If Casper didn’t return home by 11 pm, we were out on the deck calling his name.  My worrying would lead to imagining Casper getting into a vicious battle with a woodland creature down by the river and there would be no way I could go to sleep until he was back safely in the house.   Now, if he were to saunter back in the morning we say “oh, he must have been out all night.”

All the sudden it can be a lot of hassle.  Walk the dog?  are you kidding me? Maybe he’ll go if I just open the door and let him run around the yard.  Scoop the litterbox?  I guess I better, because eau de cat litter is now traveling all the way up the stairs.  When’s the last time I watered the plants?  Baby has taken over.   I bet this is happening everywhere, pets falling from the top of the hierarchy when 30 somethings finally decide to reproduce.

Ah, the guilt!  We’re lucky they forgive us.  At least I think they do.  The cats were using Emmy’s picture as a dartboard above their food dish, but they said they were just kidding.

I hope I never take the miracle of Emmy for granted.  She is completely unique, created in my body, a brand new life on the earth and we have so much to teach each other.  Sometimes I just can’t grasp how fully amazing that is.    I fear that over time it is all too easy to have a child become part of the hassles and responsibilities of everyday life, especially when she reaches the stage of testing limits and patience.

One of my vows as a parent is to always be able to remind myself of this, to mindfully let go and experience the joy.

I think he was in his late teens or early 20s (I’m not sure) when he tried a new intensive treatment approach that worked.  His stuttering went away, even though he has to always focus especially hard while speaking.  He believed everything would change after this.  He could be who he wanted to be, be the way he had always wanted to be with others.

I wish I could quote directly what he said at this point but I don’t remember it verbatim.  He said that it was not what he expected.  Essentially he had been so shaped by his early experiences that he still felt like the outsider, the boy with the stutter, regardless of his new ability to speak.   This hit me as a fundamentally true insight and suddenly I was made conscious of an underlying belief I’ve always had.  If there was a miracle operation or new technology that could actually restore hearing (or if I became fluent in ASL and joined others who use ASL),  I believed I would automatically have the ability and comfort level to freely join in conversations and express myself, not to mention feel an overall new level of confidence and contentment.

I had never considered that, even if I could easily hear and overhear others or communicate in general without extra effort,   something would still get in the way.  For better or worse, I am profoundly shaped by growing up with hearing loss that resulted in experiences where I frequently felt left out and inadequate as a person.

This makes me think of how powerful those childhood and adolescent experiences really are.  In fact, so many of us spend our adulthood trying to recover or compensate.  We create the appearances we want, we strive for the degrees and career successes that we want to define us. We do this to the point where how we appear to others is very different from how we still feel on the inside.  A great example is the woman with a perfect body who still feels like the overweight girl she was in junior high and so she obsessively diets, exercises,  etc and no one can understand why she’s so preoccupied with it.

Inside, many of us still feel like the lost child, the outsider, the child made deeply insecure by critical parents or traumatized by a dysfunctional family or a host of other potential factors that defined our experience when we were growing up.     Even if there is no one experience we could identify as the culprit, many of us have an internal critic that undermines us.

Essentially what this man on NPR proved is that at a certain point even fixing the original problem or source isn’t going to change one’s internal experience.  Instead we have to change those ingrained beliefs and thought processes that developed during the most formative years of our lives.  No matter how much we focus on outside appearances and props, we may fool others or be temporarily gratified but we would continue to go through life feeling all too easily threatened by certain triggers, overly focused on appearance and/or awfully anxious in general. Internal work must be done for us to truly feel at peace.

I suppose it is important to not only change our thoughts and beliefs but also recognize that WE are not our thoughts.  Or our job or our hairdo or our kids.  Our thoughts and beliefs are ingrained internal chatter that we can step back from and observe and transcend.  The more we practice, the better we will get.  Each moment- right now this very second!- is an opportunity to do it.

Me: A cock rash?!

Several tall, pure white spires have materialized on a ridge in the mountains across the lake.  I see them on the horizon sometimes.   For some reason, I like them.  They make me imagine a futuristic white city where everything is clean and energy is harvested from renewable resources.  I think those spires are windmills, not an oasis from the future.  I could be wrong though.

One more month until I return to work.  In some ways I’m ready, in some ways I’m not at all.  I want Canada for her year long maternity leave.

My fun doesn’t get “interrupted”, because it is enjoyable to take care of her.   It doesn’t feel like “work”, there’s no burden there when I so thoroughly want to do it.  Last week we were in the middle of a hike at the wildlife refuge and her diaper exploded so that it looked like someone squeezed a container of mustard down the front of my pants.  The nearest diaper wipe is a half hour walk away and I don’t even think it’s that gross.  So different when it’s your baby’s poop.

A new situation today really hit home for me how this is a new and different level of love.   This got me thinking how not only do I need to reach a balance concerning worrying and letting go, but I also need to reach a balance concerning empathy and boundary.   I’m going to feel my child’s pain and want to take it for her, but I can’t do that.

