Like a Rolling Stone

I am not technically a fan of the Rolling Stones. Their music is fine to me, not bad, but just not necessarily what I seek. However, there is a song that has been rattling around in my brain for the better part of this strange year.

"I saw her today at the reception..."

My husband left a few days ago for his first four weeks in Angola. I have a range of emotional and mental responses to this, but admittedly at the moment they are mostly negative. I was not ready for him to go this time. I probably wouldn't have been ready a month from now, either. When we first discussed his possibly working on an overseas rotation, it was never coupled in my mind with being home alone with our newborn baby. I find this circumstance both logistically tricky and deeply emotional.

"A glass of wine in her hand..."


The people who read this blog and know us know that my husband is not a mean man. He is, in fact, quite caring. He tells me that many families like rotation life because the end result is that fifty percent of his time will be spent at home, as a full-time dad, not working. And also that the freedom of that schedule will allow us to spend more quality time with family and friends in Minnesota, the way we've often hoped to.

"I knew she was going to meet her connection..."

I believe him. I'm not immune to the positive aspects of his unusual work circumstances, but at the moment the intensity of the year has left me feeling overwhelmed and truly wiped out.

"At her feet was a footloose man..."

The day that he left felt like one of those really terrible days in life that you don't forget. He was busy preparing to go all day, and I was busy trying to care for the baby all day.  I sobbed when he got in the taxi.  Tears dropped from my eyes without warning throughout the days and nights surrounding his departure. Certainly pregnancy followed by newborn-induced sleeplessness exacerbated my intense feelings.

"You can't always get what you want..."

I, and we, had big plans for 2013. Big sewing plans, big professional plans, big travel plans, big financial goals, big plans for our new house. The curve balls were relentless though, and ultimately here I am, nursing our son in this dark nursery half-way around the world from my husband. It was a very different from what I imagined having a family might be like.

"You can't always get what you want..."

It's not that I'm not thrilled about our beautiful baby, or blind to the positives of my husband's work. But it is true that I believe families should try to be together, and that the way this year unfolded is what has caused me to believe that more firmly. Tricky.

"You can't always get what you want..."

It is scary to think about the coming solo weeks after Mom leaves. On the other hand, a lot of people have gone above and beyond to make sure that I don't feel alone or overwhelmed right now. One friend in particular has babysat more than once, brought ice cream and Chipotle, kidnapped me for a baby-free afternoon outside the house, helped me navigate my insurance coverage while I was stuck in my hospital bed, and even helped me improve my odds at continuing to breastfeed in the face of tricky circumstances when she saw, well before I did, how close we had come to not being able to do it. Other friends have dropped off food or helped watch the baby, and still others have sent things in the mail. My mom has not only baby-sat, given up sleep, and just sat still loving our baby for hours; but she has also helped me finish setting up and decorating the unfinished nursery by framing items and sewing bits that I had planned to do but had not completed prior to delivery.  All things considered, we feel loved and lucky, and I know that there are people I can call if I am truly struggling after my mom leaves.

"But if you try sometimes, you just might find..."

We are lucky for other reasons. My husband could easily have not been able to make it back for the birth of our son, but he did make it back. Also, we were able to be together from much of the pregnancy, and even more importantly, his strange job allowed him to be at home with us, full-time, for the first five weeks of our baby's life. Even though I am not quite yet able to feel happy and cheerful about the way this week and this month feel, my brain recognizes that it will all work, because it keeps doing that anyway, no matter what happens.

"You get what you need..."

I can't deny that we have what we need: love, health, each other, and some extras. Just like the song says.

Feed the Beast

I've been a little bit surprised to find that breastfeeding feels like the most difficult part of taking care of a newborn.  Probably this is a reflection of my inexperience with babies and parenthood, but to be honest, this was one area where I did not realize I was ill-prepared.  By that I mean that I had read an entire book on breastfeeding, nearly cover-to-cover, before our son was born.

W(h)ine To Go

Our son is just over three weeks old now, which I find a little shocking in light of the fact that we haven't yet reached his due date.  The learning curve has been steep and the emotions are intense.  A flood of love and affection, both for him and my husband, who is turning out to be quite the baby-whisperer, but also emotions that are not always positive...fear and worry...discomfort at the loss of my old familiar self and worry for the future of our son in such a messy world.  We are managing pretty well, I think, one day at a time.  Our son has been reasonably accommodating, in my opinion.  Considering that he is technically a preemie, he is eating well and sleeping pretty well and we feel lucky that he hasn't had any other health challenges.

I have had a handful of health challenges which have made newborn care slightly more trying, but the assistance of my husband and several friends has made a huge difference.  The conditions of our son's early delivery necessitated a Caesarean section for me, which kept us in the hospital for a full week when combined with the blood pressure complications that I experienced.  As a result, the last three weeks have involved juggling extra medicine, simultaneous mandates to rest more and pump more and feed more but sleep more, and a also ban on driving.  I feel foolish because I never knew that newborns eat every two or three hours (sometimes even more) and trying to learn how to function as a normal human at the same time as these other tricky things finally built up in a big pile and left me ornery yesterday.  It all would have been impossible without the full-time help of my husband, but still there was no denying that even with his excellent help, I woke up cantankerous.

