Back to work...

The decision had been made. My husband would stay home with the baby. The final night of my maternity leave had arrived. That night I set the alarm and tried to fall asleep. I was so depressed. I could not imagine returning to the land of cubicles. Eventually I must have fallen asleep but then baby needed to be fed. My husband and I switched roles. He would be getting up with the baby and I would be sleeping so I could get up for work in the morning. I had wanted him to take care of the baby all day one day, pretending I wasn't there. Just so he could see how it would be when I was gone. But he didn't do it. He said he would be fine. That night, I could see that I was going to be nervous for them alone. He got up with the baby but he turned on every light on in the house. When I get up with the baby, I do everything very quietly and in the dark so he never fully wakes up. He usually goes right back to sleep. So my husband had a different way of doing it. Ok. But then I realized that I was just laying awake, listening. I couldn't sleep until he got back to bed and then I couldn't sleep until I checked on the baby. I decided that even though I had to get up for work, I would still get up with the baby. It didn't make sense for us both to be up and I couldn't sleep when he got up with him. So there you have it. I am not usually the controlling type but I just couldn't make my mind shut down when he was taking care of him at night.

As the alarm went off in the morning, I woke with a lump in my throat. I didn't know if I could do it. I had sick days available. Couldn't I just call in sick and have one more day? But now that I was a new mom and the breadwinner, I had a responsibility to my family. So I reluctantly got ready for work, kissed my husband and son goodbye and drove off in a blur of tears. What if my son forgot about me while I was away at work? What if he resented me because I was leaving him? What if he loved my husband more than me because he was home with him? I attributed all of these complex feelings to a two month old. Irrational, I know but I still felt them with every mile I put between us.
As I pulled into my parking lot, I pulled myself together. I walked through the door and turned on my computer. As I settled in as my professional self, I couldn't shake the thought that they were home and I was not. I checked the clock every other minute and was dismayed to find that an hour away from him seemed like ten. That meant that I would be away from him for eighty hours in one day. I didn't call to check on them because I wanted my husband to know that I had confidence in his ability to take care of our son. As lunchtime rolled around, I didn't know how I was going to make it through the rest of the day, let alone a lifetime as a working mother. But then I got an e-mail letting me know that I had a new picture message. I opened it and there was my son in his little baby bathtub. I realized then that they would get along fine without me but that didn't mean that they didn't need me.

After that first hard day, I established a routine. I knew that as working mother, my time with my son each day would be limited so I made the most of it. I cherished the night feedings. I got him up in the morning, fed him and changed him. Then I would get ready quickly and was able to spend more time with him before I had to leave. As soon as I got home from work, I took over baby duty. I was tired from being at work all day but let's face it, I wasn't digging ditches or working in a mine. I was sitting behind a desk. So I wasn't too tired to spend time with my son. I got time to unwind when he went to bed before it started all over again. This got me through those first couple of months back at work.
Now we are like a well-oiled machine. Everyone gets quality time and we are able to have a happy, healthy home life. In my dreams, I win the lottery and neither of us would have to work. But then I wake up and get back to my real life as a working mom.

To work or not to work...

Throughout my entire pregnancy, I had known that I would have to go back to work. We had researched daycares. After the devestation I felt after looking at the first one, we finally found one that would be very nice. I had liked the facility, the people, the program. They were a big proponent of infant education such as sign language. They had excellent security and safety measures. It was close to home so I would be able to drop him off in the morning and then pick him at night.

Then as my maternity leave was coming to an end, I looked at my 4 week old baby and thought there was no way I would be able to take him to a daycare in 2 weeks. He was just so tiny. I know that people have to do daycare and there are a lot of benefits to daycare that he could not get by staying home. I had been in daycare from the time I was an infant and I feel that it prepared me for school. I had a wonderful experience with daycare. But I just had to look at him to be reduced to tears. How could I leave him with strangers? I even knew one of the infant teachers who would be caring for him but it didn't help.

I started to look for alternatives. I had to work, there was no question about it. My mother and father had to work. My mother had always said that she was not going to raise her grandchildren. Not in a nasty way, but she wasn't going to give up her life to become a permanent babysitter. And I didn't blame her. There was no way I would ask her to give up her job so she could watch him. My in-laws are much older and they live far away. I am sure they would have come to the house as much as we needed them to but again, it wasn't their problem. I called my boss and asked if I could work from home a couple days a week so I would only have to put him in daycare for a little while each week. But they understandably told me that it wouldn't work. I couldn't be on conference calls with an unpredictable newborn at home.

