And so.

Both babies are sleeping. Laundry mostly done. Dishes can wait. Showered last night. Bills paid yesterday. Christmas shopping on order (online). And so. I have time to blog.

Entire essay-length entries have been composed in my head while nursing, bathing, changing little diapers. And so the pressure is on, well, to say something. You know, all profound and such. Reflections on mothering in the modern world. And all that.

Mostly I am grateful that we are healthy. And happy, often. And when the babies cry, I now know to take the long view. When Iza was little her cries flipped deep genetic/hormonal switches in me and I would heat up and melt down and become convinced that I, her mother, had ruined her chances at a happy life. Now when one of them, or both of them, cry I try to breathe and go Zen. And if that fails, I mutter a few really bad words.

A bouquet of thoughts here:

Having one child, my love for her was a romance. Drama. Intimacy. Longing. Elation. Devestation. Wonder. Fear. Repeat. Having two, my love is now parental. Wonder. Respect. Awe. Frustration. Joy. Humility. Repeat. Much less fear, much more willingness to wait and observe as the person emerges.

The best things I never did this time around: write down every feeding, poop, pee, and sleep. Reread parenting books. pump.

Revelation: Every home should have a good rocking chair. This is an entire philosophy ready to be expanded and expounded. More to come.

Another Revelation and nascent philosophy: Every home should have a bottle of sparkly stuff (champagne for me) chilled and ready to celebrate.

Mothering is beautiful. Yes. But it sure ain't pretty much of the time.

Hooray for online shopping and groceries delivered to the house. Hip Hip Hooray for my nanny, who sadly is leaving us in January.

Hooray for carrying two babies: Leo in the Bjorn on the front and Iza in the Ergo on my back. This way we could go for a long walk on the nature path, where strollers couldn't go. Although with Leo growing so quickly, I think those days are over.

And then there was the day when I realized that my two-baby-wearing adventures caused a bit of discomfort for some New England types. A neighbor happened to cross our path as we all headed to the Starbucks. She casually commented that, well, you could use a stroller....And I heard it in her voice. She was embarrassed for me. And I was amused.

Feeding a toddler is slowly forcing me to learn how to cook. As in put three meals + snacks on the table a day. I used to cook for dinner parties. This is totally different. I can make a decent pork roast. Chicken in various permutations. Cous cous is my new favorite side dish. Izabella loves blue cheese, hates mashed potatoes. Leo still only nurses. I am a casserole queen. I may never be a great cook, but I am working my way toward being a good mom cook.

Lots of thoughts about tandem nursing. That I need to write about.

Things that get me through the day: jasmine green tea. Napping/nursing with Leo while Izabella sleeps. Facebook.

And Leo wakes....

Size Matters

Izabella was born 6 pounds 12 ounces.
At 6 months, she reached 15 pounds.

Lenard was born 6 pounds 5 ounces.
At 3 1/2 months, he reached 14 pounds 11 ounces.

ps Still tandem nursing.

Lullaby

Leo, Leo

You're my little potato

Leo, Leo

Sweet as a summer tomato

Confession

I have a birth narrative in progress for baby Leo. It is difficult to find time to sit down at a keyboard. Izabella takes two-hour naps in the afternoon and generally goes to sleep for the night by 7:30. As soon as she is down, however, I can't wait to fill my arms with new baby Leo. Facebook and email I can do from my iPhone. Blogging requires the rare moment when both babies are sleeping and I am not. Here is one of those moments....

First, let me clarify my entry regarding how rested I feel despite two babies to care for. As soon as I posted it and logged off, I knew it required emendation. Supermom, I am not. It does help that Leo and I share a bed. Though he wakes every two or three hours to nurse, he is a highly efficient nurser and usually finishes in about ten minutes. So I barely have to wake up to offer him my breast. Sometimes I fall back asleep while he nurses. I can't say enough about how great it is to co-sleep. Not only does mama get more sleep, I get to sleep with the sweetest gurgles and grunts as a soundtrack. More important to my sense of well-being, however, is my caregiver. Let me just admit it: We have a live-in nanny. I never thought that I would have a nanny, but I do. And it is wonderful. She is wonderful.

