the sun has come out

Central Florida seemed to turn into the Amazon rainforest during the Olympics: Tropical Storm Fay hung around like a nosy, bad relative who doesn't know when their welcome is vastly overstayed, and it rained and rained and rained. My remembrance of these past couple of weeks will always be tied to water in that way - seeing the constant coverage of Michael Phelps in the pool, by the pool, talking about the pool and his 8 gold medals, and also seeing the sheets of rain outside, the flooded streets, the grey skies. For a week, the sun wasn't anywhere to be found.

It wasn't coincidental, either, that last week was one of the hardest weeks of my life, filled with the water of tears. I've documented it pretty well on this blog; it pains me to even go back and read those two entries following Aidan's birth. I knew postpartum depression hits a lot of women - and indeed, so many of you e-mailed me or commented with your own experiences - but somehow, maybe I thought I was immune. After all, my pregnancy was beautiful, easy, nowhere near as difficult as I had expected it to be. Why wouldn't I sail through this postpartum period as well? Plus, when you hear the word depression, you expect, well, depression: the flat affect, not caring, feeling as if you are in a constant fog. At least, that's been my experience with depression in the past. I didn't get that this time. Instead, I got the most horrendous case of anxiety I've ever come across. Head in a fog? I would have gladly welcomed that in exchange for the constant crying, the constant fear and paranoia that neither me nor my son would survive the day, the inability to sleep or eat. It was hell on earth. I had the most precious little boy in my arms, and all I could do was cry and be scared. People assured me things would get better, but instead, every day got worse and worse. Just waking up and getting out of bed became a daily exercise in terror, and I couldn't understand why.

Last Monday night, it all came to a head. Aidan is one of these unusually well-behaved infants, and even when he is very hungry, or gassy, or poopy, or whatever, he usually just whimpers instead of cries. Occasionally, though, he'll give his lungs a little workout, as if to make sure he can still summon all of heaven and earth to his rescue. Monday night, he started one of those full-blown cries during his diaper change - like most babies, he hates being cold or feeling something cold, and the touch of a cold wet wipe on his warm bottom was probably what made him wail that night, just before one of his feedings. From the other room, I heard his wailing. And I also started to cry. Hard. Harder than I had in all the days previous. I got scared again. But this time, it was too much for too long. I was tired of being scared, too, tired of feeling exhausted and all these knots in my stomach and the constant pain, and it made me cry all the harder. So while Aidan calmed down in about 30 seconds once a dry diaper was on his bottom, I was rapidly losing it, breathing harder and faster, unable to get control of myself, and Jason and my mom had to come take care of me while Aidan cooed and gurgled in his bassinet. And Jason held me close while I cried harder than I've ever cried in my life, and I told him he was certainly going to have to admit me to the hospital again, because I was really, really afraid I was going to hurt myself: I couldn't spend the next 21+ years like this, and if this was parenting, well, I certainly was not cut out for it in even the smallest way.

It was maybe a bit calculated on my part, telling him I was afraid I would hurt myself. Never in my life, not even in my frenzied state that night, have I ever had the true desire to end my life or actually do anything to harm myself, though I've asked God to take me home before, and I've wished I could go hide under a rock permanently as well. But I'd been reassured and encouraged a lot that week, and it wasn't working, and I needed the next level of care. It worked. He called my doctor, a prescription was called in, and I finished freaking out while Jason ran to Walgreen's. He came back, I took some pills, and within 20 minutes, I was calmer. And exhausted. And a little hungry for the first time in over a week, but mostly exhausted, so I went to sleep. My mom took care of Aidan all night, defrosting the breastmilk I'd stored up when I was pumping during his jaundice hospitalization. He never cried. I prayed for grace and mercy as I fell off to sleep.

I woke up at 11am the next morning, and the sun was shining.

And each day got better. As the tropical storm weather faded away and the sun slowly came out, so the sun did shine a little brighter inside my heart. Doing the most basic care tasks for my son - feeding, burping, cuddling, changing diapers - scared me less and less, and I started to feel less like a train wreck and more like a mother. I started to enjoy this little angel baby who hardly cries, loves to cuddle, makes the funniest faces, and makes me believe that God is nothing but full of second chances and grace.

I had to learn to roll with the punches, too. In my anxious state, cloth diapering seemed impossible to me, so we went with disposables. Aidan - or his delicate skin - didn't seem any worse for the wear, and I gave myself a break, promising to revisit the cloth diaper idea when he wasn't pooping and peeing multiple times with every diaper change (no joke - he is most prolific with the poo). So now I'm a Pampers girl. I happen to love them, along with my little Diaper Champ disposal thingie. And it's okay.

