Four Lies Sleep Trainers Tell You (And One Truth They Will Not!) (Originally published on the Connected mom 3/30/11)

I'm writing this for the mama at the end of her rope that has started letting her baby co-sleep (or is contemplating it) and is scared to death that she is doing her child a great disservice. I'm writing this for the mama who is so exhausted every night that she cries just thinking about the sun going down and another night of a crying baby. I'm writing this for the mama who is sitting in a group of other mamas whose babies are all now sleeping through the night (or are all only getting up twice a night at most) while your six (or eight) (or ten) (or eighteen) month old baby is still up five to seven times a night and you almost burst into tears wondering what you are doing wrong. (The answer is NOTHING.) I am writing this for the mama who planned to sleep train and now doesn't think it's the right thing to do. I am writing this for the mama who is thinking she doesn't have the strength to go on, but also doesn't know what she wants to do. In short, I'm writing this for the mama I was this time last year.

I need to come clean. When my son was a newborn I never questioned if I would sleep train, I only wanted to know when to start. Most of the sleep training sites I devoured on-line or read in person told me to start sleep training at the four month mark or "when my baby no longer actually needed me in the middle of the night and was waking up out of habit rather than necessity." I was assured by my reading that there would come a time when he "didn't need me" and was waking up for "attention." He just turned 20 months old and I am still waiting for that time. So, if you are reading this and you have sleep trained your baby or toddler and you think it was what you had to do and it was necessary for your family, I will not argue with you. I don't live in your house; you're the mama and I'll believe that you did (and do) what your family needs you to do and that you did it with love and respect for all your family's needs.
For those who are conflicted like I was, I offer this.

Lie #1: If you start co-sleeping with your child/rocking/nursing your child to sleep, your child will NEVER learn to sleep on his/her own.

Never is a very long time and like most "never" statements, this one is not true. How many adults fall asleep being rocked? How many still co-sleep with their parents? Not everyone was sleep trained, so obviously the child does decide to sleep on his/her own eventually. It is true that time does seem to drag on forever when you have an infant, but believe it or not, these first few years really do only last for a few years (no matter what our sleep deprived sense of time makes it feel like). It can feel like you either have to sleep train right away or you will be doing whatever you are doing "forever," but there are other options.

You will not be parenting your child to sleep forever. My great-aunt co-slept with her adopted daughter from the time she was six months old until she was five years old. Then, one day, her daughter decided she wanted to sleep in her own room and never slept in her mom's room again. This story is about a two year old who decided she was ready. Not sure you can wait until your child is between two and five? You can always sleep train when your baby is older (either a toddler or a kid old enough to reason why sleeping in their own room all night is a good thing) if that feels better to you.

Lie #2 Your child does not need to wake up after the age of four months. It is normal for the your baby to sleep through the night by then.

Just because your baby is physically capable of going without food for longer periods at four months doesn't mean that they are physically ready or emotionally capable to sleep through the night. Several doctors and anthropologists agree that many young humans are not designed to sleep through the night until the age of three or four. Even if it is your doctor telling you that your child is ready to sleep through the night keep in mind two things. (1) Your doctor sees your child for twenty minutes every one to two months while you see him/her every day and (2) doctors often only see night waking from a nutritional point of view. Your child will no longer be at risk for going into a low blood sugar coma if he/she sleeps 12 hours a night. That is hardly the same thing as your child being completely ready. Think of it this way, as an adult, you are physically capable of running a marathon, but without being physically, emotionally, and nutritionally ready, you might not be so great at it. Even with someone there to train you step by step, if you are not mentally and emotionally ready for that marathon, it will be a hundred times harder.

Another thing to think about is how much contact you have with your baby during the day. Breastfeeding hormones and milk levels are regulated by how much physical contact you have with your baby. His or her night waking and co-sleeping which is murder on your energy level at work, might be a key factor in how capable you will be at maintaining a good milk supply.

Lie #3: Sleep is a skill that you must teach your child.

That line haunted me as I struggled with a son who just could not sleep for long stretches because of problems with reflux and food allergies. I was terrified that I was failing to do my job as a mother and teach him sleep, but just think about how silly that sounds. For those who have suffered insomnia, did any amount of "training" teach you to sleep even when you were highly motivated to sleep by your own insomnia? Sleep is what Peggy O'Mara calls "an instinct," just like you don't teach your child to laugh or cry, you cannot teach them to sleep.

