17 month on..."Welcome to Me"

When I started this blog a few months back I was still under the false understanding that as Ruben would get older I would magically get more and more time for myself. Yes, on the long run, the very very long run, I actually think that will happen. One day there will be free afternoons, and evenings, and time to spare for a pottery class or for joining my local choir. But that time is not now. Right now, if I want to take an hour for myself I have to work for it, carve it out of our day, figure out ways to make my schedule fit around Ruben's. All to say, when I started this blog I thought I would always have time for my musings - it turns out, it's still super hard to make time for myself 17 months on.

So, on the topic of making time for myself, I wanted to share that recently it's been really tough being a mom. This is how it's gone down for me: the first 3 months were a crazy time of exhaustion and absolute love. I was high and delirious from lack of sleep, totally devoted to making Ruben as comfortable as possible in this world, struggling to figure out a thousand different things (breastfeeding, sleeping, my changing body, Ruben's poops - you know, the usual) and generally riding the wave of birth and getting to know my son. I had been told numberless times that the first three months were the toughest, so I was a bit surprised to discover that the next 6 months weren't so much easier. Easier, yes, but by a tiny little degree. And not all the time. My hormones were slowly going back to pre-pregnancy state, and I started realising just how much work and responsibility come with having a little person in your life. Eventually we hit a year, and that was WONDERFUL. I was so relieved that we had actually kept Ruben alive and in pretty good shape. He was no longer the vulnerable little dumpling that had arrived at our home, and it felt like I could finally relax a bit. Ruben was OK, we had survived a year of parenting and it felt like our family was quite consolidated.

It's been 5 months since that eventful first year anniversary, and over these months I have been confronting some different aspects of becoming a parent. I am no longer in the trenches, or hoping that Ruben won't stop breathing when I leave the room he's sleeping in. In fact, I feel pretty good about him. What's more difficult at this time in my journey as a mother is coming back to myself. As long as I was worried about how Ruben was doing, there was very little space for me. But these days Ruben's well being is much easier to take care of, freeing me of some of the constant fine tuning that defined the first year of our lives together. As I get a little more mental space, I turn inwards, and man there's a lot there! It's not easy to acknowledge all the different feelings that arise when I check in with myself. There is still a lot of love, with the addition of pride for the way Ruben is growing and developing. But there is also mourning for those things that are gone: the freedom to spend an evening out with friends, the intimacy of a small trip alone with my partner, the pleasure of a couple of uninterrupted hours to myself on a yoga mat. Nowadays I have to figure out whether an extra hour a week to myself is worth leaving Ruben - can I take time for myself even if it's not "necessary"? How can I justify my space? How can I negotiate for both of us when he would want to be with me all the time? 

Recently I saw a trailer to a comedy entitled "Welcome To Me", and the title of the movie really struck a chord. These days it feels like all I want is to turn my attention back on myself, to rediscover what I need to feel good, what needs healing, how I can let go of some of things and how I can restore my energies after being on call for someone else for so long. Yes, I am grateful for the little person who is currently asleep upstairs (not for long!), but how do I reconnect to me? And when I do make time for myself, how do I make sure there is a balance between the more difficult reflections and the more fun, creative ways of expressing myself and doing what I like? There is lots to ponder...

So that is where my mind is at these days. I've heard from a few of you who were wondering about my blog and I wish this entry were less personal and more informative, especially for the soon moms-to-be! But this needed to be written. Recently I've been learning that it takes a lot of work to come back to myself after the earthquake of love and worry that has been transforming into a mother. If you have gone through this yourself, I would love to hear what your "way back in" has been. And if you are not quite there yet, I'll be here when you hit that time if you want to talk. By the way, you can still do a tremendous job as a parent while wondering what your life could be like if only you were freeeeee ;-)

As always, thank you for reading,

B

On Breastfeeding and Halloween

It's almost Halloween and I am probably the most excited member of the family when it comes to pumpkin carving. In my newfound baby/birthing/nursing geekiness, this year I realised I could carve the International Breastfeeding Logo onto a pumpkin. And so I did. (We are also toying with writing "Boo - b!" on it, all depends on D who is in charge of the letters.) So here it is, your own preview before we set the pumpkin on our windowsill. Here in the UK, the sight of a breastfeeding mother might actually spook some more than you would expect, we'll see what happens...

