Breaking the Six Week Seal (spoiler: he didn't break)

Now that D is well into month #3 of existence (11 weeks old tomorrow!) I'm fairly certain I won't break him. But there were some milestones along the way that freaked me. Like that six week one. Did it scare anyone else?

Hitting the "six weeks old!" mark was exciting (the "don't go indoors with crowds" ban - Lifted! Grocery stores, here we come! Free! We are free from confinement! We can go anywhere!) but also a bit intimidating.

I have a stack of parenting/baby books. One or two I appreciate, some I glance at, others I ignore, but occasionally peek at to give M and I some "listen to this shit..." conversational material while we make dinner. (I'm looking at you, you sleep training tomes.) All of them seem to have a lot of sentences that start out like:

• By six weeks, your baby should (love his bath! Almost sleep though the night! Start to recognize you and this and this and that....)
• Don't worry about this until your baby is six weeks old...
• This is all fine until about the six week mark....

If the books were to be believed, there are very few ways to fuck up parenting within the first six weeks, but look out, once those cognitive lights start switching on, you better bring your A game. Are you stimulating enough? Are you paying attention to sleep patterns and starting to mold them? Are you giving in a little too easily to cries and whimpers? Ack. It was enough to get a sleep-deprived mom a little panicked.

Luckily, I have some well-read friends, who must have been sensing my (I'm looking for a better, less misogynist word than hysteria here. If you can think of it, insert it.) And links to more soothing literature started to find their way on to my phone and iPad.

I found a lot of comfort in these essays and articles. So I thought I would share the calm:

This one makes me feel better about folding the laundry and doing the dishes with D, particularly this line:

what children need to grow and develop adequately is typically provided for during everyday experiences in the context of a relationship with sensitive caregivers in the child's natural environment.

This one gives me free license to drool everywhere. Nice.

This makes me feel a little better about the little bit of breast milk I've been able to give D, even if I do decide to dump the pump (more on this later). Like so many of you have already noted, it doesn't have to be an all or nothing proposition.

And this just makes me feel better. All the time.

Thanks ladies. We made it.

A thousand and one...

....reasons why the drafts in my blogger account are still draft, why I keep meaning to pull open the computer and don't. Why I'm way behind on writing, reading, bathing....

But excuses about not blogging on your blog are boring. And unnecessary. And it really just boils down to this.

This is what I'm doing. This is how I'm feeling. This is all that's right in the world. We are at granny's house this weekend. Too hot for the beach, but not too hot to sit in the breezy shade outside. We may attempt a walk on the boardwalk once the sun sets a bit and shadows lengthen enough to offer some protection.

30 more days of leave. And I don't want to waste a drop of it. Oh June, please be the slowest month ever.

The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: A Book Review

It's back!

When I first started blogging, one of the things I looked forward to the most was the next round of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade. Hosted by Mel at Stirrup Queens, the book brigade would read books relevant to the adoption/loss/infertility community, pose questions to each other related to the text and our own experiences....basically, function as a virtual book club, minus the cookies and wine and dysfunction that sometimes come with real life book clubs, at least mine.

And here it is again. The 23rd tour of the Book Brigade. Welcome.

It may have even been through one of those discussions that I got to know Lori Holden, the author of
The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole the book featured here today.  Lori blogs at Lavender Luz, and is a dedicated advocate for open adoption and adoptee rights. She's also, quite simply, a cool ass lady that I've had the pleasure of getting to know and the honor to meet. And she has done the very hard work of turning a concept into a hard-covered reality.

The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption is an easy read. It doesn't mean its easy to read, especially if you are struggling right now with the very questions that Lori puts front and center. How does an open adoption work? How might an open adoption work for me? Where is my place here? Where do I fit? How do I know if I'm doing it right?

Because there aren't any magic answers, no secrets that Lori reveals.

But she does present a comprehensive guide. Peppered by her own experiences and those of the birth mother of her daughter, with lists of pros and cons (a lady after my own heart), with points to consider and pitfalls to avoid. I've already heard several friends on the internet exclaim, "wow. I wish this was around when I started my own journey...."

While I'm not on a journey toward open adoption, not at the moment anyway, this book hits home for me in a number of ways. As:

• An adult adoptee from a closed adoption, reunited with one of my birth parents,
• A grieving mother to twin girls I carried and who we're born premature, and
• A brand new Mother through an open gestational surrogacy using anonymous donor eggs

I tried to read Lori's book with all of those hats on. Some were easier to wear than others. Here are the questions I'll try to tackle:

Lori refers to the relationship between adoptive parents and birthparents as similar to an in-law relationship. Does thinking about the relationship as an in-law relationship influence how you approach open adoption?