Then it hit me. My husband had been hired for a coaching job which was just seasonal and didn't pay much but he was working essentially 2 jobs. I made more than he did at his permanent job so we couldn't rely on his income without mine. But the coaching job was more flexible with practices and games in the evening. So I worked the numbers over and over again. It would be tight and we wouldn't be able to save much if anything but I thought we could get by with only my income and his coaching income.

I was returning to work on January 2nd and we literally made the decision for him to quit his job and stay home with the baby 2 weeks before my return. The decision was met with apprehension. How will he do with the baby alone? Can we really afford it? But also with relief. He would be home with his daddy and I wouldn't have to leave him in a strange place every morning.

I can't wait...

The first couple months of a baby's life are pretty uneventful. They can't really do anything exciting or fun. On the other hand, everything they do is exciting and fun. He ate, slept and pooped. But he also started cooing. The little noises he made were unbelieveably cute. He started to show non-gas related smiles which melted my heart. He seemed to move his arms and legs purposely, rather than just as a reflex.

He was on track developmentally but I just couldn't wait for other big milestones. I wanted to feed him solids. I wanted him to laugh. I wanted him to crawl. I wanted him to give me kisses back. I wanted him to say mama, dada, and I love you. But the time flies when they are so little. And I didn't want him to get any bigger. He fit perfectly in my arms and on my chest. I didn't want him to get too big where I couldn't cuddle with him anymore. I didn't want him to grow up and gain independence and not want to be with me all the time. But that is inevitable. I couldn't have it both ways. I couldn't want him to grow up and do all of these things and keep him my little tiny baby forever.

He also had his follow-up weight check when he was 2 weeks old and his first shots when he turned 2 months. The 2 week visit was good. He had gained weight so he was just a little more than he had weighed when he was born. It was a good thing because he had lost so much in the beginning. His circumcision had healed and I was able to give him big boy baths in his baby tub. His 2 month visit was good too. He was in the 25th percentile for height, weight and head circumference. He was small but he was still on a nice curve.

He didn't cry much and I thought I had the best behaved, well mannered baby in the world. Then came time for his shots. The first vaccination was oral. He had to drink a liquid. He took it right down like a champ. The nurse said that most babies cry and spit it out. Just reinforced the fact that I had the best baby. Then he had his first shot which had a few vaccines. For the first couple of seconds he didn't cry at all, just looked a little confused. Then it hit him and he screamed so loud. It was the loudest, most piercing scream I had ever heard. I wanted to scoop him off of that table and run. I wanted to cry. I had to squeeze back the tears. I felt so guilty that I was making him go through this pain. But it wasn't over. He had to get his second shot. The reaction to the second shot was exactly the same. The nurse left the room and I was left to comfort my son who had just been stabbed with a needle. He was fine within a minute. He stopped crying and I was right back to normal. He handled this first set of vaccinations very well.

But now that his 2 months birthday had passed, I had to start thinking about returning to work. Well, I would think about it another time. For now, I happy to be in denial.

I can

It's too soon for a baby tour...

Now that baby had seen the doctor and was doing well, other than the weight gain, we decided to take him on a tour. He was only 7 days old. I thought it was way too soon. But the pediatrician at the hospital said that there was no reason to keep a baby inside. She said to avoid crowded places like a mall where a lot of people may be in contact with the baby but there was no reason to isolate him.

I wanted to get out of the house too. I felt so blah because of the lack of sleep. I wasn't eating well and it was hard for me to find time to shower. So I thought that getting out of the house would be good for me.

We bundled him up and hopped in the car. The first stop on the tour was my in-laws house. They hadn't really been by to visit because they live about 45 minutes away. They weren't expecting us so we when we got there, we put the baby in his carseat on the doorstep, rang the bell and hid off to the side. The baby was sleeping so he had no idea that he was helping us with a practical joke. My in-laws opened the door to see a baby on their doorstep. The look on their faces was priceless.

We piled into the house and visited for a while. They took turns holding him while he slept. He slept the entire time. I don't think they had ever seen him with his eyes open because he slept all the time at the hospital when they were visiting there. It was nice to be there with them. They had 4 other grandchildren so they were used to babies. They offered to watch him while my husband and I napped but I was ready to move on to our next stop.

