I’m a Mommy Too!

last night nate fell asleep around 8pm, enabling us to have dinner, talk, watch tv, catch up on life stuff… we were worried he’d be up all night.  BUT.  he ate around 11, went back to sleep; ate around 3, went back to sleep.  he woke up early, but considering he’d been sleeping since 8pm, we were still impressed.

we kept waking up last night and wondering how he could be sleeping so well (he was in the co-sleeper most of the night).  d got him up around 6, and brought him back to bed to announce that he looked bigger than yesterday, and he’s smiling!  so that’s what he was working on all night!  he is definitely going through a growth spurt, no doubt about that.  the books say social smiling starts around 6-10 weeks, and we’re not in any rush.  right now it’s hard to tell if he’s smiling in response to us, or just playing around with his face.  either way, it’s gorgeous!  his smile looks different than i expected — i was saying to d that it looks really mischievous!  i’ll see if i can capture it on film.

i worked last weekend and sunday was really hard.  it wasn’t super busy, just really painful emotionally.  i am really good at remaining fairly detached from work and patients — although i’m very emotional in my “real life,” somehow i just feel different at work.  but this patient on sunday, he (well, his situation really) just busted right through that wall.  just heart-breaking.  i have a sense of peace about the care i provided, but it felt so heavy, and the 20 minute drive home was not enough to shake the feelings.  i hate bringing that energy into the house, but i know i can’t protect nate from it.  fear, death, grief, all of that is part of the world, and what he’ll experience.  all of it exists alongside joy, love, exhilaration, and i show/provide those things, too.  there is just this huge desire to have him know only the good stuff.

nate weighs 9 pounds 9 ounces!  actually that was a few days ago, so now he’s even bigger.  he and d had some extra challenges with feeding, so i’m proud as a peacock.  he’s spending lots more time awake, and a bit more time crying, too.  but now that he’s almost 6 weeks old, he can be soothed by things besides eating!  so i don’t feel as helpless (”here, d, he’s crying”).  nights continue to be up and down: sometimes he sleeps well and wakes only to eat, but usually we each take at least one turn getting up with him and comforting him.  occasionally he seems to refuse to sleep unless he’s being held.

nate’s favorite thing, by far, is bath time.  he and d get into the nice warm water, and he gets completely serene.  i could never tire of watching his face in there: looking around, cooing, sucking his fingers.  we dribble water over his head and he looks so peaceful!  d would shower 10 times a day if she could, and it seems like nate got that gene!  afterwards he gets bundled in his little towel and we brush his hair.  actually we’ve learned to put a diaper on him immediately. ;)

we’re gradually getting adoption stuff done.  the lawyers are almost done with the paperwork (a little behind because he surprised us early), and we learned recently that in addition to having child abuse clearance checks done (which we both do for our jobs anyway), we have to get fingerprinted by the fbi.  we’re too tired to be offended at this point (oh no, are we losing our edge?), but it’s annoying to do anything extra when you are working so hard just to function and not fall asleep at weird times.

in some ways this new life/lifestyle feels so simple.  everything revolves around nate; our priorities are decided for us.  at the same time, though, we are both pushing ourselves really hard.  d is seeing private clients, which means figuring out our schedules (we’ve never had to coordinate so much), his eating, calling on friends and family to babysit, being okay with reaching out for help.  she’s a great therapist, but she’s working with less sleep and more distraction and she’s never had to deal with fees before, which is stressful and complicated.  i’m feeling more competent at my job, but instead of finding that i can phone it in, so to speak, i am almost less settled.  i have higher expectations of myself, and others do too.  i like that about my job, but i guess i didn’t realize i would take so long to let my guard down and relax a bit.  there is always more responsibility, and new goals.  and of course there’s the issue of missing nate.  it still stings every day.

i think we are both being taken to a different level of emotion, and it’s both surprising and totally expected.  it feels so human.

we spent some really lovely time together the last couple of days.  i slept in in saturday morning and woke to d calling me from the bathroom — she and nate were in the bath together!  i had discouraged it, because i was nervous about how slippery he is and you never know… anyway, she convinced me to get in with them, and it was the most special thing ever.  nate loved the warm water, he got completely quiet and just stared around.  it was magical. 

