Sicky McSickerton

My lord my body has to get into gear!  It’s like, “Maybe you decided to get off the couch and go to work, but sista, I’m still enjoying my 11 am showing of The View”.  I’ve been chronically sick now for over a month.  It started with a cold about two weeks prior to going back to work.  That slowly diminished and then I had food poisoning the weekend prior to starting (I still have no desire for Chinese food, which is saying a lot if you knew my fervent regard for Chinese take-out).  Once I started both Annie and I both got sick with another cold (I blame her for bringing it home, but I’m sure the child thinks otherwise).  And now: I have not spoken since last Thursday evening.  I have laryngitis.

I sound like an inebriated bullfrog when I try to talk, and Annie regards me with a stare that’s one part bemusement, and one part “Yo, Croaky!  Where’s my real mom?!”

I have a job where I sometimes shake a LOT of hands.  Annie goes to daycare with sick kids.  I guess we’re just a doomed lot.

Now, some photos...because that's what I become.  A mom who thrusts photos of her kid on you, poor reader.  Forgive me.

My favorites from the past week.

Making do



Annie's Valentine's Day greeting, courtesy of Matt.



Every day I put my heart – my everything – in daycare for 11 hours.  I hold my daughter tight and say, “You know your mommy loves you, right?”  How many working mothers have said this before me?

I had a spectacularly bad day at work last Thursday.  And then yesterday.  My job is harder than I remembered.  I cried.  I have now cried at every job I’ve held.  I’m not proud of this fact, but it is what it is: I am an emotional creature.  I thought for maybe 30 seconds, “I do not NEED THIS, I do not deserve this, and I’m going to quit this f’in job!” but then I settled down, took a long shower, and went to bed to just get up and do it all again.

I bring magazines to read on my train ride home, but end up just staring at the person's head in front of me.  I need a pause button: a timeout from my now life to visit my former life, just for an hour or two, where I had many less responsibilities.  Where I wasn't pumping breastmilk all day long, and where, if I wanted, I could leave work and head straight to bed. 

My day starts at 5:30 am when I rise and pump.  At 5:50 I then go to my bathroom and get dressed, put on my make-up, do my hair, brush my teeth and take my pills.  I do everything in the bathroom because Matt is still asleep, and because I'm stretched for time I have my outfit for the day already hanging on the door hook, and my shower already taken the night before.  At 6:15 I exit the bathroom and wake the baby, whom I nurse until 6:45 am.  I then pack my bottles for pumping, which Matt washed the night before, and her pre-filled bottles for daycare, and drive her to daycare.  There I unpack her bottles, unpack her, talk to her providers, sign her in, and head to the train station.  I'm at my desk in the city at 8:15 am.  An hour and fifteen minutes after I arrive, it's time to pump again.  I dutifully grab my pump parts and bottles and head to the fourth floor where they have a lactation room for working mothers.  I also pump around 12:30 pm and 3:30 pm. 

The baby is tired too.  Matt picks her up from daycare and she is either asleep or irate (or irate because she's so sleepy, presumably).  I nurse her for a good long while and then she's through with us.  "That's it!," she says.  "I had the boob and now I'm ready for bed!"  My little girl, who used to look me in the eye and smile and coo now gazes off into space with droopy eyelids.  Actually, she looks pretty stoned.  Her head bobs to the left, a little more to the left, and she quickly jerks it back up again, fighting her fatigue.

This morning my daughter smiled slightly at me, but beamed at Fran, who watches her at daycare.  I laughed and said I’d glad she’s finally getting used to daycare and that she likes it here (and that is so true), but cried on my way to the train station three minutes later. 

A tug and pull that doesn’t cease.    

Not that’s it’s all bad, because it certainly isn’t.  My long commute is my time.  Buying a coffee and drinking it at my desk is all me, too.  I have missed that.  I have missed conversing with my wonderful team members, and meeting my dear friend for lunch.  And the continuous churn of the pump in the lactation room isn’t all that bad, either: I’m proud she’s only had breastmilk and I feel closer to her as I fill the next day’s bottles. I used to tearfully tell Annie that I was doing all of this for her.  But I now know it’s for both of us.

So we’re making do: perhaps not gracefully and definitely not perfectly (and when was I ever graceful or perfect?!), and we both have our crying spells – me at my desk, her in her bouncer - but every morning when we pull into daycare I know both of us girls are making our way, together.  And I am proud.

Work tomorrow

The dichotomy of two very (white) things: one practical, one emotional.  My freezer milk stockpile, above (go me!), and my bear cub, below.

