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Yeah so I had this whinny post all typed up about how we finally did Mr. E’s allergy testing and so far we know he is allergic to peanuts and dogs and not coconuts. More testing to come on all nuts. And then I went on about how there isn’t a dermatologist within a 50 mile radius who is A) accepting new patients or B) accepting new patients and works with children under the age of two. And given that Mr. E’s pedi wants him to see a dermatologist for some weird bump things on his scalp, I was left with no other option but to try to get him into Child.ren’s Hospita.l in B.oston. So that process has been started. I am starting to feel like a full-time case-manager. It’s been an overwhelming day to say the least.
But, you know, a peanut allergy, although potentially very scary is not the end of the World. We know about. We are armed with EpiPens. We are taking action to protect our son. And as for the dermatologist situation, I am actually secretly relived that we’ll be going to the best hospital in the World and hopefully we can also get some guidance on his eczema while we are there…
But instead of wallowing in my own self pity over all this, I am delighted. You see, I have been a co-sleeping fan since our second night home from the hospital. A, not such a fan. But, we’ve been doing it nonetheless. Today, she became a convert. Our sweet little E woke up this morning, crawled over me and onto A. She told him she had to get up to take a shower, he fussed and hugged her tighter. She cuddled him.
Tonight she gushed, I guess it is really great to wake up with him right there and to snuggle. Yes my friends, she thinks co-sleeping is great!
As I do every Monday afternoon, I am watching my two nephews, ages 4 years and 21 months.
The four year old looked on as I nursed Mr. E after his nap:
J: What is E doing?
Me: He’s having milk.
J: Is he biting you?
And as I changed Mr. E’s diaper:
J: Does E have a pee pee:
Me: Yes he does.
J: Is it small?
Patting his own belly:
J: I have a baby in my belly!
Me: You do?
J: Yes. We’re going to have a new baby soon.
Today was the day we were supposed to meet The New Midwife.
Eight weeks ago I scheduled an appointment and arranged childcare so that A could come with me. As we were driving to Maine last Friday I received a phone call from the TNM’s office informing me they needed to reschedule…EIGHT freaking weeks ago…and just like that – nope, sorry you don’t get to come in! If she were not the most reputable midwife in this area, I swear I’d been looking for a new one… My appointment is rescheduled and *I’ll meet her in FOUR weeks.
(*A will have to stay home to watch E.)
Up until the phone call on Friday we were still on the fence about involving TNM to get pregnant and I wasn’t making a solid TTC plan until we met her, and figured out how the logistics would play out if we used her to TTC. But now we’ve pretty much decided to use our old midwife, which will be a logistical nightmare and involve lots of travel for inseminations. But at the same time, I will have all my care under one person, where as with TNM there would be lots of people involved. Mr. E and I will crash with friends where we use to live for a night or two every cycle. And this is where I start to stress…
I don’t really want to deal with friends knowing that we are TTC. It just adds a layer of stress. And I am not so sure I really want to call up an old friend once a month and say “hey can my baby and I stay with you tonight? I’m ovulating.” I am sad that A will not be by my side, as she was for every insemination and prenatal appointment. I also don’t really love staying in hotels with a baby. Baby bedtime = lights out.
I am trying to be so zen about the whole process. I have made a pact with myself not to become the crazy, TTC, loony woman — that I once was. I’ve told myself that I will not go to the same lengths to get pregnant that I did with Mr. E. I am *TRYING* to be satisfied with the blessing that I already have.
It’s not easy.
I am starting to get frustrated with the process. I am resentful, YET AGAIN, that the act of becoming pregnant involves other people. I am stressed about the details. We have no more than five shots with Mr. E’s donor (less if we do more than one insemination per cycle). I am trying to think of the travel inseminations as temporary. I’ll do it so long as we have sperm in storage in our old town. Then reassess, if needed.
I want so much to be prenant again. To have one more child. To give Mr. E a sibling. I WANT IT SO BADLY. And some days, I just don’t think I am strong enough to do it.
Recently it seems as though we are finally reaching some semblance of balance in our not-so-new-anymore role as mothers. E is almost 14 months and somewhere around 13 months A and I started coming out of the cocoon we’d built. The first year is becoming a blur, and when I recall the memories, I don’t know how we got through it. But I we did.
