The Moment You Were Born, I Was Born

I've been thinking a lot about giving birth.  Above is the first picture ever taken of my son, probably within a minute of his birth.  That's me with my boobs awkwardly uncovered (next time I'm getting completely topless).  That's my husband's arm around me.  That's some nurse whose name I don't think I ever knew.  My doula is holding the camera. 

I remember this moment like nothing else.  I didn't cry.  I was in amazement.  I smiled.  I was forever changed.  I was born in that moment.  The moment my son was born, I was born.  What is truly amazing is that I did it, like so many women before me, without ever doing it before.  You can't really prepare for giving birth.  You can read books and take classes, which I recommend.  But yours will go differently and you won't really be prepared. 

Mine didn't go as planned.  First of all I thought I would be more conscious than I was, but after my water broke about 8 hours before he was born, time and actions and people and places are a total blur.  I needed a lot of support, I couldn't call the shots, I needed my doula and the nurses to tell me what to do, what position to get into.  I was only able to turn inward and cope with the pain and then push when I felt like pushing, everything else needed to done by someone else.  My doula made sure I got water, a nurse got me juice, they told me when to try the bathroom, and Brent told me that I could do it, I could birth.  I had no energy for these things and I'm grateful for the support I had. 

I also couldn't get in the water and I know it sounds silly, but I mourn the loss of my warm tub of water.  I think I had to go through a lot more pain than I needed to because I wasn't allowed in the tub.  But in the end, I gave birth without drugs or interventions, which was my first priority.  And I'm not against drugs or interventions when the women is informed and makes a choice about it, but I wonder sometimes if others have had this moment in the picture above; the clarity, the awe, the moment of birth.  Nothing else in the entire world mattered in this moment.

And isn't that kind of what becoming a mom is about?  Nothing really matters besides your children.  If the kids are OK, then the world is OK.  I feel like I would have another child simply to have this moment again, that is how amazing it was.  The moment of birth is enough to make the pregnancy, the labor, the post partum hell all worth it.  I didn't cry when he was born, but looking back on it I do; tears of pure, unstoppable joy. 

And the next moment after the one pictured above (a few minutes later), I breastfed for the first time.

 

And I haven't stopped in five months.

Get Your Shots! Please...

I try to not do anything regarding parenthood without researching it a bit and really getting in tune with my gut feeling.  Vaccines were something I kind of bounced around with when I was pregnant and a little after.  I bounced around because a lot of the stuff I do, like not circumcising, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby wearing, cloth diapering, and elimination communication are grouped into this Natural Parenting category and a lot of those sites and books talk about how horrible vaccines are. 

So I did some reading and parents claim the vaccines cause so many things that I just can't find any real evidence for.  I'm not saying it's not possible that vaccines can ruin immune systems (hey vaccines do affect immune systems fundamentally), but I've gotten all my vaccines and recently had to get re-vaccinated against a couple things that didn't take the first time, and as far as I know, I'm pretty healthy.

I realize that "me" is a small sample size.  But I think the majority of babies get vaccinated today and the majority are just fine. 

To imagine a world without vaccines all you have to do is to talk with people like my grandparents who remember the days when kids were paralyzed by polio, who had several kids come down with the measles, who had family members get whooping cough very young.  The diseases these vaccines protect against are very real and can be deadly.  I decided that the small risk of vaccination was less than the risk of my baby possibly getting one of these possibly deadly diseases. 

There are some people that can't get vaccines.  A good example is babies and young children too young for certain vaccines.  Some people are also allergic to some of the ingredients in the vaccines.  Some people have other medical complications that make vaccines more dangerous.  But there is this amazing, amazing, amazing thing called the herd effect.  The herd effect is when about 85% of the population is vaccinated against a certain illness the risk of the illness for the entire population is nearly 0%.  This means that if 85% of you went out and got your flu vaccines my little baby, who is too young for the flu vaccine, would still be protected against it. 

This is why there was such a drop in things like whooping cough and German measles and polio, because a good 85% of people were vaccinated against these illnesses in the United States. 

Getting yourself vaccinated and your healthy children who can get the vaccines vaccinated not only protects them, it protects those who would get vaccinated if they could, but can't.  I'm not only protecting Cedric from these diseases, I'm protecting the babies out there who are too young or too ill. 