I've taken a long hiatus from writing on the blog, caught between the chaos of traveling during the holidays and the chaos of getting back to Oxford and re-establishing our routine, while also gearing up for Ruben's first birthday (he is officially 1 year old!) All through out I have often thought that I wanted to write an entry about breastfeeding, particularly designed for the mothers I know who are expecting their first baby. Here are a couple of things I learnt with Ruben when it came to breastfeeding...

1. Find the Breastfeeding Mamas.
While you will likely have enough milk to feed your baby, you might not have enough support to do it, so start looking for a Breastfeeding Community! (And don't rely on family and friends only: they mean well, but aren't necessarily up to date with good evidence based information.)
Before Ruben was born, my breastfeeding (BF) knowledge was very limited. I had a vague memory of seeing my mother breastfeeding my younger sister, but not much else. My main worry was that I might not be able to breastfeed because of a small chance that I wouldn't "have enough milk".  I have since learned that while there exists a small percentage of cases in which a woman does not have enough glandular tissue in her breasts to produce milk, most cases in which BF ends prematurely are caused by the lack of support and evidence based information a mother receives. There is so much to tweak and rework when it comes to breastfeeding, and the best thing that happened to Ruben and I was finding a community of mothers who either had or were breastfeeding (the local La Leche League group and the Baby Cafe in our neighbourhood, for instance.) Especially in the first 3 months of Ruben's life, I had so many questions, worries, and moments when I doubted myself and my ability to take care of him. At those times, I thrived on the support of both peers and BF professionals (please read that as "people who don't give advice based on personal experience but evidence based information.") 

2. Breastfeeding is a lot of work.
Especially at the beginning, breastfeeding takes a lot of work. It takes work for you to get to know your baby and your boobs, and for your baby to get to know you and your boobs. Boobs and babies come in all sorts of different shapes, sizes, and personalities. For instance, my boobs were of the "Fire Hydrant" type. It sounds funny now, but my let down reflex (when the milk begins to come out of the nipple after the initial sucking of the baby) was very strong and caused Ruben to gag, cough, and pull away from the boob. Eventually I learned that there are ways to deal with a forceful let down, and Ruben got older and the whole process easier, but I wouldn't have had the same confidence to continue trying and refining our BF without connecting to other mothers who had struggled or were struggling like me. 
Again, find someone you can speak with. There are so may ways in which you might need support, and there is a lot of "popular wisdom" that, even though meant kindly, could seriously hinder your BF relationship. Websites are a great source of information, but nothing beats a cup of tea/coffee and an empathetic smile. Also, it's a lot of work finding people that you trust and feel a connection with - if you are pregnant, it's worthwhile getting a head start and looking up a group or a doula in your area.
The lovely part is that all the hard work pays off, even if you might be too tired to fully enjoy those quiet moments when your baby does finally nurse easily and you get to doze off... Also, if you are thinking of BF long term, you will find establishing a good BF relationship early on will make it easier to keep going once the baby is a little older. And just in case you are feeling a little concerned from all this talk of hard work, check out this list of BF Benefits :-) Spoiler alert: becoming a parent is also a lot of work, no matter what!

