March 18, 2015
I don’t unequivocally love the newborn phase, it’s so much work and exhaustion it’s hard to remember your own name. But this is an amazingly cuddly period, punctuated by the squeaks, peeps, squawks, whirs and chirps that are precursors to speech. There’s almost nothing so simultaneously heartwarming and terrifying as looking down into those almond shaped grey-black eyes of your own child. Who is clearly, by that unblinking stare, awake again.
Some things are universal
They come with teeny fingers and toes, and correspondingly bitty nails which are terrifying to cut.
Some help is essential if you’re anything like me and need 7-8 solid hours of sleep but are lucky to string together 4 hours in one-hour increments. It revives your ability to gaze at the microface with compassion and amusement as you rock the warm bundlet back to sleep at 3 am, again.
The world seems cold and cruel after the 16th diaper change and 10th hour of feeding in 23 hours.
In a month you go from having a bread loaf sized critter to a tiny person whose actual tears express astonishment and dismay at your lack of mental acuity, you heartless and negligent parent! Feed me, dammit! (How did ze turn into a teenager so quickly?)
Breast is best, the hospital chants. And they’re quite good at supporting with lactation consultants but it also supplying formula upon request if you hit a tough patch and eating hasn’t happened in too many hours. It’s a bit surprising when the delivery method (breastfeeding) gets prioritized over the actual eating. In my book: feed the baby! Worry about “how” only when you have the luxury to, not if the kid’s wasting away, 2 days old and five hours since the last feed.
Formula is expensive, running 50¢ to $1+ per ounce, depending on the sort you get. When you need at least 2oz per feeding every 2-3 hours, you’re pretty DARN motivated to breastfeed. Plus it’s good for hir. I didn’t work this hard at having hir to give up now. (Give up= quit without trying. I know plenty of people who can’t/couldn’t BF and I have all the empathy: that could have been me. But I have to give it a real try before stopping.) As with most things, it’s an exercise in loving bonding and serious pain. LB is a vengeance angry nurser. Sure, take your time figuring out that’s a hungry cry, go on. Ze will clamp down in a punishment latch like a terrier capturing prey and shaking it to death for a minute before settling into a proper one. “Well,” you’d gasp through clenched teeth “I deserved that.”
PiC is supportive, of course, buying armloads of lactation teas (confusing the hell out of the cashier at Sprouts), brewing a cuppa nonstop, refilling the water bottle, making sure I’m eating. Grimacing with empathy when Angry Latch happens.
Costs
Formula, $35
Bottles (we like glass, used for both formula and pumped milk), $22
Breast pump, covered by insurance
Recovery and healing
I don’t know how one does this but surely it should involve less pain?? At some point? But not without loads of pain meds so far.
It was a rather traumatic delivery and my body didn’t cope well with it. On that note, f*ck episiotomies and scar tissue.
PiC literally did all the heavy lifting as I’m not allowed to lift more than LB. We were incredibly grateful to dear friends and family who came to the rescue, covering baby butt patting shifts so PiC could leave us for more than four consecutive minutes. Just born and the kid was already attached to him. Poor guy. He had a newborn and basically invalid wife and we didn’t know up from down from right or left.
My will is strong but my core is weak. No wonder my back hurts so much. I’m not allowed to work out yet but strengthening the core and my arm muscles lest all the fingers in my hands dislocate are priorities one and two. I need those squeezy ball things you use for hand exercises. (Any recommendations?)
Favorite moments
Waking up to chirps rather than crying for the first time. I was so confused I thought ze had to have been crying.
Sneak attack diaper changes- when LB is in deep enough sleep to overlook the wet diaper (almost never) I try to change the diaper without waking hir. Then do a victory jig when it works.
When I think ze is done eating: eyes are closed, all movement seems to have stopped, breathing is slow and steady. Then ze opens hir eyes and looks directly at me like FOOLED YOU.
We don’t lullaby
We can’t remember the lyrics to kid’s songs so we just improvise unless an old song crops up.
Edelweiss
The Halls of Montezuma
The Heart of Texas
Once Upon a Time in China
March 11, 2015
As might be expected, the first week post-birth was a blur of sleep deprivation, oddly defined shifts of baby coverage where at least one of us would be found asleep with a happy sleeping baby snoozing away on top of us, and really strange conversations.
Bonus points if you catch all the references.
Precarious Road to Recovery
How’s your new pillow? Is it big enough? I’m not calling you fat!!
Uh. It’s fine? I think… ?
My body is broken.
Dirty diapers
Here, let me help you with that.
Jayne, this is something the Captain has to do for himself.
No, no it’s not!
