Advice?

Those who know me know that I request a lot of advice and value it very highly. Now I'm looking for some good advice!

So far, Lilia only really cries for two reasons:
1. She's in or near the bathtub or
2. She's digesting or working on pooping.

So, has anybody had a baby who seems like it's in huge pain when it's digesting or pooping? Is there anything that can be done? The pediatrician said it's normal, but it's seriously painful to watch!

And does anyone have any advice to make baths more tolerable?

I can't believe she's going to be a month old on Saturday....

A Little Mothering Secret, Part II

Dan, you were right. I've found my first "secret joy." To be clear, I have found many, many joys in parenting Lilia, but this one was the first one I didn't see coming.

I was told about how I wouldn't sleep for a very long time (one person told me my first full night of sleep would be after my youngest child's fourth birthday!). I figured it was because of feeding and comforting and changing diapers. But there's another reason I find it difficult to sleep, which is that I just want to stare at her. That song "Don't Want to Miss a Thing" is really resonating with me right now.

The cutest thing she does at night happens when we first put her down next to Jeff. She tilts her head up and looks at him for a very long time. I think she just wants to stare at him too!Would you be able to close your eyes to this?


See, eventually Jeff can't stand it anymore either. So we're all awake, just staring at each other.

Now that is a GREAT little mothering secret!

Scars, Stretch Marks, Body Image and Gender

I'm doing silly things like weighing myself and looking in the mirror. Foolish, I know, only 3 weeks after labor. But there it is. This morning I tried on my favorite black jacket. It didn't fit.

I started to develop some very negative feelings about my body and, thus, myself.

Then I thought again.

If we're honest, we admit that men are mostly valued for what they do and women for how they look. I think that's why a man with scars and a weathered face looks ruggedly handsome -- because it says he faced something difficult and came out of it on top. His body is tough! A woman with similar features would not be received the same way. In fact, women's bodies and faces are more highly valued if they look like they've been through nothing at all -- just look at the obsession with anti-aging products!

But today, as I reconsidered my negative impression of my post-baby body, I was struck by what it has done. This body nurtured a whole separate person for the better part of a year. In order to do that, it had to make some changes that seem, in retrospect, nothing short of heroic. Its abdominal muscles separated, without tearing, to make room for its uterus to grow to something like 15 times its original size. Its blood volume doubled. Its ligaments loosened. It even created an organ to feed the baby that only exists during pregnancy! It sustained itself and the baby through a very long labor and then went through more amazing changes to give birth. In fact, there's still a lot of mystery surrounding what triggers labor but my body just did it, without being told.

Now it passes on every antibody it develops to the baby through breast milk within 6 hours. It creates an appropriate amount of milk, balanced in calories, fat, and nutrients for my own baby. It releases hormones when I feed that tell the uterus to shrink back, and tell me to hold and love the baby. All of this and it can still walk and run and stretch and cook!

My body has done all of this and it has the stretch marks and scars to prove it. So, I'm going to make a commitment to have some respect for my "ruggedly beautiful" body. I will not disrespect it by insulting the size or shape of my belly, hips or thighs. I will exercise it and put lotion on it and feed it well because it faced something difficult and came out on top.

I will even put something in print that I've never said before:

I have a great body.

Anyone want to say it with me?

Growth Spurts

How long do they last? I was just wondering, because my dear daughter is eating like you would NOT believe....

I think she's set a personal goal to hit 11 pounds before the end of the week.

Moby Wrap, Moby Wrap, How Do I Love Thee?

Jeff and I went back and forth about what wrap(s) and/or sling(s) to buy before Lilia was born. After careful consideration, I decided I wanted the Moby Wrap.

