And Then...?

Sleep deprivation.

Yup, I’m in the thick of it now.  With Eli, weeks 5-8 postpartum were the worst, and I find myself in repeat mode with Sophie.  The first few weeks after you bring the baby home you seem to coast along on some kind of magical fuel.  You’re tired, sure, but manage to keep going and going and going…

Until you don’t. 

I knew it would be different in some ways this time around.  And it is.  Breastfeeding is going better, Sophie goes back to sleep easier than Eli did after night feedings, and these two things alone have saved me so much grief and frustration.

However, Eli is up and at ‘em most of the day and that makes any kind of daytime rest difficult.  Plus, Sophie’s been on a feeding rampage and one day will be full of feedings every one-to-two hours and then the next she’ll nap like a champ (but I won’t).

Were we not gearing up to move across the country in just over a week, I would be viewing this stage of exhaustion with more amusement.  Normally, I like an occasional bout of sleep deprivation.  No joke. 

There’s something about entering this phase of mental meltdown that I find fascinating.  In the past I’ve had this experience while working extremely long hours on film shoots.  At some point you cross the threshold into this altered state where you are still mostly functional, with now-and-again brain hiccups.  In college one of my friends referred to this state as “film trippin’.”

One of my favorite sleep deprived moments came while working on Jarhead.  I was working on location and we were putting in 16-17 hour days, and had been for a couple weeks.  We were filming at an empty military base and as I walked across the base to our office I randomly stopped and picked up a stick with a leaf on it and said, “Jeanine would like this” (Jeanine being one of my co-workers and very good friends). 

Of course I frightened Jeanine with my “gift,” and under normal circumstances I would not be inclined to pick up stray objects off the ground.  But in the moment it felt like the most natural thing in the world, and this is the part of sleep deprivation that I find fascinating.  Why wouldn’t I normally pick up sticks off the ground?  What made this action so normal (and pleasant) in this instance?  My intentions were good, even if the action was a little strange.  And so part of me wonders if in my “normal” state I am too rushed, too oblivious to the small details around me, blind to the small bits of beauty that sometimes lay at my feet. 

Regardless, this memory has become precious to me and always generates a good laugh when it is recalled.

When it comes to being sleep deprived with small children I have to admit there is much less to giggle over.  At least, not in the moment.  Later on you’ll find amusement at your mindless mishaps.

The other day as I was feeding Eli oatmeal I held the spoon up to him and asked, “Would you like more email?”  Thankfully he isn’t old enough to mock me.

I’m not sure what happens in your brain, what synapse misfires as you search for a word and then replace it with a completely unrelated one.  That, or at times your brain shuts down altogether.

“Hey, I’m going to…”

Hmm, going to what?  It’s amazing that you can launch into a sentence and completely forget what you were going to say four words into it.  I can’t tell you how many times this has happened: I start a sentence only to drift off and stare into space.

Where did the thought go?  It’s not like a bowl of ice-cream just floated in front of my face, or I noticed that our apartment is suddenly clean.  No, nothing like that.  But sleep deprivation is distraction at the highest level. 

My inability to pay attention to anything or anyone for more than four seconds (if it requires any type of thought or concentration) is embarrassing.  I forget what people say to me as they’re saying it.  I can’t recall details that should be difficult to forget.  I have newfound sympathy for anyone that struggles with an attention disorder, as it is ultimately very frustrating when you are trying to be “on it.”

I only wish I didn’t have to be.  “On it,” that is.  I wish I could sit here and simply enjoy my children without our daunting “to-do” list staring at me, our rooms full of belongings still waiting to be packed, my up-and-down ride of emotions as I flip from excited to devastated when it comes to our move.  In the throes of this sleep deprivation every emotion is amplified, every brain fart is annoying rather than amusing, and I sit here wishing for more sleep.

That time will come.  Part of me feels guilty for wishing my days away, wanting to be in that “land of more sleep” since I know this is our last baby.  I should savor every second.  Part of me feels wistful, wishing I could be infinitely amused during this latest bout of sleep deprivation.  Part of me feels…

Shit, I forgot.

A New Year & New (Old) Clothes

An older entry I never posted (written on 12/30/09)…

* * * * *

I hate to start the year off with something as vain as appearance, but with all the "eat less sweets" "get back into shape" and other such "resolutions" being tossed around I can't help but look in the mirror.