No, it’s not.
[trying to fend off a screaming fit] You look SO relaxed, baby, you look SOOO relaxed.
BATGIRL!
[Me, waking from a dead sleep with baby on lap] MASSIVE POO WE HAVE A MASSIVE POO INCOMING
Crying Infants
It’s like Defcon 5. I’m not even sure if that’s how it works. The more serious Defcon.
Oh just set her down. With any luck…
Our luck? You notice anything particular about our luck these past few days? Any kind of pattern?
[frustrated] I wish I had breasts!
Oh honey, you sound like your heart is breaking. Did you pee?
Seamus, we didn’t break the baby.
Seamus, the chair isn’t ALWAYS the answer to LB’s crying.
Seamus, stop herding more responsible adults to the room to fix it. This cannot be fixed.
Nursing
You have TWO choices. Right or left. There is no other option.
Hey is the Milk Bar open yet?
The Milk Bar is open.
Child, there is no sustenance to be had from your hand. Stop eating it.
Child, Auntie isn’t lactating. You’ll get no satisfaction there.
Recordkeeping
I’m seeing a lot of poo here.
Well, you’re not wrong.
Family Integration
Mmmm… I love the smell of fresh baby in the morning.
Seamus, your sibling is fine. (Did you read the letters? READ THE LETTERS)
Seamus: *sniffs the baby’s head.*points at the rocker*
Seamus, LB doesn’t need the –
Seamus: *points at the rocker emphatically*
March 4, 2015
This post is part of Women’s Money Week.
I have countless birth announcement emails from friends. They’re all cuddling their freshly born babies, sleek hair framing a tired but smiling face (is that MAKEUP??), painted nails, even classy jewelry.
Me? If I wasn’t already flattened I’d have collapsed into a pile of jelly legged oh my GOD is that over, really? face haloed by a wild nest of hair that could substitute for Medusa’s wig. Hands clasping the new LB that had been too swollen to wear my rings for months. Elegant, not so much. But realistic.
~~~
Our whole experience was surreal. Normal people race to the hospital when they’re told to come in. Us? Panic-repack and take hours to leave the house. Our hospital bag was already 95% completed the week before but going into labor triggered a squirrel-like need to have everything. In the end we hauled enough stuff to camp for five days and barely touched any of it.
Our doctor was right, we only needed one change of clothes each. There was no time or brain or energy to shower or change daily, and no point. We weren’t getting visitors and I had nowhere to be presentable. My job was recovering/pain management and taking care of Little Bean. I lived in hospital gowns and PiC was in charge of everything I couldn’t do: making phone calls, walk-soothing LB, changing diapers, leaving the room ever.
We went in exhausted and hungry so the conditions were sub-optimal. We did have a birth plan but only stuck to maybe 10% of it. That wasn’t a bad thing, they warn that might happen, but it was a little unsettling.
I wanted to manage without an epidural because frankly a needle in the spine and holding still during contractions just sounds like a recipe for disaster but the progression of labor was 0 to 60 once things got started so that intention went out the window. Never mind, I live in enough pain daily not to need to justify myself taking any pain management as needed, so I did, and I think it’s what enabled us to make it to the end, safely.
There were lots of times we felt like we were improvising throughout the long hours in an unfamiliar place and with only each other to lean on. In the end, I still think that was a good thing. I don’t like feeling crowded or too much unsolicited input, it often gets in the way of my best decisions and work. I needed everyone but PiC to just shut up with their “encouragement” during actual labor and I hurt one person’s feelings a bit asking her to not cheerlead because it was so distracting.
After many hours of pain and work, Little Bean joined us in the outside world, rather grumpily. Little did ze know that further indignities were to come: a bath, medications, ID bracelet, the works.
~~~
Hospital Costs: delivery, $150
We have an HMO which is considered either bottom or middle tier insurance from our employer, but I was really happy with it for prenatal and labor& delivery care. This isn’t the case for everyone, I’ve heard so many bad birth stories I was rather nervous, so we’re really grateful how it all turned out.
Our copay covered a three day stay in the hospital, all my meals, a celebratory meal for PiC, and all the medication and medical supplies I or Little Bean needed. Also diapers, wipes, a few other odds and ends.
I shared most meals with PiC as it was a pain for him to leave our room often. I ordered the maximum calories allowed and supplemented with our own snacks. Our nurses brought us extra food and drink as well because it seemed like I was always hungry or thirsty at odd hours even though I hadn’t begun breastfeeding in earnest.