E is becoming such a little kid. He is so opinionated and at times can have a hard time sharing his toys- especially with his cousins. He’s started walking and he using many signs to communicate his wants and needs. He JUST started eating real food last week. He’d been hot and cold with food since we introduced it at 6 months. But he is serious about it now. It’s as if a switch flipped and there is no turning back. He eats everything we eat, and he does it with great enthusiasm. He is also still very serious about breastfeeding…
Our nights are very hard. E is still co-sleeping and nursing all night long. The other night he woke and nursed six times (between 10pm-6am). The very next day I decided it’s time to night wean. Tonight was supposed to be the first night, but by some miracle he only woke to nurse once last night and did not nurse to sleep (but woke a few other times to cuddle). It’s as if he knew, and was following the method I am going to employ. We’ll see how the next week or so goes. It’s time – I am beyond exhausted and now that he’s eating food, he does not need to nurse overnight. I will gladly continue to nurse during the day.
A and I have begun to remember what it’s like to be adults – independent of our child. We’ve gone out with friends, we even stayed out dancing till midnight recently (and I am pretty sure I forgot I had a son at home…it was amazing to feel like “just us” the way it used to be – even if only for a few hours). We’re making summer plans that include a four day camping folk festival adventure. In short: we’re out of the ball and chain baby stage. We’re so excited to spend the summer in the outdoors with E, at the beach, riding bikes on the bike trail (he in the baby bike seat), walks in the state park…the warm weather can not arrive soon enough!
Some days I think we’re nuts for starting the TTC process all over again- right now- but it makes sense in our grand scheme. Midwife appointment is less than two weeks away! I’ve already started acupuncture and am quasi charting this cycle. Next cycle—full on charting. We’ll know more after meeting with the new midwife when we’ll actually start. I’m guessing late spring/early summer. And so it beings…
There seems to be so much going on and so little time to document…
Cling: we are back in clingy baby hell. E is just attached to us and it’s very taxing. There are times when I have to put him down and he refuses to sit so I have to lay him down – and he protests. I think I am an incredibly accommodating parent, and I just about do back flips to give him what he wants, but sometimes, I have to do something that does not jive with his plans (i.e. use the bathroom). I knew I’d be using the Ergo for a long time but I never thought I still be using all three of our carriers at this point— and yet I can’t make it through a day with out them.
Sleep: Same old broken record. We’re up a lot. I nurse him to back to sleep. We repeat an hour or two later. We’ve talked about night weaning but it really just seems like too much work at this point. Our co-sleeping arrangement makes the night wakings manageable most nights.
Going to sleep: E has always been pretty good at going to sleep on his own. This is something I worked on from the start -never nursing or rocking him to sleep (except in the middle of the night). We always put him down awake and he’d nod off to sleep. Recently- with the cling and the co-sleeping – he seemed to be fighting going to sleep at night (he starts the night in his crib around 7:30). One night he wanted to take a book to bed, so I let him, and I left the light on. Ten minutes later I checked on him and he was sound asleep. There was no drama. From then on – for naps and bed – we put him in sitting up with books. We return ten minutes later to cover up our sleeping boy. I am amazed.
Walking: He’s →this← close. I predict it will happen in two weeks. He is cruising like crazy and standing on his own. He’s taken a few steps when he can grab onto something. He needs just a little more confidence. This is exactly how crawling went down. He really has to work it out for himself, really understand it and one day soon I know he’ll put one foot in front of the other and take off.
Signing: After nearly six months he’s finally developing his “sign clusters.” He’s learning at least one new sign a week and his communication is amazing. When he woke at 6:30 this morning and had gas, I asked if he needed to use the potty, he signed potty back to me, and sure enough he needed to go!
Childcare: I joined a gym a couple of weeks ago. I’ve wanted to do this for months. I’ve been ready to get back to running but I could not leave him. Well I finally sucked it up, joined the gym, feel great, and begun using the childcare. E is less than thrilled. The first time he did OK. The second time he cried when SIL picked up his cousins before he was getting picked up, the third time I got called in after 35 minutes because he was so upset. We’re working on it. I think it goes back to #1 above: cling. As hard as it is, I feel really great and have pretty much gotten back to where I left off 22 months ago!
