Making Room for Change

When we had Zuzu, I was pretty firmly in the 'crunchy' mom camp. I don't know how it happened - I'm really not a hippy. But since I knew I wanted to have a natural birth outside of a hospital, everything else came rushing in - like it was a package deal.

Natural birth -> breastfeeding -> bedsharing -> attachment parenting -> cloth diapering -> amber teething necklaces -> baby wearing

Happily, it really worked for us. That first year of Zuzu's life was great! Breastfeeding went well, she was a happy baby in adorable cloth diapers, and I loved wearing her. Great. Good.

But...after a year, some things started to wear on me. On our family. Overnight, she'd always leak out of her cloth diapers, so I was changing the sheets a lot. I had a ton of women telling me how to fix the diapers so it would work better, but...we just switched to disposables for overnight. Then, she was having some issues with diaper rash. When I went into my local crunchy mama store to ask for diaper creams that were ok to use with cloth diapers, the store's clerk first response was "oh wow, we really don't carry anything because babies who wear cloth diapers don't get diaper rash."

Oh wow, really - want to see my baby's bum?

It went on from there. We weren't getting a lot of sleep at night because my daughter liked to nurse all. night. long. I didn't get out a whole lot without her because I was the one who nursed her down for naps and bedtime, and she woke frequently to nurse. Sometimes it felt like she was a little TOO attached - it was hard leaving her with Tom, or my mom, or anyone. It was hard to parent her without using nursing as the main parenting tool. To be fair, I didn't want to get out much - I loved being with her all of the time. But I'm not sure it was really good for me - I wasn't taking care of my health,  cultivating a spiritual life, or investing in my friendships. My world was Zuzu and you know what the Bible says about idols.

All of this information about nursing, but I had no idea how to go about weaning, what age was okay to do so, or how to do without just doing it cold turkey.

It started to feel like attachment parenting or crunchy-ness or whatever - was this train that once you got on, you couldn't get off. It worked great when she was a tiny squish, but as she was getting to be an older toddler, I wasn't happy. The advice I got from that community was, try harder, override your gut feeling, ignore your own needs, don't be selfish.

I felt lost about how to run my family or my household sometimes, like I couldn't make certain decisions because it would hurt my child. I was so worried about hurting her by: weaning too soon, not letting her bedshare anymore, spanking, setting nursing limits, doing pretty much anything that made her cry (because letting/making your children cry makes you a monster, in some communities). I felt powerless.

And that's bollocks.

Parenting shouldn't feel like that. And if there's a parenting philosophy that is making you feel that way, it's probably not a good fit for you right now. If something worked when your child was young, but doesn't work now - you can stop. Right now! I'm giving you permission. If it worked for number one, but not number two? Cool, change it. Worked for numbers 1-4, but not 5? Change that too. I realized that I had put all these rules in place in my parenting, but hadn't made room for me to change my mind with experience. That's crazy! Experience will be the best teacher, always. I couldn't ignore the lessons I was learning and more frighteningly, if I stayed rigid, I realized I'd break.

I have another baby now. He hasn't ever slept a night in my bed. Sometimes I let him fuss in his pack and play, when I know he's really tired and not really hungry. He's 5 months old and we just started cloth diapering. I weaned Zuzu from night-nursing nine months ago and it's been GREAT. We've started talking about weaning after her third birthday and she seems cool with it, but even if she's not...I'm ready. And that can be a good reason to make a parenting choice too.

How to Grow a Family

Here we are, steadily into the new year, and my life feels all at once more together and much more falling apart. Aspects of our life which felt stable don't anymore, but nothing is destabilized enough to talk about it in public.

Baby sleeping in public

Growing our family is still very much on my heart. It's so much on my heart that sometimes I feel like I'm going to burst. I have a near-frantic need to talk about it. I can remember this feeling when I was pregnant; all I wanted to do was be around other mothers and talk about pregnancy, birth, newborns. I was addicted to birth stories and pregnancy forums!

Newborn Zuzu - still with her belly button clamp!

Now I have just as much of a need to communicate, but finding the community has been harder. Most of my friends have already had their second, third, or fourth children! I want to talk to parents about adding a sibling: is there an ideal timing, how likely is secondary infertility, how do you introduce the concept to your child, how do you prepare?

