My Letter to My Daughter About her Body

Step one: Don't talk to your daughter about her body, 

except to teach her how it works.

Don't comment on other women's bodies either. Nope. 

Not a single comment, not a nice one or a mean one.

Recently, an article by Sarah Koppelkam called How to Talk to Your Daughter About her Body, published on the Huffington Post, seemed to be everywhere I looked at once. It is beautifully written and inspiring, and I think it is a great guide for the early years of a girl's life. Something was missing, though. I felt I needed to have my own talk with my daughter about her body.

Dear Coralie,

Your body is strong; it is healthy; it can do amazing things. It can climb mountains and run marathons and move furniture and dance and sing and experience pleasure. It deserves to be cherished. I cherish yours, and I hope you will too. I care for it, feed it, file its nails, rub its back, run with it and wipe its tears because I love it and I love you. Your body is how I communicate with you.

Right now, every time you look in the mirror or see a video of yourself, you light up with pure joy. I hope that "I am awesome!" revelry lasts as long as possible. That's how I wish we all felt about ourselves!

The time will come in your life when everything will change. It's called puberty. And I do not serve you well if I avoid talking to you about the incredible and the harsh realities of growing into a woman. Puberty is awe-inspiring and glorious as it allows you to experience maturity, sexuality, and fertility if you wish. However, it's a time when you're going to be inundated with negative messages about your body and other people's bodies. As they grow up, many women stop enjoying their bodies and become obsessed with how they look. FIGHT BACK. Recognize those negative messages and kick their butts.

Those lies come from people who are suffering in their own self-hatred, or who want something from you, or who want power over you, or who want to sell you things (especially that last one!). They are not the truth. If you buy into them, you set yourself up for misery. You don't have to live that way. I am heartbroken every day over all the women living in a prison of self-loathing. They are caught up in other people's delusions. Other people's definition of good and beautiful. They miss out on so much of life!

Life is what our bodies give us! I felt perilously close to losing my life a couple times, and it gave me a whole new gratitude for my body. Your dad witnesses other people's tragedies every day--people who would give anything for our healthy bodies and their idiosyncrasies.

You are a masterpiece. I hope you can see yourself that way your whole life. If other people don't, ignore them. You and I know the truth about you. I hope you always love you as much as I love you.

To Be...or to Overthink It

"I'm not depressed. I'm extra-feely. 

I'm not anxious. I'm extra-thinky. 

I'm not addicted. I'm extra-passionate about lots of things...

some of which may do me harm." --Glennon Doyle Melton

One thing I have learned from mindfulness practice...and as far as I know, Taoism...is that most of us have (as one of my clients called it) an "unhelpful sophistication in our thinking." The part of our brain that analyzes, evaluates, measures, and makes meaning is very often unhelpful. When we give value to something as good or bad, beautiful or ugly, right or wrong, better or worse, we are frequently setting ourselves up for suffering. And as far as I can tell, we are CONSTANTLY doing that. Or maybe it's just me. Or maybe it's just the people in therapy.

I think therapy draws NFs and NTs disproportionately: those are "extra-feely" or "extra-thinky." Those of us who just can't get out of our heads. Who think about life perhaps more than we live it.

Being in our heads splits us off from our experience. It actually takes us away from our lives. It makes us pull inside, away from the people around us. Away from our present moment. There are so many ways we split off.

"This moment is better than that moment."
"This aspect of me is more beautiful than that one."
"I am not who I should be."
"This person is not the person I imagined myself with."
"It doesn't make sense for me to feel this way."
"Tomorrow..." "Ten years from now..." "What if...What if...What if..."

All that is, really, imagination. It's our mind's ability to fantasize. It's in the same family as fiction and delusion. It has its place, but it's not the only voice or the most important voice.We are kidding ourselves if we really think we can predict our futures or live up to our ideals (or that others will live up to them).

What's helped me most is to stop trying so hard to get better. To bring myself back, over and over. What do I feel? Who am I right now? What if I let go of what I want to feel/be...let that go like the clouds passing by...

