Here's to Hope

Oh my goodness, we are actually having a baby!  It has hit me that this might be really happening.  You might think that sounds crazy, to be 33 weeks pregnant and just realize this, but it has been a long couple of years.  The ups and downs of pregnancy and miscarriage were rough and I find myself repeatedly astonished it is actually real.

I feel like I need to talk about the miscarriages a little bit.  I talked about the first one a lot already, because that was emotionally the hardest and required the D&C and all that.   But they are so common (roughly 30% of all pregnancies) and yet hardly anyone ever talks about them openly and I’m still not sure why they are a sort of taboo subject.  Miscarriages are a unique sort of loss.  I knew that before, professionally it is something I deal with so often, but I didn’t really understand it until I experienced it myself and found out how much suffering is involved.  I’m not saying my road was harder than anyone else’s, there are certainly people who have suffered more than I have, but 4 miscarriages in a row did stretch me to the edge of my own ability to cope. 

That sort of pain; deep heart wrenching pain that rips you up on the inside, that feels like the loss of your entire future, is so hard to handle.  Harder, even, when the loss is personal, and private, and lonely.  I wasn’t totally private about it, people around me knew what was going on, but I didn’t stop to grieve either (which in retrospect might not have been the right choice).  I went to work throughout all of it and kept everything around me as normal as possible; it was easier for me to be distracted than to think about it too much.  I also found that when I was working I completely forgot it was happening and I enjoyed taking care of my pregnant patients and delivering their babies and holding their hand through the newborn phase without harboring any resentment.  However, when I was at the grocery store and saw a newborn, or on the street and saw a pregnant woman, or heard of someone I knew having a baby it just seemed so unfair.  The pain was so sharp and searing at those moments and I had the almost constant thought of “why is this happening to me?”  I probably should have worked on letting out some of that pent up emotion but I felt I was struggling to make it day to day as it was.  Each positive pregnancy test was filled with so much hope and each time the bleeding started my hopes were more than just dashed, it felt like they were slaughtered.

Which is why we totally gave up after the 4^th one last February.  I couldn’t go through it again.  It was just too hard.  Of course in the time following that loss I wasn’t thinking all that clearly, as a physician I really should know better: that you don’t have to be “trying” to get pregnant to actually become pregnant and I was truly surprised a month later to see that positive pregnancy test, and also terrified.  My very first thought was, 5!  I can’t go through 5 miscarriages!  But there was a little glimmer of hope.  And seeing that little heartbeat on the first trimester ultrasound was so surprising.  I didn’t cry, I just sat there in awe that momentarily things were actually ok.

Since that moment every positive step forward has been individually reassuring (a normal nuchal screen, a normal first trimester screen, a normal 20 week ultrasound), but none of it has really stopped me from thinking that at some point the other shoe is going to drop.  That feeling never leaves me.  On a daily basis I run through all the bad things that could happen, which is why I think I’ve set up this barrier to believing it is actually happening.  It’s easier to think it’s not happening so that when things go bad I’m prepared.  Even though nothing really prepares you for that sort of loss.  It’s probably a defense mechanism, and probably not the most mature reaction, but I’m working on it.  And as each day goes by things seem to get more real.  Which has led me to actually start working on the nursery.  Which makes me worried I’m jinxing things.  (I haven’t taken the tags off of anything because that feels like I might really be pushing my luck).  It is sad to me, that somehow, in the process of all that loss (and maybe of not dealing with the loss) that I may have dampened my own hope and happiness for this new little one.  Feeling condemned to loss is unfair to her so I'm trying to stop that feeling; with her movements and presence becoming stronger every day I want to work to rediscover what joy that is unfettered by worry feels like.  Easier said than done.  But I want to do it for her sake, so that I will be able to give in completely to the moment I’ve been desperately hoping for; the blissful amazing moment when I watch her take that first breath of life.  Here’s to hoping and believing that miracles, even common every day ones, like a healthy baby being born in a normal way, can happen to anyone, even me.