If this anti-vaccine craze continues for too long it could have devastating effects on our over all public health. 

That being said we did opt out of a couple things.  We didn't get him the Hep B vaccine yet.  From what I've read, Hep B is so rarely picked up by babies and young children.  We decided to get him the Hep B vaccine before he is sexually active (when he could actually catch it).  Since they get so many vaccines this first year, we figured putting off one would be good. 

We also refused the E-mycin in the eyes after birth because it also seemed unnecessary since I didn't have any STIs.  This one we got some guff for in the hospital and had to refuse it several times before they left us alone.  I wanted to say something like, "look, I'm a smart person who researches this stuff and I don't want it!" 

So my unwelcome advice is to get the vaccines that make sense for your family, delay them if you want to, but really, if your child can handle them, it's really a great thing to do for them and those who don't have a choice in vaccinating. 

Happiness is a warm baby by your side

I have not updated in a while.  Because I went back to work full time, which meant I pretty much had no free time.  I'd miss baby at work and then go home and spend all my time off of work with baby and maybe have a friend over on Saturday or Sunday for a few hours.  I spent a lot of time crying and telling Brent that, "I can't do it anymore!" 

So I quit my job.  I gave them four weeks notice, because I like my job and want four weeks to not worry about money, but to know that the end is near.  I'm also looking for part time work. 

One of my friends said that I've never looked happier than when I'm with my baby.  I know they say that children won't bring you happiness, but, dammit, I don't believe it.  After the initial post-partum insanity (and I felt pretty nuts) ended, I really do feel so happy.  Maybe it's all the happy chemicals that go into your system while breastfeeding.  I've been laughing way more.  I used to get crabby or feel overwhelmed when something went wrong.  But the last time I dropped a container of left overs on to the floor and was looking down at dinner spilled on the floor, I laughed.  I laughed hysterically for a few minutes.  Then the self with all of our canned goods and dry goods collapsed the other day and I laughed too, and then calmly repaired the shelf. 

Maybe it's because once you have a baby, ALL that matters is that baby.  You would die for it, or starve, or eat glass to protect that baby.  Dinner spilled on the floor doesn't matter, a broken shelf doesn't matter, water in the basement (our current problem) doesn't matter.  We'll fix these minor problems with our stuff.  Things can be replaced; people can't. 

So is that happiness?  The ability to not stress over the small stuff? 

Or is it that I fall asleep next to this little warm, wonderful baby every night?  I used to dread night coming when I was newly post-partum, the Sun would set and I would cry, "I hate night."  "Night" was definitely something we had to learn how to do, but now night is one of the most wonderful bonding times I have with baby.  I definitely would not sleep well if he wasn't next to me. 

There must be happy chemicals that come out when you sleep next to someone you love.  I get to sleep next to two people I love.  Who needs the money?  We'll figure out how to live on less money, we make more than we need right now, we'll just have to save less every month, but I do hope we can eventually get to where we are saving at least $100 a month or more.  We have big plans with our savings; it might just take a few extra years, but parenthood is not efficient in anyway.  We will have to accept this fact. 

I still want to work two or three days a week; to have some adult interaction and let Brent have some alone time with the baby.  Plus we really need to have more income than Brent gets through his job; unless we want to sell the car, get rid of our cellphones, internet, and cut payments to my student loans significantly.  I guess we could do all that if we need to.  My car will be paid off in June, so that will help.  Although I'll need to do some major maintenance work next year too (shocks and struts are expensive). 

It's never been more apparent to me that money does not bring happiness.  If I were making a million dollars I year, I think I would still quit my job.  Happiness isn't money, it's a warm baby by your side. 

Small Sugguestion: Make Nude Breasts, Yes All of Them, Everywhere, Legal

I guess I am lucky that I am not very modest.  I wasn't taught to feel ashamed of my breasts.  At the hospital I wore my gown backwards and open in front.  My breasts were always out.  I covered them up when certain people visited or we were taking photos, because if I'm not breastfeeding, I don't want just anyone to be able to see them, but otherwise they hung there for easy access for my newborn baby.  Plus they hurt and any fabric on them made it worse, so I kept the fabric off of them. 

I had to assure some people that I didn't care if they saw them, they were food producers now, maybe before they were for sexual arousal, but not anymore.  Sex was a good six weeks away and one of the farthest things from my mind immediately following the birth. 