Often, if someone is feeling anxious, I'll try having them simply sit with it. I'll ask them to describe it to me. What does it feel like in their body? What is the quality of it? Does it move? How intense is it? What if we just invite it into the room? It's welcome here. What would it say to us? (I didn't come up with this approach, of course. :) )

It feels like diving into one of those pitch-black water slides. You don't know when or where you're going to come out.  Except, usually within minutes, the person comes out. They land in the shallow pool at the end and the darkness is gone. Often what is left is just...acceptance. Not just, actually. Acceptance is damn hard and dangerous and freeing. Radical acceptance.

 



 

Spirit Me

Do other people have involuntary daydreams about life-and-death scenarios?

I can be walking down the street, and this will go through my mind: What if someone runs up and tries to mug me at gunpoint while I've got Coralie strapped to me? How will I fight him without hurting her? If we fall to the ground, I'll need to fall like this...

Or if that dog comes at me teeth first, here's my plan: first I'll kick and yell, then I'll grab that person's trash can...

Or I'll be in Target, and I'll start thinking: What if someone steals my cart with her in it? Do I scream and risk them doing something crazy? Yes, I think I must. Scream, then take them down.

My level of anxiety about these things is pretty minimal, so I don't get too worried about myself. I think it's probably all just my fierce desire to hold on to what I've got right now.

I'm feeling very sentimental these days. I see a large handful of aging clients in my practice, and a recurrent theme keeps coming up: rather than big, shattering tragedies, they are saddest about their lives slowly declining and realizing they never lived what they hoped and dreamed. They're lonely and disappointed, in life and in themselves. It gets me every time.

I tend to believe we choose to become physical form for a reason. Right now, I have this marvelous sense that I'm pretty much living what I've hoped to live. I've got staggeringly wonderful family and friends, a career that challenges and inspires me, and a beautiful daughter. I'm healthy. I'm stable. I came out of the tortured confusion of my (longggg) adolescence and now I'm really enjoying my life. (Just tired. Oh. I'm. So. Tired.)

I know these things are temporary. I know when life is going well, just wait. And when it's not going well, just wait. So I'm clinging fiercely to this life I get to have right now. I feel like I'm really in it more than usual. And then part of my spirit is watching it from afar, grateful. Spirit Me is telling Body Me to enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Body Me says, I know, don't worry I know. Can I just have a nap?

Maybe it's Christmas that pushed me over the edge. As a child, Christmas was at my grandparents' home, with aunts and uncles and cousins and food and conking out on the couch. Then, my grandparents passed way, and the family dispersed. There was a lull, and a readjustment with some sadness. Now, I feel like Christmas is coming to life again. The kids are young, the family is new and vibrant.    

My work, and some of my own experiences, keep me in touch with how lucky I am. I encounter lots of people living on the edge of instability, too aware of the monsters lurking on the other side of all the safety and support we're trying to build around them. I used to feel that way too, back when I had panic attacks, when too much postmodern education took the rug out from under me, when my relationships were struggling...when I was wandering and didn't trust myself. Those experiences served to make me even more grateful now. I feel like I went through one of those black tube waterslides, where I couldn't see anything and didn't know how long I would be falling. Then I came out the other side, and now I'm splashing happily in the sunlit shallow waters again. Coralie means "Girl from the Sea." Spirit Coralie looks out at me from her radiant blue eyes, and says, "I am so ready to be here. I've got my reasons."

Sleep Training: A Literature Review

A friend recently texted me: "Do you have your baby on a sleep schedule?"

Ha! She had no idea what she was getting into by asking me this question.

I'm not one of those moms who Does Things That Work. So, this is not a blog with Answers! However, I thought I'd piece together information I wish I'd had before my baby was born. Plus, it's a huge part of my life lately so it's all I have to write about. :)

I've collected a small library of sleep books and somehow managed to read them in the midst of my zombie brain! Here I offer a comprehensive literature review.