Our First Homework Battle and Swim Team Saga

Funny how the “firsts” of childhood start out so cute (first time rolling over, first time saying “mama”) and progress into more painful experiences.  Or maybe that’s just my current perspective talking.  We had our first homework battle the other night, which was not something I was anticipating would occur.  Avery really likes school and likes reading and is a perfectionist (the thought of disappointing her teacher makes her pale) so I just thought she would naturally slide into homework as I knew second grade would probably bring more of it.  But Tuesday night we got in an all out war.  In retrospect I think Andy and I both wished we had handled it differently but that whole hindsight thing is what it is. 

It started out that I tried to get her to do her homework right when we got home, before we went to swim team practice and she did some, but got frustrated and wanted to take a break, I felt she was asking reasonably so I said she could do it right after dinner.  Then we had a bad experience at swim team (see below) and when we got home she was crying from that, whimpered through dinner and was not in a good mood to tackle homework.  But it had to be done.  So we started it and in a matter of minutes she had thrown herself on the ground and was rolling around screaming “I can’t do it!  I’m not doing it!”  We let her do that for a while and tried to cajole her a little bit into doing it without success.  Then we asked her what the consequence would be at school and she said, “I’ll have to stay in at recess and finish it which is fine because I don’t have any friends and I spend recess standing around by myself so I might as well be inside doing homework!”  Wow, she knows how to hit us where it hurts.  When we didn’t really react to that she started to pull out all the stops with more screaming, throwing things, hitting the wall, whatever negative thing she could do to get our attention.  If I had seen it for what it was I probably wouldn’t have reacted how I did but I was so tired (and pregnant) and couldn’t deal so I lost it and I started bawling, (note to self: don’t do that, it makes things worse).  Then we started pulling out threats about her bad behavior (“if you slam your door one more time we’re taking it off the hinges” etc. etc.).  The whole thing snowballed into a big emotional mess.  Finally I was able to talk to her and calm her down so at least she could go to sleep (because now we’re at an hour past her bedtime of course).  As soon as she was asleep Andy and I sat down and discussed strategy, like we were war generals, and we think we have a plan of laying out expectations peppered with some intrinsic and extrinsic motivators and docking for noncompliance and relying heavily on natural consequences (she says she would be ok turning in blank homework but I doubt she really is ok with it, we’re trying hard to allow her to try it and see what happens, that is where our Type A-ness starts coming out!).  But mostly I think she just needs to get in the habit of doing her homework right after school, that that routine alone will help with a lot.  And so yet again I think, “wow this parenting gig is not easy, what are we going to do when she is a teenager?!”  (follow up: she woke up early the next morning and did her homework with only a small amount of whining and did ok with it the rest of the week when asked).

Ah, so Swim Team.  Yet another emotionally laden experience.  I admit, that in the beginning it was my idea, it was not driven by her request to be on swim team or anything like that.  In fact, there was bribery involved.  But those of you that know me know I spent a big part of my life swimming and I love the sport and feel that it teaches valuable life lessons, is good for social networking, and is great exercise.  I’ve actually gotten back into lap swimming lately myself since that is one of the few forms of exercise I can do where I don’t feel like my belly is going to explode from internal pressure.  So clearly before we even start this it gets complicated because I’m already emotionally involved and working on creating a barrier so that my history doesn’t filter down to her too much; I want her to have her own experience with swimming.  Easier said than done.  So, anyway, as I have mentioned before, Andy and I want to keep her as active as possible, we feel she needs daily exercise and she has progressed so well in swimming lessons and has a really nice crawl stroke and an excellent backstroke (for a 7 year old -- that is me trying to be as analytical about her technique and unbiased as possible) that she should at least try swim team.  She’s not fast, but has such great form that I feel like she has clear potential to be good at this a few years down the road and so I was thinking that now would be a good time to start.