Of everything we bought, this is the one thing I am the most happy with and use the most! I love it for a million reasons. Here are some of them:

• Proximity. Me and Lilia both feel much better when we are very close together. It's comforting.
• Kindness to my back. Those who know me know that my back hates me. When I wear the Moby Wrap, I have NO BACK PAIN! This alone is a minor miracle.
• Privacy. I admit that I'm a bit of a "baby hog" and it's hard for me to share or allow people into my space with Lilia. Well, when you put a baby in a carrier, everyone wants to pick it up. When you put it in the Moby Wrap, everyone respects your space. This is a big deal when you've got a newborn.
• Ability to multi-task. Tonight I've done laundry (including folding), cleaned a lot of the apartment, and typed this blog with the Moby Wrap on, contented baby inside. She loves it, I don't have to put her down to get stuff done. Win-win.

If you are having a baby (and I highly recommend that, too!), I would recommend buying a Moby Wrap first thing! Oh, and trash the instruction manual and just search "Moby Wrap" on youTube for clear visual instruction as to how to use it.

**Please note that this photo is also pictoral evidence that we made it to church!**

Waking up

I woke up to a familiar feeling of tiny little feet kneading my stomach, only this time it was on the outside.

I am so blessed.

Church and Feeding

We braved church today. I'm unduly proud of us. We weren't even late!

The difficulty is managing feeding Lilia between events, etc. Church is about 40 minutes away, so if she's eating every 2 hours (usual for the waking hours) and we feed her just before we go, then she'll need to eat again right in the middle! The difficulty with this is that I'm not really very good at feeding discreetly yet. I can cover once she's latched, but I don't have the hang of latching under cover....

Today she has slept most of the day anyway, though. I'm thinking I'm going to try to get her to eat as much as possible before bed so she doesn't need to eat too much at night! Yesterday she cluster-fed most of the day and she let us sleep a 5-hour stretch at night.

So, experienced breastfeeding moms (and their partners-in-parenting!), any tips on managing all of this feeding stuff? I'm always afraid I'm not reading her cues right, not feeding her enough, going to get stuck in a situation where I don't know where to feed her, etc....

Ideas???

Book Review -- Honey for a Child's Heart

Honey for a Child's Heart

First, I must tell you the story of how I thought I discovered this book, and how I found that I'd really discovered it long ago.

I was discussing home schooling with our amazing midwife, Sue. The topic of great books came up. It turns out that one of our shared philosophies is that a key to a great education is a steady diet of great fiction from a very young age. A love for books is worth all the memorization of facts in the world. Sue recommended this book, which contains an annotated list of great books for ages 0-14 and a whole discussion of how to encourage your children to be avid readers of great literature. So I ordered it from Amazon.

Then I called my mom and raved about it, and she was almost in tears! She said, "You were raised on that book! I loved that book!" I instantly understood why the book lined up so well with my ideas about educating children -- it formed them!

Anyway, now that I've read the book I have to recommend it to all of you, my readers.

First, the qualifications of Gladys Hunt. As near as I can tell, she has no title or qualification other than the fact that she has done what very few parents can do -- developed her children into thoughtful, literate, creative adults who love great literature. Plus the love of literature has connected their family in a way that many parents wish for. This is a woman whose college-aged son came home one summer to tell his father, "I'm going to sell these books back, but before I do I thought you might want to read the passages I've marked." In another instance, her son copied the poem they were studying in his high school English class and brought it to her because he thought she would like it. Another one of her children told her that he was trying to remember where he got his deep value on living things and protecting the environment -- he decided it was from reading Lord of the Rings as a family. The bad guys destroyed things and the good guys grew things! Indeed, when they come to a part of nature that has been destroyed by human hands, someone in their family will often say, "The orcs have been here."

This book isn't just a list -- although the lists of reading material would be worth the price by themselves -- it's a guide to a way of nurturing children's souls through great books. Hunt includes chapters on fostering creativity, encouraging high values and connecting as a family. They are practical and inspirational. She even includes two lists -- ten ways to ensure your children will be non-readers and ten ways to encourage children to be readers! They are very clever.

So the Alyssa review gives this one five stars for sure! Happy reading!

