Group Pushing

What? Are you seeing birthing classes with women synchronizing their labor? No, I was trying to say that I'm a pusher. Of groups. One of the most valuable things to me as a new mom has been this moms' group I've been going to at Providence Hospital. I've written about it a bit, but it really deserves its own post. Any new mom I talk to gets an earful about how they should try the groups. Now that I'm back at work, I hardly ever make it now, and I miss it immensely.

The great thing about a group is that moms can get whatever they want out of it. I should say parents, because there are also some dads who come and seem to get a lot out of it as well.  The format is super simple: 8-20 moms (or dads) sitting around in a circle, their 0-6 month old babes on a blanket, talking, feeding, changing diapers, tending to the babies in groups There is also a knowledgeable facilitator who keeps things on track. Besides giving birth, this has probably been the closest thing that has connected me to the primal aspect of being a mother. Sitting isolated in an apartment, seeing only a husband all day is not the way that humans developed for millions of years, and it isn't the way to nurture moms and babies. As I learned early on in relationships with men, one person is not enough to satisfy me--I need a community of others, especially women, to feel fulfilled in my life.

But even if that is not you, the groups are incredibly useful. You can just go to hear others' opinions and advice on getting your baby to sleep, what to feed and how, breastfeeding advice and wisdom, etc. You can just go to see other babies and get perspective on what yours is doing and looking like. You can just go to hear the facilitator answer your one burning question about milk production. You can just go to see what the next stage will look like, after this one. Or you can just go to get reassurance about all the conflicting info you get on SIDS, cosleeping, car seats, whatever. Or, you can just go to get connected to one of the many play groups that develop out of the larger groups. Many of the play groups have lasted for years!

I've always known (and often forget) that I process complex issues externally, by writing about them or talking them out. Never having tried group therapy, this is the closest I have gotten, I suppose. Sometimes the topics get very personal, and you can choose how revealing you want to be. Mostly, though, they are right around most people's comfort level, not too intimate but still juicy enough to feel very relevant. 

O showing off

Oh, and your baby gets something out of it, too. At first it might seem hard to tell, but as they get a bit more aware, they are able to connect with and watch other babies more and more, and they seem to get inspired by each other. They might even start to show off a bit, like O is known to do. 

Groups are good for many things: prenatal yoga group, birth preparation group, miscarriage support group, surrounded-by-babies-and-not-sure-if-I-want-my-own group, depression support group, empty nest group, menopause group. It's a way to honor the stage in life that you are in and get perspective on from others who actually understand, especially if those around you are in a different life stage.

I'm sure that not all groups are as effective as ours, but even if a few factors are out of sync, I think there would still be great benefit to trying it out. My well-meaning husband does not know or research as much as many mothers put together, and I come back with the confidence and knowledge to help both of us be more effective parents. We have had meet ups with other parents, both moms and dads, met nannies for nanny shares, found products, shared products, and mostly shared our timely and important questions that needed supportive answers. 

Is that enough group pushing?

How it was hard

[This week I went back to work as a teacher. We didn't have students yet, but I worked four days part time, and here are my thoughts so far.]

The photo I'm using at the lactation station to help me pump

It was hard in ways different than I expected. I thought it would just be hard to leave O and be away from him. That too, was difficult. The vulnerability of pumping at work and the minor but humorous (in retrospect) challenges I've encountered so far might be a whole different blog post. But more than that, it has been hard to adjust to all the things it means to be a teacher. At least, all the things it used to mean to me. I am enjoying reconnecting with colleagues, feeling professional, getting some intellectual stimulation. But as a teacher, I put my all and my heart into the work. Not just extra time beyond what I was paid, but extra energy and presence.  Working part time, I think I'll be able to cut back on the time I spend, and cut out unnecessary tasks, but do I cut back on the energy I give my students and my job? Or do I increase the energy I put out to have enough for both my baby and my job (and my husband, and myself)?

Getting prepared in the morning is a good metaphor for what I feel about the whole process. There are too many things for my brain to remember, too many items to pack. I have to get the breast pump, the pump materials, the milk, the milk carrier, the diaper bag and all its contents, the extra items that don't fit into the diaper bag, the pacifier, then any work items like my laptop, books or paperwork, my lunch, water, oh, and the baby. It's too much for my little brain to keep track of.

