All is transient.

I like reading weblogs a lot. Personal weblogs of people I know especially, but if I stumble across a weblog written by someone I don't know and they're entertaining and engaging I probably end up following it. Since Essie's birth I've read blogs written by other preemie parents about their time in the NICU and coming home, and have found other blogs through those blogs.

There's one in particular that I've followed. I don't even recall how I found it. Probably when I was doing a search on various medical things I was worried about for Essie. It's a blog written by a 23 year old single mom whose daughter was diagnosed as having anencephaly at 19 weeks gestation.

Anencephaly is a devastating diagnosis because there's no good outcome. Basically it's when the skull hasn't formed properly, leaving the brain exposed and the amniotic fluid eats away a large portion of brain matter. Babies with this diagnosis obviously have no chance of survival and it's often recommended that the mother terminate the pregnancy as early as possible. If they don't terminate the baby remains alive, being attached to the mother as life support, and develops as normally as it can under the circumstances until birth, at which point it passes away.

Some parents make the latter decision, knowing that they'll have only minutes or possibly hours with their child. Many of these babies are stillborn. But still some parents choose to do this rather than abort early, and feel that even if it's harder on them, it's worth it somehow.

I have very little personal understanding of how to make that kind of decision, or what I would realistically choose in their position. But I found this blog written by this 23 year old mother who decided that she'd carry her daughter to term and say goodbye to her when she was born. She knew it wasn't a standard choice and fought tooth and nail with medical professionals to have her pregnancy and birth treated with the same dignity and respect as 'normal' pregnancies and births. She had no usual baby showers, collected nothing beyond some clothes for her daughter to wear when she was born. Her support system was at least fairly extensive as she is devoutly Christian and the choice to not abort was a natural one in her circle, but she still carried her child knowing the probable date of her death.

So then her daughter, Faith Hope, was born by c-section. And she lived for a few hours with no assistance beyond feeding and pain management. And then a few hours more, and then a few hours more. And kept on living. Soon her mother took her home to live out her remaining time there.

Faith lived for 93 days. During that time she cried, smiled, ate, made regular baby noises, demonstrated that she could hear sounds and feel pain, fulfilled all of the list of reflexes babies are supposed to present ... pretty much did everything babies with her condition aren't expected to do. Her mother posted many, many videos on the weblog demonstrating all of this, and apart from the bandage covering the top of her head and eyes she looked and responded much like a normal baby. That in itself was unusual since babies with anencephaly often have a startling, alien appearance especially around the face due to the eyes not having enough cranial support.

Trolls eventually discovered the site and began making comments, telling Myah (the mother) that she was raising a meat puppet, an empty doll with no feelings or sensations behind the random firings of what few neurons existed. They told her she'd have been better off if her baby had died or she'd aborted her as soon as she knew what was wrong. They tore her down for having feelings and love for her daughter. She quickly took comment capability off of her weblog and set up her email to be screened by another person so she'd never see those emails. In her position what else was she supposed to do? Say, "You're right," and leave her daughter out to die?

Faith had health problems mostly related to her breathing. She was on medications for it and also eventually ended up on a feeding tube. There's no question that she wasn't a 'normal' baby. Her mother celebrated her every minute alive and gave her all the love and affection any mother could. But over the last week Faith developed bleeding ulcers due to her feeding tube and one of her medications, and on the 23rd she died.

I visited the weblog not expecting this at all, as the last report had her feeling quite well. The illness came on quickly and she died just as quickly. I was shocked, and ended up pretty much bawling my face off as I read about it and watched some of the videos her mother posted to remember her as she'd been in the beginning.

I questioned myself a bit later. Why was I so affected by this? And after processing it a bit I realized that I was crying not so much for Faith, who was never expected to stay in the world very long and who passed away peacefully, but for her mother. Myah probably felt incredibly protective and defensive throughout Faith's life, knowing that many didn't approve of her decision in the first place, and had to feel that way on top of the overwhelming emotional tumult that comes with having a child no matter what.

