Live a Hopeful, Zesty, Grateful, Loving, Curious Life

For Thanksgiving, I wrote an article over at Inner Fire about the health benefits of gratitude. While sifting through research on gratitude interventions, I came across quote that felt surprisingly inspiring and uplifting for a matter-of-fact academic article. It didn’t fit into the Inner Fire Article, so I wanted to share it here:

Consistently and robustly associated with life satisfaction were hope, zest, gratitude, love, and curiosity. [1]

A hopeful, zesty, grateful, loving, curious life—yes please! Here are some tips on cultivating some of these qualities:

Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible. -Claude T Bissell

Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible. -Claude T Bissell

For more on gratitude, please read 8 Health Benefits Of Practicing Gratitude Every Day over at Inner Fire.

[1] Nansook Park, Christopher Peterson, Martin E. P. Seligman (2004). Strengths of Character and Well-Being. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology: Vol. 23, No. 5, pp. 603-619.

Mindful Pregnancy Epilogue: The Fourth Trimester

Equinox Firestorm*

The usual narrative is usually that newborns are helpless. Growing up, I was repeatedly instructed, “Make sure to support her head!” whenever I was trusted to hold a baby. For the first three months they’re still supposed to essentially be fetuses; many people call them blobs. This was not my experience with Equinox Firestorm.

I don’t get ethereal often, so grant me this one paragraph. I’ve always found it a little woo woo when people say they’re “old souls,” but I’m going to say it about Equinox anyway: when she was born there was a wisdom, purposefulness, and fearlessness about her. As I’ve watched her develop from that newborn sage into a cute, pudgy three-month-old baby, it’s seemed as if she had to slowly forget her innate understanding of her place in the universe in order to learn how to smile, babble, and bat at her hanging toys. It’s like she’s doing the eight limbs of yoga backwards: letting go of samadhi (transcendence) so she can learn how to do asana (poses). Before she was born, I bought her a copy of, The Little Soul and The Sun, and this heartwarming children’s parable has come to my mind many times over the last twelve weeks. My hope for Equinox is that one day she will remember who she is; she is an ember with the potential to one day ignite a Firestorm.

During pregnancy, when the baby kicked strangers told me she would be a soccer player, but friends suspected she was actually doing rock-n-roll vinyasa in my belly. Turns out my friends were right: from our first days home she was already doing a perfect locust pose on Daddy’s tummy as he reclined back on the couch, and now she is weirdly comfortable resting in sphinx pose for several minutes at a time. I tried to lovingly support Equinox’s head when she was born, but she wouldn’t have any of it. Although her movements were uncoordinated at first, she’s always had control her head, and resists restraint. From day one, if she was hungry she would repeatedly thrust her gaping mouth against the chest of whomever was holding her making primal “gnar” sounds until she was lined up with a source of milk. All we could do was try to spot her. If I were to get a stick figure family for my Subaru, I’d get a mommy, a daddy, and a little tiny velociraptor.

Baby Locust

Equinox, my little yogini, doing locust pose at two weeks.

Motherly Love

The big feelings of pregnancy have nothing on the big feelings of the postpartum period. I expected to feel warm, fuzzy motherly love the moment my little one was placed on my chest. But, as I mentioned in Equinox’s birth story, that moment was completely overwhelming for me. I don’t think I began to feel a soft, glowy, buttery type of love until six weeks when she started smiling at me; before that I felt an uncomfortable psycho-stalker infatuation type of love. One of the first of many sleeping arrangements Richard and I tried was to take two-hour shifts with the baby. I didn’t sleep during my shifts even though the baby did; I just stared at her, obsessively counting her breaths. Finally I bought a meticulously-researched mesh-walled co-sleeper that sat on the center of the bed, and was finally able to rest lying face-to-face with her.

To keep my epilepsy at bay, in Equinox’s fourth week, Richard began taking the her to the guest room all night long with a bottle of expressed milk on hand so I could get a solid seven hours of sleep. However, I had been feeding the baby on demand for a several weeks and our bodies were so in sync that, despite wearing earplugs and being on the opposite side of the house, I’d wake up at the same time as she did, literally (my breasts were engorged with milk) aching to be near her. Richard made me promise to stay in my bedroom and get some much-needed sleep. I was so drawn to the baby, that most nights it took every calming pranayama and yoga nidra practice I know to keep me in bed. Some nights it took half a tissue box worth of tears. And some nights none of that was enough: before the baby woke up, I’d tiptoe into the guestroom without waking Richard just to check on Equinox. If I was gazing at her with heart-melting motherly love this would have been sweet, but it wasn’t that; I was staring at her with compulsive, overly-obsessed mama bear love.

Overly-Obsessed Mama

Overly-Obsessed Mama

The weirdest thing that happened in that first month was that every time I woke up, I would think I was holding her nestled in my arms. My visual cortex would very clearly morph a fold in the quilt in my peripheral vision into the image of her face. If I didn’t know from studying Cognitive Science that peripheral vision is almost completely fabricated by the brain, I would have thought I was going nuts (most of the rest of the time she was in my arms, so my brain made a reasonable guess). For weeks, I lived out the first verse of You Are My Sunshine every time I woke up.