The Day Before

A notion on my mind in recent months has been the feeling of that moment when your entire universe changes, particularly those occasions when it happens with no warning.  I also can't stop thinking about the hours and days right before that moment...the time when you had no idea what was about to happen to you.  Unfortunately, many of those moments involve something terrifying or otherwise negative, but sometimes they are also created by events that are wildly positive.  Maybe you find out something shocking about someone you love, or maybe a beloved pet is harmed unexpectedly.  Maybe marriage was proposed when you did not expect it.  Perhaps there is bad news about your health, or you are victimized by one of the many severe weather events that seem to come more frequently now.  Maybe, just maybe, your baby arrives a month early, but still completely healthy.  Suddenly, your entire point of view has been altered, and other problems which loomed prior to said event become minor; correctly repositioned in the grand scheme of things.

Start With an Onion

Third Trimester: Monitoring and Adjusting Accordingly

I have dropped some balls during the last couple of months.  If my husband was here, he would very kindly tell me that it is not true; he doesn't like to hear me critical of my own accomplishments (or lack thereof).

But here I am, deep into my third trimester, and still so much unfinished business!  After our period of extended waiting came to an abrupt end, my husband's few days in the Gulf of Mexico in May turned into three weeks, followed by forty-eight hours at home, and now over a month in Indonesia, with the return date still fuzzy but possibly occurring in mid-July.  All of that is helpful from a financial point of view, but less so from a physical and sometimes emotional point of view.  Who knew that the end of pregnancy was so tricky?  Obviously lots of people, but not me; I can't say that I had a full understanding.  Seeing other people do something, and then doing it oneself are two very different animals.

I have had many kind offers of assistance, and it's not that any particular one thing is impossible, yet.  But everything is just slower and clumsier.  I have only one speed, and it is not the one to which I am accustomed.  It takes longer to get dressed and get organized.  I have to take breaks and put my feet up a lot, otherwise I morph into Shrek from the hips to my toes; it seems I'm one of the lucky ones who experiences edema (significant swelling of the legs and feet).  These are small things and I am grateful to not have other more severe concerns, but these things also mean that my high hopes for getting lots done before this little guy comes into the world have been edited to a more moderate altitude.

I was not a particularly gifted teacher.  Most of us that have tried teaching are not.  Like any profession, many of us were fine, having some good days, occasional great days, some bad days and lots of average days in the middle.  Lesson planning was not an area of strength for me, but on the other hand, I was usually adept at changing the course of the lesson on the fly if I could see that the students were not with me.  The education term for this technique was 'monitor and adjust' and it was something that came naturally to me from the beginning.  What's funny to me now is how much I need that skill in my daily non-teaching life.

We have to monitor our home life and adjust plans regularly, as the course of my husband's career takes unexpected turns.  I have had to monitor the impact of all of that on my own goals and adjust my decisions accordingly.  And this year, we have had to monitor our expectations for happiness, togetherness, parenthood, and financial health and adjust appropriately.  The outcomes and structure of the next couple of years are still fuzzy, but our emotional health so far remains firmly intact.  Luckily this feels like a winning adjustment.

In the meantime, some of my other activities have been monitored and largely forsaken as a result of adjusting to the limitations of late pregnancy.  One example is shaving.  Sorry if this is T.M.I. to any male readers out there, but how would you like to shave your face if you couldn't reach it or see it?  I haven't given up all the way, but I can tell that my days are numbered.  Another activity is cleaning the house...it still happens, but very gradually, in stages.  Sitting at the dinner table or in a restaurant for very long is also getting very uncomfortable.  According to the medical people in my life, when I'm sitting up with my feet on the floor, my baby, bless his sweet soul, is cutting off the blood supply that is trying to flow back up from my legs to my heart, which is what causes the extreme Shrek-style foot and ankle swelling.  Traveling is definitively out these days, as is sitting in the sun, which also triggers the swelling switch.  

One more activity has had to be adjusted, but not necessarily just because of the pregnancy...I have slowed down a little on the bread and cooking goals for the year (I was aiming for one new loaf a week and one new recipe a week).  Turns out that being home alone with a lot of baked goods and cooked food just leads to me eating more than I should and to running out of room in the freezer.  I'm still cooking, but I just had to slow it down and not worry about it for a bit while I caught up.  Now that things are kind of caught up, it might be time to start cooking again to make a supply of meals for when we first bring the baby home.

So have I dropped some balls, or just made some appropriate adjustments?  Not sure.  But I can say that now that I'm finally putting together the nursery, there are some sewing projects for the baby that are behind schedule.  Will they get finished?  I don't know.  If they don't, I'm sure the baby and I will both adjust accordingly.

The Art of Waiting

I'm home alone, which is weird.  I don't think I have been home alone, at least not for more than a couple of hours, since sometime in July.  In the past, home alone was a relatively common occurrence, as my husband was called upon to be away for work days or even weeks at a time.  In the last few years, it has been a more minimal amount.  In the last few months, it has been not at all.  We have been waiting.  A lot.  Not waiting for him to leave, so much as waiting for his next contract to start.

It seems like we get wrapped up in a waiting period like this every couple of years; far more often than I would have imagined when I was younger and considered what the life of a grown-up entails.  In my late teens and early twenties, I was vaguely aware that momentous events would occur in adulthood.  I knew that I might get married, or choose not to...I knew that I would likely move to another state or country...I knew that I could experience illness or the loss of a loved one.  There was a strong possibility that I might change careers, or face the disappointment of not landing a certain coveted job.  I did not spend as much time imagining or planning my future as I now think I should have, but I suspect that even if I had, it would have never occurred to me to plan for how to handle long and relatively frequent periods of waiting for outside forces to ascertain major parameters of the timing and geography of my daily life.