I am back from the RESOLVE Conference! I got to listen to some truly fascinating talks about various IVF topics, and I got to meet the fabulous Mel! (Photo will be forthcoming, when she sends me a copy. She’s presumably unpacking.) I’ll write more about the topics later when I go through my notes.

I didn’t sleep much at all last night because I was nervous about waking up on time, driving that distance and finding the conference center, and leaving Kate for 12 hours. Mostly I was nervous about her suddenly deciding she is ravenous and going through all the milk I left in the freezer. We don’t usually use more than a bottle or two a week, so I don’t keep very much in the freezer – all week I’ve been pumping extra to make sure I had extra. So wouldn’t you know it, I arrived at the hotel with a stomach-ache and a headache, probably both from anxiety! But I made it on time and didn’t get lost. It was a miracle.

I brought my big diaper-tote-bag in order to carry the electric pump around with me and not have it be totally obvious like Hey, I’m totally breastfeeding my cute little baby! At lunch I asked someone if there was somewhere I could go. The coat closet wasn’t being used – a pretty big room, totally empty, and it even had a chair, an electric plug, and a lock on the door. I was so thrilled it was so easy! So I got set up and sat there thinking about Kate and wondering how she’s doing. And then… the door opened. Apparently I locked it, but it didn’t latch when I closed it. A lady stared at me in shock, looked around the room and stuttered “Oh! I’m sorry!!” and she shut the door. Here I am sitting there with my shirt pulled up, the pump cones on my boobs like an extremely unfortunate Madonna costume, and the machine is going Thhhp thhhp thhhp. I just kind of froze thinking, oh this is great.

I’m still sitting there thinking about how embarassing that was when I hear the door handle again. The door opens for a second time, a different woman, this time holding keys. “I’m sorry…” was all I could say. She poked her head in, looked around while saying something like, “I just have to get…” and then stopped when she apparently realized it wasn’t in there – whatever it was. Then she says to me politely – and fairly composed, considering the state of me – “I could get you a room?” I thanked her and said I was almost done anyways. And smiled as if there was nothing weird going on.

Now I have nursed in public many times at this point. Sometimes with a screaming child, sometimes with a mischievous child who nursed until let down then leans back to see the world. I have probably flashed people my nipple, and I know a couple of times a fine spray of milk went everywhere. But that is nothing compared to how awkward it feels to be seen pumping. It’s just so dairy-cow like.

So that was my laugh of the day. At this point I just shrug and say, “Meh!” But I think that woman may be traumatized for life.

I find I am always trying to figure out what the line is, where the ideal is, between respecting other people and sharing my own beliefs. I find that over the last few years I’ve started understanding that what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for other people – and that’s okay. It’s hard to be okay with sometimes. It stems from insecurity, wondering if what I’m doing really is the best thing for me, worrying about being judged. I find that it takes a very strong person to be confident in yourself and your own choices while at the same time fully supporting other people in theirs.

Take breastfeeding. I chose to breastfeed, and I love it – I wouldn’t choose any other way for myself. But I also don’t think formula is the devil, that it will cause kids to be less intelligent, or that parents who feed formula are doing a bad thing. Sometimes I feel sad that a mother isn’t getting to experience the joy in nursing that I do, but then not every woman who nurses feels that same joy anyways. But at the same time I do want to encourage new mothers to nurse, if they have that option. I think it does have benefits and I want to make sure to give encouragement so that someone who is on the fence about it has the tools and support they need to give it a try and hopefully succeed. Plus I would love to see this country move towards more of a breastfeeding norm so that people don’t think it’s weird or shocking to breastfeed in public, or past a year, or at all. (I was really quite shocked when I was pregnant at how many people actually scoffed and laughed at me for stating I was going to breastfeed. But in this culture we’re in right now it’s seen as a really hard, probably-not-achievable thing.)

Or how about natural birth and epidurals. I had good births, and I hope my third one is the same. But the more I learn and talk with others the more I realize that my births are unusually easy. I do think that labor can be a beautiful, wonderful thing to one person, and definitely not to another. Women should be able to choose how they want to handle it, if they want that epidural and IV or not. Though I do think women should know that can cause labor to slow down, pushing to be longer, and does have some possible side-effects such as a spinal headache or being completely numb instead of just dulled. Does that mean every woman who gets an epidural will have that list of things happen? Of course not. I have heard many women speak fondly of their labor-with-an-epidural experience and had it end in a very nice vaginal birth, as planned. But I have also heard women speak of getting one of those side-effects and saying, “I didn’t know that was possible.” At least if you know the information you can choose for yourself.

