Crazy Things

(Written 9/13, published 10/7)

This weekend:

1. I remembered that I can't eat lunch meat.
2. I remembered that I can't have caffeine . . . or chocolate (sob).
3. I remembered that I can't clean the litter box.
4. I remembered that I can't drink a beer to unwind.
5. I remembered what it feels like to be SO NOT HUNGRY one minute and then FEED ME RIGHT NOW the next.
6. I remembered what it feels like to be restricted, to wonder, should I be doing these push-ups? Should I be spraying this insect poison? Should I be getting up early to go run?
7. I remembered that I need to be a lot more diligent about making sure my prenatal prescription is filled.
8. I remembered what it feels like to want to go to bed for the night at 8 p.m.
9. I remembered what it feels like to have a secret that you want to shout from the rooftops. 
10. I remembered what it feels like to wonder if anyone can tell.

Crazy, crazy, crazy.

The Proof is in the Pudding

(Written 9/17, published 10/7)

Well, not pudding. Pictures, as it were. The proof is in the pictures.

First, I saw this.

(That's when my face turned white.)

Then I saw this.

(No denying that one.)

Then we did this.

(This one makes my heart melt. We may not have it all together, but together we have it all!)

And then there was this. How could I leave out our first photo as a family of four?!

(Happy Birthday, baby girl! Guess what Mommy and Daddy got you!)

Surreal

(Written September 10; published October 6)

I took a pregnancy test two days ago.

It was kind of on a whim. I guess I was "late"--it was cycle day 35 and no sign of AF. I had been really moody, so I figured she was just running late this month, as she has done in months past. I had a day where I didn't really feel like eating anything. I attributed it to stress at work. I threw up Taco Bell for dinner. I attributed it to eating too fast. I ate ice cream for dinner. I attributed it to throwing up my earlier attempt. The next morning, I pulled out one of our five $1 HPTs. Why not? I thought. It's only a dollar. And seeing it be negative will stop all the little whispers in the back of my brain.

I honestly didn't give testing much thought. Yes, we'd looked at our finances and determined we could afford a second child. Yes, we'd talked about it at length and determined we wanted a second child. We had decided the time was right to start trying. We had had unprotected sex. But still, even then, there were so many unknowns. I didn't know when I had ovulated. I'm still breastfeeding baby girl, so my cervical fluid is affected (read: not really there very much at all). We hadn't had baby-making sex. We had had welcome-home-from-your-business-trip sex, oh-by-the-way-you-don't-have-to-pull-out-anymore-remember? sex. A while ago. I didn't even remember when. Life had been so hectic for us in the last couple of weeks, I honestly couldn't even remember when.

I peed. I put the test down and walked away. Curiosity got the best of me about five seconds later and I went back. My cursory glance showed a rapidly darkening control line and nothing else. I nodded, affirmed, and went to brush my teeth. Of course I'm not pregnant, I told myself. I'm still breastfeeding. We had unprotected sex like twice. Last time it took us six months of trying, of actively TRYING, of charting temps and OPKs and CM and CP. It's hard to get pregnant, remember? That's why we're starting to try now. So that hopefully we'll get somewhere in the next six months. I finished brushing my teeth, calmer, and went back to the test for the official read.

I picked it up.

And I almost dropped it.

There was not only one line.

There were two.

Two lines.

I would like to say that I stared intently, eyes boring into the test, burning a hole trying to tell if the line was real or not. But it really wasn't necessary. The two lines lay there, parallel, clear as day.

I walked out of the bathroom like a zombie. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I don't know that I've ever seen my face so white. (One day I'm going to look up the physiology of what causes your face to become ghostly white at a great shock. I mean, does your blood literally drain from your face?)

I put the test down on the counter and showered. I actually don't remember much of that shower. I'm pretty sure I washed my hair, but the entire time, my mind was a loud roar of white noise. I think that was my brain's way of protecting itself from the onslaught of thoughts that were racing around like a sudden mental mosh pit. What? When? How? REALLY? Whatthe-? REALLY? What are we going to do? How am I going to tell my boss? How are our parents going to react? How are our finances going to handle it? How is baby girl going to handle it? How am I going to handle it? REALLY???

I looked into that mosh pit from afar and plucked out a single thought, clinging to it in the deluge like a survivor clings to a life boat.

How am I going to tell TH?

He was still sleeping peacefully in bed five feet from where I stood. Just the day before he had been telling me about his mom urging us to wait another year or two before having our second child. Just the day before he had been telling me how tired he is of the hectic schedule that had temporarily descended on our family the last several weeks.

