dose of reality #5

re·sil·ient /riˈzilyənt/
adjective:
(of a person or animal) 
able to withstand 
or recover quickly 
from 
difficult conditions.




vee will have
eye surgery
tomorrow morning.

s u r g e r y.

to say
that
i am in a controlled state
of panic tonight
would be
an understatement.

they tell me
that the surgery
is routine
but that is
of no comfort
to me.

let me explain.



i have not had
a good experience
at hospitals here.
it may be a fluke
but
it is my reality.

everything that
could have gone wrong
with me
during vee's birth
pretty much went wrong.
despite that
vee was resilient.
she pulled through.

the worse part
of my whole hospital ordeal
was the feeling
of being
out of the loop-
out of control.
they did not tell us
anything
until
we were in the middle of it.
they made several
poor decisions.
the language barrier
and
our inability
to clearly communicate
with everyone
compounded the problem.
i worry
that something
similar
could happen with vee.



i remember
the medical team
running
down the corridors
to the operation room
with me on the gurney
for my emergency cesarean...
the epidural finally beginning
to make me lucid enough
to realize
that we may
lose our wee grub.
i remember
praying
with every ounce
of consciousness,
please let 
my baby make it. 
i don't care if i do 
but please god 
let my baby make it.



i can't tell you
how
many
times
these past 10+ months
i have put my hand
gently on her
in the middle of the night
to make sure
she is breathing
and
a brief moment
of panic
subsides
as i feel her belly
rise
and fall.



during
the past months
of appointments
and examinations
i began
to feel a bit better
about medical treatment...
but in may
when the doctor said
it was time
to schedule the operation
i felt sick to my stomach
as the reality set in.



grub and i believe that
this is the right decision.
since then
i have heard children
(and sometimes even adults)
say insensitive things
about her eyes
when they see her.
this has only cemented
my resolve.



it does not lessen
my fear
and
my distrust
of the medical system.
i am trying to be positive.
i am trying not to choke.




i know
many many
parents
have gone through
far worse.
my heart
aches for them.
i understand
this fear and panic
is part of
the amazing love
and joy
of parenthood.

i know that
vee
is wise
and
stronger
than i am.
that keeps
me going.
i am sure
that her strength
will carry
all three of us
through
anything...



please
keep vee
in your thoughts
and/or prayers
tomorrow.

xo

dose of reality #4

Mother Breast-feeding her Baby. Platinum print, c. 1900.
Louis Fleckenstein, photographer. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum.

when
i was pregnant
with wee grub
i was not sure
how i would feel
about breastfeeding.
i am not
a person who is
very comfortable
with my body.
i am a bit shy,
perhaps a bit prudish.
i knew that
i would breastfeed
if i could
because i believe
that it is best for the baby
if it is possible
for the mother
to breastfeed.
but i thought
it would be pretty weird-
something feeding
on me
like a little parasite.


from babies in paris via a cup of jo  (joanna goddard).

what surprised me
was how natural
and good it felt to me.

the night vee was born,
even after
all the trauma
i had gone through,
when i took
her in my arms
the first
thing i wanted
to do was cuddle her
and feed her.
my instincts overwhelmed
everything else.

i am not saying
it was easy at first
by any means...
i fed her wrong
the few times
and developed a crevasse,
or crack on the nipple,
and it was very painful
for quite some time.
further,
i was severely anemic
for days
after her birth
and had trouble
producing milk.


on the way home from murten. 09 october 2011.

even with
all that against me
i was lucky
because after
persevering
i was able
to feed her.
after
4 or 5 weeks
everything
was going
very well.

i did not realize
how wonderfully
cozy and sweet
it was to
breastfeed-
an intense closeness
that i was not expecting.

i know that
i am lucky.
many woman that
i know
(including my own mother)
had a very difficult time
breastfeeding
or could not
breastfeed at all.
since i sometimes feel
like i was deprived
of a normal
childbirth experience
at least i have this...


basel, 31 october 2011.

so when vee
started
rejecting breastfeeding
around 8 months
i was hurt...
i kept trying
but vee simply refused.
she would only
feed
in the morning
or in the evening
when she was very sleepy.
it was hard to adjust.
i tried
not to take it personally
but it was both
emotionally hard
and physically hard
(now i had to pump more often).