The biggest change, though, was giving up breastfeeding. The medication that helped me not be so scared and regain my sanity wasn't something I wanted to pass along in my breast milk to Aidan. It was a big decision, and one I had to make in under five minutes, because it came down to either taking this medicine and saving myself, or continuing to breastfeed (which was still difficult, even though I was committed to it) and also continuing to be the emotional wreck I'd been for the past week. I had to decide, through more tears, that Aidan deserved a mother who was happy and healthy and able to love on him the best, so along with the medication came a can of powdered formula. And even though, in those days that followed, I felt better and more whole again, the incredible guilt that piled on nearly set me back to where I'd been. I'd wanted to breastfeed as long as I'd wanted to be a mother - the two concepts were entwined together in my heart. I loved the idea of being able to provide my own perfect food for Aidan. I feared the financial cost of formula, as well as hearing every lactation consultant, doctor, and nurse talking in my head: "Now Anne, you KNOW breast milk is best." I was afraid of compromising his health, his intelligence, his stomach at the very least, certain I'd change my sweet angel baby into a screaming, colicky kid.

One week later, after that first bottle of formula that he guzzled down without hardly taking a breather, he's still my sweet angel baby. Sure, he had about 24-48 hours of some funny "straining" faces as his system adjusted to formula, but he's been wonderful all the while. He sleeps soundly, just as he always has. He still has his mellow, easygoing temperament, making me feel like the luckiest mom in the whole world. He still whimpers when he's trying to make his needs known rather than crying. (He still doesn't like cold, though.) He's growing and stretching and putting on weight like a champ, already getting close to 9 pounds and outgrowing the smallest of his onesies.

And I'm settling into my new life as a mother, and hardly remembering what life was like without my handsome little Milk Face. He makes me smile and laugh and even tear up - in a good way - every single day. Being his mommy is, perhaps, one of the toughest jobs I have ever known, and even in these short two and a half weeks that I've been "on the clock", I've had to step so far outside my comfort zone, rely completely on God for daily strength and grace, and find inside of myself a strength and courage that I can only describe as divine in origin. But never has anything - or anyone - been so worth it. In the end, that kind of sacrifice is the only kind worth making, and I'm happy to do it, every day.

please, let me make it through this

This has been so hard. I don’t think I was prepared at all for the emotional onslaught of these first few weeks – I’ve been looking forward to being a mommy for so long, and now I think that I made some sort of huge mistake. What was I thinking? I hope this passes soon.

Breastfeeding has been harder than I thought, too. I couldn’t get Aidan latched on without the nipple shield, and he’s been occasionally getting a pacifier, so of course now I see the words NIPPLE CONFUSION everywhere I turn and I feel so, so guilty, like I am ruining my son’s feeding habits. Truthfully, I want to give up. I want to go and get some formula and some bottles and be done with it all. But I’m trying to stick with it, because I really want this to work. I’m going to call the breastfeeding help hotline my hospital runs and see if I can get some help, either over the phone or in person or both.

I’m also completely wavering on my decision to cloth diaper. I don’t think I like them as much as I thought I would. I use prefolds with covers, but he pees and poops every single feeding (which means about every 2-3 hours) and sometimes I go through multiple diapers at a change because he just keeps on going in the middle of a change. And disposables? They are so much easier. But today I found some redness on his bottom, and I freaked – does he have diaper rash? He has diaper rash because I chose disposables over cloth? The mommy guilt piled on. I didn’t have any diaper rash cream on hand because I thought I wouldn’t need it (because I thought I would be cloth diapering). For the billionth time today, I started bawling my head off. Jason was gone all morning and into the early afternoon at church, and I felt so alone, even though my mom lives with us and was there every second helping me. She only cloth diapered my brother and me, too, although she’s been so wonderful and supportive, saying I need to make the decision that works best for me, not necessarily what I think I *should* be doing, and I can always change my mind later. I worry about using cloth when I have to go back to work and Aidan is in the care of others, I get weary at the thought of all the extra laundry, and frankly, I don’t really like how the entire cloth diaper gets saturated when he pees versus disposables which don’t really do that (unless I let him sit in a dirty diaper for a long time, which I don’t). But the investment I’ve made so far – and all the guilt – and all the expense of buying disposables and wipes and such - oy. I feel like my emotions and hormones are conspiring to make me feel like the worst candidate for motherhood ever. And then there were some people who thought I was taking on too much by trying to cloth diaper...and I just don’t want them to say “I told you so”. I can’t handle that right now.

