Scared Wheatless February 5, 2009

It’s been 2 weeks of yellow poop with little straining, and this would be the time for me to start re-introducing possible allergens back into my diet.  I even bought some shredded wheat, so I could see if wheat bothers her by eating it in the morning – it takes about 4 hours for what I eat to hit my milk, and then another 1-ish hours for that to bug her, one assumes. By eating the possible offender in the morning, I should be able to see if it’s the offender bothering her if she gets fussy, and not just her normal afternoon fussiness busting out.  Babies are hard to experiment with – no wonder we don’t do a lot of clinical trials with them!

Anyhow, I keep putting off the experiment because I don’t want to handle that fussiness any more than I absolutely have to.  Coward mom.

Did I tell you about my recurring nightmare that I eat dairy without realizing it?  I have this nightmare about every 2 nights – I am eating something, get about halfway through, look down and realize… Oh MY GOD!!! I Just Ate Cheese!  What Do I Do??? I Need To Make Myself Throw Up!  WHere’s the Ipecac?  Then lots of running around happens and I wake up.

It’s kind of fucked up that I now have nightmares about eating cheese.

Working from home February 4, 2009

I am stealing time from work to write this.

It never seems like stealing time from work to check my Gmail, reserve a library book, pay bills online, or IM with my pals while at work.  It just seems like a pleasant break from the grind, something that will make me more efficient because I’ll stop worrying about whether we paid the cell phone bill last month.

But because I am sitting on my couch and the baby is ASLEEP, this is prime working time for me, and it’s very guilt-inducing that I am not writing an email right now.

This is how working from home goes, for me:

5-ish am, wake up and frantically put in contacts, pee, and change out of pyjamas as I keep an eye on the baby I left alone in the bed with all sorts of pillows that are just waiting for me to turn my back so that they can suffocate my child.  But we’re supposed to elevate her because of the reflux, so you tell me what I’m supposed to use to do that.  All we have is potentially murderous pillows, so I maintain constant frantic vigilance.  Keyword for the day is: frantic.

5:30 am. nurse Amelia back to sleep, put her in the buzzy chair with a blanket over her. Worry that I overheat my child on a regular basis, also a SIDS no-no. Put her in the pink buzzy chair, which lets her lie straighter and not crunched up into a C like the blue buzzy chair does, but turn on the “womb” sounds of the blue buzzy chair because Tom just discovered that she’ll sleep to that for a long time.

5:35 am, make oatmeal with froz. blueberries, flax meal and brown sugar (no dairy, bah) and eat it as fast as possible.  Take vitamin & probiotic (so I can digest possible allergens better) with water.

5:45 am, pull end table in front of couch and set up work laptop on it.  Set up baby supplies on & around couch: boppy pillow, blanket to tuck under one end of boppy pillow (to incline her as we nurse), 2nd blanket to lay over baby in case she gets cold (and because she sleeps better when warm), spit-up rag, remote control, glass of water, rattle.

6:00 am, start replying to work emails ridiculously early in the day to prove to my bosses that I do indeed work from home and I get up early to do it besides.  Keep eye on kid as I do so – the pink buzzy chair turns off its buzz after 5 minutes and sometimes that wakes her up. Womb sounds also turn themselves off, not sure if on same timing.

7-ish am, change/snuggle/nurse awake baby as I type work emails with one hand and check my gmail.  Read multiple Yahoo mommy group digest emails and dread the day I have to deal with colds, separation anxiety, crawling/walking, etc.

7:30 am, carefully slide sleepy baby onto couch, still propped up on boppy pillow, with blanket over her, and start typing with both hands (heaven!)

8:00-10:00 am, juggle emails and baby.  Don’t answer cell phone while baby is awake because having a crying baby in the background is slightly unprofessional.  Use Skype with headphones to make calls out ONLY while baby is nursing or COMPLETELY asleep.  Roll shoulders back when possible because 2-handed typing over your nursing baby will make your shoulders hurt.

10:30 am, eat a little something if baby will let me

11:00 am, continue to juggle laptop and baby.  Try to calculate how many hours actually worked that morning to see if working after noon (only 5 hours of work from home is needed per day, as I work 10 hour days at work 3 times a week).  Look forward to being able to shut the laptop and just attend to baby.  Start strategizing for this afternoon’s outing (probably doctor’s visit or diaper pickup/dropoff in town).

12:00 pm, decide that even if 5 hours of work were not accomplished, there is no more energy for any more work.  Chill with the kid while watching some DVRed Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares or The Daily Show. Think that you might get an hour or so of work done this afternoon.  (This never happens.)

