i'm going to try this again...my friend jenni is taking a child development course at uc berkeley (i miss living near there!) and asked if she could interview me for a reflection paper she is writing. i tried to include these photos but was having trouble with html...
ok, now on to answer your questions:
- How did your pregnancy affect you?
Hmm…my pregnancies seem so long ago now…I could get out many, many journals from that time period and answer specifically if you want more in this area…I think overall I felt glowing, happy, healthy, pretty even…towards the end I felt somewhat fat but never reached a point where I just wanted the baby out and was “over” being pregnant…people in general were a lot nicer, more helpful, smiled at me more when I was pregnant. My hormones were all over the place and I got more emotional easily but really I think pregnancy balanced my hormones more than not, which was surprising to me.
I think I was also surprised to be pregnant even though both pregnancies were planned. I tend to be impressionable or easily believe hokey things…like a girlfriend in high school swung a needle over my hand and told me I would never have children (supposedly she did this same thing to other “moms” and it was accurate on saying “2 boys, 1 girl” or whatever that mom had…now that I’m thinking about it, this is probably the same old wives tale trick to see what sex a pregnant mom will have? So maybe it saying I wouldn’t have children just meant I wasn’t pregnant at the time?) anyway, for years I had this secret fear that I could never get pregnant or at least would never carry a healthy baby to term so I was pretty scared during the first pregnancy and a lot more relaxed during the second one. I was lucky that both were overall very easy, healthy pregnancies.
The one thing I remember the most about being pregnant is that I had more anxiety than any other time in my life. Afraid of the unknown of caring for a child, hoping the child was ok, not knowing what I’d be like as a mom, afraid of screwing up…I had anxiety dreams where I “left” the child or did ridiculous things I knew rationally in waking life I would never do. I think I was just trying to grasp how my life would change and the not knowing was driving me crazy…
- What influence did your pregnancy have on your relationship? on your mate?
I wouldn’t say my pregnancy had as much influence on my relationship or my mate as having children did. I think manuel really wanted to connect to both babies when they were inside me…we looked at drawings of the growing baby in “pregnancy week by week” and he was there for several ultrasounds and heard the heart beat, sang and talked to both babies through my tummy but he didn’t feel as connected to the babies until they were born. I would “hold” both babies throughout the day and was actually sad about giving up carrying them with me every second once they would be born (I realized how much deeper and more intimate my love for them could be once they were born but I’m just saying how I felt while I was pregnant)…manuel would probably say I was a bit more emotional and dramatic and high maintenance during pregnancy but I tend to be that way anyway, so not anything that different there…
I did get a little more obsessive about diet and tried to micro-manage my pregnancy with record keepers of what I was eating, vitamins, exercise, doctor’s appointments, writing down every little thing. I think that drove manuel crazy and he didn’t think it was necessary but it was very “me” and he wasn’t surprised or that concerned by it…
- How did your life change during pregnancy?
with my first pregnancy I was still working two jobs…waiting tables and teaching quite a bit…I was finishing a semester in northern California when manuel got a job near his parent’s home in ventura…so he moved in with them in oct 2004 about the time we found out I was pregnant…then I got a teaching job near him, moved down and two weeks after I started he got his dream job 3 hours further south in san diego (he is a public defender for the county)…so then I had to finish that semester and live alone with his parents until a few weeks before sea was born. It was somewhat challenging living with them but overall they were supportive and gave me my own space…I did enjoy taking a lot of walks along the beach there in ventura…I also attribute a lot of sea’s love for music to the 6 hours of driving (listening to a lot of music) back and forth to san diego to see manuel in those last months…
with story my life didn’t change that much…at that point I was already a stay-at-home mom and knew what to expect in a pregnancy so my anxiety was mainly about sibling rivalry and how to balance the needs of two children…
- Describe your response to the birth process itself.
SEA: I still get sad thinking of the birth of sea…I had been having increasingly high blood pressure readings near the end (probably in part the anxiety I was talking about) and two weeks to the day before my due date I went in for a routine appt whereby the dr declared I officially had “preclampsia” due to several other symptoms like my urine and blood work and they needed to admit me to the hospital and take the baby out right then. It was a Friday afternoon appointment and my hospital bags were not packed…I did have my “birth plan” all written up but of course most of that had to be thrown out the window with their plans of inducing…I guess I’m a bit of a control freak and I felt like the control had been taken away from me…I didn’t feel empowered to give birth myself…or trusted nor that I could trust my body to do what it needed to do. Really I wanted to go against medical advice and just leave and give birth naturally when my body thought it was ready. But I couldn’t take the risk of jeopardizing my daughter by doing that so I gave in (crying uncontrollably)…
Manuel arrived with all of my loony requests including relaxing music he burned onto cds…I remember as we were getting close to having sea trying to guess what song would be on or if it was some sign of whether we were having a boy or girl (we were surprised)…
The induction was pretty standard and progressed nicely…I had hoped to have a natural birth but was exhausted (emotionally mainly) and gave in to an epidural…which didn’t work, so I had to have two…by the time they wanted me to push I just wanted to sleep…because I wasn’t in any hurry to get this baby out and didn’t really think she was in distress, I “pretended” to push for an hour or so while I just relaxed…finally, as the sun was about to come up, july 23, 2005, I started pushing and as sea was coming out manuel said “she has a lot of blonde hair” and I said “no, you must be mistaken…even I, who had blonde hair as a child was born with dark hair…” and he kept arguing with me…”no, I can see her…” “how do you know she is a girl?” etc. I guess he just thought a lot of blonde hair and associated it with a girl…sure enough!