Side note:  So this is an interesting question to me that Andy and I have discussed before and don’t know the answer to but we poll parents when we get a chance.  How do you choose activities for your kids?  Or do you let them choose themselves?  Do you “make” them do certain sports/activities?  When do you start?  How long do you push them for?  Or do you push them?  Do you let them quit and try something else?  We’ve already heard tons of different answers to these questions.  And of course I think the whole “tiger mom” book and parenting concept has certainly added to this debate about how to manage activities and such.  I don’t have answers right now, I’ll let you know if I figure something out!

I looked into the local team when we moved and found out there would be a “trial period” for 2 weeks at the beginning of September and thought we would go and see how it went.  I told her some stories about how much fun I had on swim team and how it would be a great place for her to make some new friends in our new town.  I painted a rosy picture for sure.  Then it came time for the first day.  I was not prepared for the machine that is the Boise Y swim team, and unfortunately neither was Avery.  There were about 50 new kids on the pool deck with their parents (in addition to the kids already swimming), it was so chaotic, we stood in line to sign her in and get her a cap and write her name on it in sharpie (the only way to keep them all straight) and then she got in a lane with 11 other little kids that were maybe slightly older than her but around the same ability level.  Can you believe that, 12+ kids in a lane in a 25 yard pool!  I was thankful there were lifeguards there in addition to the 5 coaches!  So first day what do they do?  Freestyle drills!  45 minutes of streamline kicking, one arm swimming, and “catchup” drill.  And I immediately had regrets thinking this is way more aggressive than what I was looking for.  And she ended up with a bunch of splashy boys in her lane, who kept touching her toes and trying to pass her (she couldn’t see that they were actually cheating on their drills and swimming instead of kicking).  About 20 minutes into the practice I could see on her face that she was crying, and at the same time I realized I was on the verge of fainting because I had been standing so long in this giant group of parents and it was overwhelmingly hot on the pool deck.  So I’m desperately looking for a dry place to sit my giant pregnant body down and nobody is looking like they want to give up their coveted plastic chair so I finally find a small dry corner near a fan and maintain my grip on consciousness while trying to keep my eye on her at the same time.  Over the next 5 minutes the crying turned to sobbing and she asked her coach to get out.  She said she was overwhelmed, that she felt confused about what she was supposed to be doing, she felt like she couldn’t hear the instructions properly and that everyone was faster than she was.  I tried to encourage her to try another lane or a something else but nothing worked, I couldn’t get her to stop crying and I was feeling equally miserable in my lightheaded state so we threw in the towel for that day.

On the way home I thought about letting her quit right then, but I said we would try it for 2 weeks and she agreed to go back in a couple of days.  Day #2 was much better, there were a lot fewer parents and slightly fewer kids (9 in a lane) and she made it through with a smile on her face.  So, of course, I filled out the arduously long amount of paperwork and wrote the check that committed us to the team.  This week was day #3 and again it was a really crowded day; lots of kids in the lanes and the feeling of chaos with some kids swimming down the wrong side and running into other kids.  I was trying to extract myself and let the coaches deal with it so I was way off to the side watching from a corner as she totally fell to pieces after about 10 minutes.  The coaches tried to get her back in but she saw me and came running over.  She couldn’t even talk she was crying so hard.  It broke my heart to see her so upset.  There were tears in my own eyes.  So we talked for a while and tried to get her back in again, but again nothing worked.  I made her stay and watch the rest of practice at least, because I didn’t want her to think this was a way to get out early.  I had a serious talk with her afterwards, about how this is really her choice, that I think she has potential and that I know she can do it, but she has to be the one to do the work, I can’t do it for her.  She pulled out the, “but you said it would be fun!  And it’s not!” and I apologized because I was clearly wrong about that, and then we had to discuss how sometimes the fun comes later, sometimes the work pays off and then it is more fun.  Tough lessons to learn at age 7.  And I think she was disappointed in herself that she didn’t get back in because she cried the whole way home in the car.