We got back in the car and ended up at my mother's work. She didn't know we were coming either. If she knew were even thinking about taking the baby out, she would have freaked out. So we surprised her. She was able to show off her new grandbaby to all of her co-workers. He is her first grandchild. We fed the baby and he slept some more. Then we said our good-byes and headed home.

We had been gone for about 3 hours but it felt like an all day road trip. I was exhausted. I was still recovering and found that the getting ready, the driving, the visiting were a little much. But it was good to be part of the real world and not be isolated to my living room. The baby slept. He had no idea that he had just been on a tour.

First day out with baby...

I took my son for his 1 week checkup at his pediatrician. There is a hospital very close to my house, not the one I delivered at but one where I had all of my sonograms and non-stress tests. I thought it would be very convenient. I could walk there if I wanted.

So my husband and I set out for the appointment. It was freezing. It was rain/snowing and very windy. We bundled up the baby and covered his car seat with a blanket. We walked into the building, up the elevator and into the waiting room. I was horrified. It was the most dirty doctor's office I had ever seen. I would have expected to see toys and coloring books everywhere because this is where kids are waiting. But I wasn't expecting to see the dirt and grime. I checked in and filled out some paperwork. After a long wait we were called back.

First they weighed him and he had lost more weight. He was now only 6lbs, 2oz. The weighing station was a little table/scale covered in paper. I had to completely undress the baby, diaper and all. Of course he peed everywhere. But this was all right in full view of the waiting room. Maybe that was normal, I don't know.

After he was weighed, we had to wait in the patient's room forever. I was getting really anxious because I wanted to feed him. He was supposed to have eaten already. He wasn't crying so I knew he was probably fine but I felt like something bad would happen if I didn't feed him. Eventually the doctor came in. Well she wasn't the pediatrician, she was a resident or intern or something like that. She examined the baby and told us that he had an umbilical hernia. She said that it would eventually go away as the muscles of his stomach wall strengthened. But if they didn't, he would need surgery. My heart stopped at that point. She told me not to worry. How is a brand new mother not supposed to worry when they hear something like that? But then the doctor started to look in his ears with a scope. There were scope covers right next to it but she just stuck the scope in his ear and didn't use a cover. I was a little freaked out by that. Then she kept looking in his ears for a long time. I thought something was wrong. Turns out there was something wrong. She couldn't see anything. The scope wasn't plugged in so she didn't have any light. She moved the entire examining table with the baby on it so she could reach down and plug it in. I wanted to grab him off the table and run out of there.

Then the pediatrician came in and examined him again. His little wee wee looked good and she reiterated the hernia diagnosis. She also said that I needed to continue feeding him every 2-3 hours and try to increase his serving size. He needed to gain weight back. She wanted to see him in another week for a weight check. Then she said goodbye and left the room. We could hear a child screaming in another room and an adult yelling at her at the top of her lungs. I felt like I was in twighlight zone.

We bundled the baby up for our trek back out into the nasty weather. When I got home I immediately started looking up other pediatricians. I found one that sounded good and was part of the group that my mother's doctors belonged to. My mother liked the offices so I decided to call and see if they were accepting new patients. They were and I was relieved. I also felt guilty that I was going behind my pediatrician's back. But I had to be comfortable with my son's doctor. I just had to be. There was no compromising on this one.

So with a new doctor lined up for the following week, I fed my baby and he was content.

One week down, 18 years to go...

I settled into my first week as a mommy. The baby slept a lot. But it was only in 2-3 hour intervals. I tried to sleep when he slept but it was very difficult. Nighttime was a challenge. I slept in our spare room and had his pack-n-play set up. He slept all bundled and swaddled in the bassinet section of the pack-n-play. We had a real bassinet that had been in the family for 40 years. It was a wooden cradle. It had been passed around and every time a baby used it, their name was written on the bottom. Our son was the 35th name. Unfortunately he hated the thing. We tried it a couple of times but he cried and cried. He seemed to prefer the pack-n-play. I would get him to sleep then lay in bed watching TV. I would eventually fall asleep and whem my little food timer went off, I would sleepily drag myself into the kitchen and make a bottle. The baby would eat and then go back to sleep. But by then, I was wide awake. So I would watch TV again and wait for the next ding of the timer. It is amazing how your body adjusts to sleep irregularity. I was exhausted most of the time but I was able to function. Other the exhaustion, it was difficult because my husband and my dogs were cuddling in our upstairs bedroom and I kind of felt left out. Like I was living a separate life than the three of them.

