Progress Report

This week I can say that Nora transitioned from being a tiny scary fragile baby I have to take care of to being my daughter. I can't really describe why or how this happened, but she's six and a half weeks old, her eyes are more open, and she smiles when smiled at. She tracks us when we move from side to side and she reacts when we make funny faces and talk to her in a goofy voice. Her personality is starting to emerge and I hate to say it, but I think she's got more in common with me than with her father. She is a piquant baby, and I think it'll be hard to trick her. She's sharp for someone less than two months old.

One of the things that I have learned in the last few weeks is that the best thing to do when you are taking care of a new baby is to get out of the house. With the baby, I mean. Ha ha. I started walking with a neighbour who has a baby only two months older than Nora, and I have gone out for lunch with friends, and even gone to a breastfeeding clinic in the city, all by my lonesome (with Nora, I mean). It's essential to really own this motherhood thing, without making too big a deal of it. I have had to adopt an attitude of 'yep this is my kid, so what' when I go out. Even while I'm trying to un-wedge the stroller from the back seat of my pickup truck in the pouring rain, I have to just act like everything is perfectly normal. This is my life now. When I go places, I wrestle with a stroller – it's just the way it is. At least my stroller is a pleasure to wrestle.

At said breastfeeding clinic, I learned that I likely don`t have any supply issues with my milk, that maybe I just have to have more stick-to-it-iveness about this whole breastfeeding thing. I have to reduce bottle use (formula was phased out ages ago, these are bottles of breast milk) and ergo rely on the pump less, which would be nice because right now it's 3:49 a.m. and I'm pumping as I write this. Nora does breastfeed, and is rather surprisingly effective at it as well, so I`m going to have to learn to trust that she will tell me when she`s hungry and she`ll take what she needs. We`re going back to the clinic tomorrow just to check progress, latch and do a weigh-in, but things are looking up in terms of breastfeeding. I don`t think she takes vast quantities from me at any one time, but so what if I have to breastfeed her every two hours? This would be more pleasant in warmer weather but whatever, I`ve cranked up the heat. This is no time to conserve.

I had my six-week check up with my doctor today. It was pretty relaxed; my doctor is something of a hippie and generally tries to be extra laid-back with me because she knows that I am something of a hypochondriac (who me?). She wanted to discuss sex and contraception, which I found hilarious, since hello, I had a baby six weeks ago. Six weeks is nothing people! Also I reminded her that it took us four years to conceive this one so perhaps contraception would be wasted on me. She seemed to think I was being foolish but we`ll see. Nora told me she wants a baby brother but at this pace, her dad and I are running more of a military operation than a romantic one.

My doctor was concerned about the baby blues, but in talking to her I realized that this is no longer a concern in my case. The fog lifted at around four weeks and since then, I've just been feeling the regular ol' frustration regarding feeding, lack of sleep, a messy house, and paranoia. No more depression. I'm glad that my case was textbook, that it lifted at four weeks like all of the folks online said it might. I was feeling kind of guilty about it. And recently I have been celebrating the fact that I am so blessed. Several people around me have suffered misfortunes; one girlfriend recently had a third failed IVF and are now talking adoption, a male friend and his wife had to terminate a failing pregnancy, another girlfriend gave birth to her baby by surprise at 28 weeks (both are doing well, but oy vey the baby was 2.7lbs), and a friend of a friend gave birth to a child with a rare genetic disorder who passed away at two months old. I am so blessed, so anytime I feel the baby blues, I have to give my head a shake and realize that my baby is perfect. She might not feed so well from my breast all the time and she's sort of cranky some days, but she's perfect. She doesn't even poop, so she's pretty low-maintenance (she goes about once a week, sometimes twice, which the doctors have assured me is fine). She is utter perfection.

So tomorrow we return to the breastfeeding clinic, and I have started taking a drug to boost my milk supply because I'd really love to be able to stockpile it for times when other people take care of Nora, for mixing with her food after we start on solids, or just for peace of mind. I've seen through the haze enough to get excited about skiing this upcoming winter so we're going to get our passes and try to go one evening per week like we used to, since I missed last year altogether. I've even bought new ski pants. We are so fortunate that my mom and dad live at the bottom of the ski hill, so that it will be easy to drop Nora off and go.

So here's a recent picture of my daughter. She's nearly seven weeks old, and she is my whole life.