So good at this.

I pulled up the dashboard of this blog and saw that I had an unpublished post titled "This is not going well" -- I'll say.  So I hit publish.  And now I write a little more, because writing makes me feel better, sometimes.

It's been a rough week.  I went back to work this week, and that in itself was fine but it still amps up the ambient stress of my life considerably.  I still feel very disoriented by playing trucks all morning, then dashing to campus to be Professor Me, then hurrying back home to feed and care for fractious little ones again.  I know that it'll get better and I'll get used to it again, but right now I feel very out of kilter.

Pip has been sick.  Nothing serious.  Just enough to make him contrary and stubborn.  Fred is getting better at sleeping all night (well, he gets up to eat.  But he goes to bed reasonably well and what more can I ask really).  But he fights naps with all his strength and will basically only sleep soundly if the house is quiet and I"m rocking him and holding in his binkie.  Obviously morning naps are therefore all but impossible and I spend the entirety of Pip's nap trying desperately to get my baby to sleep enough to compensate for his inappropriate wakefulness the rest of the time.  Oh a tired baby is super fun by the way.   I loooooooove the constant screaming.  Love it.  Every instant of my day is spent in meeting other people's needs.  I don't even shower alone a lot of the time.  I certainly wouldn't dream of peeing alone and if I do I pay for it in destruction.  And yet despite how relentlessly I'm trying to care for my kids, I constantly feel like a failure.  If I'm caring for Pip I'm ignoring Fred's screams.  If I'm caring for Fred then Pip is awfully sad I'm not reading and playing and doing what he needs.  Its a fun game of constant failure.  Meanwhile the house deteriorates to the point of unliveability and we subsist on hot dogs and cereal.

On top of that my D-MER/PPD is just killing me.  A big part of it I'm sure is that I'm unable to do all the self care that would make things better.  See previous paragraph.  I'm doing what I can.  I take my medication.  I go outside everyday.  I walk several miles every day but it still doesn't feel like enough exercise to really cheer me up.

This morning I woke up depressed.  I just couldn't believe it was all starting again and it would be another twelve hours before I had any hope of real relief. Its hard having to leap into action the minute you wake up.  First I feed Fred.  Then I get Pip up who is usually clamoring.  Then I change diapers and get kids dressed and pump milk for the freezer and try to get me dressed too, and then I get Pip breakfast and Fred is starting to get mad I haven't gotten him and oh by the way his morning diarrhea has manifested itself right on time.  Feeding Fred and pumping triggers D-MER and suddenly I'm crushed by feelings of sadness and suicidal ideation.  It goes away when I'm done pumping, but I'm totally drained.  Meanwhile Pip does the usual kiddo thing -- using his spoon as a weapon, fiddling in the  dishwasher, throwing cars.

Fred is now full on screaming to be held.  So I put him in the frontie pack and he's mellow enough that I can do other things, except doing the things with an extra 15 pounds strapped to your chest is awfully difficult.  Pip messes up the dishwasher one to many times and I yell at him and scare both my children.  Now Fred is screaming inconsolably again and I start sobbing because I'm a bad mother and my house is a mess and I can't face it all anymore.  Pip keeps saying "mama sad? mama sad?" but I can't stop crying and I don't know what to do.

My MIL is out of state.  I try calling mom but no answer -- she must be out of the house.  I keep getting the thought "call Amber.  Call Amber."  But it is very hard to call someone and admit that you can't handle what everyone else seems to handle.  Its hard to say "drop everything in your life and come help me survive mine."  But I did.  And she came immediately.  She played with my kids for over an hour so I could just clean my house without being pestered and hassled.  It is amazing what you can do with two free arms.  My house is all clean.  Well, as clean as it needs to be for my peace of mind.  My children got the attention they desperately wanted from someone who wasn't sick of it all.  So thank you Amber.  For meaning it when you said "if you need anything just call."

