Day 68

And if someday you’re lonely,
or someday you’re sad,
or you strike out at baseball,
or think you’ve been bad...

just lift up your face, feel the wind in your hair.
That’s me, my sweet baby, my love is right there.

In the green of the grass... in the smell of
the sea... in the clouds floating by...
at the top of a tree... in the sound 
crickets make at the end of the day...

“You are loved. You are loved. You are
loved,” they all say.

--Wherever you are, my love will find you, by Nancy Tillman

Ellie is nine weeks and five days old today.  She has been growing like a weed, and weighed in at 11 pounds, 5.5 ounces (55th percentile) and 22.5 inches (also 55th percentile) at her two month check up last Wednesday.  Nitin and I have both noticed that Ellie initiates more smiles now, and she has begun cooing and chatting, also.  She is very interested in faces and also has shown increased interest in Zoe!  Zoe had a very active day yesterday and was wiped out by the evening, providing a rare opportunity for all four of us to cuddle together on the couch last night.

When Ellie is awake, she often likes to be propped up in a sitting position and faced toward the "action" -- whether watching me fold laundry or prepare a meal in the kitchen.  But she still loves her cuddle time, and sometimes she will cry just because she wants to be held -- haven't we all had days like that? (Especially lately...)  We transitioned Ellie out of her rock 'n play at night on Friday night, and so far, she is doing pretty well sleeping in the pack 'n play instead.  She wears her puffy yellow Merlin sleep suit in the pack 'n play, which makes her look like a cross between a giant yellow Peep and the Michelin man, but it mainly gets the job done.  We tend to fall asleep around midnight, and Ellie wakes up between 4am and 6am, depending upon mysterious variables that I have so far been unable to master.  She usually falls back asleep, after a bottle feeding from Nitin (while I pump), within a half hour or so, and will still asleep until 7am or 8am.  Lately, she and I have been starting our days by breastfeeding while I lay on my side and she cuddles next to me.  She almost always falls asleep in that position when she is done feeding and I savor that quiet, sleepy time with her.

A group of my girlfriends from work came to visit Ellie on Saturday and afterward, I joined them to shop for wedding dresses for my friend Amanda.  That little outing in Alexandria was the longest that I had been away from Ellie since her birth and being away from her was quite difficult for me.  While I felt lightheaded and clammy in a wedding dress boutique in Old Town, however, Ellie had a wonderful outing to the library with her dad and checked out two new books.

I caught up with an old friend of mine on Friday night, and she asked whether I would like to stay home with Ellie instead of returning to work, if I could.  In our current financial situation, this is a moot point, but I considered her question.  Every morning, I wake up a foot away from our sweet Ellie in her bassinet, and want to spend the day with her.  I anticipate that the transition back to work will be emotionally challenging (for me -- but Ellie will be in wonderful hands, and I hope and suspect that she will still feel safe, loved and secure).

I remember the comfort of being tethered to the constant presence of my own loving mother as a child -- so much so that I cried at lunch when I unwrapped the lunch she had packed me, wishing I could be at home with her instead, and also cried accusingly when she dared to cut her hair, because I selfishly wanted her to be unchanging.  I now live in a city 1,000 miles away from my mother, who I still really enjoy having lunch with, but I still count my closeness with my incredible mom as one of the greatest blessings of my life.  I hope with all my heart that my own daughter feels in her bones, as I felt in mine, this line in my favorite book that we read together -- "in the sound crickets make at the end of the day...'you are loved. you are loved. you are loved,' they all say."  But I do remember being a child -- her child -- and I remember how I loved being around her so much that I would pull on my winter coat and boots to join her on the trip to the postal office or the bank, if she invited me.

Ellie was born into a different family, and a different time.  Just like my mother loved me to the moon and back, so I love our sweet girl. No parent feels that they know all of the answers, all of the time, and I am making my peace with learning as we go.  I had made a tentative plan for the next several decades, to work full time in my current position, working two to three days from home each week. If I had my druthers, I may have chosen to reduce my hours, but that decision would have prevented us from living in this home in a school district with higher quality public schools than our previous neighborhood had.  Oh sure, my thoughts race at night, to a home in the woods outside Charlottesville, where we would all work fewer hours and raise chickens and go on rambling walks as a family...

