10 Things I Wish I Had Known about Having a Baby--Part 1

When my first baby was born, I probably could have written a book on the number of things I didn't know about baby care, postnatal recovery, etc.  With the birth of baby number two, there is a much less steep learning curve, but, particularly since one is a girl and one is a boy, there have still been some things that I wish someone had explained to me ahead of time even now.  There's nothing like on-the-job training but I'd also like to spare any moms-to-be the rude awakening of at least some of these unrealistic expectations if I can.  I am a firm believer that we all do better when we have realistic expectations.  Realistic expectations help us avoid perfectionism, reduce depression and have coping strategies in place when tough times come.

So, without further ado, here is my top 10 list of Things I Wish I Had Known about Having a Baby before I had said baby.  Some are from my first baby and some are from my second.

1. Regular childbirth is much much much (did I mention MUCH?) easier to recover from than a c-section.  I did know this one, but I think I focused so much on the natural aspect of childbirth (no medication!) with my first child that I didn't leave myself as open to the fact that I might need some medical help and that the chief objective of having a vaginal delivery is much more important than doing it hospital or drug free.  With my second baby, I was blessed to have a team of doctors who understood how best to help women have VBACs and although they certainly would have recommended a c-section if it became medically necessary, they would never do it to get to their golf game.  They had so many strategies up their sleeve to help women succeed if at all possible.  I did use some medication with baby number two.  The pain was to a point that it was unmanageable but the rest the medication gave me ultimately helped me succeed at getting a VBAC.  The recovery period has been rapid following normal childbirth, whereas with a c-section, my recovery took a full 8 weeks.  I also have been better able to bond with the baby, have regained energy and strength faster, and have managed to avoid the deeper depression and exhaustion that characterized my first postpartum period.  I was tempted in the midst of the exhaustion and pain of the pushing stage to just tell the doctor to give me a c-section so I could be done.  I'm so glad I didn't and I'm so glad she didn't rush to that option.

2. With that said, you can't control birth and it doesn't really ultimately matter how your baby is born.  You will love them no matter what.  Yes, vaginal delivery is better for most women's bodies and for their postpartum period, but at the same time, we are not God and this never becomes clearer to us than when we go into labor.  My first delivery was everything I hoped it would not be...nightmarishly long followed by a c-section...but even though I had a rough start, I fell in love with my daughter.  All of the pain and discomfort to have her were worth it.  Some women are unable to have vaginal deliveries, for various health reasons.  And all births are different and unpredictable.

After my daughter's birth, I had to come to a place of accepting how things had gone and that even though I had a "birth plan," birth does not really go according to plan.  It's best to know all your options, plan loosely and focus on the the fact that you are about to receive a tremendous gift...one way or another.  Knowing all your options enables you to have a "tool kit" to reach into.  The wise old nurse who did our childbirth classes this time told us, "If your pain gets out of control, that's when it's time to think about changing something."  That's when to reach into the tool kit and pick out a new tool...a new position, a new pain coping mechanism, a medication, maybe even a c-section if necessary.  Being too rigid in birth can only set you up for disappointment--or even depression.

3. Be prepared for some weird postpartum bodily stuff.  Everybody tells you about the baby blues and postpartum depression, so you probably won't be too surprised if you burst into tears at the drop of a hat.  But no one had told me about the world's longest period (lasting 4-6 weeks postpartum), the night sweats, or the rapid and sudden weight loss that can occur within a few days after birth (especially if you are nursing). Nursing and night sweats take the weight and fluid off fast.  If you gained a little extra during pregnancy, it won't completely restore you to pre-pregnancy weight, but you could lost 20-25 pounds in the matter of days.  With my first pregnancy, this scared me to death.  I thought perhaps something was wrong with me!  Be prepared for some potential anxiety, shakiness, and feeling pretty weird with that kind of rapid weight loss.  Be prepared to eat plenty of protein and calories if this happens; you will need them!  Your system should stabilize in a few days to a couple of weeks.