Life before E: A and I went out last night. We left E with my mom and really went out. Met friends for drinks, then went to a ball (LGBT church fundraiser with 200+ attendees). We partied and danced ’till midnight, closing the dance floor. For the first time in about two years we went out and just had fun. We didn’t spend dinner talking about how amazing our son is, we left him and all thoughts of him at home, we stayed out for a long time and just had fun! Of course getting home at 12am, getting up with E all night and then getting up at 6:30am was not fun, but it was well worth it in order to gain a sense of normalcy– of life as we used to know it.
Life after E: There have been times lately that have been hard. It’s no secret that this economy sucks. We left our well paying stable jobs before the economic nosedive. We knew it would take a while to get on our feet but we didn’t know the economic situation ahead and how it would present greater challenges. While A is employed, she is still seeking the full time benefited job. Lots of teachers who were set to retire have changed their plans due to the economic situation. Other teachers are being laid off. And thus we feel the tightening of the job market, while remaining thankful for the jobs she does have.
We have an amazing community here – we did before we moved here, but it’s even more so now. We have real meaningful friends. People who are not transitional – are not going to move away. People we have lots of things in common with, people we really like hanging out with. This was hard in Western MA. After five years we left feeling like we never really established the community we needed. It feels really good.
We’re really torn because on the one hand, we want to stay here. We want to raise E with family and among this strong community we’re weaving. And on the other hand, it is really expensive here and we desperately need A to get the full time job. So the current plan is to stick it out at least until the time E would start school. And if we’re still not on our feet at that time, we’d need to move onto plan B – relocate to a place holding a job for A. Ugh…
Joy: We’re so happy for the addition of little J to our family. We’re so happy for his mamas, and all of his family. I’m comforted knowing that within our family we have two donor babies – only one year apart – who will surely lean on each other as they navigate the nuances of our unique family compositions.
Sadness: For friends in pain.
Hope: For jumping back on the baby train really soon.
Baby K-C! We’re so glad to have you in our family. Congrats to your mamas!
This whole interview-which-may-result-in-me-going-back-to-work thing has had my stomach turned inside out.
My concerns are:
- I never wanted my son to attend formal day care
- I don’t want to work just to pay for day care
- Being home affords Mr. E a relaxed schedule, which I really really really value
I currently work about 10 hours per week. Half of which is on the morning when A is home and the other time my SIL watches Mr. E. After careful thought A and I have decided that should we be in a place where I am made an offer, I will only accept if no outside day care is needed.
Impossible, you think?
Not so. If I were to take this job (which is 18hrs/wk) and the scheduling is at my convenience, then we will be able to juggle our schedules in a way that would allow us to forgo formal day care. If not, I will have to decline. It isn’t worth it to put him in day care.
A is ready for me to go back to work. She really wants me to get a job. I, on the other hand, think I could be quite content to stay home until Mr. E and future child go to school, at which time I’d work “mothers hours.” And this baffles me…I always thought my career was going to be it for me. But things really do change when you have kids.
So think of me at Noon on Wednesday when I will be on the other side of the table for the first time in 5 1/2 years.
It’s been a while.
We survived the holidays. There were some really bad moments and some really wonderful moments. My body physically took on the stress resulting in a very sore neck for days. Not fun.
A and I have always loosely celebrated solstice. This year we decided to claim it. We knew Christmas would be a zoo so we took December 21st as our special family time. It was the highlight of my holiday season and as things got nuts I reflected back on our yule log and our celebration.
E was fascinated by our yule log – made from wood chopped on our property.
We sat peacefully watching our lit log after lighting out intentions and tossing them in the fireplace.
After our small Christmas plans dissolved our Christmas Day celebration opened like a dam. Soon we had family and friends, and neighbors and other people’s friends for dinner. It was not small. But what I like to remember when I look back is the quiet time we spent first thing in the morning. The sky was just beginning to light, the house was quiet, and A, E and I cuddled by the tree. We helped E open his presents and he played. It was an amazingly peaceful time. And he had so much fun.
He tore into the presents – no matter if they were for him or not…
E loved our tree and spent much time taking ornaments off!
We enjoyed a quiet New Years at home. We made pasta carbonara with fresh pasta and a yummy salad. We drank cosmos, wine, and champagne. We even stayed up till midnight! (sorry no pictures.)