You can teach good sleep habits and associations, but you can't force your baby (or yourself) to sleep. You can train your baby not to call for you in the middle of the night, and that might mean you get more sleep, but that does not necessarily mean that your baby will be getting more sleep. He or she might just not bother trying to get your help. (It's this idea that has kept me from sleep training my son thus far. I value that he knows I listen to him when he calls for me and I respect that he calls me only when he needs me.)

Lie #4: If your baby doesn't learn to sleep through the night now, he or she will have sleep problems when they are older and those can be detrimental.

This is another lie that kept me at the edge of breaking into tears at any moment. What I didn't know then, but I do know now is that there is absolutely no correlation between an individual's sleep patterns as a baby or even a toddler and those of when they are an older child or an adult. Babies and toddlers are evolutionarily designed to sleep differently. Again, good sleep habits are wonderful to reinforce from the beginning and do have an effect on how an older child sleeps. If you teach your child that sleep is a fun, relaxing thing, than they will be more willing to go to sleep when older. If you teach then that sleep is a scary and lonely thing, I think that association probably does travel with them as well.

The Truth: You can survive this and so can your child. This will end one day and it will get better.

You are stronger than you think you are. Ask for help when you need it, but inside you is a survivor. Your body and your mind is more resourceful than you can ever imagine and you are not alone. I know it feels like it will never end and I know you feel like you cannot go on. I have shed your tears and I have said those words. You can get through this; if I can anyone can!

Here is what has inspired me. It's from The Tao of Motherhood by Vimala McClure:
Selflessness

Everything which endures can
only do so because Eternal
Consciousness gives it a sentience.

A mother who gives herself
completely to her infant meets
herself in the dark and finds
fulfillment.

In the hours between midnight
and dawn, she crosses the
threshold of self-concern and
discovers a Self that has no limits.
A wise mother meets this
Presence with humility and steps
through time into selflessness.

Infants know when their mothers
have done this, and they
become peaceful.

Who, then, is the doer? Is it the
infant who brings its mother
through the veil of self-concern
into limitlessness? Is it the
mother, who chooses to hold
sacred her infant's needs and
surrender herself? Or is it the
One, which weaves them both
through a spiraling path
toward wholeness?

You can sit and meditate while
your baby cries himself to sleep.
Or you can go to him and share
his tears, and find your Self.

50 Ways to Seduce a Mother (or a Father!) (Originally published on the Connected mom 2/9/11)

In honor of Valentine's Day, I thought it might be fun to write a little about seduction. The true art of seduction is not to convince someone to do what you want, but to get someone in the mood to want what you want and to ask you for it. It's a subtle distinction, but an important one and it can be one that's difficult to achieve after you become a parent. (After all, it's really hard to switch gears after you've been "mommy" and "daddy" all day and you might have to slip back into those roles at any given time throughout the night.)

However, there are many romantic things you can do for your partner that will help her (or him) feel more inclined to be romantic. (And most of them are cheap and easy!) I offer these as some inspirations with a little help from The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman and some real life inspirations from friends. My ideas are geared toward women, but that's just because in my family, it's my husband who has the most trouble coming up with Valentine ideas and it fits better with the title to stick with "moms" as my focus, but most of these ideas will also work for men!

Seduce a Mother with:

Words:
1. Write a short love letter/post-it/email every day for a week. Say something very specific that you love about her and the way she looks. A lot of women start feeling unsexy after having children. Let her know that she still is every bit as sexy to you!
2. Compose a poem or song for her. (Bad writer/singer? No problem! You'll get bonus points for being brave and trying!)
3. Make a list with the kids of all the ways you want to show her you love her as a family. Post the list in a public place and make sure everyone tries to do something from the list every day.
4. Write her a long love letter or text like the ones you probably sent to one another when you were first together. Detail exactly how much she means to you and leave it some where she can find it!
5. Change the words to one of her favorite songs (or a love song that reminds you of her) to fit her and sing it to her. (Once again, she will only give you bonus points if singing isn't your usual thing!)
6. Get everyone's attention at dinner or another public meal and make a detailed speech/toast about her and how amazing she is.
7. Make her a mixed cd or playlist with songs that are special to you two.
8.If you have saved old emails or letters between the two of you, print them out and put them in a special book. If you have the time add pictures alongside the letters and surprise her with them.
9. Interview the kids on camera about what's special about her and have them interview you, then edit the videos together and surprise her with them. (Thanks, Nici, for the inspiration!)
10. Choose a word every day that you think describes her and slip her a note that tells her the word and why it represents her. Then find ways to use the word all day. (If you have older kids, you can co-opt them in the plan, too.)