3. Surrender to your baby for the first three months.
When I was pregnant with Ruben I planned to BF "on demand", but when the time came and I did, it was a shock! I thought "on demand" would mean holding Ruben every couple of hours for a sweet cuddle and a feed. I envisioned Renaissance-like beatitude as I held my babe in my arms in adoration and he got high on the sweet sweet Mommy Milk. Well, it turns out most of those works must have been painted by men who actually had never breastfed themselves. With Ruben it was a visceral and at times rough ritual. There was sucking, choking, farting, writhing, burping, trapped air all along the digestive tract, and general fussiness. Please be aware that not all babies go through this! But don't be surprised if yours does. Also, Ruben was not born with a little wrist watch and he wanted on and off the boob at all sorts of intervals of time. There was no way I could "schedule him in" for a feed. I basically started offering him the boob at any cry and that worked very well. But it felt like he was nursing all the time!! For realz? For realz.
Luckily, I was surrounded by good literature and experienced professionals on the topic. For instance, here is one of my favorite articles about the craziness behind telling mothers that they should nurse at specific time intervals (by the way, this also applies to a formula fed baby, although I can imagine it would be difficult to feed on demand when you have to prepare a bottle every time.) Browsing Kellymom.com or AnalyticalArmadillo.com, you will find more evidence to the benefits of nursing on demand and maintaining almost constant contact with the baby.
As it turns out, BF on demand is great both for your baby and for your milk supply. If you do feed on demand, you are also basically forced to be on your baby's rhythm and give up any other project you might like to take care of (like that pile of dishes that you could so easily get out of the way if only you weren't busy holding your baby!) On the downside, it's so much work! You are on call 24/7 and there is no one who can substitute you on the job. At times it can feel overwhelming and I believe we are very ill-prepared culturally to understand how difficult and intense those first 3-6 months of mothering can be. More on the topic will surely follow in a future posts.
One more thing: if you know you need to go back to work soon after the birth, don't be afraid to BF on demand until you can. Your baby will adapt when s/he needs to, no need to "get them used" to a particular routine before it's necessary. Ask more about this to a La Leche League Leader, they offer great support for mothers who need to get back to work.

4. Breastfeeding will make you relentlessly hungry and thirsty. 
While I was busy with 100% of my energies trying to figure out Little Ruben and our BF relationship, D was 110% busy making sure I was hydrated and well fed. Again, let me highlight this, it was EXHAUSTING. It's like the most intense boot camp you could ever imagine. If you are lucky (as we were) you will have someone to help you run the house or help with your feeding. A great tool I discovered is the concept of a Food Tree, something worthwhile setting up before you have your baby. For instance, if 10 friends of yours offer to bring you an abundant meal a day, you could get away without having to cook for the first 10 days after the baby arrives. And maybe they could pledge to doing that twice, which extends the whole process to 20 days! Here is a good website were to start from: http://www.takethemameal.com/.
 Food was the MOST WELCOME gift I received in the early days, and I have heard many other mothers say the same thing. It also can help to freeze meals and put aside a little money for take aways and pre-made food. You will want to eat nutritiously, not just because it's the "healthier option", but because it will keep you going for longer and with better energy! (For instance, a plate of pasta will give you a burst of energy but then cause severe drops in your sugar levels. Slow release proteins like lentils and beans will keep you going longer without the same highs and lows.)
Bottom line: while you are establishing a strong BF relationship with your Baby, you will need great fuel and it will probably be challenging to meet those needs by yourself. It won't be the case forever, but imagine it as a full immersion and any free time will become a bonus!

5. Breastfeeding is constantly changing.
I have now been BF Ruben for more than a year and the one constant, as in much of life, is that it's always changing. At one point I could only feed him while lying on my side in bed, then there was the time when he only fed in a sling. For a short period, around 4/5 months, Ruben kept going on and off the boob and I wondered if I would ever stop bouncing on my yoga ball in order to get him to relax enough to nurse. These days Ruben comes and asks for milk for different reasons, thirst, hunger, reconnecting with me after an adventurous playtime. Solid food is becoming more prevalent in his diet, and BF is morphing into a very different way to connect to my toddling Ruben. The tougher bits are probably over, but there are new and different challenges ahead, like learning to negotiate my needs with Ruben's. In all the change, the support group that I have cultivated since my pregnancy remains a valuable resource and refuels me at times of uncertainty. 

I recently read a beautiful passage about how breastfeeding is a relationship with a side of excellent food (in the lovely "Sweet Sleep".) It's a quote that has struck a chord: over time it has become apparent that, like any relationship, BF has taken a lot of work, but it has become a wonderful part of how I mother and of how Ruben connects to me, and I am deeply grateful for it. 