I think of what I felt for Essie while she was in the NICU, instinctively wanting to make her pain go away and make it all better. How did Myah feel, knowing her daughter had such an extreme condition and yet lived and even thrived against those odds? As proud as I did? Prouder? Then she got to know the personality she saw in her little girl and loved her even more every day, still knowing they were on borrowed time. No matter what her medical condition this baby was her daughter and it's obvious she loved her more than anything in the world. Since Essie's birth I can relate to that feeling so closely, so viscerally, that it makes me choke up to even think of how she has to feel without her little girl.

Is Faith better off dead? Is Myah better off not having to care for a child who would have been severely retarded if she'd lived on, requiring complete physical care for the rest of her life? I know it all depends on point of view and we're not the ones who held her as she died a few days ago. But I also know that I had no actual idea of what I could feel for a child of my own before Essie, and there's a possibility that despite all her appearances of doing fabulously there are still things that can go wrong for her in the future as a result of being a preemie. What I can't imagine is a single thing that would make me feel like life would be better if Essie weren't in it.

Nearly a sneeze.

We went to May and Dan's tonight for a visit, where Essie got to meet Candice and Rich for the first time, as well as the fabulous Sabrina! It was a good time and Essie was her usual mellow, growly self. At one point Maysie said that she hoped we'd be getting some of her growls and whatnot on record, so when we got home I decided to take some video using our camera.

The result? Not so much growling, but I did manage to accidentally catch her making her sneeze noise! I wasn't expecting it at all, but she started as soon as I started filming. If she almost sneezes she does it, or she does it after a big sneeze. Golly, it's cute!

Also, as you can see, putting a soother in a baby's mouth while filming them is kind of hard. Nearly went right up her nose, there. You can kind of hear me giggling about it while she's all, 'get it right, mama.'

Dressy Essie

My mom sent us a package full of awesome baby clothes. I'd mentioned how I'd love to dress Essie in shades of brown but that it's harder to find nice clothes for baby girls in brown. Mom used her special Grandma skills to find some, though, and packaged them up and sent them off.

I got the package the other day and indeed it was full of awesome brown baby clothes. Also included, however, was a FANTASTIC sundress. A fantastic, colourful, summery sundress. I could hardly wait to put it on her so I did a little photo shoot so I could have some gorgeous shots of her in it for the Facebook albums. (This blog crossposts to my Facebook as well, so apologies to those who have already seen the pictures. There are bonus ones here, though!)

Make sure you click on them to see them full-size!





Of course, Essie can't exactly sit up on her own yet or anything so for pretty much all of these sitting up shots I'd whipped my hand back and taken the shot super-fast before she fell over. Here are the ones where I didn't take the picture quite quickly enough:




This last one is my favourite.

Guess what today is!

Happy Due Date, Essie!

That's right; today is the day Essie was 'supposed' to be born. Or, the most likely day on which she could have been born. Of course things didn't exactly go to plan, but I was attached to this date for a number of reasons. It was my grandma Morrow's birthday, it's one of Andrew's wonderful cousins birthday, and it just has nice vibes what with all the partying and goodtimes on May 24 weekend.




But yeah ... not so much, huh? Instead of sitting here with a massive belly and feeling as supremely uncomfortable as a pregnant woman can feel (which you know I would be; I am very accomplished at feeling physically uncomfortable) I am sitting here typing on my laptop with a little warm baby sleeping cradled against my left shoulder. I've been a mom for almost three months now. Essie's been home with us for three weeks! What should have been a third trimester became a scary medical journey that I never want to repeat again.




But despite the rough start Essie's so great. So healthy and strong. She's growing and changing incredibly quickly, fattening up and getting more and more aware of us and her surroundings. I've said multiple times to multiple people that her prematurity had nothing to do with her, technically. Pre-eclampsia is about the mother's body malfunctioning, and Essie wasn't the problem physically. She was trying to grow and flourish in there and would have if I hadn't crossed my wires. So I believe very strongly that this is why she managed to grow and flourish like she did in the NICU. She wasn't sick, she didn't need any intervention; she was just early, evicted from her safe haven and forced to deal with a ton of obstacles as a result. In response she basically kicked the ass of all those obstacles and now here she is, a full-term-age baby with fat cheeks (both kinds), a great appetite, a friendly, resilient personality and all the love in the world at her fingertips.




