Tag: Hard things

Categories
Motherhood

Grace for dropped stitches

Well hi there! Things around here have been more than a bit hectic for the last few weeks, as evidenced by the total lack of activity on this little blog–not least because a certain young man has started to not only crawl, but also pull himself up on furniture, yank things off shelves, and just generally wreak adorable havoc wherever he goes.

Exhibit A: Dumping out the clean laundry and creating a fort from the basket.

Gone are the days when I could put him down somewhere safe with a favorite toy, and actually expect him to stay there while I emptied the dishwasher or switched clothes from the washer to the dryer. Don’t get me wrong, I am completely thrilled by his growth and development, but the more mobile he gets the more creative I have to be to keep him safe while getting life done (as a stereotypical first born, he despises his play yard on principle, no matter how many fun things are in there). What usually happens is that I scramble frantically to Do All The Things while he naps, and it’s like he’s got some kind of radar–the second I finish the last Thing, he wakes up ready to play!

Also, Asher loves both books and yarn with a deep and abiding passion. This is exactly what I wanted for our child when I was pregnant, as those are two things that have brought Dave and I endless wonder and joy. HOWEVER, I expected him to start loving them when he was a wee bit older, and wasn’t primarily deriving pleasure from things through his valiant efforts to choke on them. Mama can’t really read or knit in front of Baby when he immediately NEEDS whatever I’m holding to be in his mouth…and he can now merrily crawl over to me and retrieve the desired object in no time flat. Hashtag facepalm.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about, I would never do such a thing!”

Combine these two factors, and you have a devoted knitter and reader who has rapidly dwindling opportunities to do either…which is the reason why I was knitting a complicated pattern on Tuesday night while simultaneously reading a really interesting book. See? It’s completely not my fault that I was doing something kinda dumb. I wasn’t setting myself up for failure, I was a victim of circumstances. I had no other choice. Et cetera.

So, I’m knitting along on this pattern (which I had already repeated enough times to have memorized) and reading along in my book, and it’s all going swimmingly UNTIL, dun dun dun…I dropped a stitch. I knew it immediately, but not because I saw it happen–as we’ve established, I was being a nincompoop and not looking at what I was doing–I knew because I felt it happen. Dropping a stitch isn’t that big of a deal, as long as you notice it right away and are able to fix whatever collateral damage has occurred. Not noticing, however, can literally cause an entire project to unravel, because every stitch in a knitted fabric is linked to every other stitch, and losing one can mean losing all.

(Note to self: Explore knitting as a metaphor for social justice sometime in the near future.)

I’m a really experienced knitter. I’ve been doing it for over 20 years, and there’s so much muscle memory built up that I’m far more likely to feel a problem happen than to see it happen. And when it does, I stop, examine my work, suss out the wayward stitches, make the necessary corrections with minimal fuss (usually; I’m only human), and carry on.

That’s what I did on Tuesday night. I put down the book, retrieved the lost stitch, rearranged myself on the couch, and I was off to the races again. And then I stopped, and wondered to myself how long I would have to do this motherhood thing before I could take a problem in stride that easily. When will the day come that I can feel something going wrong even before I see it, examine the situation, suss out the wayward attitude or word or desire or whatever, make the necessary correction with minimal fuss (usually, since my child and I are only human), and carry on? When will motherhood be as simple as that?

After much deliberation, I’ve come to the conclusion that the answer is… it probably won’t. Many things about motherhood have evolved into instinct as Asher has grown and I’ve gotten more practice, and I’m actively engaged in expanding my parenting toolbox. So, I have lots of hope that I can, and will, continue to get better at being his Mama… But, maybe the day will never actually come when something as complex and nuanced as raising a child will feel like second nature, something I could do with my eyes shut. Maybe it’s not even supposed to.

Honestly, that prospect is pretty frightening for me. I thrive on mastering things, and one of the reasons that I like knitting so much is because I’m good at it–even the stuff that I struggle with feels like a puzzle to solve, not proof that I should quit. Now, on the journey of motherhood, I am being forced to learn moment by agonizing moment to give grace to myself, because this is not something I ever expect to truly master.