Not that I want to look in the mirror. Tomorrow Eli will be nine weeks old. That means I've had nine weeks to melt back into my former self. I was cautiously optimistic. But I was also deluding myself.

I gained 51 pounds during my pregnancy. There is no way to sugar coat this number. I far exceeded the recommended healthy "25-35 pound" pregnancy weight gain. From the moment I saw that range I knew there was no way I would exist within it. Twenty weeks into my pregnancy I had already gained 25 pounds.

I knew I was in deep shit.

People will feed you all kinds of compliments as you pile on the pounds in an effort to make you feel less like a hippopotamus. They'll tell you you're glowing, that you look beautiful, that pregnancy agrees with you, that they can't believe how well you're hiding the weight.

Sure.

Meanwhile, you're trying to reconcile the fact that not only is the baby inside your body changing by leaps and bounds on a weekly basis, your body is capable of expanding at a rate you never thought possible. I didn't feel beautiful, except on very rare and brief occasions. By the end of my pregnancy I couldn't see my ankle bones, could barely bend my toes they were so swollen, and even my maternity clothes were too small--the most depressing development of all.

It didn't help that as my pregnancy progressed people around me were popping out their babies and returning to their pre-pregnancy weight in four to eight weeks. Sure, they might have been hiding their leftover stomach pooch (not that I could discern one), but they were already back into their regular clothes and there were no outward signs that they'd ever been pregnant. My acupuncturist announced that at eight weeks post-partum she weighed less than she did before she got pregnant.

Yes, my friends, it's an unfair world.

So with the New Year looming ahead I have decided one thing: On January 1st I will not put on any maternity clothes. Yes, at nearly nine weeks post-partum I am still wearing my maternity jeans and many of my maternity shirts. My breastfeeding ta-tas are huge and most of my regular shirts are obscenely tight against my chest, not to mention the fact that they point a huge arrow at my still lingering pregnancy pooch.

Two weeks ago I tried on my pre-pregnancy jeans. Or, rather, I attempted to try them on. Sure I could pull them up, but most of them would not be buttoned, and the two pair that did required great straining on my part and there's no way I could have sat down comfortably wearing them.

I do take occasional walks with Eli, but I am nowhere near ready to start up my (very sporadic) jogging regimen. I need to build stamina and endurance with longer walks before I'm up for that kind of activity. And I couldn't muster a stomach crunch before this whole ordeal, so the thought of doing one now… Yet, how else will I get rid of all this extra baggage in the front?

* * * * *

10/25/10 - A brief update: All-in-all, I did eventually lose all but eight pounds of my pregnancy weight, most of it coming off without much effort … until I had about fifteen pounds to go. Then it started to take some serious work.

And now, pregnant again. I'm much more mindful of what I’m eating this time around and am trying not to fall into the "I'm pregnant, I can eat anything I want," trap. For most of the day I am doing very, very well. This does not mean, however, that I have not fallen back into the "I have to eat ice-cream nearly every night because it's awesome" routine. Thankfully I am gaining weight at a slower pace, so far. Seventeen weeks in and I've gained twelve pounds (Oh, plus the eight I never lost. Shit.).

I have also been in maternity clothes for nearly two months already. At first I felt devastated, but I got over it quickly. Comfort should not be underestimated, ever. Welcome back, stretchy-waist pants.

The No-Plan Plan

(or, why things got off to such a rough start)

I'll be the first to admit that I was (and still am) anti-birth plan. I downloaded a copy of a birth plan template from thebump.com, and was rather overwhelmed to see it was six pages long. This isn't to say you shouldn't give your upcoming birth some time and consideration. It's crucial to educate yourself and know what could/should & likely will happen.

However, my experience in life is that any time you try to plan for an event, and put all of your hopes into the said event going a very specific way, your plans will be foiled. I have never known any major life event to go perfectly, ever.

I figured birth would fall into this category as well. Why force parameters onto something you have no control over? So instead of compiling a birth plan, I put together a brief list of "preferences" for my OB. Such as: I would prefer not to have any pain relief. I would prefer to move about as needed/possible. The list was brief: eight preferences. When I showed it to my OB, he pulled out a ruler and measured the page. "What is this?" he exclaimed. "Four inches? It's the shortest birth plan ever!"

It felt good to not expect my birth to go a particular way.