My wish for you is that you may find a tribe to support your own BF journey, a tribe that will empower you with information and allow you to make the choices that will make your BF experience successful according to your own wishes and desires. All my best wishes to any Mamma out there who hopes to get involved in this unique relationship! Take courage, find support, and eat well!

As always, thank you for reading.

Emotional Honesty

There are some days when it's all smooth sailing: Ruben doesn't wake up crying from a trapped burp in his throat, there are plenty of smiles and loving looks at different times of the day, I catch lots of Ruben's pees and poos (if you have no idea what I mean by that, check out elimination communication or read Christine Gross-Loh's "Diaper Free Baby"), Ruben shows delight in the food I offer him (again, a little bit differently from popular 20th century Western practices, we are doing baby led weaning), I manage to nap for at least an hour in the afternoon, and the sun shines on the UK. These are wonderful days, when I feel so in love with both my baby and my partner. These are the days when I manage to make dinner with relative ease and when Ruben falls asleep just shy of his bed time so that I have a few, extra, precious minutes to write on this blog.

On these days, I sometimes think back on the days that are very challenging. The days when I wonder  if what I am doing as a mother is working or if it's "right". Doubt about my ability as a mother creeps up slowly, fed by the tiredness of the one hour long nap that I missed, the pees and poos that ended up on the living room carpet, the hurried meals which mean Ruben only got to chew on a piece of cucumber for dinner. On these days, the day moves in a weird rhythm and Ruben's cries of frustration and unhappiness leave me feeling disconnected. On these days, hearing that another baby goes to sleep at 7.30 in the evening can almost bring me to tears. This is not so much because Ruben has embraced the sun's rhythm (in the British summer, this means that he goes to sleep around 10p and wakes up with the first rays of sunshine, around 5.30a). Rather, I find myself wondering if I am making the right choices, if maybe, in a parallel universe, there is a mother B who has got it figured out with her son R, who goes to sleep at 7.30p every evening, who never wakes up crying in pain from a burp, and who is, of course, generally better off.

As I write this, I realize what a good day this has been, as I am actually capable of some self-irony. The truth is, though, that some days can be very hard. When Ruben's poos turned a bright green when he was three weeks old, I spent all my "extra" time/energy doing research, trying to figure out how to make things better (anything from block feeding because of a forceful let-down reflex to dietary changes, particularly by removing diary in my diet.) Now that Ruben is almost 9 months, a lot of the toughest bits have eased up, yet there are still times when I feel the pressure of being his mother very strongly and feel myself wondering if I'm doing all right. 

I write about all this because I have been reading a wonderful book by Sue Gerhardt, "Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes A Baby's Brain." First of all, Gerhardt is one of the co-founders of OXPIP (Oxford Parent Infant Project.) Check it out, it's a great organization that helps parents to connect with their babies because, as they say, "being a parent isn't easy." 

Gerhardt is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and in her book she looks at how love affects the development of a newborn's nervous system, especially through the first couple of years of their life. There is lots to learn in this accessible book, as Gerhardt reviews and expands on a range of recent research in neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis and biochemistry. It's a wonderful book that covers many different topics and I generally recommend it (even if you don't have children, to get an interesting perspective on your own brain and parents - maybe not an "easy read".)

Personally, however, something I read just the other night really struck a chord. In the second part of her book, Gerhardt looks at how shaky foundations in early relationships between parents and babies can lead to negative consequences. Gerhardt discusses how people learn to hide their feelings as young babies: as parents push for independence, babies sense early on "that their dependence and neediness is unwelcome, so they learn to hide their feelings" (Gerhardt, 93.)  In this section of Gerhardt's book I recognized my own tendency to put on a smile and not share the tougher parts of my life, apart from when I feel very safe and supported. I also recognized that if I want to be emotionally available for Ruben as a parent, one of my many challenges is to be more connected with myself and more willing to feel, even those very bad days. Maybe especially those bad days.

I entitled this post emotional honesty. I think of this as my practice as a parent, to try and remain in touch with how I feel, to make room for the more difficult emotions (like anger, jealousy, loneliness, sadness). My wish is that I can learn more about emotional honesty thanks to and with Ruben, so that as he encounters tough times ahead, I can be present with him without carrying a big back load of my own unexpressed, bottled up, unrecognized feelings. 