Sometimes when she was in the NICU I felt like the day I got to be a 'real' mom would never come. The constraints of having a NICU baby are many and I've talked a lot about them before. Since she came home I've come to appreciate how that time allowed me to regain my strength and health while helping her develop hers and I'm thankful for it as such. But now that she's here I'm so in love with having her with me, with being her mom and taking care of her that I'd never want to relinquish her to anyone else like that again.




The fact that I'm enjoying this new role as much as I am has been a pleasant surprise. Yes, of course I'm always tired. I was this tired when I worked that night job in Ottawa, though, and this is definitely a more rewarding variant of exhausted. She wakes me up to feed her with escalating growls and when I give her her bottle she is hungry and attacks it like a snapping turtle, her eyes wide. Then she settles into a happy feed, humming and sighing and staring into my eyes. I talk to her and sometimes she 'talks' as well, groaning and growling around her bottle which results in pretty much one of the most hilarious noises ever. She does this with her soother too, and I laugh every single time.




She is lauded for her every poop, fart and burp. Pooping is difficult for her so of course I get genuinely happy that she is more comfortable when she works out her issues, so to speak. Just because her accomplishments are basic and biological in nature doesn't mean she doesn't deserve praise, you know. Hooray for being so good at being a baby! Maybe I feel so enthusiastic about it since for so long she was holed up in an incubator, unable to do all these usual baby things because of the shitty hand she'd been dealt. Her pure baby-ness now is a wonderful thing.




I'm a frickin' mom. Essie has made me into a mom. It's not like I thought it might be which is a relief because frankly I had a dim view of what kind of a mother I'd end up being and what kind of kid I might have. BUT! I had Essie, who is pretty much wonderful and I genuinely like being with her. And so far I'm not sucking so much at the mom thing, most of which I credit entirely to hormones and instinct and the example set me by my own Mom, who taught me common sense.




So Essie; today, the day that I held in my mind for six months as a kind of finish line, a theoretical kind of thing like the idea of what's over that next hill we've never climbed before; today I want to celebrate you and how far you've come in this crazy old world. I'm so proud of how strong you were in the NICU, how you put up with all the discomfort and pain and fright. I'm proud that the nurses all recognized the toughness of you, the fight you put up to make the sliver of the world you were aware of as comfortable and controlled as you could even if it meant just shoving your CPAP or holding tightly on to your feeding tube. I'm proud that you surpassed their expectations of you and did things ahead of schedule as often as possible, even when it caught us unprepared. And I'm proud, proud, proud that you're MY daughter.

Hells no

OK, so Essie's due date is on Sunday and recently I have been looking at her and thinking there is NO WAY THAT CHILD COULD HAVE COME OUT OF ME ... you know, the 'natural way'.

It's her head, you see. Her head, it is really big. Man, when she was born I was fascinated by the eensy-teeniness of her eensy-teeny head. When we'd do Kangaroo Care I'd cup my palm and fingers over the curve of her skull and marvel at how miniature she was. Now I place my hand on the top of her head and it sits there, flat. Big-headed babies are not uncommon in my family and if this is how big our heads and my sisters' kids heads were when they were all born (the natural way) all I can say is, "Wow. My vagina does not envy yours at all."

It really hit me this morning. Essie was clean and dry and fed and had fallen asleep against my shoulder. I was supporting her with one arm and she was folded up into a very classic fetal position, head curled into her arms, legs all tucked up under and against her, her spine a cute little curve down to her butt. She was compact and bean-shaped and it struck me that yes, even though it seems entirely unimaginable to me, she actually could fit inside of me at the size she is now. Getting out is another matter altogether, but the way she was all tucked up against me really made me see it.

So. WEIRD.

Please don't mistake me; I'm still not mourning a natural birth. I thought maybe I would over time, but almost three months later and I'm still relieved I had a painless delivery. I guess I'm just not that invested in experiencing pain, you know? Obviously I wouldn't choose to give birth under the circumstances that Essie was born in a second time. Given the choice between her being a preemie or experiencing the pain of natural childbirth I'd choose the natural childbirth, pain be damned. But there's a certain relief in knowing that if she's our only child, I won't have to endure the pain of labour in this lifetime.

Because that head? Is way bigger than a grapefruit.

