on being a mom

Maura is 12 weeks old this week, and I feel like our life is finally settling. I've been sick for the past two weeks (sinus infection AND a virus) but the blessing in all of it is that I got to spend a few extra days at home in the past week or so and feel like I've finally solidified the bond with my girl. We played together, napped together, smooched and cuddled a lot, and overall, it feels like she knows I'm her momma. My jealously has subsided a bit with Jay; I know for sure we're in this together and that if we could switch roles, he would do it in a second. And it's been a greater joy than I imagined watching the two of them bond. Sometimes when I leave in the morning the two of them are cuddled in bed or on the sofa, and the misery I feel at leaving them is softened by the fact that they seem just melded to each other, like some cheesy physical manifestation of the love between them. She's a lucky girl.

I've been feeling a bit out of sorts, very much missing being pregnant with my girl. In an effort to come to some kind of peace (always a struggle for me), I've been trying to examine what I loved so much about being pregnant that didn't carry over into being a mom. Don't mistake me -- being Maura's mom and Jay's wife has brought me more love than I ever thought possible, and is a thousand million times more fulfilling then I imagined -- yet I very much miss being pregnant, carrying Maura in my belly and protecting her all by myself (and I didn't even do a very good job at that; poor thing got no nourishment from my body from 34 weeks on). I am getting more peace from being a mom than I thought I would, and it's not as if I feel something is missing, but I think I realized today what is going on . . .

(Please note I am not at all fishing for compliments here, and I know to some people I may sound delusional. Be that as it may . . .)

I have never been comfortable with how I look. My biggest issue is that I have never been anything above ordinary. I'm a little shorter than average, a little fatter than average, and while I certainly have my talents, I wouldn't be considered one that stood out in a crowd, particularly physically. My only defining characteristic was that I had big boobs, and I had those reduced when I was 20 years old so I wouldn't be defined by it anymore. But I guess since then, I've had nothing that physically gave me character. I've always done my hair a bit different, cut it short and dyed it many colors. Yet now, at 31 years old, I have finally stopped dying my hair, a trend that started when I was 14. I always wanted to be a little on the saucy side, and I so admire women who are, yet I feel like I've never quite achieved that. But yet when I was pregnant, I was SOMETHING. By belly made my thighs less ginormous (my other obvious characteristic), my belly made people smile, made people notice me, made people care how I was doing. Frankly, my belly looked better in clothes than my non-pregnant body did. Finally, I had character. I had something that defined me physically. And now, as a mom, I'm back to invisible.

I know new moms struggle all the time with their identity and that my feelings are nothing new, but it really does give me something to contemplate. I worry that I'm not as good of a mom as I could be because these stupid things occupy my brain space, and I worry more that my beautiful and perfect daughter will one day think these same things about herself, which might literally break my heart.

But it's a concern; it's there, no matter how much I try to ignore it. And I've tried everything I can: gotten some new clothes that fit my new weird body, cut my hair when needed, gave myself a pedicure. Yet in a little tiny bitty way I feel like I'm losing it.

But then, I look at myself in these moments with my daughter, moments that truly matter, moments I'll never get back, and I know that my love for her is truly more important, and more real, than any feeling of insecurity I face:
Good God I love her.

growing like a champ

We officially have a 10 lb. girl on our hands! Last week's visit to the doctor was a success, minus the first round of vaccines she had to get that made her cry her poor little head off. She's growing really well, and is even up to almost 22 inches! That seems remarkable to me that she's grown almost 4 inches in 10 weeks. Her little bones must ache! She's been having some growing pains lately we think, and I totally can understand why. She's finally filling out her newborn-sized clothes, and has jumped from the 10th percentile to the 20th for height and weight.

Her personality has also blossomed. She's smiling all the time, reacts when we make funny faces, and loves being sung to and danced around. She's such a joy. Her sleeping has gotten a bit more regular, although I don't think we'll ever get used to being so tired. She's the most portable baby I know, and loves to be taken just about anywhere. We went on an airplane last weekend for the first time to go to my brother's engagement party, and she slept through the whole thing. Jay and I still haven't recovered from an overnight trip, but its as if she never missed a beat.