That is on days that I do NOT have a deadline.  Twice this month I have had a proposal due on a day I work from home, and that’s infinitely more tense.  I will say that I am much more able to work efficiently since I got work to buy me an iPhone so I can email while in the pediatrician’s waiting room – it’s much easier to type one-handed on that little screen, too!

Many days I don’t know if it’s really better for Amelia to have me caring for her with half (or less) of my attention, or if a stranger who was actually able to attend to her full time would do a better job.  I don’t think we can afford a nanny, honestly, and I don’t know a better way to do any of this right now.  She’s what Dr. Sears calls a “high-needs baby,” who hates being put down unless she’s asleep – and frequently will not even let you sit down while holding her if she’s awake.  Hoping the magical age of 4 months (only a month away!) will ease some of this needyness, but what if it doesn’t?

How do you know if you’ve broken your toe? January 18, 2009

Because I think I did, when I ran into the kitchen step stool.  For something made by Ikea, it’s pretty bulky.

We had a pretty peaceful day yesterday, though she had her normal 2-3 hours of fussiness in the evening.  We dodn’t get to bed until 9:30, and so she didn’t sleep as well as she could have.   But up at 2 and 5 is not so bad, considering.

Today, she’s been more fussy.  But we did get the house cleaned up, and I made some chicken and wild rice soup.  I packed the soup with vegetables, chopped up in my new food processor.

Weekends are the nicest because we don’t have to do anything but care for the baby and ourselves.  Watch your step, though.

Tight-ass January 14, 2009

Sorry for the long-time-no-post, but it’s been a little tense and busy around the place for the last week or so…

Amelia has been struggling for weeks now with ever-escalating problems including:

green, foul-smelling, liquid, frothy and occasionally bloody poop
constipation (painfully straining for hours to poop or fart)
increasingly frequent spitting up
nasal congestion
coughing
tight tummy that’s painful to the touch
bouts of colic

With both Tom and I trying to work from home and care for her simultaneously, it’s been a real struggle to keep her comfortable and still get work done during this trial period our employers have both given us.  As an example, I’ve had to interrupt the typing of this post 4 times so far to comfort her as she wakes up from unsuccessfully straining to poop/fart.

Make that five.

We saw our pediatrician, Dr. Parr, yesterday – on the bright side, she’s not brushing us off.  She took some blood & an x-ray because of the stool sample we gave her last week with blood in it.  She requested more stool samples to test for salmonella & rotovirus, etc.  Dr. Parr’s rough diagnosis is that we’ve got a combination of reflux, colic and maybe something else. We’re using a combination of simethecone drops, gripe water and glycerin suppositories while feeding her on an incline, burping frequently, and trying to keep her vertical for 30 minutes after eating.

I’ve already cut out dairy, soy, wheat, nuts, legumes, chocolate, spice, and all gas-causing vegetables and fruits from my diet, as well as all high-acid fruits & veg. (If you’re wondering, that leaves rice, meat, oatmeal, potatoes, zucchini, apples, and Hagen Daz sorbet.)   Dr. Parr now wants us to try a special colic formula for a couple of days to see if that makes any difference. But not until I collect another stool sample by laying Amelia’s butt on plastic wrap and inserting a rectal thermometer….

Upon seeing the x-ray yesterday, Dr. Parr got very worried about possible bowel irritation and rushed us to see Dr. Josephs, a pediatric surgeon up by Dell Children’s.  They worked us in that same afternoon, so off to the surgeon we went, trying not to panic all the way there and while in the waiting room for an hour after being told I shouldn’t nurse her until the doctor saw her in case we had to rush her to surgery!

Dr. Josephs was not at all worried by the x-ray but confirmed Dr. Parr’s observation that Amelia has “anal stenosis,” which means her anus is unusually tight – hence the inordinate straining to poop.  ( It is generally agreed that she gets this from her father.)  His instructions were that we needed to “condition the muscle” by sticking an 11 mm “anal dilator” stick up her butt twice a day for 2 weeks, then return to his office for a bigger stick.  This can evidently take a number of months.

The buttstick hurts her, and quite frankly, it feels like I’ve just been told to anally rape my infant daughter twice a day for 3 months. Between the drops, the suppostitories, the buttstick, the painstaking feeding, the restricted diet, and the thought that perhaps it’s just my breastmilk that’s poisoning her despite my best efforts, I’m at the end of my tether.