GrrrRAHrahrargharghARGH.

We took Essie over to Maysie and Dan's for the first time the other night. I was really looking forward to introducing her to Dan, who had not yet met her, and just chilling with friends since we hadn't done so since she came home.

It was a great night and she was lovely. Emma also came over so she got to meet her, and everyone who wanted to got a chance to hold her. At one point, though, Maysie said that she was surprised I got any sleep co-sleeping with her like I do since she's so noisy.

I was a bit bemused since I actually hadn't even noticed her making much noise while we were hanging out. What's very possible is that I've just gotten used to her particular brand of noise and am tuning it out. But THEN the next day I was on the phone with my mom and Essie was beside me making her poop growl, which is the gutteral growl she makes when she's trying very hard to poop. Mom was all, "Is she OK? She sounds upset." I assured her that no, she's not upset. She's just narrating her life. Loudly.

She doesn't get upset to the point of inconsolable crying so far. The closest she comes is when we're attempting a nursing session and as soon as she starts making the high-pitched shriek noise I stop and we switch to bottle feeding. I think, though, that this nursing balderdash is teaching her to cry more quickly than she would if we weren't still persisting. Or at least if I weren't still persisting. I have been purposely not talking about the nursing situation these days, so that's all I'll say about that.

But noisy; yes. I honestly do not mind the kind of noisy she is currently. I mean, this served her very well in the NICU where the squeaky wheel was definitely more likely to get greased. Her nurses (and those who didn't have her) all knew her trademark growl. At St. Mikes one nurse told me that she'd went prowling around the room to find which baby was making such a noise and fix whatever was wrong, only to find Essie just growling to herself for no apparent reason. I was tickled by it then and I still am, since it's obvious just by looking at her that she's not in any distress, she's just talking in her baby way about the situation. When there's something bugging her she still growls and groans, but kicks it up a notch or two without resorting to screaming or anything like that.

I fully expect her to find her crying voice sometime very, very soon. Her due date is coming up within the week and any money one day she'll suddenly start with the regular baby cry and leave her tiny bear growls behind. I will miss them so, so much.

Good from the bad.

On Monday I had to take Essie to Toronto Sick Kids Hospital for an eye exam. Preemies get tested on a regular basis after they're born for retinopathy of prematurity and this was to make sure that she was still doing well since she'd scored pretty much perfect on all her tests before this. Even so I was unhappy because I know for a fact that these tests are highly invasive and distressing for the poor babies.

Basically they take these gadgets like from A Clockwork Orange and clamp them inside their eyelids to hold their sockets wide open so they can go in there with a pokey-proddy tool and poke and prod their eyeballs, or 'manipulate' them, as they put it. They give them eye drops to dilate their pupils, and before they do the testing they anesthetize their eyeballs, but it's horrific for the poor little things. The doctor asked me if I'd brought her soother so she'd had something comforting to distract her, but I hadn't and I'm sure it wouldn't have done any good at all.

They also asked me if I'd be more comfortable waiting outside of the room, but since it was my daughter having to lie on that table and be supremely uncomfortable I figured I could handle sitting there not being the one with my eyeholes cranked open. So I sat in a chair and watched. From my angle I couldn't actually see what they were doing, but it was agony to listen to my normally low-fuss baby girl scream and scream and scream. One doctor swaddled her and held her head very still while the other did the tests, and after they finished the one holding her unwrapped her and told me I could pick her up.

I picked her up with a quickness, you can be sure, and immediately held her close to me against my left shoulder, trying to soothe her with my voice and physical contact. And, she instantly stopped crying, wiggling in closer to me and dropping the noise down to an aggrieved whimper. The doctor said, "Wow. She knows who her momma is!"

I was upset about seeing poor Essie so scared and uncomfortable, but the doctor's comment made me feel pretty good. Since she's come home I've been doing my best to give her as much touch and positive contact as humanly possible, wearing her in the sling a lot and sleeping with her beside me rather than putting her in a bassinet or crib. Also talking to her a lot so she'll know my voice. She had to spend her first two months so isolated, despite the best efforts of the nurses and our visits. Not the way a baby should begin life! So it means a LOT to me that she already knows me as a safe haven, that I won't hurt her and that my physical presence is a constant in her life now. One of the hardest aspects of her being in the NICU was imagining the times when she needed or wanted physical comfort when there wasn't a nurse able to provide it and I wasn't there.