And my heart. My friend Kristy says that having a kid is like having your heart on the outside. She says it's like "there goes my heart, toddling away from me". And my heart has definitely expanded since O has been born. So now, the question is, is there room in my heart for both O and my students/job? Will my heart expand, or will I need to make choices about what to allow in and what to keep out? Obviously, I will keep my baby closest to my heart.

Still, I know that being a parent will make me a better teacher, in the ways that count. I will fully know that each of my students is somebody's baby, that somebody loved and loves him as much as I love this child. Parenting choices made after that are another story, though I'll probably be more empathetic about the difficulty of making these choices.

So, if you have any wisdom on how to make this adjustment easier, please send it my way. Otherwise, I'm wading through.

Thoughts on going back to work

Yes, I'm going back to teaching next week. Part time, five days a week, 3 classes.  I wasn't dreading this until a few days ago. I figured: part-time, I'll be a very balanced person. I'll have more time for everything. We found a great nanny-share situation, so I feel confident about this and it will make the transition easier. But the whole idea of not being with the being that I've been with pretty much nonstop for over a year (counting in-belly time) is a little daunting.

So I've been trying to slowly transition into a bit more separation to make it less painful. Don't worry, I go to the store occasionally without him. A few weeks ago Shannon and I had a date for our anniversary, and my parents watched O. It was actually kind of a comedy of errors, as both of us were not sure how we would feel about it. First, I put him down to sleep. We were in Newport, staying at a beautiful house with my parents, and we had the choice of an upscale place down the street that required reservations or something more casual. Even though it was our anniversary and we both love nice restaurants, I didn't feel like going to a nice restaurant. I said it's because I wanted a beer, but I think it was actually because I didn't want to feel bad if I said "can't do this, let's go home!" And I definitely didn't want a reservation to worry about. So we went to Rogue Brewery, were surrounded by families with kids, got mediocre food, and discovered that it was pub quiz night. I didn't know how to sign up and didn't really want to play, but that didn't stop me from blurting out the answers. We thought, hey, we'll go somewhere more upscale and "adult" for dessert. So after our non-romantic dinner, we tried four places for dessert, and everyone was CLOSED. It was 9:15. We would've just gone for a walk on the beach, but neither of us had brought a jacket in our disorganized exit.  We ended up at this bizarre mish-mash old hippie converted barn joint sitting at "Wood" (the name of our table) which was like an old schoolhouse double desk. We sat at the far ends and couldn't touch, let alone hear each other. When we got home, Ollin was up, watching the Olympics because the neighbor's dog had woken him. He laughed at us with no concern for our worried hearts, and went on drinking his bottle from my mom. One down.

Last night I went out with old friends and left Shannon with Ollin. Again, I insisted on nursing him to sleep first. I was a little more adventurous and stayed out a little bit longer, but his face never left my mind's eye and my body carried itself the way of a mother newly away from her baby.  At least I enjoyed showing off my temporary cleavage, and moving a bit more freely. I texted too much. I was home before he ever stirred.

I've considered not going back. What are my alternatives? Take a year off, try to do some kind of work from home, or put a lot of strain on my husband to be the sole bread winner, etc. I would consider other options if I didn't like my job. It sounds like much more stress and work to start a different job, even if there could be benefits later. I've also heard that working from home tends to be frustrating because you don't have uninterrupted time with work or with your child.

In my moms' group, people have said encouraging things like, it's not as hard as it seems, etc. All of us who must go back to work soon are worried. I suppose it would be strange if we didn't feel the separation; if the bonding is healthy, it's going to be hard. So I'm experiencing some guilt, some doubt, and some readiness. I did a trial run with childcare, work and pumping for a few hours, but 
I'm sure I'll still cry the first day that it's real.