The first time I nursed in public I did it in my car, mostly because we were so new to it, I was maybe only a week or two post partum, and we were still getting the hang of it, I needed less distraction, and the weather wasn't too bad.  I nursed at my coworker's wedding reception when he was 13 days old, and I kind of tried to use a scarf to cover him, but I found it difficult.  I really didn't want strangers ogling my boobs at that time. 

I found some private rooms that were nice for nursing in the Galleria, but did not find one in Southdale, so I nursed on a bench in the hall.  This was a little hard for me because my husband was in the bathroom at the time and I was still feeling kind of crazy from the birth and feared I would just start crying if anyone said anything.  But eventually I decided that I was going to feed him when he needed it, wherever he needed it.  If I knew of a room with a nice couch, sure I'd go there, but I would not avoid places because of breastfeeding.  So I fed him at a picnic table at Pride, in almost every restaurant we've been in, on park benches, and recently during a wedding ceremony.  I've fed him lying down on a blanket in the park too, and in my own yard.  He was born May 30th and nursed through some of the hottest weather we've had, no way was I going to cover him up, especially not his head. 

So why did I try to cover up once, and why did I fear strangers seeing my breasts, even though I was doing something so natural and good for my baby?  And it hit me today.  Normally it is illegal for a woman to be topless in public.  This is why they need to have separate breastfeeding laws that protect mothers who are feeding their babies.  Imagine a world where women could go topless.  Men already have that right.  I've seen countless men out jogging topless, sitting in parks topless, playing basketball topless, swimming topless of course.  We think nothing of it because men's nipples aren't seen as sexual.  But for anyone who's had any experience with sex, you know that a man can get just as much pleasure from his nipples as a woman.  They are still sexual areas on a man as much as a women.  And I can guarantee that some women and men too find the sight of a nicely sculpted bare chest a huge turn on, as much of a turn on as the sight of a pair of bare breasts. 

So why the double standard?  Why do men get to have their nipples out and women don't, even breastfeeding women get told to cover up?  It's arbitrary. 

Imagine a world where women could sunbathe topless and swim topless and hang out topless, as men have the privilege of doing?  Would it really be that bad?  I think breasts would be less sexualized, similar to a man's bare chest, still sexual, but not "OMGPONIES YOU CAN SEE HER TITTIES!!!"  I think this would do wonders for society. 

How many of us women obsess about how our boobs look?  How many men obsess about how their chest looks?  My guess is way less men wonder if their chest is perky enough or big enough or too big, or if their nipples are big enough or too big.  Or care if one nipple is inverted or a different size.  But my god, do women obsess about them, myself included.  We get implants and get them reduced and buy push up bras and fuss, fuss, fuss over our boobs, even though the size and shape of them have little effect on their primary function, which is to feed our babies. 

If women were allowed to have their boobs out, we might have a society less obsessed with them, and women less obsessed with them, and maybe, just maybe the body image of women in general would increase a bit.  Children would not grow up feeling ashamed of their boobs or the sight of others boobs.  Nor would people feel awkward around breastfeeding women because they would grow up around bare breasts and breasts that fed babies in public without it being a big deal. 

So, what are we waiting for?  We are told that women have equal rights; how about the right to have our chests bare wherever men normally do?  The right to not feel weird about feeding your baby the best food on the planet on demand.  I think breastfeeding rates would soar. 

A big thank you to all the women in my life that breastfed in front of me when I was growing up, you probably didn't know it then, but you paved the way for my own successful breastfeeding and the health of my son.  I have only now realized how amazing you all were for giving me the opportunity to see something so natural and wonderful, and how so few people do.  

Discovering My Philosophy

Before becoming a parent I did a lot of thinking about it.  Mostly about how awful it looked from the outside sometimes.  I worked with young children in my past and I didn't find it hard, but I would see all these struggles parents had and all these things the parents wanted to be different and wanted some control over.  It seemed like one long power struggle for some people.

