Tipping the Scales

No, this isn't a deliberation on my continuing battle with the dragon-like last ten-twenty (? who knows, the Ectopolooza of '08 did a number on my BMI) pounds.

We had a lovely Christmas. My dad came and picked Bruiser and me up for a week of doing shit-all. It was amazing. Okay, I worked a little, but not really anything very much or very stressful.

As Christmas Eve came, snow fell in beautiful, puffy flakes. Everyone was already safe on the farm, sitting around the wood stove, chasing Bruiser up and down the steep farmhouse stairs. People made me gin and tonics and brought me champagne. Other people did most of the cooking, cleaning, washing, and entertaining. I got to stare at the cedars, increasingly weighed down with white, as the blue twilight fell. I stayed up as long as I wanted, letting the little tyke fall asleep on my lap for once.

It was wonderful. It tipped the scales completely, away from what has been a very stressful, challenging, lean year.

Here's to more cheer, contentment, and relaxing moments in 2011! For all of us.

The Eternal Return

Wow. Hi, there. Yeah.

It's been rough here. I earned two parental stripes in November: first 911 call and ER visit, and first thorough dousing in vomit. Sorry, no other way to put it.

It turns out there are these things called febrile seizures my son gets if his temp spikes too fast. I learned this the hard way, and thought I was watching my child about to die in my arms. Very scary, but apparently without any long-term consequences. Crazy how resilient the little ones are.

So after a bout of pneumonia, we all headed to visit my 90+-year-old grandma. After nine hours in the car on the way home, I got sick. Really sick. As in, thank heavens this is a rental car. My son followed my lead a few hours after we passed out together in bed. Then the hubby, then both my parents. Fun!

That, and a basically empty bank account, despite working our asses off, had led to some pretty intense blues. We don't buy anything, only eat out once a week (for something cheap like pizza), yet still have no money. Sigh.

And finally, I'm still haunted, every time I hear someone is pregnant. It's not just the envy. It's the icky memories of my dark time before and during, when on some level I just knew something was about to go horribly wrong. It didn't, really, but the feelings remain.

On that notes, may all of you still struggling, regardless of your current status, find joy and support during this often hard season. And may the next year bring you happiness and contentment.

The requisite sorry check in

Ah, so many posts have been drafted in my head. And so few have made it here.

Things are, well, well. Well enough. First year done. Academic job applications ignored, but I've been pouring myself into my other, non-academic writing job. Now if I can just get it to make me more money, I'm set. It's a good gig, but not quite enough work to be full time. I know I can turn it into a career and make a living at what I do; it's just frustrating at the moment, to work a lot and still have some weeks when we don't go to the grocery store and cruise on beans and rice and frozen broccoli, for fear of overdrafts.

My little one has a lot of strengths. Sleeping is not one of them. It rarely impacts his sunny, engaged outlook on things, but it does turn me into a raving lunatic with zero tolerance for complexity. We're currently in yet another major developmental moment, which means even poorer sleep for both of us. How do I know? He talks in his sleep, laughs, screams, rolls, kicks, and basically asks like his brain is in total overdrive.

So, he's kicking my ass. Exhaustion is, too. As is my work.

I need a run and a beer.

Choice, Part Two

I realized this weekend that I do have a choice.

I can choose to go back to work full-time, outside the home. I've been working 20-30 hours a week from home (while watching a near-toddler; yes, I am insane). I've been miserable. I need a life of work and adult interaction. I'm lonely, bored, yet stressed constantly about my poor performance and my neglected mind is an unending torture.

And now that Bruiser is almost one, I feel I can make this choice with less detriment to my desire to parent a certain way. (ZERO criticism of people who have or require different approaches implied here; we make our own calls.) There are also WAAAAY more options in Hippy College Town for toddlers as opposed to teensy weensy infants, and you get far more bang for your buck in terms of quality.

This is also perfect timing: my hubby is learning a skilled trade related to his love of and talent for music, and it requires a lot of time and effort (on top of his 50-hour work weeks). So if I found a job with benefits, we could possibly both have what we need to thrive. And Bruiser could hang with his papa most days.

