Gratitude

In 2013, I attempted a gratitude practice in which I wrote at the end of the day three things I was grateful for and three things I had accomplished. For me it is a retraining of the brain to focus my attention away from that which I lack, away from where I have failed, to what I have, and what I have done. At first the list of accomplishments felt silly, trivial. I folded laundry, I did the grocery shopping. But on the other hand these are the small tasks that make up my life. Then there began to be bigger accomplishments. I was about to yell at my son, but I stopped, I took deep breaths. I hid my phone for an hour and stayed present with what was happening. When I started giving myself credit for those small moments that are so important to me, I began to feel better about myself, and to have more of those moments. The gratitude practice and the accomplishments began to dovetail: "I am grateful for my connection with my husband; I put away my computer and spent time connecting with my husband." As powerful as this practice was for me, I let it lapse sometime in the fall, and with the advent of the new year, I decided I'd like to reignite some sort of gratitude practice.

 

Enter photographer Hailey Bartholomew. Right before the new year I happened upon this video that describes her journey from discontent to a place of gratitude. She decided for one year to take a picture every day of something she was grateful for. The idea spread through social media, and this year I decided to participate in the 365grateful project through instagram, in which I post one picture every day of something for which I am grateful.  I thought I'd share a small sampling of what I've noticed in the first few weeks.

Day 7: grateful for my husband's relationship with my son.

Day 8: grateful the two little satsumas in my belly are still growing strong.

Day 17: grateful for green.

Posted with Blogsy

Second Trimester!

Our family configuration come spring. Photo from Fundacion Proteger. 

We made it through the first trimester! and it has been a wild ride. While I am still struggling with nausea intermittently and the remnants of the colds and the flu, I am out of bed and on my way to fully functional. After some crazy rain, I woke up yesterday to bright sunny skies. I met a friend for aqua aerobics at the gym, and joined about 30 senior citizens to splash around in the pool. Truth be told, after such a long time of being immobile, this kicked my ass! But I smiled the whole time, so grateful to feel my limbs move against the water, ecstatic to be chugging along with all these other joyful people just moving their bodies. In my head I was saying things such as "Oh, hello bicep! Hello calf muscles!" It felt like a slow reawakening. And I loved that there was nothing "cool" about it.

Cameron is going out of town for work, Becca is coming to stay with me while he's gone (!!!!!!!), and I have an appointment today to learn how to manage the newest complication with this pregnancy: gestational diabetes.

What to eat when dealing with pregnancy induced nausea

During this first trimester of nausea, I have often wished that someone would tell me what to eat. I am writing this in case there is someone out there who could benefit from my experience. Let me state for the record that normally I am a cook from scratch, whole food, low sugar kind of girl, but pregnancy, both times has put me in a survival mode of eating. At least during the first trimester. Everyone is different, but I thought it would be worth it to share my experience. There are many things I cannot eat, onions, garlic, and any kind of pepper being the worst offenders. I am also gluten intolerant, but my level of gluten free substitutes has sky rocketed in these past months. Some triggers for me for nausea and vomiting: empty stomach, drinking too much water at once, the smell of salami, getting overheated, standing in front of the fridge, coughing. Finding your triggers and avoiding them is very helpful. Also, staying hydrated and well rested can help lessen some of the symptoms. Some things that have helped have been an herbal supplement called nausea ease, psi wrist bands, hard candies, and ultimately the anti-nausea drug. Zofran. Now, without further ado, I bring you what to eat when you want to hurl.

Level one: you feel queasy, but in general if you eat you feel better. It's kind of like a hangover that goes on and on. In this state, here's what worked for me:

Tator tots

Grilled cheese

Mild lasagna

Pasta with kale sauce (read steamed kale pured with butter and cream or milk) and fresh mozzarella 

Toast with butter, almond butter, and honey

Cheese and crackers

Apple slices with cheese or nut butters

Chicken noodle soup

Nachos with no salsa

Rice and beans

Scrambled eggs

Quiches

Frittatas

Bacon

Avocados

Rice and meat

Wraps with slices of cooked chicken breast

Mild Enchiladas

Saag paneer

San Pelligrino sodas

Smoothies

Cottage cheese and canned peaches

Sushi with cooked fish (Philadelphia
roll, I love you).

Pretzels

Baked sweet potatoes with lots of butter

Papa de locro (cheesy potato soup from Ecuador)

Quesedillas

Level two:

The hangover is really bad. It's the kind where you do actually puke, but not often. You feel bad unless you are vertical, and even then...Your diet may become limited to:

Chicken broth with rice or noodles, maybe with a little avocado or well cooked carrot

Whole pinto beans in chicken broth

Scrambled eggs with cheese

Cold cheese sandwiches 

Brothy lentil soup

Plain yogurt

Toast

Electrolyte drinks

B-natal lollipops 

Hard candies

Tangerines

Jello

Sodas

Level three:

And then there is the kind of pregnancy induced nausea that can get you into trouble. In this form, it is hard to keep anything down and most of what you eat comes up. If you are not keeping anything down, you need to be in contact with your doctor or midwife, as you can get really dehydrated and that is bad for you and baby(s). In this state, you mostly want to stick with liquids with Calories:

Electrolyte drinks

Chicken broth

Instant breakfast drinks

There's my two cents. If you read this and have thoughts to add, please, fire away!

