Spa Lily

When Lily was only a couple weeks old, we ended up rushing her to Children's Hospital last minute on the advice of her pediatrician. She encouraged us to go to the ER. Lily was tachypnic (breathing too fast) and of course, in learning that, Jake now had two tachypnic girls on his hands. Lily slept the whole way to the hospital, I cried the whole way and Jake drove carefully, though he peered back at me in the rearview mirror every so often with super soft eyes. When we arrived, Lily woke up and was by far the fussiest I had ever seen her during those first 2 weeks of life. We were given a room and I tried desperately to calm her, I knew she was hungry but the doctor had told me not to feed her until she was able to examine her more closely. It took everything in me not to whip out the milk from underneath my shirt. Instead I went out to the hall with every intention to demand that we be seen immediatel, but the doctor gave me a stern look, repeated ‘do not feed her’ and ‘I will be there shortly’ (she was sipping her coffee and chatting in the hallway about something completely trivial, I'm sure of it). I returned to the room, feeling like Maddy when I scold her for peeing on the carpet. But I returned to the patient room and unsuccessfully tried consoling Lily. I felt helpless. (Of course now I have learned so much in the past several months about medical practice (a practice, not an exact science), the importance of following maternal instinct ...and basically the wisdom to say 'to heck with your suggestions and diagnosis!’) If it were today, I would SO have bared my breast right then and there and fed my poor babe.

Anyway, the doctor finally entered the room and now BOTH Lily and I were crying as I tried to calm her down. The doctor took my sweet babe into her arms and bounced around aggressively. In a few short minutes Lily stopped crying and fell into one of her 2-week-old peaceful sleeps. I never admitted it to Jake but I was FUMING inside. I felt as if my motherhood had been ripped right out from under me. Who was this infernal woman and who was she conjuring up to settle MY babe? You better believe that when we returned home, I took her violent bouncing and and AND….adopted it.

The point of that story is to say that I have gotten excellent at soothing Lily. Sorry to sound braggy... I must still feel a need to prove myself or something after that heinous doctor momentarily stole my motherhood. Anyway, I am so freaking good at soothing that I put myself to sleep at times. Let me explain: part of our bedroom is sectioned off to “Spa Lily”, as I like to call it. We’ve got a regular ole fan going (it reduces SIDS, don’t you know), a humidifier (for keeping Lily’s air moist to avoid drying out her sweet little airway), a heater to keep her warm (our darn electricity bill was almost $400 last month so no heat for J, myself and the rest of the 2,500 squarefeet, only the princess), a white noise machine, a digital monitor and a little nightlight. (you know, all those first-time-parent gadget must-haves… I’m rolling my eyes at my own self) Whatever did our parents do without these?? Now, once all of those electronics have taken their position and are turned on, I come in with a nice, soft, perfect ‘shhhhhh, shhhhh, shhhhhh’. And depending on the particular bounce I am feeling at that moment, will determine how fast, long and loud my ‘shhhh’ is. But once I utter the first ‘shhhhh’, her eyes grow very very heavy. At night, after a FEEDING, it only takes a few more and she’s out!

We’re pretty lucky. Lily sleeps 12 hours at night. She goes to sleep at 6pm, and I’m able to do what I love second most in the world, cook dinner for Jake. We eat, are able to finally talk and then hang out a bit before bed. It’s awesome. Sometimes Lily might begin to stir in the middle of the night. But that’s when I come in with the ‘shhh’s’. Sometimes, if she’s really persistent in waking up, Jake (though sleeping), will intuitively know that it’s time for him to chime in. I swear we have like the perfect harmonic pitch of ‘shhhhh’ together. It puts all three of us right back to sleep. Not even kidding.

It’s amazing how well the three of us have worked together in those late night/early morning hours. I mean Jake and I can do everything we need to do to get Lily changed, fed, my bajangities pumped and her burped and back to sleep without saying a word but at the same time,  providing every single tool needed to each other for each task at hand. 

I remember our first real family teamwork effort. It was a few days after Lily’s birth. I was incredibly engorged, complete with clogged ducts and all. Jake got in there with the hands, Lily did her part with the suckling and we got the job done. I felt proud of my little family.

