The Fastest Four Months of My Life

It blows my mind to think that this little lady is four months old already.

It's amazing to think back to where I was a year ago.  A year ago, I had only known that I was pregnant for twenty days.  My only symptoms were some slight queasiness and breast tenderness.  It didn't seem real at all that parenthood was coming around the corner.  Now I can barely remember what it was like before she was born, before I was a mother.  It's easy to think of these milestones as just hers, but this also marks four months of being a mother, and four months of parenting with my amazing wife.  I like to think that I've gotten better at it and it's getting easier in many ways.

 This kid has so much personality and she's learned so many new things in just the past few weeks.  She's rolling over like a champ, any which way she likes.  She's grabbing everything she can reach and putting it in her mouth.  She's trying desperately to scoot, and she can move herself a few inches backwards.  When she's at home with her people, she hardly ever stops babbling or moving.  When we're out in the world, in new settings and with new people, she gets very quiet and watches everything with wide, thoughtful eyes.

 She's got a smile that will just melt you.  I'm working two days a week these days, and as hard as it is to leave her on those two days, the smile I get when I come home is the best thing in the world.  She has just figured out how to suck her thumb in the last four days.  It's the funniest thing because she puts her thumb in her mouth and the rest of her fingers are just splayed out over her face rather than in a fist.  She's also just starting to laugh.  She'd done it a couple of isolated times before today, but today she did it over and over again with Margo tonight.

 She had her first real trip last week, when we went to Chicago so that Margo could present at a conference sponsored by her agency.  I was so nervous about the air travel and staying in a hotel with a  baby, but she was amazing.  This in spite of having a terrible cold and fever for the first couple of days we were there.  She is so great at rolling with the punches, waking up somewhere different from where she went to sleep, and meeting new people.  She's so funny too, because when a new person holds her, she looks at Margo or I to make sure that it's okay, and if we smile at her, she's totally cool.  I don't know yet what she'd do if she didn't get that smile from one of us, but I suspect it wouldn't be pretty.

 We've also been going to story time at our local library on Friday mornings.  She's the youngest kid there by at least four months, but she loves watching the other kids and all of the games and songs.  One of her favorite things in the world is to be sung to by Margo or Grandma or me.  When she's fussy and nothing else will calm her down, singing to her almost always works.  We try to listen to a lot of music with her.

She's the coolest kid, and I'm so excited to see what she's got in store for us.  It's the most amazing thing in the world to have created this little person and watch her unfold into herself right in front of us.  I like to think that her happy, chill demeanor means that we're doing something right, although I think it's also just her natural temperament.

Sometimes Things Look Worse on Paper (or how my worst birth nightmare was actually an awesome experience)

You might have heard that I had a baby a couple of months ago (I can't believe it's already been a couple of months!!!!!!!!!!).  I've been meaning to write something about my pregnancy and birth experiences but just keep never getting around to it.  Looks like I'm finally getting around to it.

For many, many reason, our original plan was to have an out-of-hospital birth at our awesome midwife's office.  Among those reasons were my desire to avoid any unnecessary interventions and to avoid a Cesarean birth.  Things were going along swimmingly with that plan until I was seven months pregnant, when my midwife did a routine consultation with an OB at my HMO.  In spite of the fact that I did not have gestational diabetes or any other high risk conditions and my blood pressure had been awesome, my HMO decided that I was too high risk to have an out-of-hospital birth based solely on my BMI.  I was told that I would have to transfer to the care of an OB at my HMO and have the baby at their hospital.  After two visits with an absolutely terrible OB who clearly did not have any interest in anything I had to say, they decided that I was too high risk to give birth at their hospital, again solely because of my BMI.  The OB actually told me that the toilets might not be able to hold me!  Which is ridiculous.  I've never had a toilet collapse under me in any setting.  My HMO transferred my care to the university hospital here when I was 35 weeks pregnant.  35 weeks!  Essentially giving me 5 weeks to establish care with the people who would then be responsible for helping me give birth!

