Poor Lucky Me

Hazel is a very communicative baby, but not in the way I expected.  Of course, she’s excellent at crying when bored, hungry, tired, wanting of mommy, and overstimulated.  But her non-crying noises up to this point have been the little roars of a baby dinosaur.

While I found this utterly adorable, I did wonder if she would ever make the sounds typically associated with a baby.  I didn’t care if she spent her whole life growling and barking, if that’s how she wanted to talk.  Without a lot of previous baby experience, I didn’t know if babies were born sounding like babies or if this was something they had to learn.  So I waited and delighted in her little dinosaur noises.

Then Tuesday, on the 7 week anniversary of her birth, Hazel looked at me while I changed her and said “coo”.

I had to grab the side of the changing table to myself from fainting.  I knew that little developments would happens as Hazel got older, but I didn’t expect them to flood my heart with love and pride.  I mean, babies are supposed to make baby noises.  I shouldn’t seem like an accomplishment that you want to call your friends about.  I decided not to be one of those moms who makes a huge deal out of every little thing.  I was going to exhibit some self control.

Later that day, Hazel stuck her tongue out for the first time.  I had no choice I had to start calling people.

Luckily people rarely answer their cell phones anymore, so I was spared from having to catch myself trying to wrangle up excitement from non-relatives about this incredible advancement.  The problem with having a few ounces of self awareness if that you know most people are bored by your enthusiastic recounts of what your baby does, but you can’t necessarily stop yourself.  It’s especially hard when your whole day consists of feeding your baby and trying to steal a few minutes of sleep while she’s sleeping.  It’s not like I’m going to fine restaurants and the opera.  Even when I watch TV I’m just looking at the screen, I’m not really absorbing what’s happening.  Well that’s not entirely true, I do really want a Total Gym, the Wen Hair Care System, and the Gojo hands free.  So I guess some of it’s penetrating my brain.

It’s exciting to see Hazel learn more and get older, but it’s bittersweet.  I wish I could freeze these days in my memory- unencumbered by work, socializing, or any big life decisions.  I know that the older she gets, the less time we’ll have to fawn over her every coo and poop.  For the time being though, watching her stick her tongue out is more incredible that anything I’ve ever seen or done.  And this is just the beginning.

Most hard core candy eaters have a system for getting through the bad colors.  Some people eat the bad colors first, some save them until the end, some people even throw them away (although I think those people are not true candy lovers because it’s kind of psycho to throw any candy away unless it’s banana flavored or coconut).

I had to give up my passion for candy for health reasons but I used to have a system.  I would space out eating the good colors- red, purple, orange- with eating the lame colors- green.  A few bites of green here and there reminds a candy eater how awesome the reds are.  Eating the greens gives you perspective.

Being a mother is a life time of red candy, interspersed with bites of green.  There are a lot of moments when I feel scared and overwhelmed.  There are moments when I wish that time would hurry up and get to the part of Hazel’s childhood where she sleeps more at night and gnaws at my boobs less often.  Then I immediately feel guilty for wanting any time to pass, since it’s already going so fast.  I often wonder what day it is, and I have to be sure to shower every other day and brush my teeth every single day.

All of those moments are just green candy though.  They might not taste great, but it’s still candy.  And the red candy- the hours I spend staring at Hazel, the snuggling, the sweet little baby noises she makes while fluttering her baby eye lashes- those moments are indescribably delicious.  I’ll have my whole life to sleep and eat hot meals and shower.  But these infant days are so fleeting and beautiful, I feel like I’m mourning each moment as it passes.

My sister in law asked what I was looking forward to doing with Hazel the most.  I thought about it for a while, and realized that I hadn’t thought of our future together.  I just live in the present with her.  Sometimes I think about how incredible it’ll be when she recognizes me and smiles.  For the most part though, I’m just entangled in her breath and her cries and mews and poops and the little tears that come out of her eyes when she’s outraged after a bath.

If you intellectualize having children, no one would do it.  It’s hard and it’s painful.  You give up your life for these little animals who won’t appreciate what you’ve done for decades.  But when you examine what a child does to your heart, you can almost understand why people have ten.  You can almost understand why your own mother still loves you even though you always roll your eyes at her.

