So now the house is quiet. DH and SG are asleep upstairs, and I should be there too cuddling with them. But I am trying to make time to get words out of my head and into the world, be it on paper or here.
I cannot believe tomorrow is Christmas. It feels like but doesn't. There wasn't a lot of rigamarole around it this year, it was very easy. I shopped early, had SG's presents done with around Thanksgiving, and just bought small for my parents etc. I can't believe this is her third christmas, will I think that every year this is her X number of times around?
I'm sitting in our living room looking at the tree and I've noticed all the ornaments have migrated north by mama's hand to keep them from grabby little fingers. It looks silly and makes me chuckle that really only the top half of our tree is decorated fully and the bottom half is pretty sparse and empty looking. By the time she stops taking ornaments off the tree and knows better, I'm sure there will another babe in the house that will be pulling them off just the same as she did.
I want another baby. I don't know if it's all the new babies I know of that will be joining our world soon or seeing newborn pictures or just plain biology but I feel achy for another baby. But it is a very scary thing to think of another. Being pregnant again, and if it's anything like it was with SG being sick sick sick will not be fun. There are days I think I'm going crazy just being home with her and I can't imagine why I'd ever want another, but that doesn't stop my heart and body from wanting a baby again. It's very strange to try and contend with your own biology, like now that the switch has been flipped it's an open gate and there will always be a mass pouring of desire for another child. I think because of how things went with SG I am anxious for my chance to do it the "right" way. I get disgusted when I see moms who choose to labor with drugs, not nurse, put their babies in cribs but maybe it's bc I've never been in that spot. I don't know what labor is bc I didn't go through it. I went through a hospital game that I pray to God I never have to deal with ever again. I want the chance to be powerful, to own my birth, to push my own baby out of my body like I'm supposed to; not have it taken from me, taken away from me, made me to feel foolish, angry, upset and deprived of the grace and beauty of birth.
I don't understand woman who want to schedule their births, or want to deliver early. I just don't. I cannot fathom not following your body, your design. Now. At this point. But I did doubt my design, I did doubt my purpose.
I guess it's more just feeling that when I think about another baby all the emotions that I haven't/didn't deal with with SG's birth come up and hit me in the face, making me terrified that I will have to go through it all over again. I want that baby to prove to myself I can do it, I will be able to nurse.
Maybe that is why I fight so hard to hold onto the attachment parenting that I am able to do. I wasn't allowed my happy birth, so now I feel like I fight back by APing. Because I couldn't breastfeed I cosleep, because I want my girl to feel that security, that safety, that closeness to me that we could have missed out on. That's why I still babywear, it's not a burden, it's not incredible. It's mothering. It's mothering based on what I know and feel is best. It's providing a safe, loving way for my girl to feel secure when she's reeling. When she's tantruming and wants just me and all my attention I wear her, to support her emotionally, to hold her. Because there will come a day when I can't just pick her up and hold her and cuddle all her problems away, but I am hoping that the groundwork I am laying now will help her to establish a relationship with me where I can carry her.
Haha. See and I am the type of mom who nursed over a year for each of my boys and would nurse them in bed and have them once in a while sleep with me, but otherwise I had a co-sleeper attached tot he bed for the first months (Leto was 4 months old and then I transferred him to a crib but the crib was inches away from my bed!) and Micah was in the co-sleeper for his first 9 months before transferring him. Anyway I am grateful to having a crib in another room and I can hear them fine when they need me and I go to them. hehe. I think out of all things being upset with women who don't even want to try nursing is a GOOD thing to be upset about since it's so natural and true, otherwise it should be whatever is most comfortable for the mom. I have a friend who knew someone who did the sleeping in bed with their baby thing and they rolled on them without realizing it and killed their baby, while I am the type who stays in one place so it wasn't a problem for me to sleep nights next to them (rob too stays in one place for the most part). I think I babied Micah TOO much because now he doesn't like NOT being attached to me and with having TWO kids to care for that is VERY VERY hard and if you have another you will find that to be true. . .granted mine are only 22 months apart so Leto being so little still when Micah was born, it certainly was hard for me to get anything done. He just wants to be held ALL the time and I am just so glad that Leto is Mr. Independant.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time it is not right to make it seem like you did better than someone else because you didn't want drugs while in labor. I went 16 hours in labor with a 10 pound baby before I gave into getting an epidural and all that, and I am so glad I did. I wanted to be all for NOT doing it but I went another 6 hours of labor. I HAD to get induced a week early for having Micah because carrying LARGE children is NOT easy. I didn't want to have another 10 pound natural born baby that could maybe have a chance where they would need to give me a c-section. I didn't want that possibility. going a week early meant I gave birth to a 7 pound 10 oz. baby which in a week would have been a whole nother pound which was still smaller than Leto, but still, I am glad I did what I did and all that does NOT matter because what DOES matter is that both times I had healthy and beautiful baby boys. I took drugs right away with Micah but they didn't work too well at all and I only did it because Rob begged me to not allow him to watch me suffer for hours again like the first time. . .but I felt so good while having contractions so I held off for at least 6 hours before taking anything. He was only 13 hours of labor. Anyway the point is that you say you don't understand how women could not want to do it all natural but the point is that there is the tools that I am sure women of old would have loved to have available to them back in the old times. . .they gave birth and used whatever they could to have the most comfortable labor. . and so should women today. Maybe in hundreds of years down the line technology will make it 100% pain-free. It would be sad to think giving birth would be that simple, but hey I would have loved there to be NO PAIN at all. We shouldn't make someone feel badly just because they get an epidural or pitocin or whatever. Not even trying to use the natural milk God gives us though would be different.
When and if you have another child, I am sure all will go well. Perhaps your ideals of things will even change as mine did too.
That's great that you are all very very into the attachment parenting. I commend you, but people can be wonderful parents without doing that all the time too. ;)
I hope you understand that the tone of this message is all calm by the way.
I wasn't saying I was better, I was saying I didn't even get the chance bc I was put through the hospital game and ended up having a c/s. It wasn't an attack it was just me being cranky about the state of our mother/baby care and just thinking about birthing in general. How I want another but just cannot go through that game again with the hospital, pushing drugs etc.
ReplyDeleteThey induced me too :) They told me sg was going to be 11-14lbs riiiiight. She was 8lb!
I know I have a lot of anger and issues with how birth happens in our country and I get upset when I think about how we are played as women.
I hope that you don't mind my stumbling onto your blog and catching up a bit! I miss the old Xanga days! ;)
ReplyDeleteGood for you, for following your gut and mothering the way that you feel that you were made to.
We share a common passion for the state of modern maternity care. It makes me want to cry, the way that the process is so distorted and warped and broken. It's just awful.
I fought an induction SO HARD with my second son, who was born (on his own!) 13 days "post date". I had to concede to CNM visits every 48 hours for more than a week to convince my "care" provider that my son was fine, and would, in fact, eventually be born. I had to refuse three separate inductions, and was told during an ultrasound (a bit more than a day before he arrived) that he would be more than 10 pounds, and that his life was in danger. He was born, perfectly healthily, at just over 8 pounds (close to what his brother was ON HIS DUE DATE), and his placenta was absolutely perfect. It was all a load of crap, and I felt so, so broken down from it all by the end of the ordeal.
We're already looking into home birth midwives in case we ever decide to do this again...because I just can't bring myself to toe that system any more.
If you haven't already, please look into ICAN...it may give you the encouragement that you need.