Seduce her with Special time:
11. Surprise her by taking a day off work or getting her to take a day off work and plan different activities for you to do as a family (including all of the meals). If you have small children, make sure that you do most of the kid wrangling that day!
12. Plan a special "gift" hunt with the kids to help her find small presents that you've bought together for her. (Think gifts that are easy to hide: her favorite treat, a homemade bracelet, a small bottle of perfume, etc.) Come up with clues she can follow to get to her gifts.
13. Spend an evening with her just looking at old photos/videos/or listening to music that is special to her. Make sure she knows this is all about her memories that you want to hear about. Candlelight will definitely make the evening cosier.
14. Take her mini-golfing or some other silly activity you ordinarily wouldn't do. It's up to you if you bring the kids, but if you do, remember to be the one who steps up first to take care of them. This is about getting her in a more relaxed mood.
15. Go on a winter's walk and make her hot cocoa or tea at the end of it.
16. If you can find a sitter, take her someplace where she used to spend a lot of time before becoming a mom (to a show, to the gym, a bookstore etc.) Anyplace that will remind her of who she is besides being a mom.
17. Spend an hour or two just daydreaming about where you want to go as a couple. Dream about vacations you'd like to spend together, places you'd like to live, jobs you'd like to have.
18. Take her on a picnic. Too cold? Take her on a romantic picnic in your living room after the kids have gone to bed. Surprise her with it when she comes down from putting the kids to bed.
19. Plan a game night for the family or just the two of you. It doesn't matter what you play as long as she gets a chance to relax. Board games allow for more interaction, but if you want to play video games, that's fine, as long as she gets to choose what she wants.
20. Make a dinner or desert together after the kids go to bed. Try to find a recipe neither of you know how to make so you have to work together.

Seduce her with Gifts:
21. Give her a spa day. No money for a professional spa? No problem. Ask one of her best single friends to help you pick out lotions/face masks/whatever will make her feel refreshed and give her a girl's night to spend with that friend or team up with another couple and the two "givers' can help taking care of the kids while the two recievers get a spa day together!
22. Give her a day to go out on her own and tell her to buy for herself whatever makes her feel sexy. Tell her that you will not take no for an answer. You may be surprised by what she buys (it might be a new hair color, it might be a new cd, it might be a pair of shoes), but it isn't about her looking sexy for you. It's about her feeling sexy and that's a big difference.
23. Hire a "chef" for the night to come in and make a romantic meal (it can be a friend she knows who is a good cook). Alternatively, hire a housekeeper, an organizer, or a personal shopper for her. You know what would make her happiest.
24. Make or buy her something that you know she will use every day. Enlist the kids for ideas. It doesn't have to be something big. Just something that she can look at every day and know you care for her.
25. Make an investment in something she believes in. Is she a huge recycler, but you usually don't care much? Does she cry at ASPCA commercials? Is she a big believer in homebirth? Find a cause she cares about and make a donation. The fact that you paid attention, did the research, and contributed to her cause will mean a lot!
26. Ask her if she has a "bucket list" and make sure that you help her do something from the list! If she wants to travel somewhere buy a ticket or create a jar to save money in toward the trip. If she wants to learn how to fly, get her a lesson or create a jar to save money toward it. She'll thank you for it! (Thanks, Karen!)
27. Fund a girls' weekend or night. Get other partners involved and share the childcare and expenses!
28. Make her an appointment at her favorite salon for pampering.
29. Take the kids to pick out a small gift from each of them. Example? Buy her a charm bracelet and let each kid pick out a charm!
30. Buy her something that always makes you think of her. Does the smell of roses always make you think of her? Buy her some rose water or roses and let her know! Does the color blue match her eyes? Buy her a scarf and tell her so!

Seduce her with Acts of Service:
31. Make her dinner. Bad cook? Get the kids to help or ask relatives for easy recipes. You will get bonus points for trying!
32. Do her least favorite chore for her every day for a week.
33. Find her "to do" list and do everything on the list! (Thanks, Chris!)
34. Clean her car for her (if it's something she hates to do) or clean the snow off of her car for her. (This is something my husband excels at!)
35. Take over diaper/feeding duties for one day if you have small children.
36. Take on a house project that you know she wants done or if she really loves doing those projects but usually can't because she's tending to the kids, give her a chance to do one!
37. Give your bedroom a romantic transformation for her, buy new bedding or just change things up a bit. Bring in fresh flowers. Make the space special for her!
38. If it's been snowing a lot where you live, clear some space for the kids to play outside or clear sidewalks that don't always get cleared for her. She'll thank you.
39. Do the laundry for a week or even a month. (If you aren't sure how she likes to do it, ask for directions from either her or the kids.) Stick to it!
40. Make the bed for her (or do some other daily chore) every day.