Babywise:
Get it together, baby. You eat, play, and sleep when I say so, and always in that order. You will cry as much as you need to get on my schedule. Soothing is for the weak.
                  Me: Um, I feel sick reading this. Don't make me do this!
                  Babywise moms: Sure, enjoy your moral high ground. We're going to enjoy our twelve hours of sleep.
                  *What I found useful: Coralie is definitely happier with a routine.

Dr. Sears:
You are cruel, Babywise, and you will ruin your baby forever. Instead, why not let her sleep in your bed and breastfeed whenever she wants to? DON'T YOU LOVE YOUR BABY?? Sleep is for the weak.
                  Me: Yes! I am an Attachment Parent! Oh God, I'm so tired.
                  Coralie: It's 4am! Let's play!! Hi-ya! Hi-ya!
                  *What helped: at least somebody is in favor of soothing a crying baby.

Dr. Ferber:
So this thing called scientific research says...(zzzzz). Don't be cruel. Let your baby cry in small, increasing increments. It's the humane thing to do. But you need to "give your baby the opportunity to fall asleep on her own"!
                 Me: This is code for: "Listen to her scream her heart out until you cry into your husband's T-shirt."
                 *What I liked: we tried his method for bedtime at 3 months old, and it made a big difference. Coralie goes down easily most nights now.

Secrets of the Baby Whisperer:
I am the nanny you wish you were. Follow my program and it will be E-A-S-Y! Eat, awake, sleep, time for yourself! Get the routine down and she'll start falling asleep on her own.
                 Coralie: What's wrong with you? I'm not hungry and now I'm not sleepy. I sleep for 45 minutes no matter what you say, thank you very much.
                *What helped: lots of specifics on how to care for a baby in general.

Sleeping Through the Night:
If bedtime is your enemy, this book is for you. It will guide you through every detail. Then, once your baby can fall asleep on her own, the book says she'll sleep through the night when she's ready.
                Coralie: Haha! That's a good one! Hahaha!
                *What helped: acknowledging that sleep training may not work until 5 months. Things really are much different at 5 months.

The No-Cry Sleep Solution:
Get out your pencils, people. We're making charts and graphs and a few Venn diagrams while we're at it. If we track your baby's every move, maybe we'll figure out when she wants to sleep. Or maybe if you just soothe her and feed her enough she'll grow out of it.
                Coralie: WAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

This leads us to our winner. Ladies and gentlemen, I present Dr. Weissbluth's Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. I resisted this book for a long time because I knew he was a cry-it-out advocate. However, this is apparently the book Coralie read cover-to-cover, because so far he has been right about EVERYTHING.

Things he taught me that were helpful:
1. Two words: avoid overtiredness. Put that baby down sooner than you think!
2. You can try all that no-cry stuff, but it won't work for everyone. Some babies really just need to cry it out.
3. Forget "dream feeding." "How would you like it if I woke you out of a deep sleep and fed you when you weren't hungry?"
4. Cluster-feeding and solid foods don't help babies sleep longer.

HOWEVER, the downsides are that I felt like a slave to her naps and I became OBSESSED with sleep. I worried that if she didn't sleep enough her cognitive development would suffer and blah blah blah...can't a new mom get a break?


What We Did:

For the first three months, we soothed like crazy and prayed that Coralie would figure sleep out on her own. She didn't.
Then, we established a nighttime routine and bedtime. Still, she cried and we soothed for hours.
Then, we tried Ferber's method for bedtime. It took a while, but she did start falling asleep on her own. It was excruciating to hear her cry. I sat and stared at the wall and hated myself.
Still, naps were short and she woke a lot at night. I followed Weissbluth and put her down every 1-2 hours.
Now, her naps have finally become more normal. Sometimes we soothe her if she wakes up quickly, and she might go back to sleep a while longer.
She still woke up several times at night though. So, dear reader, we did it. We let her cry.

I am no longer judgmental about people who let their babies cry. We are not cruel people. We are desperate people.

I was starting to have crazy thoughts. Thoughts like, "Maybe I should have a heart attack so I can go to the hospital and get some rest for a few days."