Tomorrow I return to work.  It's been a wrenching weekend (emotionally and literally): I had my first bout of food poisoning in my life starting on Friday evening.  Saturday was a feverish haze spent in the bathroom and shivering in bed.  Today is a bit better but I'm terrified about navigating my train commute sans bathroom (yikes!).

My hat's off to all working moms: I don't know how you do it, but I'm going to try my darndest.

Returning to work

Annie at two months (1/21/2012)

Busy season at my workplace has begun again.  I see coworkers' status updates ("Off to LAX!") and my chest tightens, I breathe heavier, and of course, I cry.   I am a very good crier and do it daily.  I do not want to go back to work, although I'm working on that.

I don't know how women do this: fight against basic biology, or I don't know, evolution.  This magnetic pull to stay with you child: to breathe them - just inhale them - all day.  To fight against every nurturing instinct.  Whatever you wish to call it.  Every part of me aches to be home with Annie, and lord help me I didn't know I could love this fiercely, but here I am sitting on the couch at nap time listening to "Annie's Song" by John Denver (I'm a bad cliche) and making myself miserable.  I'm a ball of spit-up (hers) and snot (mine), and  I think things like, "How can they understand her like I do?  I'm her MOM!" and I realize I'm just spouting hooey bologna because for the most part I'm just floundering myself, grasping at newborn straws.  Almost all of her cries end with me nursing to calm her, and I frustrate myself, knowing her caregivers can't do the same while I'm at work and I'm probably setting her up for daycare failure.  And because I'm neurotic I think about that: I am contributing to my child's eventual status as being the daycare delinquent because she bellows for breast milk on demand and I comply.  "Oh, that Annie," they'll sigh.  "She and her mom are a real piece of work.  Two codependent peas in a pod, those two."

My boss, a new working mother herself, told me, whatever I do, don't read the children's book "Owl Babies".  Of course, I Googled it on the spot and it's about three baby owls who wake up one night to find their mom missing, and during the course of the book they growing increasingly sad and anxious that she won't return, but she does, finally, after a nighttime hunting trip, and says she will always be there for them.  So I'm sitting there, reading this, and it's supposed to be good and therapeutic for kids who suffer from separation anxiety but all I can do is wail, "She's going to miss me!  She's going to think I've abandoned her!" to Matt, who has absolutely no qualms with putting her in daycare.  "I'm more worried about you," he said.

I am a mess.

And the funny thing is: I wasn't happy the first month holed up at home (talk about having your cake and eating it too).  I wasn't born a mother during her birth: for me, it was a learned gig these past two months.  Obviously, I still don't know what I'm doing - I'm been a mom for nine weeks for crying out loud! - but each passing day has become more and more a gift, until, suddenly, it's hard for me to recall the days before she was here.  This is my new natural.

That's not to say I don't miss normal adult things.  Oh, how I miss office gossip.  That's a big one.  I accost Matt nightly when he walks through the door.  "What's new?!  What's the OFFICE GOSSIP?!"  I seriously say this.  Matt is not one to gossip, but I think I'm a bad influence on him as he now comes home with a tidbit or two for me to chew on.  I'm voracious, though, and always want more.

And I miss the momentum a job brings.  I do not miss the work, but I miss how it got me out of bed and dressed everyday, onto a train, to a cubicle, and made me some money.  Now I'm sniffing yoga pants to see which ones are the freshest to wear on my big jaunt to the grocery store.

Matt says I'm like an old person now when they complain about all they have to do, but "all they have to do" usually is comprised of going to the post office and picking up a prescription.  He'll ask me what's on my and Annie's roster for the following day, and I'll actually say things like, "Oh, it's a busy day!  I have a doc appointment and then I was thinking of walking around Target or something."

That's not to say I'm not trying to get out of the house.  I have thought about infant yoga, but I'm already self-conscious enough walking into a yoga studio, so how the hell am I going to feel when Annie starts crying during downward dog?  Can I plop out my boob then?  I did find an infant massage course (yes, there is such a thing) in March that Matt and I may entertain.  And then the other week I was determined to meet other deliriously happy but frustrated moms so Annie and I hightailed it to our hospital's breastfeeding support group.  It did not go as planned.

