Category: Balance

Attachment Parenting, Balance, Hopes, Pregnancy, Toddlers

Three Months & Three Years

olivia

Instead of keeping a regular baby book for the girls, I’ve started compiling my written memories for them, including these posts. I’m catching up today on both three months and three years.

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I’ve been trying for months to time a picture of all three of us. Someday I’ll get one where everyone is looking AND smiling!

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Three Months

18339091_10105530321233743_1803277936_oOh, little Miriam. The more I get to know you, the more I discover your joy. You laugh and smile with such ease. You love watching your sister play with toys. You’re happiest facing out to the world. You move your body to show us how eager you are to jump off our laps and run around.

The mom guilt has been more real this time. With your sister, I only had to focus on her. Now I have you both and feel bad I don’t spend more time just sitting and holding you. But you don’t seem to mind. You love your swing and activity mat. You’re happy cuddled up against me while we sleep.

At first I tried to fight you into your own space at night, but I’ve decided to embrace the closeness because we often don’t get that same time when the sun is out. Still, I try my best to give you little moments throughout the day. Maybe that’s why you wake up at 5AM, so we get to be alone together. Thank goodness you seem so content. Getting to know you is a gift.

Three months, already.

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Three Years (a couple months late)

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One of the best afternoons of my life was also one of the simplest. A few weeks before M arrived, E and I went to the park with Grandma. It was an unusually warm January day and while Grandma basked in the sun, E and I went looking for worms in the swollen creek.

We’d just finished one of the biggest rain storms in recent memory and everything was alive and flowing. Instead of worrying about what needed to happen next, I allowed time to stretch endlessly before us. We turned over every rock we could find, we poked our sticks into the creek bed, and we laughed. She held my hand and I did my best to squat with my pregnant belly beside her, again and again.

After months of working five days a week, this was exactly the afternoon I needed. Weekends while working were filled with to-do’s and I’d missed those days where we just spent time together, exploring and seeing the world through new eyes. As we drove home from the park, I cried bittersweet tears because I knew it was the last time we’d have those moments alone, before her sister arrived. Sure, we’d still have our solo dates, but life would never be exactly the same as it was in that moment, just the two of us.

Three years old has been a flurry of moments, some incredibly intense, others undeniably sweet. From being told “You’re the greatest, greatest mommy!” to what seems like mere minutes later receiving angry commands to go my room, I can attest the term “threenager” isn’t entirely in jest. Still, my love for her only grows as she’s better able to articulate her thoughts and I get to know her even better each day.

Happy belated third birthday, E.

Attachment Parenting, Baby Fever, Balance, Birth

Month Two: Holding On Tight

olivia

17820522_10105423824943163_1408296827_oI find myself clinging to moments. Her tiny body curled up against mine, her little smile greeting me in the glow of our nightlight. Our stolen time together, our time alone. Glimpses of the laughter to come when her kitty toy grazes her face. The way her eyes light up and her head turns to listen to her sister talk across the room. She’s a relaxed, happy baby.

Parents often lament the passage of time. My feelings are nothing new, but there’s an extra sting to the days flying by when you know you’re holding your last baby. Sure life could surprise us, but I’m fairly certain this is it. Beautiful and fleeting. Only a newborn for a few more weeks.

I worried a little about our bonding in the beginning. Not because there wasn’t love, but because it didn’t feel as earth-shattering as I expected. Now the worry is gone. We just needed time to melt together, to know each other better, to find our rhythm. I dreamed I lost her the other night, and the pain was unbearably sharp but also reassuring in its rawness.

Two months have passed and I’m not sure where they went. They just disappeared. So now I’m holding on even tighter.

Attachment Parenting, Baby Fever, Balance, Birth, Hopes

Month One: Settling In

olivia
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      Bright eyes, squeaky noises, and so many expressions.

E is out with Grandma and M is asleep in her swing. It’s hard to put her down but there’s more to get done these days than there was with her sister. I’m slowly accepting that second children spend a little more time on their own.