This was long before I read up on any child-rearing practices, I was totally out of the loop on so many things, but it seemed like the average American parent was doing it all wrong.  One of my biggest anxieties about becoming a parent was, in fact, toilet training.  I did pretty horribly at it as a child and wasn't really accident free until I was 11 or 12 years-old.  This caused me a lot of shame and humiliation growing up.  I felt deeply that something was horribly wrong with me.  But I just didn't see an answer to it.  But when I stumbled across Elimination Communication (EC), I felt a huge sense of relief.  I bought the book "Diaper Free," read it in about two days and cried; I cried a lot.  I was happy and also looked back on my own childhood and felt like finally I wasn't the one who was wrong, I just grew up in a diaper-obsessed culture.  I KNEW I was going to do EC with my children; then toilet training wasn't a question anymore. 

To me, EC is the natural route, diapers and toilet training later in life is some invention of modern society that has some pretty hefty pitfalls. 

Breastfeeding was another no brainer for me.  Now that I've done it for ten weeks I can assure any mothers-to-be that breastfeeding is the easiest and best way to feed your baby, it's hard for the first month, but after that, it's way simpler than prepping formula and cleaning bottles.  I will have to pump, but, honestly, if I could never pump, or only pump a few times a month when I need to be away from baby, I would, but this would mean not working.  Pumping appears to still be easier than formula, but it's going to be a little hard.  Feeding from the breast requires no extra cleaning, prepping, storage, or anything really, and you can do it without getting out of bed.  It's magic.

Once I learned that a lot of people world-wide co-sleep, that also suddenly seemed like the easiest and best solution.  Baby leaves the bed when he's ready.  He feels secure in the knowledge that his parents will be there for him night or day.  I remember not feeling this security, wanting my parents but knowing they would be mad I was out of bed.  I don't want my children to ever not feel they can go to me, being present at night will help give my son this feeling.  I'm honestly not worried about him not being able to fall asleep on his own.  He's a baby!  He won't be a baby for long, someday he will put himself to bed.  I might as well enjoy these times we have together and just go ahead and end the anxiety over sleep before it even begins.  Another struggle I'm not going to engage in.

Another thing I learned of very recently is baby-led weaning, a super simple, super logical approach to solids.  I will never have to buy baby food or make purees.  It's all about trusting that your child will eat solids as he is ready.  No spoon feeding, no worry about how much solids he is getting.  I am so happy a friend told me about this.  Food; as a person who has suffered from an eating disorder, I am so glad I have found a way to make it a non-issue in the beginning.  I also hope to avoid the sugary, refined, tasteless kids foods.  My parents did really well with avoiding those, I don't think we ever had fish crackers or Kraft Mac and Cheese or Spaghettios or graham crackers or even white bread.  I was never a picky eater growing up.  I'm still a very adventurous eater, and super proud of it.  I'm amazed at how many fully grown adults are still very picky, maybe some of it is genetics, but I think a bunch of it is how we were introduced to foods and the attitudes surrounding food when we grew up.  I'm going to serve my baby the food we eat as much as possible, it's what he will be expected to eat later.

So I guess a lot of what I really get excited and passionate about in parenting are things that avoid struggles with my children.  So many times I feel that I see unhappy parents and unhappy kids, when it seems like they could both be happy with just a little bit of changes and some more realistic expectations.  It seems like a lot of people are trying to force their children to do something that's probably completely unnatural to the developing child; like formula, spoon feeding, diapering, toilet training.  I think if something is forced and something is causing a parent so much stress and worry and anxiety, it's probably worth doing something else.

It's normal to wonder if they are getting enough to eat, but it's another thing to force them to finish something they clearly aren't enjoying.  That's not fun for anyone!

My goal will be to avoid as many struggles as possible and to have tons of fun.  We can do it!

More on Co-sleeping

Co-sleeping is working out great for us.  I actually don't know how I could do it any other way.  Here is how a typical night goes:

When mom and dad are ready for bed they get into bed with Cedric.  I feed him while laying down next to him and eventually he's had enough, sometimes he needs a diaper change, then he usually just wants to suck on his pacifier.  We turn out the lights and baby seems to understand that this is night time and it's time to sleep.  Eventually he falls asleep next to me, when he's reached the deep, limp stage of sleep, I move him over the the Arm's Reach Co-sleeper and then I'm able to fall asleep without him next to me.  Lately he's been sleeping for four or five hours and then will wake wanting to eat again.  I hear him wiggle and fuss a little, then I bring him back into bed with me and we both fall asleep in bed again, usually he stays dry through a good portion of the night. 