Hazel woke up Saturday night. Instead of her usual ten minutes of wakeful but silent contemplation, she woke up with a startle, as if waking to the world for the first time.  And she started to wimper. Then she started to hiccup a little and cry softly. Then her face got red, her chin started to quiver, and she wailed.

Nothing to worry about though, because Tom and I had a plan for this very situation.  Before Hazel was born we both read Secrets of the Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg and decided this would be our argument settler.  Whenever things got out of control, we would agree to follow the advice of this one book.  No internet hysteria could usurp the calming influence of The Baby Whisperer.  This was the theory we used to raise our dog with great success.

When Hazel first started crying on Saturday night, I said to Tom confidently: “Don’t worry, I know her cries SO WELL.  She’s just hungry.”  So I nursed her for 30 minutes and when she popped off I put her back in my lap.  She sat there, stared contentedly for 10 minutes, then her face started to get red again.  ”Oh, hmm, she must still be hungry” I said, still fueled the hubris of naiveté.  I put Hazel back on my breast for another 30 minutes.  15 minutes later, she was crying again.  We changed her.  We walked around.  We sang to her.  We lowered the lights in case she was over stimulated.  She cried and cried and cried until we could see a little vein over her eye.  An hour passed.  ”I guess she must be hungry.” I said again, less sure of myself now.

This went on for a few more hours.  I convinced Tom that she must be sick, since she now had developed loud and obviously painful gas.  Her tummy burbled and produced man-sized boosters that made us laugh until she cried.  My hands got red from wringing them and my nipples spewed milk every time she started crying.  The constant feedings had increased my milk supply to the level of mediaeval wet nurse. I ignored the burning pain I felt when my breasts filled back up after a feeding, and the blisters that distorted the tips of my nipples.

Around 1 in the morning she tired herself out, and slept for a heavenly 4 hours.  The morning brought the calm baby we had grown used to and we were lulled into thinking that the night before was just a fluke.  We got out our book to review the Baby Whisperer’s stance on feeding and crying.  I pretended to believe that Hazel’s crying and rooting could be caused by factors other than starvation or a fear that her parents were torturing her.  Tom and I had a renewed commitment to stop and listen to our baby, instead of blindly reacting to her crying.  It wasn’t until we were sitting down to dinner that the crying jags started again.  ”It must be a growth spurt?” I said, bringing her to nurse again.  Tom watched my wince every time she latched on until he couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Honey?” he said, clearing his throat politely.  ”Remember how we were reading in our book that Hazel isn’t hungry every time she cries?  That she only knows how to do a few things and one of them is rooting, but it doesn’t mean that she’s necessarily hungry?”

“Oh.  Yea.” I said sheepishly.

“And remember how we’re going to try and get her on a three hour feeding schedule?  And we just have to figure out ways to sooth her between feedings?  Especially because her little digestive system can’t handle eating constantly and that’s probably what’s giving her gas?” he went on gently.

“Yea, oh yea” I said.  ”Ok I’ll try and be strong when she cries.”  We smiled at each other.

A few minutes later Hazel started whimpering again.  Then she started sobbing, breathlessly crying and rooting against Tom’s shoulder.

I tried to smile serenely.  I tried to convince myself that she was ok, that all babies cry.  I tried to imagine that she wasn’t crying “Mommy!  help me!  Mommy!  Please, please help me!”  Tom smiled back at me with genuine confidence.  ”It’s ok,” he said “she’s ok, she’s just crying a little.”  I nodded back at him.  I waited a long three minutes.

“Alright that’s enough,” I said “Give me my baby, she’s starving!”  I was only half kidding, and spirited her away to a couch, where I could safely nurse her away from Tom’s completely sympathetic and non-judgemental eyes.

The next day we went to the pediatrician for Hazel’s one month appointment.  The doctor assured us that Hazel was not sick and was perfectly capable of waiting three hours to eat.  In fact, as the Baby Whisperer wrote and Tom tried to remind me, it was better for her little digestive system to have a full meal instead of snacking all day.  I, on the other hand, was suffering from mastitis, which explained my excruciating pain and blisters.  So I was sent home with a prescription for antibiotics and a resolve to do what’s right for my baby, even if it meant letting her cry a little.