I really want Amelia to be well and free from pain.  And I hate to admit that I really want her to be well so I can just enjoy my precious baby without having to keep all these obnoxious, exhausting balls in the air all the time.

I guess I’m feeling sorry for myself, and I really do feel sorry for her in her pain & discomfort, but it’s so hard when NOTHING I do seems to help and all the treatments we’re given only piss her off or make her more miserable!

Anyway, if you have a little extra strength to send suffering parents and baby, please do.  We’re miserable and tired (and I’m hungry) and the light at the end of the tunnel seems really, really dim.

errands December 11, 2008

My sister and I ran four errands today, and it was… a little strenuous! Lessons learned: don’t run around with the baby in the late afternoon when she likes to cluster-feed.

We did Michael’s first, and I finally got the perfect fit on the Moby wrap – Amelia was high on my chest and fell asleep right away, so I didn’t have to stabilize her little bobble head. Shopping went well and she only woke up once, in order to switch the cheek she was resting on my chest.

In the diaper change between Michael’s & Lowes, I learned that the backseat diaper change is a great way tokill your back, and nursed my baby some in a 20 mph headwind.

At HEB, Amelia got sick of the Moby once and for all while the slowest deli counter guy on the planet sliced me a pound of oven-roasted turkey and muenster cheese, on a one. Luckily, Adrienne agreed to go through the checkout line for me while I took the baby back to the car to nurse some more. REALLY need to figure out hoe to go from the newborn chest wrap to a nursing wrap in that Moby.

Finally, to Gold’s Gym to get a swipe card because I lost mine, and this way Adrienne can work out while she’s here. Amelia cried for much of the drive home except while Adrienne jiggled her car seat. Yes, I know the car seat shouldn’t jiggle. I think Tom needs to check the installation of my car seat base…

Anyway, I’m slowly edging toward SuperMom, at least when my sister’s got my back. It’s very touching to see how much Adrienne loves Amelia – her tenderness and enthusiasm with the baby is so sweet! Also, Adrienne makes truly superb macaroni and cheese, which we really enjoyed for dinner tonight.

That’s a wrap December 9, 2008

If I say so myself, we are getting a LOT better at babywearing around Chez Amelia. It used to be that she’d SCREAM when we tried to sneak her into any kind of wrap or sling or Ergo Infant Insert. But yesterday I took a nice long walk with Amelia in the Moby, and today we did some tidying up of the house and prepared baked acorn in squash and lemon-rosemary roasted chicken while she nodded off into my cleavage, all snug in the green fabric.

Some things I’ve learned about wearing my baby:

1.) HOT. Don’t dress her in fleece PJs and wear two layers yourself and then exercise or slave over a hot stove. She’ll get all red in the face and mama will get some interesting sweat stains.

2.) Wearing a baby is a lot like being pregnant again – one’s arms immediately shrink about 6 inches and it’s difficult to manage dishes in the sink.

3.) Amelia likes being wrapped up high on my chest, though after 15 minutes of walking around she’ll sink down into the wrap and be OK with it.

4.) I need to tie the wrap tighter than my instinct tells me to. Invariably, 30 minutes into having her wrapped, I’m hitching her up to a more comfortable position.

5.) Taking her out the wrap and trying to nurse her around the wrap is not a workable option.

I still need to figure out how we can nurse in the Moby, but I’m finally not bummed we bought it. This will definitely make a big difference in my functionality while Amelia’s too small for the Ergo. Aimee, thanks for the lend of your sling, but those are sized (kin dof like clothes) and I’m too big for it.

The only thing that bums me out is that one can’t, of course, wear the baby in the car. Thus one must strap the baby into the car seat and then, if one wishes to wear the baby once one arrives at one’s destination, one must pull baby OUT of the car seat and wrap her up in another restrictive device… I guess that’s not as bad as it seemed, before I wrote it out. Maybe I’ll try that at the grocery store next time. I know I can put the car seat in the cart, but locking the seat into the top of the cart freaks me OUT, and putting it into the cart itself really limits what I can purchase. Calibrations..

wiggle worm November 18, 2008

One of the most beautiful things about my baby today is how she moves when she’s alert and (mostly) awake. She loves to kick her feet and wave her arms and stick her tongue out.

Amelia’s jaundice is starting to recede (according to Tom who hadn’t seen her all day and is thus a more reliable source than I am), and she’s starting to get on a more reasonable nursing/sleeping schedule. Though, I will say, she does occasionally binge on breast milk: she’ll nurse and nurse until she’s spitting up, and then she still insists on hitting the booby for more-More-MORE!

