It's Been Awhile

Well, I guess it's only been a week since my last blog entry, but it feels like a very long time.

Two reasons:

1. I'm pretty busy now with this baby and with re-entering the world.

2. I find that I'm becoming pseudo-introverted, wanting to keep more private about OUR life. It's one thing to lay myself out to the world, but I want to keep my baby close and protected.

In any case, she's now 8 weeks old and still cute cute cute and I still worry worry worry that anything could ever happen to her. I suppse this is normal. She sleeps very well, but I am so hyper-alert at night that I awake every time she moves. Someone advised me today to have her sleep further from me, but I don't want that either. I really just want every minute I can to be physically as close to her as possible.

Today we were out all day together from about 10:30-4:30. We saw a breast specialist in upstate New York. I'm still having problems with the thrush but have new information of how to treat it and feel much better about it, at least emotionally. We also ran another important errand and had to spend at least an hour, probably more, in different intervals sitting in the backseat nursing before and after our errands.

Most significantly, we visited the school again. This was for several purposes... one is that I'm trying to get used to just being there again. The shock was too great last time. I was a whole different person in my old person place and it felt terribly unsettling. I need to smooth that out before my full re-entry. Also, I had a meeting with my assistant. There was some stuff in that meeting that I wasn't looking forward to and have been worrying about, but now that it's done I feel I did the best I could both in the meeting and in some things I offered to do before my return. There is still plenty of worry-material, but I'm trying very very hard to focus on action rather than thinking about where I might be doing something wrong. It's too guiltifiying and gives me a headache. I'm reminding myself that worry ruins today and doesn't help tomorrow. (I stole that from a quote but, sadly, I don't remember whose.)

I recently mentioned on here a book I borrowed, but have not yet shared the title. It's called Nursing Mother, Working Mother and it's enormously helpful. It's mostly practical information such as legal issues and how best to utilize the breastpump etc. But it also hit some emotional points that really mean a lot to me. First of all, this is one of the first texts I've read that has really respected my desires to be a mother and need to work. Usually I feel like the idea is, "Of course you'd like to be home with your baby all the time, but if you just can't..." signifying some failure or poor order of priorities. Alternatively there is the view, "Your career is important. You are important. Don't let motherhood redefine you," when in fact I feel totally different than who I was and see myself with much more weight attached to MOTHER than I ever imagined or than I attach to TEACHER. This book really believes in closeness with your child and it ASSUMES you have a good reason to go back to work, whether financial, career-oriented or what have you. So when I read this book, I don't feel like I have to continue questioning that choice.

(Before I go on, I should interject that the book very clearly states that all mothers are working mothers and that the term "working mother" tends to devalue the importance of stay-at-home parenting, but that for lack of another phrase, the author will continue to say "working mother.")

The book then says several other things that are very meaningful to me. For one, it says that mothers have ALWAYS been "working mothers." We get this idea in our heads that in a traditional culture, women stayed home with the kids while the men went out to work. But really, women were carrying enormous work burdens in addition. Today an enormous percentage of the world's farmers are women. And when these women have children, they strap them on their back or watch them play nearby. In addition, the children learn from being so close to the workplace.

What has changed in our culture and time, Pryor says, is that this is the only time in history and in any part of the world in which mothers are expected to separate from their children.

As I think of that, I really ache emotionally. I hate hate hate that that has been stolen from so many women and children. But Pryor talks about really good ways to keep that bond strong and cites studies that show children suffering no ill-effects long term as long as a good attachment is built between mother and child. Nursing is the shortest route to this attachment, but there are other ways as well.

I often think about how rushed most families seem to be. I know for myself that when I come home from work I tend to stay in overdrive until (or even past) my bedtime. I hope that that is not what I do though. Today when we got home (at around the time I suspect we will usually get home once I start work again), ND was fast asleep. So I made myself a snack and got some work done right away. But as soon as she woke up, I gave her my time. We nursed and did a Mommy Baby Exercise Routine. That was really fun. I want to try very hard to set aside time after that car nap in particular for us to be together. It will help both of us feel good, I hope.

One last thought in this very long post. I have often hoped that having a child would help me put things more in perspective. I'm a big worrier and I tend to come home feeling stressed. In many ways, having her certainly adds to the stress, but I think I was a little bit right. At least in this stage, when she's in my arms and when we're not having home-stress, the outside world is a little bit easier to make sort of melt away.