Now I can give her that, and I'm seeing the difference it's making.

My first Mother's Day.

Mother's Day was pretty awesome. I kicked it off by getting up early and giving Essie a bath so she'd be fresh and clean for a day full of meeting people. Then I dressed her in the outfit I'd been saving for that day; one that her Grandma gave her. It's pink and brown with polka dots and a flower on the front of the onesie, and she rocked it with pink socks and her clean, fuzzy hair. I have a slight obsession with finding nice outfits in brown for her since it's not as usual, but they're hard to come by!

We stopped at TCAF so I could meet some of the people Andrew had met the day before, and specifically so I could pick up Meredith Gran's second and third published collections. I stuck Essie in the sling and she was snuggly and happy in there until we got to the webcomics section and I pulled her out on request. After she was out of the sling and in my arms she got a lot of attention and loving up from various artists and inspired Kate Beaton to create her comic about meeting her. It was a LOT of fun. This was Essie's first public appearance and she was totally cool about it. I got my first taste of the public appreciation for teeny babies, something that was kind of on my radar before but not something I've been on the receiving end of as a mom.

So after that we bombed off to Kingston as fast as we could, which was not fast at all due to insane traffic on the 401 and having to make a baby-feeding pitstop. It was also a parent-feeding pitstop since we desperately needed some lunch, so it was slow going. But eventually, eventually we arrived and LO, the Essie-loving did begin.

I gave her to her Grandma to hold first, of course, and I was thrilled to finally see my baby in my mom's arms. It had bothered me so much at the hospital that she couldn't hold her there, and if we'd spent longer at St. Mike's I had planned to pretty much just put Essie in her arms and fight with anyone who tried to stop me. What actually happened was a much nicer scenario, of course, so it all worked out in the end.

Then La and Mimi took turns holding her for the first time, and after that the cousins all got a turn throughout the rest of the visit. Essie was a superstar. She was calm and content the whole time. I mean, she did do her usual growling and groaning but it was all good-tempered and she was pretty alert for much of the afternoon, which surprised me. I think overall everyone thought she was a cute, yummy baby as evidenced by the threats to steal her and eat her cheeks off entirely.

In all the madness I didn't end up doing much reflecting on it being my first Mother's Day. Things were busy and hectic, but good. Which is fine by me.

I ARE INTERNETS FAMOUS NAOW!!1!

Holy crap! Kate Beaton drew a comic featuring me and Shaughnessy!

The poop that ate TCAF.

Since late yesterday Essie had been a bit fussier than usual. After eating she falls into a comfortable sleep and usually stays that way until she's ready to eat again. Since last night, though, she'd been squirming and complaining even after eating, throwing up a lot more than I'm used to from her and generally seeming unhappy. She's been pooping almost alarmingly well since coming home from St. Mike's. I was worried that she had something wrong in there, actually, since pooping hasn't always been her strong suit and she often had to try pretty hard to poop once a day. But no; she'd been pooping all day, every day and nothing solid at all.

I know. This is gross. IDWIYO has been all boobs and poop these days.

Anyhow, she hadn't pooped since sometime in the afternoon yesterday and as the night went on she got fussier and more complainy. I'd been planning to sleep at night since today was the first day of TCAF and we'd been planning to go to it. I really, REALLY wanted to meet some of my favourite webcomic artists in person and buy some of their merch. Instead of sweetly sleeping, though, Essie slept very lightly, keeping up a running low-grade grumble. I don't know about you, but running low-grade grumbles aren't exactly a relaxing sound for me so I was not really sleeping so much as trying to sleep and ignore the grumble. Then when she got hungrier she'd ramp it up to a squeaky growl, which is an even less relaxing sound.

By the time Andrew got up for the day I was exhausted and sad, having only managed to grab a few minutes worth of sleep here and there between Essie's feedings and diaper changes. I had reached the point of tiredness where nothing really matters but just getting some damn sleep already, so I was like, "TCAF or sleep? I choose SLEEP before I cry."