It’s been two days now, and Hazel and I both feel much better.  I’ve stopped imagining that her cries mean “Why have you forsaken me mother?!” and am finding more creative ways to sooth her between meals.  We’re back to 2.5- 3 hours between feedings during the day, and sleeping 4 hours at a time at night.  I feel much less bovine and had to thank Tom 100 times for his patience with my near-hysteria.  Ramona watched the whole scene passively, trying not to roll her eyes and remind us that she whines for food all the time and we happily ignore her.

Hazel is three weeks old now, and I can hardly remember what life what like before she arrived.  The rumors were true: this isn’t easy.  But what they don’t tell you is that the moments you spend staring at your beautiful daughter erase the dread of sleepless nights and chewed nipples.  I can’t believe I could be so in love with such a demanding little creature who doesn’t even acknowledge me yet.  She’s just as happy snoozing in the arms of a stranger, and yet I would happily throw myself in the jaws of a lion to save her from having to do something unpleasant.  I am already considering allowing her to never bath again after yesterday’s revelation that she despises baths in the tub.  She could be one of those monks who celebrates god by not washing themselves.  Or an artist.

In breastfeeding news, I buckled down and called a lactation consultant.  I felt better after talking to her on the phone, and that day Hazel and I finally seemed to figure out how to get through a whole meal.  The lactation consultant arrived the next day and was a surprising contradiction of make-up-less hippy who dripped with diamond jewelry.  I didn’t expect the diamonds, and was wary of the hippiness.  Because I have a mental problem, I didn’t bother to ask how much her fee was and $325 later she assured me that breastfeeding is just hard.  I was doing it right, it just sucks.  Those are my words, not hers.  Her words were much more earthy and encouraging, but I read between the lines.  I don’t know how I missed hearing how hard this was.  I had images of myself nursing my daughter Madonna-like, both of us basking in the joy of being together, our hair thick and skin dewy.  The reality is much more doggedly tired, sweaty and staring blankly at a television alternating between HGTV and True Crime Stories.

I don’t actually care though.  I’m going to stick with it as long as my boobs and milk supply can handle it.  I don’t want to beat a dead horse with this analogy, but nothing yet has been harder for me to get through physically than being awake during my c-section.  Besides reliving the memory of Tommy Jr’s birth, the actual procedure was really painful and scary.  If I can do that for Hazel, I can can breastfeed.

Things are starting to feel more routine now.  I didn’t have very many expectations of motherhood, I just wanted Hazel to arrive here safely.  Now that she’s here, I’m surprised and overjoyed everyday at how much I love her and how easy it is for me to mother her.  I’m surprised everyday that I don’t miss my old life more.  I don’t know what happens next, but today was another wonderful day.

At first I was very smug about having avoided the baby blues.  I thought that the special circumstances of Hazel’s birth helped me bypass the hormone crash that causes weepiness and frustration and self pity.  That was before I found myself feeding Hazel in my room on Christmas day, sobbing so loudly I kept startling her.

I’m trying to write about how much having my daughter makes me miss my son, but every time I start a paragraph I feel like an asshole.  I know that this is all normal, and I know it will pass.  But the intellectualism doesn’t override the emotionalism.

Having Tom home with us until mid-January is a blessing and a gift.  It’s so nice to have him next to me as we try and figure out how to be the parents we want to be.  I just didn’t realize that my anatomy required so much responsibility- To can only do so much without having his owns set of boobs.  Because I’m still trying to feign patience with breastfeeding, I can’t be away from Hazel very long.  Actually, I don’t want to be away from her at all, but it’d be nice to have a few hours without her chewing on my nipples.  I hate that I hate breastfeeding, and every day I swear I’ll call a lactation consultant.  Then I let the day pass, consumed with feeding and changing and trying to do a few chores whenever she closes her eyes.

I wonder if I’m using the frustrations of breastfeeding to cover for the aimless sadness I feel.  It’s a more concrete notion of failure.

Apart from these moments of fear and sadness, most of my days are spent marveling at this new human.  Hazel isn’t just beautiful, she’s hilarious.  Tom and I laugh uproariously when she stretches and yawns and practices faces.  She dons a seemingly endless parade of outfits with enviable grace and patience.  This child wore tights on Christmas eve without a peep of complaint- a feat I’ve never managed in my life.  Granted, they weren’t control top, but still all tights are annoying.