I thought of maternity clothes and weekly pictures and doctors appointments and birthing plans and redecorating a second nursery and getting more car seats and the newborn days that were so hard on me, on us, the crying and the uncertainty and the doubt and the tiptoeing around while baby girl slept. While I swam in these thoughts, gasping for air, he slept peacefully, not yet hit with the tidal wave of life change that was about to come his way.

What a different experience from the first time. If you know me, you know how determined I am. How goal-oriented. How stubborn. The first time, each negative test, month after month, brought about more determination, more single-mindedness. I had six months of wanting, of yearning. By the time those two lines showed up the first time, I was like a starving baby bird, mouth WIDE open, begging begging begging for the only food that would feed my hungry soul. When I saw those two lines the first time, I screamed, literally screamed, and jumped up and down and cried and hugged my husband and grinned so big and for so long that my cheeks were cramping by the end of the day.

This time. Oh, this time. This time we said, yes, let's do it, let's lean back back back into the unknown, and about fivesecondslater I turned around to have that same food pushed into my mouth. I hadn't had time to open my mouth wide yet. I hadn't had time to get hungry like last time. I didn't even know we could get pregnant right now. I say this not to discount the miracle that this is. I say this to explain, perhaps to myself, my own white face. It's one thing to find out you're pregnant when you've dreamed of it and wanted it and worked toward it. It's such a different experience to find out you're pregnant when you aren't expecting it. Even when you've decided you want it, even then you can still be caught off guard.

I abandoned any plans of cutesy ways of telling him. I needed him, I needed my best friend, to be in the water with me, telling me it would be okay. I picked up the test, turned on his bedside lamp, and climbed back in bed with him.

I put the test on his chest.

He fumbled around, finally picking it up and squinting at it.

And then he squinted again, a little bit closer.

Wait. What does this mean? he asked in a sleepy confusion.

I waited, saying nothing, my heart pounding in my ears (maybe that explains the rush of white noise in the shower?).

I felt like I couldn't breathe, waiting for his response. I could barely keep myself afloat at the moment, awash in a sea of ohmygod. I didn't know what I would do if he drowned, too. I didn't know if I could keep us both above water.

And then.

And then.

He smiled.

He smiled and my heart stopped racing. The white noise, the mosh pit of thoughts, everything settled.

Oh my God, Kel, He whispered, a wide grin breaking across his face. Congratulations, he said as he nuzzled into me.

And I smiled.

I hope you like being a daddy, I whispered back as he held me.

We both laughed.

After that there was more laughter. Most of it incredulous. Much of it was accompanied by head shaking and wide eyes. There were hugs. And gentle kisses on my stomach. When I woke my daughter for the day, when I held her as I listened to my husband tell her for the first time ever that she was going to be a big sister, I thought my heart was going to burst.

I am pregnant. Again.

I have no idea how far along I am. I have no idea when I'm due. Best as I can tell, based on my last period, it's sometime in mid-May. What a different experience this is already turning out to be than the first time, when I knew the exact day, the exact act, of conception.

But much the same, as well. Already I find myself smiling gently while my thoughts wander around the tiny life growing inside me. Already I find myself feeling happiness radiating through every pore in my skin. And of course, already I find myself worrying about that tiny life, too.

I called my doctor's office today. To find out what I should do, when I should come in. It felt surreal to be making that phone call again, to be scheduling those appointments again. I was once again awash in waves of "Is this really happening?" But what I realized is that those waves won't drown me. If I relax into them, breath deeply, I will actually float, borne along on the rise and fall of this new adventure. It's when I stiffen and panic that the sinking begins.

It is, as I knew it would be, about trust. Trust and courage. Trust that this second time will turn out as amazing as the first. Courage that we can do what we must to get there.

We are calling him/her "Dos."

Already I'm in love.

Holy crap that felt good!

You know that feeling you get, when you feel like pressure has been building building building behind something, growing steadily beyond any point of pre-assumed capacity, until it feels like you might explode or drown under the weight? And then that feeling when finally, FINALLY! there is some release, and all the weight and pressure that's been building is suddenly, blissfully gone and you feel, for the first time in you-can't-remember-how-long something you dazedly recognize as sweet relief?

Yeah, kind of like an orgasm. But let's not go there, dirty kids.

I'm pregnant. PREGNANT!!! I can shout it from the rooftops. Finally! Carrying that around as a secret felt wrong. It felt like it was something I should hide, something I shouldn't be sharing with people, and that is so discordant with how it should feel. And then yesterday, finally we had our first appointment, I saw the beautiful fluttering heartbeat, I felt my heart fall in love in a split second all over again, and I realized I could finally relax, could finally breathe, could finally share the news that deserved to be shared and celebrated.

