-Pregnancy-
I'd wanted to be a Mama since I was a baby myself. I was a teenager in the 1970s, when you just didn't say that when you grew up you wanted to be a housewife and a mother – those were the Women's Lib Years, when even consensual sex between a married couple was considered rape by some extremists and if a woman wasn't the Chairperson of the Board she'd BETTER be working with lepers in deepest Africa, because anything less was a disgrace to her gender. That wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to be a mother like my own mother was, a cookie-baking, story-telling, doll-clothes-sewing Mary Poppins.
I was 24 when I had Joy, living with my husband on an Air Force base in Japan. We'd been married almost 3 years when she was born, he had a good, steady job and I was READY. I knew the minute I got pregnant – I just knew. It took the base hospital almost a month to figure it out, though. I started going in for pregnancy tests on Thursdays (the only day they did them) as soon as I missed my period, but week after week they would come back negative. I'm sure the orderlies began to dread Thursdays as much as I looked forward to them. I'd carefully collect that First Morning Pee (every drop more precious than gold!) and schlep it on the bus to the hospital, only to be told, “nope, you're not pregnant.” “Yes I am,” I'd insist, and stomp off in a huff.
By the time we got a positive result there was no doubt in anybody's mind. I had morning sickness that lasted all day, every day (and it didn't go away until almost the 5th month). My boobs were swollen and sore, and my nipples felt like neon made of pain. I couldn't bear the taste or smell of onions, and the weird dreams I was having would have made Kafka run screaming to the nearest psychoanalyst. I lived on soda crackers and flat ginger ale, and any trip in the car was made remarkable by my poor husband having to pull over every two blocks so I could lean out and puke into the gutter. Oh, I was a radiant pregnant woman, all right.
Perversely, I welcomed every one of these symptoms because they meant that I really WAS pregnant. Back then home pregnancy tests hadn't hit the market, and in between your diagnosis by a doctor and that first kick, there was a long dry period of wondering, “Well, if I'm really carrying a baby, how come nothing is any different?” Spending my waking hours crawling weakly between the bed and the toilet bowl, I'd smile to myself. Something was different, all right.
Nowadays some military hospitals give some of the best care available anywhere, and even in those days most of them were pretty darn good. However, our base revolved around F16 fighters, and anything to do with ANYTHING else was pretty much an afterthought. When you couple this with the military attitude about spouses (“if we'd wanted you to have a family, we'd have issued you one”), the prenatal care was spotty at best. At worst, it was something of which the Marquis de Sade would have been proud. Obstetrics was handled by a revolving roster of MDs (I think they were chosen by the “short straw” method) and for my “internal” prenatal exam I drew a horrid, leathery battleaxe of a female doctor. It was impossible to determine her age with any accuracy; she could have been 55 or 85. Her hair was white and the skin around her mouth and eyes was deeply etched with wrinkles. At first I was a bit relieved – she was a woman, after all, with all the nurturing I hoped that implied – but that feeling changed as soon as she opened her mouth.
“Look at you,” she sneered. “I see people like you all the time. You get yourselves pregnant and then expect US to deliver healthy babies. Well, it doesn't work like that. You made the choices that made you end up like . . . that -” and she gestured at my monstrous body, huddled and vulnerable under the paper dress - “and you're going to have to live with what it does to your baby. Now hold still and keep quiet. I'm going to take your blood pressure.”
At the time I weighed 185 pounds; not slim by any means, but hardly circus-lady proportions, either.
After that, the pregnancy was different. Where at first I had been delighted and floated through the days in a happy pink cloud (vomit-scented, yes, but pink), now I was terrified. Even though I took my prenatal vitamins religiously, ate exactly what I was supposed to eat, exercised and slept religiously, I was convinced that the damage was done. I had doomed this baby (whom I already adored with an unreasoning passion) to a life of deformity and idiocy through my own disgusting laziness and lack of willpower. The baby would pay for my grossness with a lifetime of suffering.
Early on in the pregnancy my blood pressure (which had always been on the low side of normal) went up about five points. The OB of the Day (not the Battleaxe, thank goodness) decided that I was at risk for toxemia and other complications so I should spend at least 3 hours every day lying on my left side (to keep the growing uterus off a major vein near the spine). Oh, and I was a fat cow whose baby would probably look like Sloth from “The Goonies” (this last was more of an implication).
