From the Mother of a Daughter (to Mothers of Sons)

Out of the many, many people I seem to know who are either pregnant now or recently had a baby (I’m at that age in life, I guess), it seems like most of them had or are having boys. I can think of two others besides myself with baby girls. My Facebook newsfeed is just a constant stream of little blue banners and proud proclamations of “IT’S A BOY!” And let me just say again…congratulations to all of you; there is nothing wilder or more wonderful than having a baby, whether boy or girl, and I mean that with the utmost sincerity.

But I also want to say that I am a little bit envious.

And before you assume that means I don’t love my daughter, let me say that is not what I mean at all. It is because I love my little girl more than I could have ever imagined that I envy you all. Just hear me out.

You all no doubt love your sons as much as I love my daughter. But you will never have to worry that the child you love is valued less because of his sex. This might sound like a thing of the past, but no one ever questions the value of a boy. Boys can accomplish anything – there are no bars on what a man can do. He can dream of being anything and he has a much higher opportunity of attaining it. He can play sports, he can carry on the family name, he can be president, or a CEO…girls? Well, you can…dress them up? I mean girls are cute, they’re all fine and dandy – but a boy! A son or grandson! That’s really something!

No, I have not had anyone in my family say they would have preferred to have another boy (even though my extended family is on the girl-heavy side), but that fear is still there – that my girl will have to compete with the boys for love and affection, to be seen as someone who’s worth something. I feel very defensive of my girl. It honestly breaks my heart that anyone could ever think less of my child because she wasn’t born with a dangly bit between her legs. I am terrified of raising a girl, and of having to defend her.

I am terrified to bring up a girl in a world where they are still routinely undervalued and exploited. I don’t intend for this to be a feminist rant, but the fact still stands. People seem to be under the impression that masculinity and “manhood” is constantly under attack. I assure you, it is not. Take a look at who makes the money, at who is in charge of large companies and government. Heck, look at a football game. Men are the stars, the ones with the faces and the big bucks. Where are the women? They are a sideshow. I don’t mean to insult cheerleaders, but they are decorations with boobs and smiles who contribute nothing. They are something to be ogled if the camera focuses on them, for people to go “yum, look at that,” but if they weren’t there you wouldn’t even notice they were gone. I don’t ever want my daughter to be just a nameless pretty face or a sexy body or a man’s sideshow.

I am terrified of raising a girl in a world where rape and violence and even sex trafficking still happen. Maybe that’s being paranoid, but it happens – even here in the US. I am going to teach her to defend herself and to be smart, but it still upsets me that she should even have to worry about walking to her car alone at night or setting her drink down at a party. It scares me to think that if anything ever happened to her that people would say it was her fault, that she should have been smarter.

So, to all the mothers of sons out there, I have a request.

Teach your boys to be soft.

Not to be wimps. By all means, teach them to stand up for themselves and to go after their dreams.

However, it seems like there is a double-standard here. In my experience, it’s cool to like things boys are supposed to like, whether you’re a boy or a girl. If a woman is a “hard-ass,” if she likes beer and sports and cussing and working on cars, everyone applauds because she’s being a strong, independent woman. But if a guy likes traditionally “feminine” things, it’s not cool. That stuff is for girls…it’s lame. Come on.

But teach your sons to dance anyway. Teach them to understand the subtleties of colors and patterns. Teach them to appreciate art. And even if they don’t, teach them that it’s okay that others do.

Teach them what “no” means. Teach them not to just see girls as objects to be pursued. Teach them to see girls as people, as daughters and sisters and friends – whether they see them on TV or pass them on the sidewalk. Teach them to stand up for girls – not just because girls need to be protected, but so that maybe one day they won’t need to be.

In return, I promise to teach my daughter not to use her sex to manipulate or as an excuse, because I know that girls have a tendency to sometimes do that. I want her to be genuinely independent, to be able to do things on her own and not just get a boy to do them for her. But I need her to have that chance to be independent.

Mothers of sons, you have a chance to change the world, to make this mother of a daughter worry a little less.

 

 

Things I Was NOT Expecting When I Was Expecting

The small one is here!

 

In fact, she’s already one month old, which actually makes me a little sad (I still love her being so small). I am as terrible as ever about updating this blog, but I did have a few observations that I wanted to record while the memories are still fresh; namely, the things about labor/delivery and the first few weeks postpartum that no one told me. I know there are millions of lists like this out there, but none of them seemed to cover any of this.