Instead of his insane and blue mama.

Choice

You know, we have no choice.

We may have a few options that we can weigh and compare and contrast, but if they are all not what we need or want or what we hoped for, where's the choice?

I'm thinking of this headline. I actually really like the writer's perspective, and it's one people should think more about. But the header, likely not chosen by the author, sucks. "His Sperm, My Choice."

Of course, to become a mother using newer approaches, is a choice of sorts. But only "of sorts:" we of the dreaded IF sisterhood know that "choices" are often not what they appear. A longing, desperate and visceral and life-skewing, to bear or raise children cannot simply be described using the same word advertisers constantly throw around. I'm not picking a checking account; I'm trying to deal with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Once the line of birth/adoption/parenting is crossed, there is still little choice in the matter. Bio-kid or not, you have no idea who you've ended up with. They will do what they will do; all you can do is protect them and help them channel their energies, positive, negative, or indifferent. They will sleep how they sleep, eat when they are hungry, do what their drive to develop demands--not what we or social norms or Dr. Advice want.

In some ways, I feel this whole process would be easier if there wasn't this delusion of choice floating around out there. I don't have a choice about most of the ways I spend my days anymore. I have someone to take care of, a marriage to maintain, a job to keep. It's such a huge, unspoken difference.

Cheers and Jeers

Yeah: I'm creeping towards my pre-preg weight. And at the rate I'm losing, I'll be back to something close to running a 5K again, and my"normal weight" BMI by my goal: Bruiser's first birthday.

Boo: Our AC? Dead. Deader than dead. For nearly two months. Replacing it will cost an arm and a leg, but we're doing it. But until I-Day comes, when they finally install the sucker in early August, I live in a hot, sticky, gym-sock-like atmosphere. Round the clock.

Yeah: Bruiser is finally into sleeping without Mom's constant presence.

Boo: Hubby is working 60-hour weeks. That makes working from home even more challenging. Sigh.

Yet soon, cool air will be pouring out the vents, my man will finally get some time off, and Bruiser (fingers crossed! wood knocked!) will begin the transition to his very own crib. And hopefully, I will be able to gather more thoughts when my brains aren't being slowly poached in a midwestern summer reduction.

Shit.

WTF? I've been totally sucked into the baby vortex, where once loquacious writers fall silent in stupified stupidity.

Hence the lack of blogging.

We're all doing fine. Bruiser is big and has gotten mobile horizontally and vertically. So typing my thoughts has fallen by the wayside.

Feeling better

Just wanted to get that out there. I'm feeling better. I'm regaining my sanity and my joie de vivre.

Have a good weekend!

When the grass is not green anywhere

Okay, forgive the completely insane title. But still. You working outside the home parents/future parents? You know how you might have fantasized just a touch about working from home and the paradise that must be? Sitting around in your pjs! Your boss a mere blip on the screen! Baby care so easy!

Ha ha ha. I'm here to burst your bubbles.

Working from home with a mobile infant sucks. Once they master the forward crawl and the screech? It's all over. And you're sitting around in those pjs, feeling all slovenly, rushing from task to task with half a brain, while you fume about the disgusting cesspit your house has become after months of half-neglect.

I don't know if dropping your dearest little one off at daycare for 8 hours a day is any easier. We can discuss that. But I do know that writing something while someone summarily demolishes the room behind you is very difficult. Especially if they can scream at dolphin frequencies when bored/sad/confused/frustrated.

The end of my very short rope

It's been a terrible past few weeks. The kicker: Mastitis last week. 101+ fever. And still, I wrote a press release and took care of dear Bruiser (who was completely unfazed by the whole experience).

Just wanted to let y'all know I'm still out here. Even if I'm a battered shell of my former perky self...

No, you can't have it all...

...and remain sane.

So I'm now Dr. Shinejil.

That's great. But it cost me dearly. As proof, I offer my nervous breakdown Easter morn, and my current ass-kicking cold, the first time I've been sick in many, many moons.