I joined a moms group when Lily was 7 weeks old, and I’m really happy I joined. Every week we do ‘round robin’ and all have to answer the same question. Last week’s question was “What is the one thing about motherhood that surprised you?” I suppose there are a lot to choose from but I chose what instantly came to my head…. Just this massive love for Lily. I honestly never ever knew THIS was even existent. Like I said before, when Lily looked up at me for the first time and peered so deep into my eyes, I fell so in love. When two months rolled around and she began smiling up at her momma, another wave hit me… immense love. Very recently I received yet another. I love everything about her and I love everything she has made me feel, experience and created within my very character.

I guess if I think about it, there’s another aspect of parenting that I wasn’t expecting. I read a zillion books, online articles and blogs on parenting before Lily arrived. And during labor, I quickly realized that the silly birth plan I had crafted and then redrafted over and over and over again until it was the perfect birth experience, was a joke! I also was completely convinced that my baby would only sleep in our room for the first week or so. Ha! Her nursery that we poured so much sweat and love (and dough!) into is so lovely but so far away from us. I guess I also never knew I would be this… attached to her. But I don’t think it’s unhealthy… yet  (at least that’s what a very opinionated mom told me) J

An introduction

I've been putting this blog thing off for months now. Before my little pea arrived, I had grand hopes for starting my blog immediately. I wanted to be sure to capture every single new moment with her... Then two things happened: One, I realized what I was experiencing could never be forgotten. And two, my hands were full of diapers, baby, spit up and a very dear, very fragile life.

Then I thought after 4 weeks, this would be a really great starting point...let me recap the first month of life with Lily. However, the items in my hands seemed to double.  At the two month mark, I promised myself I would start writing after month 3, but that came and went as well and tonight I find myself 5 days before her 4 month birthday, now with a glass of wine in hand and so much to say.

I did, however, throughout the first week of Lily’s life jot down little notes to jog my memory later when it finally came time to pen my experiences and this evening I laughed and cried as I recapped. My list read:

Lily's intense stare was the only thing in the room
Cold pizza 4am
PKU - Jake sputters satan
Excitement over first poo explosions
Angel nurse prays over us

"Feeding" so animalistic
Evil pediatrician at Childrens’ steals my thunder
Falling in love with Jake over the dress

My nip making an appearance on FB

Chocolate cravings continue

Intro to Anne Lamott's well behaved puppy dog

 

Ahh yes, Lily's stare which we still talk fondly about on a very regular basis, and I assume we will for a very long time, at least I hope so. Immediately following her exit (or entry rather), she was placed on my chest. I have never been so alert, so awake... no, I do not seem to have the word within my vocabulary to describe my emotion immediately following her birth. But, I can tell you every single detail of that moment if you were to ask me (and I love to remember it, so please do ask me). I recall Jake's face rested on my left shoulder as we both stared at her. I could feel his breath and sense of amazement, though he did not speak a word; both of our eyes, our everything, fixated on Lily. And she... well she gazed heavenly right back at us and I mean directly at us, deep inside us. I knew then, we were madly in love. After several moments passed, Jake and I grew concerned that she still hadn’t cried. She didn't make a peep. She simply continued to stare up at us. Soon we lost any worry and followed her lead for another little while. It was lovely.

The next day mom, my sisters and niece and nephew paid us a visit and bestowed on us the very next best thing to Lily, pizza. But not just any pizza, Zeeks' Cherry Bomb Pizza, which I had been craving since labor had started three days prior. Now that was a special day. I'll never forget how bashful but at the same time anxious my sweet Olivia and Elliott were to meet their new cousin, absolutely darling. They came bearing homemade cards, other goodies and the best smiles. Between family visiting, nurses in and out of our room and Jake and I jabbing away about the birth and new incredible little being we just brought into the world, the company and conversation was nonstop. But I liked it.

It did, however, get very quiet and empty around 4am that next morning. I snuck out of my hospital bed and tip toed (though there was no need- Jake was gone to the world for the next several hours (he had worked very hard during labor- I’m not being sarcastic) and our baby was fast asleep in between feedings. To the tiny hospital fridge I went. I opened up the left over Cherry Bomb pizza box and scarfed down two slices. It was so surreal to sit there in our hospital room, the lights were dimmed, and I could smell the sweet scent of my baby so intensely despite the Cherry Bomb that had begun to permeate the room)... I thought about the last time I had had cold pizza right out of the fridge in the early early morn and realized it was back in the day, back when the days only revolved around me and being me and going out and coming home far too late... I had a moment of realization and thought ‘WOW.’ Suddenly things had drastically changed and as I gazed at my loving birth coach/husband and then at our little love child, I realized cold pizza never tasted so good.