Of the many, many folks who raised and loved children, who could raise their hand and say they got it exactly right?  Each day, probably, is a missed opportunity to expose Ellie to a music class or a museum exhibit that I did not hear about, and certainly when she is grown I will admire the prescience of the parents who practiced Mandarin with their toddler or the togetherness of the people who cut down their own Christmas tree every year.  Or whatever.  We may have our own strokes of genius and special traditions, but we will not have all of them -- so the aim is to celebrate the unique family that we have, in all its introverted, vegetarian, dog-loving, idiosyncratic glory.

It would be difficult to write about this time in Ellie's life without acknowledging the backdrop of frightening events in the larger world.  Our beautiful daughter blossoms more each day, smiles growing more sustained, a twinkle appearing in her big hazel eyes, and five miles away, a man wields a pen that is upending our democracy.  The Wednesday after the election, I stood with a friend and colleague of mine who is also the mother of a daughter -- hers was a toddler and I still held the illusion that mine belonged just to me and N, safely ensconced in my womb -- and we tearfully acknowledged that we had not signed up to bring our daughters into this kind of world.

We have all held our breath hoping that the President would, in the midst of a Netflix binge or a petty personal conflict carried out over twitter, forget his campaign promises to unravel national security, protections for the most vulnerable Americans in the realms of health care, education and elsewhere, and values, such as religious tolerance, as old as the country itself.  Instead, these nightmares are coming to pass in our waking lives, and we all wonder where the lines are, how to keep track of all the ways in which they have been crossed, what we can do to protect our most sacred beliefs and institutions, and, in this particularly dark chapter of history, what those actions may cost us.

And what a strange paradox to, blissfully, joyfully, become a parent in this time of fear and shadows.  To simultaneously feel that the stakes have never been so high, the example we set has never been so important, the bravery and boldness never so well spent as to protect the legacy of the country we are holding in trust for the next generation -- and to feel muzzled and terrified, wondering if the best we can do for our own individual children is to hide out in the foxholes, admiring the resistance from a safe enough distance to prevent our own families from becoming targets.  And now we can empathize with so many parents throughout history, who may have had courage, but could not spend it for fear of endangering their children.  But it may be that the world cannot afford for too many of us to wait and see what will happen.  

So as not to end on that note...today, Ellie and I are spending a cozy day at home while she recuperates from a procedure this morning to resolve her tongue tie.  The sun shines brightly and the inch of snow that fell last night is melting in patches on our lawns.  The world within arm's reach is safe and quietly beautiful and many of us are wondering how we can stand up for what is right and good and fair.

Day 59

Today, Ellie is eight weeks and three days old, and millions of women and advocates for women are marching in DC to show their support for the rights of women.  I considered packing up our tiny feminist in her BOB stroller but in the end, I worried too much about safety and the crowds to take her.  The necessity of pumping every four hours also made marching logistically impossible.  But we did snap this photo of Ellie wearing her tiny feminist onesie and a pussyhat -- the unofficial uniform of the march -- constructed with safety pins and pink socks.

I will tell her the story someday of this chapter in history, hopefully from a safe vantage point.  And I hope that the events of the last few months will strain her credibility, because it will be so difficult to imagine that so many Americans turned toward a narcissistic charlatan who traffics in bullying and false promises.

When we chose Ellie's proper name, Madeleine, I thought of Madeleine Albright, the first female Secretary of State.  She will make the name her own, but the inspiration of her trailblazing namesake couldn't hurt.  I wrote Ellie a letter after the election, before she was born, and before we had even definitively decided on her name.  I have included it below.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the world we were bringing our precious girl into.  I thought, too, of how she would not be blond and blue eyed, and raised going to church every Sunday, like I was, and what that will mean for her feelings of safety and belonging in the world.  I do not want to wax too political in this space -- but the millions who march today, and the majority of Americans, who cast their votes against our current president, give me hope for the future.  So does this fierce, powerful child, who pumps her arms and legs forcefully, and seems to fight falling asleep, as if she does not want to miss a thing.