I packed up my crew to take on the first rain walk of fall.  Pip loved the new yellow boots I bought him and splashed happily in the puddles.  We walked with my mom to the bakery and I bought us all treats.  Pip played in the wet park and sat on the dinosaur that has been there since my childhood.  We came home and Pip announced he wanted a nap and a "time out" (I had to give myself a time out earlier this week and he's been very interested in the idea that you can just declare you need solo time and shut the door.)  So I snuggled him up in his bed for his self imposed me time.

Now Fred is screaming and I must away.  I can do this.  But not without my village.

This is not going well

I really need future me to do a quick "It gets better" PSA for myself.  I know that it will get better, and fairly quickly.  But right now things are not great.  I wake up in the morning and feel completely depressed and unable to face the day.  If my children are awake but not screaming I ignore them until they are actually distressed.  It isn't that long of course -- Fred usually puts in an order for breakfast pretty insistently.  I take my medication and tell myself that suddenly I'll be doing fabulously well.

Every time I feed Fred I feel awful.  Sometimes its just fairly blue and other times it is so bad I can barely function.  I feel like a failure, like I'm an awful mother.  I don't want to feed him and feel cross that he wants to eat.  Sometimes I think about throwing myself down the stairs.  I have to remind myself that my children actually really like me and would be quite sad if I disappeared.  But sometimes I feel like I"m just everyone's meal ticket and maid and errand runner and not a person at all.

I hate having to hitch my happy face on.  It's exhausting.  Sometimes people who know I've been struggling ask if I'm doing better.  Nope.  I'm just trying to go through the motions as enthusiastically and authentically as I can manage.  I'm glad I'm pulling it off so convincingly.

I feel guilty that I didn't have this problem with Patrick in the same degree, even though none of it is my fault nor is it a reflection of feelings for one child or the other.

I often cry at the end of the day because Fred demands attention until after nine, at which point I"m so exhausted I get straight in bed.  Sometimes my little treat is when I wake up in the night and know I still get a few more hours (after feeding) to myself in my own bed with nobody touching me or talking to me or needing me to do stuff.

I am happy for parts of every day, and I am a good mom.  Patrick and I have been playing an awesome new game on my bed (allowing me to lie around as I want to) in which his playmobils colonize my pillows.  I help to make them houses out of bedding and they go in and take naps, and sometimes come out to play tag or hike mommy mountain or engage in other fun playmobil activities.  I bought Pip a balloon that has provided hours of family fun.  I bought hot dogs and so P has had is all time favorite meal (hot dogs and grapes) two nights in a row.  Is it because I can barely function? Maybe.  But he's also thrilled to pieces and that feels good.  Previously I think he thought you could only get hot dogs at the Costco kiosk -- a fancy dining experience.  But no! You can have them at home too!!!  Living the good life.

I'm also good to Fred.  Much as I hate breastfeeding I am chunking that boy up.  He weighed in at 13 pounds which is fairly hefty for a two month old.  I make sure he gets a nice clean fuzzy sleep sack to sleep in.  I let him stay up watching Grantchester with me (okay actually I have to stay up soothing his shrieking)

Because, it turns out, I matter too

Or, why I'm not going to have a large family

Well, I do have a large family in the sense that my babies are hefty.  Phred was 9 lbs 5 oz which is no pixie.  But I'm not going to keep doing this.

I hardly need to hash out why I wouldn't relish another pregnancy -- anyone who knows me or reads this should be well aware that I view pregnancy as some kind of prolonged torture, all the more so because of the pressure to "love" or "treasure" it. What else are we supposed to cherish? Having a newborn because it goes so fast and these moments are so precious etc.

Well, I don't.  I love my baby.  I love his soft fuzzy little head and his snuggles and his weird facial expressions.  But I think about future milestones with glee I don't bother to conceal.  My body has apparently signed up for the "weird and rare and miserable" version of bringing children into this world.  First I vomit for nine months straight.  Now (as I did with P) I have D-MER -- Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex.  In more simple terms, producing milk feels emotionally horrible.  I'll leave it to the scienticians to explain the whys and hows, but basically milk letdown is triggered by various hormones swimming around my body.  I experience this horrible wave of depression and sadness that comes out of nowhere.  It subsides, and a few seconds later I can feel milk letdown.

