, while I conveniently went to lunch with my good friends. We cooked a duck yesterday (which is saying something for someone who was vegetarian for 15 years). And today, we'll go on a little hike to appreciate the fall colours and each other. Life is very good, my friends.

What I'm most thankful for is my daughter. I was looking at her during breakfast this morning and realizing how quiet the house would be without her exuberant joy. I thought about how I would be going to work tomorrow morning, still silently carrying the heavy shroud of my infertility and childlessness, while I continued assessing and treating other people's children. I thought of how if she wasn't here, I would not know how much love my heart can hold. But she's here, and I am blessed beyond measure.

Tragically, my friend Conceptionally Challenged is not counting her blessings, but instead suffering an unimaginable loss. After years of infertility, she got pregnant with twins and lost them both this weekend at 20 weeks gestation. Please, if you have a kind thought to spare, visit her blog and let her know you care.

Both...and.

The responses to my last post reminded me (yet again) why I love this community. I appreciate deeply that I can write what I wrote in a community afflicted by infertility and come out receiving....support and affirmation. Also, I enjoy the conversation. I like that you told me your stories about the ways you struggle/d in your role as a mother. You said things that were good for me to read. Things that were good for you to express. And perhaps things you needed to hear yourselves when you were where I was when I wrote that. Thank you, women. You are full of beauty and strength.

The naming of things that float in the air nameless is useful beyond measure. Like a mom friend of mine who was having marital difficulties said to me last week: "we told each other that things suck in our couple, and since then, it's been a lot better. Sometimes, just calling it helps a lot." I think that's what it was for me. I needed to call it.

Since then, as the previous paragraph would lead you to believe, things have felt easier. Naming the thing was key: I'm not sure I know who I am anymore in this new, all-encompassing role. Receiving such amazing support and knowing I'm not alone was also key. And also,  it helped a lot not to be hated for saying that motherhood is hard after years of infertility. Somehow, I couldn't shake off the ungrateful bitch prototype. I know it is survivor's guilt. My friend and fellow Canadian DE mama N gently reminded me that it wasn't doing anyone any good to lug around my survivor's guild. She said I could just drop it. Point well taken, N.

Another thing that helped was Mr. A suggesting that unless otherwise specified, I should consider Sunday my day off. I can hang out with he and Gummy if I want to, but I can also spend time doing other things. We've implemented that plan for a few Sundays now and it has helped a great deal. I feel refreshed and ready to start the week with Gummy on Monday.

Talking about the struggles also helped me to start appreciating the metaphorical icing, the cake, and the amazing espresso that is served with it. Pleasantville is ridiculously perfect for raising children (and conversely, it is an infertile's worst nightmare, as I can attest to). It has great community programs, lots of parks and walking paths for strollers, an array of activities geared to caregivers and their infants. My weeks are organized around several activities, which are sometimes followed by lunch with lovely women and their cute babies. Like the other Augusta and her sweet girl. And many other amazing mamas and their sweet little bundles.

For the large part, I am enjoying this time immensely. It's been great not to have to drive anywhere out of my community, but instead to inhabit it fully. I walk downtown everyday for various reasons. Gummy and I walk up to the University to have lunch with Sattva. I talk to the neighbours, to the mailman, to shopkeepers downtown (except at the good coffee shop, where most baristas are surly and more ill-tempered if I try to talk to them).

What I love best is my time with Gummy girl. I actually have time to delight in her, and there is much to delight in. She is a barrel of monkeys. Yesterday, she figured out that her favourite little bird makes noise when you shake it. So I saw her on her play mat shaking it close to her ear. So sweet! And this morning, during the baby aquafit (where the babies are in little boats while their mamas do silly exercises in the water), she leaned back on her boat, entirely chilled out, and said with her eyes "come on, mother, swim faster." She holds on tight when I carry her in my arms, and has started to give wet, open-mouthed kisses. She is known as the smiley girl in our circle, but I'm glad I'm the one who gets to see her in all her different moods. She is miraculous, my little Gummy.