While I think we women can easily do two things at once, three is more challenging. Four--finishing a PhD, teaching an intensive university history class, freelance writing, and full-time mommying for a 6 mo-old teething protocrawling dude--is going to kill you.

I promise to return to the blogosphere soon. As soon as my brains return.

Stress

I've been spoiled. I have been able to work from home for the last two months, thanks to Bruiser's temperament and a very cool writing job.

But now, I have to teach the class I agreed to. It's a class I designed, which is cool, but it's also going to take me away from Bruiser.

I find it really painful. Whenever I'm away from him, he's always there, on my mind, perhaps far in the background, but always present. It's like the worst middle-school obsession you've ever heard of. And he misses me when I'm away. I love when I come back and he's happy to see me, but I wish he didn't get so upset without me there. It would make it easier to be apart.

I find the stress, even in my relatively low-stress circumstance, hard to bear. I feel torn in two.

Yesterday I gave a colloquium talk presenting my dissertation research, sort of. It was so hard to stay sharp and focused for an hour and a half of serious lecturing and serious grilling. It was helpful, but I suddenly found myself thinking, I don't want to do this. I don't want a job where people go out of their way to be mean and score points and put you down during the interview process.

Not to mention I have no teaching for next year. Budget cuts. Which also means the labor market for my field, already crappy, will be absolute shit for years to come.

I think it's time to turn over a newish leaf...I just keep thinking about what makes a good life. Family, for me, is part of that. I don't want to rush and hustle and stress and wake up at 60 realizing I missed the point.

Read those books, then ignore them

I've noted two parenting obsessions for our times: sleep and "solids." I don't know why we have to refer to baby's first non-milk meal as "solids" but alas, we do. I also don't know what previous generations obsessed about; my parents weren't helpful, as they basically just did whatever felt right (damn hippies).

Sleep: Why are we obsessed with sleep? Because Americans are working more hours, and women are being forced by economic circumstance (and to some extent personal desire) to work outside the home. So babies' sleep patterns wreck havoc on adults' well being.

But babies sleep how they sleep.

So read Weissbluth and Pantless or whoever. Take the ideas that they likely got from your granny--that you should pay attention to your child's need to sleep, watch for his/her patterns, and that sleep begets sleep. Then take their solutions with as large a grain of salt applies. And do what you have to to survive.

Have you ever met someone who couldn't fall asleep on their own? Who took their mom to college so that they could go to sleep? Your kid will eventually figure out the falling and staying asleep all night deal. They will. It's about neurology, not culture. People in countries that have never heard of sleep training sleep just as well as Americans.

Never, ever take advice from someone proposing to have the all-knowing (or biblical) answer to "infant management." They are insane.

Okay, "solids." Again, what's the obsession? Yes, some children do have allergies, and if you have allergies, your kids might. So be careful.

For those of us without a history of allergies, why in the world would I feed my child something I would only eat if starving? As in that rice cereal they could repackage as wallpaper paste? Why would I limit their experience of food and the world's food culture?

I say--and there's research to back me up--give them what you eat (except honey and habaneros and sushi, perhaps). Flavorful? Sure! Vegetably? Excellent! Sweet? Hells yeah (just try formula or breastmilk). Apparently, the more flavors you offer, the better the future relationship to food and eating.

Anyhoo, I think as an IF mom, I tend to get my panties in a bunch about "experts" and "advice." Just like when I was in treatment, I'm looking for THE formula, the right answer. But there's so much hogwash out there. Though my instincts were often off on my IF journey, they seem to have kicked in again.

So trust yourself.

White Metal Tiger

As a Buddhist lama trained in astrology in Tibet told me last night, this is a good year for families and little boys. But a very bad year for the government, he noted with a regretful smile.

It's the year of love, devotion, family matters. As Peter Murphy sings, "May your garden be sweet and the rain wash the pain..."

Gratitude

A year ago, we found out I was pregnant.