And I have to say, so far it is helping. She gets up less, and I am in better spirits.  She wakes up smiling and laughing and seems no worse for wear. She is a joy! 

If you made it to the end of this post, I adore you. You clearly care about me a lot. :)








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Things I Have Learned Since Becoming a Mother (all three-ish months of it)

All night your moth-breath 
Flickers among the flat pink roses. 
I wake to listen: A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral 
In my Victorian nightgown. Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. 
The window square 

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try 
Your handful of notes; 
The clear vowels rise like balloons. 

-Sylvia Plath


"Morning Song" doesn't seem like such a sad poem anymore. She's struggling, and tired, but her disconnectedness starts to improve and her tone softens by the end. She ends with balloons, for goodness' sake. Good for her.
 
I can understand the strangeness she describes. Everything feels new and strange. My body feels strange. Normal society looks different. How does everyone else run errands and talk to each other and accomplish things?

If you expect it to be beautiful and easy, you're in for a rough time. If you expect it to be a rough time, it's beautiful and wonderful, and it's also a rough time.

Single parents are other-worldly super-human beings who deserve our reverence. And paid days off.

Sometimes breastfeeding doesn't help the baby weight.

That first moment of seeing my baby really is as close as I've come to seeing God.

The idea that life is a gift feels more real to me now. It's a gift, but it's not a gift you just unwrap and smile at.  It's fought for. That whole birth thing takes you to the brink of your mortality, the trembling point where life could begin or end. I realized we have all fought hard to be here...HARD.

I can pray for our long, happy, healthy lives every day. But life is not in my control. It's only because of God that I get to exist at all, and to have the opportunity to hold this baby.

There is an underground war going on about infant sleep. There are basically two sides: those who believe in "sleep training" (often known as crying it out), and those who think you're a terrible person if you let your baby cry it out. The sheer vastness of books and blogs and opinions on sleep is overwhelming. The more I read, the more confused I get.

Or maybe I'm just confused because I'm sleep-deprived. OH RIGHT, we're all sleep-deprived. That's why everyone's fighting the underground war!

I went back to work because I had to, but I stayed back to work because I love it. Doing therapy makes me feel more whole. I'm afraid to admit that I might not be cut out to be a stay-at-home mom.

Babies need dialectical behavior therapy just like all of us. For example, some things will calm her down when she's at a 5 on the Richter Scale that won't calm her when she's at a 10. At a 5, I might swaddle and shush and sing or whatever. At a 10, only the boob will do.

Another example: we all benefit from accepting the co-existence of contradictions. She can be tired and wound up. Breastfeeding is wonderful and difficult. She is the most amazing thing in the universe and I love her more than I could imagine, and could someone else please take her for a bit?

As Ti would say, "Be there for the experience of it." And just look at that little face.

My Birth Story

During the course of my pregnancy, I must have read/watched/listened to hundreds of birth stories. I couldn't get enough of them. I am endlessly fascinated by the powerful, raw, life-changing process of birth, and I felt like each story helped me manage my expectations. I thought I'd write mine down too, in case there is anyone like me out there wanting to know the gory details.

I was six days past my due date, and I wasn't feeling much of anything.  I could tell the baby was very low, and moving a little less, but I wasn't feeling any contractions. The best secret I can conjure up to inducing labor is watching Jon Stewart. Also, a wintry mix storming in the night before Jason had two tests to take.  At 11:15 PM in the middle of The Daily Show, I felt a pop and my water broke. EVERYWHERE. I called our midwives, who confirmed my suspicion there was some meconium in it, so we started packing up and getting ready to head to the birth center.  (We chose to deliver in a free-standing birth center 40 miles from our home--that's how much I don't like/don't trust hospitals.)  My adrenaline was sky-high...I was shaking, my mind was racing...it was one of those rare moments in life where time seemed to collapse into that single moment, and I knew I had to dive head-first into whatever lay ahead of me.

In the end, here are the main points I learned from all those birth stories:
1) Birth is different for everyone.
2) It's a journey you have with yourself.
3) There are ALWAYS unexpected things that happen.