The staff were pretty great. The residents mainly stayed out of the way and treated us like actual people, the nurses were on top of just about everything we needed. One nurse was kind of a jerk but that was at the end of her shift so we didn’t have time to care. Despite arriving at a hospital we’d never had time to tour, we felt it was the best stay we could have asked for.
Discharge costs: meds and supplies, ~$300
Our last nurse loaded us up with all the supplies we could ask for but the projected 4-6 weeks of recovery meant we still had to get refills of everything. Damn good thing I figured out the FSA thing.
Some of the stuff that was covered:
Prescription pain meds,
Maxi pads,
cold compresses,
A donut cushion for my traumatized underside,
Topical witch hazel spray and pads.
~~~
We came home exhausted and elated, with a month of leave planned together with our newest family member, and looking forward to introducing hir to our second “baby”.
March 2, 2015
This post is part of Women’s Money Week.
SDI, FMLA, PFL, oh my!
PiC and I are eligible for protected leave in various forms after Little Bean’s birth, not all the same, and not all equal, so it was a bit of a maze figuring it all out.
PiC is entitled to six weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave under FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act), and qualifies under the birth of a child. This has to be taken within one year of birth.
His employer also pays for an amazing six weeks of parental leave to be taken during the year following the child’s birth.
I was not eligible for this but, as the child-bearer, I can take 6 weeks of partially paid, job-protected leave under CA’s SDI (state disability insurance) after birth. Pregnancy is considered a disability for this purpose and considering how you feel in the last few weeks, yeah, that’s justifiable. I could (should) also have taken off 4 weeks prior to our expected due date, and would have liked to, but I wasn’t willing to go to essentially half pay a month in advance. Chalk that up to my neuroses … if there was going to be a next time, I’d probably try to plan better so I could take that time.
Half pay was a hard pill to swallow as we stare down the barrel of childcare and various costs associated with a brand new human.
Quick Facts about FMLA
- FMLA is unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons
- You get 12 workweeks of leave in a 12-month period
- Your employer is only required to comply if they employ 50 or more employees.
Quick Facts about SDI
- You cannot apply for SDI until you have stopped earning wages. Therefore if you don’t go on leave until the last minute, you’ll have to wrangle paperwork when it’s least convenient: squalling baby, sleep fogged brain, fiddling with a state administered website. That’s one reason to go on leave earlier if you can afford it!
California now issues payments via an EDD Debit card instead of checks. I hated this until I realized this is really good for the unbanked – if you don’t have a bank account, getting a check from EDD would be another barrier to receiving much needed income.
Following his FMLA and my SDI leaves, taken concurrently, we are both eligible to take an additional six weeks of PFL (Paid Family Leave)
Quick Facts about PFL
- You can roll directly over from an SDI claim to a PFL claim.
- Covers individuals who take time off of work to care for a seriously ill child, spouse, parent, or registered domestic partner, or to bond with a new child.
- This is also partially paid at 55% for six weeks.
Because we don’t have a great plan for childcare (that is a whole other post/conversation) once our leaves are up and we don’t have much in the way of a support network, we have to be careful to take enough leave to recover from the whole ordeal of childbirth and bringing a new baby home but not so much that we’re out of luck later on if we have to deal with health problems.
We had a good first well baby visit, for which we are eternally thankful, but you never know what tomorrow may bring.
At the same time, these first weeks and months are precious. We don’t know if we’ll do this again so we are trying to be present for this experience, the good, bad, and poopy. Paid leave makes it possible to actually do that: support each other, get to know how best to care for our new family, establish new routines, and actually recover. There’s a darn good reason sleep deprivation is a torture tactic, most of us do not truly function well on the couple hours of sleep that a newborn allows!
Ultimately, I think it just makes so much more sense to have some kind of parental leave policy that gives new parents the space they need to regroup. For us, I would feel like we can return to work with a renewed sense of purpose.
For other states, have a look at Babygate.
February 11, 2015
We have a new puppy!
No, I’m kidding. No we don’t. It’s much worse than that. 😉
It was not the smoothest process ever but we’ve brought home our Little Bean, making us a family of four!
We haven’t slept a full night since. We like hir though and there are no returns so…. 😉
Seriously, ze looked very generic “baby” at birth but personality started shining through very quickly and we can tell from whom certain traits were inherited. It makes it hard to remember that ze is actually only moving reflexively and not intentionally when a hand is laid on ours or, more frequently, reaches out and smacks us across our faces. Smiles are only because of gas or a pending epic poo.
We continue to hope ze won the genetic lottery in the big things like good health, not being allergic to furry creatures, tendencies to be happier than not, and a hearty enjoyment of accomplishing things.