So, I stayed home with our grumbly, poopless daughter, convinced that I'd never sleep and she'd never poop, that she'd forgotten how to do it and would require medical intervention every time poop needed to come out. Andrew went out to get some necessities, then came home where poop had still not appeared and sleep was still not succeeding, then went back out to see TCAF.

Mid-afternoon? She pooped. A giant poop, a triumphant poop, a poop that fulfilled the purpose of her diaper like no poop has ever done. So there was poop, there was a cessation in low-grade grumbling, and then after a bottle and some snuggling there was some sleep! I had to get up after some sleep because she yet again needed feeding and diaper changing and snuggling so was awake when Andrew came in the door, flush with stories of all my favourite webcomic artists and how nice and wonderful they are. I'd say a name and he'd be all, "Yeah, we talked. He/she is really nice!"

And they were really nice and a few signed some merch for me and my most favourite even said she'd send me some buttons as a Mother's Day gift! Of course at this point because I'd had some sleep and Essie was back to her usual mostly-content self I was petulantly sad that I hadn't been able to go to TCAF after all. So we're considering going for a few minutes before our drive to Kingston tomorrow so I can bask in the glow of the Dumbrella/Topatoco crew and probably buy even more merch. If you want your favourite webcomic artists to stick around making webcomics, you have to support them!

P.S. Notice how when she poops I'm worried that there's something wrong, and when she doesn't poop I'm worried that there's something wrong? Yeah.

Update from the trenches.

OK, so week one with an actual baby living at home with us is coming to an end! Craziness. It's been pretty fine, all around. Like I said before; the first 24 hours were a bit rough, and thankfully I got over the cold pretty quickly or else this whole week would have been horrid, especially since Andrew had to go away for three days on business.

I suspect some thought I might lose my mind being home alone with Shaughnessy so immediately after she arrived, but really it was fine. Before he left town Andrew did a big grocery shop and made sure we had everything we need, plus did some laundry, so we were set that way. All I had to do was continue to feed her, clothe her, clean her and make sure all her needs were met.

And seeing as how I've always been a poor sleeper the new Shaughnessy-driven schedule isn't quite as much of a shock to my system as it might be to someone who swore by a 'normal' sleep schedule before the arrival of their baby. If I depended on sleeping at night, getting up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning and couldn't function any other way then this would definitely be a nightmare. I've never taken to that sort of thing naturally, though, so this isn't as soul-sucking as it could be. I can adhere to that sort of schedule when I have to, don't get me wrong. I just feel gross about getting up early in the morning every time I have to do it. Every. Single. Time.

Honestly it was really nice to focus entirely on my girl and how she functions. We had real quality time together and it was nice to see how I work as a mom, too. I've found that using the sling that we got makes her a very happy baby. I wasn't really expecting that because I mostly wanted the sling so I could have two hands free when I needed them but still had to carry her around. It's a Hotslings pouch sling and the newborn carry means she's cradled inside it and carried nice and close up against me. The whole effect is very cozy and womb-like and she falls into a really deep, relaxed sleep and I even have to wake her up for a feed when she's like that. Not only that, I can even take a quick nap if I want to while wearing it and she stays comfy and settled without me having to move her anywhere.

So, I guess I'm a sling proponent. I've always loved the idea of them. It makes a lot of sense to keep your baby with you as much as you can when they're this young. I also love the design of this sling in particular. I may find I need to move on to a ring sling or something when she's a bit older, but for now the simplicity of this one is exactly what I want. I'm hoping that the various carries for this one will work as well as the cradle carry so I don't have to look for something else that involves dangly bits and adjusting and wrapping and ties and stuff. Me = Lazy!

So, to sum up: We've had Essie for a week. I did not throw her out the window or down the well or sell her or anything like that. Being alone with her for an extended period is not scary. Slings and baby-wearing are two thumbs up! Yet I want the simplest sling possible because dude, extra complication in my life is a no.

More woe in B**bland.

While Essie was at St. Mike's I was concerned about the supply of milk they had on hand for her. When we transferred there WCH sent over a bag of bottles of stocked milk left over from what I'd pumped for them and I was surprised at the size of it since I'd actually thought they'd have less. Then my supply got low for a bit there after the transfer and one day I asked Essie's nurse how much they had left. She LIED to me and said only what I'd brought in since the day before, which was about eight 80ml bottles worth.