Ellie continues to bring us many joyful moments tucked into busy days.  I have begun breastfeeding her, side by side, in the early morning, and I must admit that sometimes we both doze off snuggled in that position.  Sometimes I wake up and see in her profile the clear outlines of how she will look as a four year old or five year old.  She is more with us all the time.  Her eyes follow voices and the brown blur that is Zoe labradoodle on the move.  She packs four or five smiles into a staring contest when she is in a good mood.

We have begun giving Ellie baths in her bigger blue tub, having graduated from the white Puj tub that fits into the bathroom sink.  She rests peacefully in the hammock and enjoys the warm water until I have the nerve to remove her slippery wet body and wrap her in a big towel.  This week, we snuggled in the rocker in her nursery and listened to Abbey Road and Graceland, and I imagined her being the third generation of her family to listen to The Beatles and Paul Simon on road trips.

The most exciting part of Ellie joining our family is how we will be able to watch her blossom more fully into herself each day in the years that come.  She will be a wobbly toddler and a wily six year old who wants to know why, and a gangly tween and a teenager negotiating the headiness of the transition between childhood and adulthood.  What a great joy to travel with her through every adventure.

And how very lucky was are to be traveling in this particular caravan.  It was beautiful to watch Ellie snuggle with her Aunt Shefali during their first visit this week.  We visited Ellie's honorary big brothers, Asa and Beau, again, who have been calling Ellie their little sister; Beau has been carrying a baby doll since his visit with Ellie and asking everyone to be careful with his baby.  My friend Katie brought over a signed copy of a book about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Beth magically lulled Ellie to sleep during another visit.  And I was thrilled to hear that my mom will be coming to visit for a week in February.

I'll sign off for now -- a fussy little dinosaur has dropped her pacifier a dozen times and requires a new diversion.

11/13/16

My dear Madeleine,

That is what Dad and I are almost sure we are naming you.  I struggled with choosing your name, though Madeleine has been high on our short list.  Last week, the woman we thought would be the first female President, the most qualified candidate in modern history, was defeated by a man who is startlingly unqualified for that office.  This turn of events was at once shocking and reminiscent of the moment when Lucy removes the football Charlie Brown is aiming to kick for the umpteenth time -- you will understand this reference when you are older.

This is not the sane and safe world we meant to bring you into, and yet here you are, nearly ready to be born.  We have not given you the name of that woman who will, to our great dismay, never be President -- but we have chosen the name of the first woman who ever served as Secretary of State.  Your name means "tower" or "great, elevated, magnificent." But rest easy, dear daughter -- we do not expect you to shatter a glass ceiling, unless that is your chosen destiny.  The name felt right to me because I want you to be strong enough to rise above the challenges in your path, in whatever you choose to do. 

We are so eagerly waiting to learn who you are.  Perhaps you will be quiet and serious, a lover of books, a perfectionist.  Perhaps you will have a raucous laugh and a devil may care predilection for scrapes, and a quick reply to any comment.  You could develop a love of horses or poetry or piano or mixed martial arts or ceramics.  You could join the debate club or the school newspaper or the track team. 

It is so hard to believe that you will join us on the outside in just over two weeks.  And then our lives will never be the same again.  Every parent engages in some preparations; we have, as well.  But I confess, I could have read more, I should have hung the art in your nursery by now.  No matter what I have read or ticked off my list, dear, there can be no complete readiness for motherhood.  But I am the only mother you have, and I will work so hard to ensure that you are safe and loved and supported, always.  No matter what I have to do, I must ensure that you have what you need.  

I can feel that you will be am incredible joy to your dad and me, sweetheart.  Thank you for being in our lives.  Thank you for bravely entering an unfamiliar world to be with us. I promise that we will take such careful care of you. 

Much, much love and so many hugs,

Mom

Day 50

Ellie is seven weeks and one day old today.  To celebrate, we ordered up a seventy degree partly sunny day in JANUARY (global warming assisted in meeting this request).  Ellie and I took Zoe on a walk just as the high school students were walking home from school, and Zoe greeted each sullen teenager enthusiastically! Watching the sullen teenagers be sullen on a seventy degree day in January reminded me how tough being a teenager is.  I wish that Ellie come skip, hop or jump right over those years -- but at least we have many years before we need to worry about that!