Much later I found out that this BP “spike” was due to how early my pregnancy was diagnosed – pregnant women have more blood so their blood pressure always goes up a little, but they usually don't start to receive prenatal care until it has already happened. Did they know this in 1986? Sure. However, my medical team thought it was more important to rule pregnant women with an iron fist and keep them in line than to waste time explaining things to them or answering their questions. (At one point I admitted to the Battleaxe that I had been having migraines. She pursed her lips and wrote me a prescription. I didn't recognize the name of the medication and timidly asked her how it worked. She snapped, “It cures headaches.” Needless to say that was the end of that conversation, though I didn't have the prescription filled, either – my sole act of medical rebellion.)
What saved my sanity was the baby. We didn't know whether it was a boy or a girl, so we called it “Bean.” Once it grew big enough for me to feel the kicks, I was a total goner. It was as though I had a built-in friend. I believe this baby had a personality from conception – it would play games with us (Kick the Chime-Ball Off the Belly was a favorite), would wiggle when it heard either my voice or Daddy's (but no others), and loved it when I bathed. I'd sit in the water until I turned pruney and my husband would perch on the toilet, watching Bean roll and cavort in its own bath just a skin's-width away from us. Once Bean kicked Daddy out of the bed; and if there's anything more entertaining than a fetus with the hiccups, I don't know what it would be. The odd pregnancy dreams continued, and early in my 7th month I had an especially vivid one. I dreamed of a beautiful little girl with big brown eyes and shiny chestnut hair. She smiled at me with her pink rosebud lips and chirped, “Don't worry, Mama. I'm all right!” I was not a bit surprised to remember this dream three years later, looking at my pretty little brown-eyed, brown-haired girl.
So we went along, excited and fearful, and we bought a crib and a bassinet, a car seat and lots of teeny clothing that seemed impossibly small. Since the Airman's (non-issued) dependents were multiplying the Air Force moved us from our off-base one-bedroom apartment into 3-bedroom military family housing. Oh, what loving care went into that nursery – from the ducky wallpaper border to the hand-made gingham curtains to the small fish tank sitting on the well-stocked bookshelf, every thing in that room was fussed over until it was Just Exactly Right. All that was left was to wait for the baby.
But the baby wouldn't come!
-Labor and Delivery-
We had opted for a non-medicated delivery, since the only way the hospital would let the father into the delivery room was if the couple had their taken Lamaze classes. We had our doubts on the very first night, when we found the classes were taught by a childless male orderly who had never “technically” witnessed an actual birth. He was very enthusiastic about how what he called the “discomfort” of labor and birth could be totally erased by the proper breathing methods. We attended every class and practiced so diligently that I suspect my husband could have given birth himself.
There's a milestone moment when you reach 8 ½ months of pregnancy, because the books tell you that your baby will be born full-term two weeks either side of that magic “nine month” mark. I took this to heart and at 8 ½ months I had my bags packed, my coat on, and was waiting by the door. A week passed and my husband's friends threw a surprise baby shower for us; nothing. Two weeks passed – it was my DUE DATE! - and my mom (who had sold her clothes, jewelry and Heaven only knows what else to finance the trip) arrived from the States; nothing. THREE weeks passed, and I knew I was destined to be the first woman in history to give birth to a fourth-grader. We watched a lot of videos while I lay on my left side. We saw every sight that area of Northern Japan had to offer, as my mom seemed determined to WALK that baby out of me. Finally one night after pizza and yet another movie marathon, I went to bed early with a backache (hardly a rare occurrence by this time; spines were really designed for one person's use only).
I've heard a lot of pregnant women ask how they will know they're in labor. The usual answer, given with a knowing smile, is, “you'll know.” Well, I'm here to tell you that that is B.S. I've been in full-term labor three times, and the only similarity between them was that at the end a baby came out of me somehow. I sure didn't know it that first time; I woke up to pee several times during the night (also a usual thing when you have an eight-pound human using your bladder as a trampoline) and noticed the backache hadn't gone away, but didn't think much of it. The next morning I couldn't get comfortable, the backache would come and go and I began to feel nauseous whenever it came. Pretty soon the back pain was so bad I'd thrown up several times over the course of an hour. Finally (more for something to do than any other reason) I thought to time how long it was between pukes – and sure enough, it was about five minutes, regular as clockwork.