This blog post is a mess.  I meant to write lightheartedly about missing my son and resenting the usefulness of my boobs, but it didn’t really work out that way.  So please, when you read this imagine you’re reading something very clever and entertaining.  In the meantime I’m going to take a quick nap.

I think it’s Tuesday.  Or Wednesday.  I just looked in the corner of my computer screen and learned it’s Thursday December 22th.  It’s the second best Thursday I’ve ever had in my life- the first being last Thursday.  Hazel and I are still getting to know each other but so far I’ve noticed that not only is she a beautiful creature, but she’s also magical.

Hazel is still in a womblike state of sleepiness and peeness and poopiness.  One of her magical qualities makes her pees and poops utterly charming, especially when she does them at the same time while naked and creates a pool of pee and poop that she splashes around in it like she’s at a day spa while her mom and dad rush around the room bumping heads and shouting “where are the diapers!” “where are the wipes!”  The rest of the time she practices making adorable faces and waving her arms and legs around.  Under Hazel’s spell, we alternatively gaze and smile at her, at each other, hug, kiss, sigh, and say “I can’t believe this is real.”

Most babies say “Wa Wa Wa” when they cry.  Magical babies say “La La La”.  This might not sound like a big difference, but that’s because as you read this you probably aren’t staring down a screaming baby.  If you were you’d understand that hearing a baby say La La La, even when red faced and chin quivering, makes it pretty hard not to laugh.  And when you and your partner are laughing it’s pretty hard to panic, especially when you know as soon as you get a diaper changed or boob out the baby will stop crying.  In fact, when Hazel starts LaLa-ing Tom and I like to join in and make a family chorus.  Hazel is the only one who isn’t off-key, but she never makes fun of us.

Magical babies absolve their mommies and daddies of feeling guilt for being so happy when their other child is in heaven.  Magical babies make their mommies barely notice their new weird body and only obsess a few minutes a day about how their nipples will soon be tough instead of cracked and scabby but they’ll never point upwards without a bra ever again.  Magical babies make you see how good and bright and lovely the world is, even when it’s 4 am and you’re watching a documentary about Heidi Fleiss and debating if it’s worth it to go to bed for the hour and a half you have left before the next feeding.

I know that it won’t always be like this.  Some days will be hard and scary and tiring.  Some days we’ll long for the awesome grown up life we had, when we traveled and ate and drank like yuppies.  But magical babies make you understand that one milligram of their love is more valuable than anything you ever had before they arrived.

Hazel Nicole Guillen arrived on planet earth at 8:50 am on Tuesday December 13th.  I cried a lot before the surgery, I was gripped by fear and panic and it wasn’t until I heard my own thumping heartbeat echoing through the operating room that I took deep breaths and calmed down.  Tom was brought into the OR and sat at my side.  He never stopped talking to me, saying how proud he was of my bravery and what a good mom I already was.  But it wasn’t until they pulled Hazel out and I heard that first peep of life that I cried tears of joy.  ”She’s perfect!” a nurse exclaimed, and it was the first time I relieved for the first time in a year and a half.   I watched Tom hold her while they finished the surgery and despite the pain I couldn’t stop smiling.  When I finally got to hold her, I felt like she had built an addition to my heart so big I’d need a special permit to have it.

Hazel had a lot of visitors that day.  She slept and cooed and waved her little limbs in the air.  I felt her little brother in the room with us, loving his sister and reassuring Tom and I that this wasn’t all a dream.

Wednesday, December 14th.  The day after the surgery was the most painful, but taking care of my daughter was more healing than any medicine.  I got out of bed for her, I stood up for her, I walked for her.  She and I both passed our blood sugar tests and we started trying to breast feed.  I knew that breast feeding would be can challenge, but you really don’t know what that means until you’re trying to stuff a giant breast into the mouth of a tiny wailing infant.  My sister-in-law and best friend were there keeping me company while Tom ran some errands, and we all sat mutely horrified as the nurse helping me looked like she was choking Hazel with my boob.  Hazel impressed us with her protests, and the nurse gave up long before I did.  ”Try and calm her down, then push her head against your nipple” she called over her shoulder as she walked out of the room.  When I called her later to help me try again she gave me a really helpful response:

“You know what I suggest?”  she said “You should try it yourself”.  Motherhood and my daze of happiness doesn’t not seem to have affected my ability to make sarcastic comments.

