Research problem: need to sleep

Remember the cold that Dh brought home with him?  Well, my tiny tot came down with it on Friday night.  By Saturday afternoon she was truly a snotty kid, and by Monday morning her cough was so bad I took her in to see the doctor.

(as an aside, do any of you find it difficult not to refer to pediatrician as the vet?  try as I might I can't stop automatically saying that I took Mads to the vet's...  so now I just call it the baby vet.)

Luckily Mads hasn't yet had a fever, so I was mostly just worried because she was wheezy and having to use some effort to breath a little more than usual.

Turns out that it is really common for babies to get bronchulitis, and she had only a mild case.  But the baby vet sent us home with albuterol and a vapor machine thing to give her 3-4 times a day.  She hates it by the way, it kind of smells funny and is weird.

Needless to say the last few days have been kind of hard.  But the nights even moreso.  Mads couldn't sleep for more than about 1.5 hours before waking herself up with a scary coughing fit or because her nose was so stuffed up she couldn't really breath right.  And even worse, from her perspective, her nose was so stuffed up that she couldn't suck her thumb.

I was exhausted by Monday morning after 3 nights of this.  It was like having a newborn again without the adrenaline rush to keep me going.  I was losing my mental abilities again -- for example I was at the pharmacy picking up her prescription and had to sign for it.  The form also required me to state the signer's relationship to the patient.  I had to read this aloud to myself three times before I could figure out that the answer was "mother". 

Anyway, back to the point of this post.

I had some mothering break-throughs yesterday. 

1) she screamed bloody murder the whole time, but it really did seem to help when I suctioned her nose.  So, I just got strong and held her head down tight and suctioned that nose out last night.  She forgave me and fell asleep on my shoulder within minutes of the horrible-scary-thing.

2) parenting has some serious similarities to my work, and as a consequence some of the same feelings of reward. 

Background:
Designing and running research projects means that I have to figure out the important parameters of a problem and then determine what data I need to test a hypothesis.  A sick baby is like a research problem.  After 3 nights I knew that I wanted her to be comfortable, but that my initial approach was way too labor intensive.  I was getting up and holding her for hours.  She was sleeping, but I was losing my mind and starting to get sick. 

Problem:
how to get her comfortable enough that she can sleep but that I can at least sort-of sleep

Solution:
car seat on the bed between dh and me. 

Materials and Methods:
Mads first went to sleep in her crib at 5:30pm last night.  This only worked for about 30 minutes, and she was up coughing.  After time in a steamy bathroom, lots of soothing, and other attempts at a longer-term solution (ranging from putting folded blankets under her crib mattress so she wouldn't be flat to starting to resign myself to having to hold her all night), we had the creative break-through. 

My child really doesn't like the car seat, so I was not sure how I was going to be able to get the vision to work out logistically, but after an hour or so (and lots of lullabies, hushing, and nursing) she zonked out in the car seat at 11:30pm last night.  I barely fit on the bed too, but I was laying down and could sort-of sleep.  Tiny tot coughed and shuffled and did all kinds of weird things that kept me from sleeping well, but she stayed asleep until about 5am when I fed her, and amazingly was able to put her right back in the car seat and to sleep.  And then she woke up again at 7am. 

Well, she didn't really wake up on her own.  She did a HUGE poopoo and Dh just had to get in her face and marvel at what she'd just done.  This of course woke her up, but that wasn't a big deal because it was 7am and not 5am!!! 

Goal accomplished.  She was comfortable enough to sleep and I was comfortable enough to sort-of sleep.  I am feeling very proud of myself today.  And you know what Tiny Tot is doing right now?

napping in her car seat in her crib. 

Tapped out

Thanks for your comments on yesterday's displeased-with-dh post. I have been thinking lots about it today. It bothers me that I feel so pissed off but that I can't really put my finger on what it is that is bothering me.

Here's my current idea. I think I am getting tapped out on the spouting love. Dh has been overseas for the last month and because of how the poor phone system works it is best if I call him. But this requires the use of an annoying phone card, lines into the country that don't always work and are often busy, a hotel front desk clerk that gets too excited saying "hello" over and over again that they can't hear me and then hang up, etc. I can easily spend 30 minutes just trying to get dh's voice on the line for a quick hello. Imagine this with a little baby on your lap... When I do get through Dh likes to complain about the crap that he's dealing with. I would then share a cute story about Mads, and then it was time to go. Did you notice there that we never talked about me? Yep, there many phone calls when I wasn't even asked how I was doing.

Every day I emailed him a video or a few photos of Mads so he could see what she was up to.

And then there were the afternoons I took Mads over to see Dh's mom while he was gone.

And then there is the blog that Maddy writes for our families, so that takes up time every other day but my mom and dh's mom LOVE it so much that I am really happy to do it.

And I went to visit family, so of course there was a lot of emotional energy expenditure and emotional stuff I would have liked to have talked with dh about. Mom threw a couple of parties, so that was emotional expenditure, numerous thank-you notes to write, etc. All nice, but kind of exhausting.