burgers in lausanne,  april 2012

for the last
2-3 months
i only breastfeed
in the morning
and sometimes
when she is very
tired
at night or
in the afternoons.
otherwise i pump.
my milk supply
has slowly been dwindling.
i worried
my days of feeding her
were numbered.


lena corwin  via momfilter

recently
it arose
that i should
go to mexico
for a week or two
for research.
we had some experiments
that needed
to be run early in the season
before
grub, wee grub, and i
move there
in november.
vee was not even
a year old.
i really did not
want to go.

i knew vee
would be
fine...
she would miss me
(i hope)
but she had her dad
and he would take
good care of her
(he does every day
while i work)...
my biggest reservation
was that if i leave her
for a week
she probably
will quit breastfeeding
all-together.
i realized
that
i was not ready
for that.
how strange to think
that i was more about me
than about her...


Migrant agricultural worker's family. Seven hungry children.  Mother aged thirty-two. 
Nipomo, California. 1936.  Dorothea Lange, photographer. Library of Congress.

i hemed and hawed
about going
(my boss said it was up to me)...
half of me
was logical.
i knew that
i should go for research...
grub reminded me
that a man in the same situation
would have to
leave his child for a week
and no one would give him leeway
to stay at home with his child.
i have an obligation
to the family,
as the breadwinner,
to do the best possible job
that i can do
to insure a better future for us
(research = publications = job).
i knew,
deep down,
that vee
would be just fine.

then the other half of me,
the emotional mother half,
could not bear
to be apart from her
even for a week.
some friends of mine,
who are also working mothers,
said they would not go
if they were me.

i felt condemned
to the
bad mother
role again...



i thought about it
for a long time.

i thought about
my role
as a mother,
as a provider,
and
my career.
i also thought
about
my obligation
to my boss and advisor
who has always
been supportive
and understanding
about
balancing
career and motherhood.

no one was
making me go.

i finally decided
that i should go.

only for a week-
but go
and try
to make the best of it.
i was being selfish
by staying.
some day
i can tell vee
about the hard
decisions
we must make
as women
balancing our lives
as mothers
and our lives
as working people.
i will not always
make the best decisions
but i will always
make them
with
our family''s future
in mind.

i am
anxious
but certain
that this is,
in part,
the example
i want to
set for
my daughter.

 
Beatrice Baxter Ruyl feeding Ruth Ruyl. 1905. 
F. Holland Day, photographer.Library of Congress.

xo

dose of reality #3

strabismus [strəˈbɪzməs]
n. Strabismus is a condition in which the eyes do not point in
the same direction. It can also be referred to as a tropia or
squint.

i didn't
know
what that
word meant
until
december 23rd.
the day
grub and i
took vee
to
an ophthalmologist.



within
5 minutes
of the doctor
examining vee,
she said that
vee would
never see normally.
vee would
need surgery.
grub said
it felt like
being
punched in the gut.
it did.
i remember
the first thing
that i thought
when she said that
was
now she can never be
a pilot.
why would i care
about that?

. . . . .

i noticed
that
vee's eyes
had a tendency
to go
cross-eyed.
many of you
probably
noticed it too.
i worried
but
hoped that
that
it would pass.
hoped i was
overreacting.
as the months
progressed
i worried
more and more.
when
our pediatrician
called,
out of the blue,
and said
maybe we should
go see an
ophthalmologist
before we left
to mexico
i couldn't help
but wonder
if he worried about
the same thing.

before christmas
we went
to the doctor
that we now call
that crazy doctor,
not because her
prognosis was wrong
but because
she had
no bedside manner,
offered little hope
and
outdated
treatments
to fix
vee's eye problem.

after
we saw her
grub and i
could think
and talk
of nothing else.
we worried
and fretted.
i blamed myself.
perhaps
my bad genes
or
my traumatic labor
was the cause.

i started
to be shy
about posting
photos of her
when her
eyes looked
crossed.
especially
when people
close to me
made a comment
about
not liking
my favorite photo
of vee
i took
for
our christmas card
because
her eyes
were crossed.