Thankfully, as the post-pregnancy hormones dissipated and I settled into motherhood the craziness subsided and was replaced by the type of love they portray in Similac commercials. Her smiles bring me endless joy, and I will do the most ridiculous goofball things to get a laugh out of her (she just laughed for the first time this week *melt*).

Mommy Tummy

I thought I would be at least a little upset about my mommy tummy, but I wasn’t. I had realistic expectations, so when I still looked six months pregnant after giving birth it didn’t phase me. For the first couple days postpartum, my belly felt weirdly empty and I felt bizarre shifts as my internal organs began returning to their rightful places. When I laughed, my belly jiggled like one of those jell-o cakes a neighbor would have brought to my door had I given birth in the fifties; the appearance and sensation made me want to laugh harder, but I had to resist for the sake of my stitches down below.

With the industry built around losing baby weight, I thought it would be much harder than it actually was. I gained thirty-seven pounds during pregnancy, which is slightly above the “ideal” range. A big chunk of that was just water, which I sweated, bled, peed, cried, and lactated out quickly. Without doing any exercise, within a few weeks of giving birth, I hovered at eight pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight (which I probably needed for breastfeeding), and by three months I was back down around my pre-pregnancy weight. I don’t have a celebrity-grade, airbrushed flat stomach or anything (I never have), but I really don’t feel like I have much extra fat to lose.

That said, my abdominal muscles became weak and overstretched during pregnancy, so I started going to mommy and baby Pilates when Equinox was six weeks old. Also, my skin is a little worse for wear: I’m now sporting my fair share of stretch marks and the fading remnants of a linea nigra. During adolescence, I got stretch marks on my hips, thighs, and calves, so these new ones are just another addition to the collection, and I know from experience that they will fade. I think now I actually might be more likely to wear a bikini than I was before to make a body-positive statement that I shouldn’t have to hide my normal, healthy mommy tummy.

Postpartum Recovery

(This section may be TMI for some readers. Consider yourself warned, and skip it if you’d rather not know).

I’d always heard Cesarean births were tough to recover from, but I was not prepared for how long and frustrating the recovery from a vaginal birth would be. I think women don’t talk about this because chatting about the recovery process is unglamorous and low-priority; by the time we’re done telling postpartum guests about our unique birth story and about how our precious baby is doing it’s time for them to go home. I had no clue what I was in for.

Between the tear, catheter (I was too swollen to urinate after childbirth, and I needed another dose of fentanyl to stop sobbing, “No, please just let me try to pee on my own one more time! I can do it!” long enough for them to painfully insert a catheter), and painful varicosities (a common aftereffect of pushing), my “bottom,” as the nurses called it, was a disaster. My expectation was that it would kind of hurt to sit down for a couple days after birth, I’d bleed for a week or two, and then I’d feel all better. No. It took six weeks for the lochia (bleeding) to stop and to just be able to imagine that one day I might feel normal again down there. For the first day or two, my crotch was so sore that just getting up out of bed took several excruciating minutes and instead of walking around our hospital room, I shuffled around like an ancient mummy.

Sitting was surprisingly painful for the next two or three weeks, which made breastfeeding uncomfortable. Frustratingly, I couldn’t go from sitting to standing or vice versa while holding the baby, which made me feel helpless and dependent on others (although, why shouldn’t I have been? American culture has weirdly unrealistic expectations of new moms). What used to take two minutes in the bathroom took ten, and involved heavy-duty maxi pads, anesthetic spray, and a squeezable water bottle the hospital gave me to use a poor man’s bidet. They tell us that it’s safe for to have sex after six weeks, but for the record, “safe” doesn’t necessitate that one will be able to fathom attempting it so soon after pushing a human out of one’s body nor that it will feel good.

But, as we tell our postpartum guests if we do mention our discomfort at all, it was all worth it for my beautiful baby. And, as far as newborns go, I really do feel like I won the baby lottery. That’s not to say it’s been easy—we have all the typical newborn challenges (sometimes I can’t fathom baby care is just a normal, natural, no-big-deal thing humans have been doing since the dawn of our species), but that’s the thing: they’re typical. She’s the baby they write the books about. Harvey Karp’s Five S’s worked on her in the early weeks, she went through all the weird skin phases Baby 411 warned me about, and she hit her Wonder Weeks (i.e. the most non-wonderful weeks you can imagine) right on cue. She even speaks the Dunston Baby Language.

Postpartum Bliss

I’ve spoken with two camps of people: those who say, “Stay in the hospital for as long as they’ll let you and enjoy the ’round-the-clock care and free meals,” and those who say, “Get the hell out of that God-awful place as quickly as you can!” It turns out Richard and I fall into the latter camp. Although the midwives were wonderful and the lactation support I got was amazing, we couldn’t wait to escape being disrupted at least every two hours ’round the clock (especially since they inexplicably chose midnight as the ideal time to whisk the baby off to be weighed and measured); the cramped room alive with annoying indicator lights; and the suspiciously geometric food (although, admittedly Stoeffer’s and DiGiorno were staples in our diet for many weeks after the baby was born). Also, to protect their liability, the hospital staff was obligated to overreact to my epilepsy; At 3 a.m., one nurse took it upon herself to coerce me into interventions that I’d previously declined when I was too groggy to stand my ground. However, our first few days home were total bliss.