Well, readers, let me tell you that while in some ways I had amply prepared myself for the process of birth (and in my mind, by extension, breastfeeding), in a few key ways I did not.

MISTAKE #1
I assumed I wouldn't have a c-section.

Why did I do this? Well, my pregnancy was "normal," and up until days before Eli's birth there were no inclinations that I would have any complications. Even then, the issue at hand was that my pelvis was not opening. My OB assured me that in most instances this became a non-issue once the woman began to dilate. A tiny red flag went up somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, but I chose to ignore it. I shouldn't have.

You see, in the few pregnancy books I did read, I always skipped over the c-section chapters. I wasn't going to have one, they freaked me out, why scare myself even more by reading about them?

MISTAKE #2
I assumed that breastfeeding would proceed without a hitch (yes, I can be a naïve idiot).

How the scenario played out in my mind: I would naturally birth my son, he would be placed onto my stomach, and minutes later he would breastfeed for the first time, thus completing one of the oldest, most natural scenes in all of history.

Remember Mistake #1?

I ended up having an emergency c-section after twenty hours of labor. When I emerged from recovery I found myself in a drugged-up, stupefied state. By the time Eli was wheeled in for our first true introduction, he'd already been introduced to the bottle and formula. This hadn't been my "preference," but I hardly felt in a state to disagree. I could barely move, how was I supposed to breastfeed?

MISTAKE #3
Not having a breastfeeding plan.

Sure, there's tons of talk about birth plans and what will happen during delivery given factors A, B, or C. But I had given no thought about what I would do, what support systems I would lean on, if and when breastfeeding became a harrowing challenge, which it did almost immediately.

On day three post-partum, after asking the nurses several times, the hospital's lactation consultant finally paid me a visit. At this point I was becoming discouraged from the entire enterprise, and the blisters on my right nipple had me wincing each time Eli was forced onto my breast to "try again." Maybe this wasn't going to work?

Thankfully, the LC had a soothing demeanor, and offered some useful tips and suggestions. Of course, one of those suggestions was that we not feed the baby any more formula. At all. Considering all the problems I was having getting the baby to latch on, this didn't seem realistic, but I became determined that dammit, the baby wasn't going to have any more supplemental formula.

MISTAKE #4
Failing to be flexible.

Once I decided Eli wasn't going to have any more formula, I became hell-bent on that goal. And for nearly two days (the last day at the hospital and the first day home) he was an entirely breastfed baby and I felt like I had somehow overcome the worst of it. I was doing this!

That is, until I wasn't. Until Eli wouldn't latch on, again. Until he wasn't eating sufficiently. Until I was so sleep-deprived that I caved in, sobbing to my husband, "Just give him some formula." I felt so defeated. I felt like I had failed. I felt like a terrible mother, poorly equipped to nourish my son.

In reality, I had underestimated the toll labor and delivery would take, as well as the effects of ping-ponging hormones raging through my body. In the days after birth the highs and lows came with alarming force and with small passages of time between each extreme.

I needed to cut myself some slack.

I made a couple calls to close friends and to my acupuncturist (who had recently given birth to her second child & is always a source of wisdom for me). It was from these conversations that I began to learn that breastfeeding rarely comes "naturally" to anyone. It's a taxing process, one that takes practice, patience, and gentleness towards oneself. Having a meltdown each time we needed to supplement with formula, until we could get things on track, wasn't going to do anyone any good whatsoever.

I began to wonder why, in all the excitement of pregnancy, in all the talks with friends about pregnancy-related ailments, discomforts, joys, and fears, we had never talked about breastfeeding?

That's why I’m here. I'm here to share my challenges, my triumphs, my frustrations, and perhaps most importantly, my mis-steps. I find myself struggling, at odds with what I think is best for Eli, and what is best for me. There are feelings of guilt and selfishness. So far, I have managed to persevere. I am ten weeks in and still breastfeeding. For me, this is an enormous victory.

I want to talk about breastfeeding (and motherhood) with openness and honesty, and because it is in my nature, with humor. This is a place for sharing, with no judgments handed out when the goals, tactics, and ideas of others differ from my own.

My one breastfeeding goal from the earliest stages of pregnancy was to breastfeed Eli for a year. We'll see if I get there, but if I don't, I will back up and remind myself of that "gentleness towards oneself" bit.