I didn't know she was a LIAR so this freaked me out. I had given them permission to give Essie formula if they ever ran out of my milk, but I still figured it was optimal for her diet to stay the same. So, I did my best to keep pumping and bringing milk in and while I wasn't getting huge amounts, my supply did improve a bit. I estimated that I was meeting her daily needs just barely with what I was bringing in.

You can imagine my surprise on the day we took Essie home and a nurse came out with a big old bag of frozen breast milk and handed it to me. It looked to be about as much as had been sent over by WCH, and it turned out that it was mostly made up of the milk I'd expressed there. There was some newer stuff in there, but not much. So, it appeared they'd been using the newer stuff I was pumping and leaving the older (but still good) milk. I have no idea why; all I know is that they LIED TO ME and said they were out of milk when really they had a good supply on hand.

Whatever the reason, I am actually very thankful to have this bag of milk because things have been difficult in the land of breastfeeding. Essie is still having no success with nursing at all, and I've been having supply problems yet again. I'm trying to express after every feeding but it's not encouraging right now.

In the interests of trying to make it work I visited the La Leche League International website to see what they had to say. There is some awesome advice there on getting resistant babies to nurse and it was comforting to read that it's not that she doesn't want to nurse. I can tell that she'd nurse if she could figure it out since she roots and makes all the physical signals that tell me so. Anyhow, there was a lot of good stuff to read and I plan to put a lot of it into practice.

In doing my research there, though, I came across some things that upset me a bit. LLL is known for their strict stance on breastfeeding and only breastfeeding and they are big believers in nipple confusion. They don't think a baby should be introduced to any kind of fake nipples at all and that doing so will result in the baby getting turned off of the real thing since it's actually a bit more work for them to nurse for real rather than bottle feed. Fake nipples include both bottle nipples and soothers.

Before Essie made her dramatic appearance I was not convinced I'd encourage her to use a soother at all. However, she came early and had to endure being a preemie. The reason preemies are given soothers when they're in a NICU is so that they'll have a form of self-soothing since they're so isolated from the regular physical comfort and touch that most humans receive at birth. Do you think that there is any way on this planet that I'd hear that and say, "Oh, no, please don't give her a soother. I don't want her to be able to comfort herself if it means difficulty when I try to nurse her later."

Is that honestly a choice to some mothers? If there are mothers out there who would choose that over their premature, sick little baby having a way to comfort themselves during a painful, frightening time then I seriously would like to put the beatdown on them.

Oh, sorry, am I being NORMATIVE? I might be. But as much as this breastfeeding frustration sucks, I'm sure that being born too soon, intubated, stuck with IV pokes all over her arms and feet, having repeated painful eye exams, feeding tubes stuck down her throat, having to wear an uncomfortable CPAP and enduring many, many other things I wasn't even aware of sucked EVEN WORSE for Shaughnessy and she didn't even have the perspective of knowing why it was all happening. All she had was whatever instinctive physical defense she was capable of.

If they'd told me that the only form of comfort possible for her was a bong hit every hour, you'd better believe I'd have been in there lighting it up for her.

Why cats approve when you make the bebeh:

Everything is cat-sized.

Mission Basic Hygiene: Accomplished

I'm the last in my immediate family to have kids. Most of my extended family (cousins and whatnot) either have kids or siblings who have kids. Babies and spending time with babies is nothing new to any of us. Most of the friends I grew up with have kids and actually started having them years ago. So, I'm somewhat of a latecomer to this mom party. When I write about my epiphanies and the minutia of each new experience I know that they're reading this and either nodding sagely or laughing at me outright.

That being said, I'm still doing all this for the first time on my own and whenever I go through something as a first-time mom I want to write about it. Yes, because I love writing, but also because I don't want to forget how this felt.

So laugh at me if you want, but today I had a shower with no one here but Essie and me and I was stressed. I put her snoozing little self in the bassinet in the bedroom (on her back to comply with the Back To Sleep guidelines) and closed the door on her as she began to mildly grunt, then tried to have the fastest shower I could without compromising hygiene and social acceptability. I didn't skip any steps, but I did try to complete them all with efficiency.