All in all, things are going well. The stress of our schedule and the lack of sleep are making things a bit difficult for us to be rational at times, but I think that goes with the territory. And maybe because of stress, tiredness, hormones, whatever, I can't seem to shake this terrible habit I've gotten into of preparing myself for worst-case scenarios. It started with the terrible thought I couldn't shake for the first few weeks she was home: one day I'm going to die and leave her. I still think this daily. (Is this normal? Someone please reassure me.) But now I've started to play out circumstances in my head in which this happens. Case in point -- the airplane ride. I had planned out what I would try to do if the plane crashed. I figured that if we were on the ground, crashed and engulfed in flames, I would use all my strength to try to throw her as far as I could away from the burning rubble, thinking she would survive the impact of the throw better than she would survive the flames. In fact, I thought, if it looked like there was a way to throw her out of the plane right before impact, there would be a better chance of survival than if she stayed with me on the plane and burned. And when they found her, they would know who she was because we had registered her for the plane trip even though she didn't need a boarding pass to get on.

The next scenario is that I have her out with me on a walk, strapped to my chest in the baby bjorn. It's dark, and someone comes up to us and tries to murder me. I plead with them to let her go and they do, and they let me toss her into some bushes nearby before they kill me. Then, when they find my body, I will have been carrying my wallet on me and they will be able to ID us. But who carries their wallet on a quick walk? I never did, but because I'm so scared of this circumstance, I actually went out and bought a special wallet that has a place to hold a cell phone, so no matter what I'll always have my wallet and phone on me, my wallet containing her health insurance card to ID her. Of course, this morning I decided that wasn't enough, so I made up an emergency contact sheet, wallet-sized, with my name, her name, Jay's name and all of our info on it, in case something bad happens to me and they need to contact Jay, or if they need to ID the baby. Trust me, I understand now why people advocate for microchips to be implanted in all children with their emergency/medical/personal info on it.

Am I nuts? Could be. I've never been a paranoid person, and I've always been one to feel very safe. I took risks when I was younger that I would DIE if Maura repeated, and I came out OK. My life has never been in danger, and I've never been traumatized. I'm hoping this is just a normal (OK, maybe the far end of normal) reaction to loving Maura and wanting to protect her and that it will go away soon. Good thing I work at a psychiatric hospital if it doesn't . . .

my beautiful girl

(Excuse the bizarre blogger lack of formatting...not sure what's happening.)

I could just eat her up I love her so much! Look at that face! Ahh! It kills me not to be with her all day, but my desk is cluttered with pictures to remind me of what I have waiting for me when I get home.

Things have gotten a bit better toward the end of this week, once I got done my big work event that kept me at work for 16 hours on Tuesday and 10 hours on Wednesday. I'm so happy it's over I can't even speak of how horrible it was to be away from her a whole day. I really am trying to black out the memory of it, and I hope she'll never remember either that I left her so long when she was so young. I know she's in good hands with Jay, and I just can't helping feeling like I missed a WHOLE DAY and how terrible it really is.

But, I've decided since everyone is adjusting fine to me being back at work EXCEPT for me, I need to buck up and get over it. I don't have energy to waste anymore on feeling guilty or sad about something I can't do anything about right now, and it would do her no justice at all if I lost my job because I was unable to perform. We'd sink, and that's just not a chance I want to or can take. For her to have a good life, I have to make enough money for us to live, and there's no way around that. One day, when she's older, I hope she can understand. And one day, when she's older, I'm finally going to write the books I've always wanted to write and will make enough money to give her whatever she needs at that time. And if what she needs is more time with me, I'll be able to give her that, too.

We have a doctor's appointment on Monday to get the official word, but she is THRIVING! I unofficially weighed her last week on the scale with me and she is at least 10 lbs., which makes us so happy and reassured. And she's eating more, and sleeping better. We're trying to get on a 10/2/6 feeding schedule, which gives us only one wake-up at night at 2 a.m. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but for the most part, she's only getting up once in the dead of the night.

Jay is the real trooper in all of this. He gets up for the middle of the night feeding, and then has to get up again at 6 when she needs to eat her breakfast. They do get to nap together afterward, but he's the most tried of the three of us. I'm learning to survive with 4 hour chunks of sleep, and even though I usually wake-up in the middle of the night when she does, it helps not to have to actually get out of bed.