Funny part of that story…according to almost ever old wives tale I was carrying a boy…all the people at work, strangers on the street, our entire family except my dad…all thought we were having a boy…so I remember one of my first reactions was “HA! They were all wrong! I can’t wait to tell them!” and then I was torn between wanting our extended family (moms, dads and siblings) to come in right away and meet her and wanting to have alone time with just her and daddy…I think we got a little alone time before they came in…after losing my dad 10 months later I’m glad I got him involved as quickly as we did…
STORY: with story I was determined to have as “natural” of a birth as I could short of having a home birth (which at this point I would consider if we ever have a third)…I was afraid of having preclampsia again but this pregnancy went even easier with less high blood pressure. So just before my birthday (3 weeks before I was due) I started showing a lot of signs the baby was coming…effaced, dilated, carrying low, etc. I had a routine appointment on my birthday, feb. 15, 2008 (just about 2 weeks before I was due…when sea was induced) and when I told the dr. it was my birthday he said “you could have this baby tonight”…later I realized he meant to check myself in and have some pitocin or something jump start the process so I went back and clarified that though I thought it would be interesting or funny or whatever to have a baby on my birthday, I wasn’t prepared to TRY to do that…in fact in no way ever wanted to be induced if I could help it…so then he knew we were on the same page and even though he thought the baby was coming any day, story, held on until the morning of feb 27…I woke up early for me about 7 and turned to manuel in bed and said “the baby is coming today” and he kinda grumbled and tried to roll back over since I had thought that for weeks…only I was in active labor and I said “no, I’m sure this time” and I started dancing around trying to get my mind in a place to handle the contractions…I remember thinking “I don’t know how people ‘labor’ at home”…I had hoped to stay there as long as possible but had this urgent feel I just needed to get to the hospital…so I called my dr. to tell him I was coming (originally he said to check in at triage and they would let me know if I should come in and at this point I decided that wouldn’t be necessary…I was coming…) it took about an hour to eat, grab bags, say goodbye to sea (this was the hardest part for me…knowing I would never come home again to just her and knowing it was breaking her heart to be apart from me but yet being in too much pain to spend as much time processing this as I would have liked)…by the time we got to the hospital and got hooked up I was 8 centimeters dilated! Story arrived naturally (no pain meds) about 2 hours later…9 lbs 3 oz…I had painful back labor but was grateful to have nurses and manuel take turns massaging, helping me in different positions, hot showers, walking around…overall just more control over the labor the way I’d hoped…and this time I was fully awake and fully aware and able to completely experience the joy of holding story on my chest right after he was born…I remember crying with joy and not wanting to let go of those precious moments of closeness…truly I felt euphoric, a natural high that lasted for some time…