Those two topics are of course very near and dear to my heart, but it doesn’t stop there and it certainly isn’t limited to baby topics. Every day we live our life we make choices, like what type of car to buy (SUV? Minivan? Used? Brand new?) or what type of food to eat (organic? local? frozen meals? artifical sweeteners?). Where does the baby sleep, when will you start solids, what type of diapers to use, will you keep pets in the house, will you turn on cartoons, will they take a pacifier, will they play with all those plastic lights-and-music toys? Will you see an RE or not? Will you do IUI? IVF? Adopt? Every day we make choices. Other people make different ones. What works for one person may not work for another, and that’s okay. I recognize, however, that the choices we make, the way we speak about our opinions and the way we live our lives all have an effect on other people. Maybe you talking with your friends about how you chose to make your own baby food spurred a friend to look into it themselves. Maybe your recounting of your rough no-epidural-labor confirmed another friend’s decision to get an epidural the moment she walks in the hospital door. Maybe seeing you breastfeeding your baby made a stranger think about giving it a try next time, or encourages a mother to breastfeed in public too.

I try to be respectful, I try not to be pushy. I try to listen. Sometimes I fail – I have been known to be grouchy and spiteful, especially when provoked. I’m working on that. I can look back at the last ten years and see how much I’ve matured. I remember as a teenager seeing things as absolutes. If I’ve learned anything it’s that everything is gray-toned.

It seems that I write much better when I have something bad going on in my life. The last 5 months have been going very well so when I pull up this screen to write something I feel like I’m just repeating myself.

I’ve been irritated by things lately, but since they mostly involve other people, I can’t/won’t write about them in a public space like my blog. And that irritates me, too. All these things bouncing around in my head and nowhere to let them out!

The other reason I haven’t been posting much is because I’ve been feeling super sensitive for quite a while now. I realize my hormones are still in flux and probably will be for a while – I can’t really think of any other reason that I’d be this sensitive for such an extended period (since I was pregnant). Posting about anything of interest to me tends to be somewhat controversial and I feel like it leaves me open, makes me jittery. That’s not what this space is supposed to be about for me. And it’s not just my blog, either, it’s everything. I’ve been nervous about talking to friends, acquaintances, family. I’m nervous about hurting other peoples’ feelings, and nervous about getting mine hurt without the other person even intending to. It’s just a sucky feeling. I wish I just didn’t care so much… either that I didn’t care about getting hurtful comments, or that I didn’t care about a subject to the point where I didn’t feel a need to comment.

Thank goodness the election is over – now we can stop watching those stupid ads on TV. I’m momentarily feeling a little more zen about politics in this country, though it’s probably only momentary. I have no idea how a country with such diametrically opposed political views ever manages to get anything done. The more I learn about history the more it seems obvious that it will just keep swinging back and forth between the two parties. I can’t spent too much time thinking about it or I’ll get all fatalistic about it.

There is something about Halloween that doesn’t seem quite right to me. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, exactly, but I know I keep thinking about Devin. Graves and ghosts and horror all take on a different meaning when you have lived through a horror story, when a grave marks the body of your child. I pass houses that have fake graveyards in front of their house and I frown. Not that I think it is wrong that they do that, but I see it from a different perspective now.

Two years ago a local mother and child were killed while trick or treating on a street not too far from here. For two years there have been flowers and candles on a tree beside the road. I  used to pass it almost every dayand always my eyes would look to see what was new on the tree, and to think about that family. My heart clenches every time. I wonder about how the husband is. I wonder what the family is doing this halloween.

Many years ago, when I was a teenager living with my parents, my mom came in my room on halloween night, crying, to tell me that one of her close friends sons had died. On a hayride on a farm, of all things – he had fallen off. Every Halloween I used to think about him briefly, but since Devin died I think about him a lot, and about his family.

This year was a little different, this year we had Kate. We dressed her in costume for some outings. I even carved a pumpkin while she watched. I am sure as the years go by our Halloweens will include more kids activities, more fun and silly scary things. I wonder, though, if I will ever see a gravestone and not think about the real ghosts that hang around in the back of my thoughts.