Our Belated Birth Story

As I start this post, our beautiful baby girl is exactly 2 weeks old. How time flies when you're falling more deeply in love every day!

Anyway, I thought I should at least attempt to write our birth story down while it's still fresh in my mind. The only problem is that I don't think it was fresh in my mind when I was going through it! But I've had a lot of requests for it, so I'll do my best. It was a long labor and it will be a long post. For this I apologize -- feel free to skim or skip! But some of our friends are in the "birthing crowd" and interested in details, so here they are.

First, Sunday. I remember Sunday very well, because labor was hardly more than very regular Braxton-Hicks contractions. They were annoying but didn't really hurt, but the fact that they were so regular made us think it might be the beginning of "the real thing." We were still light and happy, playing Yahtzee to get our minds off of hoping and pass the time. We called our midwife and Eliecia to give them a heads up, and decided to try to get some good sleep.

Sleep eluded me. The contractions, although still not very painful, were much worse when I was laying down. So it was like someone was pinching me every 5 minutes all night. I got no sleep at all, and ended up calling Eliecia and Sue in the middle of the night. We just didn't know what to think -- they were definitely 5 minutes apart, lasting a minute apiece, for at least an hour. But they just weren't that painful. Sue said to call if it got really bad, but other than that to try to sleep and call in the morning.

Still couldn't sleep at all. But Sue came by in the morning and suggested Tylenol pm. I took that and was able to sleep for like 4 hours. It was wonderful, but not enough. Sue came over again as the contractions were getting just a little more intense, and we had a discussion. Basically, we could either work to ramp labor up, to get the party started, or to dial it down and try to get some sleep. I was still very tired and told her I would definitely prefer to try to dial it down, take a bath and another Tylenol pm and get some sleep. We all felt it was a good plan and Eliecia and Sue went home to get some sleep in their own beds.

Well, 15 minutes after taking a tylenol and getting in the tub, the contractions became very real, very painful and 3 minutes apart. This was Monday night. And here things get very blurry. What I remember is a hodgepodge of moments, but the theme was that the contractions were very intense, I was exhausted, and I wasn't dilating at all. I got in and out of the bathtub and the birthing tub, and definitely lost my internal rhythm. Looking back, I think of it as being "over" or "under" the contractions -- if you picture them as a wave, some overwhelmed me and some I did better with. Anyway, I remember several discussions with the midwives about lack of progress. I remember that we tried laying down and I literally jumped involuntarily out of the bed at the first contraction. We tried standing up, walking around a little, etc.

We were first starting to consider transporting when my water broke. They tell me this was at 5am on Tuesday morning. We thought this would be the great turning point -- I was going to dilate and have this baby! But, alas, it was still not what we hoped. I was just not progressing.

The midwives discussed the option of transporting with us at this point. The baby's heart rate had showed a few minor dips (although oxygen and a change of position took care of those), I was beyond exhausted, throwing up, and mostly discouraged beyond belief at the lack of progress. Sue laid out the options for us and then said they would go away for about 45 minutes so Jeff and I could make the decision. I felt too weak to go on -- at home or at the hospital! That was the lowest point in my labor. They came back with one last idea to try to get progress going -- How about you and Jeff get dressed and go on a walk and get some fresh air? We did, and I believe that would've been the turning point had it happened earlier in the long labor. We got into a rhythm that was mostly unflappable by the intensity of contractions, even the back labor. We did a meditation including prayer and recitation of the 23rd Psalm and we got through each contraction beautifully in the park. Connecting with Jeff in that intense of a situation was one of the most incredible experiences of my life, and it's why I still say I wouldn't trade my long labor for the world.