Yesterday, we found out Bruiser had reached the 50th percentile in height and weight. No more 3rd percentile dinkbutt, as the baby nurses in the hospital lovingly called him.

Grateful. I'm just so grateful.

It never really ends, does it?

I've said many times that I would be happy with one kid. I'm an only child, and though I know lots of folks with siblings feel sorry for us, I had a happy childhood and have rarely felt lonely in my life. There are also financial advantages, I feel: We're not the highest earners, and I'm committed to helping pay for college. The entire bill, if necessary. I don't want my kid saddled with debt and having to take a career path just for the money.

But my husband has a vision of a big family. Way, way bigger than anything I'd be able to handle (because, let's be honest here, even the most dedicated men still leave a lot of the household and child rearing tasks to their women).

There is no way in hell I'm going through more treatment. No way. When I hear about folks who successfully conceived through IF treatment going back for another round, I'm filled with a mix of bafflement (why the hell would you put yourself through that again?) and awe (what amazing dedication, hope, love, etc to go through that again!).

And beyond the emotions, we can only afford IUI. Just barely. We only got treatment the first time around with a lot of extra work, extra jobs, extra frugality. IVF is totally out of the picture, unless we decided to sell all our possessions, including our house.

Another strike against IUI: I don't want twins, I have a good chance of ending up with twins, and I am afraid my body couldn't take it. Just look what it did to poor little Bruiser: it nearly starved him to death. What would it do to two poor tykes? I shiver at the thought of hurting any more babies with my womb of doom.

So what's left? The lovely option of adoption, one my guy is increasingly open to. And the Hail Mary baby. My man's family is convinced this is in our future, thanks to an urban legend of an acquaintance. Yes, you guessed it: Several rounds of IVF before they had their daughter and then, boom, 18 months later, she's pregnant the old-fashioned way and due in a few weeks.

This possibility is maddening. Like the first stage of IF, you are bedeviled by what-ifs: What if I have another ectopic? What if this happens when I'm still overweight or still breastfeeding or still not ready? What if this happens when we can least afford it? What if it never happens, and I feel bereft? What are my actual stats in this gamble? The studies I've seen point to around 30% and under for women with successful IVFs but what about IUIs? I got pregnant both rounds, so what should I expect?

Clearly, the unexpected. Great.

What they didn't tell you

...about breastfeeding.

Seriously, I get really pissed off by lactivists who feel they have the boob-given right to march up to another woman and comment on her way of nursing a child (yes, bottle feeding is nursing, too). And I think that the case in favor of breastfeeding has been overstated, if we are going purely on hard, cold study-based medical facts.

Yet I also want to beg all IFers out there to give breastfeeding a try. Why?

Because there's a chance that if you can get things going, you'll have a great time doing it. Yes, I'm talking about you, as a person, and not the baby. Fancy that!

Why? Because those hormones... they are sweet. It's like falling in love, after the perfect hot bath and a glass of the finest Cote du Rhone. I shit you not.

I know not everyone will be able to breastfeed: Apparently about 1/3 of PCOS gals have supply issues, and in some very difficult births (like, say, when you're birthing multiples), your body is so stressed that the pituitary goes pfft and doesn't get much, if any, milk flowing. But in most cases, with help from a good lactation consultant, you can do this. You can.

But there are going to be all sorts of dimwits and assclowns who will think they have the right to tell you it's not working. Everything--from a baby nursing constantly due to a growth spurt, to gas, to sore nipples, to the moon passing through Aquarius--will be interpreted as "oh, maybe you're not making enough milk." Screw that. If your kid's peeing, pooping, and growing, chances are that's not what's up.

But it's NOT an easy ride at first. I don't think I had a particularly shitty time, and it took us 11 weeks to really get the swing of things. At first, I was pumping around the clock: Bruiser latched but then completely couldn't manage the whole latching thing suddenly, and we used a bottle with expressed milk for the first three to four weeks. Advantages: My guy did a lot of feeding and cuddling and felt very, very good and needed. Disadvantages: Imagine a woman, weeping inconsolably over a hospital-grade pump at 3 AM while a teeny boy on her lap sobs in hunger.