Well THAT sure wasn't the beautiful picture I'd painted to myself, but we got bundled into the car and got to the hospital (me with a bucket clutched to my chest). It was a beautiful early-summer day, with little daisies peeking up through the grass and a few little powder-puff clouds in the sky. There were also an unusual number of fighter-jets in the sky, because (as we found out when we got into the hospital) the entire base was involved in an extremely realistic exercise to simulate what would happen if we were under attack. This meant that all military personnel were wearing full battle gear, including gas masks (which could only be removed in patients' rooms or the delivery room).
I was admitted, shaved, and given an enema even though I tried weakly to protest that I'd been running from both ends for hours and there wasn't anything left up there. They put me in a hospital bed and measured me during contractions to see how far I was dilating. They insisted upon attaching a monitor to the baby's scalp, and when the electrodes kept detaching and sliding back out I was strapped on my back on the bed and ordered not to move. I was still not experiencing contractions in the normal sense (and never did, this time), but as paroxysms of excruciating pain in the small of my back. I know now that lying flat on your back is the very worst position for back labor, but at the time I had never heard of back labor. I did keep instinctively trying to turn on my side to alleviate the pain, until they strapped me down.
Since we hadn't gone over any scenarios during the Lamaze classes but Classic Normal, I had no idea how to try and get a handle on the pain. Since we'd signed up for Natural Childbirth the orderlies wouldn't consent to me getting any kind of pain relief. My poor husband was frantic – his wife was obviously in agony, but everyone else in the room outranked him. Finally a sympathetic nurse noticed that I was becoming dehydrated from the constant vomiting and gave me a shot of something to counteract the nausea. It worked, all right, which was a blessing – but it worked by putting me to sleep between backaches, so I'd wake up at the peak of a contraction when it was much too late to do anything about it, scream until it was over, and then fall back to sleep. My poor mother – she sat through hours of listening to this from the waiting room, with no idea of what was going on.
Well, things progressed, as these things are wont to do. Eventually the Doctor On Duty decided I was ready to push. This did not entail me being raised to a sitting position, or being encouraged to relax between contractions. Dear me, no. My hands were strapped to the bed frame (“So you can't touch the baby and ruin the sterile area”) and a “labor coach” came into the room. This labor coach was a pimply, gawky 18 year old Southern boy, whose sole contribution to the effort was to wait until the doctor gave him the nod before each contraction and then drawl, “C'mon, push! PUSH thay-at baby out!”
I was a world-class pusher, I really was. Bean's head came into view on the first push. So did the umbilical cord, wrapped around the baby's neck. The doctor grabbed for the forceps, did a quick (non-medicated) episiotomy, and yanked Bean into the world. I can still hear the tenderness in her father's voice as he whispered wonderingly, “It's a little girl . . . ”
There was just one problem.
She was dead.
I opened my eyes when she was out, just in time to catch a glimpse of something purple being raced away from the bed. I was completely forgotten as everyone in the room was galvanized into action. There was no little cry, no congratulations, nothing but the bark of orders being given. The OB was working furiously at something just out of my sight. I went cold, every emotion draining but sorrow and guilt draining away.
Finally, after what felt like thirty years but was probably more like thirty seconds, the doctor glanced over and saw our faces. “Oh, she's okay,” he said – the most beautiful words in the English Language. “She just didn't want to breathe.” Then came the magical cry, and seconds later a flannel-wrapped bundle was laid in my arms. She stopped crying and looked at me with astonished eyes. Pink. Beautiful. All that dark hair. I kissed her and said, “Hi, Joy! I'm so glad to see you!”