I don’t want her to come to me with her pain, physical or emotional, and look into my eyes and think that she’s causing me pain/stress with her pain, or for her to just see her pain being reflected back through me.  If she had looked into my eyes while getting her shot today and saw me crying, how would she have felt?  Of course I wouldn’t mind for a second that I am resonating with her painful experience, but I don’t want this to be the message she picks up, consciously or unconsciously.    I can’t empathize with her/for her to the degree that I just resonate with her suffering through my whole being.

I want her to come to me with her pain and look into my eyes and see that I know it hurts but she could never hurt me with it.  I want her to know that any feeling she expresses to me is okay.  I want her to know instinctively that I am safe, that I cannot be overwhelmed.  I will not take it over for her,  but will do what I can to help her feel better, and I trust in her capacity to work through it and survive it.

This is easier said than done, as I learned in the doctor’s office.   Part of the practice of parenting is the balancing of closeness and distance, holding and stepping back.   Plenty of mistakes to make along the way but hopefully for the most part I will hit a consistent stride.  Sometimes it will hurt more for me to step back when I want to rush in and rescue, but there will be times when to do so will be better for her.  I believe that the indicator of my success in this will be that my private hurting as a parent making these calls to boundaries and letting go will never be something about which she feels guilt or responsibility.  Hopefully she would not even notice!

Hopefully what she will notice is that I am always there when she needs me.

I’m in bed with the baby, it is after 2 am. (Although I think this entry will indicate a different time and date because I initially started this entry hours ago.)   I only got as far as washing my face and flossing my teeth.  At some point I hope to grab the opportunity to run back to the bathroom and brush my teeth.  I think this is the biggest surprise to me, how continuously I am tied to Emmy.  I can’t even hand her off to Steve for very long.  I realize that I had imagined us sharing very similar roles and taking turns with her throughout the day and night.  However, it just does not work that way at this point.

In the scheme of things, this time is fleeting.  I imagine every age has its pros and cons.   Everyone who has been through it tells you childbirth is painful and life with a newborn takes adjustment and enjoy sleep while you can and that kind of thing.  Even when I heard all that, a part of me thought I could outthink and outgut my way through.   Sometimes though, it IS painful or stressful or overwhelming just like they say it will be.   I’m not complaining though, I’m acknowledging this part of the experience.

In a way, just being with Emmy is similar to meditating.  You are sitting and just being.  A part of you starts thinking “I should be doing something.”   What I am doing is incredibly important-  taking care of my baby- even if I haven’t showered yet and I don’t know what day it is and I must have been sitting in this one place for hours and hours.  Regardless, the mind starts thinking that I should be more “productive” somehow, which can lead to a somewhat stir crazy, glued down feeling.

This is a time to just be present and not wander away with my thoughts, especially the ones that start with “you should”.  The more present I am, the less anxious I will be.  The less anxiety or self-induced distraction I have, the more connected I will be to Emmy and the moment.  The less anxiety I have, the happier Emmy will be.  Just be!

I wanted to get up out of bed, but felt like I couldn’t.  I wanted to eat, but couldn’t (Steve eventually brought up cereal, which I tried to eat with my non-dominant hand at a sideways angle).  I really wanted to sleep, but couldn’t.   I was beginning to get a taste of the stress they talk about when it comes to the first weeks with a newborn.

Later that day I remembered a wrap-style carrier that I had in the nursery closet.  I strapped her in it, and viola, hands free nursing!  I was unloading the dishwasher and she was nursing!  I was sweeping the floor and she was getting her hommer noms!  I could look down as I moved freely about the house and see her contented face looking up at me.  I felt re-energized and free.   The carrier is going to become a staple around here.

Ah, fall is in the air.  The air is cooling down.  I love it.

The moments felt so vulnerable, so fleeting.   I found myself racing ahead into the future, making it seem like her existence as a newborn would barely last another minute.  Soon she would be walking, talking, moving away from us, leaving us.  Not only was it fleeting, but all kinds of horrible things could happen, she seemed too fragile for something bad to not happen.  I soon realized this was my mind’s way of trying to cope with the anxiety of already loving her this much.   I was trying to distance myself from the full impact, from the moment itself.

We went home on Sunday the 16th.  It was surprisingly emotional to leave the hospital and the layer of protection they provided.   How surreal that they let this baby go home with us.   Two of us arrived at the hospital and now we were leaving with another human being.

I suppose the emotions hit their peak when I went into the pharmacy and was wandering around uselessly looking for the tylenol.  I stood at the pharmacy desk to ask where it was,  and it hit me then.  I wanted to burst into tears and shriek WHERE THE FUCK IS THE TYLENOL!!? Of course, I didn’t.  I was my usual calm self.  I found and purchased the tylenol.

My Mom was there when we got home and she had meals for us and the house was clean.   Emmy was home.

What a week it has been since then.  I came down with a fever Wednesday night, went to the ER Thursday evening, where we waited for 11 hours.  They finally admitted me early Friday morning with a case of endometritis (infection in the uterus) and I was there until Sunday.   Steve’s mom stayed with me during the nights (have I mentioned how indispensable moms are?) and Steve was there during the days while Billie went home to take care of Lucky.  Emmy was able to stay with me the whole time.