With two-under-two, not a relative nearby, and a partner who works many and long hours, I knew that I needed someone to help me. It has taken almost six months and the birth of my second child for me to really yield to the virtues of having another caregiver. As one of six children in my family, I never had a babysitter. Never. So I didn't grow up with the idea of having help with raising children. I was resistant to the idea. Especially as a stay-at-home mom (for now), it seemed ridiculous.

My attitude toward the issue is that my nanny is here to help me parent, not parent. Thus she cleans the kitchen, does laundry, tidies the toys, takes out the trash, etc. She sometimes cooks. These tasks are essential for a family. When I come downstairs from putting big sister to sleep and am ready to sit and nurse (or swaddle and bounce) little Leo for hours, the dishes have been down and the kitchen cleaned. The playroom is tidied. This makes a tremendous difference is my ability to parent two babies. Our caregiver is also wonderful with big sister, taking her to the park, reading to her, and happily pretending to be scared at least fifty times a day when Izabella squeals, "boo."

I wish grandma and grandpa lived down the street. I wish my college girl friends lived across town. I wish my women friends could drop by for coffee and cuddle time with the babies. The truth is that we are relatively new to the area, our families are nowhere close, and all my new women friends also have babies to tend.

I know families (and women) who manage on their own. I am not one of them. I have a nanny. And I am extremely grateful to have her by my side. (And a bit worried about what will become of us this fall when she will work for us on a part time basis.)

I'll keep plugging away at Leo's birth narrative.

(It feels good to write.)

Now I just need a haircut.

Notes After Leo's Birth

Baby Lenard, whose birth certificate was left unsigned for one week while we deliberated about his name, was born at 2:01 am on June 30th, 2009. As I begin to compose the story of his birth, he is soundly asleep on our couch. He is four weeks old today. He is a beautiful baby. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Leo's birth story starts with his sister. I was nursing his sister, Izabella, to sleep when my water broke at about 8:30 pm on a Monday evening. It was a small leak at first and frankly I wasn't entirely sure that it was my waters. I continued to nurse Izabella until she was drowsy and almost fully asleep. I became entirely calm. Just as my doula had told me, my body needed to know that my seventeen-month-old baby was deeply asleep before I began to labor.

I put Izabella down to sleep knowing that the next I held her she would be a big sister. I crept out of her room and went downstairs to speak with my husband and babysitter. I had requested that our babysitter, Nikki, who had moved in with us a few weeks earlier, and my husband wait for me so that I could explain to them my wishes regarding Izabella's care in the event I went into labor. I proceeded to explain to them my directions. Only after I had made myself clear about my wishes did I mention that my waters, I suspected, had broken.

At about seven that evening I had noticed some bloody show, blood streaked mucous, indicating that labor might be near. It was beginning to look a lot like labor. I was thirty-eight weeks plus several days into the pregnancy.

Soon after telling my husband that labor might have begun, the waters began to gush. I text-messaged my doula. I called the midwife on duty at the hospital to give her a warning that I would be making my way there sometime in the near future. At first my husband and babysitter stayed near me. Contractions had not yet started. So we turned on the TV and watched "Ice Age." At least it played while we all sat there "relaxing." Finally at about ten pm I sent them upstairs to bed. I needed to be alone. Still no contractions.

A few weeks earlier I had learned that I was Group B Strep (GBS) positive. (This means that I tested positive for a normal bacteria which is nevertheless potentially harmful if passed on to the baby during delivery.) If you are positive, you should receive two doses (four hours apart) of antibiotics by IV before delivery. My midwife informed me of this disappointing news as my husband stood there with two broken arms. Yes, that day he had a bicycle accident which would result in two plaster casts. Needless to say I was a bit confounded. My husband couldn't lift my toddler. Not to mention change a diaper. And the GBS meant an IV in my arm during labor and a need to "rush" to the hospital to start the medication before I delivered.