the rational side
of me
thought
that this was
a small problem
in the great
scheme of things.
but the mother in me
dreaded
that people would
judge her,
think less of her...
that people would
see photos of her
and
just notice her eyes
instead of her.
stupid,
i know.



i found myself
staring at her eyes,
searching
for a glimmer
of improvement...
looking at other babies
with their
perfectly-centered eyes
with jealousy.

i hated myself
for thoughts like that.

vee was still vee.
nothing had changed.
i reminded myself
of my dear friend
who wore braces on her legs
throughout
her childhood
and then grew up to be
an amazing
professional dancer.

i remembered
the last chapter
in the book
Bad Mother,
that my friend sent me
(a book all
new mothers
should read).
the author talks
about her own struggles
with her son's problems:

The most toxic thing parents can do is allow their delight and pride in their children to be spoiled by disappointment, by frustration when the children fail to live up to expectations formed before they were even born, expectations that have nothing to do with them and everything to do with the parents' own egos.

. . . . .

so we did what
most parents
would do...
we sought
a second opinion.

yesterday
we went
to the big hospital
in nearby lausanne
that specializes in
eye problems.
the chief medicine
specializes in
strabismus.
i was scared.
he looked mean
in his photo.



i didn't know
if i could deal
with another
insensitive
swiss doctor.

we headed out
on the train
early in the morning.



the hospital was
modern and
the nurses
were helpful.



we had
a much better
experience
this time around.
the staff was
competent,
sensitive,
and answered
the many questions
i asked
in broken french.



they were
impressed with
how
tranquille
vee was
and
repeatedly
called her
a bon bébé.

the doctor
was very kind
and examined
her carefully.
he played with vee
and called her
mignon.



he explained
things to us
and prepared us for
the
combattre
{his words}
ahead-
the things
we would need to do
to make sure
both vee's eyes
developed
and
the potential surgery
she may need before
she turns
one year old.

it's still
a scary thought.
but i think
we feel
a little more
prepared.
a little more equipped
to deal
with the road ahead
and help vee
the best we can.



i have learned
to forget
about what
others think
and focus on
just taking care of vee
and
her happiness
and well-being...
to
delight in her
cross-eyed
and all.

The thing to remember, in our quest to do the right by our children and by ourselves, is that while we struggle to conform to an ideal or to achieve a goal, our life is happening around us, without our noticing. If we are too busy or too anxious to pay attention, it will all be gone before we have time to appreciate it.

-Ayelet Waldman from Bad Mother

xo

dose of reality #2

you will
hurt your baby.

no matter
how hard
you try
at some point
you will do
something that
directly
injures your baby.

it
will be
traumatic.

my day happened
early in february...

vee's fingernails
grow fast
and i use
a pair of
baby scissors
to trim them
but
they do
a piss poor job.
one morning
i was tired
of her grabbing
hunks of my flesh
with her talons...
enough is enough.
i grabbed the
baby nail clippers
that i was afraid
to use
(for fear of hurting her)
and started
to clip
her nails.
i think that
i only got
through
two nails before
i clipped
a chunk of the top
of her finger
with the clippers.
she cried out.
i saw blood.
i was
h o r r i f i e d.
i ran
to get band-aids.
i quickly
bandaged her
injured finger.
there was
a lump
in my throat
and was
on the verge
of tears.
grub told me
to keep calm-
vee was
more freaked
by my behavior
then she was
by her injury.
she seemed fine.
i was traumatized.
i could not
look at her
poor finger
without
feeling like
the worst
person in
the world.

when i emailed
my friends
the photo
i was surprised
by their reactions:

my friend
annemarie said:

ah, now you are a real parent!
every parent has to clip
a baby-finger once in their life.
it is part of the initiation-ritual...
welcome to parenthood!
-annemarie
who has done the same thing,
and so has martijn [her husband]...

martha
chimed in:

that seems to happen to everyone ....
marcin [her husband] hurt luca [their child]
clipping his nails when he was a baby,
and has never done it since
he is still traumatized by it).
i am the nail clipper...

i thought
that i
was the
only horrible mom
that
had done such
a heinous thing.
it was a great
comfort
to know that
i was not alone.