Throughout pregnancy I’d had debilitating hypermobility issues, but childbirth turned out to be the best chiropractic adjustment ever. I’d worked hard to build the strength to carry thirty-seven extra pounds on my hips, so my pelvic stability was better than ever when I instantly dropped a significant amount of that weight. During pregnancy, I was sure we’d bought a defective mattress for our new bed, but my first night home from the hospital I laid down sans the pile of pillows I’d needed to support my pregnant body, and it felt like I was sleeping on a wonderful, billowy cloud.

When I read stories about women who just loved being pregnant while I was waiting for Equinox, I rolled my eyes so hard because it wasn’t like that at all for me. This part of the story is going to be like that for parents with anything but the easiest of babies. If you had issues with breastfeeding or a sensitive baby (links to blogs by friends who dealt with these experiences), you may want to skip the rest of this section.

I have the type of good problems that they tell you not to confess to other parents: My breast milk fountains out so quickly and easily that it’s embarrassing to breastfeed in public: Equinox pulls off coughing loudly as milk jets uncontrollably all over her face (I did not know this was even possible). Needless to say, my clothes, sheets, furniture, and floors are all spattered with milk and my freezer is overflowing with full medela storage bags. I used to worry Equinox slept for too long of stretches, and I woke her up periodically to eat. I also used to think she was dangerously subdued (she nearly never cries inconsolably); I’ve accepted that she is just a good-natured, soothable baby.

A friend attributed her chill baby to having a chill pregnancy, and I took that to heart during my own pregnancy. So—sample size two—it’s worth taking those warm chamomile-lavender epsom salt baths if you are privileged enough to have the time and means.

My first few days at home with the baby were so joyful it was surreal. We could have been on the cover of a Hallmark card: we would take family naps with the baby in a cosleeper in the middle of the bed, and Richard and I spooning it on either side, our ankles intertwined with each other’s as if our bodies were forming a heart around the baby.

In the first week of breastfeeding, the hormones sent me into a state of euphoria. The day my milk came in, I felt like I was back on the fentanyl. Nowadays, I’ll catch up on the world news, apply filters to the daily baby photo I send to my mom, or even make a phone call while breastfeeding, but in those first couple weeks all of that just felt wrong. All I wanted to do was gaze down lovingly at the baby and marvel, Wow, she’s the most beautiful baby in the whole wide world.

Granted, the extreme highs were complemented by heavy lows. From about halfway through my first week to halfway through my third week postpartum, my “baby blues” (experienced by 70-80% of new moms) were like clockwork: I’d get inexplicably sad from about seven to nine in the evening, and cry over nothing, which was hard on both Richard and me, especially before we recognized what it was, that it was okay, and that it was temporary.

Postpartum Doula

A huge reason the first days went so smoothly was because we hired, Melitta Hoder, a postpartum doula. I cannot recommend her—and postpartum doulas in general—enough; she worked with me for nearly fifty hours over the first six weeks, and it cost less than what I paid my birth doula. She stopped by the hospital while we were there to make sure breastfeeding was going well, came over on our first night home to get us settled, and helped us get out the door with a packed diaper bag for our first pediatrician appointment (which neither Richard nor I would have even thought to bring at all). She taught me how to tie a Moby wrap, use my breast pump, and introduce a bottle without causing nipple confusion. She told me when to expect growth spurts so the all-night feeding frenzies didn’t come as a shock. When I worried about my milk supply (which I did constantly), she brought a scale to weigh Equinox before and after breastfeeding to find out exactly how much milk she was getting.

New parenthood is an incredibly sensitive, challenging, emotional time, and postpartum doulas are trained (and in Melitta’s case, experienced) in supporting this transition. My mom and sister graciously calmed the baby when she was fussy while they were in town during Equinox’s third week (not to mention that they concocted homemade granola bars and cleaned my toilets), but most visitors will thrust a baby back into his or her parents’ arms in horror the moment he or she begins to cry. Melitta let me feed the baby and have some precious bonding time with her while she was contented, then took her when she needed to be burped, soothed, or changed and urged me to go take a nap. When I woke up, the dishes had been washed, the laundry had been done, and there was a plate of apples, almond butter, boiled eggs, oatmeal cookies and cheese for me to snack on next to my breastfeeding spot. I began watching Melitta carefully to learn how she managed to care for the baby and do all of that at the same time.

Melitta was compassionate and supportive of me being where I was in my process of learning how to be a parent, but she gently and constantly lead me toward the next step. For example, while I ate lunch she would talk to the Equinox, saying, “I’m going to hold you for a bit so Mommy can eat lunch. One day, Mommy will learn to breastfeed with one hand, and you’ll both be able to eat at the same time!” I hadn’t been around enough breastfeeding mothers to know this was the next step.

Then Things Got Hard…

One of the things Melitta repeatedly warned me about was that babies get progressively fussier until six to eight weeks, and then they plateau (and maybe get better). It took at least eight weeks. Because I have what I would still consider to be an easy baby, I can say with some authority that when parents of older children tell you, “Cherish this time, you’re going to miss it,” they either think your newborn baby is a joyful, curious three-month-old who smiles and plays or they completely repressed the newborn stage. Once the initial bliss and novelty wore off for us, shit got real.