As it turned out, however, I would not be rushed by anyone else in labor.

When I spoke to the midwife on call that night she made a comment that drastically changed my birth plan. I had planned to rush in and start the antibiotics. If I failed to get the proper dosage, then the protocol meant that my son would have to have blood extracted within the first hour of birth and stay for observation for twenty four hours. I did not want him to be subjected to an avoidable blood test so soon after birth and I hoped to get home sooner than that. When I mentioned my GBS status to the midwife, she said something like, "They like to induce mothers who are GBB positive." What? Did she mean, "they" as in other people and not me? Or did she mean that she was obligated to be part of the "they" since we were at the hospital? All I know is that I weighed the risk of passing GBS on to my baby and the reality of being induced. And I stayed home. (I never did get a chance to ask her for clarification. Later my midwife who gives me regular care told me that I would have had the right to refuse an induction. But I didn't know that at the time. And it is so very difficult to refuse medical care especially while in labor.)

I am not sure when the contractions really started. I do recall that at 11:30 pm I thought that I should start recording the time for each one. By midnight I thought it was time to go to the hospital. The contractions were strong and coming at three minutes, then five minutes, then ten minutes apart. I just knew it was time. My husband drove me to the hospital. It should be noted that he drove me with two broken hands. We drove slowly, ever so slowly, because each bend in the road was painful for him. Picture that.

It was after regular hospital hours and so we had to enter through the emergency room. They moved me directly to the delivery room. I asked them to fire up the bathtub. Quickly they began to insert the IV to administer the antibiotic. I was in active labor and the contractions were strong. I would have felt sorry for the poor nurse who had to insert the needle if I wasn't upset and resistant that it had to be done. Somewhere in there the midwife did a vaginal exam to determine dilation. It must have been done before the IV, but I would have to check my doula's notes. I do remember that I tried to refuse it and that it hurt like hell. The midwife told me that I was dilated at about four to five centimeters. That shocked and panicked me a bit. It was a long way to ten, so I thought. I know the IV went in at 1 am, because I remember thinking that I had until 1:20, a twenty minute wait, until the antibiotics were in and I could be disconnected from the apparatus. I was violently shaking.

As soon as the antibiotics were in and my IV taped down, I got in the warm bath. The contractions were coming fast with little to no time in between to get all "I am Woman / Hear me Roar." Frankly I remember thinking that there had to be a better way to give birth, one that involved less intensity. My midwife was alone with me and began to help me relax by stroking my arms, saying soothing words, and offering aromatherapy. Then my doula arrived. I needed her there. I was glad to realize that the IV, which I was worried would bother me because it was still taped to my arm, provided no major distraction.

Together with the soothing water and my doula's arrival I was finally able to "let go" and relax. Labor is all about letting go. Turning off the mind. Giving in to the muscles and liquids that make up your corporeal self. You must yield. Your instinct is to tighten, to flex for the fight. To control. To hold on to your dignity. The key is to relax, release, to submit, to discover the dignity of the flesh.

I remember one moment: darkened bath room, on my knees, fully bare, hands on the tub's edge, warm water streaming down my shoulders and back as I stretched up and moaned through a powerful contraction. That felt right. It felt powerful. It felt true.

I also remember feeling like I needed to vomit.

I remember looking down and seeing a dark spot ooze from my vagina and shouting out to my doula and midwife in concern. It turned out to be blood (and normal), but in the darkened room it was hard to identity.

Then I needed to push. How did I know? Your body knows. The nurses hustled me out of the tub. (Water births are not allowed at this hospital.)

I moved to the bed and climbed up on all fours. I pushed with my contractions probably about three times. And then he was almost there. The midwife instructed me to lie on my side, which felt awkward to me. I agreed to try it for one push. But one push was all it took. It was a mighty one. My midwife told me not to scream, and my doula instructed me to take that screaming energy and push it down inside, making more of a grunt. It worked. He passed through me and into the world. He was quickly covered in a blanket and set on my chest. They didn't even check the sex, just placed him on my chest while the placenta was delivered. So fast. So very fast. Yet no tears, no stitches needed. He latched on perfectly and didn't let go for two hours.