I need to give grace to myself when I have no idea what I’m doing, grace when I try my darnedest but still don’t get it right, grace when my own selfishness stands in direct opposition to the needs of my tiny human. Lord have mercy, I especially need to show myself grace when I do something that’s just plain old stupid.

I would like to think that at the end of the day, Asher will benefit more from a mother who has fought hard and learned to show grace even to herself, than a mother for whom the whole thing came easily. And, since that second one isn’t actually an option, I am committing myself to becoming an imperfect mother who knows how to give and receive grace.

And that will only happen one mistake, one dropped stitch at a time. Here goes.

Categories
Reflections

The privilege of being buried

I expect that my son will bury me someday, and not the other way around.

Anything can happen, of course, and nothing is guaranteed to any of us, but as a mother in the United States in 2017, this is a fairly reasonable thing for me to believe.

I have the privilege of assuming that I will not have to bury my child.

What got me thinking about this less-than-cheery idea was a truly terrible book about parenting around the world that I just finished reading. It’s badly written and weakly argued, but honestly, the central thesis just made me angry: these people actually had the audacity to argue that North American parents are too uptight in our parenting because we’re so worried about our children’s futures, and that we should just cut it out. Now, that in and of itself isn’t so terrible, and might very well be true–the problem is why these authors came to this conclusion. They said that we North Americans should loosen up because parents in the developing world don’t stress nearly as much about how their children will function in the future, and are almost entirely focused on teaching immediately applicable skills.

Forgive me for being blunt, but it seems fairly natural not to stress about your child’s future if you harbor no certainty that he or she will actually have one. 

When I played “The Oregon Trail” as a kid, my characters died of cholera with annoying frequency; that is the closest that disease has ever come to impacting my life. This year, the World Health Organization estimates that anywhere between 21,000 and 143,000 people will die of cholera worldwide. My computer game inconvenience will rob thousands of real mothers of their real children in 2017…and that’s just one disease. Never mind HIV/AIDS and parasites and droughts and famines and unspeakable violence and lack of even basic medical care and, and, and. UNICEF says that 21 children die every single minute, almost entirely in developing nations.

As a mother who has the privilege of assuming that my child will bury me, I find it patently absurd to hold up a woman in the developing world who does not have that privilege as a standard by which to measure my parenting. Hold her up, in the holy name of God hold her up, but hold her up as a sister for whom my heart should break. Hold her up as someone to speak out for, to fight for, to sacrifice in order to help. If she is unconcerned about her child’s vocabulary because she is too busy showing him how to find enough food, I don’t think I should stop worrying about my child’s vocabulary–I think I should start worrying about why her child isn’t guaranteed enough to eat.

This has been gnawing away at me all day, ever since I finished that book–be proud of me, I didn’t actually throw it across the room even though I really super wanted to. I don’t know what to do about these staggering numbers of tragedies oceans away from me. Merciful God, I can’t even stop the heartbreaks of people I see and talk to every day. I pray, and I give money, and I have fought on the front lines of death and loss and anguish, but no matter what I do, no matter what small victories I help achieve, I cannot bridge the gap between how things are and how they ought to be.

Since before Asher was born, Dave and I have prayed that he would be someone who holds a candle in the darkness. He will be no more able to bridge the gap than I am, but I hope he will try anyway. So, maybe that is how we should try to raise him, in light of all those parents in the developing world: to be brave enough to fight in a battle he absolutely cannot win. Perhaps I should worry a bit less about his future well-being, and focus instead on how he will choose to use the future he is very likely to have.

This is little consolation, but it is all I have in the face of just how broken this world is. Holding even a small candle in the darkness, and teaching my son to do the same, must be better than holding none at all.

Categories
Motherhood

Wendy Whale for President

Just to be clear, this is not about politics. It’s about the fact that Wendy Whale is probably responsible for my sanity still being relatively intact, and as such I am her biggest fan. She was made by Gund, she’s soft and squishy, and there are little blue ribbons sown to her spout to look like water. She has a swirly button on her tale, and when it’s pushed she plays soothing, oceanic music and moves through a series of gently pulsating lights. She is very calming, and she was the breakthrough with Asher’s daytime sleeping.

This picture wasn’t posed, I went in to check on him and found them like this.

