Progress report

My pregnancy's progressing pretty well. I'm almost 19 weeks and the nausea is gone (halleluja!).

Life is pretty normal except that every week I find myself scrounging for something different to wear to work. My maternity clothes from the last pregnancy have lost their appeal - most of them seem dingy and out of date and since I already feel that way, I don't need my outfits advertising it.

As I mentally prepare for the arrival of the new person, I waiver between a calm excitement and outright panic. On the one hand I think of how amazing it will be to be a family of four and have a tiny baby to snuggle again. However there is also the fearful part of me who wonders how I will be able to take care of two without letting one suffer. I know it's been done before and I know it's possible but still the fear of the unknown is not lost on me.

I was going to wait to potty train Deaglan until the last half of my maternity leave - we're so fortunate in Canada to get a full year off - but lately he's exhibiting signs that he might be ready now. Whereas he was having a BM every day, a few weeks ago this changed to every 3-4 days. In between he is at times doubled over in pain from gas. His diet hasn't changed - he's no champion vegetable eater but I manage to get some good grains and fruit into him daily and tons of water. He's showing other signs too, so this week we bought some underwear and have begun the training. Lots of fun as you may remember if you have kids.

This second pregnancy is so different for me than the first. The last one seemed magical with each new phase unfolding as I read about the wonders going on in my body each day. This time I feel an overwhelming need to make sure Deaglan is getting all of me as often as I can give it. I've read too that husbands are less interested in the technical aspects of the second pregnancy and that's certainly true for us. Although Shaune is concerned about my well being I can tell it's not as magical for him this time around either. Both of us are thinking about that first little while when you have no idea how to comfort the new baby, aren't getting any sleep and aren't sure if this is what you thought it would be.

I've had some great advice from friends with more than one child though and would welcome any tips from you veterans out there!

On why I haven't written lately

I took a break from blogging. Sometimes I feel vulnerable that I share so much about my life here. At these times it helps me to keep quiet.

I often feel torn between wanting to write deeply personal things and keeping it light. Mostly it comes down to my fear of what people will think about me.

But if I look at that fear, I see that it is what keeps us all so separate and alone. Perhaps sharing our humanity is the healthier thing.

The break did me good anyway. I thought about this strange hobby I've grown to love. I realized it's when I share a particularly personal story that I feel a bit less lonely in this world.

Playing hooky

When we walked into his room a few days ago to wake him from his late afternoon nap, we found him like this. Get the camera! I whispered to Shaune. To a parent, there is no sight more lovely. Sweet. Innocent. And a yearning for time to stand still just for a little while. To capture that moment and hold it forever.

Because along with all the joy of parenthood also come the fears. Something happens the second after a pregnancy is confirmed. Endless worrying. What ifs, and worst case scenarios begin to take over your mind.

Each trimester comes with it a list of benchmarks to reach and also the possibility of it all going wrong. You count down the weeks exhaling slowly each time the midwife tells you things are going well. By the end, you begin to affirm that everything will be okay once you see the baby, once he's out of your womb, safe into the world.

But no one prepares you for the truth. That once out into this world, your worrying has really just begun.

I try to do my best by him and not let fear and worry rule. I let him fall and make mistakes. I don't run to his rescue everytime. I understand the need to let him learn, watch him continue to harrass the cat after several warnings that if he keeps it up the poor cat will be forced to retaliate. I let him eat things he dropped on the floor, let him cry it out so he could learn to fall asleep on his own, take something away because it could harm him even though it is keeping him busy and out of my hair.

But despite my efforts to think positively and expect the best, a worry that began when I first learned I was pregnant has reared its ugly head. I had discussed it with our doctor then. She stood firmly on the side of most medical professionals. I read about it. I spoke to other parents in my community. And in the end we saw that the benefits of immunization far outweigh the possible risks.

Today I am taking Deaglan in for his 18 month shots. I was up all night worrying. What if? This is the one the talk is all about. This is the one some people have felt is correlated with some brain development disorders . I woke up early and went to the reputable sites. I read again what I had read before. No proven correlation. I feel so small in a big world. So ignorant. Powerless. Because even though I am taking him in, a nagging is still there. I tell myself that this is just the worrying of a parent.

Some things get better with age

By some standards I'm considered an older mom. I didn't have Deaglan till I was in my 'late' thirties meaning over 35. A lot of the people I went to highschool with and who I only recently caught up with again through Facebook had kids when they were in their 20's - some of them in their early 20's. More than a few of them have teenagers.

Sometimes I wish I had started earlier so that I didn't feel this sense of urgency to finish all the childbearing before it is too late. Sort of like dumping the entire allowable chunk of money into your RSP's the day before income taxes are due instead of contributing at a steady rate throughout the year.