Yes! In fact, it makes something abstract and perhaps a little daunting feel far more concrete for me. I had never made the connection between a relationship with in-laws and ones through adoption before.

This was just one of the many "ah ha!" moments that I had reading Open Hearted. Every one of Crystal's sections gave me a perspective I never realized before. And I also had never heard of the idea of an "as if" family (in closed adoption, attempting to match a child as closely as possible to his/her adopted family so that one could easily assume he/she had a biological connection) even though that clearly happened with me.

Lori often stresses the importance of exploring difficult emotions. Describe a time when you have been forced to explore difficult emotions related to adoption and the outcome of this exploration.

As I mention in a previous post,

Issues around identity, origin, connectedness – I think about this shit nonstop, as I am sure many, many people who have built families through nontraditional means do. I believe there is a balance between recognizing and honoring origins and finding a space of love and acceptance in a family that is not genetically yours. These things can co-exist. I believe this. I HAVE to believe this.

Now that little D is here, M and I constantly think about how to best share his origins with him (see the following question). Of course, my own adoption experiences shade my thinking. Difficult emotions for me relate to things I have discovered on my own, assumptions I made (sometimes wrongly), how I reacted towards my parents (both adopted AND first) based on those discoveries and assumptions, and coming to terms with all of that now that I am a parent myself. Gah! I was a dick. But I wasn't the only one.

I honestly think my dad never (ever) explored his own complicated emotions around adoption. If he had, he never would have said things like, "my father had 7 kids; I never had any...." in front of me and my (also adopted) brother.  I don't really know where to go with that thought other than, my gosh, it is so vital to reach into the deepest parts of your mind, pull out those thoughts and work them through before a child enters the picture. I really like how Lori emphases the option of counseling throughout the process, especially for the adopting parents to help them work through grief that may be lingering after years of infertility and possibly loss. I feel this was a step that got skipped back in the day.

Since the question asks about a specific time, I'll point to the drive home after meeting my birth father for the first time. Wow. What a range of emotions. My first thoughts weren't about him, they were on these two new amazing women in my life - my birth aunt and birth grandmother. Two women who now are among D's biggest fans. I had to stay focused on the positive because I was so utterly disappointed in the person who was the biological connector. Because he was so like my dad dad (see "as if" adoptions), so unlike the origin myth I had created with the little info I had. So, so, meh.

Worse than meh, this was a stranger acting pretty territorial about me. Me! Dear readers, I ask you, how do you think that went down?

Even before the meeting, I knew there was truth in my birth mother (now a counselor)'s words. Words she used to explain to the agency why she chose NOT to reunite with me: "these meetings are never what either person wants them to be." But I still needed to try. After the twins died, I needed to find this biological connection. I needed to grow one piece of my family to ease the pain of the other piece I had lost.

So, what was the outcome of my exploration? I had to remember that I asked for the reunion. I sought him out. Not the other way around. And he is not to blame for not being the person my imagination wanted him to be. He had to realize I was not going to jump into his arms and be the daughter he always wanted. Expectations needed to be managed for both of us. These are realizations that might have been a little easier to come to if there hadn't been a 30+ year gap between having me and getting to know me.

In the beginning of the book, Holden talks about who this books is for. She states that it includes people pursuing donor eggs, embryos, and sperm. If you know there is no way for you or your child to ever contact the donor in the future, how would you apply the concepts of open adoption to a closed situation such as this? 

This is a question I actually posed to Lori after her Huffington Post piece about donor sperm because I was wondering the same thing.

In our situation, we have an open and amazing relationship with our gestational surrogate. Connecting D with the woman who held him in her womb for us will be easy. Biological questions around the woman who anonymously gave her eggs to us to use won't be nearly as clear cut. I mean, we have the basics on paper, but sometimes, like the little girl says in the commercial, you want MORE; you want more, you just want it.

And we don't have more. 

So, I'll share with you what Lori said to me: "It is more about parenting with an open heart than about having actual info and contact." She repeats this concept  - honoring both the biography and the biology of a child - in Open Hearted a lot. It's important. It's something I've been thinking about since the beginning of our journey:

I think about beginning a process. Recently, my brother asked if I was at least going to go in search of my medical records in case we would need then for the seedlings, forgetting that their origins are also a bit unknown. To be honest, I did too for a moment.

What can I do to ease this longing? Will the seedlings have these same feelings? If they do, I will need to remember that this particular kind of curiosity and longing does not go hand in hand with rejecting the life, or family, or love that you have. It really does coexist.

