The Early Days: The Fourth Trimester

Within the first 48 hours of being home from the hospital with my newborn, I called my dear friend from my hometown, Beth. I'm pretty sure Beth would like to have kids one day, so what I told her now feels selfish, but I really needed to confide in someone. "It's (sob) so (sob, pause for emphasis)... HAAAAAAAAAAARD...." I went on to attempt to put into words what a smack in the face having a newborn had been so far. I did mention, I'm sure, that he was an exceedingly cute infant, and I did love him, but damn! I was miserable. Why?





I think there are four primary things that make those first days at home exceedingly difficult -- regardless if you have a colicky baby (God bless you, if you do) or an easy baby. Even in the midst of my new mother crisis, I paused every so often to realize with amazement that our boy as a good baby. I can't even fathom how people with colicky babies manage to get through it. I think they should wear a special badge, have premium parking spots, be allowed first in any line, and so forth for having lived through the colic days and made it to the Other Side. Really.





Here are those four things that make the first days (or first three to five months) so difficult, in my opinion:

1. Recovery from childbirth and/or surgery. Maybe you've read The Good Earth or have heard about how women used to give birth while working in the fields and then resume their work right after. These women must be made of something I'm not. I wasn't even allowed to flex my calf muscle to drive a car for a week after surgery, doctor's orders. Seriously, surgery or no, recovery from getting that child outta you, especially after carrying your baby around for nine months, earns some well-deserved exhaustion. Not all of us make good patients or do well in "recovery mode," especially if we like to be up and active and around the house. Of course, going on and coming off of the drugs in the hospital and at home takes its toll. I was starting to see how someone could easily become addicted to pain killers, though I am glad I escaped that fate. Don't think I didn't notice how a little Mother's Helper took the edge off around 4:00 when I was dying for my husband to come home and take over. (And I know not everyone always has the luxury of a husband coming home to take over... I am very humbled by how single or pseudo-single parents do it!)






2. Hormones. So, in addition to physical exhaustion and possible recovery from surgery, "Hello, hormones!" I've already told you about the roller coaster ride on which I found myself. While I expected to be happy, and found glimmers of happiness, I generally spent a lot of time crying. I'd say "scattered showers" was an accurate description. It didn't take much... Granted, a lot of it was due to exhaustion as well as hormones, but my outbursts were so unpredictable and unlike me. At my wedding, when my husband broke down into tears while reading his vows, I got a little misty, but it felt so surreal. Contrast that to my hormonal post-partum self: My uncle, who has no children and had to ask friends what to get someone when they have a baby, sent a large package of diapers as a gift. When my mom (his sister) showed me what he had given us, I wept. "That... is... the... nicest... thing (sniff!)... anyone... has... ever... done!" Sheesh. I was a blubbering mess.



3. Sleep deprivation. I see why sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture. I am so amazed and impressed with what the human body does during pregnancy by producing a child. On the other hand, I am disgusted how this human design treats a hormonal, recovering post-partum woman by giving her an infant that sleeps all day and cries all night. Or sleeps very sporadically -- not enough to cobble into "quality chunks" of sleep for Mom or Dad. After "going to bed," -- a funny concept in those first days when, every time I started to drift off to Slumberland, cries would erupt from my baby -- and spending more of the night awake and nursing my child than asleep, I was a bitter, zombie-like shell of a person. In the morning, up pops my husband, gazing into the co-sleeper beside the bed. "Isn't he just the cutest?" he cooed, all chipper and reasonably well-rested. I glared at him through cracked eyes. "What?!" he asked, defensively. I replied, "Yes. He is cute. But he'd be a lot cuter to me right now if I hadn't been feeding him and trying to put him to bed all night instead of sleeping."





And then there are those miraculous times when I'd get a good chunk, say three or four consecutive hours, of sleep and I'd feel a whole hell of a lot better about life in general. I remember listening to my friend Jane, who had a baby about the same time I did. She was also in a state of misery on her new motherhood experiences after a night or three of terrible sleep. I could see so much of my poor-sleep self in her.... It was hard for either of us to see how we were going to make it through the day, much less all of motherhood, on poor-sleep days. When we got poor sleep, both of us were convinced we needed an anti-depressant. Then, when we got a reasonable amount (relative to parents of newborns), we thought we'd be fine. Suffice it to say, I completely "get" why sleep maintenance medications are frequently prescribed with anti-depressants. I work with children in a mental-health capacity, and I now find myself very interested in the quality of sleep children are getting when they have difficulty with emotions, behavior or learning.






