Z: October 2007 Archives
Dear Friends of Mommy --
We are in Ann Arbor right now because Mommy and Daddy say that Grandpa had to have something called "surgery" to fix his heart. Mommy was very worried yesterday about Grandpa, but she is better now since she got to talk to Grandpa after it was all done. Grandpa is in a special room right now with his own special nurse. The nurse told us that Grandpa was very strong and was doing very well. Mommy told me that my job was to smile at Grandpa and make him feel better, but they won't let me see Grandpa until he's not in that special room anymore. Mommy has me all dressed up in a special outfit today just because she hopes that Grandpa will get to leave that special room today.
Since I can't go in and see him yet, and I am supposed to make him smile, I told Mommy that she needed to take some pictures of me smiling so that Grandpa could have me with him all the time. Here I am this morning in my PJ's looking extra cute.
Mommy says I have a very special Grandpa and that he does some things with yarn (I know about yarn because Mommy has a lot of it in my closet still) and that this blog is sort of about yarn. If anyone out there wanted to smile along with me, I know Grandpa would like it.
Z
Z is not a baby who forgets to say thank you for special gifts. And this week she received a very special gift from a very special friend.
The very lovely hat that Z is wearing is made out of cashmere, hand dyed by Posh yarns.
But even nicer, it was hand knit by Emma, my blog neighbor and fibery trading partner extraordinaire.
It arrived this week, along with those two sweet softies, and came as a complete surprise. Z, of course, had to try it on. The hat is still a little big, Z and her mom think it will be perfect for when it really starts to get chilly.
Thank you so much, Emma! Z and I are both touched deeply by your beautiful, sweet and thoughtful gift! And we especially like the softie with the crinkly ears. Z just loves the sounds it makes -- and I like the fact that she has some nice handmade toys that don't have an iota of plastic anywhere!
Thanks to all the helpful comments from Wednesday, I finally figured out how to do a little knitting while I was nursing and May's collar is finished. Since a third picture of garter stitch collar pieces would more than even I could bear to see on my blog, I decided to opt for the cute baby picture route.
Before I get there though, I thought I'd comment a little bit about nursing.
While I was pregnant with Z, I was pretty sure I wanted to breastfeed her. I'm not a "lactivist" by any stretch of the imagination, but I am an immunologist and I know that breast milk has a lot of immunological value to newborn babies. I didn't figure it could be all that hard to breast feed a baby, after all, all of us that have 2 X chromosomes come with the same basic equipment.
Initially, I was surprised at how uncomfortable it was. It took me a while for me and Z to get a rhythm and for my anatomy to get used to doing something it had never done before. Early on, babies don't have much head control, so when you nurse, you pretty much have to support them the entire time. Even a nursing pillow can't do the whole job for you. So it can be challenging to get into a good position. And bad positioning means arm pain, back pain, etc.
But after a while, Z and I seemed to get things co-ordinated right and the discomfort mostly disappeared. I still have to deal with days that she clamps on like a pair of pliers and then proceeds to gnaw on my breast, but in general, she's gotten less aggressive. I suspect that I have also developed less sensitivity. A win win situation for me and for her.
After the physical issues subsided a bit, some of the mental issues started to become more prominent. On one hand, nursing is the ultimate act of nourishing and caring for your baby. On the other hand, you can end up feeling like you are just your baby's milk tank. I never really anticipated the stress that I would feel because I needed to feed a baby every three hours and feeding her took about 45 minutes. Or the stress of being worried that when she got hungry I might not be around to meet her needs. Its wonderful and awful to be the sole source of nutrition for my child. And on different days I swing towards one side or the other.
Which is where the knitting comes in.
When we first get up in the morning, Z gets almost my whole attention when we nurse. It's a special time in the morning. She's happy and I'm sleepy and I feel like I can just stare at her for hours. Endorphins, perhaps? Good Mommy hormones? But as the day progresses, and I'm on my 5th or 6th hour of nursing for the day, I start to feel like I'm not getting any time for me, and I feel like she's more of a burden than a joy. Yes, I know that motherhood is all about sacrifices, but it's also about balance. I want Z and I to have meaningful time together. I also want to feel like I am still a person in my own right and not just a food supply. So the compromise is that nursing time is for her to eat and for me to try to indulge in something that I might not get to do otherwise. I've gotten caught up on some of my pleasure reading, I make the occasional phone call and now I can make some stitches happen on a knitting project. And Z gets a much happier Mom -- someone who doesn't mind nursing quite as much and feels better about it because nursing means enjoying a baby and also getting a little time for myself.
The experience of nursing has made me realize why the statistics are so bad for breastfeeding in this country past the first month or so. Breastfeeding is hard work and almost no one prepares you for what it's really all about. I'm so glad I'm giving Z this kind of start, and I wouldn't want it any other way, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about giving it all up every now and again so that I could have some of my old freedom back.
But just about the time I start to think that way, Z treats me to something like this:
And I realize that that happy healthy baby in front of me is happy and healthy because of what I'm doing. It doesn't take the hard stuff away, but it definitely makes it more worthwhile and rewarding.