 

1.      Exhaustion: Forget pain during labor; what got to me was the exhaustion. Everyone mainly seems to focus on getting through the pain of contractions (which, yes, were horrible), but no one really communicated how absolutely draining it was. My goal was to have an entirely natural birth; that flew completely out the window. After 22 hours I was still only five centimeters dilated. At that point I completely broke down and asked for the epidural. All I wanted was sleep. After every contraction I felt like I had run a marathon; the pain didn’t even matter as much next to how tired I was. I honestly wish someone had told me to just take a Benadryl or something the night before and sleep before the contractions really got strong.

2.      Epidurals: Don’t get me wrong – after being in labor for so long, the epidural going into effect was like sinking into a beautiful, fluffy cloud. Actually getting the epidural, though, was less enjoyable. Since my contractions were already around two minutes apart (some even closer), it inevitably meant that they had to stab me with needles while I was already in pain. Even after the initial numbing injection, I could still feel the epidural needle going in, so I needed more numbing. Nor did the epidural work uniformly. No matter how much medicine I received or how they turned me, my left butt cheek remained completely unaffected, so every contraction felt like a charley horse in my bum. Also, even though the small one was born at 11:30 at night, I couldn’t use my legs until the next afternoon. At first I had to have a catheter; then a nurse had to help me use the bathroom. And for several days I couldn’t even tell I needed to use the bathroom. It would just occur to me that I hadn’t peed in several hours, so someone would help me hobble to the restroom, and I would be shocked that I hadn’t exploded already from all the liquid. Finally, my lower back hurt for days, making it a struggle to even sit up or get out of bed on my own (yes, it hurt that bad). I really wish someone had more strongly conveyed how difficult recovery becomes after an epidural

3.      The Pads: I was hilariously surprised by the huge pads the hospital provided. These things were approximately the size of a hand towel; it was like having a small throw pillow stuffed in my underwear. My sexy, sexy disposable hospital underwear. On a related note, no one told me not to bring yoga pants to wear home from the hospital. It doesn’t matter how comfy and stretchy they are – you are not going to want to put those things on over your diaper and your weird, deformed tummy.

4.      My Body: even knowing that it takes several weeks for the uterus to shrink back to its original size, I was still unprepared to see my post-partum body. Or feel it. My stomach was still poochy, but in a sad, shriveled way. It was like a balloon that was slowly deflating, complete with the odd wrinkly lumps. And it felt stranger than it looked. After walking around with a beach ball stomach for so long, I felt weird and empty, like my insides were just kind of hanging there. And I was so used to compensating for that big belly that I didn’t really know how to walk anymore without it; I was sort of hunched over and shuffling around (of course, the backache and numb legs didn’t help). Someone could have mentioned how bizarre and uncomfortable it is to NOT be pregnant anymore!

5.      Stitches: I ended up needing an episiotomy, which was probably the hardest thing to recover from. Stitches…down there…are literally a pain in the ass. For several days they burned horribly, and they continued to feel tender and bruised after that. And going to the bathroom became a huge production. For about two weeks I needed my peri bottle to use while peeing, a hair dryer to gently dry my nether regions (I found the stitches hurt worse when it was too damp down there), and a can of Dermoplast to spray on afterward. And don’t even get me started on taking care of more serious bathroom business…

6.      Cluster Feedings: the nurse mentioned that the second night the baby would probably want to “cluster feed,” i.e. eat several times close together. I assumed that meant around an hour apart or so – not every few minutes. Michael and I were completely bewildered when she would eat, then fall asleep, then start screaming 3 minutes later. We thought surely she couldn’t be hungry again already. Surprise – she was.

7.      The Medical Attention: I could not even begin to guess how many nurses, doctors, and other medical staff were going in and out of our room at all hours. People taking my vital signs; people taking the baby’s vital signs; people bringing paperwork; people running tests…Since the small one was born in the middle of the night, a lot of her testing was done at similarly odd hours. I’m pretty sure I only slept a few hours out of the 48+ we stayed in the hospital.

8.      My emotions: I was not prepared for the emotions I felt after Aislin was born. I thought I would be emotional; everyone had told me that. I was prepared to cry at deodorant commercials. I was not prepared to not feel an immediate bond with my baby. I still feel guilty even writing this, and I certainly didn’t tell anyone at the time…but I had played out in my head over and over how I would react when I held my small one for the first time. I had expected to feel this wave of overwhelming love that would bring me to tears as they laid her on my chest. In reality, I felt numb. I held her close and stroked her skin and tried to keep her warm, but it was almost out of a sense of duty. I did feel anxious when they took her to the other side of the room to weigh her and run tests and whatnot; but for several days I didn’t feel that strong maternal bond I had been expecting. It wasn’t until a few days after we were home that I really started to have warm, fuzzy feelings toward my little girl. I had to get through a range of emotions first. First, I was afraid for her, and I even pitied her a little bit. She was so small and helpless – it seemed like even a breeze would just snuff her out. And I was worried about someone taking her away. I realized: I am her mother. God gave her to me; no one could take care of her better than I could. It was that realization that moved me from loving the idea of her to loving her as a person. Now I honestly can’t imagine life without her, nor do I want to.