Today I write this in the hope that others might read and share the ways in which they try to stay connected, not just on those wonderful days when the sun shines, but on the days when things feel heavy and complicated. I know that meeting up with other parents has been incredibly helpful for me. I look forward to the monthly La Leche League meeting for mothers and babies with much gratitude for its existance. Lately, too, I have taken more initiative to meet with other parents in informal settings. Hearing how another baby is struggling with their teeth coming out, or how tired the mother of a crawling little girl is feeling, helps me feel part of a greater parenting network, in which we are all doing our best to take care of the amazing little creatures that are our children. What makes you feel better on your more difficult days?

As always, thank you for reading. 

Thank you D!; or What About the Dad?

I've been thinking about what to write next, especially as I itch to introduce Ina May Gaskin to the blog, but then this evening, as I was feeding Ruben to sleep, D (my partner) spoke in the microphone of our baby monitor: "Is everything OK?" And it hit me: I must write about D! (Or rather, about my gratitude towards him as a partner, my expectations as a mother, and the need for more support for fathers in our nuclear family system.)

While the baby monitor is designed to monitor the sounds of your baby (and with Ruben, by "sounds" I mean cries only. No, up to now our son has never woken up calmly gurgling to himself or making cute cooing noises. If he wakes up and he's alone, he's unhappy and he makes it clear), our baby monitor has a the added "Talk" feature on the receiver (which you keep on you as a parent) so that you can soothe your baby with the sounds of your voice. Soothing Ruben with the sound of our voice has actually only started to work for us, like, today. BUT, hidden perk of the Talk function: ever since we've had the monitor, D and I have been able to be in touch with each other even when we were on different floors and without screaming at the top of our lungs. Especially in the early days, this usually meant I would be in bed with Ruben and David would be downstairs in our kitchen taking some sort of food/drink order from yours truly. The baby monitor became the B and D Special Communication Device, and even though we don't use it as much these days, my heart softens a little bit whenever D checks in on Ruben and I.

In fact, in those challenging, exhausting, exhilarating early days, D didn't just bring me food and drinks. He became my primary carer. During the first week, when I wanted to calmly get to know our new baby without too many visitors and too much interference, D became our guardian. Whenever I breastfed and thirst would overcome me, I would mercilessly demand water - immediately! When I needed Ruben to relax upstairs, D would bring up the Pilates ball so that I could bounce our baby to sleep. When I cried silent tears as Ruben wailed in mysterious discomfort during the late evenings, D would sometimes just sit in the same room as me, watching me bounce up and down (a recurring theme in Ruben's life until relatively recently), smiling and telling me what a great job I was doing. In other words, when Ruben was born, all of my energies became invested in him and, in turn, I needed D's energies to support me in my new, 24/7 job. And while I don't think D was quite prepared for becoming my full time carer, he did a marvellous job of it.

All this said, the transition from 2 to 3 did not come easy! While the hormonal cocktail that I had in circulation from the pregnancy, through birth, and with breastfeeding, primed me towards wanting to take full care of Ruben, D had no such physiological predisposition towards me. About five weeks after Ruben was born, I remember an exhausted D telling me he didn't feel considered in our relationship anymore. At the time, I almost bit his head off! I remember thinking: "99% of my energies go into keeping this new baby alive, then MAYBE I can take a moment to center myself! How am I supposed to take care of YOU as well?!?! Aaaaaghhhh!" It took a lot of breathing and trying to put myself in his shoes to realise: Ruben had me, I had D, but there was no one there for D! How to deal with this lack of support in our family?