As I "finish" this entry, Leo is sleeping in the swing. He is three-and-a-half months old. His sister is out with their father shopping for a new car. I am sipping my jasmine green tea and waiting for him to wake up so that I can take him in my arms and breathe deeply again.

Truly I can hardly believe that this little guy, who is growing at a tremendous rate, is here. He arrived so very fast. And he is growing so very fast. And I can't believe I named him Lenard. I am sure that he will carry it well.

(finally posted on October 13th, 2009)

Ripe

American Life in Poetry: Column 227

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Jane Hirshfield, a Californian and one of my favorite poets, writes beautiful image-centered poems of clarity and concision, which sometimes conclude with a sudden and surprising deepening. Here's just one example.


Green-Striped Melons

They lie
under stars in a field.
They lie under rain in a field.
Under sun.

Some people
are like this as well--
like a painting
hidden beneath another painting.

An unexpected weight
the sign of their ripeness.


American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Jane Hirshfield, whose most recent book of poems is "After," Harper Collins, 2006. Poem reprinted from "Alaska Quarterly," Vol. 25, nos. 3 & 4, Fall & Winter, 2008, by permission of Jane Hirshfield and the publisher. Introduction copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry Foundation.  The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.  We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

******************************

American Life in Poetry provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column  featuring contemporary American poems. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry: American Life in Poetry seeks to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. There are no costs for reprinting the columns; we do require that you register your publication here and that the text of the column be reproduced without alteration.

Catching My Breath

Baby Leo is three weeks old plus one day. This is the first occasion I've had to sit down at a laptop and try to compose both my thoughts and a few words. This is not because I have been the frazzled, sleep-deprived mom of lore. In fact, I feel well-rested! Baby # 2 has made his arrival and has found a niche here in our family. As my midwife had told me, he is the easiest part of having a new addition. Being a new mom for the second time has been "easier" or at least incredibly less fraught. Poor Izabella was my first pancake. I have so many mama skills now that I can use and this baby is a.....

oops...be back soon.

Ten to Zip

American Life in Poetry: Column 222

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Coleman Barks, who lives in Georgia, is not only the English language's foremost translator of the poems of the 13th century poet, Rumi, but he's also a loving grandfather, and for me that's even more important. His poems about his granddaughter, Briny, are brim full of joy. Here's one:




Glad

In the glory of the gloaming-green soccer
field her team, the Gladiators, is losing

ten to zip. She never loses interest in
the roughhouse one-on-one that comes

every half a minute. She sticks her leg
in danger and comes out the other side running.

Later a clump of opponents on the street is chant-
ing, WE WON, WE WON, WE . . . She stands up

on the convertible seat holding to the wind-
shield. WE LOST, WE LOST BIGTIME, TEN TO

NOTHING, WE LOST, WE LOST. Fist pumping
air. The other team quiet, abashed, chastened.

Good losers don't laugh last; they laugh
continuously, all the way home so glad.





American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2001 by Coleman Barks, from his most recent book of poems, "Winter Sky: New and Selected Poems, 1968-2008," University of Georgia Press, 2008, and reprinted by permission of Coleman Barks and the publisher. Introduction copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

So. . .

So, we changed the bedtime routine per my earlier entry. It worked like magic.

Now, it doesn't work like magic.

I think it is a teething issue. But, who knows? Izabella can now cruise quite well. She stands and does a little dance. So walking can't be far behind. Maybe it is the walking, a developmental milestone, that is messing up her sleep. What I do know is that she is not happy about sleepy time.

Tonight: after a relatively calm day with a good nap, we performed the entire night time ritual. On time. She was content and relaxed throughout. The moment I placed her down to sleep, a raging toddler erupted. Not just crying, but screams and thrashing. We nursed back in our room. Then back to her room and a return to the crib. Pandemonium. Inconsolable.