So imagine that many times a day you're living your life (boiling water, combing your hair, having a conversation) and suddenly you feel like you could never be happy again.  The feeling lasts for maybe 30 seconds, and then it goes away just as suddenly.  Then your nipples start stinging.  A few minutes later your baby starts screaming.  It's like the world's worst alarm clock reminding you to feed your child, as if the crying weren't going to tip you off.  Also if you forgot to put in absorbent pads, now your underwear is soaked with sticky milk that will smell terrible tomorrow.  Wheeee!!!!

Perhaps you're thinking "30 seconds -- that's not so bad!" Well, neither is breastfeeding if you're imagining it in complete isolation.  What's twenty minutes in an arm chair? Why the complaining?  Oh, it happens every two hours around the clock for the foreseeable future? You never get a day or even an afternoon (much less a night) off? This is just what your life is going to be for the next year? Cool.  My baby is almost a month old.  Or, one might say, eleven months away from drinking cow milk and me closing up shop, not that anyone is counting.

So yeah, I'm cherishing ever single precious instant of all of this.  Or maybe, just maybe, it's okay not to pretend to love the reproductive aspect of womanhood.  I actually think that I have intrinsic value and that my experience and happiness matters too.  If formula feeding weren't expensive and an even bigger hassle, I'd be there.  In Oregon that is basically like admitting you are willing to feed your children bleach but what can I say, I'm an unnatural and vicious woman.  In the mean time I'm treating my body to what it likes best to make up for the many cruelties children inflict.  I go for long walks with the stroller and put in my earbuds and pretend I'm alone. I periodically say "mmmhmm" in response to my toddler's chatter but mostly I listen to the vulgar swearing and gore of "My Favorite Murder."  I ate most of a batch of cookies this weekend.  I do fragments of workout videos before my children interrupt me because I like how lifting weights makes me feel.  I took a nap today and it was amazingly wonderful.  And I am counting the months until my body is my own again.  I don't really care if it's floppy and scarred and limp in some places and rotund in others.  I'm just looking forward to having it to myself.  I'm going to buy a brand new dress because I won't have to provide access to my chest every few hours.  It's going to be dope.

Birth Plan

At 37 weeks I have officially reached the generalized arrival zone for Moppet #2.  I asked my Dr. for a "definitely done by" date and so this baby will be evicted no later than July 11th, which is less than a month away.  My life as a mobile home is almost over.

Preparing for a baby is an endless list of nitpicky little chores, most of which do not really matter but which somehow seem terribly urgent all the same.  I mean I haven't hung the curtains in the nursery yet, so my baby will probably refuse to spend the night here as a matter of principle.  One of the things I keep putting off is writing a birth plan.  I always wonder just how useful this actually is.  The mommy community acts like this is as important as having insurance and significantly more important than having a crib.  Do medical professionals just read them and laugh? I think I would, especially having seen drafts of them on mommy message threads.

So much about birth and caring for a new baby seems to bring out maternal hubris.  Ooooh I have this plan for how my birth is going to be and it will be wonderful and spiritual and meaningful.  Okay, maybe.  Or maybe your body will writhe in animalistic pain beyond your control and it will all be super gross and kind of awful and either way you get a baby.  Making a plan for something that immediately gets out of hand seems kind of futile to me.  Nevertheless I have bowed to the pressure of my pregnancy app which relentlessly nags about this and written my birth plan.  It has two essential points, which are exactly what I asserted last time with P.

1.  I want an epidural and I want it yesterday
2.  If/when I poop while delivering I want you to lie to my face and say I didn't if I ask.  I don't care how natural or common or unremarkable it is to the L&D team.  Have I pooped in front of strangers? Yes, of course I have, anyone who knows my (former) blog knows that! But I do think there is a big difference between having diarrhea in close proximity to a homeless woman and doing so directly in someone's face.