 

I cannot believe how in love I am with this tiny creature.

 

 

On the second trimester...

Well, second trimester, you have not been what I thought you would be.

With only 2 days (!!!) left until I enter the third trimester, I figured it was about time I write on here again. Apparently I really suck at blogging.

Everyone and their mom promised that the second trimester was the best, easiest part of pregnancy. Maybe everyone else just had terrible first trimesters to compare to. My first trimester was easy - I never got sick (besides one or two very brief bouts of mild nausea that were easily cured with a cup of gingerbread tea), and while I did get pretty tired, that was about all. But second trimester I was supposed to get a whole new burst of energy. This was supposed to be the stage where I was just glowing. And the sex was supposed to be fantastic.

Yeah, I never got that burst of energy. I have been dragging this whole time. Working, going to school, and lugging around the small one has been really draining. Of course, anemia could also be to blame for that. I suspected I was iron deficient the whole time, since I was already borderline anemic when they drew my blood at our first appointment, but they confirmed it a few weeks ago and suggested I start taking iron supplements. So now, some - ahem - other systems are out of whack. So on top of being exhausted and having a great big bebe belly, I feel, well, gross.

And my libido never came back. If anything, sex sounds completely unappetizing. It's painful at best and strange at worst. I think about it, and then the baby kicks, and I'm just like...no. That's too bizarre. Sorry, Michael, maybe we can try again in like, 6 months. Right now I could use a shoulder rub though?

Oh, and know what else? Everyone said your mood "stabilizes" during the second trimester. Whatever that means. Besides being weepy in the first trimester, I don't think I was really all that ridiculous. If anything, it's gotten worse in the second trimester. I've been pretty depressed the last few weeks. Normally, not being a social butterfly doesn't really get to me. I can be alone...I usually relish it. But sometimes, when I go to work and see all these little groups of best friends that have formed, or see my husband talking to his best friends every waking moment, I wish I had more people to talk to. Or when I'm freaking out about money (because we have none), or about the baby's health or my health, or heck even just HAVING the baby, (a few incidents in the last few weeks brought up those last two fears), it would be nice to have someone to talk to. I mean, I text my mom all the time, but all the same...there's no one here that I get to see. Sometimes I want to just hang out with someone and get coffee or go shopping. I don't want to go do the baby registry by myself! Someone? Please?

I guess the second trimester hasn't been all bad, though. We got to find out that we're having a beautiful baby girl, so now I can call her by name instead of just saying "the small one" (though I do still say that too). I can feel her kicking all the time. And I've recently started to notice when she gets hiccups too. When she starts doing that I usually stop whatever I'm doing, smile, and poke her back a little bit if it was a big kick, or just put my hand on my tummy and feel. And whenever I lie down in bed, I can pull back the covers and watch her just jumping around in there.

There is no way she's not going to be a dancer...she's already practicing her trebles, leaps, and clicks. Everyone keeps asking me: what if she doesn't want to be a dancer? What if she wants to play soccer? She's my child. As soon she hears the Irish music she will want to dance.

Speaking of which, I have definitely come to terms with having a girl. I was disappointed at first...maybe because I was wrong, maybe because I had this vision in my head of how our life was going to be. I've already established though that nothing has gone according to this vague plan in my head. Anyway, now I'm excited to have a girl. And I think it will be good for Michael to get in touch with his feminine side. Maybe he'll learn to be more sensitive. Maybe he'll start reading things about being a father of daughters when I ask him to. Maybe he's still in denial. Although admittedly he's starting talking about an arranged marriage between Aislin and his best friend's 4-month old baby boy. There is no way in hell that's going to happen.

Then again, I make all these plans and...*sigh.*
God is probably laughing at me right now.

It's a Girl!

So finally, at 22 weeks and two days, we got to find out what we're having!

It's a baby.

More specifically, it's a baby girl!

I was very shocked, to say the least. Ever since I saw that little plus sign I've assumed it was a boy. Maybe because that was just our plan. We were planning on having a boy, and then a girl, then twin boy and girl (because that's definitely something we can control, right?) Then again, we were also planning on living on several acres of property in a custom-built house before having kids. And here we are living in an overpriced two bedroom apartment, scrambling to figure out how we're going to juggle school, work, and a baby. I guess life doesn't really follow a plan, though. Maybe for all those perfect people out there with their perfect plans. Maybe ours are more idle dreams than plans.