Although Equinox slept well (a couple four-hour stretches at night), we didn’t. When she was a newborn she had a repertoire of sleep sounds from humming to croaking, which made it nearly impossible to sleep in the same room as her. Then, when she had the odd segment of quiet sleep I compulsively checked her to make sure she hadn’t suffocated. Richard was less paranoid, but he started developing nervous tics from listening to the obnoxiously loud white noise the baby needed to sleep all night long. Every few nights we changed sleeping arrangements, trying to find a configuration in which everyone could sleep. There wasn’t one.

When Equinox was about a month old, she went through a phase in which she would only sleep while we were walking her around in the baby carrier. I don’t know what we would have done without Melitta coming by with knowledge and energy (which we definitely lacked after a few days of this) to teach us how to get her to nap in our Rock N’ Play (a rocking bassinet).

When Richard was heading back to work and Equinox was an alert and awake one-month-old (meaning less nap time for me when sleep deprivation is my main seizure trigger), I listened to some early signals from my body and begrudgingly went on epilepsy medication. I cried the last time I breastfed the baby without traces of the drugs in my milk (even though my doctors and lactation consultant say there’s no evidence that what I’m taking is hazardous to her). I was meticulous about prenatal nutrition, and choose to believe that made her resilient enough to handle a little bit of medicine. Going on medication was heart-wrenching at the time, but it’s improved the quality of my life and relationship with the baby so much that I have let go of much of the guilt I initially felt. Before I was on the medication, I needed the baby to sleep at certain times so I could catch up on my own sleep, and looking back over the commitments I made to my daughter reminded that this was not who I wanted to be as a mother. Months ago, I wrote:

I hold onto no disillusion that I possess you, control you, or am entitled to anything from you.

It feels good to not need anything from my little one.

I still exclusively breastfeed Equinox, and hope to continue breastfeeding her for as long as there are proven benefits. Breast milk advocates will tell you that it is a beautiful, amazing bonding experience with the baby—and it is. It is also one of the most isolating things I’ve ever done. Once the initial novelty and gaga hormones wore off, I realized I was spending a third of my day in a dimly-lit nursery with no other adults to talk to, my only company a tiny human leaching nutrients out of my body. When I started breastfeeding in public, many people avoided looking at me. I was eager to introduce bottle feeding so Richard could give me a break, but for every bottle I have to go back to my lonely glider chair and have a robot leach nutrients from my body (side note: I laughed out loud the first time I used my breast pump. It is so weird).

I am thankful I found the New Moms’ Support Group at Natural Resources in San Francisco around five weeks postpartum. Nursing alongside other mamas brought a social element and a sense of solidarity to the experience. Having a supportive community where I could vent without judgement and be reassured that it would get easier as the baby developed was relieving and helped me recharge. (Sure enough, breastfeeding sessions are now a third as long as they used to be).

A friend of mine had a baby after she’d been with her partner for ten years, and she reported that it hadn’t shaken their relationship because after all those years together they were totally in sync. Richard and I have been together for seven years, and I thought we’d be the same. Nope. Babies are warm, soft, squishy wedges that drive themselves between partners, and we had some pretty brutal fights in the first six weeks. Long before I got pregnant I read Misadventures of a Parenting Yogi by Brian Leaf, and a quote from him came back to me many times in the early days:

I don’t think couples with small children should be allowed to divorce. With no time to connect, lacking sleep, and always feeling overwhelmed parents of very small children, it seems to me, are not of sound mind to make such a life-changing decision.

Things never got that bad, but reflecting on this quote helped me keep the experience we had in perspective. As time went on, the intensity of our arguments dropped off as we relearned how to communicate and were able to spend more alone time together as Equinox’s sleep patterns became more predictable.

…Then Things Got So Much Better

For the first eight weeks I was in survival mode, and I had to really try to be present and cherish the joyful moments. At three months now, we’ve hit a sweet spot in which Equinox constantly draws me into presence, so many moments are unforgettable, and time is starting to move too quickly. Although she has her occasional regressions that have me up every hour all night, her sleep is becoming more manageable and predictable. Every morning when she opens her eyes and sees my face, she breaks into big gummy smile. When I play with her she discovers exciting new skills she integrated overnight. Sometimes she’s energetic and will let out guttural laugh when the dog licks her face. Sometimes she’s mellow and wants nothing more than to cuddle up with me all afternoon, nursing and sleeping.

My biggest challenge lately is giving her the space to explore her independence. For example, she is now learning to soothe herself to sleep, and it takes all my effort to resist swooping in at the first sign of fussiness. I thought empowering her would be my forte, but it is surprisingly hard for me. Lately I’ve found myself drawing strength from one of the commitments I made to her before she was born:

I give you enough structure for you to develop security and trust, and enough freedom to explore, express your creativity, and make your own mistakes. I allow this balance to shift as you grow and develop.

It was worth it to write these commitments down before I moved into the alternate dimension of motherhood.

Equinox is not a newborn any more, and it’s exciting, and overwhelming, and amazing, and terrifying all at the same time. Every day requires me to take another step farther outside my comfort zone, and every day I manage to meet that challenge. All the techniques I learned for childbirth (cleansing breaths, letting go of control, trusting my instincts, integrating with my partner, etc.) have turned out to apply even more to parenthood than it did to the birthing process. I’ve only practiced yoga in a studio once since I gave birth, but somehow I don’t feel like I’m missing out. I’m still practicing the eight limbs of yoga on a daily (or hourly, or minutely) basis but in a different form. If yoga class is the “practice,” then motherhood is the real thing.