Maybe just for the thrill of it I should think about my alternative, ideal-situation birth plan.  Here are some elements of that.

1. I'd like to opt out of being the one to give birth at all, actually.  Can Chris and I take turns on this?
2. I would like the room to be set up like a Bachelorette Fantasy Suite -- this means a trail of rose petals, candles everywhere and prurient camera men taking lingering shots of the empty bed.
3. The L&D unit is several floors up.  Any chance of an air show going on we could watch while we wait? Maybe some trained birds, stunt planes and fireworks?
4.  While they're rummaging around my innards could the team also suck out some of the extra plumpness I've acquired? Might as well.
5.  I will, of course, be wearing a hospital gown I brought myself.  The emphasis here is on gown.  Plan on sequins and jewels, and maybe twinkle lights.
6.  I ask that the amniotic fluid be saved and bottled so that I can force my loved ones to toast to my baby with it.  This is part of my belief system.
7.  I demand that everyone keep the baby's sex a secret.  We are planning an elaborate gender reveal party for his/her 14th birthday.

I'm open to further suggestions of course.

Easter. Am I doing this right?

Every year I have noble intentions of really making something special and spiritual out of Easter week.  I basically always fall short.  I was thinking about it this week as I saw friends posting about their meaningful devotionals while I read the world's most boring book about trucks for the 17th time today.  Pip is sick and it's been a bit of a weekend.  And I still barf more days than not it seems.  So we're just kind of slumping along.  As I thought about it though, I think our family is doing a good job of focusing on the message of selfless love, which is really what Easter is all about.  Here are some of the gifts of love from Palmerville.

• I spend time cooking meals for my family even though I end up vomiting them
• Pip let me go for a walk and happily ate crackers without a murmur yesterday.  It's a big deal for me to walk without a tantrum.  Thanks buddy.
• I took Pip for his bath on Friday even though he basically always poops the tub, which means I start vomiting, and I hate it.  But Chris always does it and I gave him a break. Because I love him.
• When Pip pooped the tub I scooped it out.  It takes love to pick up feces.  I got poop under a fingernail.
• So then I started violently gagging.  Chris immediately tore up the stairs hearing what was going on.  That's love.  He finished the job, sterilized the tub, diapered Pip and kept him busy so I could vomit in peace.
• Most of the time Chris gives Pip his bath, and cleans the poop without comment or complaint so I don't have to.  That's love.
• Last night I got up several times to rock a screaming child back to sleep even though I was, in fact, rather tired myself.  That's love.
• This morning Chris remarked that Pip seemed to go back to sleep quickly -- he heard the crying, heard it go quiet, and didn't realize that a certain someone spent an extra fifteen minutes rocking a gloppy child to make that happen.  So that's my love for Chris right there.
• I let Pip nap on me even though my belly is huge and it's not at all comfortable to have a thirty pound snot machine added to the child I already have to haul around to my lap, and nap time is precious me time which I did not get thanks to being a mattress.  But I love him and he needed rest and comfort.
• Chris brought me cookies home from work and has not touched them.  Just for me.  He made a trip to the store to buy sherbet for Pip (at my suggestion, so really for me) -- it has medicinal purposes.  Long day at work, still caring for his family's health.
• Chris let me be the one who went to church and interacted with adults leaving him with the child who said "Mama" at one minute intervals for two hours.
• I came home for the last hour so he could go be an adult.  I dealt with the child who sprawled in only his diaper on the laundry room floor crying piteously for Daddy while he was gone.  Love is always getting to feel like the unwanted parent because you're the one home at the moment.
• Pip begged to go for a walk even though he's clearly too sick to do anything physical.  So I got us all suited up.  Chris put Pip in his boots.  I got out the stroller for when Pip inevitably would lie down on the sidewalk and refuse to move.  All that production.  We made it as far as the mailbox when he declared the walk to be over.  But we do this kind of thing for those we love.
• I've spent a lot more time being consistent about praying to be patient and to be a loving and pleasant parent.  And I sort of think it's working.  Praying for other people is a good way to show selfless love.
• Chris took Pip upstairs so I could make a smoothie without someone whining at me because I felt too sick to eat a proper dinner and only wanted foods that are reasonably pleasant to vomit (yes, I think that way and yes smoothies are about your best bet).
• Chris and I have both spoon-fed our son who apparently feels that lifting food is beyond him in his current extremity.  I cooked Pip a special lunch that he refused to eat.  Chris made him a special dinner that he would only eat with a personal assistant.