Totally worth it.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Mollie writes:
Of course, I was ready to be a parent. I had the world by the tail. I was twenty-nine, married and possessor of a lovely split level home in the suburbs, complete with mortgage, fenced yard, Newfoundland dog and retirement funds being marched into an iron-clad savings plan. My husband, John, an engineer and, more importantly, a planner from birth, had finished his Master’s Degree, achieved his Professional Engineering license, and was smoking his way to career nirvana. I’d wanted children since time began, and we were in the right place at the right time. The pregnancy itself was “normal” meaning I had the usual heaves, backaches, emotional swings and exhaustion, but frankly nothing to obsess over. I decided I was perfect for motherhood and motherhood was perfect for me.
I’m now fifty-seven and a lot more seasoned. If I’ve learned anything in the last 28 years, it’s that there is nothing more fragile than reasonable expectations and well-laid plans . . .
It was a dark and stormy night - it really was - and there was already an inch of ice on the road. It was 12:15 am on Monday, January 11, 1982. I was 7.5 months pregnant, my due date was February 22. Freezing rain was falling from the sky in the way it does in the East County of Portland, Oregon. East winds were blowing up the Columbia River Gorge, peaking at 60 mph bursts. Occasionally, a fir bough would break off from a tree and smack against a window, and the groan of the wind pressure was heaving on the east side of the house. Still, when my water broke that Monday morning, I snapped awake because I’d never heard such a “pop” when the wind blew.
When I felt the rush of the waters and the mattress soak, I knew this wasn’t “wind.” Our little person had decided to be born early and it was our mission to get my belly to the hospital ASAP. I woke my husband and for at least a full 10 seconds we stared at each other.
We had both planned our trip to the hospital, but surely after a full term pregnancy. Weren’t firstborns notoriously late? I did have the baby’s room ready, with crib, layette, diapers and pins (no disposables for me!), and a dresser filled with generic baby clothes (those days we never knew what the sex of our babies were). We’d attended our first (and, in the end, last) Lamaze class, and I had, actually, packed my bag. The Lamaze book was on the nightstand.
So much for planning -
We grabbed the bag and the book and headed off to the hospital, a slick and hideous 20 miles away. The wind WAS at our back, but with the roads icy, not a plus. John had dressed quickly and so did I. On the way to the hospital, John would ask “Have the contractions started” and I’d lie “No” then I would ask “Are the roads bad” and he’d lie “No.”
Amazingly, when we got to the hospital, the contractions stopped. But we were able to verify that it was amniotic fluid that was still leaking all over my clothes, and hospital staff scurried me off to change into a gown.
In the end, “real” labor lasted 12 hours, which really WAS a blessing since most first labors are much longer and harder. In prenatal classes, I had been properly programmed to decline pain killers, and in the panic of an early birth, stayed away from drugs. In my hormonal rut, I was still rational enough to decide that this baby had enough problems with prematurity to add drugs to the picture.
Labor progressed faster than John could read. He’d be at Chapter 4 of Ferdinand Lamaze’s book, and I’d be dilated to 8 - not a scenario we’d envisioned. When the doctor finally asked me if I wanted to push, I did, and presto - Peter was a one-push wonder.
He really was a little wonder, with a big head just like his dad’s. He truly was a preemie, but a BIG preemie at 5 pounds, 13 ounces. He still had vernix (that downy hair that covers most fetal bodies) and a form of respiratory distress syndrome that generated a hustle to the Neonatal ICU and an incubator. John said ‘bye’ over his shoulder as he followed his son into sterile oblivion and I was left to bond with the afterbirth, both physically and mentally.
For yuppies who are both control freaks and anal retentive to a microscopic fault, a preemie is a nightmare. Peter was minutes old, six weeks early, and screaming his immature lungs out. Neonatal specialists evaluated him and pronounced him a healthy pre-term baby. In addition, he was long and scrawny - and in the end we all decided it was a good thing he came when he did - had we gone full term, he would have been a double digiter.
His first 24 hours were nerve wracking - we had no idea what a little soldier he was - but things slowly improved. I rested for the first couple of hours after birth, then spent the next two days pacing my sore keester back and forth from maternity to the NICU. I learned all sorts of stuff about things I never knew existed. Peter hadn’t developed a suckling ability, so, although I’d planned on breast feeding him, he had other issues that had to be addressed first. Thus came the inevitable debate: breast milk vs formula, then Kaneson Manual Breast Pump versus the electric model. I learned about the different levels of respiratory distress disorder (Peter’s was less serious), jaundice (it’s more than just a dirty restaurant), and the gut-wrenching pain of being discharged from the hospital without your baby.