13 Weeks

Equinox at thirteen weeks with Foxy. #thatdimple

*Name changed.

34 Weeks Pregnant: Commitments to my Daughter

February 9– February 15: 34 Weeks 0 Days – 34 Weeks 6 Days.

I nearly titled this post, “Commitments to my Future Daughter,” but “future” doesn’t seem to apply any more. She has grown big and strong, has visible and frequent movements, and even responds to Richard’s voice. On Monday, I read BabyCenter’s 34 Week Pregnant blurb, which included the following:

…you’ll be happy to know that babies born between 34 and 37 weeks who have no other health problems generally do fine. They may need a short stay in the neonatal nursery and may have a few short-term health issues, but in the long run, they usually do as well as full-term babies.

The message I got: I could have a perfectly healthy baby tomorrow. Woah. I cried at least six times that day. It didn’t feel like “I’m not going to be able to do this” crying or “I don’t have enough support” crying. It felt like coming into acceptance crying.

34 weeks pregnant

Bump update: I finally grew into my “I ate a seed” shirt. Everything takes more energy now. On Sunday, I went for a swim, then took Foxy to the beach, then had to have a three-hour nap.

Yogic Musings

When I did my first yoga teacher training, the instructor was against having kids. Her opinion was that our evolutionary instinct to love our kids above all others and protect them at any cost destroys our spiritual practice. Instead of seeing all beings as equal, as the same as ourselves, as one, having a child pushes us to create division, strongly differentiate between yours and mine, and to even start wars. However, at the same time, this teacher had a beautiful view on how mindful romantic relationships can actually accentuate the spiritual practice. I like to think that having children can deepen the spiritual practice in a similar way.

Before Richard and I started trying to get pregnant, I did a stream-of-consciousness journaling exercise from The Four Desires by Rod Stryker. Through this, I unearthed what parenthood meant to me and what I hoped to get out of it. Here are my thoughts (as a mother-to-be with no real experience): I believe that children crack us open, unleashing overwhelming feelings of love, connection, and protectiveness that may have been inaccessible otherwise. I believe that children awaken a power and courage within us to become the people we want our little ones to have as role models.

If we can look past the haze of fear, defensiveness, and possessiveness, I believe that our children can be our windows into the universe; we begin to see our children in other people, inciting our deep seated love, compassion, and acceptance for our children to seep out beyond the confines of our families and embrace others. Through meditation we recognize that if we truly love our children unconditionally (right down to the point that we’ve peeled away all the transitory labels and only that which we all have in common is left), we must love all beings unconditionally.

This does not mean that we don’t give our children special treatment. Our children are our little pieces of the universe to tend to, and we have a duty and responsibility (not to mention an unshakable desire) to bathe them in care, security, attention, and affection. However, when we cultivate unconditional love for all beings, we bear in mind that although we care deeply for ours and our own, they do not inherently have any more worth than others. With this insight, we raise our children to be moral, responsible, generous, socially conscious, and ecological. We hold them accountable for hurtfulness, dishonesty, and apathy, and don’t completely shelter them from feeling the consequences of their actions.

I believe that as our children age, we recognize that through raising them, we have grown just as much ourselves. As our children become more independent and require less care, attention, and protection (or start to outright shirk it), we may take the energy we have radiated toward our children and the deep-seated love they have inspired us to cultivate, and redirect them to the rest of humanity. Parenthood ignites within us a potential, fierceness, and power that we can then harness to fulfill our life’s purpose. I don’t consider raising children to be my dharma (life’s purpose)—I consider it to be part of my moksha, my spiritual development, my pathway to freedom from the internal barriers, limitations, and misconceptions that may hold me back from my dharma.

Addendum: Having children obviously isn’t the only way to find this type of spiritual development. I totally support people who choose not to have children. Also, children are my moksha, but someone else’s children may be their dharma (purpose), artha (means to achieve life’s purpose), or kama (pleasure), which is amazing. For me, it helps to be clear on how my children fit into my life when thinking about things like my career.

Commitments To My Daughter

As the birth of the baby approaches—maybe tomorrow, maybe seven weeks from now—it has become strikingly apparent that there’s a piece missing from the musings above: they are all about what I hope to get out of parenting, but speak nothing to how I aspire to serve my daughter. When people get married, they recite commitments to treat each other with honor, respect, and love. If this ritual is important in a wedding between two consenting adults, I feel it’s a paramount part of birthing a helpless, vulnerable, unconsenting being into a lifelong relationship with her parents. When Richard and I wrote our wedding commitments, we called them “affirmations” rather than “vows,” and I use the same language here. This means that some of these commitments are loftier than they’d be if I had to pinky swear that I’d get it right on my first try, but they engender who I aspire to grow into as a mother.

To My Dear Daughter,

These are my affirmations to you:

I see you, hear you, and feel you for who you truly are so I can communicate love and support in a meaningful way. (This line is from Daddy and my wedding affirmations, so I guess it’s one of our family values now). In turn, I am authentic with you so you can genuinely know me.