Seduce her physically:
Note: It can be tempting to try to take these farther. Resist the urge. Let her know if she wants more!
41. Give her massage (foot/back/neck) for at least 30 minutes with her favorite scented oil or baby oil. Play her favorite music for her in the background and keep the lighting low. If she falls asleep, let her rest. She'll be more than grateful when she wakes up!
42. Make out with her. Act like you are teenagers and make out with her without pushing for more.
43. Feed her a dessert after the kids have gone to bed. This can be especially fun if she's adventurous and will risk be blinded while you feed her or letting you feed her in the dark. Finger foods are safest.
44. Spend a little time daily offering her extra touches. A few seconds extra added to a morning hug. Squeeze her hand. Take her hand when you are walking. Those extra touches add up quick over a week and can make her feel extra loved.
45. Spend time every day making extra eye contact with her. You don't have to stare her down, but eye contact of 3-5 seconds can let someone know that you are deeply interested in them.
46. Dine alone just the two of you in the dark or in low light. It might be even more fun to dine in a room you don't normally eat in, just don't freak out if a spill happens! Just laugh it off!
47. Offer to brush her hair/scrub her back or do some other small act of grooming for her. It's a gentle way to show affection.
48. Spend an evening gently tracing messages on her back and have her guess what you are writing. It sounds silly, but it can be a sweet way to show her affection.
49. Run her a bubble bath with some special bubbles and buy her a new fuzzy robe or pajamas. It can make her feel treasured and relaxed.
50. Kiss the top of her head, behind her ears, her neck, places that you probably forget to pay attention to now that you are so focused on being parents together. If you remind her of the playfulness of when you were first exploring your love, it will help her to be more playful now.

So there it is, 50 ideas to get your started. Combine them, add to them, and make them work for you! Happy Valentines Day!

-Connected Mom, Shawna

I Nursed a Baby Cow! (Originally published on the Connected Mom 2/2/11)

"How do you do it?"



(image by bonnie-brown and appears courtesy Flickr CC)

The question was asked of me in the middle of an intensely therapeutic phone conversation with my best friend who lives seven states away from me. I'd just been detailing the latest trials and tribulations of my perpetually sleepless son and his food reactions and she'd been telling me all about her two children's health issues and sibling squabbles. Her kids are only thirteen months apart and were aged 3 and 2 at the time. As a (now) single mom, she often has her own hands full. I think that was what surprised me the most about her question. It had been one that I am often on the verge of asking her! I told her this and I could almost hear her shrug over the phone. "Honestly, I don't know how I do it some days, but I just do, I guess." I had to admit that my answer was pretty much the same. I'm not sure there is any truer answer than that, but it's not the whole picture.

It seems to me that becoming a mom is like showing up for your first day of work and there's no one there to train you, you are under intense pressure to perform, and you have no idea how you are doing until years down the road! In response to this pressure, when my son was first born, I read every article I could get my hands on and studied every mom I saw relentlessly looking for whatever it was that I was apparently missing. Everyone else who had kids seemed to be happy and together and I felt like I was constantly drowing. Nothing I ever did felt completely right and everything I read seemed to give me different answers. In fact, the more magazine articles I read, the more utterly hopeless I felt! Not only did I feel like I was failing at being the kind of mom I wanted to be; I was also failing as a researcher! Meanwhile, I was terrified that someone would find out just what a mess I was and how little I deserved to be entrusted with such an amazing little soul. It's not that I didn't have a supportive partner and supportive families behind me, I just felt like I needed more . .. particularly during the hours when it was just me and the baby and prayer!

Being a mom is an awe-inspiring, powerful, and sometimes scary thing. This is especially true now, when it seems like there is so much more information out there and so many more options than our mothers or our grandmothers had. Many of us are attempting to do things that have not been done in our families for generations. Some of us are choosing (and struggling) to breastfeed, cloth diaper, co-sleep, stay home or work out of the home. Many of us live far, far away from our families in communities that may or may not agree with our choices. It's not that our mothers didn't feel the way we do about mothering, but we have many more choices and opportunities (and more access to information) than they had and that can make our decisions more difficult. There is no more "everybody's" doing it this way, because through the internet we can find people doing things in a million different ways. That's where building your own community comes in. That's where other moms come in!