None of these issues were covered in my mommy-to-be manuals in those days. During pregnancy I’d read a couple of books, my favorite being “A Child is Born” with all the photos of infants during different phases of gestation. I’d decided to breast feed the first few months, then I would decide how I wanted to address the choice of returning to the workplace vs. remaining at home. Once reality arrived in the form of a premature baby, however, I realized what a luxury the option of “choice” really is.
Before discharged from the hospital without the baby, I learned how to pump my breasts, store the milk in sterile containers, freeze it, then transport it to the hospital to be fed to Peter via little bottles with preemie nipples. After 24 hours, my milk was coming in so well that I was able to both supply the neonatal unit with milk for Pete AND stockpile it as well. This was a good system since the milk from mothers of premature babies is different than full term mommies. Also, since Peter was premature, the antibodies provided by this mother’s milk were crucial to his still forming immune system.
Two days after Peter’s birth I was discharged from the hospital with a Kaneson breast pump (much easier to use than an electric pump in my opinion) and a millennium supply of preemie bottles and nipples. But the hospital, in the huge faux pas of administrative procedure, made me attend the class for new mothers discharged with newborns. As a result, I spent an hour in a classroom with other mothers and their babies, sobbing, whimpering, and frankly, wailing since I was going home empty-handed. All kept glancing at me WITHOUT a baby in a blubbering puddle of tears. I don’t know who this experience was worse for; the staff, the other mommies, or myself, but we all got a pragmatic lesson in post-partum depression.
Once discharged, I spent the next week or so pumping my breasts, visiting the hospital, bringing the frozen bottles with me and taking clean bottles home, feeding Peter with a preemie nipple while my fresh milk ran hysterically from my breasts, and sobbing frequently. For all the waking hours I spent in the NICU, I might as well have remained an inpatient. Exhaustion was a word I finally understood.
In the early eighties we didn’t get “post-partum” depression, we got the “baby blues” and were told to get over it. During my “home hours” I spent time rocking in Peter’s nursery, folding, then refolding baby clothes, and just generally waiting for my husband to get home from work so that he could take me to the hospital to visit Pete. After a few bumpy days, Peter simply started to thrive, so even though he was taking milk from the bottle rather than the breast, he was discharged when he was 9 days old. He was off the respirator, off the iv’s, gaining weight, eating like a wolf and wetting his diapers like Old Faithful.
We were ready. We saw ourselves as responsible, mature adults who could handle a little chaos. At night, I pumped milk, fed Peter, and then John would put him to bed while I ‘stripped’ my breasts of any residual milk for freezer storage. This was a rather lovely arrangement since Peter was a “rocket pooper” and John subsequently became a “rocket changer.” During the day, I pumped milk, fed Peter, changed Peter, cleaned myself up, drank a beverage, took a nap, and then repeated the whole process. John was able to escape to work. Things settled down quickly and we took comfort in our little system.
When Peter was six weeks old, almost EXACTLY on his due date, he latched onto my breast when I offered it to him. I’d been advised to do it and to get him on the breast naturally - but, frankly John and I treated it like a joke. The night he decided that “fresh was best” I already had a freezer full of frozen milk. But honestly, it was such a blessing. John could start sleeping through the night, and a few weeks later, so did Pete and I. We eventually dumped the frozen milk.
Once we all were sleeping, I thought about the work issue, and realized, with children, you will be working forever, be it in the kitchen or the workplace. I decided to just chill out and enjoy the peace as long as it lasted, and John was ok with it as well.
After that, all was normal until, in usual Peter fashion, he decided to start walking at ten months (yep, that’s nine months if you start from his due date). Peter has always been a determined soul with a mind of his own and the spirit of a restless old man. Before he was born, I had no idea that a baby could be so driven, so determined. But that was Peter, born when HE decided it was time, nursed when HE was ready, and walked when HE wanted. The first year of Peter’s life, I learned to put aside personal expectations and just go with the flow.