In 2013, I started training to become a Doula (a birth and post-natal informed companion to new parents), and one of the main tenants of my training is that the Mother/Baby Dyad is the most crucial relationship to protect and support after the birth. In other words, I believe in mothering the mother. Before my Doula training, I remember thinking I would want to share childcare equally with the father of my children. Yet a few books and studies later, I realised that that model wouldn't work for me, and when I became pregnant I found myself prepared to become fully dedicated to the little creature growing inside my belly.  Coming from this perspective, when Ruben arrived in our lives I was pretty clear in regards to my preferences: I wanted D to be our guardian, our protector and carer, so that I may get to know our son and tune into him as much as possible. In other words, I wanted to be a Monkey Mama, my baby strapped to me, and my partner by my side helping me on my mothering quest.

Where did all this leave D? As the loving and open companion he is, D supported me in my choices and preferences surrounding pregnancy, birth and childcare, yet my learning did not prepare me to understand his new position. Unlike my mother, who was taught to take care of her husband even as she raised her daughters (this involved a lot of ironing and cooking), I expected D to do the cooking and the cleaning up as I fed, rocked, soothed, and responded to Ruben around the clock. That was that, and just as I was ready to put all of myself into our baby, I expected D to dedicate himself to me for those first few months. It turns out, it's all easier said than done. (As I recently told my sister: "It's so much work. No, really, you have no idea. So. Much. Work.")

The division of labour that D and I fell into when Ruben was born is quite a radical shift in the way parenting has been done for many generations in both of our families. Our parenting choice was made all the more challenging by the fact that we live away from our parents, so that there was no one to give D a break every now and then. Yet our situation is not unique, and more and more I encounter parents who are creating their own version of what "shared parenting" means. Inevitably, in these new family formations, fathers are playing a bigger role in the care of the baby and the mother, and this leaves me wondering: what about the Dad? Even in the traditional role as "the provider," fathers usually don't have as much support as they might need. Could it be that greater support for fathers might decrease the experience of the competition for attention and care with the newborn? And if so, what could support and care for new fathers look like?

I believe the question of how a new father gets attended to is actually quite powerful and possibly the cause for one of the oldest false competitions within traditional heterosexual families: the competition for the mother's attention between the baby and the father. In fact, although I am Italian and this perceived conflict is quite familiar to me (my father's main concern regarding co-sleeping is the detriment to the intimacy between the couple - a concern on which I see it more like this), as you saw I come from a rather radically different perspective on the whole thing. I believe that if fathers were sufficiently supported within a family unit, a baby would not have to be perceived as a threat to the relationship.

Here in Oxford, parents and carers are lucky to be surrounded by many different baby centered support groups (from Children Centres to Baby Cafes, to La Leche League meetings, NCT groups, and both free and paid for classes.) In my experience, these groups are mostly attended by mothers, and they are a wonderful way to feel less alone and to put the challenges of parenting a young baby into perspective. Yet I rarely see fathers attending, and there are probably multiple reasons why.

Alternatively to local groups, there are Dad centered websites which have a strong presence online. In just a few minutes of research,  I came across several blogs that address the Dad's experience, such as Dad's Adventure and New Dad's Blog. There are plenty more, and I would love to hear if you have suggestions. Overall, however, I still wonder about how we can start to imagine  ways to recognize and appreciate the challenging role that a Dad has within a family, especially a new Dad. 

Today's post is an attempt to acknowledge my partner's work of love, which was shaped by my strong desire to mother and be mothered. Now that the waters have calmed a bit and that I have a little more time to be with myself, I often feel great gratitude for D's relentless support over the past year and a half (going back to the pregnancy.) I wanted to share our story (at least part of it), because I think there are many other couples out there who might be struggling with the difficulties of rearranging their relationship around a baby - I send you my heartfelt good wishes and hope you can find support in this earthquake of a transition!*

Thank you for reading and be well.

* I recently described my relationship to my son and my husband like this: "It's like the baby is a whirling dervish, so full of energy, spinning and spinning in circles, and you and your partner are holding hands, trying to move with the spinning baby, making sure he doesn't bump into anything and get hurt, but trying to allow him full range of motion. And while all that is happening, you are still trying to hold hands and hold on to each other. Sometimes it's easier, sometimes a hand slips, but if you are lucky, you just get stronger and stronger in your hold. "

PS 
My good friend Ruti Levtov gave me this lovely heads up: www.men-care.org