November 2014 – the solo mama project

Today at brunch, while holding Baby E, my friend Ms. R. looked at me and said, “Look at this beautiful baby. Do you remember when we first met??” And it was one of those moments that felt like jumping into a chilly lake–I was suddenly wide awake, and looking at my friend holding my beautiful boy, remembering how three years ago Ms. R. and I met for brunch and got teary over our scrambles as we discussed our plans to become single moms. And, in that moment today, it was like we had just fast-forwarded through three years of struggle, torment, pain, joy, and now a miracle, and we were teary again.

On some level, you can’t really believe it’s real. I remember looking at other people’s babies and thinking how proud the mom must be of every square inch of their bodies. But now that I’m a mom I really feel more like all I did was align with the universe somehow and nature did the rest. Which is weird to say, considering the extent of artificial procedures that went into the IVF process, but still–sperm meets egg and a person begins. The plan is locked into place from that moment and then you’re off and running.

So, as a parent, I am awestruck whenever I get more than two feet away from E and really take him in. He’s just miraculous. It’s completely overwhelming. I can’t believe that there’s a 6-month-old sleeping in my bed who is barreling toward becoming a man.

Wow, even writing that makes me reel a little bit.

At the six-month mark, we are going through all kinds of transitions. We’re getting used to our routine minus my parents, which means he’s spending all day with the nanny and I’m doing my own cooking and laundry and cleaning up and so far the household is running pretty smoothly but it’s really only been a few days. A half day of child care yesterday set me way ahead–I made lentil soup and pesto, froze turkey burgers, cleaned the house, did laundry, etc etc.

E definitely has the bottle mastered. Now we’re trying to introduce solid food (and by we I mean me) and he is pretty much nonplussed. It’s shocking how disinterested he is in food when every other thing I put in front of him goes straight into his mouth (including things that shouldn’t, like paper–he ate a little piece off our name card at Thanksgiving). He is studiously disinterested, meaning that he glares at the food and then purposely diverts his attention to something else nearby, like a drawer handle. I’ve put many foods in front of him, including sweet potato, yogurt, banana, avocado, eggs, chicken… Once he licked a little strip of pizza. This morning he opened his mouth exactly twice to let me give him a teeny forkful of hummus. Overall, I’m trying to do baby-led weaning but I’ve also wanted to feed him a taste to jump-start the process (seems to have done the opposite). We’ll see what happens next but, again–the guy is a strong consumer of breast milk so I’m not worried yet about his nutrition. I absolutely expected a lumberjack appetite out of this guy after months of him watching me eat with strong interest. But I guess this will just take time so another lesson in patience for me.

Sleep is another changing terrain. For months we’ve had a bedtime routine of bath (every other night), massage, jammies, book (if he still has attention span), then nurse to sleep. This worked like a charm starting at 4 months when he suddenly wouldn’t be rocked or bounced to sleep and set down. I had mild guilt about it since it’s supposedly a bad sleep association or crutch–but it worked and I’m a firm believer in ‘whatever works.’ But now it’s taking longer and longer for him to fall deeply asleep enough to let me go. It can take up to an hour of me unlatching and him insisting on relatching and even when I finally tiptoe away he will often wake up again 30 minutes later, and maybe again after that. Here’s the thing–I thought I’d be the no-nonsense single mom who says, Baby! You need to get on my program. And my program says you’re asleep at 7pm because mom needs her evening to relax and prep for tomorrow! So don’t get ideas about a protracted bedtime routine or me laying down with you for the night at 7pm! Etc.

Of course, way easier said than done, and I have mostly felt change-averse about making any adjustments. So we rode with that plan while it worked. And…now it’s not really working. So, I’m thinking a lot about sleep and trying to shut out all the ‘camps,’ because no matter what you do there’s a camp that thinks you’re a horrible parent. For now, though, I just may be going to bed at 7pm more often in the coming days–twist my arm!

The house is quiet and clean and I just had a piece of sweet potato pie. All of a sudden, it started pouring rain, like the heavens just turned on a shower with excellent water pressure. The baby hasn’t woken up tonight since I put him down, although I hear him yawning and cooing in his sleep. A bird randomly chirps, letting its friends or babies know where to seek shelter from the rain.