I protect you when you are defenseless. As you grow and develop independence, I teach you courage, assertiveness, diplomacy, compassion and self-confidence to set you up to fight your own battles. When that time of independence comes, I support you with messages of trust and empowerment, and avoid interference.

I love you even when you hurt me, hate me, or make choices I don’t agree with. However, loving you doesn’t mean I enable destructive behavior. I have the insight and courage to discern between when you need support and compassion, and when the most powerful thing I can do is to step back.

I discipline you intentionally and consciously, not out of anger, resentment, or anxiety.

I care for my own physical, emotional, and mental health so I show can show up energetic, present, and joyful for you.

I instill in you acceptance, honor, and respect for your body, and stand against messages of shame. I hope that developing a positive body image will inspire healthy choices, especially when it comes to choosing partners when you’re older. I [do my best] to give you space to experiment, to fall head-over-heels in love, and even to experience profound heartbreak. I can’t make any promises about what Daddy will make space for.

I will probably dress you in frilly dresses and oversized floral headbands for as long as you’ll let me, but beyond this I treat you with gender-neutral respect, confidence, and expectations. Just as I don’t deny you anything simply because you’re a girl, I don’t give you special privileges just because you’re a girl. I [try to] keep Daddy from spoiling you, but I suspect he wont be able to help it—you are his dream-come-true.

I trust Daddy to take care of you in every way so that you two can have a strong, healthy bond. I make space for him to share his passions and interests with you.

I give you enough structure for you to develop security and trust, and enough freedom to explore, express your creativity, and make your own mistakes. I allow this balance to shift as you grow and develop.

Although I am responsible for you and care deeply for you, I hold onto no disillusion that I possess you, control you, or am entitled to anything from you. I cherish anything you offer me—whether it’s physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual—as a gift. I set you up to achieve my best understanding of a successful life, but ultimately trust your intuition about what success means to you.

As I get to know you, I’m sure these affirmations will evolve, and I’ll probably come up with many, many more. I am so excited to hold you in my arms and to see who you become.

Love,

Mommy

Write in a way that scares you

I had this post completely written well before Monday when I normally publish, but what I wrote definitely falls into the category of writing described above. It took me a few days to muster up the courage to make the final edits and share with the world.

33 Weeks Pregnant: Dessert Decoration, Dog Deodorizing, and Dutailier

February 2 – February 8: 33 Weeks 0 Days – 33 Weeks 6 Days.

Dessert Decoration

Okay, I admit it: I secretly want to get an over-the-top professional maternity photoshoot wearing a lace maternity gown and a floral crown. I didn’t even know what a maternity sash was before accidentally finding them on Etsy, but now I can’t help wanting one of those too, to… wear around the house, I guess. I can’t really justify the cost of any of these things, but a girl can dream!

This weekend I had my San Francisco baby shower, and I’ll jump at any opportunity to make an elaborate cake. There was one particular maternity sash on Etsy that I kept ogling, so I decided to get it out of my system by making it the inspiration for my cake. Cake-decorating is one of my forms of artistic expression, and it felt great to spend several dedicated hours focused on creating something to honor the baby.

Dutailier

In another feat of not emptying my bank account into the baby industry’s pockets, I bought a beautiful Dutailier reclining glider chair and ottoman on Craigslist instead of getting one new (check that of the to-buy-used list I made a couple weeks ago). I probably didn’t spend any less than I would have on a new one, but I got much better quality for the price. When I tried out the glider chairs on display at Babies R’ Us, at least half of them no longer glided properly or felt like they were about to fall apart. The one I got is built solidly and is still in great condition. I listened to my daily birth prep hypnosis track by Rachel Yellin reclined in the nursery today, and it was lovely.

Dog Deodorizing

The big event of the week was that our dog, Foxy, got sprayed in the face by a skunk. Richard heard her yelp and immediately opened the door and called her in. She showed up at the door barely able to open her eyes, frothing at the mouth, and coughing. We were so focused on rescuing our furbaby that we didn’t put enough thought into containing the skunk odor. By the time we got her eyes rinsed with saline and her coat cleaned with a hydrogen peroxide concoction, she had dripped skunk oil through the house, shaken off in the bathroom before she was deodorized, and contaminated Richard and me so we were spreading stink around the house too. The next few days were spent deep-cleaning the house. I looked online hoping that bleach (a recommended deskunkifier) was unsafe during pregnancy so I’d get out of scrubbing the bathroom from floor to ceiling, but all I found was an article that began: “Unfortunately ladies, most products are safe to use for cleaning during pregnancy. Yes, even bleach.

Foxy listening for the baby

Foxy likes to stand out in the backyard to listen and feel for gophers underground. Before she got banned from the couch after the skunk incident, she had taken to resting her head on my belly. I like to think she knows there’s a little critter in there and she’s listening and feeling for it.