I'm also ashamed to admit that I cried when we popped that balloon and all the pink confetti came out. Our friend planned a gender reveal party for us, and floating amid all the pink and blue balloons around the room was a giant green balloon (for St. Patrick's day, since we want to give our kids all Irish names) that would reveal if it would be a boy or girl. For an hour and a half I had to try not to look at it because the balloon wasn't entirely opaque and I didn't want the surprise to be ruined. I was also terrified that I was going to be wrong. I've been telling people that I feel like it's a boy, and I hate being wrong. I knew I should have kept my mouth shut, but how can that feeling be wrong? Isn't that part of motherly instincts? Besides, everyone else I know who's recently had a baby or is pregnant now is having a boy. So when I was showered with confetti that went all down my dress and all over the floor, I kept forcing myself to smile while trying not to cry. It makes me feel like a terrible person. It's not like I'm going to love her any less, but it's hard to wrap my head around. For months I've been saying "he" and now saying "she" is just weird.

Strangely, the thing that's helping me come to terms with growing a little girl is the nickname my nieces gave her. We had a jar that we had people place name suggestions in, and my ten- and six-year old nieces repeatedly suggested "monkey." They even got her a Build-a-Bear monkey already. And for some reason I can see that. When I feel her moving now, I can smile a little and say "hey, little monkey. Getting comfy in there?" Because saying monkey is for some reason easier than saying "Aislin" (pronounced Ash-lin) right now. Although I did smile typing that.

Two other things that make me feel better: one, this is going to be the best protected little girl in the world - Michael's friends from the army (my "big brothers" who already look out for me) will make sure of that. And two, now that I'm having a little girl, it's only a few short years until I get to be the kind of crazy Irish dance mom that made my mom want to tear her hair out all those years.

Happy Saint Patricks Day!

Bitching. And Ultrasounds.

We finally got our first ultrasound at 19 weeks, 5 days. I'm not really sure why we had to wait so long, when it sounds like everyone else we've ever known has had multiple ultrasounds up to that point. Heck, there were people getting ultrasounds at 8 or even 6 weeks, when there was nothing to really see! It actually makes me a little bit mad. Maybe I'm just a crazy pregnant lady who gets worked up over silly things, but it makes me incredibly irritated when people are all over Facebook posting about how they're going to see their baby for the first time on ultrasound or they have the baby room decorated and I'm thinking...didn't you JUST find out you're pregnant? Calm your tits. I was griping about this to Michael the other day and he just said I was being silly.

Am I being silly?

I feel like I'm being cheated out of something, but I don't know what. Maybe I'm just tired of being the only mom-to-be out there who has nothing together. Everyone is getting ultrasounds every couple weeks and picking out designer nursery furniture and getting adorable professional photos announcing they're pregnant or it's a boy or whatever and I'm over here with a homeless friend crashing in our "nursery" and only remembering to post belly photos taken on my phone every couple weeks where my hair and makeup aren't done and I look like a stoned Macaulay Culkin holding a piece of fruit showing how big the baby is. That was a really long sentence, I apologize. But seriously...why am I the only one who doesn't have it together? I don't have our perfect little lives planned out, we don't have the money for professional photos every 3 weeks, and I suck at being healthy, eating organics and doing prenatal yoga and all that. I walk across campus to get to classes for exercise, and then eat cereal when I get home because I'm too fat and tired to throw together a nutritious, baby-friendly dinner of quinoa with organic greens and hormone-free, DHA enhanced eggs or whatever I'm really supposed to eat. At least I take my vitamins.

I could go on about this forever, but that's not what this post was supposed to be about. I was writing to remind myself that despite all that, we still have a perfect baby. We waited forever to get a look at our small one, but lying there looking at that gray screen, having the technician point out "there's the heartbeat" or "there's the left foot" and telling us how everything is looking perfect, and joking about how the baby was excited to show off, for at least a little while it didn't matter that we don't have things together. It was incredibly calming to sit there in that dark room and be assured that yes, there really is a baby there (because sometimes it still seems incredibly unreal) and that everything is going great. Heck, the baby kicks all the time and it's still unreal, and I go back and look at that picture saved as the background on my phone, where the baby's hand is scratching its head and it looks like it's smiling and I just have to smile too (and maybe cry a little bit, because that's what pregnant ladies do). And sometimes I have to look at that picture when I start feeling overwhelmed or cranky, and I just remind myself that just because we haven't started dropping wads of cash on this small one (and I pray that we never do go overboard with that) it doesn't mean this baby is less significant or less loved. I'm already so in love with this small one, and I don't have to spend loads of money or have it all together to prove it.