You can’t block an avalanche.
I’m now fifty-seven and a lot more seasoned. If I’ve learned anything in the last 28 years, it’s that there is nothing more fragile than reasonable expectations and well-laid plans . . .
It was a dark and stormy night - it really was - and there was already an inch of ice on the road. It was 12:15 am on Monday, January 11, 1982. I was 7.5 months pregnant, my due date was February 22. Freezing rain was falling from the sky in the way it does in the East County of Portland, Oregon. East winds were blowing up the Columbia River Gorge, peaking at 60 mph bursts. Occasionally, a fir bough would break off from a tree and smack against a window, and the groan of the wind pressure was heaving on the east side of the house. Still, when my water broke that Monday morning, I snapped awake because I’d never heard such a “pop” when the wind blew.
When I felt the rush of the waters and the mattress soak, I knew this wasn’t “wind.” Our little person had decided to be born early and it was our mission to get my belly to the hospital ASAP. I woke my husband and for at least a full 10 seconds we stared at each other.
We had both planned our trip to the hospital, but surely after a full term pregnancy. Weren’t firstborns notoriously late? I did have the baby’s room ready, with crib, layette, diapers and pins (no disposables for me!), and a dresser filled with generic baby clothes (those days we never knew what the sex of our babies were). We’d attended our first (and, in the end, last) Lamaze class, and I had, actually, packed my bag. The Lamaze book was on the nightstand.
So much for planning -
We grabbed the bag and the book and headed off to the hospital, a slick and hideous 20 miles away. The wind WAS at our back, but with the roads icy, not a plus. John had dressed quickly and so did I. On the way to the hospital, John would ask “Have the contractions started” and I’d lie “No” then I would ask “Are the roads bad” and he’d lie “No.”
Amazingly, when we got to the hospital, the contractions stopped. But we were able to verify that it was amniotic fluid that was still leaking all over my clothes, and hospital staff scurried me off to change into a gown.
In the end, “real” labor lasted 12 hours, which really WAS a blessing since most first labors are much longer and harder. In prenatal classes, I had been properly programmed to decline pain killers, and in the panic of an early birth, stayed away from drugs. In my hormonal rut, I was still rational enough to decide that this baby had enough problems with prematurity to add drugs to the picture.
Labor progressed faster than John could read. He’d be at Chapter 4 of Ferdinand Lamaze’s book, and I’d be dilated to 8 - not a scenario we’d envisioned. When the doctor finally asked me if I wanted to push, I did, and presto - Peter was a one-push wonder.
He really was a little wonder, with a big head just like his dad’s. He truly was a preemie, but a BIG preemie at 5 pounds, 13 ounces. He still had vernix (that downy hair that covers most fetal bodies) and a form of respiratory distress syndrome that generated a hustle to the Neonatal ICU and an incubator. John said ‘bye’ over his shoulder as he followed his son into sterile oblivion and I was left to bond with the afterbirth, both physically and mentally.
For yuppies who are both control freaks and anal retentive to a microscopic fault, a preemie is a nightmare. Peter was minutes old, six weeks early, and screaming his immature lungs out. Neonatal specialists evaluated him and pronounced him a healthy pre-term baby. In addition, he was long and scrawny - and in the end we all decided it was a good thing he came when he did - had we gone full term, he would have been a double digiter.
His first 24 hours were nerve wracking - we had no idea what a little soldier he was - but things slowly improved. I rested for the first couple of hours after birth, then spent the next two days pacing my sore keester back and forth from maternity to the NICU. I learned all sorts of stuff about things I never knew existed. Peter hadn’t developed a suckling ability, so, although I’d planned on breast feeding him, he had other issues that had to be addressed first. Thus came the inevitable debate: breast milk vs formula, then Kaneson Manual Breast Pump versus the electric model. I learned about the different levels of respiratory distress disorder (Peter’s was less serious), jaundice (it’s more than just a dirty restaurant), and the gut-wrenching pain of being discharged from the hospital without your baby.