And I can finally get back to blogging about it. Until now, I've only been able to write posts and save them as drafts. It was like a self-imposed writer's block that only contributed to that feeling of building pressure, of something in the way. So you'll see a bunch of back-logged posts. About finding out, about telling our families, about how different this second time around is than the first was. You'll be able to see the road we've walked this last month, the varying emotions we've had. I'm not embarrassed to publish those posts, even though I'm in such a different place today than I was even 4 short weeks ago. Today, the pressure is gone. Today I feel nothing but relief and joy and optimism and hope for our future. So when you go back and read, realize that you are witnessing the beginning of a journey, and as with all journeys, things change and grow and evolve.

A tiny little heart beats inside me. A tiny little life is nestled into my body. Already I love it. Already I adore it. Already I can't wait to see the joy it brings to our family.

Hooray for sweet release. Hooray for sweet relief.

Hooray for celebration!

12 Months

Today, baby girl, you are 12 months old. One year. 365 days. To see the changes this year has wrought, to know what we brought home after you were born, and to compare that baby to the girl we bring home today, is boggling.

You were so tiny. And helpless. And you flailed your little limbs around without any control. You couldn't lift your own head. Couldn't focus your eyes on anything far away. Couldn't really do anything but snuggle and sleep and nurse.

And now you are practicing how to feed yourself with a fork. You try to brush your own hair. You brush you own teeth every night before bed. You feed baby dolls tiny plastic bottles. You know how to have pretend tea parties, putting the cup to your mouth and then giving a satisfied, "Ahhh!" You understand jokes. When I put your shirt or shorts on top of my head while changing you, and look around and say, "Where did it go?" and you point to my head, and I look all around the room as if I can't tell where the clothes are, you crinkle your little nose in delighted amusement and laugh and point again and again and again. You dance to music. You communicate with us. You sign more, all done, eat, and please. You shake your head "no" when you don't want something. You point to what you do want. You say book and duck and kitty and baby and hi and when we ask you,  "What does a kitty say?" you say "eeaaahhhh," and when we ask you, "What does a snake say?" you say "sssssss." You pull up on anything stable and walk around holding onto things. You crawl around the house trying to find us. You laugh. You smile. You play the drums.

So much has changed in these last 12 months. But so much has stayed the same, too. You are a lap baby and love to be held, love to be read to. I nursed you on your birthday, just as I nursed you on the day you were born. You are still content. You are still happy. You are still easily entertained. You are still a fantastic sleeper. You are still the most amazing, beautiful creature we've ever seen.

So many times I hear mothers wonder, shaking their heads, "Where did time go?" I don't have to wonder. I know where the time went.

It went into naps where you slept in our arms, wrapped tightly in warm, snuggly blankets.

It went into evenings when you slept in your swing, the nighttime cricket noise chirping while your dad and I tiptoed around the house, eating dinner in the dark.

It went into nights when your dad would come and lay on the floor of the nursery to keep me company and give me support while I nursed you and worried you weren't getting enough.

It went into putting my hand on your tightly swaddled chest every night while you slept next to our bed, just to reassure myself that you were breathing.

It went into stripping you naked and running around the car with you in a deserted parking lot in the chilly October air trying to get you to wake up and nurse on our first road trip to Dallas.

It went into a Halloween costume fashion show.

It went into tummy time and cheering when you reached for a toy.

It went into being marveled at the sweet sounds that started coming out of your mouth, at the concentrated way you said "da-da" for the first time, at the way you used to chide us with the same sound.

It went into long walks around our neighborhood every afternoon, singing my own special alphabet song until you drifted off to sleep.

It went into dance parties in our office while we wore you in the Bjorn.

It went into meeting you at daycare every day on my lunch break to nurse you.

It went into getting up every night to pump one extra time while the rest of the family slept the night away.

It went into trips to the park to watch you thrill in the wind and become fascinated by leaves and grass and animals.

It went into your first taste of an apple, of avocado, of banana.

It went into motorboating and "bub-bub-bubbing" and clapping.

It went into you being able to sit up and play with toys on a blanket outside while your dad and I played Frisbee.

It went into the era of the army crawl.

It went into splash parks and neighborhood pool exploration and lake get-togethers, where we learned you love to jump and splash and swim.

It went into laughing as you became a real crawler, laughing at your sounds of exertion when you hit "top speed" and knowing we would never lose you because we could always hear where you were and where you were headed.

It went into games of peek-a-boo and "Where's Ali?"

It went into family reunions where you charmed one and all, where you first tasted bar-b-cue and Russian food and where you, ever the easy-going girl, slept while I wore you on the Dart train into the city.

