The Daily Fuss

Growing a Family Part II: It's Not About Me Anymore

I remember our first week at home with brand new, baby Leighton like it was yesterday. I recall finding it impossible to get anything done. By the time I changed, fed and burped her, then got her down for a nap, the cycle would start all over again.

It took us two hours to get ready to venture out on our first stroller walk in the park - on day four, at home.

How ridiculous.

With Lei, I didn't allow myself to eat, sleep or even pee when I wanted to, for fear of interrupting what became our perfect little routine. 

Ryan and I described the situation as something akin to riding a night train, in the coach level smoking car with lights on and without reclining seats, through the Pyrenees, hoping to NOT get robbed while attempting to catch a nap.

This actually happened to me during my college travels and I swear it's a valid comparison. Not much you can do when the sleeping car is full.

Ryan detailed his foray into fatherhood to my cousin (about to become a father himself for the first time) in this way: "Imagine you just sat down with your favorite beer to watch the World Series, and every three minutes, you are forced to get up and run as fast as you can to the farthest point in the house and come back. Now imagine doing that all night long."

We unapologetically catered to our new little girl's every whim . She loved to nutch her nukka even as she slept. When it fell out (every five minutes) she would cry and we would run in and replace it. She was never wet for more than minute or two. She nursed every three hours, then every four like clockwork. She slept in our bed. She had copious amounts of tummy time and photo shoots and books read to her and faces made at her and toys to play with and so on.

Leighton smiled a lot. 

She still does.

The most notable shock of having that first little baby was that our time was no longer our own. Looking back, it seems silly to have assumed our baby would be like a cute little accessory - that she would travel about with us politely and sleep when we wanted her to sleep and be charming when we showed her off to other people and she would let us watch Meet the Press and have our coffee on Sundays without distraction. 

It's impossible to imagine life with a baby, before you have one.

We waited a little longer than we intended to wait for Miss Leighton. We started trying or "not trying to not get pregnant" right after we were married. We so enjoyed the momentum we had going ... constant change for eighteen months ... that we lept right in.

We had a miscarriage at twelve weeks.

Frankly, it sucked. 

So much hoopla and excitement and elastic-waisted pants and daydreaming and reading "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and I'm finally pregnant and it feels like we're a family of three in the waiting room and the warm goo and ultrasound wand is on my tummy and ... boom.

Nothingness.

The fantasy is vaporized and there's just sadness for a while.  

And that would be the very reason you don't get too excited until after that twelve week ultrasound. It shook us momentarily, but we moved forward with our life together and plans for a family.

However grateful we were to have a happy and healthy little girl the year following that rough spot, losing control over our comings and goings mattered to us.

For a little while anyway.

It was quite an adjustment for Team Freeman, as it is for most new parents, I would imagine.

Then, that longing for sleep and time to ourselves quickly faded into a rythm of providing for and meeting the needs of this little person we loved way more than we loved ourselves.  

She was our best DIY project to date and we were overwhelmed by her awesomeness. We felt we loved her so very much, there wouldn't be anything left for anybody else ... ever.

We believed that right up until Miss Mairin came along ... and everything changed.

Again.

Growing a Family Part I: Trajectory

Ryan and I got married the day after I turned 31. I took my time - kissed my fair share of frogs, finished law school, and fostered the makings of a successful career - before settling on a suitable mate.

I met my future husband when I was twenty-eight. He was beyond "suitable". He was perfect for me.

Once engaged (from the secret trip Ryan made to Milwaukee to surprise my parents with a preview of the ring, a bottle of champagne for a toast and a bottle of Scotch for my dad to lock in "permission granted", to the romantic proposal and subsequent dinner where we planned out as much life as we could imagine) life changed with lightning speed before our eyes.

It's as if we were willingly sucked into a tractor beam, drawing us toward the future us, powered by our mutual acceptance of this very important deal we were about to make. The engagement was a rock solid verbal commitment. And, from that day on, there was no looking back.