Things I've Gotten Better At, and Things I'm Not So Much

This post is inspired by Daddy Doing Work's Six Things I suck At Now that I'm a Parent. I realized that I have gotten skilled at a few odd tasks which never seemed useful before but now I am thankful that I am such a natural at them. Here they are:

Using my Feet

Actually, this one isn't really new. My step-dad used to get mad when I used my feet to turn on the VCR, press play, remove the video, etc. Now the dextrosity of my toes is very handy. I walked around today picking up all the items I needed with a fussy baby who wanted to be upright in my arms. Cloth is easiest, or things with straps. Books are hardest. Blueberries are not recommended. The trick is once you get it about knee high-- can you then grab it, or must you bring it all the way to your waist? 

Typing One-handed/at Very Odd Angles

I've always been pretty uptight about grammar and punctuation. As an English teacher, it seemed a requirement. I'm considering relaxing my stance, but I still feel really weird if I don't correct a missing apostrophe, or if I don't capitalize. It stays with me all day. Almost makes me want to give up typing completely. 

Eating/"Prepping Food" One-Handed

I put "prepping food" in quotes because I just got up with one hand supporting O on the breast-friend (pillow), got out a container of refried beans, cut some cheese rudimentarily, and plopped back down to my "meal". I called beans a la tupperware.

Being Bossy

Believe it or not, I used to have a hard time asking others to do things for me. Now that I have no choice, it's liberating. My dad has probably received the majority of my bossiness, but that's because he is utterly untamed, and every domestic item must be explained: how to change a diaper, boil noodles, open the dishwasher, etc. 

Cooking

It's amazing what can be done when you don't come home exhausted after wrangling 13-year-olds all day. When Shannon entertains Ollin, I can come up with some pretty decent meals. This will most likely change in September. At least I have time to get a few favorites under my belt. 

Sitting on the Couch

Well, honestly, I perfected this one during pregnancy. And then someone told me that this most relaxed position wasn't good for my baby's birth position. Dammit! So I perfected laying on the couch, which is not as easy as it sounds when you're huge and your couch is actually a puffy love seat. I got so good at it that sometimes I had to wake up in the middle of the night, have a snack and lay on the couch rather than go back to bed. 

Now, I could still use more exercise, but I have no guilt about sitting here, breastfeeding for hours upon hours. For some reason, my baby sleeps best with a nipple in his mouth. So I have a station set up, and I'm quite good at sitting here. 

Efficiency

I am getting this one, but it's still a work in progress. I know the importance of it, and at times I succeed in getting the diaper packed, the baby packed, and myself some water and a snack without going back upstairs five times or re-opening the garage door. Today I was actually on the freeway before I realized I had to go back for something. But in general, I'm more efficient than when I just had myself to tend to and I still made multiple trips back inside and upstairs. And, I often do something ahead of time because I know that by the time it needs to be done I'll be breastfeeding or otherwise indisposed! So proud of myself.

Things I'm worse at:

Being passive. I don't have time to sit around and wait for someone else to decide to take action or wonder if it is my place to say something, etc. I do try to sensor myself at our moms' group, though you probably wouldn't know it. I'd like to have an individual conversation with each person, or just co-facilitate. But apparently that's not my job. 

Thinking about work. 

Exercise.

Taking my vitamins on schedule.

I'm sure there's more, or at least there will be when I go back to work part time in September. I'll keep you posted...

Gardening with a Baby

I googled this theme and did not come up with many helpful suggestions. I wanted some advice on how to carry your baby while gardening, what kinds of contraptions to rig to put your baby down where he would be happy, safe, and relatively bug-free. Perhaps I rely too much on the google. We'll just have to be innovative.

We started with O in the car seat, which only lasted about six minutes before he would squirm and cry unhappily. I would then put him in the baby bjorn, which worked alright for him but I could only water and not really bend over. We also tried "the grandparent", which is very effective but time-sensitive and not always available.


We have settled on bringing his bouncy chair and putting him under whatever source of shade is available, from the neighbor's raspberries to our ever-expanding sunflowers. It seems to work pretty well. We also put down a blanket with a blue and white umbrella over the top and he seems to like kicking his legs up and feeling the breeze. Now that we finally have a comfortable situation for him, I think he's getting out of gardening what I'd hoped: exposure to the sounds, sights and feel of nature, from the birds to the soft breezes to just getting his eyes filled up with all the different shades of green.