I found that the more I talked to other moms, the more I realized that we were all in the same boat with many of the same insecurities and the same concerns. I also found that the more open and honest I was about my own struggles, the more forthcoming other moms would be with me both in person and online. It's important to find those moms in your community for connection as much as possible, but for times when that is not possible, it's important to also reach out online. With the internet, we have a powerful tool that our moms didn't have. We can find likeminded moms anytime of the day or not and connect with them. We can build our own "mom" communities. In fact, without my "mom" community, I don't know how I would have survived the past seventeen months. Whether it was a shoulder to cry on in a support meeting at the local yoga studio, heartfelt advice given in response to my latest status update about the trials of breastfeeding/teething/sleeping, or just desperately googling the words "my seventeen month old has never slept through the night" just to know I wasn't alone (I'm not!), other moms have lifted me up and made me believe I had strength I never knew I had before. It is through talking about their own trial and error parenting, that I've found the rhythm of my own mothering.

The only secret there is to successful motherhood is that there is no secret to it! Reaching out to others, building a community (both locally and online) is the only way to survive the greatest, most rewarding, and challenging experience of your life. Motherhood is dangerous territory and no mom should do it alone! That's why I'm so excited about joining the blog here as a contributing author. Now, I have the chance to build a community with you!


Thanks!
-Connected Mom, Shawna

The Secret to Motherhood (originally published on the connected mom 1/19/11)

"How do you do it?"



(image by bonnie-brown and appears courtesy Flickr CC)

The question was asked of me in the middle of an intensely therapeutic phone conversation with my best friend who lives seven states away from me. I'd just been detailing the latest trials and tribulations of my perpetually sleepless son and his food reactions and she'd been telling me all about her two children's health issues and sibling squabbles. Her kids are only thirteen months apart and were aged 3 and 2 at the time. As a (now) single mom, she often has her own hands full. I think that was what surprised me the most about her question. It had been one that I am often on the verge of asking her! I told her this and I could almost hear her shrug over the phone. "Honestly, I don't know how I do it some days, but I just do, I guess." I had to admit that my answer was pretty much the same. I'm not sure there is any truer answer than that, but it's not the whole picture.

It seems to me that becoming a mom is like showing up for your first day of work and there's no one there to train you, you are under intense pressure to perform, and you have no idea how you are doing until years down the road! In response to this pressure, when my son was first born, I read every article I could get my hands on and studied every mom I saw relentlessly looking for whatever it was that I was apparently missing. Everyone else who had kids seemed to be happy and together and I felt like I was constantly drowing. Nothing I ever did felt completely right and everything I read seemed to give me different answers. In fact, the more magazine articles I read, the more utterly hopeless I felt! Not only did I feel like I was failing at being the kind of mom I wanted to be; I was also failing as a researcher! Meanwhile, I was terrified that someone would find out just what a mess I was and how little I deserved to be entrusted with such an amazing little soul. It's not that I didn't have a supportive partner and supportive families behind me, I just felt like I needed more . .. particularly during the hours when it was just me and the baby and prayer!

Being a mom is an awe-inspiring, powerful, and sometimes scary thing. This is especially true now, when it seems like there is so much more information out there and so many more options than our mothers or our grandmothers had. Many of us are attempting to do things that have not been done in our families for generations. Some of us are choosing (and struggling) to breastfeed, cloth diaper, co-sleep, stay home or work out of the home. Many of us live far, far away from our families in communities that may or may not agree with our choices. It's not that our mothers didn't feel the way we do about mothering, but we have many more choices and opportunities (and more access to information) than they had and that can make our decisions more difficult. There is no more "everybody's" doing it this way, because through the internet we can find people doing things in a million different ways. That's where building your own community comes in. That's where other moms come in!

I found that the more I talked to other moms, the more I realized that we were all in the same boat with many of the same insecurities and the same concerns. I also found that the more open and honest I was about my own struggles, the more forthcoming other moms would be with me both in person and online. It's important to find those moms in your community for connection as much as possible, but for times when that is not possible, it's important to also reach out online. With the internet, we have a powerful tool that our moms didn't have. We can find likeminded moms anytime of the day or not and connect with them. We can build our own "mom" communities. In fact, without my "mom" community, I don't know how I would have survived the past seventeen months. Whether it was a shoulder to cry on in a support meeting at the local yoga studio, heartfelt advice given in response to my latest status update about the trials of breastfeeding/teething/sleeping, or just desperately googling the words "my seventeen month old has never slept through the night" just to know I wasn't alone (I'm not!), other moms have lifted me up and made me believe I had strength I never knew I had before. It is through talking about their own trial and error parenting, that I've found the rhythm of my own mothering.

