Four Hundred and Ninety "Second Wind"

When you are expecting your first child, lots of things come your way. Boxes of hand-me-down clothing, used baby swings, and advice. "Go to movies now, while you still can," "read a book, you don't know when that will happen again . . . ", or  a set of parents will commisserate with one another, laughing as they competitively name the time that their child wakes on Saturdays, said to simultaneously show their dedication as a parent and not paint their child as one with sleep issues.

My daughter is five months, one week and three days old and last night I dug deep into some pocket of reserves I didn't know I had.

On the fourth night that my daughter was alive, my mother and I alternated sitting awake with the baby downstairs, the baby that refused to settle with our weak, loose swaddle. We both feared that the fabric would come loose, cover the baby, we were emotional, sleep deprived and misguidedly vigilant. The baby, feeding off our nervous energy, my mom, who had raised three children was shaking off the cobwebs of knowledge of newborns, now thirty-five years after her last child was an infant. And I hadn't slept more than ninety minutes since the moment my water broke. In the middle of the night, during my watch, I googled "night doulas" and sent desperate emails at 3:42 a.m. in search of help RIGHT THIS MINUTE. I awoke shattered, unable to function. My husband suggested a drive to his sister's, knowing that this mother of two would understand and help me somehow. We sat for lunch, the baby sleeping in the carseat in the other room. I was afraid to leave her out of my sight. "How are you?" was the question. I sat at the kitchen table with my six year old niece to my left and my three year old nephew across from me and started crying. My niece looked up, eyes wide, afraid. I'd never done anything but smile around her. "Have you ever been so tired you started crying?," I asked her. "That's what's happening now. I'm fine. I'm happy. I'm just really, really tired," I smiled through my tears. My baby gave me a five hour stretch of sleep that night and I felt like a new woman.

But the need to have a second wind kept coming, like every ninety minutes, for seven weeks. My baby was healthy, happy and a newborn. A newborn who needed to eat every ninety minutes. No matter what. I didn't know what months of broken sleep, never a chance to "catch up" can do. I had no idea I could somehow stay awake, rocking my daughter in her muslin swaddle in the wee hours. My mother would send me to bed at 8 p.m. to try and get a head start on sleep, an extra hour or two. I savoured each and every minute of that rest.

Last night I dug in deep again. My daughter is an average sleeper for five months. There are better and there are worse. I know I can function on seven hours of broken sleep and not be driven to eat too many frozen cookie dough bites. But when my daughter had the onset of her first cold and fever, on the night before my husband flew out to LA for business and I had a major presentation at work, when she awoke screaming at midnight and again at four a.m., when each time she needed me to calm her, rock her and hold her upright because the clogged nose scared her, led her to her cries, I rocked her. Back and forth from midnight to one-thirty. Back and forth from four to five twenty-two. her head on my shoulder, curled up like a newborn, held close by me, as I wanted my baby to feel calm and rested. I want her well. I was her mother, digging in and finding that elusive "second wind".

Science as a Scare Tactic

Last week, getting ready in the morning, NPR tuned in on our little radio on the bathroom counter, I heard a clip about how the legalization of marijuana has impacted teenagers in Colorado. A police officer was interviewed, a parent of a two-year old herself, sharing how the prevalence of edibles or vapors makes it nearly impossible to detect that a middle school student has "stepped outside" and consumed marijuana in some way.

The news story was short, probably thirty-seconds, and my mind took that snippet and ran. I found myself planning for our daughter (to be born in three months) to become very knowledgeable in science, her deep and complete understanding of the workings of the human brain and complex connections, the basis of my parenting plan. Perhaps we'd throw in a few factual tales of people permanently damaging their brains through snorting spray aresol or deading their neural connections with pot. The scare tactics might have a chance of being effective if she understood what was happening in the brain as the once attractive and sporty eighth grade boy dulled, lost his speech and became vacant.

That's when I realized that I wanted to scare our yet unborn daughter into being terrified of risk-taking lest she break her brain. I only momentarily stopped myself before I also considered emphasizing a deeper understanding of viruses, like herpes, might scare her off being sexually active. True, it might give her unnecessary phobias, making sex seem dangerous, ugly and anxiety-producing, and then my parenting scheme would backfire.