Besides, what else is the "unsubscribe" option on Facebook for?

Happy Valentines Day...We're Having a Baby.

I've been thinking about making a blog about being pregnant for a while, and today I finally decided...hey, why not?

I decided to call this blog "The Small One" because that's what I've been calling the baby so far. We don't know if it's a boy or a girl, and saying "it" is really weird when referring to a person. So "the small one" it is. I might even keep "small one" as a nickname after the baby is born too.
"Hi there, small one! Mommy is so happy to see you!"
"Small one, why are you coloring on the walls? Don't you know that makes more work for mommy?"
"Have a good day at school, small one!"
"Hey small one, how did the job interview go?"
I don't know if I'll really say "small one" forever, but the idea amuses me.

Today is also a good day to start this blog because it makes 3 months to the day since we found I was pregnant. I remember this exactly because we were going to see Cirque du Soleil that night - we still have the tickets, and we decided they needed to go in the baby book, because they're a perfect reminder of that day.

On a related note, finding out you're pregnant is not as glamorous, amusing, dramatic, or romantic as you would think. Earth shaking, yes. But in a very quiet, private sort of way. At least it was for me. It was nothing like in the movies, where barfing tipped me off. I mercifully never got sick. No...the only "signs" I had were bursting into tears randomly in class while discussing injured veterans in class one day and being ravenously hungry for a few weeks. And telling Michael was not very romantic, like all those cute, corny ideas you see on Pinterest. But anyway...

On November 14th I woke up and as I went in the bathroom to go pee Michael mumbled, "You should take a pregnancy test."
I just thought to myself, why? it's not like I'm late or anything (I'm terrible and don't really keep track anyway). But I grabbed the random box of Walgreens-brand pregnancy tests on the shelf above the toilet, ripped one open, and took a whiz anyway.
Now, the wait after peeing on the stick is always awkward. You just sit there holding something you peed on, and you're not sure what to do with it. Setting it down somewhere would be gross. So you just sit there on the toilet with your pajama pants around your ankles, holding a urine stick and waiting for that line to creep on through the little window and tell you whether you're pregnant or not.
Creeping...
Creeping...
Holy shit. What does that vertical line mean? Does it mean what I think it means? I mean, it's really faint...it's getting darker...
"Oh my god." My jaw dropped and I clapped my hand stupidly over my open mouth and my eyes got really big. "Oh my god. Oh. My. God." I decided Michael needed to see this. He was still in bed, so I walked in kind of hesitantly and held it in front of his face.
He barely opened his eyes. "What does it say? I can't read it."
This was not the reaction I was hoping for. "It's positive." What would it be other than positive? It's not like I would just stick something I peed on in your face for no reason.
He just smiled and said "Really?" Then he got up and went in the bathroom and started getting ready to go to school. It was possibly the most anticlimactic moment of my life. So I followed him in, put the cap on the test, and set it on the counter.
It was the weirdest sensation in my life. I don't know if words could really describe it. I was shaking, and partly excited, and largely scared out of my mind. I was afraid of moving. Was it just floating around in there? Would it fall out if I moved too much? Were we even ready for a baby?
I've always considered myself very pro-life, but in that panic I could understand exactly why someone would ever want to get an abortion. Your whole world is shaken up.
Then Michael finally gave me a kiss, and I think he asked me if I was excited. I don't remember how I responded; I was too busy freaking out. I think he also asked me if he could tell his best friend Q. Honestly, I had wanted to tell some other people first, but we were the first ones Q told when he and his wife found out they were pregnant a few months before, so I said that was fine.

The rest of the day was kind of a blur. I went to classes like normal, but it all seemed completely different. But at least now I had an explanation for why I was so hungry and tired. I think I probably kept rubbing my tummy, wondering if anyone could tell.
I went to Walgreens on my way home from school and bought two more boxes of different brands of pregnancy tests, just to be sure. All of them said positive. Amazingly, each little plus sign made me feel a little better.
We went out to dinner before going to Cirque du Soleil that night, and I skipped out on wine with my chicken that I was paranoid about eating in case it wasn't cooked all the way. I only ate three bites of dessert, then almost fell asleep in the show. It's not like it was boring...the show was really good, I was just exhausted from such an emotional day, and when the action slowed down I just started nodding off.

Really, I've been tired ever since.