Two Months Old!

Sam's 9 weeks old today. In new developments, he's holding his head upright for longer periods of time, he's sucking on his hands, and making lots of spit bubbles. He's cooing and starting to make some new sounds. Still smiling a lot, but not laughing just yet (unless it counts while he's sleeping...)

How Life Has Changed (Sara)

So I'm going to have to disagree some with Kyle's previous post about feeling that life hasn't changed dramatically since Sam was born. I don't usually like to draw attention to gender differences because I think they're often socially constructed, but I do think there are some very real biological differences between mothers and fathers that color their experience in different ways.

Central to the issue is anatomy. Spending time at home to recover after labor and being a nursing mom are both huge factors.

Before Sam was born, I had never been a patient before. I had never broken a bone, needed an iv or had stitches. In a single day, I then had an iv, an epidural/spinal anesthetic, and a foley catheter (that's for pee, folks and luckily they placed it after the spinal kicked in). Oh, and let's not forget the c-section itself, which is major abdominal surgery during which the surgeons pull your abdominal muscles apart.

Being a recovering patient was therefore a very new experience for me and required that I stay home from work. This too affected my life greatly as my very identity seemed to change.  One day, I was a training physician- attending daily medical lectures, taking overnight call in the hospital, and making important decisions for patients- and the next, I was a stay-at-home mom- caring each minute for a completely dependent and helpless creature.

I'm sure all new moms have mixed emotions about their own recoveries and subsequent solo time at home with a newborn, whether they're choosing to return to work or not. Some days I felt completely content about being with Sam and worried that returning to work would be awful; I couldn't imagine being away from him. Other days, I really missed work, missed my physician identity and the excitement of training and learning.

A huge component of being at home with a newborn of course is nursing. Never before have I had anyone so dependent on me. In Sam's first 3 weeks of life,  it felt like all I did was breast-feed him, recover from breast-feeding him, or think about the next time he would need to feed. My body felt exhausted from holding him and from hunching over to gaze at his face.

- - -

As the weeks have passed, that initial drama of suddenly having a newborn has mellowed. I can already look back and think, "Wow, if I did that again it would be easier because I would understand more about what to expect, how to take care of myself, and how to savor my time at home." True to what all parents say, this has all gone by so fast...

Now that I am back to work, I would propose that Kyle and I are having a more common experience of parenting. We are both balancing our work with a new schedule of drop-offs and pick-ups at Beth's house. We both cherish our time with Sam and value the opportunity to be in the working world, doing something we like to provide a good living for our new family.

Yet the biology remains and 2-3 times a day, I have to steal away from my work duties to pump breast milk. Of course, that's a choice I've made, but it's one I actually enjoy. I like knowing that even when I'm away from Sam, I'm working at being both a physician as well as a nursing mother. Beth recently placed a photo of Sam in my pump so when I open it up, I see his little face smiling at me. While I pump (in a private call room), I can review patient charts and write my notes on our electronic medical record.

Yup, that's right. I'm Super Doctor Mom.

- - -

Moving past the anatomy, I generally agree with Kyle's overall point that having Sam has not changed the core of who I am. It may have felt a little like that at first, but now he is seamlessly integrated into our partnership. What has changed is that our partnership is now a family.

A family.

Something about that word had my smiling in the car the other day. I never thought that having a child would make me feel so... happy. Sam is like a project that Kyle and I share; he's our little creation, our love. Nurturing him and sharing the responsibility of his care, has made me love Kyle more deeply than before.  I feel like I belong to something, something that can be absolutely what I want it to be.

And that's how life has changed.

How Life Has Changed (Kyle)

Sam is eight-weeks old today.

At work, with friends and family, I seem to be getting a lot of questions with the same theme: "Is everything different now?" "Do you feel different?" "Do you see the world differently?"

Perhaps it's my natural contrarian instincts or maybe it's my aversion to discussing personal details of my life except by my own terms but my default response to this question is "no." I'm also somewhat confounded by these questions. I have never expected that a life change, even one as profound as having a child, alters who you are fundamentally as a person. I'm no expert, but character and personality development seem to be pretty set by the time you're 31 years old. I would have never asked that of anyone else and (even as a pretty judgmental person) I've never thought to judge a parent as different from a non-parent.