I will say though the only thought I can't quite get rid of yet is the utter jealousy I feel that he gets to be home with her during the day, catching up on sleep with her in his arms. I know I have my nights with her, but her days are when she's the most awake, alert and happy. But again, that's how the dice roll right now. I'm grateful for what I've got, which is more than I ever thought possible.

lamenting

The return to work was as I expected -- dreadful. It was the hardest week I may have ever had, emotionally. I'm so conflicted -- how am I supposed to care about anything else besides my family now? Can everyone at work tell my heart's not in it? Do I look like the faker I feel like? The first day was BAD. I had to go home at lunch just to give her kisses. The second day was worse, because I now knew how bad it REALLY was. Jay had to bring her up for lunch, and I cried when they left. I knew I would miss both Jay AND Maura. What I didn't expect was how much missing them both would control my mind. During the day I'm overhwelmed with missing Maura and during the night I'm overhwelmed with missing Jay. We've basically get 5 minutes together as a family in the evenings once I get home from work before he has to rush off to work himself.

It's not yet about feeling like I'm missing some kind of milestones by being at work -- her first time rolling over and her first words are a ways off -- but I just feel like doing anything other than being with them is a total waste of time. It's hard to reconcile that I am choosing to be at work rather than be with her. But I need to cut myself some slack, I think. I'm not choosing it because its what I'd prefer, I'm choosing it because its the best way to provide for that family I love so much. I knew it would be hard, and I can't change the work situation, so I know I need to let it go. I'm really struggling though. Even though I'm well aware that I should only worry about the things I can actually change, the things I can't still make me very sad.

All in all though, the one to come out unscathed was Maura, and that's what matters the most. Jay did great with her, and although he's tired, he's adjusting well, too. It's kind of a sweet routine -- I put her down to bed around 8:30 p.m., she gets up when he gets home from work at midnight and he feeds her. She gets up again usually around 4 a.m. for another feeding that he handles, and then she's up again around 7 a.m. At the 7 a.m. feeding, he takes her out onto the sofa and they both fall asleep with her on his chest. It's heartbreakingly sweet. She loves it, he loves it, and it's nice for me to be able to get some solid sleep before a long day at work. This weekend, I got up and did the night feedings so Jay could have a break and sleep. And I got to get up with her in the morning and sleep with her on my chest. It's an exhilarating feeling, warm and cushy and magic. To feel her chest rising and falling against my chest is a feeling I know I won't get to experience forever, so I take full advantage. I even sneak her on to my chest to sleep when she should probably be put in her crib, but I don't care. I'll never get these moments back and I'm going to get them whenever I can.

The second week is off to an OK start, mainly because I had off work yesterday. We had a great weekend of visiting with my friend Amy and her baby girl and running errands and cleaning. And then Keegan came into town late Sunday night around 11 p.m. from the Buddhist monastery to visit with us and Maura. We had a wonderful day together yesterday, and I took him back to the bus station at 2 a.m. today to return to his life there. He's doing FANTASTIC, and is loving the experience. It was so good to see him, my little brother that I used to baby so much. I couldn't resist it even now that I have my own child; I had to buy him some jeans and food and offer to get him new underwear and toothbrushes. He, of course, knows how to appease me, and let me do it.

Another big work event is on the horizon, and I have to work this Saturday to prepare for it, which makes me very sad. Remember the 12 hour day I had when I was 7 months pregnant? We're trying not to repeat that.

Duty calls . . .until next time,

some new views . . .

I can't even begin to express how sad I am that I have to go back to work on Monday. Jay will be home with her during the day, and I know that's amazing and reassuring, but I can hardly imagine leaving her for a whole day. It's so terrible to think about, I can't even write about it . . .

Maura is doing AMAZING; at her doctor's appointment last Thursday she was 7 lbs. 11 oz., which makes her feel like a TANK to us. She's still only in the 10th percentile, so who knows, we may have a skinny girl on our hands (not too skinny, we like girls with meat on their bones. With me as her mother I'm still not sure how she'll get away with not having some T & A).

Dare I say it has gotten easier to care for her? She doesn't sleep much, during the day or night, and we've yet to establish a routine, but we've gotten used to it. She's feeding a bit more regularly, and finally off the special preemie formula, but sleeping is tough. She doesn't nap, and if she does on the off chance, its in the evening approaching bedtime. And at night, we're lucky to get 3 hours of solid sleep. The doctor thinks its all related to the IUGR; we may never know what parts of her failed to fully develop, so she may be a bit behind for a while in getting her systems regulated. Although when she is alert, she recognizes voices, turns her head, grabs toys, and is even trying to hold her head upright. Developmentally, she is up to speed, but her internal systems are a bit haywire. I have full confidence it will sort itself out when she's good and ready.