But some people are ready earlier and others need to get some things sorted out. I can't say that I was busy travelling the world or building a lucrative career, or whatever else is an acceptable excuse as to why people wait to marry and settle down. I just needed that extra time.

My friend Sarah said the other day that people like us (her and I and others who waited until later) just skipped our first marriages. We went straight to the second one. We spent the first marriage alone, partying and drinking too much, waitressing and bartending longer than we should have, procrastinating about everything, paying off education debts we incurred that never paid off and pipe dreaming about careers that were a fantasy drilled into us by our predecessors.

So here I am, at 38 not even married for a full year, with my first baby feeling a bit undone that I didn't start sooner. Mentally I do the math all the time, making myself a little nutty and try not to get depressed.
When he's 25, I'll be 63 and if he's like me he still won't be married and what if I'm not around to see him get married and what if he doesn't have kids till after I'm gone but people live longer nowadays but then look at all the new cancers that pop up all the time - did you know that deodorant and underwire bras can cause breast cancer???!!

However!

Would I have been as an effective mother at 25 as I am now? I know - no. Could I have made him the centre of my universe like he is now? Maybe. I don't know. We all get to where we want to go at our own pace. It's tough though sometimes living in this world where we constantly measure ourselves and each other by standards that we've established that don't mean anything.

My wisdom so far

I used to think that to “forgive and forget” was the only way to truly move past something terrible that happened to me.

I now realize that often those two concepts don’t make sense in a lot of situations. To forgive means to give up all claim on account of. But there are things that happen to us, hurtful things people say, painful wounds people inflict that we cannot give up all claim of. To forgive and forget for some of these assaults seems like fantasy-making to me. The trying of it has left me conflicted and anxious.

Reconciliation however is a concept I can live with. I won’t forget what happened but will reconcile to use the experience to consciously build a better relationship. I will learn to understand that because of what happened I have the opportunity to make healthier and wiser decisions in the future.

I used to think I needed to provide proof or evidence of why I felt something. In my mind I would think that feeling something others might perceive as weak or womanly or negative was unacceptable so I would build a case in my defense so that I could justify this “insubstantial” stream of feelings or thoughts. As if just little ole me feeling it or thinking it wasn’t reason enough that it should be heard.

But now I know that the fact that I feel it, desire it, fear it, love it or just plain old dreamt it up is legitimacy enough.

I used to think that a nice person doesn’t speak up when her needs aren’t being met, a nice person doesn’t disagree with family members, a good person goes along to get along. But now I realize that all of that is a bunch of BS and really a form of self torture.

I know now that I am responsible for my own happiness and that means speaking up the truth when something doesn’t feel right or good to me. It means doing what’s best for my soul and my true self even if it causes discomfort. It means speaking the truth, my truth when I feel compelled.

No chance in hell

A year ago in Winnipeg a seven year old girl showed up for school with magic marker tattoos of a swastika and the well known white supremacist symbol 14/88 drawn on her body. The number 14 refers to a maxim containing 14 words "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children" while 88 represents the letters HH (the eighth letter in the alphabet) meaning Heil Hitler.

According to the news story, a teacher tried to scrub the marker off and sent the child home where her mother re-drew the symbols and sent her back to school.

Child and Family Services were sent to the family's apartment where they found neo-Nazi symbols and flags. The children were taken in custody and placed with extended family.

According to the Winnipeg Free Press the seven year old girl spoke matter-of-factly to a social worker about Adolph Hitler, white supremacy and the god-given right for whites to kill blacks.

This case is back in the news this month because the trial has been ongoing. The stepfather claims that the seizure of his children violates his freedom of conscience, belief and religion.

Some of the arguments being thrown around are:

• Are we deciding that one set of taught beliefs is more offensive than another? Where is the line drawn - what about devout Christians, or Muslims or Jews?
• Is this child abuse - since the children were well fed, clothed, had a relatively strong circle of family support?
• Does the state have the right to protect children from their parents' beliefs?

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Frank Jones

Frank Jones swept us off of our dirty little feet when he came to visit the orphanage. We didn’t know why he was there or who he worked for and I’m not sure we cared. He was kind, and fun and we loved him.

The year was 1977 and my sister and I had been in the orphanage in Dhaka for a few months. I think I had started to accept that I would never again see my mother. Well maybe not accept, but I knew it was true.

The orphanage wasn’t so bad. There were lice, and lots of crying, and children who had been there their entire lives but there were also three meals a day, and the promise of a better future. I only cared that my sister was with me. Back then she was my everything - both of my parents, my best friend, my siblings, and well… my whole world rolled into one small brown girl with two big front teeth. As long as she was beside me I feared everything a little less.