Ultimately, I was very pleased with the OB to whose care I happened to be assigned.  She was great and was largely unconcerned with my weight.  The monitoring that I received for the rest of my pregnancy was more intensive than I would have preferred, but I never felt that I was being pushed into something I wasn't comfortable with.

My due date was November 9, and that date came and went with no indication of labor.  Right before my due date, my OB and I discussed what to do if I went past my due date and how long she felt comfortable with me continuing past that date.  We agreed that if I had not gone into labor by November 20, I would be scheduled for an induction that day.

I started having relatively painful contractions at around 5AM on November 19.  Since I had an appointment scheduled that day anyway, we went to the hospital and I got checked out.  Since my contractions weren't progressing and I was only 2cm dilated, they sent me home.  My contractions continued to be painful and regular, but without increasing in frequency or intensity for the rest of the day.  That night, they started to increase somewhat in frequency and intensity, and neither Margo nor I got any sleep.  I was scheduled to go into the hospital for an induction at around noon on November 20.  When I checked into the hospital, my contractions were five minutes apart and I was already 5cm dilated.  They proceeded to give me pitocin as planned, although it was now considered augmentation rather than induction, as my labor had clearly already started and no longer needed to be induced.

We had put together a birth plan ahead of time, key elements of which included the desire to avoid the induction or augmentation of labor, the desire to avoid the use of pain medications or anesthesia, the desire not to have my membranes ruptured and the desire to birth my baby vaginally.  Each of the nurses that was assigned to us (we had four shifts of nurses over the course of my labor) had clearly read our birth plan and was extraordinarily supportive and advocated with the doctors on our behalf when necessary.  I labored until well after midnight, walking around the unit, getting in and out of the tub, dancing and having my head rubbed for hours.  I had been at 8-9cm for several hours when I allowed them to rupture my membranes in the hopes that that would help me dilate completely.

By around 5AM on November 21, I had finally dilated all the way to 10cm.  At 5:30AM, they let me start pushing.  I pushed for three hours in varying positions, including squatting.  Of note, the epidural rate in this hospital is more than 90%, so the nurses had to scramble to accommodate my mobility.  At one point, I was pushing while squatting next to the bed, and my fantastic nurse was under the bed, holding the fetal heart rate monitor in position on my belly while I pushed.  I got the baby far enough down the birth canal that the other people in the room could see hair when I was pushing.  After three hours of pushing, however, the baby was not moving any further down the birth canal and the baby's heart rate was starting to drop.  The doctors came in to talk to me and suggested that it might be time to consider a Cesarean birth.  After talking it over with Margo, my mom and my younger sister, we all agreed that a Cesarean birth was the best decision at that point.

The next 30 minutes were absolutely the worst part of the entire experience, as I was experiencing the literally irresistible urge to push but was being asked not to push.  It was so unbearable to be fighting my body's chemically enhanced and overwhelming urge while I waited for them to get the OR ready and all of the staff in place.  In the months leading up to giving birth, I stated numerous times that I could not imagine pain that would be bad enough for me to allow someone to stick a needle in my spinal column.  I have never been as physically happy as I was when they gave me the spinal anesthetic for the Cesarean and the urge to push disappeared.

I was so delirious from not having slept in two days and the narcotic in the spinal that I do not recall much of the Cesarean procedure.  The most bizarre part of that procedure was that, while I felt no pain, I could still feel pressure.  As a result, I could feel them cutting and pulling and moving my internal organs around while they got the baby out.  I could similarly feel them putting things back and stitching things up.  I think that, if I had not been delirious, it would have freaked me out more than I could tolerate.  So at 9:35AM on November 21, 2013, Adelaide Marie made a dramatic entrance into the world, weighing 9 pounds, 7 ounces and measuring 20.5 inches long.