And I have to remember that in the end, Gonzo doesn't run into the spaceship, into the open arms of people who share his nose, his personality, his love of cannons, people just like him. He opts to stay right where he is.

My life is here. This is my home.

**

Please return to the main post to read more opinions on Lori Holden's The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption. There are tons of great bloggers answering some very thoughtful questions. I'm looking forward to carving some time out today to see what everyone else has to say, and adding a bit more to my own answers here. 

How Fast Can I Type This Post?

Says the lady living on borrowed (aka nap) time with a baby wrapped around her chest.

People, life is good. It is so fucking good. So, no matter what I say here, just know, we are living a dream. A serious dream. And even if D kept us up all night, we will tell not a soul. He is perfect.  That's our story. We're sticking to it. Life is nothing without him.

That being said, life is different with him. Hello understatement. Here's a little sampling of our daily routine (all times are approximate):

around 5 am - the baby stirreth. Food is called for. We comply.

6:30 am - baby and me pass out right about the time M gets up for work, gets ready, sits on couch wanting to cry because that's how much he doesn't want to leave us. If we can muster it, we get up and chill with dad for a little bit. Watch TV. Drink OJ.

7:30 am - M leaves. We are left to our own devices. When I'm lucky, D passes back out for a bit more. As do I. If I'm not, we hang out. We dance. We work through the grunts and cries. A few rounds of The Gas Dance* usually does the trick. On mornings where sleep isn't happening, I've found a pretty sweet spot on Comedy Central from 9-11 am: Daily Show>Colbert>Always Sunny>South Park. That works.

9 am - 5 pm - eating, sleeping, pooping, waking, crying (not really a cry, more like a yelp. its pretty adorable...for a while). Lather, rinse, repeat. Every day there is that inevitable moment: "Holy shit. How is it noon already?"

5 pm - Daddy's home! The evening begins. We may start dinner, or entertain visitors, or better yet, visitors bringing dinner. Getting the mail these days is also a treat.  (Seeing all of these beautiful cards and boxes of treats for D makes me so grateful there are so many people celebrating his arrival. but also makes me wince at how sucky M and me have been as friends and family members these last several years. Completely checked out as far as most life events. Sigh. Sorry.) On lovely days, we go for a walk along the river together, either in the snap-n-go stroller or the wrap.

Here's my favorite part:

stranger: OMG, what an awesome baby! How old is he?
us: almost 4 weeks old.
stranger (eying me up): whoa. you look GREAT!
me: Thanks!
M (after the stranger walks away): you DO look great, but are the skinny jeans really necessary?
me: hells. yes. Daddy.

How weird is it to refer to each other as "mommy" and "daddy" all the time and to ones self in third person. Mommy's washing you! Mommy sees you! Mommy smells your pooooo.....but like most non-native speakers, pronouns and abstracts are tough for babies and referencing each other in ways they understand is apparently strongly recommended. Huh. Who knew. I just thought my dad had a weird mom complex. I mean, I'm fairly certain he did, but that's another story.

On a good day, I may also do one or more of the following:

• brush my teeth
• make the bed
• eat breakfast
• throw in a load of laundry
• write some thank you notes
• check email/blogs
• try to figure out our new high-deductible insurance, which, for the record SUUUCKS. Like, three syllable sucks. 
• pump
  

Notice, shower is off the list. Bathing is overrated. IMHO. That's what weekends are for.

And oh the pumping. That is really the thing that is most often the most undoable. Simply because when D is down, I have a list of other priorities, like feeding and clothing myself. When D is up, he is up and demands undivided attention. As he should. I mean, have you seen him? He's a-frigging-dorable.

D hasn't "taken to the breast" yet. We try at least once a day. I could probably try harder. But you know, I'm ok with it. We have plenty of us time. Plenty of skin-to-skin and kangaroo care moments. (read: I'm running around topless all the time, yo!) If he doesn't want my boob, I'm not going to force it on him. Because that feels yucky to me. It just does. I don't like pushing him to do something he doesn't want, especially when it is so intimate in nature. Plus, it stings just a bit when your baby physically pushes you away, no? I'd rather take that time and cuddle and love, and feed him with a bottle. Fine.

About 10% of D's daily intake is breast milk. The rest is formula. My pal A heard those numbers and wondered, "dude, that's not a lot. Is it really worth all that work?"

Well, fair question. And for right now,  I'm saying yes. It is. It's worth sitting in the dark for a few moments, nursing (as it were) those few drops from my breasts to give to him. Because I can. Because it's giving him a few more nutrients. A little less constipation. A little part of me. A taste for curry. A love of garlic. A craving for vegetables. Its worth it for now, even if I can't give him as much as I'd like.