My anxiety is at an all-time high right now, and it feels like there’s nothing I can do to stop it, either. In my head, I know God is in control. I know that He is not leaving me alone on this journey, that he has both me and my precious little Aidan in his big, strong, capable hands, and that I only need to take each day one at a time, even an hour at a time if necessary. But my heart doesn’t seem to comprehend that. I feel completely alone, scared, fearful of every little thing, wondering how on earth I am going to pull myself together enough to care for this little life, handle every expense, tackle each new challenge, go back to work after only a few months off. I know other moms have done it, and they have survived and done well and found much joy in the parenting process. I’ve had so much encouragement from women I know, telling me that this hormonal time DOES pass, that things get easier, and there is joy just around the corner. I want so much to believe them. But I’m afraid that the emotional wreck I am now – with my already established tendencies toward anxiety, even in my non-mommy days – will never go away, that I will spend this time that I should be enjoying my little one crying and worrying and missing every little milestone because I JUST CAN’T DEAL WITH IT ALL.

I envy Jason and his calm demeanor. He is confident. He is not losing sleep over this, at least not any more sleep than we’re already losing from the late-night feeds and diaper changes. He is confident in me and my ability, and for the life of me, I cannot believe him one iota. I wish I could.

I know this is the most horrible, depressing thing to read. It makes me sad to read it over, too. I hope I can look back on this post in the near future, say “whew, I survived that!”, and go on loving my son. Right now though, it’s just a minute-by-minute struggle to keep my head afloat.

trusting

When I was in nursing school, we learned about Erikson's stages of human development. Erikson said that we all go through certain life phases that involve a "conflict" that we must successfully resolve in order to obtain a certain virtue of our identity (the phrase "identity crisis"? Credit this guy for that). The very first one we go through as human beings? Trust versus mistrust: as an infant, you learn whether or not to have trust in your caregiver that your very basic needs in life will be met. It rests at the very core of who we are and how we relate to this world, knowing that above all else, we're taken care of.



This week has been all about trusting, and I'm not sure it's my newborn son who is the only one learning to resolve that conflict.

Being a new parent has been one of the most intense life experiences I have ever known. From his grand entrance into this world via emergency c-section - a story I will share at a later date, I promise - my heart and my head have been flooded with emotions, both exhilarating and overwhelming, sometimes terrifying. Aidan is my precious son - my SON - and being his mommy has completely changed my life and my perspective. I was prepared, I think, on some level for the amount of love I would feel for this little man with his delicate fingers and toes, curious blue eyes, wrinkly face, and round little belly. It was an enormous amount of love like nothing I'd ever known before, but I figured that would happen. I love it.



What I was not prepared for was the other side of that intense love, what my dear friend Jen likens to "your heart running around outside of your chest": the incredible, almost too-overwhelming sense of responsibility for this little person's life, the fierce desire to protect him against enemies both real and perceived (as well as the rational and irrational), the realization that, although you can try your absolute hardest, you cannot protect your child against everything, whether those things are illnesses, bullies, rainy days, heartache, bruises, or any other kind of injury. And it tears you up inside, it does.



I know a lot of these harder feelings are the result of some pretty intense hormones, that pretty much any new mother has felt these same things and can relate, and that the emotional onslaught is temporary, that things will calm down in my heart eventually, but it's hard to see that from this point in the game.

Since our arrival home from the hospital, we've spent every day in multiple doctor's appointments, running all over town to make sure Aidan's jaundice would not run out of control. Because of some significant bruising as a result of his position in my pelvis (up against it, really), he was at a higher risk for jaundice, so he was sent home with us with a somewhat elevated reading, a bili light bed, and the assurance that it would "go away". It did not, at least not like we expected it to. Every day, we went to our pediatrician's office, had Aidan's heel stuck and blood drawn, and hoped for the best. Each day, his bilirubin levels slowly rose. I cried at every visit. Our pediatrician was disturbed by the levels, and the seed of fear was planted in my heart: was my son going to be okay? We kept him under the blue lights as much as we could, upped his fluid intake by breastfeeding AND pumping, and prayed. Still, no improvement. Plus, we found this rather disturbing black spot where his circumcision was performed that neither Jason or I could remember how it looked in the days we were at the hospital with him, so we were also sent to a pediatric urologist for consultation.



And, in addition to all of that, we were also still these two first-time parents learning how to care for a newborn, a huge challenge alone. Breastfeeding was challenging - the supply was bountiful, the hunger and suck factor very present, but the technique rough, and I ended up needing to use a nipple shield for him to latch on correctly, something from which I am finding a huge challenge to wean. There was the challenge of coordinating and rearranging your entire life around someone else's pooping schedule, maneuvering a squirmy infant at every diaper change, learning how to negotiate the finer points of both disposable and cloth diapers (note: LOVE the cloth. A post for a later date, but I love them. So much better than the disposables...), and of course, the endless analyzing: is he pooping enough? Too much? Should it be this color and consistency? Is he pooping out all the bilirubin?