I am an introvert but can put on a show if absolutely necessary (e.g. work functions).  When I arrived it was obvious most of the women knew one another and I just sat there like a big tool.  I wasn't sure what the protocol was until I saw they stripped down their kids and brought them to the lactation consultant running the show for the weekly weigh-in.  So, between you and me, I thought a lot about how I wanted to be perceived at this thing.  Thus, Annie was donning her Fuzzibunz.  For those not in the know, they are cloth diapers.  And for those really not in the know, yes, Matt and I are cloth diapering (so help me god when this kid starts eating solids).  The cloth thing was totally Matt's idea.  We use disposable on occasion (overnight trips, when she looks a bit irritated and I need to apply cream).  I thought, finally!, a good use of my crunchy granola mom cloth diapers!  I'll have the kiddo don them to this breastfeeding meeting where surely other crunchy moms will nod in approval!  I really thought this and since these diapers come in a slew of colors, chose a fashionable mint green for the meeting.

So the protocol is you hand your diaper-clad kid to the lactation consultant, remove the diaper while your child is in the lactation consultant's arms, and then she will place him or her onto the scale.  I'm not sure why the parent just doesn't plop the kid down, but that's how it goes.  So there I was, taking off Annie's fabulous green Fuzzibunz, and wouldn't you know it, she decides it would be a marvelous time to take a pee.  Onto the lactation consultant.  I start screeching and apologizing and holding the diaper under her to catch the urine, but it was really just a hopeless mess.  That's when the lactation consultant said nevermind, it's fine, but  "isn't she quite the pudge!"  The woman then placed Annie (poor thing was probably scared) onto the scale where she decided her work for the day wasn't done, and another good urination was in order.  The other women in the group laughed and one said, "Oh, what a newbie!  Well I guess she is christening the scale!"  I just stood there and laughed awkwardly.

We haven't been back since.

So here I am.  I go back to work in exactly two weeks.  My team has been amazing and gracious regarding my pregnancy and now my return (like taking all over my overnight trips this spring! Thank you, thank you, thank you!).  In fact, Annie and I visited the big city this past week to have lunch with them and attend a meeting.  I don't know if this is just my kid or completely normal, but her poops are high-velocity power squirts that can put a room at standstill.  Obviously, she graced us with one of these butt-blasters during the meeting.  You have to love that in a baby; she'll have her whole life to learn manners and what is proper.  When else can you just let it rip and look really pleased with yourself?

I really love that kid.

First snowfall (1/21/2012)

Asparagus and Zucchini Veloute with Parsley

I know what you’re thinking: what is a veloute?  Look, you’re obviously not cultured.  I know this because I’m entirely uncultured and recognize uneducated provincialism when I see it, so I had to Wiki this bad boy and I found out it’s French, and is “is one of the sauces of French cuisine that were designated the four “mother sauces” by Antonin Careme the 19th century. The French chef Auguste Escoffier later classified tomato, mayonnaise, and Hollandaise mother sauces as well. The term velouté is from the French adjectival form of velour, meaning velvety.”

 

Oh.  Of course. 

 

Anyway, I’m thinking the editors of Vegetarian Times are really up on their high horse because this dang recipe is a SOUP, not a sauce.  But it’s made in a roux form (lots of butter and flour) so I suppose I’ll let it pass. And I admit: it’s totally velvety.  I served with good quality croutons (excellent in a pinch when no crusty bread is on hand) and a sprinkling of Romano cheese.  I slurped that sucker up!

 

Asparagus and Zucchini Veloute with Parsley

Recipe courtesy of Vegetarian Times 

• 1 16-oz. bunch asparagus, trimmed and coarsely chopped
• 1 ½ cups veggie broth
• 1 zucchini, coarsely chopped (about a cup)
• ½ tsp. salt
• 4 Tbs. butter
• 4 Tbs. flour
• ¼ cup finely chopped fresh parsley
• Optional: bread, croutons, or cheese for serving

 

Bring asparagus, broth, zucchini, salt and 2 ½ cups water to a simmer in a medium saucepan.  Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer 15 to 20 minutes, or until veggies are tender.  Transfer to a food processor or blender, and blend until smooth.

 

Melt butter in same saucepan over medium heat.  Stir in flour, and cook 3 to 5 minutes, or until browned.  Add pureed soup mixture, and cook over medium-low heat until soup is thickened.  Season with salt and pepper.  Sprinkle with parsley.

Pad Thai

I love spaghetti, so it's only fitting that I love the Thai equivalent of my go-to carbo classic, Pad Thai.  I love me some Pad Thai!  Every time I go out for Thai I say, "Kathryn, don't be so lame and order the pad Thai again, you fool," and, I shouldn't - I mean, heck, there are lots of green and red curries that are absolutely to-die-for - but I cannot squash the call of the this classic, and oh-so-simple, noodle dish.  Oh man does it beckon.  And when food calls your name, you must oblige.  (I have this same philosophy when it comes to Oreos and really anything with a crinkly wrapper.)