While the bare facts of my labor and birth sound terrible (in labor for two days, pushed for three hours, then wound up having a c-section), and exactly what I would have told you was my worst nightmare beforehand, I actually had an amazing experience.  One of the questions that I had about myself before I gave birth was whether I was strong enough to endure labor, particularly without pain medication.  This was something that was both very important to me, and something I was very unsure about.  I answered that question, and I amazed myself with what my body was capable of doing, and with what I was capable of coping on very little sleep and food.  My mom told me later that she didn't know I had that in me, and to be frank, I didn't know I had it in me either.  I also got such incredible care from the labor and delivery nurses that were assigned to us.  They were unbelievably supportive, helpful, encouraging and protective of us.  Having worked professionally with some really terrible nurses, I had been really worried about how I would cope with possibly being assigned to a nurse that was not a good fit.  I needn't have worried.  In reality, we got such wonderful and affirming care from everyone at the hospital, and I felt very strongly that everyone who worked with us did everything in their power to help us have the birth experience that we wanted.  And ultimately, although the facts of the situation would lead you to believe otherwise, I had an amazing birth experience.  And we've got this amazing baby.  But more on that later...  I promise.

No, We're Not Finding Out the Baby's Sex and Why We Can't Find Out the Baby's Gender

My current pregnancy-related pet peeve is the unreasonable amount of investment that so many people, including complete strangers, seem to have in us (and by extension them) knowing the sex of our baby prior to its birth.  Now, I understand that in a world filled with gendered clothing and toys and other baby-related supplies, well-meaning loved ones want to know in part so that they can buy "correctly" gendered gifts for our unborn baby.  This is, in fact, one of the things that we are trying to avoid for as long as possible, and certainly don't want to start before birth.  We've even joked about not telling anyone the baby's sex or name following birth unless they change a diaper and find out that way.

There is evidence that knowing the sex of a baby changes the way that people interact with the baby and the language that they use when talking to and about the baby.  We want our baby to have the fullest range of experiences and opportunities.  We certainly don't want the limitations to start prior to birth.  As cute as all of those frilly pink dresses and blue bow ties are, we want our baby to have other options.

All of this brings me to the second part of this frustration: when people ask what the baby's gender is.  I know that they are really asking about the baby's biological sex, but the two are not the same thing.  Gender and sex are two different things.  It may be 2 or 10 or 25 years before we know the baby's gender.  It's certainly not something an ultrasound or any other medical tests can show.  The odds are pretty good that the baby's gender will be congruent with it's biological sex, but we can't and won't assume that to be the case.  And it's possible that our child's eventual gender expression may vary from both it's gender identity and it's biological sex.  Which makes our attempts to limit the gendered behavior toward and belongings of our child even more important.  Again, I emphasize our desire to provide our child with the fullest possible range of experiences and choices.

That being said, we still find ourselves making choices for our unborn child that are obviously gendered.  We have not chosen any unisex names, and the name we give our child will be totally dependent on the child's apparent biological sex at birth.  We have bought a number of baby clothes that could be considered pretty boyish which we will dress the baby in regardless of it's sex, but we have not bought any girly clothes with the same intentions.  It's interesting to consider our willingness to dress a female baby in "boy clothes" alongside our unwillingness to dress a male baby in "girl clothes", a relic of both internalized sexism and internalized homophobia/transphobia, I suspect.

I hope that we continue to be this thoughtful about gender norms after the baby is born, and as we continue in our parenting journey.

Edited to add the following addendum:
This post is in no way meant to be a reprimand to anyone we know or love.  We tend to give folks the benefit of the doubt.  This post is really meant as a commentary on the gender obsession and limitations of our society and a way of sparking some critical thought on the matter in general.

Amended a second time to add:
My issue is not really with people asking if we know the baby's sex.  My issues is with the amount of investment that other people appear to have in us finding out the baby's sex.  I have had complete strangers express dismay that we have chosen not to find out, not to mention the occasional friend or family expressing frustration that we have opted to keep the baby's sex a surprise.  I think it is a reasonable question to ask, and a way of expressing interest in someone's pregnancy, it is the varying levels of irritation, dismay, disappointment and frustration that people express when we tell them we are not finding out the baby's sex that I find frustrating.