And then came Wednesday night, after a long day of running around to doctor's offices, drugstores for unexpected last-minute baby purchases, and trying to live this new life: Aidan's bilirubin was STILL elevated, and he wasn't responding to the home phototherapy treatment we'd been giving him, the pediatrician told us. Aidan has always been a pretty mellow baby - not much of a crier - but his increased "mellowness" that day at her office also greatly concerned her as well, and it was time to take our little one back to the hospital. So off to the hospital we went, stayed up with Aidan overnight and into the next day as he was hooked up to an IV, put under more intense phototherapy, and had lots of tests run.



Thursday afternoon, when we returned home, I was pretty sure I'd hit rock bottom on my emotional threshold. I was completely exhausted, scared, anxious, almost to complete panic. My trust level was not very high.

Today, on our way to a follow up appointment with the pediatrician, one of Orlando's finest examples of bad driving decided to ride the back of our car as we were exiting an off-ramp from the highway. I mean, really tail us with his black SUV, seemingly just inches off our bumper. There haven't been many days that I've lived here where I haven't come across someone like this on the road, but today, I panicked. My heart started racing, because all I could think about was Aidan riding in his car seat in the back, blissfully unaware of this idiot who couldn't keep a safe distance, and how Mr. Black Escalade was endangering my son's well-being. Jason muttered some sort of comment about idiot drivers and looked at me, only to find me gasping for air and then crying uncontrollably. Was every day an accident waiting to happen? Would we wreck and end up like so many of my patients, dependent on a ventilator, fighting for life, with an infant doing the same in an pediatric ICU? There wasn't anything I could do about the horrible driver behind us, and it rocked me to my core. I began to think that maybe, just maybe, I'd made a mistake on this whole parenting thing, that emotionally, I just wasn't equipped for it, that this perfect little person was born to a wreck of a mother, and that I would spend the next 18+ years in a constant state of hyperanxiety, fearful and worrisome over every little (and big) thing. I didn't think I could handle it.



Enter Jason, my wise husband. In between my hiccupy sobs and tears outside of the pediatrician's office, he held me and stroked my hair and told me everything was going to be okay. And he said that not as some shallow platitude to get me to calm down, but he reminded me of God's great love for me, that I was still His child, too, and had a day ever gone by when I wasn't loved, provided for, had my own needs met? No. Days have gone by, plenty of days, where I have seen very dark places, experienced great struggle, felt some serious pain, faced my own demons and bullies and illnesses, and I've come out stronger of heart, more blessed than before, surer in my walk with Christ. And for as much as we love Aidan, Jason reminded me, God loves him infinitely more, and He is taking care of him, too. That we're not alone on this journey of parenthood, that our needs will be met, that even in the face of all that is or seems dark and scary, God has this little precious life - and ours - in His strong, protective hands, and that He is not only watching over us, but is intimately connected with us every step of the way.



I'll confess: even as I type these words about trusting God, tears still come to my eyes, and I worry. It's a hard habit to break, I guess. Despite everyone's good advice and my better judgment, I still get anxious over things I can neither predict nor control, from the immediate (should his poop be this solid already? Is he constipated?) to the far-reaching (what if he gets bullied and picked on in school?). It's all a strong reminder to me that trust is not a one time act, a lesson to be learned and then forgotten, but a daily exercise. Every time one of those thoughts comes through my head, I have to learn how to trust all over again. I remind myself of a song a youth group band wrote based on Proverbs 3:

Trust in the Lord with all of your heart
Lean not on your own understanding
In all of your ways, acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.

Don't worry about tomorrow,
He's got it under control,
Just trust in the Lord with all of your heart,
And He will carry you through.

I pray that God will grow Aidan up to be a man of strong faith, of pure heart, of unfailing faithfulness and a fire for the Lord that cannot be quenched. I pray that God will keep his protective hand over my sweet little bundle and protect him from harm. I pray that Aidan will never go a single day of his life without knowing how much he is loved, how much of a gift he is, and how he is God's precious son even more than he is our son.

And even through the fearful moments and tears, I pray for daily grace and strength from God, that I won't forget that He is with me, my son, and my husband every second of every day, and that I can be free to enjoy every warm snuggle and smile and tender moment with my little miracle.



Amen.

welcome to our world, little one

Aidan Michael Vermeulen was born via C-section on August 8, 2008, weighing in at 7 pounds, 4 ounces and measuring 20 inches long.