Selfie on a very nauseas day. Overall doing much better now- back in level one for the most part.

On trying to be a bear, and not a goat.

Posted with Blogsy

Did you watch the little short? You should. It's good. My therapist gave me the homework of watching this video, and told me that it isn't hard to give an empathetic response to a friend, but what is really hard is to give an empathetic response to yourself. Her homework for me was to try and be more like the bear, and less like the goat with myself.

In the past two weeks, I have had moments where I have felt like I cannot possibly do this. The worst definitely came last Thursday, when my husband came home early from work not because I had been puking all day and felt terrible, but because he felt sick and needed to rest. In my head I screamed "No, no, No!!!! I cant do this. I cannot do this." And throughout that afternoon and night I had huge sobbing melt downs. What does it mean to say yes in moments like that? What does it mean to be empathetic with myself? The conversation in my head was something like this. "I can't do this. I can't. Well you have to. Buck up. BUT I CAN'T!!!!!" More tears. I was railing internally against what was happening, that I had been sick for two weeks, that I had been nauseous for a month, that I didn't have any child care for the next day, that my husband was sick and couldn't help me. And still some part of me was admonishing, "At least you are pregnant. This is what you wanted. This is what you asked for." I cried and puked and railed until I went to bed. I slept, and puked some more, and slept. In the morning, it felt like defeat, but it was really a small yes. A small leaning in. Yes, I feel terrible. Yes, I am not able to do this on my own. Caden ate cereal in my bed. He watched netflix at 8 in the morning. I called a sitter agency and paid the big bucks to get someone to come to the house immediately. I talked to my doctor and he prescribed me higher doses of anti-nausea medication. I went to see my other doctor, and she put me in the hospital for dehydration. I sank into that hospital bed and I said a big yes. To sleep, to IV fluids, to medicine to stop the vomiting, to someone taking care of me.

I sort of wanted everyone to know, "I'm in the hospital! This is some real shit!" because what I really wanted was that empathy, but the thing is, I had been getting it all along from my friends. I sat on my bed on the solstice crying and coughing and sneezing and peeing and nauseous and texted these moms that I hang out with most Fridays, and as their stories of peeing their own pants when pregnant and their stories of covering up baby pee with towels to avoid changing sheets came in. As they made me laugh and encouraged me to sleep and gave me so much love and empathy, I realized why I love them. They always do that. They are always ready to get real and love you when things are hard, and do not flinch to tell their own stories. They are bears. But I was being a goat to myself, thinking I should be stronger, healthier, more emotionally resilient, better able to buck up. It wasn't until I woke up Saturday with a fever and realized that I had caught what my husband had, and that I was looking at a brand new sickness, and then discovered that I actually had the swine flu, that I stopped beating myself up. At that point it was complete surrender.  I had to say yes. Not yes! This is awesome! But yes, I am very sick, and this is really hard, and yes, I have to rest and I need help.

I am slowly learning that this is what it means to lean in. Not to stay cheery and sunny and always optimistic, but to accept what is really happening and work with it instead of running away. For me, learning to lean in means learning to be more gentle with myself, and not judge myself for my experiences and emotional reaction. 

I am still sick, but I am starting to feel better. For now I will continue to embrace baby sitters and television and all the help I can get. I will try not to goat myself, but I do hope to be back on my feet someday.

If you want to read more about this whole yes idea, check out this post on my friend Becca's blog, Writing for Clarity. 

Damn cold. Damn puking.

Got admitted to the hospital Friday for severe dehydration. Woke up Saturday with a fever to match my husbands. Good times.

Thank god my parents came up for the weekend. I don't know what I would have done without them.

Forty-one

Yesterday was my 41st birthday. I spent the day trying to lie down as much as possible as it was a bad nausea day, AND I have another head cold! Urgh. I did cry when Cameron got home from work from relief and exhaustion and hormones, but it wasn't a bad day. Caden and I watched My Neighbor Totoro, he took a long nap, I ate chicken soup and in the end there was cheesecake with candles and my son singing me happy birthday. 

The day before my birthday, this article came across my news feed: Fortyhood: Why You're Too Old to Have a Baby after Forty.  Of course I had to read it, and upon my first reading, the whole thing  pissed me off royally. Her description of motherhood? "think of your worst hangover, multiply it by four, subtract showering, napping, and brunch with friends, and add a baby." She says that in her quest to beat mother nature and achieve having a baby, she never really thought about life after baby. Basically she says she never really thought about being a parent! In general I have empathy for mothers with young children who are struggling, but it is hard for me to find empathy for this woman. She is lamenting the loss of her freedom, marital intimacy, sleep, and energy and blaming it all on the fact that she had her kid after 40. The thing is most moms I know, at some point, struggle with all of those issues. I think when we play the game "if only," we always lose. "If only I didn't have to deal with infertility, if only I'd had my baby younger, if only my baby slept through the night, if only my kid would listen to me, if only, if only, if only " When we play that game, we never learn the art of leaning into what is, and showing up for the life we have. 