4. Major culture shock to life with a baby (a.k.a. Baby Shock). I was talking with a mother the other day about her life pre-kids. She worked, she had an agenda, she went about her day with purpose, checking things off her to-do list, and that was pleasing to her. She and I both had a lot of adjusting to do once Baby came.





It's too bad you can't gradually live with your baby. Say, start out with an hour, then send him back to a womb-like place for safe keeping, then work up to two hours, then back, and so forth. While certainly I had a purpose with Baby R around, I didn't realize how challenging it would be for me to put aside my own to-do list, filled with all the things I hope to get accomplished with this "maternity leave break." Funny! Used to flitting about the house all day pre-baby, I now had to sit for long stretches (hours at a time) to nurse my son. There was no real agenda anymore; any notion of a plan I had could easily vanish into thin air if there was a diaper emergency or a feeding problem or a baby who either slept or didn't sleep. I never appreciated my mother and mother-in-law more, because when they left, our household pretty much fell apart. I certainly couldn't both a) take naps and b) clean up or get things ready while the baby slept; if the choice had to be made, eventually I realized the Person Who Wanted to Stay Sane should go to bed, already! Thank God for those kind people who come bearing meals, because otherwise it would've been some slapdash bowl of cereal or sandwich for dinner every night for five to six months. I have stacks and stacks of baby and parenting magazines that I meant to read in my "spare time" during maternity leave, still unread.





One of my first nights home, the baby was asleep and I joined my mom, husband and brother-in-law for a meal at the dining room table, where we typically ate. I was so hungry. As soon as I sat down, though, Baby R began crying, and it became clear that it was dinner time for him, too. Being new at breastfeeding, I decided to set up camp at a tray table in the family room and leave my family to dine without fear of being flashed. I assured everyone, tiredly, that it was fine. I got Baby R all set up for him to eat, but try as I might, I couldn't figure out how to lean over my plate and eat while I nursed. (This skill came later.) I sat there, hungry, tired and trying to please at least one of us, while listening to the laughter and conversation from the dining room. Baby R was with me, but I felt so... alone. I missed my old life, the one where I got to sit at the dining room table with my family and actually eat when I was hungry.





For those of you who are experiencing this, it's true that things do get better. I'm not posting this to be a Debbie Downer, but what I really needed when I was going through this was to know that someone else felt this way, too. I needed validation. That's why I am being so frank about my experiences -- so that if you feel or felt this way, you can know that you are not (or were not) alone.

Yes, those are zombie-swirls in my bloodshot eyes.

The Early Days: Happiness Hijacked by Hormones

Unbeknownst to me, those tears of joy (shown here) would soon be replaced by a different sort of tears.

Hormones are definitely one thing I underestimated or didn't expect -- at least to the extent of their actual impact. What I had experienced of hormones prior to post-partum was mild. I can think of only one time I got super-teary during my pregnancy. It was during an HBO Sports story on Bill Johnson, the former Olympic downhill skier. Let me tell you, what happened to him after his head injury is some seriously sad stuff. I get a little misty just thinking about it, even now!... During my monthly cycles, I rarely had what anyone would consider an stereotypical episode of PMS. I was given to occasional bouts of crying during Hallmark commercials, but that was about it. Maybe that's why I was seriously blindsided by the impact of post-partum hormones.

Right after I had my baby, life was perfect. My child was perfect. The pain meds were perfect. Without the exhaustion of labor *, we were on the phone within an hour, calling everyone we knew to tell them about the birth of our son. Nurses and doctors came and went. My baby was too busy trying to sleep to be interested in learning how to eat. I was patient, though, and accepted logically that my baby would lose weight because of this. No worries! Nearly all babies lose weight. When I wasn't staring until I was cross-eyed at my new son, I focused on trying to get some sleep.



I can remember the moment this blissful bubble burst. It was in the wee hours of the morning, my third (and coming upon my last) day of the hospital. The nurse brought my baby from the nursery to try to eat. She told me in a warning tone that he had lost nearly 10% of his body weight -- the magic number when some nurses start to freak you out and try to convince you to give your baby a bottle of formula (which elicits the fear in wannabe-breastfeeding mothers that your baby will never look back, preferring only bottle/formula thereafter). Before, I knew that 10% was the magic number, but I wasn't worried. Now, though, I had this overwhelming sense of panic and dread. Truly, it was like a blanket of paranoia. I sent my baby back to the nursery like I always had, only this time, I was ensconced in fear. As I pushed the button to get the nurse to take my baby, I was gripped with the feeling that I was a bad mother for sending him to the cold and desolate nursery with scary nurses who clucked their tongues over babies who didn't gain weight. Only the worst mother in the world could be so heartless as to send her baby back to the nursery!