But alas, the progress was too little, too late. No rhythm was able to overcome the fact that I hadn't held down food or liquid or slept since early Monday morning. When the baby started to show some early signs of fatigue we had another discussion about transporting to the hospital. This time, however, felt much different. I felt we were making the decision from a place of strength rather than desperation. I was handling labor, but we felt I could not "finish this" without getting fluids, food or sleep. We discussed the options and the risks and confidently made the decision to go to the hospital. At this point, though, I called my parents and asked them to come down and meet us at the hospital! All I could think was, "I want my mommy!"

The hospital staff at Chandler Regional was absolutely top notch from beginning to end. Sue called ahead so we could skip triage and go right into an LDR room. They hooked me up to an IV and started fluids right away. But I continued to throw up regularly and not dilate very quickly at all. I think at the time I got into the hospital I was at 5 cm -- after over 30 hours of hard labor!

Dr. Eddy came and spoke with us. He laid out the two possible reasons for the lack of progress -- either the contractions were not productive enough or the baby was too big. Option A would lead to Pitocin, and Option B would lead to a C-Section. He said he would like to try a monitor that would show the strength of the contractions. We agreed and he came in later to tell us that Option A was the problem. We decided we would try walking around the hospital a little to get things going, but if that didn't work I would go for an epidural to get some sleep and get Pitocin to move things along. Walking didn't help, so we opted for the epidural and Pitocin.

Such sweet sleep I have never had! And I woke up to find that I was dilating quickly (for me -- I guess it was about half as fast as "normal." Whatever.). Soon I had the urge to push and asked the nurse to check -- 9.5 cm! I asked for a few wet rags to clean myself up and mentally get ready for the big event. I put on deodorant and brushed my hair, and waited for the okay to push!

The pushing phase was long for everyone else (I think it was 2 hours), but very quick for me. And the rest is history.

Throughout all of this, we could feel everyone's prayers as they followed the blog. It was awesome to read the blog after the fact and see what Eliecia had requested on our behalf -- Nurses who were understanding of our desire to be as natural as the circumstances allowed and no interventions that would lead to a C-Section. Well, that's EXACTLY what we got! It was wonderful to see that those prayers were answered so clearly.

I don't know how to make a shorter story of this long labor, but here it is for those who have asked! Eliecia and Jeff -- feel free to comment with corrections where my memory fails.

This labor was difficult for me, but as you can imagine it was also (maybe more?) difficult for the wonderful people around me. Throughout the whole thing, Jeff was the rock of Gibraltar. He did not sleep either and only ate at Sue's suggestion. He was incredible, with me every second. And Eliecia was the best "almost doula" ever! She was there with encouragement and corn bags and updating the blog, and everything else. What a blessing. And Sue, our amazing midwife, was... amazing. She was not only incredible at home, but she was a stalwart advocate and partner at the hospital. Finally, Dr. Eddy. I am pretty sure that any other doctor in the world would've gone for a C-Section immediately, but he was patient and respectful of our wishes the entire way through. And he and Sue really respected each other and helped each other a ton! It was awesome to see.

A Little Mothering Secret

People told me a lot of things about becoming a parent, but there was one thing I wasn't prepared for: How fast everything goes. People comment about how fast my baby is changing and I want to yell wait! I'm not ready!

Is that the little secret sorrow in a mama's heart? Every time you're excited about some new thing she can do, is there a little part of you that says she'll never go back again?

Don't get me wrong. I want her to grow and change and be a capable person. I want her to hold her head up and sit up and eat solid food and roll and walk and run and play and... drive. But I know I will never have this little cuddly bean again. I just want to soak up every moment enough so that I'll have it forever.

Check out this video for a glimpse of how I feel.

Big Little Things

I am so filled up by everything. I've missed taking the time to reflect and blog, and I'm excited to have a little crack of time to do so this evening!

First, dinner. Jeff made me a belated birthday dinner (we scheduled this before my birthday -- he didn't neglect my birthday, there was just too much going on!). It was, as always, perfect. And his care in preparing it, as always, nourished my soul. Great food has always been a big part of our relationship. So to sit down with the most amazing husband in the world and eat duck, garlic mashed potatoes, artichokes and creme brulee brought back everything. Napa, New York, our first Christmas dinner on the floor under the tree, great restaurants, great plans, great wineries, the story of our love. I am struck, yet again, by the grace of God that He didn't let me miss out on my opportunity at a rare love.

