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Since J is starting work in a week I’ve been attempting to get Scout’s and my life into a routine. Nothing fancy, just making sure I get in morning yoga and an afternoon walk/run, eating a real lunch at real lunch time, making the most of her naps. One of the things I’ve committed to recently is applying to doctoral programs in theology this fall, which means GRE studying is a big part of the routine. This has been a long time coming. I’ve been thinking about teaching/writing theology as a profession since my sophomore year at college.
At each juncture, when it came time to apply, time to try to move forward, it didn’t seem like “the right thing.” In other words, I chickened out. While I always felt like I kept up with my academic peers, there was just something about PhD students that made me think there is no way this is going to work for me.
So, I’m finally going to do it. I’m going to apply. Not year after year as some do, just once. If I don’t get in or it doesn’t feel like a good fit, I’ll know that it wasn’t meant to be. I can be fine with that. But I need the option eliminated by something other than my cowardice. I don’t want to look back and regret not giving it a go. With my 29th birthday drawing nigh and a 7-month old baby bouncing on my knee, it’s starting to feel like now or never.
I’ve got to wonder how much of my fear is related to my gender. I don’t know many men with my academic pedigree who approach the idea of advanced study with such trepidation. If anything, there tends to be an overwhelming air of confidence emanating from my male colleagues. They assume they’ll get into a program, assume they’ll excel, assume they’ll have a job waiting on the other end. What gives? Is it being told that standardized tests, including the all powerful GRE are weighted against you? Is it the domination of male voices in the field? Is it lack of encouragement? Or is it that theology as a discipline has been predisposed to ignoring the female voice?
I hate to conjecture too wildly on the intentional exclusion of women from theology, but Aristotle himself thought women couldn’t be virtuous because we’re “too emotional.” Theological inquiry, outside a few domains, is unconcerned with the gentle things that often fall to women: the care of children, the keeping of the sick, the watching over of the disabled, and the bearing of the elderly towards death. For me, this is the real stuff of theology: hospitality, welcome, childbirth. And as long as women are underrepresented in the field, these moments will continue to go unmined. Ironically, it is our taking up of these things of the faith (organizing the church potluck, visiting a sick parishoner in the hospital, nursing the baby) that make it difficult for to find space and time to create theological expression. The academy has little tolerance for these “distractions”; the system in which we train those who will shape the mind of the church is deeply biased against weakness, vulnerability, and need, the very things particularly female experience brings to theology.
But I don’t think I can complain if I don’t at least try to put my hat in the ring. We’ll see how it goes. I hope I don’t chicken out again!
It was another month of fun and big changes here in Virginia. We went hiking in Shenandoah, Scout got 5 new teeth,and we took a weekend trip to Durham, NC to visit Aunt Lupe. Many weekends were spent in Washington, DC. One of my favorite moments was T-bop noticing that the rooms of the Portraiture Museum echo. She wanted to test them out but fortunately everyone around us just thought it was cute. Also, we haven’t had an EC “miss” this month! Things she loves: Grandma’s Noah’s Ark, anything with a lanyard, cell phones, standing up, the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, playing with Grandpa Bill, the guitar, and breastfeeding. She does not like solid food (unless it’s to play around) or gregarious people. Here’s some pictures of our life of late:
Thanks to Emily for pointing me to the Atlantic’s recent article by Hanna Rosin provokatively entitled “The Case Against Breastfeeding.” A lot of people have responded to this article, as you can imagine. Even Rolling Stone weighed in on the questionable nature of Ms. Rosin’s research and conclusions. But, despite her scant look at the evidence about breastfeeding (Rosin claims that doc’s are “inconclusive” on the merits of breastfeeding. AAP responded in an op-ed with something to the effect of “you are a crazy woman”) there are some things in this article that may deserve a second look.
For one thing, I appreciate how Rosin is concerned, even though the sardonic tone of her concern makes me nauseated, that woman are breastfeeding for the wrong reasons. She seems to think that mama’s are breastfeeding to make super babies. If she’s right, this is definitely something to be questioned. My concern is that I don’t think I know many women who breastfeed to get their kid into Harvard. Yes, breastmilk seems to make smarter kids. Yet, most mama’s I know see this as a bonus, not the pith.