An article called, “The One Thing No One Tells You Before You Have Kids: Don’t Get a Dog,” was circulating Facebook recently. I’m hoping we have Foxy trained well enough that most of the issues recounted in the article wont be problems for us. Also, occurrences like the skunk-ocalypse 2015 make me believe more and more that having a dog is amazing preparation for having a kid. Here are ten way Foxy has trained Richard and me for children:

  1. Developing roles. Foxy forced Richard and me to work as a team to make sure she was getting all her walks, food, and other care. When we lived in the city and she needed an escort for every outdoor excursion, I, the early bird did all the morning walks, and Richard, the night owl, did all the evening walks. I’m hoping that once we introduce bottles we can develop a similar schedule with the baby.
  2. Choosing a “parenting style.” Richard tends slightly more to the “dogs should be allowed to act like dogs” side and I’m a little more in the “training a dog well gives it more freedom in the long run” camp. We a agree on most things, but we have oodles of practice reconciling the things we disagree on (and sometimes reconciling means accepting that we’re each going to do things differently). I think Richard and my philosophies on parenting will be flipped from how we feel about the dog. I’m more of the “let kids be who they are” philosophy and Richard believes in “give the kids enough structure to set them up for success.” Obviously somewhere in between is ideal, and I know from our experience with the dog that we’ll (eventually) reconcile our differences in opinion.
  3. Advocating. Foxy is allergic to poultry, of all things, which means I have to advocate for her when people try to feed her chicken and turkey. And I get a lot of backlash for it! Many people seem to think I’m an overly concerned health-nut yuppie, or that that there’s no way a dog could be allergic to meat (I don’t understand it either, but that doesn’t change reality), or that because she likes chicken it proves she’s not allergic to it. They’re not the ones who have to clean up the vomit and diarrhea for three days afterward. If my child has food allergies (or another condition that makes her sensitive to her environment), I’ll have no problem being as much of a mama bear as I need to be to make sure she doesn’t get exposed.
  4. Not freaking out about health stuff. We didn’t know Foxy had a poultry allergy at first, and she had some scary symptoms: bloody diarrhea, vomiting, not eating for three days, hives. After spending enough money on vet visits, we learned to discern between what we could watch and wait on, and what actually needed medical attention. I hope that I can maintain the same level-headedness when the baby has her first rash or first fever (or at least learn to do so by the fourth or fifth rash or fever).
  5. Dealing with poop. Before I had a dog, one of my biggest concerns about having a baby was that I wouldn’t be able to deal with the icky diapers. I’ve dealt with so much and so many different consistencies of dog poop now that I know I will have no problem with the diapers.
  6. Being okay with not being able to have nice things. I posted months ago about redoing my patio to create a succulent and beach pebble oasis. I was borderline neurotic about the stones being exactly the right color. My kitchen opens onto the patio, so I’ve started a little herb garden out there too. One of Foxy’s preferred places to poop? On my black Mexican beach pebbles! And, the other day I caught her eating my chives and licking my cilantro—remind me to wash those thoroughly before cooking with them. Honestly though, I have a feeling the baby/toddler/child/teenager is going to do much more damage than Foxy has ever done, but Foxy has at least begun to prepare me. Yet another reason to buy used instead of new where possible.
  7. Loss of freedom. Especially now that I live in the suburbs and work in the city, it takes a lot of orchestrating to make sure Foxy doesn’t get left at home for too long (and I’m definitely not installing a doggie door with the skunks around here). Scheduling around the dog has made it clearer which jobs will be sustainable when I have a baby—the job that’s a 45-minute commute either way for one hour of work isn’t going to be worth the cost of childcare.
  8. Learning to trust babysitters. Okay, this is a lie. I don’t trust dogsitters. I do have two sets of friends I can leave Foxy with and totally relax, but I’ve never ever left her at a doggie daycare or in a kennel. However, I recognize that this is something that I need to get over, especially if I ever want to work again after having kids.
  9. Maintaining our relationship. It’s easy for a dog to take over a couple’s life. For a while, all Richard and I were talking about was Foxy, Foxy, Foxy. Eventually, we instated a “no dog talk” rule that either of us could enact if we were sick of rating poop and discussing the merits of various training techniques. It was always Richard calling the rule on me, which was annoying, but it helped us find our way back to real conversations and connection. I’ve heard from many friends that a baby can completely consume your conversations as well, and I’m hoping that our experience with the dog will help us carve out some time for adult discussion (although, during the first few weeks when we’re both at home exclusively looking after the baby day and night, we may need to get some conversation starter cards…)
  10. Caring about a being so much that you do stupid, crazy things to protect it. Like letting the whole house get contaminated with skunk smell to make the dog more comfortable, or paying a premium to take her to a holistic vet (this sounds kooky, but it was actually totally worth it), or prying an aggressive dog’s maws off your furbaby with your bare hands (this was Richard, and it took several stitches to recover). I know with the baby it’s going to be that feeling of love and protectiveness on steroids! I can’t wait to experience it.
33 Weeks Pregnant

At 33 Weeks Pregnant, even my maternity clothes are getting tight!

30 Weeks Pregnant: Things I Love About My (Early) Third Trimester

January 12– January 18: 30 Weeks 0 Days – 30 Weeks 6 Days.

I think the beginning of my third trimester has been my favorite part of pregnancy so far. This may be partly because I finally started seeing a chiropractor—which providers and friends have been recommending for months—and my muscles and joints have been feeling much better than they were. Here are some other reasons I’m enjoying this stage of pregnancy:

1. I’m unmistakably pregnant, which is a prerequisite for many of the following perks.

2. People are incredibly nice and respectful. Goodbye catcalls. Hello strangers who ask genuine questions about my baby and my experience with pregnancy. Sometimes men still tell me I look great or beautiful, but it’s often at the end of a short conversation (instead of opening with “Hey gorgeous”), and doesn’t feel sexual, objectifying, or threatening. The next step for society is that we treat all women nicely and respectfully, not only the pregnant ones.