I have a hard time even expounding on my "no" answer. My stock answer has turned in to something like "I'm pretty domestic to begin with so it really hasn't changed my life much." And that's pretty true. I'm in to routine - I like to go to sleep at a specific time, wake-up up at a specific time, and eat at a specific time. Those times change ocassionally depending on what is going on during certain periods of my life, but I'm very regular. This hasn't been impacted much with Sam. In addition, we don't go out much at night. On weekends, Sara and I will rarely stay up past 11pm. Now, instead of reading books, I read them out loud and have to take occasional diaper change breaks.

The follow-up question typically is something along the lines of "Are you more tired than you've ever been?" or "is this the hardest thing you've ever done." I know people expect me to say "yes!" and then gush about how hard having an infant is. But I just can't do it. Sara and I seem to have a pretty good night time routine; Sam wakes up, I change him, bring him back to bed, and give him to Sara to feed. By now, Sam has gone from a feeding every two hours at night to one every 4 hours or so and seems to be well on his way to sleeping through the night. The last couple of nights we've put him down at 9 or 10, he's woken up around 2:30-3 and then again at 6 or 6:30. Not so bad (except for the nights that I have a hard time falling back asleep).

What's also helped is that after the HS Ultimate season last year, I added in morning workouts from June until Sam was born. I was budgeting about 2 hours a day for the work-out. I'd wake up at 6 be done and showered by 8 and at work by 9. Once Sam was born I cut-out the work-outs and just planned to sleep from 9 or 10pm at night until 8am. With 10 or 11 hours allocated for "sleep" waking up a few times didn't impact me too much. Now that Sara is back at work, I've had to add time in to take Sam to my Mom's place - but with Sam sleeping more it's been completely doable (asleep at 10pm, awake at 7am, leaving for for work at 8 and dropping Sam off on the way). I miss the work-outs but it's been an easy exchange to make.

But, over the past couple of weeks, I have started recognizing what is different. While I haven't changed and my perspective on life hasn't changed and I don't feel terribly tired or that raising Sam (so far) has been terribly hard work there is something that is new. I feel that there is a new fullness in my heart. It's strange to realize that. It's not that there was space there before - at least I didn't recognize that there was space there. But Sam has filled something. He's added density to my being.

Videos full of Cute!

                                                      

I've gone back to work...

Hence the lack of new blog posts.

Yes, I wish I could have taken more time off. It wasn't impossible. In fact, my program director said she would understand if I did take more time. The trick is, I have to "make up" all the time I miss since I'm in a training program. Emory will let me do 1 month as an "away elective" in Seattle, but no more than that. So if I took off more than 6 weeks (2 vacation + 4 paid medical leave), I'd have to stay here in Atlanta in July and make it up. This would push back my arrival date in Seattle and I'd miss orientation completely. Anesthesiology is pretty tricky because all the residents start together and get oriented on the equipment and safety issues at the very beginning.

Well, those are all the logistics at least, but I'm sure no one wants to hear about them. Fact is, I LOVE medicine and learning and taking care of patients, so part of me was eager to go back (maybe having a baby intern year when I'm not yet jaded by medicine is a good thing?). I felt almost 100% physically recovered by 6 weeks so my body was ready to walk the hospital halls again. I did feel a little sad, though, to know that my protected time off with Sam was over and I'm certain that if/when we have #2 I'll be taking a full 12 weeks off.

Luckily, he gets to hang out with Kyle's mom, Beth, everyday who is about the best child-caregiver you could ever imagine (see how Kyle turned out?). Really, I think it made it emotionally easier to know that he'd be with her all day. I enjoy the bit of freedom I feel in the morning when I leave the house without Sam and can listen to loud music (ok, it's usually npr... who am I kidding?). At first I felt a little guilty about this, but I'm also aware of how important it is for parents to have a sense of balance in their lives, and with their identities. Becoming a physician is important to me and something that I've always wanted to combine with motherhood. Yes, there are compromises on both sides (less time with Sam, less studying), but I just feel so fortunate. In the morning, I feel happy to put on my white coat and in the evening I feel so excited to pick Sam up and drive him home.

All I can say is: so far, so good.

Here's some recent Sam eye candy (7 weeks old):

He's "discovering his hands"

He's generally a mellow baby, but he does have his moments... 

(Note the bib)

He's been drooling a lot more and tracking people with his eyes better.

Naked baby in a towel!