He may wake again 1-3 hours later for more food, then possibly one more time, then he usually gives some signals that he thinks bed time should be over.  Bored baby!  :)  Then I resign to getting out of bed, sometimes as early as 6 am, sometimes as late at 9:30 am.  Then he pees a bunch over the next couple hours, sometimes we go through 4 or 5 diaper changes in the early morning hours.  It might be a good time to practice some ECing.

If baby was in another room, or even across the room, I don't know how I would do it.  I often don't even get out of bed all night long, which means falling back to sleep doesn't take long.  I'm enjoying some pretty awesome sleep considering I have a two-month-old.  Some nights are better than others, about a week ago he woke up every two hours, but for the most part we get a good four to five hour stretch before he wakes so frequently.  Naps seem a bit more sporadic, sometimes lasting 20 mins and sometimes lasting three hours.  Sometimes he'll have 2 or 3 naps and sometime more like 5 or 6.  He has a new cry which I'm starting to associate with, "I'm tired, but need help falling asleep."  Usually just a little bit of rocking will send him to dream land, then I can set him down and he'll be out for a while, but yesterday, I actually got into bed with him and had to lay there for a while before he was out.  I figure using different methods is a good idea anyway.  If it weren't so darn hot, I'd just let him sleep in one of our carriers.  But I'm too worried he'd overheat during a long nap.  If it were up to me, the temp would constantly be between 50 and 70 degrees.  I'd gladly give up perfect 70s weather if it also got rid of 80s 90s and 100s. 

A five-hour stretch of sleep is technically "sleeping through the night."  I think we need a new definition of sleeping through the night.  I think it would paint a more accurate vision for parents.  I definitely will not be telling people my son sleeps through the night until we get an 8 hour stretch in there.  And that could take years. 

I'm a Name Snob

I have to admit it.  I would never say anything to any parent's face about what they named their child, but sometimes when I hear what some people named their baby I think, "wow they sure didn't search far to find that name."  I am very against popular names.  Even my husband has said upon hearing a name, "that's boring!" 

We named our son Cedric Demetrius.  Which I think is an uncommon, awesome-sounding, bad ass name that is still recognized as a name.  I'm also against inventing names randomly, though less so than giving your baby a name that three other people in his kindergarten class will have.  I was going for pronouncable, but unique.  I won't say any names, so as not to offend anyone, but if your baby's name is in the top 100 names for the year he was born, I probably rolled my eyes when I heard it.

Which makes me just a little terrible, but I said nothing to your face, did I? 

I also hate nick names, I really do, though I recognize that this is totally my problem, and I realize that many people have nick names, and I call many of you by your nick names, but I really don't like them.

Why name a kid something only to call him something else?  I just don't get it.  And I was pretty amazed at the number of people who, after hearing I named my son Cedric, asked, "so do you have any nick names?"  What the hell is wrong with Cedric?  He will be called Cedric.  I didn't name him Cedric to call him Ced, or Ceddy, or CD, or ANYTHING else.  I will be that annoying mom who corrects you when you try to bastardize his name.  It's a freaking two syllable name, it's not hard to say.  Also, just so you know, my name is Andrea, not Andi.  The only people who call me Andi are those who know my mother better than me.  Yes, my own mother tried to give me a nick name as a child, and I didn't take it, I preferred Andrea.  Why name me Andrea, to only call me Andi?  I tend to let this one go, because the sheer amount of people who call me Andi is too much correcting, and I've let it go on for so many years now, that it would be weird for me to bring it up.  Chances are if you call me Andi, we aren't very close.

I'm also not a fan of giving the mother's maiden name as a middle name, even though this is exactly what my mother-in-law did.  A last name shouldn't be a middle name, but I won't try to pass legislation forbidding it.  One of another weird naming quirk of mine. 

Briefly, other things that bother me:

Naming your child after someone still alive, especially yourself.
Giving your child a hyphenated last name.
Giving your child the last name of her father who skipped town after he found out he knocked you up.
Giving your child no middle name.
Giving your child more than one middle name.

There, I had to get that off my chest.  I promise I won't confront anyone directly, and I will call your child by what you want me to call them.  And what you name your child doesn't reflect how good of a parent you are.  :)