we had a couple of friends come over saturday morning to meet the baby (and bring us bagels), then in the evening we decided to get adventurous.  some friends were going out for dinner at a place that is family friendly during the day, but at night it’s loud and trendy.  we really wanted to go, and he’s more portable now than he ever will be again.  so all three of us changed our outfits, and gave it a shot.  we figured we could always take food home, if it didn’t work out.  but as it happened, he slept through the whole thing.  the music was loud, but i think he sort of liked it because of the beat.  we had lots of fun, and i felt good that sometimes we can still do the stuff we used to do.  this morning we slept in, and then laid in bed cooing.  i turned him over for some tummy time, and it was so much fun.  he was totally focused, doing the most intense push-ups you can imagine.  he got half his body over onto his back, and a few minutes later he was all the way over.  i put him back, and he did it again.  i know this probably sounds mundane to many of you, but watching him focus that way, it was incredible.

here’s something amazing: being with nate makes me feel more present than i ever have before.  when i sit with him and we stare at each other, i feel like it’s the only thing i have to be doing, the only place i have to be.  that’s something that’s always really hard for me, to be in the moment.  but with him, every tiny moment feels… momentous?

april 24 — that makes nate a month old!  to honor the occasion, i added him to my health insurance.  as dorky as it sounds, it was really exciting.  gave them his social security number and everything.  it’s just really moving for me to think about him being on my benefits.

nate is really a good baby.  i think he cries less than lots of kids, which i feel lucky for!  when he does cry, he scares the hell out of me with that huge cry that empties his lungs, then there’s a loooooong pause before he takes a breath.  i hate it!  he loves to eat, but often falls asleep before he gets full.  then half an hour later, he’s furious that he’s still hungry!  we’re getting glimpses of his little smile, when he stumbles into one by mistake.  generally, if he’s awake and looking around and not crying, i figure he’s happy.

everyone said he would lose his hair, but so far he hasn’t.  his eyes are darker than they were when he was born, but they’re still bluish grayish, not the brown i imagined before he was born.

he loves the sling and the baby bj*rn, he seems to be growing out of one style of pacifier and into another, or just growing out of the passy thing altogether.  he loves to sit upright on our bent legs, looking at us and conducting his own invisible orchestra.  the only thing that stops the conducting is being swaddled, which works like magic.  until mama checks, double checks, and triple checks to see if he’s still breathing.

he doesn’t care if his diaper is dirty, but he hates when it’s wet.  and he doesn’t complain too much getting it changed, although the bath makes him miserable!

his favorite spot when he’s awake is his little vibrating chair, which has plush animals hanging from it.  he just stares and stares.  here he is on his one-month birthday, in said chair.

i’m so glad it’s almost over!  this election is just getting on my nerves at this point.  it’s so ugly.  but we love to vote, and it was exciting bringing nate into the booth.  here he is on his first election day.

okay, so it’s more us than him, but there are his feet!

in other news, last night was our best night’s sleep in four weeks!  he slept solidly - in his co-sleeper - from midnight until 3am, and then after eating, he went back to sleep - in his co-sleeper - until 7am.  neither of us had to get up with him, d just fed him in bed and he drifted off.  no rocking, no gliding, no swinging, no walking.  it was amazing!

this post has taken me days to write!  i’ve now had four days back at work.  i feel very lucky to work only 3 days a week; but those days are long.  i leave the house around 6:30, and i’m gone 13-14 hours.  d sends me pictures while i’m gone, and they make me laugh and cry simultaneously.

there are a couple of gay men at work, but no other lesbians i know of on our unit.  they’re all happy for me — they’re excited to see me and ask questions, they ooh and aah over the pictures.  but i can see that a lot of them don’t get it.  they don’t get that i am mom to a two week old baby, that it’s torture for me to leave his warm little body every morning and imagine him all day while i’m working.  many of them are (bio) moms, and i doubt they could imagine doing it.  i think they think i’m more like a working father, or at least the easy image of the father — sure, he loves the kid, but he doesn’t have the magnetic pull toward the child.  well, i don’t think most fathers feel that way, certainly not if they allow themselves to feel everything in them.  but as for me, i’ve worked really hard to let myself feel what is really in me.  it’s an ongoing challenge in my life, and i’ve gotten better at it!  now that i’m there, though… well, it turns out there’s a lot to feel, and it isn’t all good.