Jason and I are completely in love with this little man. We are also completely exhausted, so pardon the short post. More details and a full birth story to follow...

i need to watch more sesame street

Jason and I love watching Cookie Monster on Sesame Street. It's the best part of the show, in our opinion. Sure, CM is highly predictable: talk about cookies, introduce the letter of the day, say some words that begin with that letter, then devour the letter hungrily and exasperate Prairie Dawn. Does it matter that we don't have kids just yet? Nope. Cookie Monster still awesome, yes yes.

(Okay, I know. Give me about 15 more minutes and we WILL have a kid. I'm that close.)

But this little gem of a clip I found from a recent episode? It's making me think I need to watch ALL of Sesame Street and not just my cookie fiend buddy. Make sure to watch all of the video, particularly the awesome dance scene at the 1:35 mark. You will totally trip out.



This is right up there with REM's "Furry Happy Monsters" episode.

(thanks, mihow, for the awesome video!)

the time has come

It is time to have this baby, folks. I am dead certain.

Would you like to know how I am so certain?

It's not because I am 37 weeks along and therefore considered by obstetrical medical professionals to be "full term" and "ready to go at any time".

It's not because I'm the possessor of a cervix that is both ideally soft (thank you, evening primrose oil!) and already 2cm dilated AND feeling the pressure of the head of a full-term baby pressing on it via gravity.

It's not because Jason and I have all the material essentials (crib, car seat, diapers, food supply, clothes), as well as a stash of wanted "non-essentials" (like a "piddle pad"), in place and ready to go for this baby.

It's not because I've wanted to be a mom as long as I can possibly remember, and the anticipation of being so close is killing me.

It's not even because of the massive Belly That Cannot Be Contained, along with its best friends Marshmallow Feet, Cankle-licious, Eye Luggage, and the DoubleLeak Twins.

No, it's none of those things, really. Here's how I know - picture this:

If you've read this blog in the past month or so - or talked to me in person - you are probably well aware of my well-documented struggles with bugs in my house. Specifically, bugs of the roach kind. They came out in droves to welcome us when we first moved in. We fought back. They decided to get more personal and make physical body-to-body contact in some extremely memorable, horrifying ways. We fought back yet again, even roasting one alive at one point. They re-emerged. We fought back. Our pest control dude made a few repeat visits**, armed with sprays and traps and gooey bait stuff.

And then it seemed they were gone. They have been gone, for the most part. In the past 2-3 weeks, we've seen maybe one or two roaches, usually half-dead already, located near a doorway or some other obvious entry point, nowhere near any place we keep food, definitely nowhere near my head, and guarded over very suspiciously by our cat (whose pitiful howls alert us to the bug in the first place).

A bug-free house.

In the past few days, however, I've suddenly seen an inordinate amount of them... but in a much different way. First, they are ALL dead. No movement, not even a struggling tentacle or wiggle. Second, they aren't the roaches I'm used to seeing, the huge palmetto bugs that are as large as a retiree's Cadillac and fly like the devil's minions when provoked. No, these roaches are the ones we Floridians make fun of more northern folk for getting upset about, the bugs the size of your pinky fingertip that send them into histrionics but make us stay perfectly calm and instead break out into a story that starts with, "Let me tell you about the roaches WE have..." Third, they all appeared at once. It seems like I woke up one morning, and the whole lot of them were scattered about the house, still and quiet in their smallness.

It was like some sort of massive roach death wave, a huge group suicide, and really, the whole thing just smacked of David Koresh and white Nikes and drug-laced Kool-Aid. Like there was nothing left to live for in this world, that resistance to those humans was futile and pointless, and the only solution was to just end it all, all together, all at once.

And do you know, I actually felt BAD for them. I felt bad that I had possibly caused bugs any sort of despair, bad that I must have convinced creatures genetically programmed to survive and persist at all costs to just give up.

Yes, that's right. I felt bad for roaches.

And THAT, my friends, is how I know it's time to give birth and be done with this pregnancy, when I am shedding tears and wasting emotional energy on bugs I have fought so hard to get rid of.

That is all.


**Note: if you live in the Central Florida area and need to get rid of bugs, our pest control dude is the bomb (no pun intended), being friendly, courteous, highly professional, AND most effective. Even though he's a one-man deal, there were at least two occasions when he came out the same day or only a day or two thereafter when we called him, frantic and freaking out about the bugs we'd encountered. He did a couple of repeat sprays/baits at no extra charge, took tons of time to answer our questions, and really worked with our crazy schedules... AND showed up almost to the minute when he said he would, not sometime randomly in an 8-hour window. Roaches be gone. Ty Fischer of Magic Pest Control - my hero.