So I'm kind of botching religious Easter in a lot of ways.  So far I haven't thought of a good devotional or craft.  I haven't played the right music or read the right scriptures or planned good activities.  I just can't.  I've bought a few jellybeans.  Easter isn't about bunnies.  But it also isn't about devotionals.  Devotionals and object lessons are a means to an end, but they are not the end in itself.  The point is to try to love other people, to draw closer to God, to seek forgiveness, to forgive others, and to try to become like Christ.  Our family's way of doing that seems to involve a lot of faulty sphincters and bodily functions, but we're drawing closer to Christ in our revolting way.

Maybe next year we can do it without all the pooping and vomiting.

Birth Vlogs

I once had the marvelous honor of being my best friend's vaginal cinematographer.  She had asked me to come to the hospital when she had her baby, but warned me that they had strict rules about how many people could be in the room.  I said I'd be happy to sit in the waiting room and just be distantly supportive if that was what she wanted.  She offered to lie and say I was her doula.  As I had no prior experience with child birth in any respect, this seemed to be a stretch (though stretching is part of the doula's métier).  So I packed myself a satchel of books and prepared to enjoy the delights of a hospital waiting room.  To my surprise, I was allowed in the room, an eventuality for which I was not prepared.  My friend had had her epidural and was napping.  I sat in a corner feeling useless yet desiring to be supportive.  Then suddenly it was time to push.  The lights were dim.  My friend said "get the camcorder out of my bag!" I assumed she was kidding.  She was not.  The other non-hospital people present were her husband (useful for encouragement), Bianca (useful for at that point moderate levels of medical knowledge and support) and me (useful, apparently, as a key grip).

I did my best.  We had not discussed this in advance, but do you say no to a friend in need? Also I had never really worked a video recording device before.  I wasn't sure what footage she was hoping for so I did my best to balance tasteful shots of her perineum (is there such a thing?) and views of her beatifically miserable face, while not getting in the way of people who actually needed to accomplish medical things.  My unexpected vantage gave me a front row seat (so to speak) to the miracle of life, and the no less miraculous but much grosser placenta.

The crowning glory of my film career was that in the dark and unfamiliar with the device, I had not actually recorded anything.  I had just stared with uncomfortable fixity at an acreage with which I was not familiar.  It brought us closer as friends, and I have certainly offered to return the favor via FaceTime or Skype.  I am sorry I didn't get the video she wanted, though possibly my footage wasn't what she would have wanted in any case.

This experience has returned to me in the last few weeks as I've found myself watching a new (to me) genre called "birth vlogs."  Apparently cute couples make money by making video diaries of their lives and as with all reality shows, childbirth makes for a blockbuster episode.  I've been watching them to try to get in the mood for parturition.  I figure if I remember feeling excited or weepy or seeing what a newborn looks like this will be helpful to me in an unspecifiable way.  The vlogs differ from my career behind the camera in at least two ways -- there is actual film footage of the event, and the camera is always angled in a tasteful and discreet way to maximize action without revealing from whence the baby emerges.

The thing is, these videos also differ significantly from what I remember childbirth being like.  At the most, these women seem to experience mild discomfort, then they get the epidural and everything is sunshine and rainbows and sometimes they nap and then there's a baby.  I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.  I remember being clenched in pain so bad I couldn't speak, move or effectively communicate in any way except intermittent gasps or gestures before the epidural.  I remember contractions being essentially relentless, coming on top of each other so the possibility of having a cheerful one on one interview with a camera was non-existent.