i think that sounds sort of silly.  but these first few weeks are packed with so much emotion.  we’re learning a lot about nate, and about each other, and about our friends and family.  we’re not surprised by that many things — obviously we knew we wanted to parent together.  and if anything, friends and family have surpassed our hopes and expectations.  i feel really grateful.  as for nate… i guess we didn’t know what to expect!  there’s a lot of trial and error with almost everything, it’s so intense. 

d and i decided a while back that we didn’t much care what our kids call us, and we like the creativity kids have.  we’ve heard lots of different versions of mother names that kids made up.  we know people who’ve decided what they’re going to be called, and refer to themselves that way before the baby talks (just like hetero parents).  but neither of us felt the desire to be called anything in particular (although we don’t want to be called by our first names), so we thought we’d let them feel it out.

now, though, we’re not so sure.  obviously we’re already talking to nate a lot, and it’s kind of funny saying “okay, i’m going to give you to other mommy,” stuff like that.  still, i feel a pull to let nate figure out what feels right, and i couldn’t possibly be as clever as kids are with what we’d be called.

any lesbian moms/moms to be, what are you called?  how and when did you come up with it?  does it work for you?

nate’s been sleeping 2-3 hours at a stretch, which i have to say impresses me.  he’s been going to sleep in the co-sleeper and once he wakes up, we feed him and he usually stays in the bed with us after that.  there’s also usually at least one time a night when he wakes up not wanting to eat, but not going back to sleep.  then one of us gets up and walks him, or rocks him, whatever.  last night he really wouldn’t settle — so i tried the swing for the first time!  and we were both (all three, actually) so happy.  he watched the lights for a while, then dozed off (so did i, on the floor).  he settled into a sleep so deep, i was able to pick him up and take him to the bedroom and put him back into the co-sleeper, all without waking him.  i’m sure most parents know the miracle of the swing.  but people, if you don’t have one, buy this!

this morning we slept in with him, as usual.  then i took him out for his debut!  i bundled him up a little, as it’s chilly out there.  then i put him in his sling.  i’ve wanted a baby for so long (way before it was a real plan, way before it made any sense in my life).  and this sling thing, for some reason it’s always played a key role in my baby fantasy.  so this morning, i put him in, and he fell sound asleep.  i walked strutted to the coffee shop on the corner, and then to the bookstore.  it was a strange and wonderful feeling to be the one with the baby everyone’s staring at.  a couple of people complimented me on how good i looked for having a 10 day old baby!  i had to confess that “his other mom gave birth,” but i worked on not sounding apologetic about it.  and i felt good about that wording, because it doesn’t take away from my being his mom.  it’s a positive statement, not a negative one.  mostly i just grinned like an idiot and snuggled nate.

i did have a few moments when people complimented me on how gorgeous he is, or asked how old, and i wanted to say “thank you ten days i didn’t give birth to him.”  i’m not sure why i felt that.  even in my progressive neighborhood, people assume i’ve given birth, and by walking around with such a teeny babe, i feel like i’m lying.  like i’m just letting them believe i pushed him out.  i know i shouldn’t feel that way, and i don’t want to.  it’s just another dimension to this process — dealing with other people’s assumptions, and not taking them in.  not letting them rule my relationship with nate, or my unconventional little family.

my family of origin is not conventional either, and it feels good to remind myself of that.  i come from a long line of political radicals on my mom’s side, and i know they would applaud my living the life i want.  when d and i got together, my beloved grandmother was still alive.  she wasn’t the woman she had once been, but she still had plenty of lucid moments.  i wrote her a letter to tell her that i was in a relationship with a woman – not because i couldn’t tell her in person, but because alzheimers made conversation difficult.  she was born in 1912, which would make her close to 90 when i wrote her that letter.  i think she had already met d at the time, and instantly loved her because d is tall (what can i say, we’re a short family and she was easily impressed).  the next time grandma saw us, she told me that if people gave me a hard time or didn’t accept us, “fuck ‘em.”  easy for her to say — not because she was straight, but because she lived her life that way.  i like to think i’m similar to her, but i don’t have that kick, that ability to do what i want without worrying about others’ judgments.  i think of her all the time, watching my life and nodding, “atta girl!  don’t apologize for who you are!”  when i have a moral or ethical dilemma, or even sometimes a personal one, d frequently asks me what my grandmother would do.  it’s a great compass, and often guides my actions.  the way i do it is different, but she would even love that.