4. Nursing can be painful at first--sometimes very painful--even if you are doing everything correctly (take that, Le Leche!:-)).  Some women are just more sensitive than others and it does take a little time to toughen up.  It bothers me a lot when Le Leche members tell people that nursing should not hurt if you are doing everything right and if baby has a proper latch.  This is true a month or two down the road once you have toughened up and acclimated to nursing.  But it might hurt a bit or a lot at first, even if you are trying your darndest to get baby latched properly.  The pain is typically when the baby first latches on but if you have gotten blisters, it can last throughout the nursing session.  So, yes, address the baby's latch, but be patient with yourself and with the pain and soreness.  If nursing is important to you (and there are a ton of benefits to health and bonding), try giving nursing 4-6 weeks.  Generally, problems resolve by then, baby learns to suck properly, soreness begins to ease, and skin toughens up.  Also, make use of a lactation consultant if you can, use cloth nursing pads (much less abrasive than the disposable ones), and try lanolin or natural nipple cream.  Finally, if you experiencing cracking or blisters, soaking the affected area in warm salt water after nursing is soothing and helpful in promoting healing.  This was a life-saver for me the first time around!

5. Be prepared for the amount of time you will spend nursing--at least 8-12 times per day for at least 30 minutes each time.  Baby will eventually get more efficient at nursing.  He or she will fall asleep less and get more focused.  And your body will adjust to providing baby the proper amount of milk.  But initially it is a huge time commitment.  Not only that but your little baby liposuction machine will be sucking fat out of your body so fast that you will have never been so hungry or thirsty in your entire life.  Drink a full glass of water as often as you can and get multiple high-energy snacks throughout the day (trail mix, yogurt, cheese sticks, granola bars, cookies, apples and peanut butter, bagels and cream cheese, etc.).  A depleted mom is not a happy mom.  Early on, I find myself looking at my job as two-fold: feed baby all day and feed myself all day.

Although baby will eventually become more efficient at nursing and will drop feedings little by little, for as long as you are nursing, it is still a big commitment of time and energy.  I was totally unprepared for this with my first baby. Nursing is a supply and demand game, so a person has to do it regularly to ensure enough milk supply.  This means feedings can very rarely be put off without consequences.  Yes, you can have a dinner date with hubby and leave a bottle for the sitter.  But if you don't nurse or pump every few hours, one way or another, your supply is going to start dropping.  Finding a way to combine nursing or pumping with work schedules is one of the most challenging things a modern mom has to do.  And in our culture, there are many times it's well nigh impossible.  It was a huge challenge for me to nurse and work with my first daughter--and I had a very flexible schedule.  I can't imagine how women with more rigid schedules manage to do it!  Still, if you can do it, it's worth doing.  My daughter had almost no sickness in the 17 months I nursed her.  My newborn did not catch the colds that we had in the house right after he was born.  And the benefit to bonding is outstanding.

If you can't manage nursing, though, no guilt!  We all have to think and decide what is best for our families and if it is killing you to nurse, it might be time to stop.  Again, a depleted mom is not a happy mom.  Being depleted affects the baby too.  No child care decisions are perfect and we all do the best we can.  The best thing we can do for other women is support them in the difficult choices they make about such a wide range of baby-care decisions.  Being a mom is tough and all of us need more encouragement, not more criticism.

6. Baby boys eat more.  A lot more.  After my son was born a month ago, I was shocked at the constant feeding he wanted to do!  I mentioned to my friends that he wanted to eat every hour, oftentimes.  Their response was, "Oh, that's boys!"  Apparently, everyone else was aware that boys eat a ton more than girls and often go into marathon nursing sessions.  Nobody bothered to tell me though!  I was prepared for the more regular every 2-3 hours feedings my daughter did.  Nope.  Most of the moms of boys that I've talked to since Bean was born have said their sons did the same marathon nursing sessions.  Now I know!

To be continued tomorrow....

the blessedness of motherhood

I remember when I was pregnant with Burrito how irksome I found so many of the symptoms.  I felt "urpy" my whole pregnancy, tired most of the time, and Burrito laid on a nerve that ran down into my thigh for months.  I started losing sleep in the last trimester as I couldn't get comfortable and Burrito loved to kick me hard.  I couldn't take any medicine when I was sick or had a headache.  I couldn't take too hot of a shower, eat lunchmeat, or drink a glass of wine.  I got so sick of the deprivation.  I was excited (and scared) about the new life that was on the way, but, sister, 9 months is a long time for deprivation!

And then Burrito was born and it was such a tough delivery, and then a c-section.  Everything was hard at this point.  I got so little sleep.  Nursing hurt really bad (don't believe those Le Leche ladies who say, "If you're doing it right, it won't hurt!  Baloney!").  I felt overwhelmed all the time.  I felt alone.