Emily Christiansen. This is a name that we will never forget. She was our nurse at the beginning, before real labor started, and she was present at the end when I needed her most. During early labor I found myself to be very chatty. Emily indulged me and we eventually covered most basic grounds and in passing had mentioned something about our faith. Nearly 30 hours later, as labor dragged on, the mentioning of a c-section was beginning to be whispered in the halls and Lily's heart rate began dropping. I will never forget Emily's prayer over me and my baby inside of me. Long story short, Lily's heart rate quickly picked up to a healthy rate, I began progressing and soon there after, she arrived- completely naturally and completely healthy.

The day finally came when it was time to depart and discharge the room to allow for the next miracle to happen. I think Jake and I were both secretly terrified to leave the hospital. I mean there were seriously two times that we were in the hospital during our short stay that we wondered why Lily was flailing her arms around... was she just trying to say hello? Ends up this activity startled two different nurses on two different occasions and they ran over, snatched her up, and beat her back (apparently she was choking) Oh boy, I thought... and now they were going to release us? Is this even legal?

However, as soon as we got home, it felt so right. This amazing flood of instinct overcame me and we just figured out what to do. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it was weeks before Lily felt like we knew what we were doing but she had all the essentials- food, clean diapers and lots of love. I remember those early days… at the end of it, I would be so out of my mind exhausted and have been so incredibly busy all day long but when Jake would ask me what we did that day, I couldn’t give him a straight answer. Lily was, however, well fed, which was all that mattered.

On our homecoming from the hospital, family blessed our home with adorable GIRL baby decor- streamers greeted us at the door and in the living room, as did happy gerber daisies and robust gladiolas in every corner of the house. We ate like kings for weeks, thanks to mom and my sisters. We slept like doves by day and like owls by night (I truly did not know it was possible to be awake like that round the clock, but trust me, it is. In fact you can actually survive this for 3 days straight, not a single wink) And I read recently that giraffes sleep with their eyes open and I often feel like that's how I sleep now. Half because I want to keep a watchful eye on my babe and half because I just like looking at her.

It was soon time to take Lily to get her first round of shots. That ended up to be one of the worst experiences of our lives. I genuinely thought Jake was going to take out the nurse who gave Lily her PKU. Yeah, I think the nurse could have had a couple lessons in how to interact with brand new parents but Jake took that to another level. He was furious! (but only in that loving, fatherly, taking care of your brand new baby kind of way- oh and I totally had his back). Now, looking back, I can kind of laugh at our reaction, though tiny Lily's pain tears still make me sad. If you knew Jake, you'd know he is quite the jokester and if there's any room at all for a joke to be cracked, he'll attempt to split it into a million pieces for sure. But there was no joking for him and I know he still can not look back on that day in jest. He was convinced satan himself came up from the fiery depths of hell and delivered Lily's PKU, right there in patient room #4 of the Pediatric Associates in Redmond. ....needless to say, we no longer entertain their staff with our new parenting antics.

So breastfeeding seemed to be a total breeze for Lil and I. Sadly I know so many women have difficulty with that following birth but it just clicked for us (since then, we've faced many challenges with feeding but that's for another entry). I have been more amazed by the incredible abilities of the human body than ever before, it's something so huge and amazing and just inexplicable that I have since given up on trying to truly understand it. But it's also so pure and simple. Mother carries baby for 9 months, mother provides all nutrition for baby, mother has instant maternal instinct in how to care for baby, despite any fear of inability leading right up to delivery... I've never been more confident and proud of anything I've ever done or attempted or  imagined in my life. Being a mom and being responsible for Lily is breathtaking. Nothing you read in any book, by any author and certainly nothing I can articulate can even begin to explain what being a mother is. You have to experience it for yourself. Anyway, first proud mom moment: I'll never forget her first poop. Talk about fulfillment. And not just the first poop but the second and third and so on, it just got better and better and better. I was making this happen by my very breast milk and all her organs that we (*helped*) create were working. Awesome.