What’s really concerning is how selfish Rosin sounds in this article. I would have thought after three kids she would have gotten the message that life is no longer about her. While I’m a firm believer in meeting my kids half-way in terms of needs, in reality that looks more like 80%/20%. When you have a baby your needs to your baby’s needs ratio is right around .5%/95.5%. Sure, breastfeeding isn’t convenient. Duh. Neither is staying home with your sick baby, driving your kid to youth group across town, rocking a teething baby to sleep at 3 a.m. Children are not convenient or easy.Breastfeeding doesn’t make your work less meaningful or intensive. Babies do.
Breastfeeding can be hard work. It starts off being fairly painful. It requires that you eat a lot more, exercise less. But having formula ready every time you go out? Keeping bottles sterilized? The cost of buying formula? That’s doesn’t seem like a big winner either.
I get that she’s not happy about the double standard that breastfeeding women encounter at work. Nobody is. Doesn’t demanding better access, asking for corporate acceptance of your body’s natural function, talking about the needs of women changing with children seem like a better route to go down than saying breastfeeding is a tool of women’s oppression?
When I was reading this article I thought about Amy Laura Hall’s recent book Conceiving Parenthood. The book is essentially a sociological breakdown of ads that dealt with the family from the 1930’s on. It’s a look at how perfection and perfectibility entered our understanding of the family. I kind of want to send Rosin a copy. A big part of the ad culture from these previous decades focused on the inability of women to be able to adequately provide for their babies with their own bodies. Their milk was suspect, uncontrollable and in need of regulation. So we get formula. You can measure it. You can give it “extra nutrients.” And the world is a safer place. But what this said to women was that their breasts were actually there not to feed babies but to feed sexual appetite. The rise of the formula culture is one of the most oppressive, anti-feminist chapters in our country’s history.
But before I go on, I want to add that the most important part of this article is the introduction where Rosin recounts getting the cold shoulder at the playground when she tells a group of super-moms that her third baby is on formula (she occasionally breastfeeds as well). I wish she could have just stuck to speaking about her experience, about hurt and isolation when you’re the one who seen doing the “wrong thing.” I can jive with that. As much as I love breastfeeding, I also think that labeling formula feeders pariahs is plain sinful. The truth is, you never know why a mama chose the way she did. Maybe her milk never came in, maybe she was battling severe post-partum depression, maybe she has a workplace that is making her pumping impossible. I’d love to see a lot more grace and conversation around the parenting choices we each make. Behind this call to throw out breastfeeding altogether what I mostly hear is sadness.
YES! Victory! No, I’m not talking about my NCAA bracket, which is actually a bit shaky (I always pick with my heart and I watch very little basketball outside the ACC). I am talking about being an on-going milk donor to a little baby in Oklahoma who isn’t even born yet.
I’ve written before about donation to the Mothers Milk Bank in San Jose. Since we’ve moved “back East” as they say in Portland, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with my milk supply. I don’t really want to ship my milk back to California. I also read an article in Babble about milk donation that had an interesting perspective. They talked about how, despite being free, the milk has to be processed and redistributed which can cost up to $3 an oz. For an infant, this can mean $60, unaffordable for most people. While some insurance companies will cover this cost in hospital they will not afterwards.
So, a group called Milkshare has been established to connect donors to mamas who need milk. The milk is given for free and can be one time donation or on-going. From what I’ve seen all the mamas are very good about asking for screening tests and a personal introduction. I posted my information and immediately got five responses. The person I picked is a mama near us here in Northern Virginia. She’s adopting a baby girl from Oklahoma who has biological brothers who are lactose intolerant. While they don’t know if she will be, the parents wanted to try lactose free milk.
As you can see, I’m not really going to be a wet nurse. While I would nurse that baby in a heartbeat (and yours if you’d let me. Don’t worry Carla, I won’t ask) I think she’s already going to have enough attachment issues to work through without throwing that in the mix. But it is really exciting to think about being responsible for this little persons’ nutrition. I’m especially excited about getting to know the mama and baby to whom I’m donating.