I feel like I’m trying to get my life in order. Does that ever actually work?

I bought Creative Memories’ Memory Manager – it’s a digital photo organizing program, $40. It is awesome! It has a timeline along the bottom so everything is arranged by date – and you can adjust it to select photos on one day, week, month, year, etc. Then it has a nesting folder structure so you can index photos according to subject/event/whatever. So I have all of Kate’s photos under one folder for easy access – and photos can be under multiple categories, so it can be under Kate, Natalie, and Halloween 2010. You label all photos on a 5-star system, so I have all photo rejects as 0 stars, all good want-to-keep photos as 4 stars and the select best ones I want to share with family as 5-stars (since no one really wants to see all 40 pictures I took in one sitting, ha). It exports, which is far cooler than it sounds: it exports those photos based on my search criteria. So say I want to print out all photos of Kate from September and October that are of 4-stars or more, but I only want them to be 1200 pixels or smaller (instead of my GINORMOUS photo files). Done! Easy as pie. Oh, plus the program can create separate Vaults, which means I can have one for my personal stuff and one for all the photos of adoptable cats I take for work. It also includes some pretty nice editing tools – crop, rotate, color, hue, brightness, red-eye correction (and that’s not all)… that’s more than I’d expect for the price. Plus all of it is really well designed and easy to use even for people who are not complete computer geeks like I am. I think I am in love with this program. I will be buying a copy for my mother.

::

We did not go to DC this weekend, but we watched the Rally to Restore Sanity on TV. We love Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. The performances were pretty good, it was fun to watch. But Jon’s closing speech totally kicked ass. One of my favorite quotes:

What is the opposite of a growth spurt? Because Kate is in one of those right now.

I was right in that my supply is down, but I think wrong as to the cause – it wasn’t my time away. Kate is just not eating much. Today I was kind of in the mindset of Have to have her nurse frequently to get my supply up! It was so not happening. I’d offer her the breast and she’d suck twice then start playing and grinning. And when she is hungry she’ll nurse for a while and empty my breast and then be totally happy. So obviously she has no problem with this.

She is also not sleeping much. Today she had 2 naps. TWO. This is utterly bizarre for a baby who as late as last week was taking 5-6 naps a day. Right up until and during her last little cold she was only going typically an hour before needing to nap again, max hour and a half before melting down. She got healthy and bam she’s going 3 hour stretches. What the hell? When she gets cranky I would try putting her to sleep like usual but she nurses briefly and starts playing and babbling happily, clearly NOT tired.

This could explain why she’s been fighting naps and not sleeping very long.

At 10pm she was ready for bed, we cuddled for a little bit, she nursed and straight to sleep. And then, after she was sound asleep, I rolled over and scooted to the other side of the bed to cuddle with my husband and talk for a while just like we used to. I missed that. We still talk after we go to bed, but it’s typically with a large gap between us as I could never move away from Kate – or when I could roll away we couldn’t talk or we’d wake her. It was so nice.

Yesterday Denis was out late. At 10pm Kate was snuggling me on the couch so I figured I’d try to put her to sleep. I laid down with her on our bed and nursed her peacefully. Just when I thought she was going down and getting sleepy there’s a loud, “PFFFFBBBTTTTT!!” She started blowing raspberries on my nipple.

There was a moment of, “Gah!” but then I just started laughing at her because she was being so silly. She laughed at me. I kissed her cheek and she shrieked happily. We played for the next 20 minutes.

I decided there are more important things than bedtime, even at 10pm.

::

I have worked for several hours the last two days, and then this evening I went out for some scrapbooking with friends. Den stayed home with Kate. They did just fine together; each time I came home to a tired husband and happy baby. Coming home is awesome because Kate gets so excited and she just wants to babble and climb and kick and blow raspberries. Unfortunately it doesn’t matter if I come home at 4pm or 10pm, she still wants to do all of those things. So 10pm tonight again she really didn’t want to sleep.

First she started suckling, but apparently she was bored and not hungry (and my boobs were pretty empty after pumping) so she started babbling and grabbing at my face. She sucked, let go, sucked, let go, sucked… chomped down and pulled until there was a “pop.” Can you say “Ow”?? Glad she doesn’t have teeth yet!