Our daughter isn't even born yet and I'm contemplating how to thwart the inevitable thrill-seeking, risk-oblivious phase which could start between 12 and 19. I thought about renting the movie Thirteen and watching it together - what would prove a painfully awkward experience for our daughter, sitting beside me and then obediently engaging in a confusing conversation about sex and drugs with her mother, probably at too early of an age because I wanted to ensure the viewing wasn't coming too late.

Ten years as a vice principal and principal in middle and high schools showed me hundreds of well adjusted kids, dipping their toes in adolescent rebellion, with no physical or mental risk. It also showed me fourteen year olds who started smoking pot at age 10, dull and drugged by freshmen year. Seventh grade girls snapping nude photos of themselves in the bathroom stall during third period and texting them to an eighth grade boy.  Arms streaked with purplish scars and fresh red cuts, razor blade marks covered by long sleeve shirts, waistbands, hidden on the inner thighs.

This story and parenting plan unfolded in my head within ten minutes. Despite all of my training in working with adolescents, despite my natural inclination to talk and process, when things as scary as drugs or sex cross my mind when I think about our yet unborn daughter, it is amazing how quickly I found comfort in good old-fashioned scare tactics. I suppose forcing her knowledge of science isn't the worst approach - I'm banking on her brilliant brain stearing her clear of harm and  getting her into Yale. 

106 days until opening night

My husband does improv. It was one of the facets of his personality that drew me in to know more. On our first date, he told me about taking the leap and going to Chicago for two weeks of classes at Second City. This from a man, dressed in a suit on a Tuesday night first date, after a day working as an engineer at one of Silicon Valley's large tech companies. Since I started with "my husband", I've revealed that the first date did indeed go well, very well, and led to subsequent dates. Including a fifth date that, I think spontaneously - although it might have been calculated, now that I think about it - a date that spontaneously included us participating in improv. Live, on stage, on a Friday night. Yes, it was a small crowd and I might have been the only one there who didn't know it was the audience participation show, but I remember making the split second decision to dive in. "If you don't do it now, he'll NEVER suggest something like this again." And I do love the spontaneous, playful, creative side of life, even if it doesn't dominate my day to day.

Fast forward just over four years later and we are expecting our first child, this summer. My husband is well versed in improv, but I've dabbled a bit since we met. Enough to know the central tenets are things like "I suck! And I love to fail!", or, yelling "Tah-Dah!" after what one might call a "mistake" in regular life. Another is "Average - go with the average idea". The essence is to take what your improv partner gives you, don't block them or reject them, use the phrase "Yes, and . . ." as opposed to "Yes, but . . ." and expect that failure is just another chance to iterate. Go big, go wild, be absurd and create worlds that your logical mind might never intentionally explore.

I calculated today that we are 106 days from the due date.  Spectacularly close, which shouldn't be surprising given the very pregnant belly that goes with me everywhere, the new familiarity with Pepcid and the recent shopping trip for "comfortable" shoes to support my swollen elephant feet.

Now that we're in 25 week land, we're getting the "have you selected a name yet?" question repeatedly. I have a name that I call our baby girl, but we haven't decided yet as a couple. A name that we both like, one of the first we discussed, is my leader and my husband agrees. But we feel like we need to do due diligence and consider the hundreds of other possibilties there could be since the one we like is from a movie. But I feel like we do know the name.

After my ob/gyn visit last week, I checked out the after visit summary. So many new terms are coming at me with this pregnancy and I haven't really even dived into the details of the actual childbirth, but today's What To Expect When You're Expecting  email dove into the topic of a medical procedure or allowing for natural tearing. So, I feel like I have a general sense of the details. That, and friends are starting to share some of their real feelings about childbirth. I think if I imagine being drawn and quartered, or another similar torture method, I might start to be gettting close to what the experience is like.

I digress, in the after visit summary, I had to search one term, but another was all to clear. The notes said "Elderly Gravida".  Now, "gravida" was new to me, but "elderly" is clear. I'm three weeks shy of 41 and do not intend for the word "elderly" to be used in my description anytime in the next several decades. In fact, my 74 year old mother would balk at being described as elderly. Turns out "gravida" is pregnancy. There's geriatric pregnancy, mother of advanced maternal age, and I'm sure, many other terms I haven't yet learned.

As I look at the list of things that I'd like to happen before the baby comes, paint the medicine cabinet with Rustoleum, empty the upstairs closets and deep clean, I know that I'm going to need to continue to embrace what my partner offers, whether it's the partner of my husband or the "partner" of this pregnancy, with a great big "yes, and  . . . ".