Somehow she agreed to go back for day #4, which was yesterday, and it ended up being pretty good.  I was able to get Andy to come because I thought that would help her to have Daddy there too (and it did boost her up a little).  It was a day of all breaststroke drills, which is her least favorite stroke and so immediately I cringed when I saw the plan.  She did get out once toward the end of practice but to her credit she didn’t come talk to Andy or me, she went to the head coach, who was able to talk her back into the water.  She told me later that she was worried she was going to drown in the middle of the pool, that she wouldn’t be able to make it to the other end and that it would have been “too embarrassing” if someone had to get in and rescue her.  She wasn’t giving herself enough credit, she was actually doing pretty good (and the pool is about 5 feet deep at the deepest, so drowning seems unlikely).  In the end, she told us the best part of the day was how proud she was when she got back in, that she had overcome that obstacle by herself.  And that alone was worth the trauma for me.

So today the big question is: there is a team only meet next weekend (a small meet, well, as small as a meet can be when there are 250 kids on the team, yes, that is right 250 kids (!), ranging in ability from “barely able to swim” to “Olympic trial qualifiers”) and the coaches are encouraging all of the kids, even the beginners to participate for the experience, do I sign her up?  The sign up is due today.  Do I sign her up for the 25 free and 25 backstroke and see how it goes?  She can’t dive off blocks yet, but she is probably not alone in that department.  It’s officiated so kids who need times can get them and so if she gets DQ’d she’ll be totally traumatized and so I’m hesitant.  Also, they require the parents do hour long timing shifts, and physically I’m not sure I can do it, I get so hot and lightheaded on the pool deck.  I’m leaning towards not doing it, giving her more time to get used to practice, but I don’t want her to miss out on an opportunity to adjust to what a meet is like in a safe setting (because the other big meets here are really really big and would definitely be overwhelming for her).  Tough call huh?

Body Image Issues at Our House

Wow, it ends up that as kids get older the parenting gets harder.  HOW COME NO ONE TOLD ME THAT?  Geez society, you had me all freaked out about the baby years, ends up that those are the easy ones!  Newest issue at our house: body image.  And I am at a total loss for what to do (because I feel like I’ve tried everything you’re “supposed” to do).  In other words, I’m open to advice.

Avery has, for awhile now, become more aware of how her body looks compared to other kids, I suppose starting probably about a year ago during first grade but becoming more and more of an issue.  And now we’re at the point where it is almost a daily issue.  For example, last night she had her first ballet class, which she enjoyed (which was a sigh of relief) but afterwards she said to me, “mom, I have the fattest legs of all the girls in my class.”  And after a moment of grasping for words I said, “your legs are fine and they are strong and useful and it’s wonderful you’re dancing with them.”  Then she looked at me with this look, a very clear look of “I don’t believe a word you’re saying.”  And it was that look that gave me pause, because if she doesn’t believe me, who is she going to believe?

Here’s the thing, she is a stout girl, I don’t think (according to all the numbers) that she would fall into the range of being technically overweight, but she is probably at the upper end of the normal curve for body mass.  This is something I am acutely aware of as her health is my priority and really my job to watch out for.  And, like me, she loves food and loves to eat and if we let her would eat a lot of food!  We set quite a few limits around food and consciously try to keep her as active as possible, which is not as easy to do as it sounds when kids are in school so much of the day (and only have P.E. twice a week).  My point is that it would be lying to tell her that she is skinny, when she’s not, or that she’s wrong, when her version is just the negative interpretation of the facts based on cultural expectations.  

My current plan is to try to put a positive spin on it all, to continue to try to explain that her body will develop how it will develop, she and I don’t have any control over that, and that we will continue to eat healthy foods and do healthy activities to make her body strong.  I guess I just wish society would help, because I feel like I’m battling cultural norms with everything I’m saying to her about this and that in the end she is going to believe them over me.   In which case, what can I do?