Let me back up and explain a bit more about our garden. (First, see my other post about our community garden plot.) Last year our plot was prolific. We had broccoli, tomatoes, tomatillos, strawberries, daikon, corn, arugula, cucumbers, pumpkins, peppers, eggplant, artichoke, spinach, lettuce, and sunflowers. We also had an earlier start and an easier time gardening pre-baby. This year, we got a notice in May saying that we needed to tend to our garden or give it up. We had visited once to survey but didn't get started until O was about one month old. We gave them our reasons and got to work. In the fall, Shannon had become disinterested in gardening and I had become increasingly larger and less mobile, so we didn't "put our garden to bed" as we should have. Thus, we returned to mostly weeds. It took some work to clear out, but some brilliant person had brought a ton of used burlap sacks from coffee shops in to kill weeds. We covered most of our plot with these sacks.


We also learned that in our absence, a killdeer family had nested in our plot, and people staked out the nest so no one would disturb it. We felt glad that we had inadvertently provided a space for another fledging family.


Other changes had occurred in our absence. A number of the plots had not sold, so the city decided to give them away to immigrant families in the area. We now have about five plots being worked by Eastern European families who have brought with them their knowledge of cold-weather gardening and have created amazing structures (cold frames I guess, though they are solid enough to call green houses). These families must have some agreement to raise food for their community, because there are so many tomatoes they could feed hundreds of people!


With new community members comes some strife, of course, and it came in the form of cultural misunderstandings. I have noticed that some of the greatest issues between cultures has to do with the use of space. In this case, I think being helpful has been confused with being invasive at times. We so far have thoroughly enjoyed the exchange. Shannon can speak a small bit of Russian, which quickly ingratiated us with George and Maria, who have given us tomato plants, cucumbers and a great big zucchini. When I asked George what kinds of tomatoes we got, he said "good". But apparently, not everyone had this experience. Early on, a woman came up to me to complain about pillows in the shed which might lead to homelessness (or something like that. I couldn't quite follow). She began yelling at me as a way to get me on her side (not effective, obviously) and in her rant, she said something about "the war with the Russians and you have to pick a side". I decided she was crazy and tried not to find out too much more about any war with the "Russians", who are not Russian. On the other hand, it has helped me to see others advocating for each other where I did not expect. A woman who can sometimes be interested in drama was defending the Eastern European families by explaining the difference in how people view ownership, and mentioning that they were impressively multi-lingual. Ultimately, we all will grow from this experience.

So, back to our plot: this year we have not taken on as much. We are being realistic about what we can handle (though with donations from George, our plans have changed a bit). So far we have seven tomato plants (two volunteers from last year's heirlooms), two butternut squash, a tepee trellis of green beans, a whole bed of strawberries, six broccoli plants, onions, arugula, cucumbers, three peppers, eggplants, and sunflowers. Actually, it sounds like a lot. We still have paths of burlap sacks and a small and dwindling weedy section, but it is a great work in progress, and now we have another person to share it with, which makes it even more meaningful.

The Plight of an Oregonian

Some say that summer actually starts here after the Fourth of July. When I finally resign myself to this expectation, I have a much more enjoyable summer. Many Oregonians live in constant denial and June is a whole series of disappointments. Well, the disappointments actually start in April, when we are ready for just one glimpse of the sun. If we do see the sun for an afternoon, there are more accidents because everyone gets crazed or blinded by the light. I have the Oregonian's plight, where if the sun comes out on a weekend, I am frantic to get outside and enjoy it at all costs. If it's rainy, I can stay inside all day on a Saturday. Shannon, a total homebody from Arizona, is completely unaffected by the weather and thinks I'm wonky. 

But once summer actually starts here, it is the best summer in the world. I've been to other summers in the world, so I can say that. July and August are filled with warm, occasionally hot, long, dry days. The weather is perfect for ripening the sweetest berries, pushing forth tomatoes and even peppers in a good year. 


As a teacher, I should really live in Arizona during the school year and vacation here. The time that I can leave is the best time to stay. I became a teacher in part so I could adventure in the summer, but it's awfully hard to leave Oregon's glory. 