We went to the grocery store together today. I thought a small outing would be a good way to get ready for our bigger outing tomorrow afternoon, when we’re going to drop off the used diapers and pick up clean nice ones. (We’re too far out of town for the service to come pick them up.) Driving was a real trip – I was all hesitant and nervous, and felt rather checked out. Grocery shopping was equally trippy; it felt wrong to be attending to Things Not Amelia. The whole world seems way too big for my little girl… how do all those other parents do it?

things a new mother doesn’t realize until the baby comes November 17, 2008

Sleeping after nursing

1.) Sleep is the best thing in the world, and you don’t need much of it to feel WAY better.

2.) Newborns wear hats a lot. More than anyone else wears hats, I think, except for the Queen of England (and the Queen Mother).

3.) Breastfeeding will keep you just as hungry, but it will be difficult to remember to eat.

4.) Staring at your perfect baby is a full time job. And sometimes you need more than one pair of eyes.

5.) You will get more done in your daughter’s 45 minute nap than most people accomplish in an entire weekend.

6.) It’s important to keep extra batteries handy for the camera, because she needs to be photographed about every 3 hours.

7.) Your friends and family are more of a blessing than you ever thought possible, and you don’t deserve them.

8.) Rocking chairs kick the ass off a Mexican donkey.

9.) What a sitz bath is and why.

10.) Life will just get more complicated from now on, but in a beautiful, kaleidoscopic way that is infinitely more rich and delicious than you ever thought possible.

the exaltation of the minute October 26, 2008

I was told by What If No One’s Watching, my favorite Portlander-transplant-to-Austin blog, to go read this post at Breed ‘Em And Weep. I couldn’t be happier about having followed instructions. You’ll be happy you did too – go on and read it, I’ll wait.

What I love about this piece is that (1) it addresses the honorable nature of writing about the small, seemingly insignificant detail, and (2) it addresses the importance of mothers/women testifying to their experience as mothers/women.

So many people feel that their blogs are “little” (me included) because they do not have a wide readership or because they don’t obviously move or shake public opinion. What is so true and so ignored about blogs is that they have the capacity to make art the small details of our lives: running errands, going out to dinner, feeling the baby kick, folding laundry, weeding, driving home from work. These are the tiny happenings in which our lives are cataloged, in which our decisions are made or our relationships are ended, and they are tiny things that great authors like Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway and John Donne and Raymond Carver have made great art from. Why then, are our blogs so little? We are the Samuel Pepyses of our generation, bearing witness to the minutia of our world and thus creating the whole-est portrait of our lives that any generation has been capable of to date.

It is this bearing witness, in public, out loud, on the magical super-inter-webs, that is the powerful act for women. So long silent and silenced, women have experienced, we presume, the same terror and joy and worry and boredom that we all do in our lives… but how are we to know that for sure? As more and more mothers get themselves WordPressed or Blogspotted, we learn more about each other – and our children can learn more about their pasts and futures than has ever been possible before. This wondrous avalanche of windows into the lives of mothers and women is a revolutionary movement, and I’m in love with it.

I’ve learned so much, lurking through people’s blogs, and found so much comfort and inspiration in the commonality of my experience. Never think, just because you have (what do I have on this blog, like 20 readers, tops?) a small readership or an “unimportant” life, that you are doing unimportant work. We are each of us, without warning or knowledge, that all-important butterfly who stirs a storm halfway round the world with her wings.

acquisitions October 8, 2008

le glider avec chat

As I mentioned, my father-in-law bought us a glider. It’s been a very welcome addition to our household, as you can see from Spike’s pose. It was nice of him to put down the magazine and let me take the picture, don’t you think?

For what it is, the glider is very symbolic for both of us.  Tom’s father used to sit in his La-Z-Boy in evenings and read the whole paper after watching the nightly news, and Tom kind of feels like he’s sitting down into the same tradition when he puts his feet up on the ottoman.  I fondly remember my mother’s antique “platform rocker,” the item of furniture from my childhood home that I loved the most.

I’ve been thinking in the past few months about the process of getting ready for a baby – there’s a lot of winnowing out of old gear and clutter, the detritus of abandoned plans and ambitions.  At the same time, there’s a real acquisitive aspect to the adjustment – and early on, we seem to be conscious of walking our parents’ old footpaths.   Obviously when you become a parent, you start thinking a lot about the parents you had and what lessons to take from them.  I hope, especially in my case, that we choose to learn the right lessons.