The attachment parenting voice in my head says I should hold her against me while I write, but the realist tells me to save the babywearing for when I need it, for when the dishes are piling up or I have to chase her sister. Besides, she’s peacefully asleep over there.

Everything has felt easier this time around, except for the division of attention. M receives a little less than her sister did, and E has to learn to share. A friend  reminded me E got to be the only child for almost three years. M will always have to share me. Somehow this makes me feel better when one of the girls has to wait.

There’s definitely more waiting happening around here. Thankfully E’s always happy to see her sister, even if she isn’t always happy to see me. I don’t mind, I’d rather receive the blame for the changes. Still, I’ve shed a few tears, alone in my room, remembering how we slept snuggled against each other until just a few days before her sister arrived. It doesn’t help that she still calls for me in the dark, sometimes screaming, others crying. She wants me to sleep next to her, but I can’t.

Instead, I spend my nights doing the newborn shuffle. Nursing and diapers and little blocks of sleep. M is still working on the difference between night and day. Sometimes she doesn’t settle in for a good stretch of sleep until the wee hours of the morning. The sleep deprivation is finally catching me, the cumulative affect of just four broken hours of sleep a night. Forget napping when the baby naps. I have a big girl running around this house.

That’s the thing, though. To someone who has never had children, it all sounds so challenging. I know because I used to be that person and hear these stories and think, “Oh, God, how will I ever survive that?” But you do, and with a smile on your face, most of the time.

I’m falling more in love with M each day. It wasn’t the same ripped open, crazy, knock you over feeling I had with E, but I’m certain that’s because this time I’d already transformed into a mom. With M, it’s a deep, familiar love, like it’s been there all along and each day I get the joy of rediscovering it a little more. I’d worried I couldn’t possibly love someone as much as E, but now I know you can’t compare the love for your children. It’s different, but no more or less than the other.

One month in, I still can’t believe I’m going on this adventure again. I’m doing my best to fill them both with enough love and attention. I know it’s enough, it’s just an adjustment.

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My heart is full, my eyes are tired, and it’s all worth it.
Baby Fever, Balance, Birth, Pregnancy

Birth & Making Time Stand Still

olivia

Second pregnancies are different. Time no longer stands still. Best intentions of maternity pictures and quiet meditation take a backseat to jobs, and housework, and taking care of big sissy.

I knew she’d come at 38 weeks, but still it caught me by surprise. I never got to all those things on my list. All that contemplation and connection. Instead, it was Friday night and we went to dinner at a friend’s house and I announced to everyone I was done. Wishful thinking, I thought.

But, sure enough, that night the cramps turned into contractions and I slept as well as I could between each one, hopeful when they were 6 minutes apart but remembering the nights of prodromal labor with her sister. And, just the same, daylight came and they tapered out. Another night, the same. Exhausted but excited. Another day spread out and then a third night, more intense. I could no longer sleep between. I howled into the night, “Bring me my baby,” a voice primal and haunting escaping from my lips.

Alex got up at 3AM to check on me. He must have sensed it was time or heard my wails. We called Grandma and when she arrived the contractions were 3 to 5 minutes apart, strong enough to make me believe maybe we wouldn’t have to wait another night. I cried in the triage room when they admitted me. This was real. Somehow it had all flown by and I was having a baby. A BABY. How was it not real, already?

Bright lights and 30 minutes of fetal monitoring left me twisting back in forth in the hospital bed. “Your baby will be here soon, Mama,” the nurse assured me, her Spanish accent so maternal I wanted to melt into her arms. I needed to get up and move around. I was ready.

As the light began to creep into the sky, I felt my contractions spreading back out. I was too late. I couldn’t do another day and night. I needed my old friend, Pitocin, but now the memory of induced contractions flooded back and I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do it again. I had told myself if this birth was like Eloise’s I would do it differently. Not because I regretted the way I’d done it before, but because I’d already done it.

I asked for an epidural knowing Pitocin was next.

When the doctor came in, he thought I was the surrogate for my dad and my husband, who were with me in the room. We laughed. Exactly the moment comedic relief was needed.