5. How did you expect to feel about the baby and its arrival and were your expectations met?
I could spend a LONG time on this question…my friend cara was asking me questions related to this. For me this really came down to my identity pre-baby and my identity newly with baby and my identity now. All VERY different, mind you…which can be either difficult to wrap your mind around or just a good thing the way one can adapt to what you need to adapt to. I have always been pretty self-sufficient, independent, hardworking, type A etc. personality…I thought I would just sort of slip a baby into this busy lifestyle and maintain my same sense of self. Wrong. I was changed almost as soon as my first baby arrived. I had even less control than I thought in some areas (sleep, colic, not knowing what to expect and having to adapt to so many different things and “figure it out”) and other areas I thought would be so difficult came naturally to me…hmmm can’t remember what these were…maybe like bathing with the baby, nursing, co-sleeping without fear of smothering her…but for me I had to wrap my mind around where I ended and the baby began. What were my needs/desires? What were hers? Could these co-exist or did I need to change my schema/values/perspective? Overall I had to change I think….but in a good way. I consider myself an “attachment parent” but not because I knew anything a bout this or did research before having a baby. Just because once I started getting into a rhythm that felt natural, I realized a lot of other parents under the AP umbrella did these same things (extended breastfeeding, cosleeping, baby wearing are the main ones that come to mind)…but I didn’t have a lot of role models for this so I had to make friends like me and find groups online and join playgroups and mommy-and-me yoga groups etc. to find my niche or other like-minded souls…which for me was important in clarifying my own values and expectations…
I feel like I’m not completely answering this question…to start, I expected to have a lot of anxiety about being a mom…and I did…I was worried I was doing it all wrong and screwing sea up already…not there for her enough, not spending enough time “being” in the moment appreciating her or just holding her or sleeping with her…worrying I should get more done, read more parenting books, e tc. And then worrying I wasn’t relaxing and enjoying those early baby days…I’m trying to think what other expectations I had…I think in a distant place I tried to push out of my head I was worried she would consume me and I would lose myself…instead I gained a richer “self” that was actually clearer for me…like I could see myself through her eyes in a way I could never see myself if that makes sense? So in some ways she helped me form an identity I had been searching for…
I guess even though I had been a work-a-holic and loved teaching and was somewhat worried about being a stay-at-home mom, I really was never a career woman afraid of giving up that aspect of myself. So the transition to being a SAHM was really more about being busy in different ways instead of going crazy at home (we got out a lot…even in the first few days after she was born)…
- Once the baby was born, how did it affect you? your mate? your relationship?
This question and its answers is a work in progress. Every age is a new stage to go through. Both for me and for manuel and for “us”…we definitely have less “us” time but I feel like we were friends for 6 years before dating and then had 7 years before marriage to travel the world and eat out and hang out and relax etc. so I don’t have regrets that we didn’t fit in enough before children. I would like our AP style to result in very secure children who will be happy to see their parents happily going out on dates and doing things with just the two of them (sea is at that point but story still breaks down when we leave him so I don’t enjoy going out too much w/o kids at this point).
I remember vividly when sea was born and manuel was driving us home and I sat in the back seat next to her and he looked at us in the rear view mirror and said something dramatic like “I feel like I’ve been replaced” and I told him I could never love anyone as much as him, it was just a different type of love and he understood and probably felt the same way…we jokingly say we love the children “too much” or so much we can’t believe it…had a friend who told us he couldn’t believe how much he loved his baby when she was born and this love grew every day and he couldn’t believe it could ever be stronger but somehow it was and I can totally relate with that.
Overall I think our relationship has suffered but we both feel so blessed and like we are growing in to our roles as a family and will regain our intimacy and alone time when story gets past this separation anxiety phase.
- What kind of prenatal education or care did you receive?
I took the classic “lamaze” type class at the hospital where I gave birth (Kaiser) and also faithfully went to all the prenatal visits (mainly just checking urine, weight, baby size)…the class was a good balance between what to expect in a hospital setting and options for being induced, pain relief, c-sections, etc. and how to try and have a natural drug free birth (my preference)…I also thought Kaiser was pretty reasonable about allowing people space to have their birth plans and preferences as much as possible in a hospital setting…I think birth is more normal than hospitals and books like “what to expect when you are expecting” make it out to be…they tend to focus on the worst case scenarios and the problems with giving birth where women have given birth naturally in so many cultures and throughout history…sometimes too much knowledge can just scare you instead of trusting the woman and her body to birth…I did take some “birthing from within” courses towards the end of my second pregnancy…lisa, a good friend of mine lead them in a one-on-one setting and it was great to talk about my fears, crazy emotions, stressors, etc. and even draw some of these out before giving birth…I would highly recommend her or this process…
- What advice would you offer to someone who is thinking about having a child?
If possible, be sure you are ready…on an intuitive level. You are never completely ready. You could always have more money, more time, more experiences, more perspective, more knowledge, etc. but just feeling you are in the right place for yourself and your family I think is key. Once you are getting ready to have a child, the best advice I can give is:
1) trust your instinct, heart…you’ll get a lot of conflicting advice and read a lot of books, etc. but you will know what is best for you and your baby and usually only when you need that knowledge
2) enjoy every stage…I missed a lot of opportunities to just hold my baby tightly, rock her, sleep with her, appreciate her colic or little whimpering sounds because I a) shared her with all the other people who wanted to hold her; b) was afraid of teaching her she needed to be rocked or something to fall asleep; c) was worried I should be doing something instead of sleeping; d) was too consumed with the problems in the present to see the bigger picture of how someday I would miss these little things about her and she would be FINE
3) have a lot of photos taken the first week your baby is born…I was too consumed to do this and the baby changes SO much in a short time…worst of all for me (the picture freak) is I frantically got a photo of every person who walked through the hospital room…each tenderly holding my baby…and none of them thought to return the favor for me. I still cry I have no real photos of myself holding sea (or really even that many of story) those first few hours and day or two in the hospital…oh, and get one of you and your husband holding the new baby, too…
4) having children is the best thing that has ever happened to me. That should tell you something!