And adoption...adoption communities are numerous. But I have a terror that my questions are, well, rude. These are people who have grown their families this way and I am nervous that I am being insensitive or uncaring when I ask: do you cosleep with your adopted children if you already cosleep with your biological children? Are you nervous about your adopted child being jealous that you still nurse your bio child? Is it really a horrible idea to adopt out of birth order, or to have your only child's first sibling be an adopted one? Has anyone ever breastfed children they adopted, especially if they're still nursing their biological child? What if I get pregnant while I'm trying to adopt? Is that insane? How crazy exactly am I?

Basically, how much wine will it take me to get through the day? 

Just kidding - I mean gin! 

On top of all of this, my heart has really been drawn to children who are sight impaired - either blind or partially blind. So that brings a whole new set of questions. What are the best books for raising a blind child? In our increasingly technological world, how do I prepare a blind child to be self-sufficient? How do I prepare my home? How do I help younger, pre-verbal children understand that my adopted child can't see? Where do I find the blind community online?

Basically I want to know: What would adoption really look like for my family? I want to give someone all of our factors and thoughts and situations and say: am I crazy? Is this a bad idea? Talk me through this! If I had a spirit animal, I'd be begging big time for some help on this front. (what are spirit animals? and how much time do I have to spend in purgatory for mentioning them on my supposedly Catholic blog?)

I hope if I have spirit animal, it's as cute as my baby, otherwise that's just disappointing.

I want answers. I want something concrete to hold onto and say, ah yes, this is right. But I'm so terrified of all the answers that most days I just want to stay in bed and cuddle my one and only baby - the baby that I know. It's hard because now I've had a whole 15 months of knowing Zuzu - I know who she is. I know what her personality is and what she likes; I know what will calm her, what to say, what she'll eat. And the thought of adding more - however it's done, whoever they are - makes me realize it will all change, and we'll be bringing a stranger into the home. And on some level, it frightens me.

I have more empathy for those parents who choose to only have one child. I want to keep Zuzu this way forever - knowing she'll always have both her parents to devote attention and time to her, that she'll always feel cared for. Oh I know it's wouldn't be a good thing for long! Her risk of being spoiled is very very real! But I still want it on some level - to protect her, to make sure she'll never feel second fiddle to anyone. It's natural isn't it?

I think this is why I was hoping we'd get pregnant when she was very young, so I wouldn't have to look at any of these questions. I was hoping I'd be so overwhelmingly fertile that my thoughts would mostly be, "hmmm I don't think we can handle 4 under 5, so I'd better sleep in the guest room tonight." Abstinence, for our marriage, isn't the cross that lower fertility is for us - the challenge for us is having so much latitude and freedom. Really, it wouldn't very hard to be selfish with my time and my money and my fertility - if it weren't for my heart.

I long for my mother's heart to be expanded. I can't tell you why - why now, when I'm working, and Tom's working himself to death, and I can barely keep it all together as it is. I'm terrible at almost everything, and most days lately are really hard on me. So why now? What part of this stage of my life screams, ah yes add someone else to take of! I don't know. I have no logical answer. But I'm searching, I'm wondering, my heart keeps asking:

 "how do we grow our family?"

6 is the Magic Number

This blog post is brought to you by the number six!

Because the favorite number for all health professionals and advice experts is SIX.

"By six weeks, you can start sleep training" 

"At your six week post-partum check-up, you usually get the go-ahead for sex" 

"You really shouldn't take baby out into the world until they're at least six weeks old" 

"You can't drive until six weeks post-partum" 

"Babies really don't have any sort of a schedule until they're six weeks old" 

Apparently, someone turns a switch at six weeks and everything changes for the new family! They're ready to sleep train, make more babies, and drive off a cliff, maybe all at once! 

I have been trying to find info about babies before six weeks. Say, babies that are two weeks old. (cue dramatic nostalgic music: two weeks? my baby is two weeks old!?! how did this happen???) But pretty much everything  I find is some variation of grin-and-bear-it; a tacit acknowledgment that in the beginning, new parents get no sleep and everyone is fairly unhappy.