I was more afraid of an epidural than the pain, but I was also so very, very tired. I held my breath and trusted it was an experience I needed. I let myself be less than perfect because perfect in my mind was facing the pain head on. After all, I’d done it the other way before. I should be able to do it again, but maybe that’s exactly why I didn’t. I needed to make time stand still, the super power I’d always wanted as a child. A tiny break before the marathon of newborn parenting.

I may have cried a little as the epidural was administered, but soon my legs were fuzzy and I was able to relax. We’re too hard on ourselves as women, I’ve decided. The midwife who delivered Eloise came on duty and we chatted about my choice. She was so supportive, her curiosity about my experience comforting, as she wanted to hear the difference between an epidural birth and a natural one, having opted to go natural for her one and only childbirth. Knowing she would deliver Miriam was everything I needed. It was the natural balance to my choice.

For the next 7 hours, I rested and visited with family. It was somehow anti-climatic to lie and wait for the baby to arrive, unlike the hours of hard work I put in with Eloise. Still, there was comfort in the ability to let go and just let it happen. I imagined my body opening. I went crazy unable to move my legs. Finally, the epidural started to wear off just as I hit the wall of transition. I wailed and moaned and sent the anesthesiologist running down the hall with needles to fix things. Numb again, I stopped trying to harass my legs back to life and finally accepted my passive state.

When it was time to push, she was out in just three contractions. So much peace in her exit. The midwife had me hold my own legs and the muscle memory of pushing came back easily. No tearing, no pain. Just a baby. As her head emerged, they had me sit up to look. I pulled her onto my own chest. My little act of agency in such a passive state. A gift from my kind midwife, knowing I needed a little more.

A warm, wet baby on my chest. Wiggling and real. My baby. Born on a rainy afternoon in February without screams or profanity, just ease and grace. Tears again. Loving disbelief on my husband’s face. Eloise was the first besides us to meet her. I had thought we’d wait until we went upstairs to recover, but my husband marched her in and I pulled her into bed with me. Another moment I didn’t know I needed. Our little family of four finally complete.

Two girls, my girls. Miriam Grace, the missing piece of our puzzle, teaching me on day one to be present instead of “perfect,” to make time stand still, again, to let her enter the world in peace.

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One of my two favorite pictures in existence. The other, our first picture of Eloise.
Balance, Birth, Hopes, Pregnancy

37 weeks, again.

olivia

It’s 4AM. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone to bed so early. The words are back and it’s time to write. I owe baby M at least one reflection on my pregnancy.

I tried in the beginning to write, but it was too hard. I felt so sick. Then there were all the uncertainties and school started again and time flew.

Now, 37 weeks, 3 days. The exact point where labor began with her big sister.

It’s not time yet, but things are getting real.

At this point with E, it was all about the future. I dreamed about our adventures to come. I was ready.

With M, it’s about the present. I haven’t had the luxury of so much time. I haven’t laid awake talking to her in the middle of the night. Instead, I’ve worked and taken care of her sister and tried to take care of myself. I’ve folded all her clothes and gotten all the gear ready. I’ve done my best to prepare E for what’s to come. But, still, I haven’t figured out how to slow down and be fully present.

There have been moments. Like when we got to see her face by surprise during a growth scan. Her lips and expressions somehow mirroring her big sister’s. I cried and she was real. Of course, I feel her all the time. Her little knees and feet and elbows skimming across the right side of my belly, her body head down but turned toward my right. The day we found out she was a girl was surreal. Sisters. Of course, I’d thought she was a boy because of how sick I’d felt all summer, different than with her big sister.

Everything has been different. At our first doctor’s appointment we learned her due date was way off and held our breath for two weeks until we could return again to find a heartbeat. Then we discovered a possible challenge with her placenta. So far everything has been alright, which has taught me to take a google search of any diagnosis with a grain of salt. Mix in an extra crazy world and wow, this baby is brave.

Since the beginning, I’ve told her it’s by the grace of God she joins us. We hadn’t planned so soon, but still she’s a wished-for child. Two sentiments reflected perfectly in her name, or at least in the name we hold for her until our eyes meet and we know for sure.

Miriam Grace.