So that's where we are. That's how we roll. In a snap-n-go. ;-)


*Think white-girl hybrid salsa/meringue/cha cha cha/side sway to the music provided on the Music Choice Tropicales station, which appears to be D's standing fave.

Behold, the BBB

Dmitry.  The meaning of the name is a "devoted to," "dedicated to, or "follower of Demeter" (Δημήτηρ Dēmētēr), "mother-earth", the Greek goddess of agriculture.

Demeter. Goddess of the harvest. Mother of Persephone. Mother Earth. Earth mother. Mother of a lost daughter.

Here is Dmitry.

Is it just me, or do all babies look like Brock Lesnar for the first few days of life?

In all seriousness, in a certain light, he looks just like Isa, bears a striking resemblance to Jovi, looks like his daddy, has a face and an identity all his own. All of that. Wrapped into one precious bundle that neither of us want to put down.

Except for today. I'm a little tired today.

After this post, I probably won't post too too many pictures here on the blog, because let's face it, if you are in the midst of your own journey, struggling with infertility or yet another loss, I know the last thing you want to see is someone else's smiling baby. Man, it stings. I know.

But so many of you have asked. It hardly seemed fair to you who kept the vigil with us to not have a glimpse of the end result.

The end result arrived at 9:14 pm, Monday, March 25th after me, M, L and her hubby (and L's aunt who kindly captured the day with her camera) spent the day watching P*wn Stars and L*ve It or List It marathons as we waited for the induction drugs to take effect.

The day was relatively uneventful until BBB had descended far down enough for L's doctor to safely break her water. That happened around 6 pm and from there on we watched this amazing woman put herself into a zone and prepare to deliver our baby.

Our baby.

The waiting was nearly unbearable. I could see M start to get rattled when the nurse asked us if we had ever seen a delivery before. I answered that I had, but was the one delivering...And that's when I realized how traumatic this event could potentially be for M. He was there. The first time. On the receiving end. Receiving our baby girls. Seeing their first, and some of their last breaths. Oh M.

We left the room for a bit. M cried. I let him. Then he asked for some time alone to talk with our daughters. I went back in with L and he joined us a little later. After he said the things he needed to say. 

It wasn't long until L said, "I can't NOT push anymore. I have to push." One last check of her cervix and her doc simply said, "ready when you are."

Holy shit, I see a head.

Oh my god, there's a face. Umbilical cord! Ack! (no worries, doc looped it over and around, out of the way) Shoulders!

"Ok. We're gonna push until we're done now. Go!"

Baby.

Baby!!! When his voice sounded, so did my sobs. I totally and completely failed at my assigned task, which was to start drying him off and wrapping him in warm blankets. All I could do was sob. Big ugly joyous sobs.

M was right by my side. Staring. Just staring. We waited until the cord stopped pulsing, M cut, and that little sweetness was lifted onto mommy's chest. After L looked down and said, oh, he's not so big. (says the woman who had three ten-pounders). We laughed and cried and it was seriously the most amazing moment. With amazing people. Lots and lots of hugs and hand squeezes and relief. Sweet relief. Big baby boy. You are here.

In the evening and day that followed one of the nurses kept coming by to our rooms when we were all together to see if we needed anything. After the fifth time, we were all like, seriously, we are fine. "I know, I know!" She said. "I just want to BE here. There is such an aura of blessings in this room. I just want to be around it."

Well, that about sums it up, no?

The drive home was long and filled with firsts. First road trip! First hotel room! First diaper changing in the back seat!

I so love this pic

Might as well get him started right. Right? :-) Me and M and D. We three. A road tripping team.

And now we're home.

So, what about the blog? What's going to become of the Maybe Baby blog?

Well, I write about my life. And plan to continue. My life now includes another person in it. Odds are good there will be some posts about D here. But also life and work and running and such. Sometimes starring D. Sometimes not. I understand if you need to step away for a bit if this isn't what you want to be reading right now. I get it.

If you stick around, I'm also working on some book review type posts. One on the latest book written by Lauren Sandler based on her own life and her research for Time magazine on the decision to have one and only one child. I'm half way through it with pages of scribbles. Questions for Lauren, for you, for myself. With or without infertility thrown into the conversation, there are some discussions worth having here.

And here's the problem (not really) with pumping wearing a sassy hands-free pumping bra = way too much time to shop online. Good thing that Amazon is filled with offerings from the IF community. Have you seen Lori Holden's book The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole has finally arrived?? Did you know there's a sequel to Melissa Ford's Life from Scratch called Measure Of Love? Done, and done.