The daylight hours of the morning brought no relief. The morning nurse confirmed that my baby was going to die, and it was my fault: He had lost 10% of his body weight! (This is extremely comical in retrospect because by the time he was three months old, he was gi-normous even in clinical terms.) When she left the room, I dissolved into tears. My Rational Self knew that my Emotional Self must be "in charge" now. My hormones had staged a coup and ousted my Sanity. My mother and husband were concerned and supportive, and I explained to them my suspicion that I was no longer steering this boat.



A friend of mine had just given birth as well and was a few doors down from my hospital room. I went to visit her and meet her family, including her newborn daughter. I hadn't met her family before, and they all asked about my baby as I met theirs. I'm sure I made a great first impression!... What I told them meant to come out matter-of-factly. However, my sunny disposition cracked, of course. Instead, the information came out choked and sputtering, as I told them about Rowan's tragic weight loss. I followed up, still teary-eyed, that I knew he would be fine and all babies lose weight and please excuse the hormonal outburst.



When the nurse came back to attend to me, again I burst into tears upon sight of her. Her eyes grew wide and she became sweetly maternal, confessing to me that she didn't think it was a big deal when the night nurse told her that he had lost ten percent. She even gave a little eye roll in response to that news, saying, "I thought to myself, how many times have I heard that before? He'll be fine." I also told the nurse my rational explanation about my hormone-induced reaction.



It continued like that for the rest of the morning, as the pediatrician came in to give our baby one last check up and give us one last lecture about newborns before we all left the hospital. He quickly confessed, as tears streamed down my face, that he couldn't imagine exactly what I was going through, and his specialty was the babies. (Fine, then, doctor, you're off the hook.) Then, the OBGYN on duty came and spoke kind, knowing, grandfatherly words to me as he passed me a brochure on post-partum depression.



It would go something like that for a long time, even after I was home. Well, especially after I was home. (There are many blogs to come about those first days.) I felt like I was doing a lot of bad acting when people showed up to visit and meet our new little person. I overcompensated with happiness, I am sure, because that's what I figured people expect of a new mother, and I didn't want someone to "come and take me away" if you know what I mean. Having never spent lots of time around a new mother, I thought maybe I was freakishly hormonal. Thank God that during this time I was able to spend time around other new mothers, when I was able to witness for myself that other people fall apart, too. Oh, how misery does love company. I also had a supportive OBGYN who said the minute I said "Go," she would write the script for anti-depressants.



This is how I knew I was going to be okay: One day, I was able to sing "You Are My Sunshine" to my baby without collapsing into tears. Seriously. When I could listen to all of a bittersweet song without losing it, that's also when I knew. (For me, it was Shawn Colvin's "Fill Me Up," if you care to know.) It took a while, certainly the whole fourth trimester, but eventually I made it back to the other side.

*See my post In Defense of Modern Medicine

Maternity wear shoppers, rejoice!

It appears, for those of you seeking maternity wear in the Summer/Fall 2007, that your day has come! You have hit the fashion jackpot at a time when what everyone else is wearing appears to be maternity wear (if merchandisers have their way with us). Congratulations! You won the fashion lottery!

I stopped by Old Navy today (read: spent close to two hours there, making about twenty trips to the fitting room) and picked up a few things (read: about twenty). They were having a sale. And they're always having a sale. But I digress... The thing I was struck by is that every shirt or dress --and even some skirts offered --touted the "trapeze" fashion. Oh, fun, breezy, swingy clothing! How cute!

Then I tried on some of these lovely garments. Laughter ensued after my first trapeze dress fitting. My first impression of myself was "I'm wearing a mumu! Who decided mumus should be in style?" and my second impression was "When are the troupe of little people going to run out from the bottom of my dress? That would make a great circus act!" My third thought was, "Only pregnant women and little girls could pull this off." Finally, I decided I should just pull out all my maternity clothes I've packed away and forgotten, and call them this season's must-haves and save myself some money. You should know that these trapeze clothes are very comfortable, though not especially flattering. Much like maternity wear, in fact.

