Sam is a good baby. I find myself saying that all the time. "Oh, what a good baby you are," kiss, kiss, kiss. "Yes, he's a very good baby," I say to strangers when they ask.
But what does that mean? "Good" baby as opposed to what, rotten-to-the-core baby? I've only seen one depiction of a truly hateful infant, and that was fiction.
And yet there is this sense of a fundamental goodness in him. He's so content, generally, so quick to smile, so delighted by the Mexican tin hearts on the wall, or the skylight above our bed, or any random person talking to him. He's so quick with a giggle, and the noises, the noises! The delicious little squeaks and bleats and hiccups he makes in response to us.
But it's foolish to equate goodness with compliance. Hard to believe it, but he will defy me one of these days, and get angry and tantrum. I just hope I'll be as quick to defend and promote his fundamental nature. That's what unconditional love is all about, right?
______________________________________
For the records: He has been pushing himself up into a sort of Cobra pose for a couple of weeks now, but he has just started to try to also push his butt up off the floor in a sort of pre-crawling lift-off. Everyone reminds us that we'll be well and truly screwed once he starts moving around. Thanks, everyone. We haven't childproofed a single cabinet yet.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Bah lovebug
Sam tried apples for the first time today. A big hit. But from the look on his face, he would have preferred the pizza I was eating. Good boy.
His vocabulary has two primary words: "bah-bah" and "muh-muh." From what I can tell, "bah-bah" has two meanings. The first is, "I'm the king of the world!" He says it when he's pleased with himself, like after taking a nice long swig off the boob. The second meaning is more observational. Something like, "It's all goooood," except, you know, thank God he doesn't say that because it's so dorky. But he'll kind of sigh and look around the room all mellow and say "Bah-bah-bah," and it's like everything's in it's place.
"Muh-muh," also sometimes "Ma-ma" or "Mmmmmmm," is a distress call. It means either, "I'm hungry," or "I'm tired," or "This sucks." A couple of times, I've half-thought he really was calling to me specifically, over Adam, when he used it, but I can't see how that would really be true.
His vocabulary has two primary words: "bah-bah" and "muh-muh." From what I can tell, "bah-bah" has two meanings. The first is, "I'm the king of the world!" He says it when he's pleased with himself, like after taking a nice long swig off the boob. The second meaning is more observational. Something like, "It's all goooood," except, you know, thank God he doesn't say that because it's so dorky. But he'll kind of sigh and look around the room all mellow and say "Bah-bah-bah," and it's like everything's in it's place.
"Muh-muh," also sometimes "Ma-ma" or "Mmmmmmm," is a distress call. It means either, "I'm hungry," or "I'm tired," or "This sucks." A couple of times, I've half-thought he really was calling to me specifically, over Adam, when he used it, but I can't see how that would really be true.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Beyond the sea
We took a big family trip this past week--a cruise out of Florida, down to Belize and up the Mexican coast. It was awful and wonderful in the way that all cruises are.
Awful: terrible food in huge quantities, too many bodies in one space, too much flash and forced cheer, the first world/second/third world mash-up, the Tanzanite and Gold By The Inch and Diamonds International orgy. Sam's gradually degraded sleep habits.
Wonderful: Sam surrounded by three doting grandparents, three aunts, an uncle, and two cousins. Waking up every morning and saying, "Hey! Where are we today?" No one having to cook or do the dishes, your whole world narrowed down to one boat, giving up control and learning to drift. Sunshine.
It cured me of the pressing anxiety/depression that had settled in over the past few weeks. Was it just stress? Time to buy a light box? I don't know yet. I had a phone appointment with my old therapist before we left. She said, "I'm not surprised you're feeling this way. I knew your perfectionism was going to kick you in the ass."
So I have some thinking to do. I'm confident that I had a hand in making myself miserable this past month. I live in fear of dropping the ball, and there's just no slack in the system. If work is intense, I can't let it eat into my time with Sam. If Sam isn't sleeping, I can't let it show at work. It's a terrific act to try to pull this off. A great way to keep the psychotherapy economy afloat. So what gives?