So Many Changes

Since I last posted, so many things have changed in my life.  I got married twice (had an awesome wedding in August and then made it legal in January).  I quit my job at the VA and am working part-time in Auburn.  I got a haircut.  My baby sister moved to a goat farm in Everett.  We decided to have my mom move in with us this coming summer.  I've been trying to get pregnant, without success so far.  I've turned into a kombucha drinker and now a kombucha grower.  I'm obsessed with the food production system, which will likely be the topic of future blog posts.  We build awesome bookcases on one entire wall of our living room (I promise to post pictures at some time in the near future).  Margo and my mom built a window seat in our dining room.  Did I mention I'm working part-time now?  I'm reading so many books, all of which I want to tell you about.    So, it clearly hasn't been for lack of content that I haven't been blogging.  It's been largely due to lack of time, energy and motivation.  I'm hoping that is going to be less of an issue now that I'm working part-time.  I have more time to do so many of the other things I want to do now, but there's still more I want to do than I have time to do in a day.  I'm setting a goal of blogging at least once a week.  I know my mom will do her best to hold me to it.  :o)

My prolonged absence

It's entirely possible that no one is reading this anymore.  Who could blame you?  There's been a lot going on in my life since my last post, some of which I have been torn about whether to blog about, so rather than make a decision, I've just been avoiding my blog.  Further evidence that indecision is, in fact, a decision.

So, what's been going on?  Well, we got excited about the marriage equality bill being signed into law in Washington and decided to get married in August.  Then we learned that the actual implementation of marriage equality was likely going to be delayed until after the fine citizens of the great state of Washington have an opportunity to vote on the issue.  But we decided to have a wedding anyway, because we deserve to have a celebration of our relationship and our commitment to each other regardless of the legal status of our relationship.  So there's been a lot of wedding planning going on.  Which is both fun and stressful, but definitely time and energy consuming.

Choir also took up way more time than I had anticipated.  It was a wonderful experience, but I'm also glad to have a summer break from rehearsals.  I'm likely going to be re-joining them again in the fall, and am looking forward to that.  We're going to be doing our concert with Cris Williamson, and the focus of the program will be on equality for women.

The other big time, energy and emotion-consuming change that's going on in our lives is that I am trying to get pregnant.  This is what I've really debated about blogging about at all, but have decided that it is important for me to have an outlet to talk about some of the issues that are coming up for me around this.  Trying to get pregnant sounds like great fun, but in reality it's quite stressful.  Far more stressful than I ever anticipated.  This is one goal I'm extremely stressed about accomplishing.

Another goal that I've accomplished is going to check out the Unitarian Universalist congregation in my town.  I went over the Memorial Day weekend, and it was lovely.  Apparently the tradition at this church is to talk about a famous Unitarian Universalist on Memorial Day weekend, and the minister talked about Rod Serling.  I learned a lot, and have a renewed interest in watching the old Twilight Zone series.

So that's what's up in my life.  There will likely be more updates to follow.

Choir Update and Other Miscellaneous Things

So, I have a choir audition for the Seattle Peace Chorus in two days!  It's mostly a formality (probably to help filter out the truly terrible), but I'm still a little nervous about it.  Singing a song for the audition is optional, and I'm still debating about whether to do that or not.  Then, rehearsals start on Monday!  The only drawback, really, is that rehearsals are from 7:00-9:30PM on Monday nights.  You may or may not know this, but I've turned into the sort of person who is typically in bed by 9:00 on weekday nights.  Not necessarily asleep by 9:00, but definitely in bed.  In addition, the rehearsal site is a good 30+ minute drive from where we live.  So it's going to be a challenging adjustment, but I think it will be well worth it in the long run.  I'll keep you posted.

I've also been wanting to write a post about some chemical-free cleansing routines I've been trying.  I read about folks stopping shampoo use entirely several years ago.  If you want more information about the how and the why, you might check this out.  The premise is that shampoo is a detergent that contains all kinds of scary chemicals and encourages your hair to produce more oil by stripping the natural oils from your hair, thereby solidifying your dependence on the shampoo.  A lot of folks have stopped using shampoo and just use a little baking soda and water to clean their hair, and a little apple cider vinegar and water to condition it.  I tried this for a solid two months.  Unfortunately, my hair never really slowed down the oil production and I just couldn't stand it anymore.  I'm not using shampoo, though.  I'm using liquid castile soap, which is an olive oil based soap that is much gentler than any shampoo, and I only use it every 2-3 days.  My hair is still a little oilier than it was when I shampooed more frequently, but not enough to send me back.  Ultimately, I still feel better about using something that's a little gentler on my body and the water supply.