Family Integration: people reminded us several times to bring home something with hir smell on it so Seamus could get used to the scent and idea. We knew this but the circumstances were such that we simply couldn’t manage it so their first introduction was under some of the least auspicious conditions (or would have been with any other dog).
Ze was squeaking away in hir car seat while we loaded up the car and he went to investigate, looking at me with no little concern when he spotted hir. Oblivious, ze continued squeaking. I kept a close eye on him but, as usual, had no reason to worry. He eagerly sniffed hir from head to toe, not touching or prodding, just sniffing an inch or two away. Seamus, one of the smartest, gentlest dogs I’ve ever met, he who usually ignores tiny humans no matter how loud or aggravating, was now very interested in this critter.
90 seconds later, he nodded. Ze was family. He gave hir the tiniest, gentlest kiss I’ve ever seen from any dog, great or small, a newborn sized kiss, and has watched over hir ever since. If we’re too slow to change a diaper and/or stop the crying he wants to know the reason why. If we leave hir snugged up in hir little chair, he’s sprawled at the foot of it. I suspect no stranger will be getting past him.
He’s accepted that PiC’s not a fan of him giving hir kisses so while PiC continues to get sloppy kisses and wet willies, LB is now in the dry zone.
We’re bone tired but our little family is surviving!
I give Seamus a snuggle every day to thank him for being the best ever. This would be so much harder if the 2 of them didn’t mesh well.
February 6, 2015
FYI: Not all of these LB-related posts will be in real time.
Full body rolls. Hellboy fists (knees?). Thrilla in Manila flurries of punching, kicking and flailing. Attempts to clamber up and excavate my ribs. Probes at the belly button like it’s a skylight and exit. This child had better be an athlete directly out of the womb.
There’s possibly nothing more convincing that I have next to no true control over this pregnancy and how it progresses aside from taking care of myself as best I can, as suddenly experiencing and watching a critter moving around inside me. I haven’t been steering any ship, I haven’t actively shepherded this growth situation. I’m almost just a person with a sidecar attached. It goes where I go and eats what I eat but otherwise …
And yet all this while, LB has been baking into an actual human with tiny limbs and opinions about which way we should be oriented, or what the best thing to eat or drink is. At each check up, the doctor says, approvingly, everything appears normal and we’re “measuring exactly right” and it feels like validation but I don’t know what that really means. I expect it doesn’t matter as long as LB continues to grow and move around.
It’s continually surprising that while I’m basically living life: working, cleaning, trying to drink a lot of water, eat healthily and be a little more active than usual, there is a micro-universe in my abdominal region.
Which begs the question, where the hell have my abs gone? Not in a “where’s my six pack?” way. Or not solely that anyway, but when I sneeze, or try to sit up, which should normally activate the core muscles, there’s just this scary half clenchy feeling like my abs took off and left a gone fishing note behind. It also takes on this creepy cone shape and frightens the hell out of witnesses.
I’d been mostly lucky: I passed the 3 hour gestational diabetes test with distinction, I gained weight slowly and responsibly so my doctor quit cautioning me about rate of gain.
Then again: there were other issues. The fatigue continually compounded, constant infections that the doctor chalked up to stress, getting a cold-plague three days after getting the flu shot, then follow that up with the rash from hell.
This endeavor remains one of the toughest marathon projects I’ve ever committed to.
Still, things tick along. I get bigger and slower and more tired (how? HOW is that possible?) with every passing week and some days PiC stops in his tracks with a “whoa. You grew again.” It’s true. I did.
There’s a strange smidgen of pride that this is really happening, even if I’m not having any fun, that my broken body stepped up to the plate instead of refusing to engage. I really had no control over that, we had no idea if we’d be able to conceive given all the health issues I face. There’s also the occasional flutter of panic, born of my control for the sake of sanity personality, that things are about to undergo an upheaval the likes of which we’ve never experienced. There’s some curiosity about who this little person is and will become.
I catch myself mourning Doggle, again and again, that he’d never meet his human sibling. He loved the smell of babies and all baby things, he’d have been in heaven sniffing over all the baby gear.
There’s a strong sense of mingled anticipation and nerves as the last weeks of the pregnancy seem to fall away like autumn leaves.
January 21, 2015
Mrs. Micah briefly returns, like Godzilla from the sea with a rant. She was chatting with Revanche when Revanche ran across an article that pissed Mrs. Micah off so much she needed to respond. The piece was written by Robert Brokamp on Get Rich Slowly, “How to save for a down payment on a house fast.” Now, I’ve been out of the PF blogging “business” for a solid 4 years, but *harumphing sound* back in my day, GRS wouldn’t have published this kind of tripe (just tried tripe in pho, tripe turns out to be delicious, must come up with new metaphor).