Thursday, December 15th:  Tom left early in the morning to take a law school final.  I assured him that Hazel and I would be fine, and that I would take my pain medication and call the nurses for help whenever I needed it.    We both forgot that while I am pretty assertive in my real life, in the presence of a medical professional I turn into a wilted flower of passivity.  So despite the obvious lack of logic in my thought process, I decided to try and spend the morning taking care of the baby and ignoring the effects of my major abdominal surgery.  Hazel and I had a crying contest that only ended when some visitors stopped by and we agreed to act like we could totally manage without Daddy.  Hazel’s acting skills are much better than mine.

Tom came back in great spirits after his test and went to get us a special meal of spaghetti and meatballs.  We felt like a real family.  When Tom got devastating news about the health of a beloved Uncle, we learned that the loving energy of a baby can sooth a broken heart and tamp down the panic of being far away from a loved one.

Friday, December 16th:  My original personality continued to peak through the sleepy bliss of caring for an infant.  We spent the day making jokes about how our stay at Prentice was a lot like staying at a nice hotel where the staff just quit their jobs as assembly line workers and decided to become nurses.  We used humor to mask our annoyance and surprise at how different the level of care was this time compared to when we had Tommy.  We thought that the attention and love we felt on the Sad Mom floor (they put moms who aren’t with their babies on a special floor at Prentice so you don’t have to be further tortured by the cries of healthy babies) was the standard at Prentice.  It turns out that on the Happy Mom floor the standard is more like that at the Holiday Inn Express.  But with nicer amenities.  It was also a surprise to learn that buzzing a nurse and being told “I’ll be right there” actually meant “I’ll be there within the next one to two hours then give you shit for asking for two pain killers instead of one” and “I’m taking your baby to the nursery for a test we’ll be back in twenty minutes” meant “I’ll take your baby for two hours and when you go to look for her your find her lying in the nursery and I won’t be anywhere to be found”.  We considered leaving early but knew the best thing for Hazel would be to stay and just be pushy about what we need from the nurses.

Saturday, December 17th:  We drove Hazel home and started our new life.  It was so strange to be freed from the tiny hospital room and feel like parents instead of patients.  After a family nap and feeding, we settled right in.

It’s almost baby time and I’m going through that emotion where you’re mourning for something that you still have.  Like the last couple days of a vacation or your old pet…you just want to enjoy those last precious moments but you’re already consumed by what happens next.  And the thing that happens next is bitter sweet: I’m excited to meet this baby but can’t help be heartsick over the idea of going back to the hospital and having the same surgery I had when Tommy Jr was born.

I still wonder why I didn’t just go to the hospital that day, instead of hemming and hawing and then going to the doctor’s office where they made me wait for god-knows-how-long before realizing I had to go to labor and delivery.  What would my life be like now if I had gone straight to the hospital and they could have stopped the labor?  I worry that I’ll never stop asking myself that.

I keep trying to look at the photos that were taken the day we said goodbye. The next set of baby pictures will be so joyful and while I should feel happy, I just keep tearing up.  I know that with this new beginning comes the end of something that has informed my life for two years.  Grief won’t have the same place in my heart and mind when I’m caring for a new baby.  That’s the natural order of things, that’s how life is supposed to go: you don’t leave your grief behind, you let it grow your heart bigger to accommodate more joy.  But that’s just me trying to be positive.

The truth is I feel like the arrival of my daughter means the departure of my little ghost.

I know he’ll always be with us, but it won’t be the same.  We won’t have the same capacity to keep him near.  That’s one of the reasons why when people keep asking me if I’m excited I can’t just say “OH YES I’M SO EXCITED”.  And I can’t readily explain why it all feels so complicated.  People would rather think that everything is fine now- we made it and all that sadness is behind us.

I’m rambling now.  It took me so long to just write this post that I’m reluctant to end it.  I am excited to meet my daughter, I am excited to learn how to be a mom to a living child.  I just miss my boy.