Some people slowly ease into labor. They have contractions that start off mildly, have time to get used to the sensations, and feel a steady progression over hours or even days. I expected that to be my experience. WRONG. Not me! It's more accurate to say I was FEROCIOUSLY ATTACKED by labor.  The 45-minute drive to the birth center was somewhat tolerable (bless Jason for getting us there in the middle of sleet and snow); I listened to my hypnobabies podcast and timed my contractions with my handy iphone app (like the good student that I am!). The midwife checked me when we got there, and I was 2 centimeters dilated, 90% effaced and the baby was at -1. I was glad I knew that didn't necessarily mean anything about how long I would be having this battle, because after that, my contractions took off like a steamroller and dragged me along behind them. They were only a few minutes apart and lasting 60-90 seconds.

The hardest part at this stage was this strange, sharp, fierce pain in my back and low abdomen that didn't go away between contractions. I expected to have at least some breaks between contractions. Literally NO ONE had described this awful pain! I told the midwife, and she wasn't surprised. "It might be the position the baby's in, or it might be your anatomy..." something about my pubic bone being really low...in any case, I took that to mean it wasn't going away. That pain made it so that I couldn't relax into the contraction like all my books had advised. I felt like I was hanging on for dear life. Nothing eased it.  The only position that was even remotely tolerable was to be on my hands and knees, so I would do that and rock back and forth and moan and just keep telling myself, Maybe I'm having a fast labor...maybe I'm having a fast labor...

The birth center was a wonderful environment.  They left me alone when I wanted, and came in when I needed. I could move around, walk, shift positions, turn the lights low. I felt like I was going to puke, so the midwife put a little peppermint oil in a basin for me, which helped. I turned on a playlist of soft music I'd listened to every night before bed for years, and that also helped some. I kept thinking, I don't know how people do this in a hospital! If I were strapped to a bed, poked and prodded, fluorescent lights and beeping machines everywhere, I don't think I could cope. At one point, I asked the staff, "Please, does anybody have any suggestions??" and they showed me a few things: pushing my hips together during a contraction felt pretty good.  Eventually I asked if I could get in their tub.  The midwife said they usually wait until four centimeters, because it can slow things down, but I clearly needed it.

Getting in the tub helped a little, if only for a change of sensation. My arms and legs were also getting tired from holding myself up, which was worrying me (I knew maternal exhaustion was the most common reason for a hospital transfer). The water helped with that.  Once I got in, the midwife asked to check me again. She could tell with her special midwife tricks that I had progressed pretty far--and lo and behold, I was 7-8 centimeters! I was in transition--after only three hours! "Oh thank God. Oh thank God," I panted.  She went to get a few things ready, and by the time she got back, I felt the unmistakeable urge to push.

I can see how vulnerable any woman is at this point the energies and words of those around her. I felt completely out of control and lost in self-doubt. I kept asking, "Are you sure this is going okay? That I'm in the right position? That she's in the right position?" If someone had seemed concerned and told me I needed a C-section, I would have believed them. I'm glad I knew that self-doubt is normal and a good sign that the labor is almost over. I'm even more glad that everyone around me was so calm, confident, and encouraging. "Yes, yes!" they all said, "Your body knows what to do. You know what to do. If you want to push, then push!" I would whimper, "I can't do this!" and Jason would answer, "You ARE doing it!!"

The midwife talked me through the pushing stage beautifully. "At the peak of each contraction you'll feel the urge to push," she said, "and the first thing you'll notice is that it feels like she's coming out your butt." Ha, yes! That's exactly what it felt like! Luckily I did get longer breaks between pushing contractions, during which I would pant and moan and curse and maybe cry, but crying took too much energy. I kept thinking, Some people say you go kind of numb during pushing or that it feels like a relief...nope! Not me either! I started off on my knees, then moved to squatting on my feet per one midwife's suggestion. Jason sat just outside the tub. When I felt a contraction coming, I'd reach up and grab his hands. He'd hold me up and I'd use the counter-pressure to help me push. I kept thinking, God, I love how strong he is. I feel like we're doing this together.