We rarely had visitors in the orphanage. So when Frank Jones came it was a special treat. He had brown curly hair, always carried a camera and was the happiest person I’d ever met in my young life. During that visit we went on picnics, listened to music, chewed gum for the first time and felt hope that this elusive thing called ‘getting a new family’ might not be so bad after all.

My sister especially adored him and asked him daily – ‘you be my daddy?’
Gently he would tell her no, he had lots of kids of his own already but somebody lucky would be her daddy someday soon.

Years later I learned that Frank was a reporter for the Toronto Star and that he had visited us to write a story on international adoption. The story is in the archives somewhere and I’ve meant to order it so many times just to have and show Deaglan someday. The picture he used to tell the story is of my sister wearing his Toronto Star hat with a caption that read: Will you be my daddy?
We’ve spoken once since. Frank and I. I wrote to him and he asked if he could do a follow-up story on my sister and me. At the time, my sister didn’t particularly feel like much of a success story so we declined.

An oasis of freedom and justice

A friend of mine went to a family function a few weeks ago where her mother-in-law in describing someone else said to my friend..."well she's like you, she doesn't cook or clean either."

When she told me this story we both rolled our eyes and laughed because this was her mother-in-law's way of saying..."my precious son does everything around the house you lazy good-for-nothing."

But it made me think about how things have changed and also about how there will always be a generation or a group of people who will resist those changes.

Because if you think about it, no one even bats an eye lash when they hear that the woman of the house does all the cooking and the cleaning. It's as it should be they all think. But often when I tell people that Shaune does most of the cooking in our house they are truly impressed and can't believe my fortune to have found such a rare man. This always makes me wonder - how far has the woman's movement really come???

And this lead me to consider all of the other developments we've seen in the last few years. While we can certainly look at them and say - yes the world has really come a long way - it's just as easy to say - what the hell took so long?!!

Take Obama for instance. Even though I'm not an American, I can sincerely say that we have seen a new day and one that I am thrilled that Deaglan has been witness to. But not because I am so grateful that a black person was given the job but because it's about time a person was elected based on his abilities regardless of skin colour. I feel relieved that Deaglan's generation might not have to continue to evaluate a person's worth based on the colour of their skin but the content of their character.

And I also mulled over the legalization of gay marriage in Canada, the fourth country (after The Netherlands, Belgium and Spain) in the world to legalize same-sex marriage. Although July 20, 2005 is the official date that parliament passed the Civil Marriage Act, many parts of Canada (almost 90 %) had already legalized gay marriage since 1999.

My reaction to giving people in committed same-sex relationships the same benefits commonly associated with committed heterosexual relationships is - it's about f*#@ing time! Maybe it's because I have been a visible minority all my life, or maybe it's because I'm a woman, or maybe it's because I've had to sit helplessly by and watch gay friends and family get treated like less-than-second class citizens because we live in a society that has little to no tolerance for anyone that even remotely deviates from the narrowly defined view of what's 'normal'. Or maybe my reaction is based on a combination of all of it.

All I know is that these changes certainly make my job of raising a child a bit easier. I mean really, how were we supposed to tell our brown-skinned children to dream about being the kings and queens of the world when they had no kings and queens to follow? And how were we to teach our children to be proud of who God created them to be if our world and our society didn't support them in their individual splendours as full citizens? And how could we tell our girls that they were just as capable as boys in whatever they pursued if we were also busy telling them that anything to do with family and home was also solely their job??

Confessions of a breastfeeder

When I thought about breastfeeding during my pregnancy, I had no conception of how much it would impact me. I had no idea that it would bring me such joy. I couldn’t fathom that one day I would have to stop nursing my baby and it would break my heart.

Neither Deaglan nor I knew what we were doing that first week or two. The aftercare nurses on the maternity floor tried to teach me. It definitely didn’t come naturally to me or him. Once my milk came in I felt relieved. But still the baby was at my breast for up to an hour at a time. How was I going to get a break this way, I wondered? He eats every two hours or so and at each feeding he eats for an hour. Was this right?

I was exhausted and afraid of doing everything wrong. It was one of the midwife team members who asked me the right questions. How is breast feeding going? How long is he drinking for? That’s too long; show me what you’re doing. Okay I see what the problem is. Here’s how you do it – bring the baby to the breast not the breast to the baby. Keep at it. It won’t feel natural at first but by about week six you’ll be in sync with each other.

And it did feel odd every time for the first couple of months. What a strange sensation to have this tiny human feeding from one of my body parts.

But the midwife knew what she was talking about because by the second month we were in tune with each other and the odd feeling faded. I know that breastfeeding doesn’t work out for everybody; several people I know, who had babies around the same time as me, couldn’t do it for one reason or another. I felt fortunate that the little effort I put in created a successful experience for me. It was so convenient and inexpensive. And the time we’ve spent together has been some of the greatest gifts of my life.