It went into learning to use a sippy cup, learning to drink from a straw, learning that veggies are yummy but fruit is the best.

It went into directing your dad or me from picture to picture to picture around the house. 

It went into peeking around corners and chasing us and then turning to flee when we chased you.

It went into sweet, open-mouthed, wet kisses and "I love you" head bumps.

It went into laughing at you as you held your toy phone to your ear.

It went into gasping at your first steps.

It went into bathtime books and helping us put away your toys.

It went into singing along with your lullabye CD, into story time and snuggles before kissing you goodnight for the night.

It went into glorious mornings when your smile is the first thing to brighten my day, into days where you sit up to greet me, clapping sleepily or signing "more" or waving hi.

This year was filled with a thousand million moments that took my breath away, that made my heart burst, that stopped me in my tracks and put a smile on my face that I hadn't known before I knew you.

There are still days I'm overwhelmed. Still days I look into the future and wonder how I'm going to do it all, how I'm going to keep you healthy and thriving and learning and growing. But then I remind myself to stop looking to next month, or next year, or the next ten years. I remind myself to look only to today, to right now, when you cuddle me in my arms, when you hold your toy out to me to share, when you crinkle your little nose and grin your toothy grin at me. I don't know what I'll do with a two-year-old, or a four-year-old, or a ten-year-old, or a cheeky teen. But I do know what to do with you.

With you, I play. I snuggle. I laugh. I encourage and cheer. I love.

What a year it's been. You've come so far. You've learned so much. And I've traveled that same distance with you, learning and growing right alongside.

Thank you for the gift of this past year. For teaching me and for learning. For the laughter and the tears. For being my sweet bear, my munch, my heart and soul.

May all our years together be as sweet.

With love forever and ever and ever,
Mom

The Beginning of the End

When I started breastfeeding, I was wary of setting a goal for myself. Too many times I had seen mothers unable to keep going. Too many times I had see the absolute guilt that wracked them over having to wean to formula. I didn't want to set myself up for that kind of disappointment. So my "happy with myself" goal was three months. I wanted to make it until I went back to work. Work--and the pumping that goes along with it--would be a game changer. Going back to work came and went. I nursed baby girl during my lunch break. I am lucky and have my own office, with a door, so I was able to block off pumping times in my daily calendar and not have to worry about how, when, or where. All this time I was still waking up at midnight (even though baby girl had been sleeping through the night since eight weeks old) to get in one more pump. It all went to my freezer stash. I was paranoid about my supply tanking. I wanted to keep the "demand" up.

Six months came and went. I allowed myself to stop getting up at midnight to pump. I worked that pumping session backwards until I was just pumping to empty before heading to bed for the night. And we settled into a routine, a rhythm that has held for the last six months. I nurse her twice a day. I pump twice at work and once before bed. On weekends, it's glorious. I get to nurse her all day long, even if we're out and about. I've never had to worry about bringing milk along with us, keeping it cold, etc.

My supply has gradually slipped a bit here at work in the last month or two. Before I would pump 11 or so ounces at work in two sessions, and then another three or so before bed, to cover the 15 ounces she gets at school (two 6-ounce bottles and 3 ounces of breastmilk with her oatmeal for breakfast). Now I'm lucky if I pump eight ounces at work. It didn't matter though. My hard work in the beginning created a ridiculous freezer stash. So we've been dipping into that for about four ounces a day for a couple of months now.

Which brings us to now. A whole year. I surpassed any kind of goal, any kind of expectation I set for myself. I won't even begin to talk about the nursing relationship we developed, about my thoughts on breastfeeding my daughter. That's a whole other, much more emotional post. What consumes my thoughts now is the transition to other milk. The beginning of the weaning process. And it starts with my before-bed pumping session.

We have a couple of trips coming up in the next couple of months. The last thing I want to have to do is lug my pump with me and excuse myself to go pump somewhere private every evening, and then worry about where to store the milk. I am ready to not have to pump before bed. I've worked in one extra pumping session every day for a year now, and I'm ready to not have to do that anymore. So for the last couple of weeks, I've gradually cut back on the amount of time I pump at night. From 20 minutes down to 10, down to 8, 7, and now 5.

I can't tell you how difficult it is to turn off the pump when the milk is still flowing. I know it's what I have to do to train my body to drop that "feeding," but it goes against everything I've done for the last year. I have to literally not look at the pump, or the bottles filling slowly up, when I turn it off. I have to look the other direction, reach back with my hand, and turn off the pump abruptly, like ripping a bandaid off of a wound. And it makes me sad. Every night. Every time.

And I know it's just the beginning, the beginning of the end.