So on Sunday the 23rd we came home again.  I felt like a whole new being.  Pain free and body feeling near normal.  Still sleep deprived of course! (:

We named her Emeline Skye.  Emeline was my grandmother’s middle name (and also HER grandmother’s first name).   Skye comes from the Isle of Skye in Scotland, where Steve and I had an amazing trip during the first year of our relationship.

Childbirth was the most incredible, excruciating, humbling and surreal experience of my life.  I went into labor just a couple hours after posting the latest belly picture on here.  Ironically, I had just finished up every last bit of paperwork at work on that day.   That night, I was wide awake until 3 am, but looking forward to being able to sleep in and go to the beach for the day.

Baby had other plans.  Contractions started not long after I fell asleep.  By 5 am they were strong and convincing enough for me to jump out of bed, thinking “this is it.”   They came every 5-6 minutes but I still convinced that they would stop as soon as I woke Steve up.   They didn’t stop however and when we called, the doctor told us to come in.

Steve was giddy with excitement, honking the horn as we drove past our friends’ house up the road at 6:30 on a beautiful sunny August morning.   I felt very calm, still not quite believing it was really happening.  When we got to the hospital, I was dilated 5 cm.  Excellent, this should be quick!  Thank god I didn’t know what was in store for me.

Contractions continued every 4-5 minutes for the next 16 hours, becoming more and more intense as time passed.   I watched the second hand on the clock, I visualized a dial to turn down the pain levels, I visualized water rushing in and out, lake scenes, garden scenes.  I concentrated on breathing.  I fell asleep in the four minutes in between contractions.  I got the labor shakes and shook violently for minutes at a time.   There was a brief scare when the baby’s heart rate seemed high, but then it went back to normal.  Time passed in a surreal haze.  Time wasn’t really time.

By the 16th hour, we decided to break the water, as it hadn’t broken yet.  Contractions were getting severe at that point, and went up another level when the water broke.  At this point, when I closed my eyes, all I saw was fear.  It hurts too much.  I can’t take it anymore.  If it hurts this much now, what will it be like later?  What will the last part be like?  I can’t do it anymore!! Then another mind blowing contraction would hit and I wasn’t centered anymore.  I had difficulty even believing that a baby was even going to come of this. I began to bring up getting an epidural.   We debated this for a while and I tried getting in the bath again for a while, then standing through contractions while hanging off Steve.

My Mom arrived, pretty much expecting the baby to already be born.   She got to stay, be my support, see her granddaughter be born and also got some great pictures, which was really cool.

By the time the epidural guy arrived, I was fervently hoping the needle would be in before I had to withstand another contraction.   When that epidural hit, there has never been such a marvelous drug, ever.  The pain was gone, but I still felt the pressure of the contractions, which made me feel more connected to the process than I thought I would be with an epidural.  I felt so much better not being blinded by pain and fear anymore.   I had hoped to do it without fear, as in my previous entry, and maybe I would have if I hadn’t been worn down by the hours.  I’m not sure.

By the time I was ready to push, the room was suddenly filled with doctors and nurses.  I was gung ho.  Yay, pushing time.  This felt like a good workout, the best sporting event ever.  I pushed…and pushed… nurses left as their shifts ended and new nurses took over…I pushed…and pushed…for three hours.   “There’s meconium in the fluid,” a nurse said.

“That means a team of people in yellow jackets will come in when the baby is born, just to make sure everything is ok,” the doctor explained to me.  What?  Yellow jackets?  What does that mean?  What could go wrong?  Oh god, what if the baby is not ok?

“Three hours is the maximum pushing time,” the doctor said.  “You’re getting up there.  We may need to have some come in and give a second opinion.”  The baby was further down but stuck, and the epidural couldn’t do anything about the pain at this part.  The unspoken word hanging in the room was c-section.  I could feel the haze of fear clouding over everything, while I gripped Steve’s hand to keep calm.  Twenty one hours of labor only to get cut open?  Why wasn’t she coming out?  Maybe I’ll be the only woman in history to just NOT GIVE BIRTH, EVER.  The heart monitor thing had to be inserted and screwed on the baby’s head, feeling like another notch in the march toward a potential crisis.

I went into labor around 3:30 am on the 14th and it was now 12:30 am on the 15th.  The specialist had come into the room.  This felt like the death knell.  I lay back, closed my eyes, looked at the cloudy tendrils of fear head on.  This was no time to fuck around and be afraid anymore.  I mustered up every last ounce of strength and courage I had and thought, a mighty roar in my head,  I AM GETTING THIS BABY OUT.  Then I pushed as if my life depended on it.  Emeline Skye was born within minutes.  Suddenly I was looking into her blue, beautiful face and big waxy wrinkled hands waving and she was for real.  It has been a week and I can’t get enough of looking at her.

The others thought the specialist might have done something to make her come out but I’m not sure.  What she did felt similar to what the others did.   What felt different was finding my resolve to overcome the fear.   Wow, is she ever worth it.