Full time motherhood is still hard in some moments. And thankfully, it is mostly wonderful. "Both ...and" descriptions are better than "either...or" when talking about humans and their workings. It seems that for me, trying to only honour one side only (i.e., motherhood is amazing) is incomplete. Motherhood is both amazing and difficult, rewarding and thankless, challenging and boring, mundane and miraculous.

Missing

Leaving the fascinating quandaries of childcare for a moment, I'll write about where I'm at personally. I get a little break on Sundays. A few hours. I waste some of it doing a torturing class at the gym, ascertaining that my body still doesn't look the way I'd like it to look, and my physical strength is a fraction of what it used to be. The instructor is at count 8 and I'm still at 5. I'm slow in all things, including doing pliés. But I keep at it, because I need my body for the long haul, you know, if I don't die of cancer before I die of old age.

If you are struggling in the trenches of IF, this post may be awful to read. You may hate me. I have warned you, so please stop reading. But, if you are in the trenches of IF and you need an account of what it's like on the other side, minus the unicorns and rainbows, then read on.

I love my baby. I love being a mom. There is nothing like getting Gummy Girl in the morning and seeing her excited little face when I appear above her crib. I feel like a teenage heartthrob. I like taking care of her. I like thinking about her care constantly and deeply. To think about what she needs, how I can meet her needs, and how to minimize my own issues getting in the way of meeting her needs.

I must admit, though, that it sometimes feels all consuming. And that can be uncomfortable.

I must pause here to say that even writing that it is uncomfortable IS uncomfortable. Complaining about my life with baby post years of heart-shredding infertility seems absurd. Yeah, you can hate me now. Or at least, I'm pretty sure I hate myself for it. It seems so hard to let those two realities sit together. 1) I longed, waited and worked so hard for this baby. 2) I am sometimes unhappy in my role of mother.  

I try to chalk this all up to adjusting. Which is fair enough. Every woman (and probably every man) who becomes a mother has to wrestle with a big shift in her identity. Who am I now that I change diapers, mix formula, sing the itsy-bitsy spider, run to the crib when I hear her cry, walk around town with a stroller for a living (thank you government of Canada for paying me to do so)?

Lately, I've been feeling like I've gone missing.

weird.

unsettling.

I don't really know what that makes me, but I'm afraid it might mean that my mother's deep-seated narcism was contagious.

There is a healthy part of me that chimes in, not too loudly, but says that it's ok. My gummy girl is still so little and needs me so much, and that I've gone from entirely looking after myself to looking after this precious daughter almost exclusively. I mean, I do the things to keep myself going at least on a basic level. I brush my hair, people. I even wash it sometimes.

But I've not figured out how to carve out some good time for me. Mr. A tries to give me some time to myself and that is appreciated. But it's not a lot (and that's ok. I'll take what I can get), and it is often unpredictable. But it's probably more than many of you or my Pleasantville mom friends get.

I am very good at keeping us busy and structuring the days for her and for me. We have yoga on Tuesday, swimming on Wednesday, and music on Thursday. There is a hike with my moms' group on Friday, and on Mondays, I sometimes go to the drop in at the Early Years Centre.

There are rhythms to the day. Ups and downs. Naps. Feedings. Floor time. Meal time. Daddy coming home time. And bed time.

And at the end of the day, there is time for me, and what I usually do with it is wasteful. I watch tv series. Instead of writing. Instead of reading for pleasure or doing professional reading. Instead of trying to connect meaningfully by writing emails. Instead of cleaning the house. Our very filthy house.

It seems like when there is a moment to look for myself, I don't. I just eat more chocolate. Scroll on the twitter feed.

And I feel angry a lot, which can be scary. Is she ever going to feel like I resent her? Because I don't resent her. I love her. But I also have to find a way to make room for my non-mother self. So that I don't ever resent her. And because I will die someday. And I have to make this life count. That's all I can do with these mere 80 years, if I'm lucky.

Mr. A gets the brunt of my anger. Unfortunately. He forgot to take the Brussels sprouts out of the oven while I was putting Gummy to bed last night and I was livid. I wanted roasted Brussels sprouts, not burnt Brussels sprouts. Is it too much to ask? You know you're in trouble when those words start coming to your mind. At least I didn't say them out loud, but I might as well have, since I was visibly upset. 