My new skin care routine, however, is glorious.  Funnily enough, my little sister saw that I had pinned it, and started using it long before I did.  The routine that we are using is the oil cleansing method.  Essentially, the idea is that oil is much better at cleansing your skin (oil dissolves oil) without stripping it of its natural oils than any other cleanser is.  In addition, you can use your cleanser as a moisturizer, if you find your skin needs it.  Essentially, you massage an oil blend into your face for several minutes, then wet a wash cloth with the hottest water you can stand and hold it over your face until it reaches room temperature.  Then you repeat the wash cloth step once more, and at the end, wipe off any remaining oil.  Sounds totally counter-intuitive to everything that we've been taught about skin care, but it's amazing.  Truly, my skin has never felt better.  I've also had fewer breakouts, and the breakouts I have had are much shorter in duration.  In addition, my skin is so soft and none of it is dry.  It's been totally revolutionary.  I'm using a mix of organic extra virgin olive oil, tea tree oil, emu oil and castor oil.  In addition to the skin benefits, it's also a really lovely and relaxing routine at the end of every day.

These are all changes that I've made relatively recently that I'm really pleased about.  Maybe they'll inspire you to try something new as well.  Hope you're having a happy new year.

Musings on Music

I've had a couple of musical experiences recently that have really heightened my desire to join a choir, which is one of my 101 goals.

On December 16, Margo and I went to see the Northwest Boychoir perform at a church in West Seattle.  It was unbelievable.  Words cannot really express what a powerful experience ti was for me.  I even cried a little bit.  One of the coolest things about their annual Christmas season show (A Festival of Lessons & Carols) is that the audience has multiple opportunities to sing during the performance.  This was particularly glorious because we were singing with the amazing choir AND we were singing in a church with fantastic acoustics.

Watching that choir perform, and being able to sing with them intermittently during their performance, really heightened my awareness of how much I am missing singing in my life.  I was in choir from 4th grade to 12th grade(edited from the previously incorrect 4th grade to 12th grade), and my family also led church music on a regular basis all through my high school years.  I also helped my friend Jenny lead the music at her church's vacation bible school every summer.  I didn't join choir in college because it was too many days per week and I really did not like the choir director.  It's been years since I was singing with any regularity, and I miss it so very, very much.

The other experience this month that also contributed to my awareness of this hole in my life was singing at my mom's church for Christmas Eve mass.  My mom goes to the most amazing Catholic church in Spokane.  If that church were here, I would be there every week, in spite of all of my issues with the Catholic church and my own spiritual uncertainty.  My mother and my younger brother and my sisters and my sister-in-law and I worked on a three-part version of O Holy Night that we sang together at church prior to the start of Mass.  In addition, the church choir director was gracious enough to allow me to attend rehearsal before mass and sing with the church choir for Christmas Eve mass.  It was really wonderful to be singing and to be a part of that.

This all adds up to my realization that not singing regularly has been a neglect, an abandonment, of an important part of myself.  In many ways, I think I have been able to access my spiritual side most easily through music.  Regardless of what I do or do not believe, singing connects me to something greater than myself, and provides me with a kind of joy that nothing else can quite replace.

So the hunt for a choir to join is on.  One of the challenges is that there are just so many community choirs in Seattle.  I'm also intimidated by having to audition, after being out of practice for so long.  Fortunately, singing for Christmas Eve mass helped to remind me that I am still capable of sight reading and picking up a part pretty quickly.  After having just sung for church or school before, I have also been surprised by the costs associated with joining a community choir.  I will be sure to keep you all posted, however.

Hope you all had a happy holiday season and are anticipating a joyous new year.