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