No answer yet, but I do know one thing: Sam's a pretty good traveler. He was great on the flights, cheerful on the boat. It wore on him eventually, being so far outside his routine, and the last couple of bedtimes had both of us in tears. But we're back now and he just went to sleep with barely a whimper.
Awful: terrible food in huge quantities, too many bodies in one space, too much flash and forced cheer, the first world/second/third world mash-up, the Tanzanite and Gold By The Inch and Diamonds International orgy. Sam's gradually degraded sleep habits.
Wonderful: Sam surrounded by three doting grandparents, three aunts, an uncle, and two cousins. Waking up every morning and saying, "Hey! Where are we today?" No one having to cook or do the dishes, your whole world narrowed down to one boat, giving up control and learning to drift. Sunshine.
It cured me of the pressing anxiety/depression that had settled in over the past few weeks. Was it just stress? Time to buy a light box? I don't know yet. I had a phone appointment with my old therapist before we left. She said, "I'm not surprised you're feeling this way. I knew your perfectionism was going to kick you in the ass."
So I have some thinking to do. I'm confident that I had a hand in making myself miserable this past month. I live in fear of dropping the ball, and there's just no slack in the system. If work is intense, I can't let it eat into my time with Sam. If Sam isn't sleeping, I can't let it show at work. It's a terrific act to try to pull this off. A great way to keep the psychotherapy economy afloat. So what gives?
No answer yet, but I do know one thing: Sam's a pretty good traveler. He was great on the flights, cheerful on the boat. It wore on him eventually, being so far outside his routine, and the last couple of bedtimes had both of us in tears. But we're back now and he just went to sleep with barely a whimper.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Coming back
I don't fully know why I stopped writing here. I think it's that my best coping mechanism throughout the pregnancy was to stay in the here-and-now and not think about whether or not there really would be a baby at the end of it. And chronicling everything on this blog felt like tempting fate. I just wanted to stay under the radar, let the time pass, and hope that I wouldn't attract any bad luck.
This worked surprisingly well. Not talking about my pregnancy with too many people, and not thinking too far ahead, kept me relaxed and happy in a way that I wouldn't have thought possible. But once I'd start getting ahead of myself ---like the time in late December when Adam's mom hounded us about decorating the baby's room, and, by the way, could she be in the room when I gave birth?---I'd shut down.
But really, most days, I'd joke that I wanted to bottle whatever hormonal blend I was brewing. Even better, once we got past the Down Syndrome scare, Sam aced all further tests and ultrasounds.
It was a beautiful pregnancy. I am so profoundly grateful to have been able to experience it.
And the birth---while somewhat dampened by the fancy teaching hospital's CYA approach to obstetrical care, which included unnecessary IV antibiotics for Sam and me for 48 hours ---was a good one.
So that's what we got. Healthy baby, healthy mother. Go figure.
What we didn't get, though, was the full storybook ending---a natural and easy slide into maternal bliss. Having Sam cured a lot of things, but not everything. I did not glide into motherhood. I stumbled. And then felt crushing guilt for not being simply happy after getting what I had begged for.
It has gotten so much better. Sam makes my heart explode with love at every turn. But I'm still stumbling on a regular basis. Sometimes I long for solitude, then take that as evidence that I'm too selfish to be a good mother. I worry about Sam when there's absolutely no need -- he's so happy, so robust -- then worry I'm teaching him to fear the world. I'm still taking Celexa, to my great shame, and had to bump up the dose earlier this month when I felt the first stirrings of could have turned into post-partum depression if I hadn't acted.
So I got what I want, and now what? Real life, I guess...
This worked surprisingly well. Not talking about my pregnancy with too many people, and not thinking too far ahead, kept me relaxed and happy in a way that I wouldn't have thought possible. But once I'd start getting ahead of myself ---like the time in late December when Adam's mom hounded us about decorating the baby's room, and, by the way, could she be in the room when I gave birth?---I'd shut down.
But really, most days, I'd joke that I wanted to bottle whatever hormonal blend I was brewing. Even better, once we got past the Down Syndrome scare, Sam aced all further tests and ultrasounds.
