another pantsless party

Rereading my post about making Shep go naked because I wasn't prepared reminded me of our very similar experience at church yesterday.

I usually don't drop Shep off at nursery. Mostly Tim does, and often assistance is offered by the five-year-olds I used to teach in Primary, one of whom seems to be one of Shep's favorite people right now. They like to help take him to nursery and did so yesterday too, but for unknown reasons, I decided to accompany them and even made a point of saying goodbye to Shep before going back to play prelude music. Cue trauma. I decided to let the nursery leaders try to help Shep through his feelings of abandonment, but he didn't seem to be comforted after several minutes, so I returned to get him and ended up taking him into Primary with me, hoping he would be ready to return to nursery later. The return to nursery never happened, which is too bad and a little strange because he has done well in there the past few months.

Shep did fairly well in Primary, though, and was minimally disruptive while sitting with his friends (my former class) for a while, but then I noticed that he was starting to leak through his diaper. In the matter of seconds that it took me to get from our seats to my bag behind the piano, which had a clean diaper in it, it looked like he had completely wet his pants with no diaper as a barrier. As I changed him on the floor behind the piano, I debated about whether or not to put his pants back on. I decided the lesser of two evils was to set him free with a clean diaper but no pants. He was self-conscious at first but returned to join the CTR 4 class fairly soon thereafter without much ado. At this point I was needed on the piano, so I didn't join him. I only could guess that the giggles emanating regularly on the other side were a result of Shep valiantly trying to participate in singing time with only a diaper and thus becoming the laughingstock of the Primary. The poor kid probably didn't realize he was the cause of the laughter though and seemed to join in happily.

tandem nursing

I didn't mean to turn this blog into one about breastfeeding, but it's on my mind today, and I did fairly warn you, reader, that I might try to start using this space as an outlet for what's on my mind. If there actually is anyone reading this, feel free to navigate away to more interesting Internet places.

I just finished reading Adventures in Tandem Nursing. This book has been on my to-read list for much of this pregnancy, but without ordering it from La Leche League's website for nearly $20 (I am not accustomed to paying more than $1 for books, so this seemed obnoxious to me), it was rather difficult to get my hands on a copy. I ended up asking my twin brother (whom I rarely associate with) to check it out from the University of Utah's school library because I couldn't find it anywhere else! I should probably be a member of La Leche League so I can get borrowing privileges to such titles and maybe be a part of a community with some other women who have had similar experiences with nursing. 

Shepherd is 31 months old and he continues to nurse. I hesitate to even describe what he does as breastfeeding, because while in theory it all seems like one and the same (he still suckles at the breast for all intents and purposes), I believe he stopped nursing for any nutritional needs quite some time ago. As others often seem compelled to do, I also feel like I want to state here that my experience nursing a child is so different from what I thought and planned before having a baby that it seems almost unimaginable that I ended up here or once thought about the issue as I did before. 

One of the mother's stories in the last segment of Tandem Nursing sounded a lot like Shepherd: once the baby actually arrived, he was jaundiced and required treatment under the lights, which he didn't tolerate very well. The mother described crying as the baby was crying under the lights and thereafter feeling sensitive to her baby's crying (I imagine that is not unusual), eager and anxious to do whatever it took to stop the baby from crying whenever possible. It was so sad to listen to Shep cry under those lights and be unable to do anything for him, so I sent him away from my room to the nursery and only went in to nurse him. Thinking about this, which I haven't done for a while, makes me feel like crying.

So began a nursing journey, I suppose, that reached far beyond feeding a baby from my body. Nursing seemed like one of the few tools I was capable of utilizing that would generally work to calm him. It seemed like he was always crying if he wasn't nursing. 