There’s so much we could all worry about all the time. We don’t know how it’s all going to turn out or how we’ll get from point A to point B or how to solve problems of baby transitions or how to achieve work/life balance or how to pay for everything or how to find a dream job or partner. But we can ask ourselves, “Am I OK right now?”

Right now I’m so grateful for all of the above (and below!).

What a month it’s been! Transitioning back to work as a new mom is seriously bananas. I’m sure it’s gone as smoothly as possible, AND I’ve had my parents here helping for several weeks, but yeah, wow–you all weren’t kidding.

My first day back in the office was very light work-wise, and it was a Thursday. On Friday, I worked from home. Friday night I slept 12 hours. As in, I laid down with E for his bedtime and never got up till the next day. The exhaustion came from so much anticipation plus wrenching feelings of handing your beloved child over to a near-stranger and trying to convince yourself that it’s all good and normal, then squeezing into pre-pregnancy clothes, stuffing a bunch of pumping equipment into a backpack, hoping your bus pass still has money on it (it didn’t), and remembering too late that the door to the office requires a badge that was stashed somewhere six months ago. Plus–will the baby eat? Will he be happy? Will he sleep? How do I disengage my brain from monitoring his every moment?

Well…let’s just say it’s a transition that takes more than a few days. It feels good to be on the other side of the anticipation/dread of the End of Maternity Leave.

I will be forever grateful that I got to spend E’s first six months with him full time.

But, yeah–it starts to make you realize how fast it all goes… this seriously made me wonder how in the world I’ll ever drop him off at college. Last night, I watched a PBS special called “A Sloth Named Velcro.” This is the first thing I’ve watched in ages and just about my speed as I can no longer tolerate violence or sadness of any variety in shows. It was all about sloths (fascinating creatures), and at the end there was a rehabilitated orphan sloth who was ready to be released into the wild. They drove for 3 hours at dawn to a preserved nature area in Costa Rica and were hiking around, trying to find the best spot to let him go. The woman who had rehabilitated him was being stoic but her heart was breaking at the same time because she had nurtured him for years. She had just said something about finding the perfect tree when the sloth reached out and grabbed a branch. She stopped and let him climb away and I was sobbing. I felt like–how will I ever find the perfect tree for E? Or–how will I stand it when he finds it himself?

Fortunately, outside of nature, we can still keep in touch and also visit. Plus, it’s 18 years away, so I can relax a little bit knowing that I will probably also have days between now and then when I want to drop him off at college a few years early. (I got an email from a Chinese friend recently–she said, “You must be hugging and kissing him all the time! My boys are 15 and 20 now, not fun anymore. But I’m glad they are healthy and kind.”)

I’ve said it before: the joy and the vulnerability are all wound up together in a big, messy bouquet. And I receive it with so much gratitude!

Today, we started E on solids. The highchair arrived from Ikea, I assembled it, washed it off, and put E in. He had his mom, aunt B, and grandparents all watching him expectantly as he looked around proudly like a king on his throne. I gave him tiny bits of avocado and quickly realized that it is impossible to grasp, even for an adult. The top of the tray turned to guacamole in about 10 seconds. I switched to banana and fed him a few pea-sized pieces. His expressions are amazing–sort of wincing to smiling to coughing to swallowing to a big smile. He kind of laughed too, like OMG I knew there would be something like this, and here it is!

So, although he is still eating minimally while I’m at work, he is taking a little more from the bottle each week and can now have solid food snacks. And he sure is not turning down the breastfeeding intensity–when I got home from work I just get topless because I know he’ll want to nurse and then roll around on me and bounce his mouth off my skin for up to an hour. Then he goes to bed at 7 and sometimes wakes 2-3 more times before I go to bed at 10. Then he nurses 2-3 times in the night. So, homeboy is not lacking in nutrition.

I’m confident that by the new year we will be in a great rhythm. And then something else will change and then we’ll be off and working to get the new rhythm. And repeat.

And, eventually, in 18 years, the perfect tree.