It was a beautiful pregnancy. I am so profoundly grateful to have been able to experience it.
And the birth---while somewhat dampened by the fancy teaching hospital's CYA approach to obstetrical care, which included unnecessary IV antibiotics for Sam and me for 48 hours ---was a good one.
So that's what we got. Healthy baby, healthy mother. Go figure.
What we didn't get, though, was the full storybook ending---a natural and easy slide into maternal bliss. Having Sam cured a lot of things, but not everything. I did not glide into motherhood. I stumbled. And then felt crushing guilt for not being simply happy after getting what I had begged for.
It has gotten so much better. Sam makes my heart explode with love at every turn. But I'm still stumbling on a regular basis. Sometimes I long for solitude, then take that as evidence that I'm too selfish to be a good mother. I worry about Sam when there's absolutely no need -- he's so happy, so robust -- then worry I'm teaching him to fear the world. I'm still taking Celexa, to my great shame, and had to bump up the dose earlier this month when I felt the first stirrings of could have turned into post-partum depression if I hadn't acted.
So I got what I want, and now what? Real life, I guess...
Monday, December 24, 2007
The Gift
I was just lying in bed, hands on my belly, laughing as the baby did a series of flips inside me. I'm 21 weeks today and the reality of this is so much better than I had even imagined. It has been hard to find inspiration to write about it, as every post would read something like, "Still pregnant. Still incredibly grateful. Still happy."
Which is not to say that this pregnancy hasn't actually been filled with drama. At about 12 weeks, we had the standard triple screen for Down Syndrome which came back with an alarming result: a 1 in 9 chance that the baby would have the condition. To put that in context, plenty of women become panicked when their odds are 1 in 100. Once we got that information, we had a month's wait before the final amnio report assured us that the baby was genetically typical. Which he/she is (we've decided to be surprised about the sex).
That was a lot of time to think about what it would mean to raise a child with special needs. And for me, that was the only option—raising the child. After these losses, and especially after seeing that baby wiggling around in the ultrasound, and knowing how much I loved him/her already, I couldn't terminate. If it had been another trisomy, a fatal one, that would've been different. And if Down's had been accompanied by life-threatening heart defects that promised multiple surgeries and misery, that might've been different. But every blog, essay, and book I read assured me that raising a child with Down's (who is otherwise fairly healthy) has its own gifts.
Which is not to say that we weren't absolutely frightened. The thought of coping with societal prejudice; of fighting for school placements and resources; of having to go through the rest of the pregnancy feeling different or unlucky, unable to bond with the "normal" pregnant people with all their easy optimism; worrying about raising a child who would need some form of special care well into adulthood...the stress manifested in a rash of red welts on my face and in a reluctance to share our news with anyone outside a small circle of friends and family. It was...very hard.
But...it wasn't wasted effort, either. One thing became very clear to me through this: the whole purpose of having this child is to love it, just for being alive, and to to find daily meaning in providing that love and care. The point is not to see this child grow up to become some thing—an artist, a college graduate, a race car driver. It's to love the process, not the product.
Of course, I won't be able to remember this every day. I'll get caught up in the same bullshit that everyone does. I'll fret over report cards and standardized tests. But it's a gift to have this perspective at the outset, and to have even more reason to feel so grateful for this healthy baby kicking away. Sweet is the fruit of adversity.
Which is not to say that this pregnancy hasn't actually been filled with drama. At about 12 weeks, we had the standard triple screen for Down Syndrome which came back with an alarming result: a 1 in 9 chance that the baby would have the condition. To put that in context, plenty of women become panicked when their odds are 1 in 100. Once we got that information, we had a month's wait before the final amnio report assured us that the baby was genetically typical. Which he/she is (we've decided to be surprised about the sex).
That was a lot of time to think about what it would mean to raise a child with special needs. And for me, that was the only option—raising the child. After these losses, and especially after seeing that baby wiggling around in the ultrasound, and knowing how much I loved him/her already, I couldn't terminate. If it had been another trisomy, a fatal one, that would've been different. And if Down's had been accompanied by life-threatening heart defects that promised multiple surgeries and misery, that might've been different. But every blog, essay, and book I read assured me that raising a child with Down's (who is otherwise fairly healthy) has its own gifts.