I never really anticipated nursing coinciding with pregnancy, but here I am at 36 weeks gestation and Shep continues to nurse to fall asleep (thankfully he doesn't often nurse otherwise). I feel like I'm at the end of my pregnancy, even though these last few weeks always feel long, and I am worried about how things will go when I'm no longer pregnant. I guess I just always counted on the idea that he would give up nursing on his own. I've never liked the idea of forcing weaning on him because I was too intimidated by the battle I foresaw. So I thought he would just give it up at a time when he stopped needing it, and that I would be glad to accommodate until then. But so far it hasn't worked out that way. I've been setting limits along the way because nursing hasn't exactly been pleasant the last eight months or so. It's been a painful and fairly frustrating experience for me, though not wholly so (I've been having nipple vasospasms quite a lot--perhaps caused by "dry nursing"--but ironically the one thing that seems to alleviate the pain is nursing, so I sometimes encourage Shep to nurse even when he doesn't want to!). But we've kept at it anyway. Why? I guess because it seemed more manageable to me to nurse him to sleep than to find another solution to get him to sleep. When Tim is here, I often pass Shep to his arms for him to rock to sleep in the chair. That has worked at times. Am I a bad parent for not teaching my child to sleep on his own? I often fear that I am.

I worry about fitting a nursing newborn into this journey that has been already complicated by pregnancy. Reading Adventures in Tandem Nursing was encouraging for me, though, because it helped me feel like it might be okay to just take things one day at a time with this tandem nursing business and decide not to make any decisions. There have certainly been times when I've come close to making decisions about changing the status quo, especially when the status quo seems pretty intolerable in the moment, but I never have the confidence to pull the trigger on the big guns, it seems. I hope that I'll have the courage to make adjustments when it's necessary for my well-being as a mother. I believe in self-sacrifice for my babes to fill their needs, but sometimes I'm afraid of taking that to martyr levels and endangering myself in the process.

We were headed home late last night and Shep was really in need of a diaper change. These days I don't really bring wipes with me when we go out, and often no diapers either, because I am in the habit of assuming that he's done pooping for the day after the morning and that his diaper will outlast his pee on most outings. He went such a long time (from age three months to two-and-someodd) having only one bowel movement a day, and it's hard to adjust to the new reality. Also I think I secretly am in denial that he's not potty-trained yet?

When we left and put him in the car, he started to complain copiously, saying "I poop" over and over. Sitting in poop isn't comfortable (I can imagine), and I felt terrible that he seemed to be in pain. We tried telling him if he would just poop in the potty, this wouldn't be a problem, but I don't think that helped. I had Tim drop me off at a hospital on our way home so I could go use the restroom and get him cleaned up. I figured I'd just leave him naked since I didn't have anything with me. Even though I tried to warn him, after I took off the diaper and wiped him with wet paper towels (I can't tell you how many times I have done this in public restrooms at this point), he started crying and saying, "Where's the diaper? Where's the diaper?" He seemed so self-conscious about being naked from the waist down and I felt like the mother of the year. I hope he doesn't grow up to remember this moment I shamed him.

My sweet friend came to visit me today and we had a nice conversation about circumstances and living above them. I've been thinking about how hard everything feels and how oppressive circumstances are, even though I know that I have control over how I respond to something and think about something. I admired the positive progress that she talked about being able to make in her life and how it gives her hope for the future. I'm not really sure what to do about it, but I know it is something I need to work on.

pregnancy and stress

I feel like pregnancy is an inherently stressful, anxiety-inducing experience. First and not least of all, there is a human being inside of you who is dependent on your growth. And yet, it seems, besides avoiding obvious things like smoking and drinking (and you only really have to avoid doing them excessively, the research seems to say), there's very little you can do to control the outcomes. Many pregnancies end in loss, especially early on. It always feels tentative somehow. Early on, I was quite worried that I would miscarry. My first prenatal visit had me calculating my due date based on my last menstrual period (pretty accurately, I thought) for December 5. When I had an ultrasound, the embryo was too small for those dates and the heartbeat was slow. The midwife seemed to expect fetal demise. It was a relief to go back nearly two weeks later and see growth consistent with the measurements taken the first time, but it was depressing that my due date was dialed back more than two weeks (December 23)! Now I have nothing but positive indications of life to come, but it all still seems up in the air somehow. Even though I have gone through pregnancy before, I can't really imagine how my life is going to change when my womb child (a foreign concept) becomes my child on the outside. I can't imagine how fragile life, especially one that is somewhat dependent on my choices, can become stronger. My life is about to change in extreme yet unpredictable ways.