We bought the condo we were renting in February 2007 and gut-rehabbed it ourselves. We worked right up until our May wedding, laying hardwood floors and marble tile, replacing toilets, sinks and plumbing and painting until the wee hours. We didn't have a working kitchen when we got married, and we still didn't have one when we got back from our amazing Hawaiian honeymoon. 

Moments of that renovation were comical. At one point (we were standing in the middle of a pile of rubble, pieces of walls missing and dust everywhere) Ryan looked at me and said, "How sure are you we can actually do this?" I replied with unshakable confidence, "We can totally do this. Piece of cake."

And such is the nature of our team goal-attainment. We take turns challenging each other and subsequently reassuring one other that we can "totally do this".

Baby number 2? I was sure it was time.

Move to the suburbs? I wasn't sure. Ryan was.

New job for Jen? Ryan was the biggest instigator and supporter.

Baby number 3? I cried when the plus sign appeared. Ryan said, "We always wanted three. It'll be great."

And so on.

The gist of my father's toast at our amazing wedding reception was a simple one. And I paraphrase: Love is created by two people who share a deep commitment to and abiding respect for one another. If those two believe in it, then it exists. If even one person stops believing, it isn't real anymore. No other thing in the universe can become real just because two people believe in it.

He raised his glass to our enduring belief, and with a "here here" and applause his sentiment took flight and soared around the ballroom full of friends and loved ones.  It was a wonderful moment that I will never forget.

He made the point that the force we created when we fell in love and decided to marry is bigger than me or Ryan or any one person.  It informs our trajectory, the path to the future us. And, it has brought us three wonderful and very real people who wouldn't exist without us.

I reflect upon my dad's wedding toast often. Even on the not-so-perfect days, I marvel at the fact that Ryan and I are willing to do the work - to be grateful for what drew us together in the first place, to be proud of what we've created together and to hold each other accountable to the belief we've shared since the day we fell in love.

As a wrinkle to this theory, becoming a parent introduces the far more abstract and overwhelming concept of truly unconditional love - a perfect topic for Part II. 

{DEBATABLE} Live Tweeting the Birth of a Baby: TMI or Proper Use of Social Media?

I mentioned my self-directed vacation from social media while pregnant. For at least one woman, her pregnancy, culminating in the birth of her daughter, sparked the opposite reaction.

Claire Diaz-Ortiz is a dedicated Twitter employee who recently live-tweeted the birth of her daughter.

According to Business Insider, "Diaz-Ortiz, who goes by @Claire on Twitter, lives in Buenos Aires with her husband, and began having contractions early Saturday morning, when she began to tweet."

Tweets included a play-by-play of her efforts to determine whether she was, in fact, in labor to the breakdown of her car and need to grab a taxi to the hospital.

 

At 5:33am on April 5th, she gave birth to her daughter @lucia, and posted a pic.

Across the worldwide interweb googlemachine, people have posted their reactions to the live-tweeted birth - the lion's share of which were negative. Yahoo! users posted some of the most scathing.

Harsh or well-deserved? I'm not entirely sure and hesitate to judge, but one thing is certain - people can be mean.

Now that William is born, I still feel the need to pull back. I am directing the focus of my writing away from my kids. After nearly five years of writing The Daily Fuss, a few key themes have revealed themselves. These themes have as much to do with being a loving wife, working woman solid citizen and balanced human being as they do with being a nurturing mother. And so, the "Fuss" will take that into account and continue to evolve. 

Did Miss Diaz-Ortiz overshare, or should her live-birth tweeting been well-received as a perfectly normal way to introduce her baby to the world ... or should I say "world wide web"? Post a comment and share your fuss with us!

{What the Fuss?} Moby Wrap Revisited

Five years and three babies later, I am still happily rocking the Moby Wrap. 

Leighton and Mairin loved it and so does William, my 11 pound three week-old.

Click here for my original post.