Asher has slept through the night since he was a little less than 3 months old. The fact that he was on formula by then could definitely be a contributing factor, but he also seems to just be a naturally good sleeper…at night. But during the day, he was like a different person…a person who didn’t like sleeping.

At bedtime, we go through Asher’s little routine, and barring an unusual circumstance like a tooth poking through to make him grouchy, he goes down in his crib awake and promptly falls asleep. He sleeps all night, then he wakes up in the morning and starts chatting with himself until someone goes in to retrieve him. I was convinced he would have a terrible sleep regression at 4 or 5 months, because it just seemed too good to be true, but he never did. So far, so good.

This is not how it was during the day. Getting that child to nap while the sun was out was like herding cats. Actually no, worse than that, I’m surprisingly good at herding cats (I think it’s because I understand their nervous energy, but that’s a topic for another day). Asher has fought going to sleep for an hour and a half, only to wake up 45 minutes later in a bad mood because he’s still tired. Sigh. It didn’t matter how exhausted and in need of a nap he was, he didn’t want to sleep so he wasn’t gonna sleep.

I was honestly at my wit’s end about his napping strike, and it was especially confusing because he was such an angelic sleeper at night. A number of other moms dismissed my woe out of hand, saying that it didn’t matter if he refused to nap because he was always getting a good night’s sleep. I know they were just trying to put a positive spin on it (or, let’s be honest, they were jealous), but to be harsh for a second, they were wrong. It did matter that he wasn’t napping, because he was exhausted and unhappy all. damn. day. And with an exhausted and unhappy baby, I’ll give you one guess at MY emotional state!

Then one day my Mom came over to visit, and she brought this cute little Gund whale with her. She knew I would like it because I’m a sucker for aquatic creatures, and it was soft and cuddly so Asher was totally into it. I honestly can’t remember now if it was her idea or mine, but the next day I tried putting Wendy Whale in Asher’s crib with him during naptime. This wasn’t an instantaneous miracle cure, and he didn’t become a good napper on the spot; but let me tell you, my child no longer tantrums for an hour and a half before going to sleep.

When it’s time for a nap, Asher drinks his bottle, cuddles with me for a few minutes, then I put him down in his crib and turn on Wendy Whale…and he falls asleep. Every so often Wendy Whale’s timer will end before he’s completely out, a situation I am promptly alerted to by his indignant hollering. And on more than one occasion I’ve gone in to check on him because he’s slept for so long, only to find him wide awake and playing with Wendy Whale, totally content.

Wendy Whale’s official headshot!

I don’t know if it’s the lights, the music, the shape, the color, the ribbon spout, but something about that little stuffed whale makes my nap-resistant son think, “huh, I bet falling asleep right now would be super pleasant and refreshing”. And I know it’s not just a coincidence, because I’ve tried putting him down without Wendy Whale, only to swiftly recant on my foolish decision and return her to her rightful place (indignant hollering is very effective on me!).

So, sometimes help comes from an unlikely source. After trying absolutely everything to get Asher to nap, the breakthrough was good old Wendy Whale. The two of them are happily snoozing away as I write this. I don’t know why it works, I’m just glad it does!

Have you ever gotten help where you weren’t even looking to find it? Was it as surprising as a singing whale?

Categories
Reflections

The healthiest baby in the NICU

As I mentioned once before, Asher had to go to the NICU for about 12 hours after he was born. However, he was born at 4:23 pm, and didn’t go to the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) until about midnight that evening. Nothing about labor/delivery/postpartum/newborn nursing has been familiar to me since college; nevertheless, I feel fairly confident in saying that this was an unusual amount of time between delivery and NICU admission.

See, Asher was pretty tiny when he was born–he only weighed 5 pounds, 2 ounces. He was born at just over 37 weeks, so while he was still technically premature, he really should have been bigger than that, thus earning himself the label “Small for Gestational Age”. SGA babies have their blood sugar checked shortly after delivery, and his was too low. I can’t remember now what the number was, but it was low enough that the nursing staff was a bit concerned (and not for the first time; I found out after the fact that his heart rate had gotten so low while I was delivering him that the neonatal resuscitation team had been called–they apparently rushed into the room at the moment he was born, heard his enthusiastic cry, then turned around and went back upstairs without me ever seeing them). So, they tried to get Asher to nurse, but probably as a result of the low blood sugar, he was too sleepy to be bothered with that much effort. To my dismay, they then whisked him off to the newborn nursery to give him formula to try and sweeten him up a bit (see what I did there?).