Today is the day that I stop bitching about how people don’t tell you how awful pregnancy can be.  Because today is the day that I have a nugget of information that when shared, could cause spontenous vomiting.  That is why people don’t tell you how awful pregnancy can be: they don’t know if you’re about to sit down to eat a lovely dinner when your cell phone dings and you check your text messages and are slapped in the face with a reality that you didn’t ever want to know about.  The pregnant person thinks they’re just relaying information- they have forgotten that their body’s metamorphosis is as horrifying as it is beautiful.   The horrifying things are not just disturbing but haunting; since each pregnancy is different just because you escape the first one with minimal shocking side effects doesn’t mean you’re free and clear.

And I’m not just talking about the stuff you think no one talks about.  I’m not talking about discharge, for instance.  I’m not talking about sausage feet or hemorrhoids. I’m not talking about flatulence or those mini-barfs or peeing your pants all the time.

I’m talking about serious shit you don’t want to know about.

Even the people who really really really love me don’t want to know.  Tom tolerates my endless chatter about the horrors with a smile, but I think he’s now blind and deaf with love for me and Baby Girl.  Normal people would run screaming or tear at the hair and scream “Why god?  Whyyyyyyyyy???”.  And if this post has peaked your curiosity and you want to know, think about that movie Candyman.  Remember how curious those people were about what would happen when they said “Candyman” into the mirror three times?  Well… knowing about the pregnancy horrors might not result in your death by a hook-handed man, but you will wish it did.

I have to make a couple of confessions.  First of all, I just realized that I didn’t know Thanksgiving was on the fourth Thursday of every November.  I actually thought it was November 28th.  So it’s a total surprise to me every year when Thanksgiving isn’t on the 28th.  Likewise, I don’t know the exact date of Christmas day.  Is it the 24th?  25th?  26th?  I know it’s right around there, but I wouldn’t put money on any one date.  I just don’t know for sure.

Making these minor confessions makes me feel more confident when I tell you that I am just not properly excited for this baby to arrive.  I don’t know what I feel, other than feeling like this part of my pregnancy could be  a plot line written for the Miranda character on Sex in the City.  Wait- there’s another confession- I don’t know if the name of the show is Sex And the City or Sex in the City despite going to the theater to watch both movies.  I have a few “hilarious” quips for when people ask me if I’m excited, and sometimes when the house is quiet and I’m in bed trying to sleep I rub my belly and smile happily.  But for the most part, I’m scared.  Like, I’m seriously f*cking scared.

Luckily, I know a secret.  It’s a very important secret that I cling to all the time, and I’m going to share it with you now:

The anticipation is always worse than the event you dread.

Worrying and fretting and obsessing don’t actually get you any closer to finishing anything.  But once you’re finally just in the reality you’ve been afraid of, and your adrenaline is going and you are surviving, you realize it’s not that bad.  Even when it’s really really bad, like having surgery while you’re awake, or trying on bathing suits.

In my case, I’m not even really sure what I’m so afraid of.  I mean, having the baby be stillborn is still enough of a risk with my gestation diabetes that I can worry about that when I don’t feel her little punches and hiccups.  That takes up a lot of my energy.  I know I’m afraid of being patient with the baby, and with Tom, and with myself.  I’m afraid of saying goodbye to my old life, especially since over the past year and a half I felt so far away from almost everything I cared about.

Writing it out like this makes me feel better that I don’t have the right thing to say to people asking me if I’m excited.  I am excited, I’m just so busy anticipating that I lose sight of why I took this leap of faith in the first place.  The reason, of course, was to make a miniature Tom who can’t escape my hugs and kisses with his excuses of having to “work” or “go to sleep” or “take a shower”.  Er, I mean…did that sound a little too honest?  I mean to say the normal reason that normal people have children.  Please insert that reason here_____________.

I don’t exactly know how to live in the moment, but I know how to distinguish the anguish of anticipation from an upcoming reality.  I’ve got two weeks to go.  Two weeks that I can spend in excited anticipation as long as I remember that once I’m in combat, I’ll be able to figure out what I’m supposed to do.

And while we’re talking about secrets, I should probably tell you one more.  When you ask some one how they’re feeling, and they tell you that they’re worrying or scared, they don’t want you to cheer them up or give them a pep talk.  They don’t need you to point out that they’re being irrational or where the silver lining is.  They don’t want you to scoff at their fears or try and solve their problems.

They want you to say this: “Ugh that is scary” or “That’s sucks!” or “I hate that for you”.  No one will tell you that, but it’s the truth.