I was having a chat conversation with a friend who told me fairly recently that I consider contingencies more than anyone she knows. I don't think it is a good thing. I am the sort of person who considers the worst case scenarios, you might say, and my conception of how things will work out is quite nebulous. I worry that they won't work out well. My vision of the future often feels a little dreary. I worry about the adjustment to two and how this girl's brother is going to adjust to life with a baby sister. I already feel inadequate as a mother (I especially blame the ways in which pregnancy has made me feel limited--Shepherd has been watching quite a lot of TV lately), and I'm sure I'll be even more limited once I have to actually manage a newborn's needs. It seems odd to make such a life-altering decision to bring another life into this world. Like being caught  on a tremendous wave, you have to see it to the end and discover where it takes you, because you can't move back from it. I don't feel like I have the intuition to guide me through such things, perhaps because I want to see the end from the beginning too much.

The stress of anticipating such a big change to my life combines with a biological basis for not coping with day-to-day life stressors, it seems. And nine months is a long time. About nine months ago, I quit my full-time work-from-home job and entered the world of  staying at home with my first child. I had a fair amount of freelance work on the side at first, but that quickly dropped off to a slight trickle. A series of unexpected or unusual expenses took the place of my income: in April Shep had ear tube surgery that we paid for out of pocket (Relief did come later--we got on Medicaid and were eligible for reimbursement, but actually getting the money back from the various agencies was a months-long hassle); Tim had a few classes during the summer to take through SLCC for his teaching license and tuition was $1000; we lent money to his mother one month so she could pay rent and haven't gotten paid back (and probably won't); we owed a lot in taxes this year; we've had car problems and more car problems; compelling reasons to upgrade from a queen-size mattress to a king-size forced us in that direction; we've been trying to prepare for the birth of a new child by paying for prenatal care, baby equipment, clothing, etc. The list could go on. When we went from two incomes to one, we knew we wouldn't be saving a whole lot, but we thought we could stay within our means. It's been a struggle to do so. We haven't been able to put any savings aside, and I worry about that.

Then there's life with a two-year-old. I love it and hate it at the same time. It is really fun to see Shep developing language, imagination, and a sense of humor, and it's fun to embark with him on this discovery of his personality and the world around him. It is really not fun to feel constant antagonism. It seems he's always resisting my will or I'm always resisting his, and usually he wins because I don't have the energy for a battle. I suppose life with him has sort of always been that way to a degree, but now it's more pronounced because of the emotional force behind it. Instead of being a helpless infant who has no decision-making power, his demands seem almost maliciously designed because there is some amount of negotiation and reasoning surrounding them now. Little mister is sleeping in the bed as I lie on the other side writing this and his innocent state of unconsciousness has me feeling a bit guilty for complaining (complaining? I don't mean to complain, exactly) about his wakeful behavior. He really is a sweetheart and I honestly can't regret his existence, even though I'm constantly doubting whether I'm doing the best by him.

an outlet right now

I think I've avoided this space somewhat as a consequence of too many considerations about audience, but who reads this blog anyway? I'm going to revisit it as an outlet for expression, maybe, and see how I feel about it.

I am approximately 34 weeks pregnant right now. That is a little generous maybe because it's probably closer to 33, but I am in need of a little generosity on pregnancy timeline right now. Six weeks doesn't seem like much, really, in the scheme of things, but pregnancy always feels interminable, it seems. My mental health hasn't been too great of late. I guess antenatal depression is a thing for me? Pregnancy is really the pits. I honestly don't know how I'm going to get through the next six weeks (to nine?) when I think about them in a lump, but I try not to do that. One day at a time is the way to plod through. Maybe I should do some more long-term future planning and considerations, but sometimes decisions are too much and deciding not to decide and trying to go with the flow is a little bit more manageable.

And today has been an okay day.