This piece is crap from start to finish. First, let’s start with the premise. The couple got married and got pregnant pretty quickly. Either it wasn’t on purpose (accidents happen, even with birth control) or it was a “let’s see what happens.” In the latter case, this shouldn’t have been a “save fast” thing. You decide that after getting married you’ll be opening up the possibility of creating a new human? If you’re being financially responsible, you take into account all the possibilities, like needing to move.
But whether planned or not, the premise here is entirely flawed. A one-bedroom apartment is legally (in many places) too small for parents and a child, though with an infant in the crib and with everything else going smoothly, one may not have to leave instantly. Even if you can’t stay in your current place, that doesn’t mean you should instantly start house shopping.
If you’re going to start this kind of dramatic, unplanned lifestyle inflation once your kid arrives, you’re starting down a really bad financial path. Will you need a bigger car next? A preschool you can’t really afford?
Particularly awful suggestions from the list include:
1. Get help from family. This only works if you have wealthy and financially secure family. You know what I’ll inherit? I have no idea. If my dad lives another couple years max (at 70), maybe a tidy sum. If he lives another couple decades, I may have to support him. And my dad is comfortably upper-middle class…but not wealthy. Only the truly wealthy have that kind of money to safely throw around. I could ask my dad for money for a down payment, but that might well bite us all in the butt in a decade’s time.
4. Use IRAs. What. …you even admit, Brokamp, that this “almost hurts” to type. Yes, you’re absolutely allowed to take money out of various IRAs w/o penalties if you’re a first-time homebuyer. You can withdraw the money you put into a Roth because it’s post-tax. But are you going to let your lifestyle inflation choice take away from your future financial security?
5. Sell your body. Really out of left field. Unless you plan to sell your eggs (not an option if pregnant), this isn’t the kind of thing to get you big money fast. Medical testing carries inherent risks, it’s almost impossible to participate in the more lucrative tests if you’re also holding down a job (I looked into some at NIH), and…really? This is advice for someone who’s holding down two part-time jobs and finding other sources of income, not for someone getting a mortgage. Yay you got your wisdoms pulled for free, but that’s not really helping the goal here.
6. Get help from your boss. ahahahhahahahahahahahah you must be male. Heck, maybe it’s a good time to milk that male privilege for all it’s worth and take advantage of the biases men receive when starting a family. But be aware that your female colleagues are taking negative hits when they have children–in perception, in pay, in everything. This isn’t just the dozens I’ve stories I’ve heard from friends, this is study upon study backing up the stories. Start with “The Motherhood Penalty,” thanks Nicole and Maggie for that link.
Relevant reading: Have I lost my fire?
Negotiating a raise because of life decisions you made, however, strikes me as being the opposite of being a good asset to the company (although some companies will play along with it, at least for “family men”). You don’t deserve more money from your work because you chose to get married/have a baby/buy a house/etc. You deserve it because of the quality of your work.
Relevant reading: Terrible workplaces: A blast from the past
How someone could type any of these without stopping and saying “wait, do we really need to buy a house right now?” is beyond me.
What you can do:
A. Get a bigger apartment. Even if you want to buy a house, you don’t have to do it the instant the baby comes. A 2-bedroom apartment is plenty big enough for most kids. Maybe when you have a second kid or when your kid is getting older, you’ll want a bigger space, but for the first 5 years, minimum, your kid doesn’t need a big space.
(Yards are really nice as options, but a public park will do.)
B. Rent a house. If you really, really have to have a house, look into your rental market. Voila, now you have more space and a yard.
Now that you’re in a place where you’re no longer rushed? Start saving for that down-payment. Put time into planning where you want to buy.
The one decent piece of advice in the list, IMO, was:
2. Buy a fixer-upper that doesn’t need immediate fixing. When my dad downsized after my mom’s death, he sold our family house as a “fixer-upper” because he didn’t want to put in the time and money to make it good-as-new. The house had a good 25 years of family living put into it. Everything worked, but the paint was old, the linoleum scratched, and it needed maybe $30k of work to make it pristine according to realtor standards.
Once you do have the money to buy a house, that kind may be a great starter house for you and your family. If you let some of the more dramatic stuff go until the kid is older, then it’s not as much of a crisis when they draw on the walls behind your back or take safety-scissors to the carpet. But unless you get a great deal on that house, you can still hold off on buying it until you are ready.
You have at least a couple years of your child not having a clue that they’re not living in a house. Where you are, where they live, will be home. Be smart. Don’t mortgage their future buying into the habits of a society that’s drowning in debt.