Last week was my first week alone with her all day and night while Jay was at work, and it took a while to get the hang of things, but I did it. I just buckled down and gave myself a pep talk and said, "Listen, I am her mother. I can do this." So we went to Target, to the mall, out to lunch, and if she had a meltdown, it just had to be and I took care of it as best I can. I do know one thing: I will never roll my eyes at another parent again. I used to see babies screaming and parents doing things with their children I always swore I wouldn't do, but now that I have one of my own, I understand that every parent does the best they can with what they have. Every parent is just trying to keep their head above water. I feel a part of that "posse" now, and feel universally bonded to other mothers in a way I never expected. I feel like I could hug every woman I see with a child and just say, "I know, I'm one of you now." I love it.

This is kind of tangential, but I've recently discovered Facebook, and while the fact that I JUST discovered it makes me pathetically behind the times, it has allowed me to connect with people I once knew (many of whom are mothers) and it totally warms my heart in an unexpected way. Women I once knew as single freewheeling chicks are all on their own journeys, many of which include children, and although the thing that once connected us is no longer there, I feel strongly that memories link me to them in strange ways, and that now that I'm officially an "adult" (as having Maura has made me feel), I can connect with these people and wish them well and have it be just that, connected with people I care about that played a huge part in my life and that I would like to see doing well themselves. I could go on forever, but I can't tell you how good it feels to reach out to the people I often think about and hear they were doing the same. As weird as it sounds, it gives me tremendous pleasure to see an old friend's face and hear they are doing well. People don't ever mean for relationships to end, or to move on from the people who were so important in their lives at one juncture, and I feel thankful that Facebook has given me a chance to reconnect and wish those people well, even if they were only in my life for what seems like the blink of an eye. Every blink is valuable to me now; my perspective has totally changed.

As you can see, I am (and feel) all over the place, mainly because I'm in awe of how she has changed my life. I value myself more, love my husband more than I thought humanly possible, and feel like I now understand what it means to put someone else's life before your own. I would die for my daughter, no matter what the circumstances. I cry with how much I love her. It's the best feeling in the world.

one month old!

Hard to believe, but Maura is one month old today!

It has been the ride of our lives, this first month with our girl. Some days I still can't believe it's real. She seems to have completely recovered from any problems she had when she was born. We go to the doctor next week, but according to my unofficial weigh-in, she's right at about 7 1/2 pounds. She eats, poops and pees like a champ, and she (sort of) sleeps well. She recognizes our voices, turns her head from side to side, loves playing on the activity mat, and is very alert more and more every day.

It's such a life-altering experience, being a parent. I get overwhelmed all the time; not with how tough it is, but at how much I love her and what an enormous responsibility is before us. I spent the first few days home from the hospital in constant tears. It was hard (and still is) to take it day by day, moment by moment. I would hold her and just cry, thinking that one day I was going to die and leave her. This is still my saddest thought, and always in the back of my head. It propels me to try to relish every moment with her now. I used to think I'd be worried constantly about how she would be as a teenager, how I'd be able to manage being a good parent and a good wife and a good worker, but I hardly think about those thing now. I know we'll make it through, as long as I'm lucky enough to be alive. My family is my reason for living. I am so lucky to have them.

She is generally a good girl; a little fussy and unpredictable and beautiful through it all. It's hard when we don't know why she's crying (harder still when it's 3 a.m. and we've exhausted every possibility) and she's got a cold now, which makes us feel terribly hurt and sorry for her. Jay and I have both said if we could jump into her body and feel her pain for her we would. I'm sure every parent feels this way, but the old cliche is so, so true -- nothing can prepare you for parenthood.

I'm pretty much fully recovered from childbirth, although not at all looking forward to going to work in two weeks. I have to blow dry my hair, put on make-up, iron a shirt? It all seems so trivial now. Maura has finally met almost all of her immediate family; my Mom came for a week this past week and my Dad and brothers are coming in the next two weeks. Jay's family has gotten to be around her from the beginning. She' so lucky to have so many people who love her.