The teeny dark lining on this silver cloud is that sometimes people’s well-meaning or conversational comments are annoying. Many people’s opinions about how big pregnant women should be are informed by entertainment media, in which most women portrayed are in their second trimester. I’m not abnormally big, thanks. I’m just past the cute, photogenic stage of pregnancy that magazines like to publish.

30 Week Bump

30 week beach bump.

3. All the support I arranged months ago is kicking in. At this point my prenatal group sessions (equivalent of doctor’s appointments) meet every two weeks instead of once a month. It’s great, because it’s kind of like a support group.

We hired birth doulas (Britt Fohrman and Alexis Cohen) back in October, and we just had our first of two prenatal sessions with one of them. We didn’t talk much about our birth plans or preferences, but we discussed what Richard and I can do now to prepare mentally and physically for birth. If it’s not obvious from several of my type A blog posts, one of my challenges is letting go of control—a big barrier to natural birth. In our session, we discussed some techniques to help me practice surrendering control.

We also started our birth prep class with week, which was fun. On Britt and Alexis’ suggestion, we signed up for Rachel Yellin‘s Birth Prep Class, which focuses on relaxation, self-hypnosis, and other techniques for a achieving a natural birth (I will blog about my experience with the birth class once we’re done it in a couple weeks). Part of our homework (Or “home fun,” as Rachel calls it) is to spend a couple dedicated minutes a day bonding with and affirming our partner, which is really sweet.

4. I feel more comfortable asking for and receiving help. At no point in pregnancy has it felt great for me to do heavy lifting. Lifting is a whole-body action, and I always feel the brunt of the weight in the weakest link of the chain: the hypermobile joints in my pelvis. However, before I had a big belly I felt like I should’ve still been able to lift heavy objects, so it was harder for me to ask for help and I would often turn it down, even if it was offered.Richard has been giving me a hard time about this because doing too much manual labor inevitably leaves me complaining of aching joints and insomnia.

Maybe my aches and pains have been going on long enough that my will for independence has finally been crushed, maybe my obvious belly makes me feel entitled, maybe the conversations I’ve had about letting go of control have sunk in—in any case, I’ve been slowly accepting more and more help, especially from Richard. And, for the first time this week when the cashier at the grocery store asked if I needed help to my car, I accepted. However, I wasn’t quite ready to accept his repeated offers to help me get the groceries from my cart to the checkout conveyor belt (granted, grocery carts are deep when you’ve got a big belly in the way! P.S. So are top-loading washing machines)

5. I’m getting extra love, support and care from my partner. I don’t want to gush over my hubby too much, but I have to say I could not ask more a more dedicated partner. Day-to-day, he’s been incredibly willing to help me out physically. Although, he sometimes makes me explicitly ask for help (even if he knows I need it) so I can practice requesting what I need.

He’s also been prioritizing being present for birth-related stuff, while still attending to a career that provides for us and the baby. On Wednesday, we started the day with a two-hour meeting with our doula, he worked from home for the rest of the day, in the evening we went to a 3.5 hour birth prep class, then I drove him straight to the airport to catch a red-eye flight to New York that would land just in time for him to start work in the morning. Unlike the week-long business trips he’s taken in the past, this time he was back two days later to support me.

Our birth prep class is taught by a yogi-shaman-hypnotherapist, which is outside of Richard’s normal realm, but he was open-minded and accepting during class and has been on board with practicing techniques at home. That said, he was a little discombobulated by a questionnaire included inquiries like “What is your vision for birth?” and “What do you want your baby to feel during birth?”

6. It’s time to concretely prepare for the baby.

For me, the first trimester was rough, the second trimester involved a lot of watching and waiting, and the third trimester feels more action-packed. We’re meeting with our support team regularly, our nursery is well on its way to being assembled, and taking conscious time to bond with each other and the baby. It feels exciting that there are things to do. Here are a couple other action-items I’ve got on to do list:

  • Choose a pediatrician
  • Register ahead at the hospital (for less paperwork on the big day)
  • Figure out how to get a breast pump using my insurance
  • Buy a crib mattress (I have one all picked out, I’m just waiting until my Babies R Us reward dollars vest)
  • Complete nursery with smaller staples (e.g. nail clippers) and consumables (e.g. wipes) so we’re baby-ready
  • Pack a hospital bag
  • Write out my birth preferences
  • Keep brainstorming middle names (we agree on the first name, but the middle name is a continued issue of debate)

7. Superficial things bother me less.

I found out how mom’s start wearing mom-shoes. At this point in pregnancy, bending over to tie up my shoes is a chore and low-support shoes with slippery soles are a hazard. Frankly, supportive, slip-on shoes with grippy soles are not cute. At this point I don’t care. Today I’m wearing both compression stockings and Klogs, which I think may even be at the grandmother level of sensible attire.

Klogs and Compression Stockings

Compression stockings and Klogs. Sensible Attire Level: Grandma