This was the very first photo I ever took of Asher. Look how big the newborn diaper was on him!

It worked. They wheeled me to the nursery a short time later for some much needed cuddles (much needed for me, he was too full and sleepy to care), and after re-checking his blood sugar we were sent to my postpartum room to get acquainted. This was going swimmingly, until a few hours later when my nurse came in to check his blood sugar again…and it was too low. I remembered enough from nursing school to know that wasn’t good news, because by then he should have been able to adequately maintain his own levels. It was quickly decided that he needed to go upstairs to the NICU for closer observation and possibly IV fluids. And then, for the second time in his life, my newborn baby was taken away from me.

I’m making that sound really dramatic, but at that moment it felt like my whole world was ending. I’d delivered him, had him taken away, gotten him back, then had him taken again, and I was a bit of a wreck about the whole thing (plus this had all happened a month before we expected him to even be born, and I was still in shock about that fact alone). When I was taken up to see him a while later, his nurse was giving him a bottle AGAIN, and that was the moment I knew he might never be able to breastfeed (and sadly, I was right). I remember that the Nurse Practitioner who was on call in the NICU that night was very pretty, and I’m sure she was compassionate, informative and reassuring, but I don’t actually know because I was crying too hard to hear anything she said.

As it turned out, Asher was the healthiest baby in the NICU for the entirety of his (mercifully short) stay. His blood sugar never dropped again, he never needed an IV, the NICU staff found me a hospital-issued breast pump and Dave and I got to give him his bottles of breastmilk every 3 hours, and Asher and I were discharged from the hospital together–something that wouldn’t have happened if he had needed any true NICU-level intervention. As an intensive care nurse myself, I can’t even count the number of times that I’ve had a patient in the exact same situation as Asher–really not sick enough to need an ICU nurse, but just a bit too iffy for the floor staff (who have much higher nurse to patient ratios) to feel safe keeping him on their unit. With hindsight being 20/20, it was pretty obvious that he hadn’t needed the NICU at all–but everyone was just trying to keep him safe.

But whether he needed to be there or not, he still went to the NICU. I still had to spend the first night of his life away from him, and only fell asleep because I was too tired to cry any more.

I don’t consider myself a “NICU mom”, because I would never dare to appropriate the anguish of a mother who can’t even freely touch her fragile baby inside an isolette. I never wondered if I would get to bring Asher home, only when. Nevertheless, that first night of his life was heartbreaking and terrifying for me.

As I tried to process through everything that had happened when Asher was born, I found myself in this bizarre gray zone of not being a NICU mom, but not being a non-NICU mom, either. I finally realized that, regardless of how not-sick my baby had been, I needed to give myself permission to grieve the loss of what I had expected for those first few hours of motherhood. Losing that time with Asher, and ultimately losing the ability to breastfeed him, are sad realities that I have had to accept as part of the story of my motherhood. The fact that other people had harder situations doesn’t undo the hardness of my own.

Theodore Roosevelt is quoted as saying that comparison is the thief of joy, but I think that comparison can be the thief of mourning, too. Sometimes the hard work of grief needs to happen in order to reassess and reassemble ourselves, then move forward into the new world we now face. Not doing that work because of someone else’s tragedy only serves to hamper our own progress.

I found a great deal of freedom from the weight of Asher’s NICU ordeal when I decided that it was okay to be hurt by painful things, full stop. It makes me no less compassionate for another person’s story just because I have chosen to acknowledge the low points in my own; if anything, I hope and pray that it will make me more so.

Is there pain or sadness that you’ve pushed to the periphery of your life because you know someone else had it harder, or because it could have been worse? If so, I’d like to humbly encourage you to pull it back to center long enough to identify, examine and assimilate it. Doing so may require great courage, but I truly believe it will be worth it…because I believe that weight will be easier to bear when you’re done.