A Letter To Parents of Colicky Babies

Tags

babyhood, colic, inconsolable crying, infant, newborn, normal, one month old, parenthood, second baby, second child, sleep

Dear Parent Of A Colicky Baby,

I know your pain.

I know how it feels to walk the floors for hours and hours every day, and night. I know how it feels when you read the definition of colic – crying for more than three hours a day, more than three days a week – and think, “there are babies out there who cry THAT LITTLE?”

I know how it feels to look jealously at couples in restaurants who are casually eating their dinner while their tiny baby slumbers peacefully in a car seat next to their table.

Meanwhile, YOU left your baby with a selfless friend or relative and you are trying to have a brief meal together to salvage your relationship even though you know that at this moment that your friend/relative is walking back and forth while your baby screams and screams.

Maybe you have said to each other “never again”.

Maybe you have already decided that your first born must be an only child because there is no way you can survive this a second time.

I know how that feels, too.

But.

Let me tell you about a different kind of baby.

Meet Fritter.

She just turned a month old, and almost all of my photos of her feature her doing something very strange…

The 2nd Labour Story Part III: In Which I Bond Very Quickly With A Doughnut. Yes, An Actual Doughnut.

Tags

birth, bonding, doughnuts, gestational diabetes, hospital, new baby, newborn, second baby, tim hortons

A lot of women talk about that magic moment when they see their baby for the first time. I have a theory about it.

You see, I didn’t have that magic fall-in-love feeling when I first saw Owl. I was just like, “hey, look, a baby.”

Some people claim that a heavily medicated birth, such as Owl’s, interferes with natural bonding hormones and prevent that awesome gush of love that some mothers feel on the birth of their child.

But I don’t think that’s it.

You see, I have friends who have felt that rush of love despite an incredibly traumatic/heavy intervention birth, and I know people who didn’t feel it despite a completely natural birth.

Here’s my theory:

It has nothing to do with the kind of birth.

It has to do with the kind of person you are.

I believe that if you are the sort of person who believes in or has experienced love-at-first-sight (in the romantic sense), you will be the kind of person who experiences love-at-first-sight on the birth of their child.

On the other hand, if you are a more practical, slow-to-warm-up kind of person, like me, you’re less likely to fall head over heels in love the moment a squalling newborn is dumped on you.

It’s a shame, because I would love to have that rush of mother love.

Still, when I watch videos about natural birth, people always talk about that rush of endorphins that comes with it, and it made me wonder if maybe that really would help. Maybe my theory is wrong.

So when I was told that I wouldn’t be getting an epidural, the part of my brain that was still ME and separate from my body was actually pleased because this way I might get to experience the big endorphin rush.

Yeah, I didn’t feel any kind of rush when I was giving birth.

I don’t know if I ever have endorphin rushes. Maybe I don’t have endorphins. Maybe there were endorphins but I didn’t notice them. Maybe if there weren’t I would have hurt even more. I don’t know. But I definitely felt no elation, no rush. Just some anxiety because I still hadn’t seen my baby.

Finally they brought her over to me and laid her on my chest.

The 2nd Labour Story Part II: In Which I Display An Embarrassing Lack of Stoicism

Tags

birth, contractions, labor, no epidural for you

We listened to Ben Folds on our drive to the hospital.

We love the piano on Songs For Silverman and I tried to sing along instead of moaning uselessly during contractions.

So we drove to the hospital with me groaning, “I’ve got YOU… to THANK… for THIS…” and hoping that PH didn’t think I was extrapolating the lyrics to suggest that I was blaming him for my current discomfort.

“The problem is,” I told PH, “that the contractions are so overwhelming that for a while I feel like everything in the universe is hurting me. So when the contraction starts it feels like the piano is hurting me and I’m like “DAMN YOU, BEN FOLDS,” and then when the contraction eases I feel like the piano is making it feel better and I’m like “THANK YOU, BEN FOLDS.”

I also noted that when my contractions came closer together they were less intense, but that if the space between them stretched to three or even four minutes then it meant that a real doozy was on the way.

I actually preferred the doozies, because at least I got three or four minutes of relief first, rather than barely time to catch my breath before another one hit. I think that was what made my labour seem so awful last time – the fact that sometimes contractions were coming one on top of another with no real relief.

We pulled into the emergency parking lot of the hospital, expecting that PH might have to drop me off and go find parking, but unusually the parking lot was almost empty. Apparently early morning on a Monday is not the most popular time for emergencies.

It took me three contractions to get into the hospital. I had to finish one before I could get out of the car and then another one came on almost immediately and I had to stop in the middle of the lot. This one squeezed so hard that for a moment I felt a straining sensation, like you get when you have to poop REALLY badly and you’re struggling to hold it in.

That was weird.

The 2nd Labour Story Part I: In Which Castor Oil Is Put To The Test

Tags

baby, birth, castor oil, contractions, labor, labour

Most women I speak to tried something or other to kick start their labour. It seems strange to try to trigger an event which is generally recognized as one of the most painful experiences a woman will endure in her lifetime. But I guess we do it for the same reason that PH always eats the least favourite part of his dinner first – to get it over with.

For me, the real spur was fear of being medically induced, which I had already experienced and was not anxious to repeat.

I knew that castor oil was my best hope, but I also felt rather pessimistic about it. I suspect that if left to its own devices, my body would carry the baby past the 42nd week mark.

Probably, castor oil would just cause me horrible diarrhea and I’d still have to be induced on Tuesday.

So I started with a small spoonful on Saturday. Most recipes that I saw involved 1-2 tablespoons.

I took a TEASPOON and waited for the diarrhea.

No diarrhea.

No baby, mind you, but no diarrhea.

So with increased boldness, I took two tablespoons on Sunday, mixed in with my yogurt, and waited.

…and waited.

….and waited.