So, M is back at work (boo.) Me and D, we are chilling. Pumping, eating, pooping, sleeping, reading. Getting to know one another.  It's awesome. For reals.

Where HE eats. A lot. Your feedback needed.

Oh dear readers, at long last, BBB is here.

He is healthy and beautiful and simply the most wonderful baby ever. And more details are coming soon. I promise.

But right now I need some immediate input. It's 2:30 am. BBB's appetite is voracious. its taken him less than 72 hours to chow down the milk supply it took me six weeks to produce. We are down to the last 7-8 oz of my expressed breast milk and no formula in the apartment other than the sample containers you get at the hospital that M would rather not use unless necessary (because this is what happens when you go on the Internet and start reading.)

For those of you who have had experience using formula, which did you use and why? Have any of you mixed breast milk and formula and if so, with what result? Please tell me anything you can.

Except that "breast is best." Yes. I know. I got it. I agree. But we can only do what we can, right? I am, and will continue to do so, but it will take more than me to satiate this little guy. This is becoming painfully obvious.

Doc appointment is at 10 am tomorrow, and well seek advice here too. But please, tell me. Is there any formula brand that is not the devil? Feel free to email me privately of you'd rather not name names here.

Love,
m

Where We Eat. A Lot.

JFC its cold out here. Dipping into single digits with the wind chill. No lie.

I did tell you neither of us packed coats, right?

We've got sporty little down vests. Great for long car rides. Sucky for walking icy, windy streets. We packed thinking we would be heading straight to a hospital and hanging out there for a few days. Heavy on sweats and hoodies and slip on shoes. Light on everything else. The good news is that folks are so bundled up here, its hard to tell what anyone's wearing anyway. I don't feel too terribly self conscious going out in my casual wear. Except for when M shows me up with the one button down shirt he packed. Damn him.

Better news: I finally realized we don't have to spend an extra $10 a night renting a fridge at the hotel. I did the first few nights until I realized, heywaitaminute.....the coffee in our mugs that we left in the car froze solid overnight, so why not keep my breast milk in the cooler out there too.

Oh yeah. Duh. Who brought the smart girl? It's rock solid. Solid as a rock.We'll need an ice pick to get through the ice to the actual milk.

We've bounced between 3 hotels in our week-long stay - that's what happens when you're bidding one night at a time via Priceline. Because the moment you commit for a week will be the day we get a call to pack up and go. So far, every place has been great. We're back in one of our favorites, complete with a free shuttle that will take us anywhere and shuttle drivers that have warmed to us.

"So, what brings you two to _____?"
"We're, uh, waiting for our son to be born."
"Wow! Wow! (quick glance in the rear-view mirror to make sure he didn't miss something) that is so cool. Are you guys adopting or using a surrogate or something?"
"Yep. A gestational surrogate. And this might be our last night here, it might not. So, where should we go to dinner? Where's a fabulous place to be?...."

We're getting pretty good at this conversation the more we have it. (And having some great meals.) We're waiting for our son to be born. Wow.

Most of the texts and emails from family assume we are biting every nail from our fingers and sitting on the edges of our seats at all moments. The truth is far more boring. M is dialing into his daily 9 am meeting and cursing at his computer. I'm pumping and finishing up some documents for work. We're getting bagels and coffee every morning and trying out a new place for dinner every night. We're trying to enjoy these "last moments of freedom" as the doctor described it this morning. But there comes a point when even going "out on the town" starts to feel mundane and routine. Especially when its ten degrees outside.

Especially when you'd rather be doing something else.

But we sit and we wait and we try not to think about things too much. There is only so long you can maintain an OMG OMG OMG OMG! state of mind, right?

But back to the news you want to know: we accompanied L to her doctor's appointment today. All is well. BBB is good. ETA is still set for Monday.

BBB's heartbeat is strong. And he even entertained us with a few kicks after lunch. He's still head down, butt jutting out. L says she feels great. She looks great. All healthy and aglow. This morning's appointment gave us a chance to go over some logistics.

"Can we talk about where you want us to be, and not be, in the delivery room?" I ask the doc.
"Oh yeah, that's would be great since this is a new thing for me too," He says.

We walk through the day starting from induction and how things might progress from there. Where we'll be, where he'll be, what's to be done after delivery, who gets to do what.

It all sounds pretty awesome.

So, we're here. Chilling. Literally. In search of some live trivia this evening. Because that sounds like a fun distraction.