. . . . .

grub made jokes
for weeks
about how
i was not
allowed
to touch
his daughter
because
i had
clipped her...

well,
his turn
came a week ago.
he was zipping
vee into
her bear suit
and got some
of her skin
caught in
the zipper.
boy did
she howl.
it left
a big red mark
on her neck
for days.
it made grub
feel awful.

so we
have been
initiated
into parenthood.
since then
i have heard
of all
the accidental
injuries
our friends
have inflicted
on their kids.
looks like
this is just
the beginning.
oh poor vee!



we are
so sorry vee.
xoxo
love,
your parents

dose of reality #1

it's 4am
and
ironically
i am up
because
i cannot sleep.
i am worried
about vee.
so i figured
this would
be a good time
to catch up
on
the last
2 weeks
of vee
in mexico.

vee has been
sick for over
a week now.
we have had
the parenthood fun
of already visiting
a doctor in
another foreign
country.
i won't go
into
too much detail
but suffice
as to say
she caught a virus
and has had
an upset stomach.
in almost
every way
she seems fine...
she is good spirits
and seems
hydrated enough
but
her diaper
tells
a different
story,
if you know
what i mean.

parenthood
is a lot
about worrying
i have discovered.
i was
already
a master
in the worrying
department
so you can
imagine
it has now kicked
into overdrive.
you find yourself
worrying
that
everything
you do is
somehow
going to have
an adverse effect
on your baby.
you make
a mistake
and feel like
you are failing
your child.
you feel like
a bad mother.
i feel that
every day.

i am constantly
amazed how much
unsolicited advice
we get
about parenting.
people are constantly
telling us
what we should be doing.
what we are doing wrong.
i feel this
the most
poignantly
here in mexico.

we shouldn't put
a fan on vee
to keep her cool.

we should feed her
coconut water
to keep her hydrated.

we shouldn't
take her out
during the day
because
it's too hot.

and on
and on...

my friend deb
made a good point.
what parents need most
is reassurance,
not your advice.
they need to be told
that they
are doing a good job.
that they are
good parents
because most parents
are trying
their damnedest
to take the best
care of their children.
they make mistakes
but somehow
their children survive.
i know that
i need
that reassurance
from time to time.



breastfeeding
has been
really, really
hard here.
first,
vee is sick
so she needs
to keep hydrated
which means
i need to give her
more milk.
add onto that
that
i am dealing with
a hot climate,
breastfeeding,
and trying
to work
while i am here.
it's hard to pump
when you have
only a few
precious hours
to work
before it gets
too hot.
it's embarrassing
(i know that
it shouldn't be
but it is)
to tell
a bunch of mexican guys
that
you have to go off
for half an hour
while they are working
hard
to pump milk.
they already
treat me differently
because
i am a white woman
plus
my spanish
is currently
almost nonexistent
so i cannot
really talk to
most of them
to give them
some sense
of who i am.

i have pumped
sitting on a bucket
in the middle
of a mosquito
infested fields
i have pumped
in the truck
on the side
of mexican highways.
i have
not been able
to pump because
i forgot
extra batteries
or some piece of equipment
because i was
so tired at 5am
i didn't pack everything.
i have wanted
to burst
into tears
right
there
in the truck
in the middle of nowhere
because i failed
my daughter
who needs
that extra milk
so desperately.
i have not been
able to go to work
because
vee drank
all my extra milk
in the middle of the night.

i am not
writing
all this
because
i want a pity party.
i just
want to be
honest
about
how tough
it can be
so other mothers
don't somehow
get the picture
that
i am magically
juggling
all of this
with some sort
of grace and ease.
i am not.
i am struggling.
but
i am determined.

with
all that said
i still don't
regret
this trip
to mexico
with vee.
i hope that
we can look
back at photos
with her
and tell her
amusing stories.
it's been amazing
experience
so far.
the good
and the bad.

but
i am
still up
when i should
be sleeping
overwhelmed
by worry
and anxiety
about mistakes
i am making
in parenting her.

i suppose
when you
love someone
with every
ounce of
your being,
it's inevitable
that you feel this way.



well,
this is
me at 4am.
it deserves
a place
on this blog
with all
the glamorous
wee grub
sunset on the beach
photos.
at least
i think it does.
if you
have gotten
this far,
thank you
for
reading it.

xo