Oh, and did I tell you about how dh had said he'd leave the same day Mads and I did but later in the day so that he could give us a ride to the airport, to make my life easier? yea, well, he messed up and actually bought a ticket that had him on the red eye the night before we left so that I and a baby-past-her-bedtime took him and one of his students to the airport at 11pm the night before I had an 8am pick-up for our taxi ride to the airport. And we live about an hour away from the airport. Needless to say, I only got about 3 hours of sleep the night before I took Mads on her first airplane flight. Thanks Dh.

And now it is the start of the semester and all these students need something from me.

I think maybe I have run out of emotional energy to give. Mads gives me smiles and laughs and makes everything I do for her rewarding. But honestly, no one else does.

I need to feel some love back from the spouse. In many ways it was a little easier when he wasn't here and I knew it was all on me. But now that he's back I could really use a boost. But unfortunately my husband is the type who believes that since he told me that he thinks I am beautiful in 1996 that that should suffice until the end of our lives...

Is this a permanent woman condition?

conditional love

I used to think that I love my husband unconditionally.  Now that I have Madsy, I know that this is not true. 

I love Mads unconditionally. 
I expect things from my husband. 

And I have been surprised by just how frustrated I am by his usual inability to do these things. 

I feel like I am being mean, and I try to stop myself.  But I just can't. 

For example, Mads sometimes pees in between diapers and gets the changing pad cover all wet.  He never replaces it but leaves it wet.  I then set Mads down for her next diaper change and notice that it is wet and her clothes are now wet from whatever it was that made the pad wet.  I have to ask if Mads peed on it and he always says "yes".  WTF? 

Another example, we have two bathrooms.  One is close to our bedroom and Maddy's room.  The other is a floor away next to the guest bedroom and very cold.  I have been using the cold bathroom for the last year or two because Dh said I should use it since it was the refinished one (we recently remodeled our house).  Ok, whatever.

When Dh was out of town for the last month I moved into the closer bathroom so that I could hear Madsy when I took a shower and was getting dressed.  I decided that I did not want to move out when he came home, so I stayed.  He then suggested that he move down to the cold bathroom.  Ok.  But his idea of "move" was to take the new bar of soap that he opened and leave the 8 little soap-bar-remainders in the shower.  I don't use this soap and he knows it, so it isn't like he was leaving them for me to use.  He left them for me to clean up.  Small, I know.  But come on.

And the last example... he has a cold that he picked up on his flight home.  This has of course rendered him absolutely incapacitated.  He insists that he doesn't want to touch Maddy so that he won't get her sick.  But when I suggest that he just wash his hands a lot he completely ignores me.  The couple of times I have managed to get him to wash his hands he runs them under the water for 2 seconds and then dries them.  No soap.  WTF?

And then this morning he is sitting on the footstool in her room "watching" her play on the floor while I was getting a bunch of stuff ready so we could go take his mom out for a picnic lunch.  Remember, he won't touch Maddy so as not to get her sick, but he was coughing and coughing right over her without covering his mouth or even coughing in a different direction.  She was literally laying underneath his mouth as he coughed.  Again, WTF?

I have others but I am feeling kind of mean and petty to be writing them out.  Am I the only new mom who has oodles and oodles of patience for the baby but absolutely none for her husband?  How do I get my head into a better place?

I finally found it.

I am now over 5 months into this breast feeding gig.

7 bras, 5 emotional breakdowns, and about $350 into it I have finally found a nursing bra that really, and I mean really works for me.  It's this one:

The Bravado Bliss.  If that were a picture of me you'd see an even goofier elated grin.

I never thought I'd like a padded bra since it just adds more to my already ample breasts, but this is awesome.  I am supported.  The padding catches little leaks so I can skip on the breast pad, which I have grown to hate after numerous experiences similar to this one. I have support so my breasts don't hang around my elbows.  AND, that extra support and normal breast location means that I can actually fit into some of my pre-pregnancy shirts when I have on this bra.  As some of you will remember, this is a big deal for me.

I just ordered two more because I'm really needing to wash the one I have.  Love, love love.  You have no idea how much better I feel with a good bra on.

Geez, I sound like a really bad commercial... 

coked up baby

When Mads and I got home this afternoon she was tired and went for a nap. I was tired and hungry and went for a snack. Yummy humus, oh, and there was a lone can of coca.cola hiding in the back corner of the fridge left over from a party we had in May. It looked so good and sounded like a perfect match with the humus, and I knew the sugar/caffeine boost would be a nice mood boost.

This evening my child was getting nicely tired, had a good bath, all was looking set for another easy bed time. Until she nursed. And then she couldn't relax enough to go to sleep. About an hour into the won't-go-to-sleep thing it dawns on me...

This is why I don't like to keep soda in the house. I can't be trusted to think it through.

Postpartum depression

I feel wonderful.  I feel happy.  In fact, these last five months have been the best of my life.  I have always felt like I could take care of my baby.  Of course there have been a couple of minor lack-of-self-confidence moments but these were mostly about my not being able to be a really great mom rather than an adequate mom.  I have never doubted my ability to be an adequate mother.

But this morning I was listening to this story on NPR about postpartum depression.