During my pregnancy, I had read that a baby should be breast fed for at least six months. So that was originally how long I planned to do it for. But once the six month marker came and went, I couldn’t even imagine stopping. I did start introducing solids but as a complement to breast milk. My next goal became to stop by 10 or 11 months so that he could be independent when daycare started. But even then I didn’t feel either of us was ready to completely stop. So I weaned him during the day and was able to nurse him from 5pm on. This worked out really well for the first few months of going back to work.

Work was difficult in the beginning. The separation was unbearable. But that’s another story for another time. Suffice it to say that I felt like I was doing something wrong in being away from him. It took several weeks for me to feel relaxed at work.

I knew that I had to think about weaning but none of the reasons seemed very compelling. I loved the time we still spent together while he was nursing. He is such a happy kid. I’d read articles after articles which championed toddler breastfeeding. Studies show that North America is one of the few places that stop so early. Many countries in the world continue until children are four years old. The benefits to the children beyond some well known health benefits such as fewer and less severe infections, decreased risk of some childhood cancers, are an increased sense of security in their own independence, increased sense of pleasure which leads to happiness for both the mother and child.

But too often, mothers who have had a trouble-free go at breastfeeding and who have enjoyed it, feel pressure to stop after a year. There is a sense of being judged or disapproved of if you continue to breastfeed past one year. Yet UNICEF has always encouraged breastfeeding for two years or longer.

My goal was to wean him completely by the end of April. I tried not to think about my own feelings about it, only the technical aspects. He can’t depend on me forever I seemed to be arguing for the proponents of stopping. And I will go back to a normal breast size. But the part of me I was consciously shutting out wanted to scream. I reasoned with myself that our relationship would not change. He would still love me the same, need me the same, want to hug and kiss me the same. But that part I refused to hear threatened to scream even louder.

On the surface a large part of me was ashamed to still be breastfeeding at 16 months old. Was this some kind of a weakness in me? Was I encouraging dependence? The questions and answers swirled around in the back of my mind day and night.

Then I read Catherine Connor’s post one day and finally wept. I cried because she had written about this experience as I had been experiencing it. I cried because the thought of this experience ending for us made me irrepressibly sad.

I read and re-read articles. At the beginning of his life it was so that I could understand him, why wasn’t he sleeping through the night, was he getting enough to eat? Now I wanted to find reasons to continue. I wanted scientific evidence that would give me permission to continue nursing. And all of the articles supported breastfeeding well into the toddler years. So why did I feel this pressure to stop? Who was making me feel this way? Shaune had never said anything to suggest that time was up. And so far I hadn’t discussed it with even my closest people for fear of being judged.

So in keeping with my plan, on April 30th I tried to stop. I was sad all day long at work, more sad than I’ve been in a long time. I cried. Deep sad crying, like when you lose someone. Grief consumed my body; the rationalizations no longer a help.

I called Shaune at work. Sobbing, I told him that I wasn’t ready yet.

“No one is telling you to stop nursing him. I’m okay with it. It’s nobody’s business how long you want to breastfeed for.”

I got off the phone and let relief fill me up. I had someone’s permission to keep going. Why did I need it? It was my body wasn't it?

Shameful thoughts

Today at the park, there was a lone man sitting on a bench watching the kids swing. Something about him irked me. The baby swing was free so this was my chance to get Deaglan on.

It’s a terrific park but there is only one baby swing which means there is usually an informal line-up. Parents with kids around Deaglan’s age keep an eye out from wherever they are in the park in wait for it to free up.

There were a lot of parents and kids out, thanks to the balmy weather. But this man sitting alone facing the swings had no children with him, he wasn’t holding anyone’s sippy cup or hat, and wasn't even dressed for the park on a gorgeous spring day.

While I pushed the swing, I periodically looked to the other parents of swinging kids. A few of them also kept glancing over at this man. I don’t know how long he had been sitting there prior to Deaglan and me pulling up, but it was obvious that people were steering their children to other parts of the park.

What kind of grown man sits at a children’s park alone on a busy Saturday? The giddy mindset I’d had all morning vanished and was replaced with suspicion and anger. Is this guy a pervert? Aren’t we supposed to be warned about the release of pedophiles into our community??

Yes, I went all the way there.

My swirling thoughts were now so malignant that I considered approaching some of the other parents to ask if they too were leery of this lone man.

Just then a woman walked toward him and they embraced. I overheard bits of their conversation and apparently he worked at one of the car dealerships across the street and had taken off early to enjoy a nice walk in the park with his wife.

I never felt so ashamed in my life.