Is this true?

If so, then how do women have more babies - joyfully? If pregnancy bites, and labor is horrible, and then the first six weeks are an exhausting gauntlet, who the hell in their right mind wouldn't just adopt one year olds? Or just avoid child-bearing and rearing at all?

Zuzu hates to sleep in her bassinet at night. She apparently goes through growth spurts every 2 days, when she decides she wants to eat every hour or just nurse for two hours straight. I'm not miserable, but it's not the best experience of my life. What I keep trying to find is something - an article, book, website - that is positive about this time, that tells me that what I am doing is good, that this is an important time, and doesn't try to necessarily fix it.

Even if Zuzu believes I can fix anything...

I've heard putting her to sleep in her carseat, a co-sleeper, our bed, a bouncy swing, and her crib; in her bassinet with upright supports in case she has reflux or colic. I've heard to let her cry it out. I've heard to wait 5 minutes, or 20 or 0. I've heard to put a blanket in with her that smells like me (currently trying that one - my pillow case). I've heard swaddling and white noise and stomach sleeping, back sleeping, side sleeping.

But I have a feeling that this is the way this is supposed to be. Just like the first trimester of pregnancy is mommy bootcamp, the first several weeks are mommy intensive training. Here all those lessons that were begun so long ago we can begin to put into practice: suffering for our little one, putting our needs second, dying to self. Here we prove that we love our children not because they can be of any use to us, but because they are meant to be loved. It is at this stage that God demands, from the very beginning, we love as he loves - knowing that if infants were easier, we would perhaps not be able to be knocked from our selfish moorings, our small comforts, our precious schedules.

Zuzu loves the after-bath snuggles. 

Maybe it's this stage that tells us why a mother is the model for all Christians - because Mary didn't only bring God into the world, but she cared for him as well, cared for him while he was still an infant and incapable (in human form) of loving back.

And even if all that does change at six weeks (which someone, I highly doubt), it is still the training that we need to put up with every stage that comes afterwards. It is this time that makes us realize that we have accepted a calling that demands we are second, that our needs are second, but that our unconditional love is always the first offering to our children, and our best.

Babies as Trophies, Oh My!

In the most interesting misreading of a post I've ever seen, my friend Cam had to defend herself yesterday against an anonymous commenter who claimed Cam wanted to be pregnant just to appear more pious. This person seemed to feel that she was in a position "from a more experienced mom to a younger one" to lecture Cam about being patient while waiting for her next child.

Although her intentions were (hopefully) good, there were in her writings several problems that I often encounter myself. There are some people who think that those of us who want, but do not yet have, big families want them for the wrong reasons. That we want them to appear pious, or that we regard them as trophies or, like sacraments!, outward signs of inward graces. What I think many people forget is that, for women like Cam and I, we genuinely enjoy children. We like them. Well, yes, they can be expensive, noisy, and rather put a damper on our daily schedule, but we like them anyway. We don't like them because the Pope told us to, or because we think that we're going to impress everybody when we have them, because they make us look good - we just like them for who they are.


I was talking to my friend Jenn the other day and we agreed that for as long as we could remember, we wanted to be a mom - preferably one to a big family. Jenn asked if Tom and I would use NFP to space our children. I replied that although we would have to make the decision anew after each blessing, that from where we're standing now, we probably wouldn't. I already know that telling people that could bring a storm of criticism: that I don't know what I'm talking about because I don't have any children yet, that it's irresponsible, that it could be really emotionally and physically exhausting, that it's not a race. But I think what people who can get pregnant very easily forget is that for those of us with special problems (like PCOS), we never know when our fertility is just going to...stop. I would be so sad if Tom and I decided to abstain, and then it was 10 months because I ovulated again! The question Tom and I face everytime we chose the possibility of getting pregnant is, "are we comfortable with the idea of never getting pregnant again?" Once we have children, the question will become "have we discerned that our most recent child should be our last?"

The plain fact is that children are blessings, and being chosen to receive such a beautiful blessing is always an honor. It's natural, and good, for people to desire such blessings. Even if you don't feel that way yourself, it shouldn't surprise you that others feel that way.