He ate a lot. Feeding every 2 hours seems crazy. I felt like I was always feeding him. He would be done with a bottle and I would start my countdown. Two hours really isn't a lot of time to get things done or to nap before the next bottle. And the cleaning and boiling of the bottles was a such a pain. I had a dishwasher but I didn't trust it. I felt like everytime something came out of it, I had to clean it again anyway. So I was boiling them and washing them with hot, soapy water. Making the bottles wasn't fun either. I boiled a big pot of water and let it cool in a glass pitcher. I kept it covered on the counter. Then I would add the water to the bottle, add the formula and mix. Seems easy. But at 3 in the morning, it is rather challenging. I should have made a big batch of formula and kept it in the fridge but then I would have had to warm the bottles. I usually just fed him with room temperature bottles so my system worked for us.

He pooped a lot. Well he did a lot of #1 and #2. I was peed on a few times before we figured out how to keep the old diaper on while sliding the new diaper under the baby's bottom. Then like pulling a tablecloth off of a table full of dishes, I would slide the old diaper off and put the new one in place. Like magic. But we still had to clean his little wound. It was healing and it didn't seem to bother him. But my god, he screamed whenever he was getting changed or dressed. And it was such a cute little scream. I laughed every time. We also discovered that his poop had a mind of its own. I could tell when he was going because his little nostrils would flare and he would turn bright red. And it sounded like I was squeezing frosting out of a bakery bag. Anyway, we discovered on more than one occasion that when it seemed like he was done, he probably wasn't. We would start to change the diaper when more would come shooting out. And when I say shooting out, that is exactly what it did. It was funny every time. I also noticed that the texture was strange. The first time I changed a poopy diaper, I said "Who fed him sesame seeds?" That's what it looked like. I was scared at first but I was told that it was normal. I was never overly grossed out by potty humor but I never knew I would talking about and laughing about poop so much.

So the first week gave me a glimpse of how the next few months would be. At this point, he really didn't do anything fun, well other than the aforementioned diaper antics. I just couldn't wait until he was able to smile and laugh and eat food, etc, etc, etc. But then I looked at him, so tiny, and wondered how I would ever be ok with him getting bigger and older.

How am I ever going to keep track...

By the second day, I was a little overwhelmed. I was in more pain than ever. I guess once the energy of the whole situation dies down, your body is free to feel the bruises and tears that result from childbirth. My husband was there to help me but it is hard because he had no concept of what I was going through. And I am so fiercely independent that I wanted to do everything on my own. If I needed something washed, I trekked to the basement and did laundry. Even with the baby, I wanted to do everything.

That is when I started to feel the pressure of the timing of everything. How was I ever going to keep track of his feedings? I was supposed to feed him every 2 hours or so. He had lost a bit of weight when we left the hospital. That is normal but they wanted me to keep him on a feeding schedule so he didn't lose any more weight. I was trying to keep track by just watching the clock but during that first night of exhaustion, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to calculate anything in my head. And I was afraid to rely on the baby to tell me when he needed to eat. I felt that if I didn't wake him, he would sleep through the feeding and it would be hard to make it up during the day.

Then on the morning of the second day, I had a brilliant idea. I have a food timer magnet on my fridge. You set the time and a little alarm goes off when the time is up. It was perfect. So I started setting my little timer every 2 hours. Then I would feed my little munchkin. I soon found out that he was not a very good eater. But I wanted to get as much food as possible into his little belly so he would gain some weight back.

We had visitors that day. My mother came by for a while. And of course everyone offered to watch the baby if I needed a nap but I refused. I wasn't going to let anyone help me. I think back now and I was absolutely crazy. But I feel like I wouldn't change the way I handled things if I had to do it all over again. I wanted to do things on my own. My husband only had a couple days off from work and I would be on my own after that. I would be the one getting up with the baby because he had to get up early in the morning. My mother couldn't take much time off from work either. So I just wanted to jump right in and start from day one.

I also realized that interrupted sleep is worse than no sleep. There is something about the REM stage of sleep that makes you feel like doo doo if you don't get enough. So waking every 2 hours really takes a toll on you. And this was just the second day home. How were we, how was I, going to get through this?