After that, I thought I wouldn't make it to three months, forget six or even, gasp, a year.

But suddenly, Bruiser hit his due date and started loving the boob, albeit with a nipple shield to help him get a handle on things. This silicon sombrero became my constant accessory for the next two months. I always had one tucked in my cleavage, or sealed in a colostrum cup from my early pumping days in our diaper bag. It really sucked at night: my milk would carry the sombrero off on a slick Swanee River and Bruiser would get so discombobulated and pissed.

Then, all of a sudden, he decided he hated the thing and wanted to nurse commando. He went from needing the shield 80% of the time, to never using the confounded thing again in the space of a day. Babies are crazy that way: When they're ready, they'll do the impossible overnight.

Now, life is a bowl of cherries by comparison. Bruiser and I have a night routine going that gets me enough sleep not just to function but to actually think and be in a fairly decent mood. I'm losing weight.

And I'm loving the oxytocin high. Seriously, if they made this stuff in pill form, the world would be a much happier, mellower place.

Lifechange

Many women, at least those of the natural birth/hippy/granola persuasion, believe--or at least hope--that birth will be a major life changing, self affirming experience. Despite my misgivings, it actually was that for me. But that was pure accident, more or less.

Instead, I've been thinking lately that too much store is being set in the psychological or emotional transformation that that tiny, uncontrollable slice of time is supposed to bring. We can't really control the events that equal building a family, and perhaps we can't even control their meaning.

What comes next, the weeks, months and years of caring for a small human being, is the source of greater meaning. Notice I write "greater"--again, too much store is set in parenting as a way to deepen one's life purpose and open one's heart. If you don't have a clue why you're living or how to feel gut-wrenching, heart-melting compassion for others, then maybe you should reconsider your life, not just go get knocked up.

I have felt my life changing at certain moments in this journey, moments when my husband and I wept in despair together; moments when I felt like I couldn't go on and would actually, frankly welcome death; moments when I had a curious sense that it would all get worked out and end well. But in these moments, nothing happened, except in my inner world.

Milestones

Dissertation? Draft done. Sent to committee. Godspeed. Defense in April.

Bruiser? Just turned over, three times in a row, from tummy to back. All by himself. And beamed with pride, the goofy dear.

Great perspectives...

Wow, I just have to say thanks for all the food-for-thought. There's tons to think about--the pressures on women to reenter the workforce as fast as possible, the necessity to balance the actual raising of a child (aka discipline) with the love that physically and psychologically flows from us as caretakers (be we parents, relatives, close friends).

I think your point is well-taken, Misfit: Any parenting approach that's so doctrinaire as to make the Chinese Communist Party look fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants spontaneous is not going to work. Maybe the kid does have some psyche issues. But even if that's true, inappropriate parenting and a complete lack of boundaries have done her such a massive disservice as a human being that nobody--especially those of us who may be her teachers, partners, coworkers--wins.

I think we have to understand both our own personal, deep, vital needs as people (i.e. I must have an intellectual and social life of some sort; I need a shower most days; I want to cook yummy food and exercise at least a bit) and our desire to show love and structure to kids. I think it's easy to get fixated on a certain outcome--because that's what I did for a while. You feel you MUST get your child to do something by an arbitrary deadline, and s/he just isn't there yet. Doesn't mean you never try, or never say no. In fact I've found if I keep experimenting and hanging in there, eventually, I see major movement in the direction I want to go. It's just gradual, or two steps forward one step back.

And while I don't advocate leaving a child to cry alone, at least not early on, I do think they will fuss and even cry sometimes. Once I learned that, I had a lot more freedom to balance my sanity with Bruiser's needs and wants.

So if you're headed for parenthood, or already there, I say figure out how to kindly put your vital needs first. As an IFer, I bet you already know exactly what they are--survival mode and dark times make them clear. Put on your own oxygen mask first, then baby's/babies'...

What do you think?