One of the main reasons we decided to feed T-Bone on demand is that we can never really know what’s going on with her. She has always been a comfort nurser and I’m happy to provide that comfort. Under our circumstances (I stay at home, no post-partum depression, no other pregnancy to zap my energy) I’d rather have her attached to me than a blanket or stuffed animal. Every day I am amazed at how important sticking to this principle has been. The most recent incident involved the emerging of a new tooth (she now has three on the bottom, right in a row). With our somewhat highly sensitive baby (would that be medium sensitive?) it’s often hard to tell what’s going on to make her upset. Tummy problems? Bored? Impatient? Tired? Well, when the answer is teething, as it has been this week, there is no joy in Muddville. I/Jacob was awake with her every 2 or so hours for several days. It’s been exhausting to say the least.
But I kept nursing her through it. The wisdom from our end of the parenting spectrum is that the baby will not indeed need to nurse back to sleep forever. Eventually she’ll be able to find other ways to go to sleep, with some encouragement, but we shouldn’t deny her the breast outright. When that tiny tooth popped through the other day the line between “need” and “want” once again blurred. I admit that during this past week I was starting to wonder if my 18 lbs 5 oz 6.5 month old REALLY needed the kind of intake that was happening. Nutritionally, unlikely. But she was also in a lot of pain. In terms of comfort, she did need to nurse that often.
I can’t tell you how many times “let the baby take the lead” has proven itself. The pacifier was the first example of this. T gave it up after our drive to Virginia. She simply didn’t want it any more, all of the sudden. Even nursing down took a turn last night. Since the tooth popped, and I knew she didn’t need as much comfort I tried rubbing her tummy as she lay next to me. Within second she was asleep. I thought it was a Christmas miracle. At other times I know she’ll need the comfort of nursing. Just not right now.
I’m wondering if solids will be another instance of this kind of thing. T shows absolutely no interest in solids, much to my joy. I still want to give her the opportunity but have ended up tossing out quite a bit of apples, rice cereal and sweet potatoes as a result. Instead of forcing the issue, we’re just going to wait until she seems more open to it. If that’s not for another 4 months then so be it.
Last night I got a text from what I imagine to be our very exhausted friend Tim who wanted to know, “how do you get the baby to sleep at night?” He and his wife, Rebecca, just welcomed baby Chloe a short while ago. And while I thought about writing to Tim directly, I figured others might want to add their two cents. Or may be looking for two cents.
Reality is that, for a little while, baby’s don’t know the difference between night or day (the good news is that they “figure out” nighttime sleep first, followed by morning sleep then evening sleep). Babies are lulled to sleep by movement in the womb. That means when mama is awake, taking her morning walk, going to the copier, riding the bus, baby is rocked to sleep. At night, when mama is still, baby rocks out.
The best thing to do, especially in the first three months, is to get as close to “womb conditions” as you can. This is what worked for us (with our baby who was VERY difficult to put to sleep):
1. Swaddle – Babies have something called a Moro reflex when they are first born. They startle easily, especially when they are asleep. Often old T-Rex would jolt herself awake every few minutes because of this. Also, baby’s hands are out of their control and this can lead to a lot of un-intentioned hair pulling and face scratching. Swaddling is a great way to avoid this. The best swaddle blanket EVER is the Miracle Blanket, which still successfully holds in our giant, six-month old beast. Looking back, we should have bought two since we are totally screwed when it’s in the wash.
2. Movement – Another life-changing sleep conquer moment was putting T to sleep in a vibrating chair. We know other friends who have had similar success. You really don’t need anything fancy and you can get something cheap on craigslist. This worked so well that T slept in it for the first 3 weeks. We were even concerned that the constant vibration might be causing some brain trauma but the advice nurse said no.
3. Sound – Baby’s spend 9 months listening to a very loud placenta. Your stone silent nursery is not the best adjustment. And while Harvey Karp’s “shhhh” is good to calm babies down, you can’t do it all night. We found that T did best with a well replicated placental noise (she is so high maintenance). We use a Dex Baby. The first time she heard the “womb noise” feature the look on her face was priceless. “Hey, that sounds really familiar…..” Other people use soft music CDs on repeat, a humidifier, or a noise canceling machine.