The only secret there is to successful motherhood is that there is no secret to it! Reaching out to others, building a community (both locally and online) is the only way to survive the greatest, most rewarding, and challenging experience of your life. Motherhood is dangerous territory and no mom should do it alone! That's why I'm so excited about joining the blog here as a contributing author. Now, I have the chance to build a community with you!


Thanks!
-Connected Mom, Shawna

There's No Greater Sacrifice: Cesarean Birth (Originally on the Connected Mom published 1/9/13)

Recently, I recieved a message from a friend of mine on my personal facebook page that started like this: "So I see all the stuff you post about vbac and natural childbirth and a few of them had made me feel you think less of moms who have had csections. I had one and it was terribly disapointing but I also needed my child to arrive here safely [. . .]" The message really stunned me because I am currently in the process of planning a vbac in about nine weeks (or less) and am a cesarean mother myself. I realized that, perhaps, in my own exuberance at the chance of giving birth naturally once more, and in making my own emotional struggle with my cesarean largely private or on here only, I may have missed the chance to be clear about how I feel about cesearen birth. I do realize that cesarean birth can seem like it has a bad reputation with mothers who want to experience "natural" birth. I will admit that I, and many of my like minded friends, probably post links about natural birth, its beauty, and how to avoid unnecessary cesarean sections so often that we may forget that people may not always know where we are coming from. So, here is where I'm coming from.

A few months ago, I attended a screening of the film "Freedom For Birth: The Mother's Revolution: Women Take Back Childbirth," in addition to being a great film, the discussion afterwards featured a comment that made me cry and not just because I'm pregnant. A Certified Nurse Midwife, Sameerah Shareef, the only nurse midwife who attends birth in the entire city of Lansing, where we currently live, made the comment that she could think of "no greater sacrifice" in birth than that which a birthing mother makes when she births on an operating table instead of naturally. She went on to describe the heartbreaking desecration of laying yourself prostrate and allowing yourself to be cut open not just spiritually, or emotionally, or metaphorically, but literally in order that your baby might live and be born. It was the first time I found myself thinking of my son's birth as something other than shameful and I cried tears of relief to hear her words. I wish I had been able to record them so that I could share them all with you, but I didn't and while the literal words have left me, the spirit hasn't.

A mother who births through a c-section is an unsung hero. At no other point in your life will you have a major surgery performed on you (with all its risks and side effects) and not only have no one really pay attention to your recovery, but will also be told repeatedly to be thankful for it (even though it causes you great daily pain and has permenant repercussions emotionally, mentally, and physically for you). "Healthy mama, healthy baby," is the mantra I was told over and over again, but I have to tell you that post c-section, especially if that c-section was unexpected and the recipient is not sure if it was or wasn't completely necessary, most mothers feel anything but "healthy." When you go in for a c-section, you sacrifice a lot. Often you sacrifice your ability to be the first one to hold your baby, you sacrifice your ability to hold your baby skin to skin right away (in our case, my husband was allowed to step in and give my baby that, but it tore me up to see that I would have to wait), you sacrifice your own health, you (sometimes) sacrfice your ability to breastfeed successfully (I was lucky in that I did not have this problem, but it is very, very commen for women with c-sections to have all sorts of post-surgery delayed milk production and other breastfeeding issues), you sacrifice your own mental and emotional health (many women find that the trauma of a c-section is much more than they ever thought it would be; not all, but many) and sometimes you allow yourself to sacrifice your own ability to say you "birthed" your baby, preferring instead to say your baby was "delivered" (I still struggle to think I "birthed" my baby through a c-section). I've met many women (me among them) who felt that their agency in the birthing of their own children had been negated just because they had a c-section. I often have found myself apologizing or giving excuses for my c-section as if I had let everyone down (most of all myself and my child), by allowing myself to be lain on a table and sliced open to give birth instead of managing to do it on my own. Sameerah's words did much to reshape that image in my mind.