Speaking of breast FEEDING- I mean the moment you find out you're pregnant, you hear those words over and over and over and over again. From it being a bonding experience, and enjoyable and natural to it being crucial and what you owe your baby and you better or else. It's almost a full time job to block out a lot of that (judgmental) 'advice'. Don't get me wrong, I think breastfeeding IS enjoyable and wonderfully natural and all those truly good things but I also think people sadly can turn it into something that makes many women feel very bad about themselves if they are not able to perform. At any rate, I remember being instructed to breast FEED every couple hours right after Lily was born. While I enjoyed it for the most part, the term itself began to break apart in my head and I only began hearing and seeing and feeling the word FEEEEDING. It sounded so animalistic. I remember during those first days, there were times when I'd see her start to lick those darling little lips and I cringed as my nipples tried to invert themselves... but there was no hiding... in fact for several weeks I didn't even try to cover them. Nope, they were just out there, standing attention, ready to perform. Sometimes I laugh out loud when I think about what my (newly wedded, mind you) husband must have thought. There I was, not even having reached our one year anniversary and declaring no top in the house (and while this may have been welcomed under any other circumstance, my reasoning -to air-dry, avoid nipple chaffing and easy access to a crying newborn, were not as sexy)

But oh Jake.... he was and is such a trooper. There are some genuinely amazing qualities he carries and I know only he does. I remember being so fearful that we hadn't been married long enough yet for him to have to witness everything that was going to be 'unveiled' and 'excreted', below that beautiful bump I carried for 9 months... I remember frightfully telling the nurses, you MUST keep me clean, I can't let him see me in x,y,z state. I had to have this conversation 4 times as there were shift changes during the entire labor. I told Jake his duty during the birth was to stand as a proud pappa up by my shoulders and not to peek down there. But when I hit the wall and contractions became unbearable and I was making ghastly faces, he was right there, staring right into my eyes, holding my hand. When I caved at 20 hours of labor and needed an epidural, he was right there to tell me how proud he was of me. When it was time to push (the part I was terrified of, both for myself and him), he held my legs back and courageously told me the head was coming. He helped change me and clean me up. He was more gruesomely involved than any nurse and he did it all with a smile, a kiss and genuine love.

Several days after we came home from the hospital, Jake did what he could do to help. Since breastfeeding was out of the picture for him, he did laundry, dishes, cleaned things that neither Lily nor I could give a care if it were clean... I remember him coming to me, incredibly concerned over how to properly hang my overly tattered, overly stretched out, never to be worn or even glanced at again maternity dress on the hanger after he took it out of the wash. "'do the straps of the dress go on the little hooks or big hooks of the hanger?" I realized (again) I was such a lucky woman to have married him.

We couldn't seem to get enough pictures of Lily taken. I still have a problem with this. I mean the babe is completely adorable on a consistent basis -no matter which way she turns or drools, it's art. At any rate, I received a call from a good friend a few days after Lily was born. Of course I was unable to get to the phone, it was time for another one of those FEEDINGS, so I let it go to voicemail. I had no time to check it and waited a good 20 hours before doing so... when I did, I came to learn that it was a message to me, telling me that omigosh, yes, my nipple was in fact posted on Facebook. Apparently it had snuck in there. Somehow Jake didn't notice his wife's nipple when he decided to post it on the WORLD WIDE web?? In his defense, the subject of the photo was adorable little Lily and my nipple, though it was very front and center, resembled nothing he had married into (again, something I was not aware of before BreastFEEDING- major swelling and contortion in those early days) At any rate, I still have no idea who saw the ole' nip, but if you have, don't tell me.

I am quite disappointed that the chocolate cravings are still here. I have NEVER been one to have a sweet tooth. I love great food, I love the social aspects of it, the scientific aspects of cooking and heck, I love the taste of good food. But, I have always been a savory foodie, not a sweet one! When I was pregnant I surprisingly craved chocolates and really anything with sugar in it. And I indulged because I was pregnant and I lived close to a bakery. Well all that's happened now is two things: One, I now dont' have any excuses to feast on cherry turnovers, fruit tarts, chocolate truffles and princess torte in the afternoon and two, I have to now drive 2 more miles to that bakery as we moved.

Speaking of all those sweet calories, I still laugh out loud when I think of what my favorite author had said in her diary regarding her stomach post delivery. Something to the effect of her 'well behaved puppy dog' lying there next to her on her bed as she lay on her side. ...(sigh) so true, it's a very strange thing. I have returned to pre-pregnancy weight and I feel and look almost the same, aside from this slowly fading layer of ?? that still flaps down beside me when I lay on my side. Someone in my mom's group mentioned "This is the body that gave me my baby and for that, I can be content." She is a smart woman.