In Defense of Modern Medicine

C-sections get a bad rap. I remember reading in magazines and childbirth books about having a Caesarian section, or C-section, and thinking it sounded horrible, and much unlike what childbirth should be. It is not sold as a desirable option. Critics contend that doctors like to perform these “births,” if you will, because it is easy money, it makes for an easy delivery, and it helps them to avoid the dreaded malpractice lawsuit.

Talking to friends, I have heard their stories of how disappointed they were when their long labors were punctuated by the doctor’s decision to wheel them off to a surgery room to perform a C-section. It sounds like there is a sense of mourning that came with their birthing experience. And, after all that labor and assuming you were going to deliver a baby like women have for thousands of years, I am sure that change of plans is hard to swallow. That wasn’t part of their “Birthing Vision.”

In my case, my C-section was scheduled. Oh, I tried to avoid having a C-section, though the thought of scheduling my baby’s birth date (since I am, by nature, a planner) was right up my alley. “Hmmm, what’s that saying about a Wednesday’s Child?... Well, let's see, if we have the baby on a Friday, my mom only has to take one day off work and then we’ll have her for the weekend, too…” What's not to love about picking your child's day and date of birth?

The reason for my scheduled C-section was that my baby was sitting comfortably in the breech position, meaning he was sitting upright, head below (or between?) my lungs and feet near my bladder (that I believe).

I explored alternatives, such as going to a chiropractor and having them do some sort of trickery to get my baby to flip. In the end, I didn't think this idea was so prudent. So I opted to have an “external version” a few weeks before, which is a polite way of saying “Pregnant Lady Torture,” since that’s basically what it is. The doctors (two OBGYNs, in my case) pushed on my abdomen (externally) and tried to physically turn the baby from the outside. Better from the outside than from the inside, I’ll bet you are thinking. I suppose. It was excruciating. Afterwards, the nurse let me know that I did well, considering the muscle relaxant given to me hadn’t had time to take effect yet (!), so I felt much pain. However, despite those 60 seconds of extreme discomfort, our baby wasn’t going anywhere. So, I feigned disappointment that now we would have to select a date – a week prior to the baby’s due date – to pull him out of me. What? I don’t have to go days or even weeks beyond my due date to wait for my labor to start? Or, better yet, I don’t have to even go into labor!? Where do I sign up!?

Some people like to speak of their labor as their War Story, their Badge of Honor. If I had a Labor Story, I sure would, too. Right on! Tell me about how many hours, the blood, the sweat, the tears, the yelling at your husband for getting you into this in the first place. I saw enough videos in Lamaze class to know that birthing ain’t easy and it ain’t fun, and if anyone says it is, they probably had an epidural or some other really good drugs, or they are extremely masochistic. I can know this without having to go through it.

I like to think I got away with such an easy child-birthing set-up because I have suffered at the whims of my body (or my free will, at times) in other ways. First, there were the teeth pulled from my mouth, and then the many years of orthodontics. This includes the piece of metal referred to as an “appliance” (how domestic-like) that was also much like a device of torture and ridicule, since it created a speech impediment while I wore it. When I turned 18, I got a tattoo (but it is small, so I almost considered leaving this off the list). Then, in college, I passed kidney stones, which has often been compared to the pain of childbirth. That was pain unimaginable. I also had appendicitis following childbirth. And who knows what is in store for me hereafter.

This I can tell you: Having a C-section was a piece of cake. Step 1: Get your epidural or spinal. Step 2: Have your OBGYN/surgeon make an incision and Step 3: Pull the baby out. Very quick and relatively easy. Sure, the recovery from a C-section sucks, but so does the recovery from vaginal delivery, I hear. Either way, you have to heal. Either way, there is lots of blood involved. Either way, you almost always get your baby at the end.

I can also say this: C-sections save lives. They spare mothers from unnecessary (now unnecessary, in our age of modern medicine) suffering. They save babies from extra stress and possible umbilical cord strangulation and whatever other horrible things can happen when a baby stays in a birth canal for too long or labor does not progress as it should.

I would have my C-section a million times over. Since having my baby and telling my story, I have had women say, “Oh, but I bet you were disappointed that you didn’t get to go through labor and deliver that way…” in a pitying tone. Ha! While it is easy to nod and agree, for me, I am perfectly happy never really knowing the agony of labor (and I hear they do call it “labor” for a reason). I’m okay with having a scar where I have a scar instead of where ever else I could have a scar. And I’m pretty sure I am just as much a woman – or, rather, a mother – as those who delivered the traditional way.