- What were some of the myths you were told about pregnancy?
So many I can’t even remember them all…goes back to my advice to go with your heart…at some point I just started saying “ok, thanks for the suggestion” and then didn’t even record the advice in my head because I disagreed with so many people…there are so many ways to parent and so many pros and cons to each way…I think you have to weigh it all out and do what works for you…overall I say trust yourself and your body and err on reading and preparing less than you think you need to…most of my learning came from experience and just letting myself “be” in the moment with my child. I’m feeling all teary-eyed…thanks for the opportunity to let me share all of this! I ADORE my children and am so grateful I am their mommy. My life is so blessed and enriched having them…let me know if you have any other questions! And check out my blog for more of a feel for daily life…you can go back to the very first posts when I was waiting to have story and see more about pregnancy…
- from my recollection, you are a vegetarian. did you change your diet while you were pregnant?
I’ve been vegetarian my whole life so that never changed…I did become a little more obsessive about balancing enough of all the nutrients I thought I needed at different times (depending on what I was reading…a lot of it in a pregnancy journal I got that made recommendations)…of course that didn’t stop me from still having a sweet tooth and eating a lot of sugary items…I never had any particular cravings (pickles and ice cream or whatever the cliché pregnancy preferences are) but I did eat a LOT of food…took advantage of “eating for two” and felt like I was feeding my baby through the increase in calories…I was more concerned and careful with sea and with story I just ate what I felt like and tried to be healthy overall. I’m curious now how that may affect some of their food preferences…story will try many more things than sea…I was waiting tables in an Italian restaurant while I was pregnant with her and ate a lot of the same foods over and over…pizza, pasta, garlic, tomato based foods…she has a sensitivity to a lot of carbs and gets a digestive reaction to eating anything with garlic in it so I wish I’d eaten more of a variety of foods during her pregnancy…and of course less sugar for both of them since they are sugar crazed like their mommy…
- how different was your second pregnancy comparing to your 1st?
They were both very similar…I thought I was going to have another girl they were so similar. And of course everyone thought I was going to have a boy again (they were right the second time…I guess I’m just tall and long-waisted so both pregnancies I carried the baby in a similar way)…I didn’t have morning sickness with either (ok, one DAY I felt nauseous while carrying story)…I was healthy and happy and no problems overall. The only major difference was I got diagnosed with preclampsia at the end of my pregnancy with sea and didn’t have that with story. I had high blood pressures on and off with both (some of this I think was attributable to all the tomatoes I ate, some to anxiety)…I definitely had less anxiety about the pregnancy with story…I thought he would be born healthy where with sea I was worried about miscarrying, then about her being deformed or not making it after birth…with story I was just worried about sibling rivalry and how to balance the needs of two children…I had anxiety about delivery with both…the unknown for sea and also the unknown as far as going in to labor naturally with story…fear of handling the pain and wanting to do it naturally with both…the added difficulty with story was how to handle not having my dad there to meet story…I thought I’d be so depressed about it I would be distracted and unable to concentrate on the labor…wrong…pain dictated little else to occupy my mind during active labor…but I did put a photo of my dad that his secretary made into a pin that said “shalom” on it (something he said a lot to people) and pinned it to my bed…thought about him a lot afterwards…wow…long answer for starting out saying “basically the same”…I guess I meant physically I felt the same/lack of negative symptoms/healthy etc.
- how did Sea react to your 2nd pregnancy initially?
She was barely 2 when we told her she was going to have a sibling…she didn’t really “get” it for a long time. I was going to buy her a doll to “practice” what it would be like to share time with a baby, watch mommy care for the baby, etc. but when I tried to “act” this out it felt very un-real and I decided I would rather savor my time alone with her since I couldn’t fully prepare her anyway. She was ambivalent once she started to “get” she was going to have to share with someone…sometimes she would be excited and other times she would act out aggressively and hit her dollies (one time she even took her doll in the other room and hit her while I wasn’t looking…which worried me even more that she truly just wanted to hurt the baby more than she wanted attention!) then when story was born she was really upset when I first saw her in the hospital. We had never spent that long apart and I think she missed me on one level but also finally understood how MUCH she was going to have to share. I believe she kissed story upon meeting him and then hit him soon after…that’s what I mean by ambivalent…when we left the hospital she cried again and said she wanted to send him home to somebody else’s house. She cried for 30 minutes in the car outside of our home before we went inside for the first time. It was heart breaking but now she loves her “brudder” and they get along quite well!
I loved answering these questions…wanted to get all this down somewhere…thanks for helping me organize my thoughts…keep the questions coming if you have more or want clarification on anything!
No comments:
Post a Comment
leave me comments here