A mother who births through c-section is a warrior in her own right because she fights not just during her birth, not just during her immediate physical recovery, not just through her emotional recovery (which can often take longer), but also through any subsequent pregnancies where she now faces increased risks both if she chooses VBAC or she has necessary repeat cesarean. In fact, in the paperwork the hospital where I am planning my VBAC had me sign, the risks for maternal death, infant death, and other serious complications are the same no matter what course she chooses and those risks are increased compared to mothers who have not had a cesearean. That is a lot of physical, mental, and spiritual work for any woman to have to take on, and currently in this country around a third of all women who give birth face just this challenge. (A third! When in many developed nations both maternal and infant mortality rates remain lower than the US AND cesarean rates are less than 10%!) No one is denying that c-sections save mothers and infants, but many are dedicated to making sure that the c-sections that happen are absolutely necessary and do save lifes.

So, make no mistake, if those who advocate natural birth are anti unneccesary and uninformed c-section and are very vocal about it, it is not because anyone feels that women who birth through c-sections are lesser than or somehow not as strong as mothers who birth vaginally. Most (like many of the women on this site who gave birth through c-section and are intimately and painfully aware of just how strong and hard c-section mamas have to be) are actually motivated by the sacrifice and pain women go through and want to make sure that the only mamas who go through that kind of pain and sacrifice are the ones who need to in order for them and their babies to live. Mothers who birth through cesearean sections are amazing, strong, and face challenges that mothers who birth naturally often do not have to face. I am in awe of them. I am in awe of myself. I have come so far and been through so much and am taking on so much more in planning my VBAC that I can have nothing but respect for mothers who birth through c-sections. We are a very strong, resiliant group of women to allow ourselves to be permanently scarred, broken open, emotionally torn, and under appreciated all while performing all the duties that new mothers must perform to keep our babies thriving. I have nothing but love for women who must birth through c-section, but I also want to make sure that no one goes through all that without reason, including myself.

Thank you for reading,
Shawna

Best Yes: Week Five

I know the bible study is over, but I wanted to write six blogs but didn't have ideas for the last two weeks, so I decided to wait until ideas came to me.  Today, one did.

My toddler is many things (curious, mischevous, adorable, loving) but "helpful" is not one of them. It's not that he doesn't "want" to be helpful, he sincerely does! However, in truth, he just does not know enough to be helpful and when he tries to do things himself, particularly when it comes to cleaning up his own messes, he often makes them worse.

Case in point, I discovered at lunch today he had thrown a small cardboard book into his diaper pail and when I washed it the cardboard disentregated into brown pellets all over everything in the load.  To try to clean it, I got all the diapers out, set the washer to rinse and drain to try to clean it out a bit (it seriously looked like a cardboard masher had thrown up in there), and went outside to shake out the diapers, liners, wipes, etc. and put them on the line in the hopes the wind and drying process would get rid of the smaller cardboard particles I couldn't shake out. Of course, my five year old and almost twenty month old wanted to come out with me so I first had to bundle them up, then hustle everyone out to get the mess cleaned up.  Outside, it was chaos.  I knew how I wanted to get the mess cleaned up, but my sons both had their own ideas about how best to "help."  My eldest son thought he could be most "helpful" by giving me a running commentary on everything his brother was doing.  My youngest thought he could be most "helpful" by throwing diapers off the deck and trying to turn it into a game.  Knowing my youngest is too young to understand my plan of how to correct his innocent (but incredibly messy) mistake, I concentrated my efforts on trying to shape my eldest son into a helper for me.  Being older, and more used to my ways and the way my mind works, my eldest actually was pretty helpful once I got him to stop his commentary and yelling at his brother.  I'm not saying he was perfect, but he was certainly helpful.  He didn't always do things the way I wanted him to do them, but I was there to help and we got the job done.  Meanwhile, my youngest (whose poor decision to throw the book into the wash to begin with) caught on to what I was trying to do, but he was so intent on cleaning up the mess "himself" that he often caused even more little messes as his brother and I were trying really hard to help him out of the original mess he created.

As I looked at the diapers finally all hanging on the line with as much of the pieces of cardboard shaken off them as we could manage, I couldn't help but wonder how many times God has watched me act just like my toddler.  How often has God watched my clumsy attempts to ckean up my messes by "myself" only to make them worse?  How often have I, like my five year old, attempted to help him clean up someone else's messes without getting his help and instructions first?

Lord, help me to know you and to listen for your directions! Don't let me be the toddler making things worse or the young child slowing things down!