Maybe this woman would have had an easier time of it if she'd had her son younger, but as a woman who will give birth at 41, I resent her blaming her issues on age and asserting that all women over 40 share her experience. I have always wanted to be a parent. In the years struggling to bring my son into the world, I would sometimes cry seeing gawky teenagers at the bus stop because I have always wanted to sign up for all of it. And in negotiating with my husband whether or not to grow our family, there was much discussion of "after the baby comes" and whether or not we were up for it. And we made a decision. We said yes.

I wonder what her son will think if he ever reads her article. What will he think if he reads that she found motherhood "slightly tortuous?" I am not saying it is wrong to have these thoughts, or even write them publicly, but once you say yes to bringing a baby into the world, you have to keep saying yes. Every time you internally scream no to waking in the middle of the night, to patiently waiting out a tantrum, to cleaning that poopy bum or making that grilled cheese that may never get eaten, you risk saying no to your life, and no to your kid. We have to always look for the yes.

And what a good lesson for me to remember, as I sit here in my jammies with a pile of used kleenex on one hand and a little cooler bag of snacks on the other. I chose this pregnancy, and I want these babies, so I have to find the ways to say yes to nausea, yes to my changing body, yes to fatigue, and also I have to find the ways to say yes to parenting my boy and being in partnership with my husband while weathering these physical discomforts. I found a little window this morning- Caden woke at 5:00 and since I'd recently snacked out of my little cooler bag, the nausea was at bay, and I could be the one to get out of bed and go to him. I crawled into his bed and he said "Mama let's be snuggle bugs." Which meant an hour of me trying to go back to sleep while he flopped in my arms like a fish and we both coughed and sneezed and blew our noses. So we got up and I ran him a bath with Eucalyptus oil and heated myself up some chicken soup. He played in the water, the steam soothing both of our chests, and I ate sitting on the toilet. When he asked me to get into the bath with him, I said yes. We poured water on each other's backs, and when the water grew cold I wrapped him in a towel and sent him into his dad, who was grateful for the extra sleep. I washed my hair for the first time in days, and then crawled back into bed. 

I have had my moments of doubt during the last couple of months. It is a mad mission, and it has been hard so far, but we said yes, and so I will keep saying yes. In the end I have never had a single regret about bringing Caden into the world, and I trust that I will feel the same about these babies, too. 

Frederick and Mae Mae

This is what Caden has named the babies in utero. He is quite certain that there is a sister and a boy in there. He likes to give them zerberts and to tickle them (this means digging his finger into my belly button as far as he can- ouch).

After the bleeding incident he said "Mama, were you crying because the babies were crying?"
"Well, I can't really hear them cry yet, but I was scared and sad."
"I think they were crying. I will make them laugh."

And he has been on a mission since to keep those babies laughing.

We had on Friday our first appointment with the perinatologist, and it was great on a hundred different levels. That is where we had most of our prenatal care with Caden, and just parking in that structure, walking into that office was comforting. It gave me a feeling of, "ok, here we are. We've done this before. Maybe we can do it again." Their ultrasound machines are awesome! And we got a clear view of both babies, their individual sacks, and individual placentas. This makes the pregnancy lower risk than if they were sharing a placenta. We also got to see little arms and legs moving around! They grow so much each time. They are both measuring bigger than my estimated due date, which means they are cruising right along! Also no one could tell that the SCH ever happened. Wonderful news all around!

Then we got to see Dr. Merrel. I just love this man- I really do. He is so positive and affirming, but also knows his stuff. When he saw us, he said "You guys! I didn't expect to see you again!" Whether or not he remembered us, he had taken time to look over our charts and clearly knew our history. He was the first doctor that I felt like really empathized about the bleeding. When we told him the story, he said, "Wow, with your history. That must have been so scary. Of course you thought the worst. Some women freakout over a little spot of blood, and you really bled. I'm so sorry you had to go through that." It felt so good to have my medical provider get it. Having that that sort of connection is gold for me- when I can relax and feel like a provider understands me, I can let go a little and trust their advice more.

I have been off of bed rest for about a week now, and it has mostly been good to get back into some sort of routine with Caden, get out here and there, but the nausea is still very intense and makes it hard to function. I know Caden misses the former more available me, but we are also finding ways to connect, even though that often means he sleeps in our bed and eats his meals in my lap. I don't mind. He's growing fast now, and I enjoy the closeness. I'm very appreciative of his other relationships right now- his dad, Grommy, Tio, and all his sweet friends. I know he's always loved and cared for even though I can't always be the one who's there for him right now.