I remember getting the epidural, but I also remember it not working entirely, and maybe that is why the idea of napping or smiling or talking seems so foreign.  At first it only worked on half my body so the nurses tried to get me on my side so it would drip in that direction. Or something.  I just remember being in too much pain to roll and needing a prying paddle.  I remember round 2 of the epidural working a bit more, but leaving a "hole" the size of a dessert plate where I could still feel everything.  And I remember sitting there trying to survive each contraction that the dessert-plate-hole-from-hell was inflicting on my body.  This does not match with what I've seen on vlogs.  Maybe I looked dainty and sweet and only mildly discomfited by the whole business and that can be my comfort.

A glimpse into our utopia

Motherhood is endlessly fulfilling, as any mom could tell you.  It's also easy to be a nice human being while raising live young and performing basic household tasks! Ha ha ha.  Here's a glimpse into our little piece of heaven on earth.

I have had piles of laundry sitting on the couch and in hampers for several days.  Portions of at least five loads lingered around.  I had sorted and folded into tidy little piles two or three loads, but these had gotten shoved to the end of the couch to make space for sitting and playing and so they were essentially back in their natural state of chaos.  There is little point in trying to fold laundry while Pip is on patrol as he feels strongly about his role as hamper trampler and clothes unsorter.   Of course I could use his nap time but it turns out nap time needed the following activities as well:

• Call insurance to disagree with their decision not to pay for a test my doctor ordered (of course time on hold)
• Call doctor's office to ask for their assistance, transfer to billing and repeat request
• Answer work emails and provide feedback to students preparing to turn in a paper tomorrow
• Exercise on ye olde treadmill
• Lift weights
• Work on a paper cutting (yes I am going to enjoy a hobby for once!)

Sooooo nap time is pretty heavily scheduled.  That left evening when P would plausibly be entertained by his father.  Hahahaha.  Not if Pip hears the clarion call of cloth being folded.  He knows his duty.  After crossly steering him out of the hamper more than once and making several trips up the stairs I finally got the last of it prepped for put away.  First I needed to put the clean sheets back on my bed.  Obviously I'd need a toddler to get on that bed to help the process.  Then I'd need a toddler to repeatedly try to touch a very hot light bulb while I put away my socks -- ultimately resulting in me putting away laundry in the dark because some people cannot be deterred.

As you might imagine, I was in a super duper good mood about my progeny by that point.  I had to pee.  The bathroom door is currently not latching (of course).  So as I try to have 30 seconds to do what must be done, a toddler barges in cackling like a maniac.  He heads straight for the walk in shower, which is still soaking wet from earlier.  Is he in his footie pajamas? Yes he is.  So I lunged off the toilet and grabbed the boy by the scruff of the pajamas and shoved him out the door, cooing in my best motherly dovelike tones "LEAVE ME ALONE DAMMIT!"  Then I sat on the seat abruptly at a weird angle and broke it, and had to hold the door shut with one hand.  Oh and I had pee dripping down my leg so that had to get cleaned and my pajamas changed.  My son was screaming and sobbing in vexation at being excluded from mama's company.  It's moments like this that make me hope to be featured in the Ensign mother's day issue.

After we'd both had some time to recover from the intensity of our mother-son bonding, we snuggled down for stories.   I gathered a large stack of books as a peace offering and read them all while he nestled close.  It was very sweet and lovely.  I read him Caps For Sale twice, because he is very good at doing the monkey part, wagging his finger tauntingly and saying "Tzt tzt tzt!"  When we were done he called for family hug, our little pre-bed ritual of sandwiching together for kisses and good night.  He's learning how to say "I love you."  I tucked him in to bed and gave Bunny and Piddit (Piglet) each a kiss, we said prayers and I turned out the light.  I love him a lot, and he's a great kid, and I love being a mom.

And I put duct tape on the toilet seat because when I sat on it again it pinched my inner thigh and I uttered an obscene word.  I guess on Wednesday we go on a field trip to Jerry's.  I'm really working on not swearing and I feel like I'm getting better, but I also feel like opportunities keep presenting themselves really persuasively.