Epic Date Night

My husband and I, like many parents of small children, don't really get out much.  We were homebodies even before we had kids, so a weekly date night was never really in the cards.  I'm not saying there's anything wrong with those who get out more; we just don't.  But this year, we've been making an effort to put more "romance" into our lives and that has included a few date nights.  Okay, date afternoons. . .like four or five. . .counting today.  Anyway, originally, I thought a blockbuster movie we both wanted to watch was coming out this weekend, so I arranged a babysitter for this afternoon so we could see our first movie together since my water broke and I went into labor with our eldest son over five years ago. (See my earlier statement about the fact we don't go out much. . .we've  been to movies, just movies with the kids.)  However, it turns out the movie doesn't come out until next month, but we decided to go out to a campus art museum near us where some friends of ours had a fun date a while back.  It was a good idea in theory. . .but, we didn't check what the installations were.

We arrived dressed up for us and excited to spend a few hours doing "grown up" stuff without a single raisin or sibling squabble in sight.  We began wandering around the small museum and saw such "unique" exhibits as pictures of a performance artist who decided to face his fear of the dark by sealing himself inside a concrete column for 24 hours naked with only his cell phone for company.  Okay, so many of the exhibits weren't really "our" thing, but we used to love art museums when we first met, so it was a fun throw back to our more earnest collegiate selves. Around the corner from the pictures of the performance art was an exhibit with a warning that it included graphic images of violence and animals.  We gave that corner a wide berth and traveled to a lower floor where we found an exhibit on the horrible, awful, heartbreaking things our oil companies (like Exxon and Texaco) have been doing to native people and their lands in the Amazon.  Not exactly what we were expecting on our first date away from the boys in months, but we took in the information and tried not to let the sobering statistics ruin our afternoon.  On the way out, I asked if we could see a film exhibit that features duel screens streaming different scenes.  (I had peeked in on it on the way in and saw that this exhibit showed two different films and the one I had peeked at had shown a boat pulling into port and a mother and her young children dressed as if they were in the '40s or so and looked like immigrants.  The children were obviously nervous to go down the ramp from the boat to land, so the mother was butt scooting down with them to help them feel safe.  As the mother of a 19 month old who butt scoots down stairs, it was a moment that resonated with me.  I thought it might be interesting to see something about immigrant experiences when I had connected with the brief snippet I had seen so much.  

Unfortunately, they were on the other film exhibit that alternates with the one I saw.  It was an interesting experience in story telling about the '60s in the US, race, the UN, and mass murder. It featured no narration, but seemed to show scenes of Kennedy, the United Nations, and the Cuban missle crisis, alternating with scenes of murder in Africa (I think it was Africa. . . It was hard to tell which nations specifically when they were edited, had no narration and were cross cut with Kennedy). It was a unique narrative experience. That is it WAS interesting until it had a close up of a murdered five year old. The child looked nothing like my eldest son who is around the same age, but my reaction to seeing him dead was eviscerating. I just could not sit anymore and had to leave the exhibit, my eyes welling with tears. My husband missed the scene because he was focused on the other scene,but understood   that the last two exhibits had been a little too sobering for a rare parents' afternoon out.

To cheer me up, we walked to my favorite little shop which happens to be across from the museum. There we were greeted by a Beyonce dance song popular when we were first dating and covered as some sort of love ballad by a male singer. ("Smarmy" might be an adjective that comes to mind for this rendition.) The ludicrous juxtoposition between the strangeness of the song choice in the little shop that features knitted goods, scarves, earrings, and small trinkets was enough to make us giggle a bit which led us to real laughs when we discovered in the middle of my beloved little shop was a table which now featured handcarved bottle openers, hand painted with bright designs such as flowers and geometric patterns and were made to represent male genatalia. Why in the world they are selling that in a shop full of imported woolen knit accessories and other feminine trinkets is a mystery I will never solve. They've never been there when we've been there. The surprise of finding them there made us burst out laughing! What a gambit of emotions this date had brought us through in less than 90 minutes and none of them quite what we had envisioned! Unfazed (or at least not fazed too much), we spent the rest of the date giving THAT table a wide berth and bought some fun knitted hats for our family at five dollars each.

You know, marriage, parenting, life in general is rarely what we plan ourselves. God and our own choices (or lack of research in our choices) can throw a lot of unexpected heartbreak, fear, and just random ridiculousness our way, but if your partner is someone who can laugh along in the journey with you and just keep going along with the flow, I think you and your family are going to be all right.