Dependence

I'm fascinated: We Americans (and Canadians? My friends from the North, please chime in) are extremely worried about dependence.

I mean, what other concern would propel us to put even our tiniest citizens into a separate room where they are expected to learn to deal with life's crap (or self-soothe or whatever) on their own at a very tender age? Separateness and independence are just fine, and as an American I have been raised to love and crave them. Yet they run against the primal urges of babies and mothers: When we slept in caves or rough shelters for tens of thousands or years, baby's place was squarely in mom's arms, at her breast, or curled up on her chest (my personal favorite Bruiser resting spot).

Yet that is the past. Things that smell of extended dependence--breastfeeding past 12 months, say, or bed sharing into toddlerhood--are seen as hippy quirks with questionable motivations at best and pathological or deadly tendencies at worst. Now, since WWII I'd argue, we feel we must maintain a certain distance from our young. And I have felt the irritation at having someone totally dependent on me, hanging off me, unable to deal even with a moment alone.

I have these feelings, though my final mothering decisions have led me a bit away from the mainstream approach. Story of my life.

My question, for myself and society at large, is what are we afraid of? And what are the effects of this fear in the long run?

Our cherished independence, our confidence in ourselves as free agents and liberated actors is the one of the first things to go as we struggle with IF, and this loss is one of the hardest things to face. Then, when/if we become parents (and regardless how), we once again must let go of this dear value.

Body Image

So, I woke up Jan. 1st to my new body. I'm 40 lbs overweight.

I've never been skinny, and I've always had to think about my weight and health as an adult. But I've always been in the upper range of "normal" BMI-wise, likely because I used to walk, run, swim, and do yoga all the time. I've got a very high-energy personality that languishes when inactive.

I'm not stupid: I know changing my current state will be tough. It's one thing to whittle away at ten extra pounds, and another to cast off four to five times that.

But I have to do it. I don't feel like myself. I can't stand the feeling of all these sweaty, uncomfortable folds of flesh. I hate that I have dollops of back fat (though thankfully nursing has taken care of some of that). Sometimes, and this is embarrassing, I get so fed up with my body that I pound my fist on couch beside me, as I sit through yet another endless nursing session. I've been walking and going to the Y as much as I can, and finally, now that I'm not so desperately sleep deprived, I'm watching my food intake, but damn if this isn't a slow, frustrating process.

It's particularly frustrating because my body just piled on the pounds during pregnancy, even when I did my damdest to eat 2000 cals a day and exercise more than moderately for 30-45 minutes per day. All for a teensy tiny little baby. Seriously, I only lost about ten pounds giving birth.

I don't want to look like a stick with boobs Hollywood star. I just want to wear my old clothes again. I don't want my old life back. I just want a new one where I feel vaguely attractive and a little less Rubenesque.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying (yeah, right) and Love Co-Sleeping

As an IFer, I'm terrified of baby dying. Not that someone more fertile would be cool with infant demise, but if you know this might be the only biochild you'll ever, ever have, SIDS and stuff scares you shitless. Again, not that a fertile myrtle can just replace someone they lost, but...well, you know what I mean. It's a little different for us.

So I was horrified in some respects when we first tried to put Bruiser down to sleep. And he wouldn't do it. The urge to hold his darling, tiny, hungry little self was stronger than the American sense that I was ruining his chances of developing proper sleep independence or whatever. Regardless, Bruiser refused to sleep, even in a side-car co-sleeper contraption, even if already soundly and deeply slumbering. The instant you put him down, he perks up and starts fussing determinedly.

I mentioned it to our pediatrician at our two month appointment that we were co-sleeping. Or to be more precise bed sharing, when the kid's in your arms in your bed, not just in the same room. She exclaimed that we shouldn't be doing this, that the last two cases of SIDS or infant death or what have you were co-sleeping situations. She said to try a pacifier or even to let him cry until he got used to a different, safer sleeping arrangement.

So we went home, with our sad little guy who just got his first shots, and tried to get him to sleep in his own little side-car space.