I learned a few useful tricks about parenting during the past week. Ellie is already very adept at her part of the bargain (being a baby) but she has been patient with me while I catch up.  I learned that sleep begets sleep -- if I let Ellie get too tired, she is too worn out to soothe herself to sleep!  We are still working on breastfeeding -- Ellie has tension in her neck and shoulders that interferes with her latch, as well as a tongue tie and lip tie.  Oof.  Because of pumping and formula, she continues to gain weight at a healthy clip, but we are doing our best to resolve these issues so that Ellie can get what she needs straight from the source!

We have become a little bit more bold about venturing out in the world, also.  Ellie spent more time with Kim and her boys on Saturday -- the boys were very sweet and gentle and Beau called Ellie "little sister." On Sunday, Beth, Ellie and I had girl time, and Beth held Ellie for hours as the grown ups caught up.  On Monday, Ellie and I had lunch with Rachel and Ezra at Bon Vivant Cafe in Del Ray -- Ellie slept right through lunch! On Tuesday, Ellie and I met with our mom group, and then Ellie's Nani spent the afternoon cuddling with Ellie. Yesterday, we met with a lactation consultant all morning, and then Ellie finally met my colleagues -- all familiar voices, no doubt, that she heard throughout my pregnancy!  This morning, we made our first solo outing to Trader Joe's, and selected a few bouquets of flowers.

Last Friday, Ellie was awake and fussy almost all day -- but the last few days and nights, Ellie has been a champion sleeper.  I keep worrying that she will deplete her capacity to sleep and then stay up all night, but so far, we have avoided this pitfall.  I could certainly theorize about what I have done differently on good sleep days -- more cuddling, more feeding, using driving or walks to lull her to sleep in her carseat -- but a certain amount of these things are simply up to Ellie.

These days, Ellie maintains eye contact for longer periods of time, and her smiling has gotten more consistent.  She is very affectionate and still loves to sleep on my chest.  She is already wearing three month sized clothing.  Her hair has grown in a bit more and her eyelashes are now longer than mine!  She seems more calm this week than last week -- perhaps a part of growing into herself a bit more.  Time spent with her is a very pure joy.

Motherhood is a complete reorganization of one's life and heart and like visiting a grocery store where the shelves have been recently reordered, I notice bits and pieces of our lives and our selves that are different each day.  My idle thoughts have evolved.  While pumping milk in the middle of the night, I wondered if there was anything I could do to ensure her happiness and safety for the rest of her life, even after I am gone.  My subconscious is apparently a relentless helicopter parent who wants to micromanage even from the great beyond.  It was painful to admit to myself that not only could I not preserve sixty year old Ellie from a loveless marriage or a debilitating illness, but there are limits to what I can do for Ellie even while she is living under my roof.  (I will surely fight them, but there are limits.)

The best I can do for her is to give her every ounce of love that I possibly can.  I should be at least as concerned about filling her with feelings of love and safety and deep belonging as I am about ensuring she receives every drop of breast milk that I can produce.  I believe we carry that original love with us throughout our whole lives -- or we do not, and then we carry the deficit, painfully.  We give her love so that she can give and receive love all of her days.  That simple calculus goes so far in the making of a good life well lived.

Day 43

Holy cow.  This little lady is 6 weeks and 1 day old today.  Each week brings its own set of firsts.  On Saturday, Ellie celebrated her first New Year's Eve and mom and dad were awake at midnight for the first time in years!  We watched When Harry Met Sally and the grown ups had homemade pizza.  Ellie had her usual -- a bottle of white.  We squeezed all the relaxation that we could out of the long weekend, knowing that Nitin would head back to work on Tuesday.  

As Nitin pointed out, we started out with a whole medical staff caring for Ellie, and leaving the hospital seemed inconceivable.  Then, Nitin, my mom, and I took care of this little nugget for ten days -- I put on my bravest face when my mom left for Chicago, but I secretly worried about how our child would fare without her expert guidance!  Nitin and I managed, together, to keep Ellie fed and changed and cuddled with for weeks -- and then foolishly, we sent the MVP of our parenting team back to the office on Tuesday.  Leaving yours truly responsible for our precious, ravenous infant who is only truly happy when sleeping on my chest, and a rambunctious labradoodle puppy whose mission in life to another aforementioned infant with potentially lethal kisses.  Big, but financially necessary, mistake.