We enjoyed two weeks of A being on vacation. We got things done, we played, we got together with friends, we relaxed.
We started planning E first birthday party! We started talking more seriously about ttc. We rested.
Now we are back to the grind. A went back to work today and E and I are settling back into our routine. I was really sad but am finding that I am really happy to be back to normal. He and I have a busy week ahead with his cousins, starting Music Together class, and his BIRTHDAY! On Friday he turns one and I am an emotional mess. We are having a play date with three of his little friends that day and on Saturday we’re having a big old birthday party! Many pictures to follow.
Last week while looking at vacancies at a local school A found a job posting that matched my interests, qualifications, education, and experience. It’s an 18 hour per week job. The person who supervises this positions is someone who had a great impact on my own secondary education experience. I don’t have the energy to go into all the details, but let’s just say I was drowning and she threw me a life jacket.
A and my mother immediately encouraged me to apply to the job. The job excited me in a way I have not felt for a very long time. And then reality set in and thoughts of leaving Mr. E were realized. We dialogued back and forth and in the end they pretty much convinced me to apply and deal with the details later.
I emailed the supervisor posing some questions about the position. I had sort of decided if it paid more than $20 per hour I’d apply. The email I received back filled in some of the details and – it pays more than $20 per hour… I sat down to update my resume and began wrapping my head around the idea of putting Mr. E in day care. And then little things would make me reconsider. It may sound weird but as I was getting out of the shower and saw his potty I thought, they won’t do EC with him. And it seems like most day cares won’t cloth diaper. Then there’s just the fact that he’d be under someone else’s care. On the flip side, while we were on a play date last week I sat back and watched as he went to town playing with his friend’s toys – hardly even noticing I was there. And I thought, maybe he’d love day care?
A and I decided I’d apply and we’d just see what happened. Tonight I sat down and blew the dust off my resume. And that knot found it’s way back to my stomach. I couldn’t focus enough to write a cover letter. I recalled the number of times people have told me it’s nearly impossible to secure day care for infants (birth – 15 mos). I stopped updating my resume and began playing on Face.book.
As A and I laid in bed tonight (I am now up thanks to Mr. E – he’s back down but my head is so full of thoughts I can’t sleep) we talked it over again. We both really don’t think this is the right time to start him in day care. When I did the math, I figured out in the new position, after paying for day care I’d take home about the same amount of money that I currently make working nine hours per week, while Mr. E is with either A or my SIL. But I’d have the added annoyance of packing him up and carting him off to day care and juggling schedules when he’s sick. I’m not ready to join the day care rat race – certainly not for the same amount of money at the end of the day.
Currently, we lead a very relaxed (although poor) lifestyle. My work is flexible and we are never away from each other for more than five hours. I don’t have to pump with any regualirty and If he’s sick I just stay home with him. The only benefit to applying to the job, is, well, it’s in my field and I think I’d like it and be really good at it. It would probably open doors to other opportunities. But at this time, I don’t think any job could take me away from my boy.
I don’t know where to begin…
Thank you for all the encouragement and the urging to put it all out here. There are a few factors at play for why I have not been writing openly. The biggest being that I really just don’t usually have the energy to sit and write. And secondly, the confusion, sadness, and frustration have been a relatively new thing. Most of it appeared when Mr. E was about six months old. A and I have been through multiple major life transitions since he was born and continue to live in transition as we try to build a new life in our new home (she finished grad school, I left my career, we moved, I started staying home, she’s working on getting established in her career and works two jobs, we are living with my parents while we get on our feet in this very-expensive-place-to-live). It’s all very overwhelming and it can be hard to pin point the stress source.
Aside from the new mom stress stuff, I am overwhelmed with trying to put our new life together. I am the type of person who can ‘put the blinders on’ in order to get through a hard patch when I know there is hope and it’s just going to take a little work to get there. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do.
When we first moved A had a crappy summer job and I worked 20 hours a week. Between the two of us we could manage our schedules so Mr. E was with one of us all the time. It sucked, A worked weekends, but I’d tell myself, Mr. E is home with his moms and that’s what really matters to us now. The sucky job was over quickly when she got a better job, but she still worked Saturdays and I was available to work fewer hours. It was a steady job that could have carried us if she didn’t get a teaching job for the fall.