I'd been warned about the "ring of fire" when the baby starts to crown. Yep, that's an accurate description. My favorite moment: at one point I asked the room, "Is there ANY way to make it burn less??" The midwife paused and answered, "Just to push her out."  It's such a weird feeling, knowing you have to make things worse for yourself before they get better.

I pushed for maybe an hour. As she was coming out, no one touched me, they just shined a flashlight on her and talked me through it. After her shoulders were out, they told me to reach down and grab her. I grabbed my own baby! I brought her out of the water, and she screamed immediately. Her eyes were open. I could tell she was healthy and strong. At that point, everyone sprang into action. They got her cord unwrapped from around her neck and had me hold her correctly. I stared at her and kissed her and told her how well she had done, and that it was over. I heard Jason crying softly. I felt almost too overwhelmed to even cry.

They got me out of the pool and put us both in the queen-sized bed. She latched on and starting sucking immediately--a huge relief. But after the placenta was out, things got a little scary for me. I started losing a lot of blood. When I tried to get up, I almost fainted and my blood pressure was very low. One of the midwives wanted to give me cytotec, which really scared me--I had heard horror stories. Bless her though, she patiently answered my questions and laid out my options. "You can have cytotec, a shot of pitocin, or we can send you to the hospital for a transfusion." "Cytotec it is!" I finally answered.

No one ever told me about the horrible part where they push on your uterus over and over to check things out. That was INCREDIBLY painful. Even worse, huge clots were coming out, which scared me. They felt half as big as the baby was.  After a while of some seriously agonizing manhandling, I finally had a crying spell. I was just so overwhelmed and scared and tired and hurting. After two liters of I.V. fluids, I finally started to feel more stable and the bleeding improved.  All the while, the baby did great. I focused on how perfect she was and said my mantra/prayer: "I am safe; I am healthy; I am loved; I am protected."

She was born at 5:10 AM. At 2:30 PM, they let us go home (though I would have liked to stay longer, I must admit!). Recovery has been slow for me; that first week it was hard to get out of bed. I was anemic and felt weak and very tired. Now, I'm slowly feeling improvement. Reconnecting with the medical world (read: going to the pediatrician) was upsetting, and made me appreciate the birth center all the more. I love how non-traumatic the whole experience was for her. No one took her away from me. No one handled her impersonally. Nothing interrupted our bonding. 

If anybody out there wants to do the natural labor thing, here are my suggestions:
1) Read Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way by Susan McCutcheon. We didn't really use all the coaching stuff, but the breadth of information was very helpful.
2) Also read Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin. It's mind-blowing.
3) I watched "The Business of Being Born" over and over.
4) Get in touch with your higher power and surrender. :)


Now Coralie and I spend our days learning together, with me periodically overtaken by waves of gratitude for how beautiful and healthy she is. I am also extremely thankful for my village of help: Jason, our moms, friends and family have been amazing. I don't know how I could do it without them.    

Countdown

Here we are, Coralie, with five weeks left before your due date. You're moving like crazy. You've got a little foot planted way over on my right side that you like to stretch out and let me tickle.

I started feeling you move at 19 weeks.  It felt like a little fish bumping up against my insides.  At 23 weeks, I had some gelato that got you excited, and Jason was able to feel you move. He cried. It was one of those perfect moments.

That second trimester I worked a ton of hours, I exercised...I felt like I could handle anything. Now, I'm using my coping skills to get through the workday.  I'm feeling easily fatigued and quiet inside.

I'm grateful for a sense of rightness and readiness. As weird as it sounds, I feel like I've been waiting for you for a long, long time. We all can't wait to meet each other. As far as I can tell, you are just plain excited to be alive. You remind me how amazing life is.   

I've become a little obsessed with how much I want us all to live long, happy, healthy lives.  I ask God for that constantly, and thank God for every day I have with Jason and you and our families and friends.

God is caring for us so beautifully. I haven't always been able to feel that like I do now, and I am thankful.