I've tried to send pictures to everyone's email, but here's a few for those of you who haven't received them. She makes the best faces.

she's here!

Maura Elizabeth Smalley joined us on Thursday, August 21 at 1:35 p.m. She was 4 lbs. 15 oz. and 18 inches long. Sorry it has taken me so long to update! Here's the birth story:

On Wednesday the 20th I headed to the hospital for a repeat ultrasound to see if the girl had grown any from the previous week's ultrasound. Before I left the house, I thought, "This could be it. Shave your legs and pluck your eyebrows, do your hair and bring your bag." I didn't really believe it though, as they said I would get at least two days notice if I was going to be induced.

I arrived for the ultrasound and the tech immediately said, "She hasn't grown." I had gotten an official diagnosis of IUGR (interuterine growth retardation) earlier in the week, which basically means that my placenta just gave up around 34 weeks, and she was unable to gain any nutrients from my body from that point forward, which caused her to stop growing. It was a dangerous condition, particularly if the ultrasound proved that things had not improved over the course of a week.

The tech searched around looking at her blood and oxygen supply and went to go report to the doctor on call. 10 minutes later they came in and said that the baby was in distress and they were going to move me to labor and delivery. I got up in a daze and they said, "We're starting the induction." I was like, "Now??? Can I call my husband? What's going to happen?" A very nice doctor put his arm around me and said, "Your baby needs to be born. This is a great time to deliver, and you'll be just fine. 38 weeks is a perfect time to have a baby." They felt that she would not need NICU care once she was born and that it was safe to deliver at the hospital there instead of one in the city, so they brought me into a room and had me change into a gown. I called Jay and told him it was a go, which induced a bit of panic. He left work right away and was by my side within an hour.

It took a few hours, but they came in and set me up with pitocin, which is an artificial hormone that stimulates the uterus to contract. They told me the induction could take three days because they had to go slow because of her size and state. This was around 1:30 p.m. We sat and waited for the pitocin to take effect, but by 7 p.m., I hadn't really dilated any further and they wanted me to be able to eat and sleep before they kept up with everything any longer. The doctor came in and said that while the baby was OK, no matter what she needed to be born the next day, at the latest. So they turned off the pitocin, let me have a cheeseburger, and gave me orders to sleep, as the pitocin would be starting up again the next morning at 4 a.m. They were going to let it "saturate" in my body overnight.

We were too excited to sleep, and with all the goings on and checking in with the nurses, we didn't fall asleep until about midnight. At 4 a.m. as promised they came in with the pitocin. By the time I was checked again at 7 a.m., I had dilated only another half-centimeter, and while I was feeling contractions, they were only mildly uncomfortable and not very frequent, even though I was on the highest level of pitocin. At this point, they decided to break my water to get things moving. And move they did . . .

The contractions kicked in majorly, which as I imagined, were quite painful. I was breathing through them and Jay was calming me down, but when they came in at 10 a.m. after three hours of it, I was ready for the epidural. The epidural was finished by 11:30 a.m. and was a god-send; it didn't hurt AT ALL going in (no more than an IV prick) and the relief was almost instant. They checked me again to get a baseline and I was 4 cm. Everyone took bets on her birth time; everyone said no earlier than 10 p.m. We hunkered down for the long haul.

About an hour later, I started to get very cold, teeth-chattering and all. They checked me again and I was 6 cm. They came back 20 minutes later to adjust the pitocin, took one look at me, checked me again, and I was a full 10 cm. The doctor was like, "Ummm, call the pediatrician and let them know they need to be here for a birth immediately." She looked at me and said, "ready to push? You better get ready, we're starting in a few minutes and this baby needs to get out." She was struggling, and they had to insert an internal fetal monitor to the top of her head since the monitor on my belly wasn't able to keep track of her well enough. It all happened so fast, and next thing I knew, my legs were up and I was pushing.