None of these issues were covered in my mommy-to-be manuals in those days. During pregnancy I’d read a couple of books, my favorite being “A Child is Born” with all the photos of infants during different phases of gestation. I’d decided to breast feed the first few months, then I would decide how I wanted to address the choice of returning to the workplace vs. remaining at home. Once reality arrived in the form of a premature baby, however, I realized what a luxury the option of “choice” really is.
Before discharged from the hospital without the baby, I learned how to pump my breasts, store the milk in sterile containers, freeze it, then transport it to the hospital to be fed to Peter via little bottles with preemie nipples. After 24 hours, my milk was coming in so well that I was able to both supply the neonatal unit with milk for Pete AND stockpile it as well. This was a good system since the milk from mothers of premature babies is different than full term mommies. Also, since Peter was premature, the antibodies provided by this mother’s milk were crucial to his still forming immune system.
Two days after Peter’s birth I was discharged from the hospital with a Kaneson breast pump (much easier to use than an electric pump in my opinion) and a millennium supply of preemie bottles and nipples. But the hospital, in the huge faux pas of administrative procedure, made me attend the class for new mothers discharged with newborns. As a result, I spent an hour in a classroom with other mothers and their babies, sobbing, whimpering, and frankly, wailing since I was going home empty-handed. All kept glancing at me WITHOUT a baby in a blubbering puddle of tears. I don’t know who this experience was worse for; the staff, the other mommies, or myself, but we all got a pragmatic lesson in post-partum depression.
Once discharged, I spent the next week or so pumping my breasts, visiting the hospital, bringing the frozen bottles with me and taking clean bottles home, feeding Peter with a preemie nipple while my fresh milk ran hysterically from my breasts, and sobbing frequently. For all the waking hours I spent in the NICU, I might as well have remained an inpatient. Exhaustion was a word I finally understood.
In the early eighties we didn’t get “post-partum” depression, we got the “baby blues” and were told to get over it. During my “home hours” I spent time rocking in Peter’s nursery, folding, then refolding baby clothes, and just generally waiting for my husband to get home from work so that he could take me to the hospital to visit Pete. After a few bumpy days, Peter simply started to thrive, so even though he was taking milk from the bottle rather than the breast, he was discharged when he was 9 days old. He was off the respirator, off the iv’s, gaining weight, eating like a wolf and wetting his diapers like Old Faithful.
We were ready. We saw ourselves as responsible, mature adults who could handle a little chaos. At night, I pumped milk, fed Peter, and then John would put him to bed while I ‘stripped’ my breasts of any residual milk for freezer storage. This was a rather lovely arrangement since Peter was a “rocket pooper” and John subsequently became a “rocket changer.” During the day, I pumped milk, fed Peter, changed Peter, cleaned myself up, drank a beverage, took a nap, and then repeated the whole process. John was able to escape to work. Things settled down quickly and we took comfort in our little system.
When Peter was six weeks old, almost EXACTLY on his due date, he latched onto my breast when I offered it to him. I’d been advised to do it and to get him on the breast naturally - but, frankly John and I treated it like a joke. The night he decided that “fresh was best” I already had a freezer full of frozen milk. But honestly, it was such a blessing. John could start sleeping through the night, and a few weeks later, so did Pete and I. We eventually dumped the frozen milk.
Once we all were sleeping, I thought about the work issue, and realized, with children, you will be working forever, be it in the kitchen or the workplace. I decided to just chill out and enjoy the peace as long as it lasted, and John was ok with it as well.
After that, all was normal until, in usual Peter fashion, he decided to start walking at ten months (yep, that’s nine months if you start from his due date). Peter has always been a determined soul with a mind of his own and the spirit of a restless old man. Before he was born, I had no idea that a baby could be so driven, so determined. But that was Peter, born when HE decided it was time, nursed when HE was ready, and walked when HE wanted. The first year of Peter’s life, I learned to put aside personal expectations and just go with the flow.
You can’t block an avalanche.
Welcome!
Mollie and her husband have two adult sons who are handsome, successful and spoken for. Millie has a foot in every camp, with two birds who've flown the nest, two college boys living at home and two high-schoolers likewise. That's 171 Parent-Years of experience and counting!
Between us we've handled it all, from bedrest and preemies to where a step-parent sits at a wedding.
Bring it.
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