Then she started looking around, saw my pillow up above my head, and reached up for it. She rolled away from me. Then rolled back. Suckled. Rolled away, back. Away, back. Away, back. Away… rolled fully onto her stomach. Looked around, grinned. Looked at me, put her head down, and POP! Rolled from her front to her back, rashed into me, and grinned at me. She’s never done that one before. Once upon a time when she was 3 months old she would roll front-to-back, but it was always accidental and when she stabilized she stopped doing it. Apparently that just clicked. I admit, I laughed and kissed her and said, “Wow, good job!!” She shrieked happily and did it again. And again. I woke up the husband to show him her new trick.

Quite obviously there was no sleeping going on, I was laying beside a little monkey. I’m not so sure I’ll be getting much sleep the next week as she masters this new skill of hers! (Of course when I did get her to fall asleep I got up to write this. Brilliant!)

::

Unfortunately because of all the time I’ve spent away from Kate the last two days has caused my supply to dip, despite my pumping the exact amount she eats while I’m out. I know I need to pump more frequently, but that is difficult – especially when I forget my pump, like I did yesterday (duh).

Straight breastfeeding is pretty easy, I never have to think about ounces or frequency, I just nurse when she wants to and everything maintains itself, no intervention required. I imagine straight pumping would be a pain in the ever-loving ass, but once you figure out how much you need and how often at least it would be kind of predictable. But this mostly-breastfeeding-sometimes-pumping thing is annoying. I’m annoyed that now I have to actually think about how much she’s eating, so I can pump the right amount. I’m annoyed I have to remind myself to go pump on a schedule. I’m annoyed I have to sit hooked up to a machine and waste time for 10 minutes while it makes funny noises at me. But it is a necessary thing if I want to continue actually leaving the house without Kate! Not that I like being away from her, but having a few hours a week to myself is pretty awesome.

Plus I think both Kate and Den benefit from their time together. He’s figured out how to get her to sleep in her swing, or on his lap or chest. I still get a little worried that she’ll refuse to sleep and scream at him, but I’m getting more confident that everything will be good while I’m gone. She still has no issues taking the bottle and then breastfeeding when I get home. She’s also having a lot of fun interacting with her daddy, now that she’s at a fun age where she babbles and plays. I’m really happy that they figure out their own way of doing things while I’m out, which is not something they readily do when I’m home.

::

Did I mention that last night she only woke up once? She refused to go to sleep at 10pm, dozed on my chest between 11 and midnight, then we went to bed and she nursed to sleep. She woke me up at 4am to nurse. The next time I remember her rousing is right around 8am when she starts waking up. (I refused to become conscious until closer to 9, so I nurse her back to sleep several times until she’s fully awake and grabbing me in the face, lol!) I’m so impressed. I certainly don’t expect this to become the norm, although she typically only wakes up 2 times a night.

5 months is awfully close to 6 months. How did this happen? I am not ready for this. And yet when I hold her in my arms and she laughs and slobbers on my shirt and grins at me I think, damn, she’s perfect. So I guess 5 months is okay.

I’m having a no-good day and was just shooting Den dirty looks when he tried lightening the mood.

I marched into the room and with no preamble said, “I need an intervention.”
He eyed me. “Chocolate?”
“Yes!”
He put his hands on my shoulders and said with all gravity, “Oh honey, did you think you were the only one who knew?”

I couldn’t help it… I pushed him away and bust out laughing. I’m so glad he has a sense of humor.

But I’m not kidding about the chocolate. These cravings are ridiculous, I am eating an insane amount of junk (and very little healthy stuff). I need to go cold-turkey. And I will. After Halloween.

::

Kate’s back to sleeping well at night, which makes me a very happy mama – though I’m still tired, thanks to the gloom of fall, it always makes my depression kick in worse. But Kate, she’s great!

Except at naps. She was always SO GOOD about sleeping, anywhere or anytime, as long as she was tired. Not anymore. She has discovered that there are fun things going on, she wants to blow bubbles and roll over and shriek like a pterodactyl. Which is great, I LOVE all of those things. But she wants to do them instead of napping. That doesn’t work for me. And not just because I need some downtime – but she needs to nap. She gets tired, she’s rubbing her eyes, I’m nursing her, rocking her, singing to her, and she’s whining and pushing away and blowing bubbles all at the same time. She giggles and coos, then cries. This is a continuing test of my patience. I used to be able to put her down for a nap in 2 minutes flat. Now some days it takes half an hour. This evening her eyes snapped open the second I opened the door to leave and her arms immediately started flailing and the whining started. I nursed/rocked/sung her back to sleep and left successfully… only for her to wake up 10 minutes later. Aggghhhh!