And I found myself resenting the fact that there were aspects of motherhood that my husband could not share with me.  There was no taking turns in pregnancy and nursing.  There was no taking turns in the deprivations of motherhood.  When we got married, like most modern couples, we had the idea that we would cut our responsibilities down the middle and each take half of the burden.  But in the early, intense days of child-bearing, there is no way to do this.  The burden rests heavily on the mother.  Only she can do certain tasks.

And initially, only the mother is tuned into the child.  After all, she has been connected to the baby for months and has gotten a head-start with bonding.  The father cannot be blamed for this.  When I was pregnant, my husband was very excited but had a disconnect with the reality of the baby growing within my womb.  She scarcely seemed real to him until she was born.  And then I found myself waking instantly when she cried in the night.  Inexplicably, my husband was able to sleep through her cries early on.  I was so biologically connected to Burrito that I couldn't understand this at all.  In time, he caught up with the bonding I had already gotten done.  Now, if Burrito wakes in the night, sometimes he wakes up before me and hears her first.

In the early days, we found ways for Christopher to try to share the burden that I was bearing in the midst of my exhaustion and recovery.  When Burrito woke in need of a feeding as a newborn, he would go and get her, change her diaper and bring her to me.  Then he would sleep while I nursed her and rise to take her back.  This helped assuage the exhaustion a bit, but of course it could only go so far.  He also made me a big fatty, protein-laced breakfast in the mornings (I had no idea how draining nursing could be).  He did a lot of other things to help me.  Still, I found it hard at times not to resent the unequal balance in our parenting.  There was absolutely nothing he could do about it.  He could not give birth to Burrito.  He could not nurse her.  It wasn't his fault, but still I found myself bumping up against my 50/50 idea of parenthood.

I think this resentment over our role as women is the primary reason that even after the advent of the ultrasound machine and advanced scientific knowledge of the womb, women persist in saying that when life begins in the womb is a matter for religion not science.  The statement is clearly illogical.  We now know that a baby's heart begins beating by week 6.  By week 12, a baby has fingernails.  At 18 weeks, the baby can hear.  An ultrasound reveals a clearly real human being, moving about within the mother's womb.  A being who has already been given life.  Simply looking at the matter from a purely scientific, logical stand-point, without religious encumbrances, it is clear that life begins in the womb very early.  The pro-choicer's persistence in pursuing broad abortion rights despite our modern scientific knowledge flies in the face of reason.  It reveals the strong, under-girding resentment that many women (perhaps all of us at one time or another?) feel at having the burden of child-bearing laid on our shoulders.  We say that life begins when we say it does because we want this to be true.  We do not want to have a responsibility so heavy and so strong that we cannot escape it.  Not only this, but not every woman has a loving husband who would take on more of the burden of motherhood if only he could.  No, there are times when the burden of motherhood is forcibly laid on the shoulders of women through rape or perhaps, less traumatically, through the failure of birth control.  We shake our fingers at our state.  It's not fair!  Why should we have to bear this burden?  Why should we have to endure deprivation, pain, exhaustion in a way a man can never understand?  And so, we decide to ignore reality in an attempt to escape our fate.  We decide to pretend that little one in our womb is just a mass of tissues and not a real life.

In the midst of my pregnancy, I happened to read a Christian book that dealt with healthy remedies to be used while with child.  Early in the book, the author talked about the blessing of pregnancy.  I remember having a light bulb moment when I read this passage.  I was eager to have my baby, but I was so deeply frustrated with what I--and I alone--had to endure to get to this point.  The author of the book pointed out that a man can never experience the miraculousness of giving birth.  He can never feel the wonder of a living being moving within him.  He cannot bear life into the world.  And of course, he also cannot experience the wonder of the bonding that comes about through nursing.  He does not experience the strong emotional connection that this produces between mother and child.  He does not know the awe of sustaining life from his own body.

I know I am drawing in broad strokes here and I know that some women cannot--or should not--carry a baby in their womb.  Some women cannot nurse their little one.  I mean no disrespect to these ladies.  God gives us each different calls and theirs is certainly equally important, just as the call of father is equally important to that of mother.  And even when a woman cannot or should not engage in child-bearing, she is still given a unique maternal ability that is different from that of a man.  All that is real.  But, broadly speaking, what I am saying is true of women.  We have the unique burden--and the unique gift--of the connection to our child through child-bearing and nursing.  We can choose to look at it as a hassle, or as a uniquely supreme privilege.