We talked over dinner about how excited we are to be parenting Lilia Joy. We thanked God for her again in our prayers. One thing that I've thought of over and over in the recent days is the fact that I've been so blessed to be here for every moment of this precious time with Lilia. I'm going to miss this stage a lot, but it is a deep joy to know that I haven't missed a thing. Such a blessing to be able to be at home with my precious little baby girl! I've taken some pictures, but there are many more that will remain forever in my mind. Some "mental pictures" I've taken:

--Jeff and Lilia asleep, snuggled up together. They have the same mouth, positioned exactly the same way when they sleep. And wherever he is, she snuggles up close to him. But she doesn't have very good head control, so she ends up sort of tossing her head in his general direction. It's the sweetest thing!

--Lilia staring up into my eyes as I hold her. Again, she will throw her little head around until she's at such an angle that she can look right up at me.

--Taking a nap with her snuggled on my chest. She goes right to sleep. She's so trusting and loving already!

--Jeff and Lilia waking up in the morning. They often yawn together, stretch together, etc. My heart could explode, seeing the one love of my life reflected so perfectly in the other.

--Lilia trying to tell us things. Especially when she's crying. It makes me very sad to see her cry, but it's so sweet how she intently looks at us with her pleading eyes, like she just needs someone to listen.

--Her very serious "feeding face." Hands on each side, brow furrowed, eyes staring intently ahead, nose crinkled. I love it.

--Her yawns, which are always followed by a little expression with pursed lips, eyes closed and eyebrows raised.

--Her hands when she's calming herself down. One fist in her mouth, the other on her cheek or the side of her head. It's so cute!

--Her sudden sleepiness when you gently rub her head. Gets her every time.

There are so many more, but now I miss my baby too much to stay at the computer any longer.

I Love You Because You're Mine

Lilia Joy,

Everyone told me, but I never understood what that moment would be. You and me had had a very long 3 days of labor, we were both starving and tired, both trying very hard to end it and get to the next phase. Daddy and I had had to make a lot of hard decisions together, but this marathon was something you and me shared in a way nobody else could. We were working together on this, the last part of our time completely connected to each other. The very last part was such hard work for me. I wanted to see you, hold you, know you better, and I was determined to get there. I didn't even know we were close, thought I could have hours more ahead of me.

And then Dr. Eddy said, "Here's the head, and here's the baby!" And he held you up and I saw you, and I begged for you right then. Every millisecond without you in my arms was wasted. They put you on my chest and I was forever changed. I knew I would love you forever and ever, I knew I would do anything for you, and most of all I knew you were mine. I remember saying over and over "You are the most beautiful person I've ever seen." I remember Daddy looking over my shoulder, with tears in his eyes just like the ones rolling down my cheeks. I remember wondering if anyone else was still in the room, because all I could see was you and Daddy, our little family.

I love that you are so cuddly. I love that you look at us with one eye open when you don't want to wake up. I love that you are thoughtful and quiet like Daddy. I love that you like things a certain way, just like me. I love your "dove cry," which sounds like a little baby bird and includes pleading eyes. I love your long, beautiful fingers. I love your legs, which tuck up under you every chance you get, and your little feet which seem to have a mind of their own.

But I really love you because you're mine. And no matter what you do or where you go, I will always love you because you are my baby. I tell you every day that if they lined up all the babies in all the world, I would pick you every single time. I love you because you're mine.

God spent a lot of time while I was pregnant teaching me that He loves me because I'm His, not because of anything I do. And now, holding you, I understand. I love you because you're mine. We chose your name because it means, "What belongs to me belongs to God." And He loves you because you're His, too. No matter what.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

--Mommy