Pad Thai is a street food in Thailand; it's cheap, quick, and easy.  I read that it should optimally be whipped up in small batches, but I love me some short cuts, so here's a large recipe for the taking.  You can add radish if you'd like, or tofu in addition to shrimp or chicken.  Really anything goes.  Well, except the tamarind.  The tamarind gives it that slight bitterness and is an absolute necessity.  I found a large jar of the stuff in the Indian section of my local grocer for about four bucks.  I guess I'll be making a lot more Pad Thai with that, but I'm not complaining!

Pad Thai

• 1/4 cup fish sauce
• 2-3 Tb. brown sugar
• 2 Tb. tamarind concentrate mixed with 1/3 cup water
• 1 tsp. chili pepper flakes
• 1 package rice noodles (12-14 ounces, usually)
• 2-3 glugs of canola or olive oil
• 6-8 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 eggs, mixed (as if you were to make scrambled eggs)
• 1 tsp. salt
• 3 cups bean sprouts
• 1-2 bunches scallions, chopped
• 1 cup ground peanuts
• Either: 1 lb shrimp/chicken/tofu, previously sauteed
• 1 lime, cut into wedges to dress dish
• cilantro, to garnish (optional)

Prep rice noodles according to package directions (usually they need to soak in cold water for about 30 minutes).

Prep the sauce: over medium heat, blend fish sauce, brown sugar, chili flakes, and tamarind concentrate mixture. Then, in a wok or large skillet, add garlic and eggs to hot oil.  Scramble the eggs.  Then add your protein and noodles.  Stir.  Add sauce and salt and stir into noodles mixture.  Noodles should soften quickly (2 minutes or so).  Quickly stir in peanuts, scallions, and bean sprouts.

Serve with additional peanuts - if desired - and a lime wedge.  Makes four large servings.

Winter walk

Took the ol' pooch out for a walk this afternoon to try to get on her good side again.  She was our first (and only) baby for 4.5 years, and was none too pleased when a human pup joined our little clan.  Penny is the most gentle dog I know, and has never shown any aggression, but lately she has been sitting in her little corner looking lost and forlorn.

We both enjoyed our little outing: cold and blustery but it was wonderful to get out of the house, just the two of us.

Thank you, 2011

What a difference a year makes.

Last Christmas we were nursing our failed IVF wounds, and this year we celebrated with our one-month-old daughter.  That is some crazy stuff right there.

The more I speak about infertility (and I do because I'll never understand how the whole thing got so taboo, and I'm not one to hold back if you've noticed) more and more couples come out of the woodwork saying they did/are having trouble themselves.  How the heck did this biological imperative become so damn hard?!

Matt and I decided we won't shy away from telling Annie how she came to be: we want her to know how very badly we wanted her to be here and how modern medicine played such a substantial role in her existence.  I want her to know about the long drives to the clinic, the crazy scenarios we found ourselves in (me constantly in  the stirrups, Matt having to, uh, give numerous samples in the clinic's multiple "male specimen rooms" complete with ample porn selections), and how we waited for the embryologist calls after the IVF extraction telling us how our little blastocysts were growing.  On our first IVF attempt nothing divided past the two-cell stage, but Annie's cycle resulted in many beautiful eight-celled little buggers.  In a way, this is her first baby picture:

I often wonder if the right or left blastocyst came to be our daughter.  The whole thing is mind-boggling.

It's not lost on me how very fortunate I am.  In terms of infertility our stint was not exceptionally long: we tried to conceive for a year and nine months before hitting the fertility jackpot with our positive pregnancy test.  We started right outta the gate from my April 2009 surgery (literally - I remember asking my surgeon - and I swear this on all that is holy - "Can my surgery incision, like, bust open with a growing baby stomach?").  I am obviously not cut out for a career in medicine.

After a solid six months of TTC ("trying to conceive" for the fertile bunnies out there) we went to our ob/gyn who performed a few tests and put us on Clomid to regulate my cycle.  After a solid year of TTC we met with our reproductive endocrinologist.  And then after two monitoring cycles (one sans meds and one with), four medicated IUI (intrauterine insemination) rounds, and two IVF rounds I had a bun in the oven and about 10 fertilized cells in the freezer.  It sounds so easy when I put it like that, but I will never forget the tears that cling to this process.