Eventually I'll drop the two daytime feedings so that I don't have to pump at work anymore, although I'm experiencing a lot of guilt over that, too. It's so easy. I have my own office. Really there's no reason not to continue to pump at work except for my own desire not to have to deal with it anymore. But then I think, that will always be the case. It will always be easy. I have to draw the line somewhere, right? And then I think about not being able to just nurse her on the weekends anymore, having to worry about other sources of milk, and I'm right back to feeling conflicted. BOTH options are convenient. Not having to pump at work? Convenient. Being able to just nurse her all day on weekends? Also convenient. I wish I could have it both ways.

Eventually, I'll only nurse her in the mornings and before she goes to sleep. I plan to hang onto those as long as I can.

I'm so proud and so thankful my boobs have provided so much, so consistently for my daughter. I am so blessed to have had the ability to nurse her as long as I have. Bear with me over the next few weeks/months as we see where the weaning process takes us.

Love and the Backdive

When I was a little girl, my dad used to take my brother and I to the city pool. We were both water kids, comfortable swimming, maniacs with cannon balls and diving deep for sunken rings. My brother's courage extended to the diving boards, where he was doing dives and back dives, flips, gainers and half-gainers from as early as I can remember. My courage stopped at the buoy line that separated the main pool from the deep end.

We gave up on me ever doing a flip. I wasn't interested in even trying. But my dad was unwilling to give up on me doing a back dive. I would climb the three steps to the board, slowly walk down the plank to the edge, the raucous crowds of kids, the jostling in line behind me all fading to oblivion. He would stand on the edge of the deep end, just feet from where I stood at the end of the diving board, and call out encouragement to me. I would slowly turn around and carefully scoot back to the edge, to where I could feel the board dip under my weight and spring gently back up.

And there I froze. Time and again. When it was time for me to tilt backward and trust that the world behind me would be just as it was when it was in front of me. Trust that physics would hold true and I'd enter the water head first. Trust that the water would embrace me as gently as it did when I did a forward-facing dive. It wasn't the motion that scared me. It wasn't an inability to perform the move, or a fear of what would happen when I hit the water. It was that period of blind trust. That moment when I had to tip my body backwards past the point of no return, before I could see anything behind me. It was confidence in myself, that I would know what to do when I felt my body falling, when the entrance and the lifeguard stand and the water behind me all suddenly appeared upside down. And all the while my dad just kept telling me to just do it. To not think about it and just look for the lifeguard stand behind me.

Sometimes my fear of that moment, that falling, that blind trust, won out and I would turn around at the last second and dive forward, into the familiar, into the comfortable, into the known. But sometimes I would bend, heart racing, looking first to the sky, then farther back, back, back, until the roof of the building, the bricks, and then finally the lifeguard stand came into view, falling, my heart racing, until I entered the water, my hands above my head slicing the water into a warm, open embrace.

Sometimes I was able to find the courage in myself to know that I just had to leap. Bend. Trust. Trust that I would be able to do what I needed to do after I had passed the point of no return, after I was already falling. I had to learn that fear would always be present. Fear that lives in the mind, that multiplies when you think too much, when you give it free reign. I had to learn that fear will always overwhelm you, suffocate you if you let it.

I had to learn to defy fear.

And I did. I learned. I grew into a spunky, strong, independent, bit-of-a-smartass, don't-tell-me-what-I-can't-do kind of woman. I've become really good at not letting fear dictate my decisions. At leaning back back back and trusting that I can handle what comes when I'm falling.

And now I'm leaning again.

I saw a post once, on a message board dedicated to women who were trying to get pregnant, a post polling everyone about how they knew, how they knew they wanted kids, how they knew when the right time was. I saw a lot of responses about a feeling of lacking, a feeling of incompleteness in the family. I saw a lot of answers about simply always knowing that you wanted to be a mother, about motherhood being an integral aspect of these women's identities.

But that wasn't my answer.

My answer to that question is more simple. Or maybe more complex, depending on how you look at it. My answer was love. To me, the point of living, the be all and end all of our existence here on the planet, is love. To know love. To be loved. To experience love. I always knew I wanted to be a mother so that I could give another soul the gift that was given to me: the chance to experience love. That was my answer back then, and now, today, that is my answer again.

I want to give another soul the gift of love. Love of existence. Love of siblings. And all the millions of other kinds of love that come with every breath we take.

We are choosing love. We are defying fear. We are trusting that we will be able to handle what comes when we're falling, blindly, not knowing what to expect.

The looking up, the looking back, back, back 'til we pass that point of no return, that point of falling, is as terrifying and thrilling to me now as it was to that little girl so many years ago.

Here's to trust. Here's to courage. Here's to love.