In what felt like an instant, (and was only about 20 minutes), out came Maura screaming her little head off. They plopped her on my chest, and time stood still. I couldn't believe she was here and I was touching her. They had told me to expect that she would be moved right away to an isolette and that I wouldn't likely get to hold her right away, but because she was crying, they felt it was safe to let me hold her for a minute. Too soon they moved her to the warmer, and Jay got to cut the cord. I kept asking if she was OK as a team from the pediatrician's office were conducting her Apgar tests and checking her lungs and heart. I was so preoccupied with her that I don't remember delivering the placenta or getting stitched up. They concluded that although she was fine, she was in fact a preemie at just under 5 lbs., and they believe that I was not in fact 38 weeks, but more like 36, which is pre-term. We're still not sure if we believe that--it means that every ultrasound we'd had to date was incorrect in assessing her size and my due date, which is highly unlikely. But the pediatrician was convinced she was no older than 36 weeks, and so they were going to treat her as such in the nursery.

They cleaned everything up and decided that we could hold her for a while until it was time to move me to a new room and give her a bath. We were ecstatic -- again, we had been told not to expect this, that we would likely have to watch her being wheeled off to the nursery immediately. I couldn't stop crying at how much I loved her, and Jay was in heaven, holding his daughter like a natural. I'd never loved him so much as in that moment.

About an hour later they came back to move me and took her off to her bath. We were told they would come get us in about an hour or so once they were finished to show us a few things about feeding before we got settled in our room. They asked if it was OK to have a group of nurses and interns with her in the nursery as they got her cleaned up and ran some final tests on her muscular development, reflexes, etc. Of course, we said yes, and as they wheeled me to my new room past the nursery they held her up in the window to wave to me.

We got into our new room and I said I wanted to go check on her. We got half-way down the hall and the nurses stopped us and told us there were some problems. Her breathing was very labored, and she turned "dusty" during the tests. They had to abandon the bathing and put her in a warmer and run some tests. They let us go in as they were hooking her up to some makeshift oxygen tubes, and calling for more support from the pediatrician. They did a chest x-ray and determined she had something called TTN, which basically is a condition in preemies that causes fluid in the lungs. After much trial and error and us in tears, they decided to put her in a "hood" which is basically an upside-down bowl over her head that was going to feed in oxygen through some tubes filtered by a dehumidifier. And they hooked her up to an IV, which they wouldn't let us witness.

I have never been so terrified in my life. They let us come to look at her and touch her and talk to her whenever we wanted, but we had to spend the first night without her in our room. I barely slept, and went and sat with her a few times through the night. I felt terrible -- people came to visit, but no one got to hold her. And watching her on the monitors and stuck with an IV and not in my arms, I couldn't keep it together.

By noon the next morning she was doing better and they were slowly weaning her off the hood. By 4 p.m., she was breathing room air on her own, and they let me go in and feed her. It was exhilarating. Finally, after my body had failed to feed her for her last few weeks inside me, and after I was unable to do anything for her in her first day of life, getting to feed her gave me a purpose I could hold on to, something I could do for her that would do some good.

The next two days in the hospital were perfect--we got to have her in our room that night, learned to feed her and take care of her, bonded as a new family, got to know each other. I have many of my life's best moments that took place in those days--holding my sleeping daughter to my chest, laying in the hospital bed in the middle of the night with my husband curled up behind me, holding me as I cried at all of the love I felt for him and her, watching Jay lay with her on the silly fold out bed at 3 a.m. as we got ready to feed her. I still cry every day at those memories, knowing I will never get them back. As exhausted and out of sorts as I was, it was when I was at my best.

The decided to keep her another day to monitor her, and they let us stay on as boarding parents so we didn't have to leave her. We were so excited when we got the word we could take her home. The nurses and doctors were wonderful and wished us well, and then we were on our way to our new life.

The past two weeks have been like nothing else in my life. We love Maura so much it hurts sometimes to look at her because I have to hold back from sobbing. We can't imagine our world without her. It's the hardest thing we've ever had to do, but we're getting better at it by the day. I've never been so in love with Jay, and although I sometimes feel like we are two ships passing in the night, I couldn't be the mother I aspire to be without him by my side, and I want to do it again as soon as possible so we can keep building on the love we have for each other. I finally feel complete!

She is growing well, and as of her two week appointment yesterday she is up to 6 lbs. and 19 inches. Small, but growing like a champ!

Thank you to everyone for your love and support. Thanks to your generosity, we re the most well-fed new parents and she is the best dressed girl on the block. I'm going to try to update here as frequently as she allows, hopefully at least once a week.

XOXO,
Emily, Jay and Maura