While I soaped and lathered and rinsed (no repeating) and conditioned and scrubbed I imagined that I could hear her screaming over the sound of the running shower. I thought about how I've maybe only ever seen one actual tear from this kid since the day she was born since so far she's not much of a crier and I've been able to head off any major upset by meeting her very simple needs. I dreaded turning off the water to hear her wails and having to rush into the bedroom to find her covered in tears and the drool and snot of despair and abandonment.

When I was finally able to turn off the water I stood still and held my breath, listening. And I heard nothing. This wasn't entirely comforting as I immediately feared that she'd died from crying too hard, so I (very) hastily toweled off and rushed to the bedroom.

Where I found her angelically sleeping, looking as serene and untroubled as any perfect baby in any random advertisement featuring perfect baby products for perfect babies has ever looked. She continued to sleep as I got dressed, and is sleeping now on the sofa near me as I type. I have to rouse her to get her fed before we leave for her first pediatrician's appointment in about forty five minutes and I hate to do it, she's so content and comfy. If I don't, though, by one o'clock she'll be an angry, grunting, squawking noisebox that could very well produce a multitude of actual tears for me to wipe away.

The baby has landed.

Essie's home now. She's been home since yesterday morning, and we 'roomed in' overnight on Friday night. The rooming in went pretty well all things considered, if you consider that taking care of our daughter was the first priority and sleep was definitely the second! We managed to grab a few hours of sleep each, but not much. Also, a real cold finally decided to hit me that very night. Not one of the 'oh, maybe I'm a cold, maybe I'm not' things that have been plaguing me since she was born. No; a real, no-kidding cold.

Coming home, though, was lovely. We rented a car for the weekend to make things a bit easier for the first couple of days and you should have seen us on the drive from the hospital. Giddy with happiness and love for our little family unit, thrilled to be united at last. Bringing her into the apartment was strange, strange strange and the reality hit pretty dang fast. Like any newborn, Essie's schedule is eat, sleep, diaper change, eat, sleep, diaper change, eat, sleep, diaper change. She goes approximately three hours between feeds, so my entire focus has been on following this schedule and grabbing sleep when she's sleeping (after I've expressed milk, maybe eaten some food, had something to drink, possibly gone to the washroom. I hear tell I might even have a shower someday!)

In a very unexpected development my girl has decided she wants NOTHING to do with my boobs. I'm not talking simply bare boob, here. I mean she seems to suddenly hate the nipple shield with a tiny grunty passion. Whenever I attempt it she gets furious and overwrought and finally I just get a bottle and bottle-feed her because girlfriend needs to eat! She still isn't latching on enough to eat without the nipple shield, so this is a project we'll have to revisit a little later on when things have settled down. She has her first pediatrician's appointment tomorrow and I'll be damned if I go in there with a baby that's lost weight.

In all honesty this last day has been extremely difficult. Even without the cold it would have been, I'm sure, but it's been rough. I've been feverish and coughing and sneezing and throwing up and even with Andrew's considerable help I've found myself wondering how this parenting thing can be manageable long term.

The answer, of course, is that it won't be like this long term and that every new parent goes through this sudden reality-check of actually having a baby to care for around the clock. I will get over this cold, she will gradually go longer between feedings over the months and then start sleeping through the night (hopefully; I'm not dumb enough to think that's any sort of guarantee!) She's going to change so fast and I'll find myself looking back and missing with everything in me the tiny, perfect being that she is in this very moment. I'm disappointed that I got sick for these first, formative days together because I'm already realizing that I hardly remember the many details of what the last 24-plus hours have been like.

What I will remember is how it felt to instinctively hold her near me when I'd crash out with her on the sofa during her sleeps. My own head spinning and sore and stuffed up, but all my senses focused on her breathing and how perfect her round little cheeks are. I'll also remember the painful reality that struck each time her hungry grunts would wake me up too soon from a desperately needed nap. There is no choice. Baby must eat, baby is our baby, we're the ones who have to sustain her. That's life, momma.

So I guess yet another chapter in this weird blog now begins. We'll see how regular my updates are now, but I guarantee I'll have a lot to share when I do!