I wish I could wrap up this post with a satin bow by outlining the steps I will take to find myself again. But I'm slow (still on count 5), and I haven't come up with any yet. I have a few inchoate ideas of things I could look at. I think picking up my gratitude journal could help. And trying to get to yoga (a non-baby class) might help. And getting to the other side of harvest season will help, when Mr. A has more time on his hands and I can schedule time for myself every week. And finding a way to write a little bit every day. But that might be too ambitious.

Anyways, thank you for reading and letting me work this out. And please share if you will in the comments if you've also had these similar feelings and what helped you.

Day care days ahead: Part I

I'll start by a side note to say thank you for your comments on my last post. Gummy has, as I hoped, knitted her morning nap to her night sleep. We've been waking up at 7am in our house lately. How civilized.

Funny how life changes so much in one year. Last year in September, I was having all kinds of foreboding ultrasound detecting large SCHs and other possible horrible things that could kill or maim my fetus (amniotic bands, anyone?). This year in September, I'm awaiting the fall activities we've signed up for to start (next week!) and wrapping my mind around my baby's impeding participation in day care.

I'm going back to work in March. If only you lived in Canada and got a year of maternity leave. Yes. I too wish you lived in a communist country that supports child and maternal (and paternal) health. It remains, and I'm not complaining just stating, that 12 months is not the best time for a child to separate from her primary caregiver. Just as you're dropping off the little grasshopper, she is at the peak of her separation anxiety days. What fun that will be.

Having become aware of the aura of stress around day care from everyone who had babies before me (which, at 39, that's the majority of my friends), I knew to start the search early. So I called up the place where Sattva sent her kids when I was about 5-6 months pregnant. They wouldn't put Gummy's name on the list because Gummy is apparently not an appropriate name for a child*. Harumph. This meant that as soon as I managed to prop myself back up after the birth and ensuing circus, I got on the day care mission. I saw a couple and settled on one I didn't really love, but had a full time spot for Gummy starting in February, making a good transition time when she would start day care and I would still be at home. It was there I learned there are only 56 spots for infants (< 18 months) in our entire city (in registered day care centres).

So, that was settled. It wasn't great, but it was adequate, which I came to believe was the best I could hope for.

Three weeks ago, Mr. A started talking about staying home with Gummy. That sounded better than any day care centre. But I was against becoming the sole breadwinner in the family. 'I will resent you. And you will resent yourself', I told Mr. A, and he could see my point. Part time day care was now our focus.

The mediocre day care doesn't accept infants part-time, so we had to find something else. Also, mediocre day care is on my way to work, at the other end of town, but not a place where Mr. A could fetch Gummy on foot or bike.** And so for those days when I'll need to stay later at work, picking up Gummy would be a logistic tour-de-force, involving car seat transfers and taxis (or cross-country skis on a snowy day, Mr. A noted).

The day care centre 2 streets over had been on my mind. I never had a great impression of it, but our good friends sent their son there from 12 to 24 months of age. And they had many more positive things than negative things to say about it. We went for a tour recently. I liked it less than mediocre day care centre. But they can take Gummy in April, part-time. This means she can stay home 2 days with Mr. A and be at day care only 3 days, with some early pick-ups when her dad is available. And it would be for a year to 18-months at the most. After that, she would go to a different day care centre because there are many more toddler spots in the city.

I wish I had more choice in the manner, but it feels like we need to take what we can get given the dearth of spots.*** I have so many criteria in my head about what constitutes good childcare, and these places are falling short on many of them. And I know my expectations are pie in the sky, and that Gummy will do fine given some basic care. But she's my precious girl. I want only the best of the best for her.

More on day care later. It's all the time I've got for now. Yikes! Is time for my own interests ever scarce these days. More on that too, whenever I can write.



* They have a policy of only putting babies' names on the list and not fetuses. The nerve.
**I'm the only one with a car in our family.
*** There are many home day care arrangements, but I do not want her in a home day care for a number of reasons. The main reasons being that there are practically no regulations around home child care arrangements so if something goes wrong, there is very little recourse with the law or regulatory bodies.