Please tell me this phase passes soon. I’m getting really tired of zombie-Kate and the corresponding meltdowns.

On the GOOD side of things, when I put her down to nap and she’s actually tired and settles in comfortably I can get up and leave. And even more exciting is that I have started hearing little cries/squawks… and then silence. I will go in if she wakes up and cries, but if I hear movement or other little noises I wait to see if she’s actually awake or just re-settling herself. The exciting part is that she is actually re-settling herself! I used to have to go in every single time, she’d wake herself up. Yesterday when I got up to leave her eyes opened and stared so I sat down on the floor and ducked just out of sight (if she sees me she wants me!). Then I waited a minute or two. Sure enough she blinked, looked around sleepily, and fell back asleep! Awesome!

::

Construction continues. I am about to tear all my hair out. I cannot handle my kitchen being such a huge dump! There is shit all over my counters, the floors are constantly dirty (pet peeve – I swear I sweep that floor 10 times a day because of the cat litter that gets tracked through), my sink is full of dishes because there is stuff in the way of the dishwasher….. aagghghhhhh!!!

Today I just woke up in a funk, I think. I could tell right away that it was a gloomy, rainy day outside. The messy house is getting to me, the weather is definitely getting to me, Kate fighting naps is frustrating. It was Sunday which meant nothing on TV, and Den was working. I ended up cuddling with Kate on the couch for a little while (I love her climbing on me, snuggling on my chest, and babbling away at me), taking a nap with her (in an attempt to force her to sleep at least an hour – and it worked!), and not even bothering to take a shower. Bah. I did go buy dog food, though…. which is when Kate had her meltdown, on the way home.

It was a lazy, pajama-filled day. I did get some laundry done and put away, and tidied up Kate’s room a little while she played on the floor. Oh, and I got some bills filed away, too. Then she started complaining that I had ignored her too long. The rest of the house is still a mess. :(

When you are pregnant you start to build up all kinds of little movies in your head of the future with your baby. Every year we go to a halloween party and last year I was newly pregnant. I remember watching a couple of little babies knowing that would be us the next year. I wasn’t more than 12 weeks pregnant but I stared at one sweet little girl and said to Den, “We’re having a girl and we are going to name her Kate.” And we did.

So this year I it was extremely exciting to pick out a costume for her. (If a little overwhelming. It seemed like such an important decision!) I even spent too much money on a costume of my own to go with it. We arrived and everyone ooed and awwed over the baby in costume. I proudly carried her around to show her off and handed her off to one of her grandmas. Arms free to eat and mingle, grandma gets a turn, what a great night!

Not even 15 minutes later I hear crying and Den goes to get her. And she utterly melted down. Did I mention she barely napped today? She slept in the car on the way over, but that obviously wasn’t enough. She was tired, she was overstimulated, and she was suddenly way past her line in the sand. We took her upstairs so I could nurse her, lay down with her, jiggle her, sing to her, walk with her. Nothing we did helped. She screamed. High-pitched, shrill, over-the-top screaming. She wouldn’t nurse. She wouldn’t take the paci. Even the magic mei tai didn’t quell it. I was in near tears, Den and I were snapping at each other, I packed up our bag and got ready to bail (though we knew in the state she was in the carseat was unlikely to stop it and it’s a half-hour drive home. Wheefun.)

Somehow Den got her to fall asleep on his chest, finally. She slept for a while, half an hour maybe. When her eyes opened we stared at her cautiously. Was she going to scream again? She looked up at me with big, watery eyes and said, “Cooooo?” Whew.

So we stayed for a little while. She did okay, even smiling at people and grabbing at things (and people). But she stayed facing me in my arms the entire time, which is really not like her (she likes to face out). She kept putting her head on my chest. So I just chilled out on the couch with her for a while, cuddling and talking to her. So much for showing off my happy, social baby. That was not how we expected her first halloween party to be.

But at least she was really cute. (Pic taken on a different day, when meltdowns were not on the menu.)