So, I think that letting a toddler---a person---cry it out alone is just plain wrong. If I were raging, I would want someone there even if they couldn't solve my problem or right my wrongs. But there was nothing I could "do" to comfort or console her. So, I sat down on the floor next to her crib and just stroked her back while she raged. Occasionally I said comforting words. Mostly I just tried to be a warm human presence. I tried to be all Zen about it. Strange thing happened: after about twenty minutes of standing at the rail in a full-on rage, she laid herself down, hugged her teddy and bunny, and passed out. From rage to sleep almost instantly. I waited there with my hand on her back for a full fifteen minutes to make sure she was deeply asleep. Then I performed a special yoga move to stand up from the floor--I am nine-months-pregnant after all--and was able to leave the room. We'll see how long she sleeps.

Two nights ago she was up from 12:30 - 3:00 am before my husband and I finally just took her into my bed. Last night we realized that she was inconsolable and I slept with her most of the night. She didn't want to nurse. She just didn't want to be alone. I can dig that. How human. I too hate to sleep alone. Especially when I have toothache AND I am working on a major life skill.

So, there is no "sleep solution." These little people are constantly new little people each week. What works now will probably not work next week and certainly will not work in six months. There can only be a sleep solution if you choose to view it as a sleep problem. It is what it is. Fight it in vain.

Merge & Yield

I flipped my car end-over-end and landed in a ditch. I was sixteen. I was probably driving too fast for the rutted dirt road. When the car came to a stop, I was hanging from the ceiling by my seat belt. I crawled out the shattered passenger side window. I was unharmed, but not unscathed. To this day I am a nervous driver and and even more nervous passenger.

In the years after the accident, I was a newly-minted driver when it occurred, I slowly gained more driving experience and incremental confidence. My dreaded driving maneuver: the highway merge. Luckily there were not many occasions in my day-to-day driving that required me to enter the fast lane. If I wanted to partake in the excitements of big-city Wichita, however, the merge became a right of passage. It had to be done. The witness to this feat of nerves was typically my friend Jason. Poor Jason. I didn't trust drivers to yield to incoming traffic. The speed of the metal hurtling toward me nearly left me breathless. Not breathless enough. My coping strategy involved screams. Great, huge, unbridled screams of terror as I merged. This could not have reassured Jason. Yet he hung in there. Gritting his teeth no doubt.

And now as I prepare to enter the fast lane with the arrival of baby number two, I am once again faced with the incontrovertible fact that I must merge. It must be done. There will be screaming. I must merge into a life in which I am a mother of two under two. I will have a son. There will be lots of screaming.

The screams will be functional, I'd like to think. And hopefully mostly metaphorical. I will scream and moan his hot, little, active body into this world (hence, functional). And then there will be the screams involved in allowing my vision of how life proceeds (and the illusion of my control over it) to be dimmed, stripped away, and returned to me in ways I can't hope to imagine. (Thus, metaphorical.)

I have realized that it is not so much the act of merging that is required. It is the fine art of the yield. The merge is me acting on the stream of life. Here what is needed is the realization that I must yield to others what I cannot possibly handle alone. I must give way to the forces of childbirth and allow a baby boy to pass through me. I must slow down and allow others to help me care for my almost-toddling baby girl. I must give way to those who will care for me and my family as we reorient ourselves with a new little one. I must yield.

Yield. My new mantra, for childbirth and for life. Give way.

And not just to give way, but also. . .


to give up possession of

to surrender or submit oneself to another

to bear or bring forth as a natural product

to be fruitful or productive : bear, produce

to give up and cease resistance or contention : submit, succumb

to give way under physical force (as bending, stretching, or breaking)

to give place or precedence


Even though many years have passed since I found myself upside down in a ditch, I am still a nervous passenger when riding in a car. Just ask my husband. But it is true that I have learned to merge, both as driver and passenger, without actually screaming. I believe that I can learn how to deftly, perhaps gracefully, yield too. It is time. If you hear some screaming, however, don't worry. It is just a part of the ride.