Expectations have been lowered.  If at first, I thought I would go for long walks, organize the pantry, and write my novel (seriously), on day two, I aimed simply to shower and empty the dishwasher.  On day three, there has been no shower, one hurried meal, and we did not leave the bedroom until noon.  The bottom line, I think, is that the goal is to keep Ellie alive and well; the runner up goal, on a decent day, is to eat a meal and shower. 

The good news is that this delightful baby, whose soft head has the smell of sleep and whose eyelashes are already as long as mine, is the best thing that has ever happened to us.  In time, our house may once again be cleaner than a gas station by the side of the highway, and we may sleep more than a handful of hours at a time, and I may be able to have an adult conversation without drawing a blank and then asking what I was just saying.  But these are precious days.  At my six week OB visit today, I felt somewhat nostalgic, and I realized that in eagerly anticipating Ellie's arrival, I had already forgotten to really soak up they joy of carrying her and growing her (magically!) in my body.  A woman in the waiting room said wistfully to me, eyeing a sleeping Ellie, "I miss those days" -- and then added wickedly, "but not those nights!" I am keenly aware that I will miss these days -- and perhaps even the nights.  I have the rest of my life to wipe down the kitchen counter, shave my legs, or fold clean laundry instead of wearing it right out of the basket.

Another postpartum insight -- one's whole body leaks.  I had hoped that my breasts would stop spontaneously lactating by now, but apparently, they are unusually expressive. (Side note -- I also had mastitis over the last week and continue to be pretty breastfeeding challenged.  I have intended to contact a lactation consultant for the past three days, but apparently useful phone calls have gone the way of showering. Oh well.) I am also more prone to sympathetic tears. I cannot help but view everyone a little differently -- as someone's precious child, who was carried, birthed, nursed, rocked, worried about during sleepless nights.  It reminds me of the summer I had a (not very productive) vegetable garden, and realizing how much it took to produce a single misshapen zucchini, started wasting much less food.  Nitin mentioned yesterday the imminent danger of the dam in Mosul, Iraq, breaking and killing more than a million people within hours.  This grim possibility obsessed me. Each time I woke overnight I thought of mothers tucking their children in with the knowledge that a tsunami could engulf their homes and sleeping children overnight.  The thought is chilling to me now, and I cannot help but return to it again and again.  

Ellie and I have managed a couple of outings this week, despite my ineptitude.  On Tuesday, we attended our first mom group meeting.  Naturally, rain was coming down in sheets that morning, but I felt terribly accomplished for showing up (early!) and mostly keeping Ellie quiet while eleven other women shared the story of how they had become mothers.  I think the idea of these groups is to scout out mom friends but I first week have to find a way to be with it enough to remember some names and string together sensible sentences.  Yesterday, bless her, my friend Tiffani came over with bagels and walked Zoe while I pushed the stroller around the neighborhood. And today, we visited my OB and I was cleared for "everything" -- my only specific question was when I could take a bath.  (Answer: now! Or whenever I have time. So, in several years.)

As for updates on the little lady herself -- how did I write so much without mentioning these? -- she is continuing to grow, grow, grow.  This week, she lengthened and her limbs look skinny once again.  Her hair continues to follow the pattern of falling out and growing back in.  We are still learning to parse there difference between social smiles and reflexive smiles.  I suspect that Ellie will be a careful and thorough thinker -- I often feel I can see the wheels turning.  I also continue to believe that she will have strong, and adamantly expressed, opinions.  I am noticing more and more how much she loves to cuddle, and hope that this, too, will be an enduring part of her personality.

These weeks have been composed of so many absurd, tender, and poignant snapshot moments.  It is a struggle to capture them all.  But I hope I will remember this afternoon, the afternoon of Ellie's first snowfall, when she slept on my chest for an hour as I wrote this.  I hope I can remember that we were so much in love that on Tuesday, after a rainy, headache-inducing day, we were both happy eating pad Thai out of white styrofoam takeout containers on the floor of our bedroom, a sleeping Ellie stretched out between us.