I recently saw this PHOTO ESSAY ON INFERTILITY on Slate, and I cried like a baby paging through the author's account of her journey.  The slide with medications piled high on her kitchen table?  I still have a stockpile in my closet and just recently threw out the refrigerated stuff during my eighth month of pregnancy. It's hard letting go of thousands of dollars of meds - even if they're expired and I'm already pregnant.  The photo of her sticking herself in the car?  Check!  I distinctly remember sticking myself in the car in a dingy parking garage in Philly.  The place had cameras set-up all around and I remember thinking the footage probably looked like I was doing something pretty nefarious as I stabbed my stomach roll.  Everything about the essay rang true: the damn ultrasound wand (we knew one another in a very intimate way), the near daily blood draws and subsequent nurse phone calls going over all my levels and dictating next steps.  When you're going through infertility the game plan can change almost daily: the medication dosage is constantly tinkered with or now they need to see you tomorrow morning for monitoring when you, say, have a morning meeting.  (I can say a lot of things about my last job, but I'll leave it on a positive note and just say this: they gave me the utmost flexibility during my unending appointments, and for that I am grateful).

I'm not sure why I'm writing all of this.  Partially I'm just taking stock of how far Matt and I have come.  Partially it's in response to a few conversations I've had with other women TTC: this process is absolute drudgery and there is no time when it's more pronounced than during the holidays.

I want to wish everyone a very happy new year, and I hope anyone who may be reading this who is going through infertility will find solace in the possibilities a new year can bring: I know 2011 has flipped my world upside down in the best way possible.

Here we are today lounging on the couch; Matt took this photo to show off Annie's swanky new sock monkey pants her Aunt Priscilla knitted for her.  That kid is gonna be such the little hipster.

Post-pregnancy: Crohn's and baby love

This was the front of our holiday card this year.  The photo is courtesy of Matt's super duper coworker who moonlights as a photographer, Jamie (check her out if you're in suburban Philly!), and the card is from Minted.  


Annie is tucked away in her Moby wrap with Dad, so that finally (woohoo, finally!) means I have a few moments to type.  


On Crohn's:  I went through a good week where my digestive system was absolutely, pitifully out of whack. It started about five days after Annie's delivery, which was not very fun as I was still in the heat of recovery from my (sigh) episiotomy.  You know you have a good marriage when your husband, very straight-faced, says after one of my bathroom runs, "Is your butt clean? (Thank you, honey.)  You should soak your butt in a bath so everything can heal."  (In truth, I ran several baths were I stole Annie's Burt's Bees bubble bath and I really do think it made everything better.)


Everything has settled down (I think I may have simply eaten some food that didn't agree with me) and I'm continuing with my maintenance medication, Pentasa.  My GI said to up my dosage following my delivery, but because my symptoms are currently in-check, and I'm breastfeeding, I'm very hesitant to do so.  There has been very little research on mesalamines and breastfeeding (although it is certain they do pass into the mother's breast milk), but due to the drug's category B status, there is currently little direct evidence of side effects to the baby except for an increase in diarrhea, although I still feel very "iffy" about the whole thing.  I think it's all about a balance of what's good for her, and for me, and it's something I will discuss when I see my doc in a few weeks.


On Motherhood: I spoke to my boss the other day and said very succinctly, "I love her to death, but I don't think I'm in love with motherhood yet."  I know it sounds harsh (and I thought about whether or not to even type this), but these past few weeks I've just felt out of it.  I miss being a part of humanity (even the crush of my god awful commute at times!).  I miss walking around the corner at work for a cup of coffee.  I miss my alone time where I could cuddle up with a good magazine in bed.  And even though I'm getting a decent amount of sleep, I am exhausted. Now when friends reach out (often over Gmail chat) I slowly peck out my responses with one hand, as I'm invariably holding and feeding her with the other.  How comes no one writes about this stuff?


The last few days, though, have been an absolute ball of bliss and I'm so relieved: her personality is coming out more and more and I'm finally interacting more and more with the little bugger.  I'm learning her grunts (and no, she does not coo, but grunts like an extra on The Walking Dead, and it's the dearest thing ever) and yesterday she had a blast grunting at her reflection in the mirror!  She even smiled!  We dance and look at the Christmas tree (she is absolutely, positively transfixed by the lights) and I'm starting to finally feel like more than a feeding trough.  I think she's beginning to really know Matt and me, and by golly, I think she likes us!  I return to work on February 13th, and I can safely say that date gets harder and harder to think about each and every day, and I've already had a few crying spells about it: 13 weeks just seems too young to put a little one in daycare.  It doesn't feel right at all, but it's our game plan for now.


Well, time to feed (but of course!).  Later we may go on a Trader Joe's outing and who knows what else the day holds in store for us.  I do know, however, it will be wonderful: I'm loving these little moments with Matt and Annie (or Jo-Jo as he calls her).

Bathing beauty

This photo absolutely terrifies me.

I think it's safe to say Annie's first real bath was a complete, and utter, success.