4. You – The first time T-Rex slept for more than an hour at night was when she slept on my chest. That provides just about everything: hearbeat, warmth, movement. Our doula assured us that baby sleeping on her stomach on your chest (mom or dad) is completely different than sleeping on her stomach in a crib. I always felt more comfortable propping myself up a little to be sure I didn’t accidently roll over or roll her off. But, once baby is a little bit bigger, you might consider bed-sharing. It’s by far my favorite part of parenting a baby and makes breastfeeding 100 times easier.
5. Bath – For a long time, every night before we put T to bed, we would take her in the shower with one of us. It seemed to help a lot. And it set up a nice bedtime routine. Don’t put baby directly under the water. Their skin is a little too sensitive still. Just hold her next to you so the water runs over her off of you.
6. Pacifier – It works for some. Ours needed it for a while but has already outgrown it.
7. Consider everything – Some babies are very sensitive to wet diapers. Others really need to be nursed back to sleep (ours, for instance). Sometimes sleepwear just feels wrong. Or they are too hot. Or to cold. Or hungry. Make the rounds if the normal methods don’t seem to be cutting it.
Newborn sleep is a matter of waiting for baby’s sleep system to normalize. But it doesn’t mean you can’t do everything in your power to make an environment that will facilitate good sleep. The other important thing is to go with the flow, especially in the first 3 months. Embrace the fact that you are going to be awake a lot. Put the clock away. Don’t count how many times you get up. That baby will be big before you know it and you’ll actually MISS this special time with your babe. Hard to believe, I know. But trust me.
Well, we’ve hit the six month mark, the magic age for starting solids (it’s recommended that every baby wait until six months before taking in anything other than breastmilk. Before then baby guts are “open,” there are spaces between the cells of the digestive tract where macromolecules can pass through. Digested solids can pass through the openings and that can cause major allergies. After six months the gaps close and solids can start. You can read more about this at kellymom). Scout-biscuit had a really tough month a little while back. Turns out it was a seriously long teething episode. But at the time I thought it could be that she was hungry and needed to eat more or that something was wrong with my milk (teething increases breastfeeding and bowl discomfort).
Once I figured out that neither of these things was the case, I became a lot less excited about starting solids. A few days ago we gave Scout some sweet potatoes which she promptly spat out at me. We also tried some apples which got a similar response. So tonight we went back to basics – some rice cereal with a little breastmilk mixed in. That seemed to go a little better. But we forgot to give her anything this morning. I feel like we’re not going to be very good about this.
Truth is, I REALLY like nursing T-bop. For one thing, it’s so easy. You don’t have to pack any bottle or formula or bibs or wipes. There are no jars of baby food, no dirty spoons. You just find a quiet place and feed the baby. I’ve fed T in the elephant paddock at the Oregon Zoo, at the National Gallery of Art, on the beach, at church, in her car seat and in many, many restaurants. What’s not to love?
Another part of not wanting to give up any nursing time is this weird thing I have about giving my body parts/fluids away. I am super excited about blood donation. I love to donate my breastmilk to the milk bank. Every day I hope that the bone marrow people will call me to tell me I’m a match. If you’re looking for a liver, give me a call. Sometimes I even wish there will still opportunities to be a wet nurse, because I would do that in a minute. Any rich ladies with infants in Northern Virginia want to pay me to nurse their kid?
But I also love the special bond of breastfeeding. I love snuggling down with Scout to nurse (if you are a bfing mom and having some trouble, I would recommend side-lying. For a while that’s the only thing that worked for us). I love having my little person curled up next to me and how she falls asleep on the breast. Handing that off to a plastic spoon and some rice cereal isn’t very appealing.I’ve also heard about lots of babies who get so excited about solids that they decide to stop nursing all together. AHH!!!
So, I think my apathy about solids will continue. Fortunately, some babies exclusively breast feed until they are a full year old! I’m not sure we will wait that long. But then again, you never know.