Which is not to say that we weren't absolutely frightened. The thought of coping with societal prejudice; of fighting for school placements and resources; of having to go through the rest of the pregnancy feeling different or unlucky, unable to bond with the "normal" pregnant people with all their easy optimism; worrying about raising a child who would need some form of special care well into adulthood...the stress manifested in a rash of red welts on my face and in a reluctance to share our news with anyone outside a small circle of friends and family. It was...very hard.
But...it wasn't wasted effort, either. One thing became very clear to me through this: the whole purpose of having this child is to love it, just for being alive, and to to find daily meaning in providing that love and care. The point is not to see this child grow up to become some thing—an artist, a college graduate, a race car driver. It's to love the process, not the product.
Of course, I won't be able to remember this every day. I'll get caught up in the same bullshit that everyone does. I'll fret over report cards and standardized tests. But it's a gift to have this perspective at the outset, and to have even more reason to feel so grateful for this healthy baby kicking away. Sweet is the fruit of adversity.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
New year, new beginning
I didn't go to temple for Rosh Hashanah this year, which I regret. It is an intense time, and it would've been good to spend a day thinking about the past year, in all its misery and grace.
I'm pregnant again. We found out about a month ago. My cycles had been strange. I was beginning to think that I wasn't ovulating, and because charting was proving so stressful, I had skipped it altogether. But then I had some symptoms—the twingey sensations in my uterus, breast tenderness—so we tested.
The news came on a very good day. We had moved back home and were spending the weekend in a favorite coastal town. In the preceding weeks I had been feeling so relieved. Almost fully healed. Life felt rich and full again, I liked my new job, our friends were glad to see us. So I was on that high when we saw the faint second line.
Since then, I've been on a roller coaster. I started the Lovenox shots, which weren't nearly as bad as I had feared. I got some good hcg results, followed by last week's ultrasound which put me at about 7 weeks, with a good, strong heartbeat. That's a first for us. But being pregnant again is also kicking up some of the pain from last year. It feels like I'm far out on a limb, now responsible for this little life, while also managing my own emotions. It's so hard to not give into the fear and the what-ifs. Who am I to have a healthy pregnancy when I was such a mess just 9 months ago? How can this end in anything but heartbreak? Can I handle the uncertainty and the physical changes? How do I think about this little life? What do I owe it? For now, I'm tentative, trying to be welcoming and loving, but not able to really pull it off.
I'm trying to breathe through it, remember to talk to people when it seems overwhelming. The nausea and fatigue are slowing me down, which maybe isn't a bad thing. I'm trying to surrender to this.
I'm pregnant again. We found out about a month ago. My cycles had been strange. I was beginning to think that I wasn't ovulating, and because charting was proving so stressful, I had skipped it altogether. But then I had some symptoms—the twingey sensations in my uterus, breast tenderness—so we tested.
The news came on a very good day. We had moved back home and were spending the weekend in a favorite coastal town. In the preceding weeks I had been feeling so relieved. Almost fully healed. Life felt rich and full again, I liked my new job, our friends were glad to see us. So I was on that high when we saw the faint second line.
Since then, I've been on a roller coaster. I started the Lovenox shots, which weren't nearly as bad as I had feared. I got some good hcg results, followed by last week's ultrasound which put me at about 7 weeks, with a good, strong heartbeat. That's a first for us. But being pregnant again is also kicking up some of the pain from last year. It feels like I'm far out on a limb, now responsible for this little life, while also managing my own emotions. It's so hard to not give into the fear and the what-ifs. Who am I to have a healthy pregnancy when I was such a mess just 9 months ago? How can this end in anything but heartbreak? Can I handle the uncertainty and the physical changes? How do I think about this little life? What do I owe it? For now, I'm tentative, trying to be welcoming and loving, but not able to really pull it off.
I'm trying to breathe through it, remember to talk to people when it seems overwhelming. The nausea and fatigue are slowing me down, which maybe isn't a bad thing. I'm trying to surrender to this.
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