In the meantime, we live in a state where we are required to have health insurance. It would have cost $1,600 per month for me to continue our benefits through COBRA. Clearly not a choice for us. So we looked into the plans that individuals can buy through the state. Turned out, we were eligible for assistance in paying for our insurance since we make so little money. I spent most of May and June battling the most incompetent State agency, but now we have insurance. There was exactly one pedi and one PCP accepting new patients. Luckily they are both in neighboring towns. We are slowly warming up to the pedi but dream of the day when we’ll be able to have a choice about the doctor providing medical care to our son.
The insurance requires a lot of upkeep. I send monthly payments. I am always on time, but if someone where not, they’d be kicked off and then go through the whole mind numbing rigmarole of gaining benefits. Every time we have an income change we have to report it. And they send us paperwork every other day. And every time we receive mail from them, I am always convinced our benefits are about to be cut (and they will if MA passes Question 1) or the premium has been raised to an unaffordable rate. You would think after receiving their junk mail for nearly six months, this fear would dissipate, but it only grows stronger. And I am a person who, while rarely needs medical attention, is terrified not to have insurance.
As the school year drew closer it seemed as though A was not going to working in education this year and she’d have to keep her other job and try to substitute teach in order to ‘get known’ because that’s how it works here. But, the tide turned and she did get two part time teaching jobs. We were so happy and it is really wonderful that she’s doing what she loves and is beginning the networking process, yadayadayada. But… it also means she leaves the house at 6:30 in the morning to go to her first job and then wolfs down her lunch in the car on her way to her other job and gets home at 6:00 at night.
Since this is my blog, I’ll say that having her gone all day sucks. It is so hard to be with a clingy baby for all but one of his waking hours. Of course it’s hard for A to be away from him all day, but I’ll leave that for her to write about, if she ever writes in her blog again… I have the best intentions of working from home while Mr. E is napping. In fact I have a project in front of me right now. But I never do. I need the nap times to shower, eat, and spend a little bit of time centering myself. Which leads me to be stressed because I am not getting paid for the hours I am not working. And there is work not getting done. And some days I think I will just explode because I feel like I can’t do anything fully.
Mr. E was such an easy baby. And he still is pretty low key. He just requires a lot of holding and has pretty much reverted back to breastfeeding for all his nourishment. He is not sleeping through the night. And I’ve recently started co-sleeping with him again out of necessity. My milk production has spiked back up and any freedom I had to leave the pump at home or leave him with solid food instead of breast milk has disappeared. It’s like he’s two months old again and nursing every 2 – 3 hours. Some of this I know is just me setting up bad habits. For example, there is no way, NO WAY that he needs to eat every hour and 45 minutes at night. But he sure loves to suck. And since it’s the quickest and sometimes only way to get him back to sleep with out crying, I give in. We’ve tried having A go into him when he cries and he looks to the door and jumps while whining, as if to say, “where is she? Where are the boobs?” And when she brings him to me, he laughs with excitement and nuzzles in. I want A to help at night, but if he won’t let her, then what’s the point of making her get up? And now that she gets up at 5:30 I feel a little less able to ask her to get up, so I’ve taken to sleeping with him, in his room.
Many of you commented about my writing about feeling ungrateful when complaining about the challenges of motherhood. I know this is my issue and I need to deal, but I can’t forget how hard it was for me through our entire ttc journey. I honestly felt at times that I would never get pregnant. And some of the women who began the journey with me have not. Even after greater interventions than I had. I know that one’s ease or challenge in getting pregnant shouldn’t matter at this stage, and that motherhood is hard for everyone. But I am just so grateful for my son; I love him more than I thought was possible that it’s hard to let myself feel the stress and the frustration. It’s crazy thinking but I don’t feel justified in feeling this way because we tried so hard for so long and I should just be happy to have a baby. I still talk about #2 in ‘ifs’. I was thinking about it yesterday and I finally said to myself, ‘you got pregnant once, you can do it again.’ But usually, when I think about it, I just get sad and bogged down in the first journey.
I know Mr. E is bound to wake up soon and I don’t want to end this the way most posts end these days – with me running off to get him and not closing or by saving and then never getting back to finish… So I am just going to stop writing now. Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. The love, support, and validation was much needed.
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