I have been thinking of posting about some thoughts that do frequently cross my mind.  I had decided not to because it would sound like a bigger deal than it is.  But this news story about a psychiatric unit dedicated to treating postpartum depression really struck a cord with me.

One of the doctors interviewed talked about how women with postpartum depression have images in their head of things like knives sticking into their babies, and that they will avoid the kitchen for fear of this happening.

I do this.  I have done this since she was born.  I still do this, even today.  I cringe at the sight of knives and make a very conscious effort to be super careful.  I do it with other things too, although knives are my biggest fear.

I am struck by the vulnerability of my baby.  I buttoned up her PJs this morning and thought about how she needs help with everything.  A month or so ago I was overwhelmed with this thought: if I laid her outside the front door at night she couldn't do anything about it and would be there the next morning unless the racoons took her.  It broke my heart.

I wonder if postpartum depression is at one end of a range, and that the middle part of the range is really important for mothering.  Here's my thought.  To mother you need empathy, right?  And so imagining bad things happening to your helpless infant helps evoke even more empathy than women may have had prior to birth.  I could cry at the horrible images that come into my mind sometimes and it makes me hold Maddy super tight and feel even more committed to keeping her safe. 

Since most things about our biology have a normal distribution, there are going to be a few women who have these thoughts to a debilitating degree whereas there are others that won't have them at all.  But, the majority of women will have them but be inspired to take even better care of their infants because of them.

What do you think?  I am normal?  Do you have these images in your mind too since your baby was born?  Or maybe, I do have a bit of postpartum depression. 

Do you pump at work?

I have been pumping at school for the two days a week I've been going in for a few months now.  I lug my pump with me and take 30 minutes to do two-breasted hands-free pumping sometime in the middle of the day.  I am not good at mimicking the nursing if I were at home because it would take more time.  I feel a little uncomfortable pumping at work.

Ok, honestly, I hate pumping.  I feel uncomfortable pumping ANYWHERE.

But now that I am going to start being at work for 4-5 hours a day during the week I need to come up with a system that works better.  I dislike pumping in my office because we have thin walls and I know that the graduate students in my lab can hear it. 

Another thing to add into the equation:  I am going to start freezing more milk in September for my sister's baby.  

Any advice on the logistics of pumping more often?

Reflections on the trip back home

1) I am very grateful that I am older and more comfortable with my life choices.  By the time I left I had had about enough of the sideways comments from my mom about breastfeeding (she actually told several people that I missed my calling as a wet nurse, in front of me; talk about awkward).  I had also had about enough of people implying that I was torturing my baby by not letting her eat anything but milk.  Luckily my parents' friends are much more supportive of breast feeding than my mom is so there were some supportive conversations, and ones that they initiated in front of her.  Oh, and I was getting really tired of not having a chair to sit in in my room.  It is really hard to nurse hunched over on the edge of the bed six times a day.

2) My sister.  Oh my sister.  She is amazing.  I don't think I've shared much of her story here so let me give you some background.  She had her son when she was 29 and at 31 started trying for a second baby.  That was 12 years ago.  She has been through more infertility treatments than I could keep track of.  We stopped talking about it for a long time because she wanted our relationship to be an escape from all of that.  So I never asked, she just told me things when she wanted me to know.  And she called me a couple of months ago to tell me that their third surrogate is pregnant!  She was SO nervous about telling my parents.  Neither of us was sure what their reaction to the surrogacy thing would be.  Let me tell you, my sister made the announcement in the most eloquent way that it would have been impossible for someone to not be excited and happy for them.  I was really really impressed.  And can I tell you that she is *glowing*!  I think the pregnant lady glow is more from happiness than pregnancy hormones.

3) Mads did not realize that adults prefer babies that sleep on planes.  Needless to say, she did not make many friends on the plane ride there.  And then she totally lost it on the drive to my parents' house from the airport (which is about 2.5 hours).  Luckily it was just family in the car...  The flight home had all the makings for a nightmare.  The flight was delayed about 4 hours and we were stuck at the gate just the two of us.  But Mads was happy to watch all the people and to play with me.  There was a little nursing nook in the bathroom right near our gate so feeding her wasn't awkward.  And when we got on the plane she fell right to sleep.  BUT THEN... 100 french teenagers on a school trip got on and sat all around us.  They were all simultaneously shouting and talking and, of course, Mads woke up and wanted to know what was going on.  This was now an hour past her bed time so she was pretty tired.  We sat on the tarmac for another hour listening to the french teenagers.  Me trying to keep Mads from getting too crazy.  Luckily, once the plane took off the lights went out and all of them (the french teenagers and my baby) slept for the entire flight.  BTW, if you can afford it I strongly recommend getting a separate seat for the baby.  It would have been a nightmare having her in my lap the whole time (it was a 5 hours flight).

4) It is wonderful to be home.

5) My husband has been out of town since right before we left for my parents house and he won't be back until the 19th of August.  I have even more respect and awe for you single moms out there.  It is really hard always being the one on call and I haven't been doing it for all that long.  Dh isn't even that involved of a dad; I do about 95% of the childcare.  But having that fall-back for the 5% really does make a big difference.  You all are AMAZING.