In the past, my summers were full of road trips, river swimming, backpacking, hiking, gardening and biking. Now they are shifting. Shannon's immovable character kept me from being quite as active the last few years. Now that Ollin is in our lives, I hope to find some good summer rituals and traditions to help him enjoy Oregon summers as much as I do. Last week my dad and I took him to Powell Butte and watched his eyes take in the lush, green tree canopies, the forest floor, the cool air and birdsong. The garden is also a great place for him to absorb nature. Soon we'll begin exploring the rivers, the ocean and beyond. 

What Will Be Forgotten and Remembered

It's amazing to me how fast the first few weeks of a new baby disappear, and the worries and issues which seemed so huge are eclipsed by new issues and quickly forgotten. What I've discovered is that most moms I talked to have forgotten how those first few weeks felt, or they misremembered them. My own mother forgot that at one time, she had worried about whether I (her baby) was getting enough milk, because it resolved soon and she moved on. Someone told me that those first few weeks were the very best, and that it only got harder after that. I would disagree and ask if she misremembered them, because, while the beginning was magic, it felt like we were fumbling in the dark until we got to know our baby. I feel that it is easier now, since we can read O's cries better, I'm not on an emotional seesaw, and we have some confidence about baby-soothing skills. Also, people say that the only reason women have more kids is that they forget the pain of birth--there is a biological purpose to forgetting. Below is an excerpt of a letter I wrote to a new mom when O was about three weeks, in order not to forget: 

• MILK:  My milk was slow to come in, and the books didn't talk much about that. They say "WHEN your milk comes in on day three, (or maybe four), but they don't talk about those whose don't or supplies that are low. I have been to a lactation consultant 5-6 times, and it was incredibly helpful.(I would, however suggest trying to see the same person or just a few. 5-6 different lactation consultants who have slightly different approaches can feel a bit disjointed.)  We are fine, Ollin started gaining again and reached his original birth weight closer to 3 weeks. I just went to a mom's group and found out that this is super common. Half the women I met had issues with milk supply.  
• VISITORS: Family is so tricky. I really wanted someone there when we came home from the hospital. Then I wanted them gone. Then I wanted help, etc. We found that the most useful thing was for someone to be there early in the morning to take the baby so papa and mama could get a few extra hours of sleep. People staying with us was hard, even in our big house, because I was very emotional and also because breastfeeding was something I wasn't wanting to share with everyone. When shannon's dad/step-mom were here I went upstairs to breastfeed, and that probably saved me because I got private time with Ollin every few hours. They were very helpful and gave us lots of space, but I still needed breaks. I'd say two days at a time would've been ideal to have people there, and then I wanted space. 
• Everything is temporary. When your baby's cries break your heart and you find yourself crying too, remember that you'll get used to it and it's temporary. Shannon and I felt a bit panicky at first because it wasn't just a baby cry, it was OUR BABY and we could barely stand it. 
• If your body feels pretty good at first, still be gentle with it. I had no pain down there for the first four or five days, but then I had pain after that. Apparently it's normal to be numb for a few days. Oh, and did I mention that it's normal to cry a lot and for no reason? It's true. 
• My midwife said to go home and be naked in bed with our baby for a week or so, and let people take care of us. It's so amazing to watch Shannon be a papa, in some ways I feel like our marriage just started. It's so great to trust him and be able to take a walk around the block or go to the store (I can't be away any longer because it hurts!) In fact, and apparently this is normal, Shannon can soothe him and get him to sleep better than me often because when I hold him, he just wants to nurse. 
• This week I went to a moms' group up the street, and I was the newest mom for sure, but they all said they wished they'd come earlier. I found it soooo helpful because the little things I'd been wanting to know were mostly answered by sitting with a bunch of moms doing mom things. Also, it was a good first step for me getting out and being in a supportive environment where I could breastfeed and change a diaper and have a crying baby and everyone else was doing the same. They connected me with other activities like dad's groups and mommy matinees!  
• It's all the little things that bewildered us, like what to dress him in for sleeping. Thats where people's advice is great.