Ha.

Bruiser's motto: Accept no substitutes. That breast pad and dryer-warmed blanket? That pacifier? An insult to his baby dignity. He knew what he wanted, and that was to lie next to a boob in my arms.

The wise blogger Moxie has come up with an important distinction when it comes to babies. There are those who cry and blow off steam, eventually (i.e. in 10-20 minutes) settling down, and there are those who cry and cry and cry as their tension and horror and despair escalate. They may fall asleep at some point, but it's out of hopelessness and sheer exhaustion, not "self-soothing." Bruiser will work himself up to such an extent that he throws up, turns beet red, and frankly wastes all those calories I spend all day pouring into him that he should be using to grow.

So I had to learn about another important and neglected distinction: there's safe and unsafe co-sleeping. Interestingly, some of the countries (China, Japan) with the highest co-sleeping rates have some of the lowest SIDS rates in the world. Why? Because their beds are radically different from your typical American set up: hard mattresses close to the floor with light blankets and few pillows. Sounds a lot like the CIA prison-style bedding recommendations for infant beds, right? Then, there's another point: moms in these low SIDS-rate countries often sleep alone with their infants, not with other adults or children.

So we laid down our old futon at the foot of our bed, and that's where Bruiser and I sleep. We're near my husband, and he can come and cuddle with us (or with just me), but no one has to worry about Bruiser getting hurt somehow. My guy barely slept when we tried sleeping with me holding Bruiser in the side car (and talk about uncomfortable), so this new arrangement works pretty well for us.

Though I still have some mornings when I wake up feeling like a truck hit me due to stiffness, I'm actually able to get some good sleep. And this morning, I had my first truly pleasant experience: I woke up to nurse the little guy, and just felt so wonderful cuddling his warm, sweet cheese-scented little form as he sleepily had his first of four breakfasts.

Then why did my otherwise pretty cool pediatrician declare so categorically that this was a terrible idea? Because, kind of like alcohol during pregnancy, the way to do it right is pretty complicated. No smoking, or even second-hand smoke (a strong correlation to SIDS in co-sleeping situations). No naps on the couch with baby. No alcohol or sleep aids before bed. No headboards, guardrails, or gaps between the bed and wall. No big pillows or fluffy duvets near baby. That's already a looong list to tell a sleep-deprived parent. So the docs just say don't do it at all.

I'm writing about all this, because I think as an IF survivor, I've got a head full of fear. I think it comes with the IF territory for most of us. We end up listening to people in authority (and often that's a good thing) but there are times when our needs and those of our loved ones contradict the party line.

I want to pass along the message that just because this has been a hard-fought and -won victory, you don't have to be perfect, or even great. Just be adequate and choose your own adventure. Now that you're on the "other side" of IF, so to speak, you have nothing to compensate or make up for. Just let your love and instincts guide you, and keep using the wits that finally got you here.

Dr. Google is still an asshole

...even postpartum. Seriously, never ask the internets about all the things you should worry about if you have a low birth weight baby. Apparently, studies show they are either doomed to be emotionally troubled janitors with poor hand-eye coordination, or they aren't different at all from their normal weight counterparts. Which makes for a curious mix of emotions.

Part of that mix is the eternal return to the throes of IF madness. The feeling of being defective, different in a bad way, unfit. The feeling that my "selfish" need to have a biochild (in my case, the darkest corners of my psyche argue, to satisfy my husband's burning desire for offspring) resulted in damage to another person, a small, helpless one at that. The feeling that some terrible, hidden flaw in my body (thrombophilia, perhaps inherited from my grandma?) could have killed my child, and may have permanently hurt him.

Lord help me.

But then comes the uplifting part, where the warrior emerges. In which you are determined to do whatever it takes to claw back normalcy and health and happiness for your child, by any means necessary.

Lately, that's meant nursing him 24/7 as he attempts to triple his weight by four months. Which goes to say that all of our paths are different, forming stories that belie the statistics. We defy odds every day with our eccentric beings. Take that, Dr. Google...