At Christmastime, I think of Mary, who bore the greatest burden when it came to a child: the burden of being and unwed teen mother who everyone would assume was promiscuous.  This was not her choice to be pregnant.  It was thrust upon her, despite her status as a virgin.  It was not even something she tried to be open to.  It simply happened to her.  Not only did she have to experience the pain and frustrations of delivery--not to mention travel on a donkey late in pregnancy, but she had to endure ridicule by her community.  How embarrassing and burdensome her state!  But what did she say?  "Let it be unto to me according to Your will." 

I still struggle with the "inequality" of motherhood as I look into the future and wonder if God will give our family more children.  But I have the choice to focus on either the suffering or the miracle.  I hope if I am ever pregnant again, I will be able to choose the miracle more often when in those early intense days.

peanut noodles and the new mother

A staple of weekday meals at our house is Asian peanut noodles.  We eat it at least every week or two.  I used to make a recipe with Hoisin sauce and tomato paste among its ingredients but in the past few years, I’ve become partial to a version prepared by my friend Natalie.  I think it’s because of the memories tied into this particular recipe.

After Burrito was born (read the story here), I was completely spent.  I had envisioned a beautiful couple of weeks with just Hubby, Burrito and I at home, bonding and forming our new family.

I didn’t reckon for going without sleep for days while working harder than I had ever worked in my life.  I didn’t count on struggling with nursing (oh, the pain!  the blisters!).  I didn’t realize how little sleep you really get as a new mom.  And I certainly didn’t plan on recovering from a c-section, still being in pain and having a doctor force me to have a catheter in for TWO WEEKS (and let me tell you, that just ain’t natural). 

I was absolutely exhausted.  I was spent emotionally.  The lowest moment I remember in those days was when Hubby had to run over to church to do something right after we had come home from the hospital.  I accidentally emptied my catheter bag on myself and the floor.  It was devastating.  When you can’t even pee for yourself and then it ends up all over you, that’s the bottom of the pile.  Hubby came home to find me and Burrito on the bed, both simultaneously wailing.  He didn’t know who to help first.

If my mother hadn’t come, I don’t know what I would have done.  Now, to understand this story, you have to understand that my mother doesn’t travel.  She doesn’t like to fly or drive places.  She was a missionary for a while and I think she got all of her traveling out of the way then.  Any trips require planning of every little detail, if they happen at all.  (Mom and I are both notorious over-thinkers.)

But when my labor and delivery was so traumatic, when I had a c-section, when I was emotionally and physically broken, I think “Mama bear” kicked in for her and even though she hadn’t planned to come right away, she got herself there in just a couple of days.  It’s one of the best gifts she ever gave me.  I was able to hang on those couple of days at home because Mom was going to be there on Saturday.  She came with a family friend and they cooked and cleaned and Mom sat up with Burrito at night so I could try to rest.  I felt much safer and calm with them there, and oh so grateful.  They were so kind and so understanding.  I felt such a sense of panic when they drove away the following week.

But I was able to hang on a couple of days again.  Because Natalie was coming.  My friend Natalie is one of the most gifted and busy people I know.  She always has about a hundred balls in the air.  She is accomplished and professional and I don’t know when she sleeps.  But when she heard about my ordeal, she wanted to come too.  She drove 6 hours to our house to stay a few days and cook and clean and help. 

She prepared the most fabulous, comforting meals.  Chicken with gorgonzola, arugula, and garlic.  Three or four kinds of homemade pizza (Thai!  Chicken Sausage!).  Beer bread with tons of butter baked and crusted on top. Homemade pound cake with raspberries.  She froze her delicious cooking and I think we ate it for weeks.

The first night she was there, she made me the previously mentioned peanut noodles.  I remember her arriving with bags and bags of groceries.  I remember her asking me if I was hungry.  I sure was.  Ravenous.  She made these delicious mildly spicy noodles, glazed with peanut butter, laden with vegetables, with chicken in a Hoisin sauce on the side.  And I sat and drank a little wine.  Not too much and carefully timed between nursing times, but it was the first wine I had had in 9 months and it tasted so good.  I think it was one of the most comforting meals I’ve ever had in my life.  It was a difficult time and it would be some months before things would begin to at least somewhat turn around, but we weren’t alone.  The uncertainty, the pain, the sadness, worries…at least a little of it began to fall away as I sat and ate a big plate of noodles and chicken. 

So, I still make these peanut noodles, and I think every time I prepare them a little bit of that spirit of comfort and togetherness comes back to me.

Thank God the people in our lives who remind us that we are not alone.