Getting closer to my previous self

I am now back in the world of menstruating women, just over 11 months after River’s birth. I was expecting this to come at some point in the near future. River has been eating solids since he was four months old and has received 2-3 bottles of formula a day since six months or so. I was also feeling rumblings of activity going on down there.

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s nice to be moving more definitely beyond the new mother stage. I’m losing weight, I’m breastfeeding less, I’m menstruating again, I’m becoming closer to the person I was before becoming pregnant. On the other hand, there is a slight sorrow that River no longer needs the milk in the same way. Both he and I are moving beyond this stage. Of course, I’m glad for him to grow and develop, but it’s also sad to know the early baby days can never be retrieved.

I was waiting to go on birth control until I resumed my periods. One reason was due to breastfeeding (though I know there are options out there that are OK to use while breastfeeding). Another was that I was truly curious about how my body was going to respond. The entire experience of conception, pregnancy, childbirth and the past year has taught me so much about myself and my body. I wanted to see how in tune my body is with my mind – at what point it would allow me to conceive again.

The result is that it wouldn’t have let me have another child any earlier than 20 months after River’s birth. I think that is wonderful. Any less and I either wouldn’t have wanted it or would have found it very overwhelming.

When River was just a few months old, I had a dream in which I was pregnant again. In the dream, I was very distressed. My body wasn’t ready to take on that challenge again. I couldn’t deal with two infants at once. More than anything, and what made me decide in my dream that I needed to get an abortion, was that I didn’t want to deny River the one-on-one care and the breastmilk I thought he deserved during his first year.

Somewhere around ten months, I realized that even though I’d prefer a larger spacing between children, if I did somehow become pregnant, I would keep it. And voila, a few weeks later my body ovulates.

The cycle was short (3 days) and pretty uneventful, as it used to be. However, especially in the first day or so, I felt minor cramps or pains that suddenly brought back the feelings of childbirth. Though I never thought I’d get there, I’m now at the stage of thinking – yeah, that was pretty awful, but it’s a distant event now and River is so worth it and billions of women go through it. It’s hard to recreate the memories of exactly what it felt like (except the extreme pain in the last hour or two, which hasn’t yet faded). But these cramps brought back a faint reminder of the contractions and the memory that yeah, it really did hurt down there, and holy crap, I really passed a large head through my legs!

River is just a bundle of happiness and joy and being a parent right now feels easy and rewarding. I’d like to cut down our hours with our babysitter, but am hesitant to do so because I’m looking for a job and am guessing that as soon as we cut the hours, I’ll find a job and need her more. So we’re hanging on for now and swallowing the large expense.

His intellectual development took a giant leap a week or so again and he went from constant pointing to what really seems to be two-way communication. Now he points specifically at what he wants. And though his main word is dah, he uses it with emphasis and seriousness that make me think he really knows what he wants to communicate, he just doesn’t know the words for it yet.

Physically, he’s also taken a big leap, learning how to walk along a surface, and then to walk while pushing something in front of him. It seemed just recently that we wondered if he’d ever move with confidence. Now we feel like he could take his first independent steps any day now. It’s thrilling to watch.

And not to leave any development out, socially he’s also branching out further on his own. Yesterday I took him to story hour at the library. Up until yesterday, he always sat on my lap and either listened or looked around or ate or drank. This time he immediately squirmed out of my arms and began to crawl around. He didn’t bother anybody and I never had to go retrieve him. He didn’t return to me during the entire half hour. What surprised me the most was that he never even made eye contact with me. He didn’t need any assurance of my presence. I could have left and he wouldn’t have noticed or cared.

“Yes, he’s an independent boy,” Mark said, when I told him about it. Both Mark and I have strong independent streaks, so it’s not surprising that River would get some of that. But to see it so clearly at only 11 months is surprising. Along with his independence he has confidence and a sunny disposition, which I think will serve him well.

Raising a Mini-Version of Another Man

A good friend of mine who is pregnant found out today she is having a boy. She announced it to her friends on Facebook first by the status update, “I’m going to be some poor girl’s scary mother-in-law someday!” then announcing “I get to re-raise a tiny brand new version of my husband.”

I loved how her thoughts mirrored my own – the strangeness of imagining a young woman, possibly a baby now, possibly not yet born that will be the mother to my grandchildren and the life partner to my son. I also had similar feelings of how exciting and odd it is to raise a miniature version of my husband. Because we got a 4-D ultrasound (which only costs $25 in Bolivia) I was able to see ahead of time that River was a clone of Mark, so much so that Mark’s father found it disturbing to look at his 40-year-old son in utero.

I’ve read that babies often resemble their fathers more than their mothers because it reassures fathers that the baby is in fact theirs and increases the chances that he will stick around to support it.

Another issue I’ve been thinking about recently is how the traits from the father coming through in the child can impact a woman’s ability to bond with it. For me and many other women, seeing my husband’s traits in my baby is a positive thing. Should anything ever happen to my husband, caring for River and helping him to develop his potential would be a way of trying to keep my husband’s character alive.

Recognizing that everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, when one is in a stable, loving relationship, they have learned to love, or at least accept, the less desirable traits of their partner. Since they’ve already come to term with these traits, it seems to be that should the same traits occur in the child, they will be ready to accept them.

However, if a woman is carrying a child she doesn’t want, from the result of rape, incest, undue pressure or other circumstances, if she doesn’t love the man who fathered the child, the appearance of those fatherly traits could have the opposite example. A woman can be torn between love for her child and hatred for the man who fathered it. When that innocent child evidences traits from the father, her hatred can spill over to him – overtly or not.

I thought about an article I read about a mother in Rwanda, who struggled with this same conflict with her 8-year-son, conceived as a result of rape. She said she loved her son, however, he was a living reminder of the rapist and she beat him regularly.

I agree with my friend that she may well have the ability to raise a mini-version of her husband, along with some traits of herself. It’s that combination of personalities among two people who love each other, found within another unique individual, that contributes to making parenting the exciting adventure it can be. However, only a woman herself can decide whether she wants to house and nurture and/or raise a child with any particular genes. In societies that don’t allow abortion, they allow the traits of brute strength to gain prevalence in the gene pool. In those who do allow abortion, the men who are most successful in getting their genes passed on to succeeding generations will not only be attractive and intelligent on average, but will have the qualities necessary to attract a woman and to gain her love and trust. Those are the traits I’d like my son to pass along.

New Rules for Doctors

The other day, after stupidly going to CNN.com for my news (why it is taking me so long to realize that when a news source includes headlines like So and So Is Pregnant or Man Reduces Calories and Loses Weight that it is no longer a quality news source?) I saw a headline New Rules for Doctors.

Cool, I thought, perhaps they are going to put limits on gifts doctors can receive, on the use of samples, on speaking fees. Perhaps they will do something to reduce or break the conflict of interest inherent in the relations between doctors and private healthcare and pharmaceutical companies. Perhaps when doctors revert to the simplest and most effective treatments, overall costs will go down and more people will have access to care.

Nope. What a disappointment to open the article and see instead that rules are being discussed to allow anti-abortion doctors to follow their beliefs – ie. not treat women who have the legal right to care.

“The rule, which applies to institutions receiving government money, would require as

many as 584,000 employers ranging from major hospitals to doctors' offices and nursing

homes to certify in writing that they are complying with several federal laws that protect

the conscience rights of health care workers. Violations could lead to a loss of government

funding and legal action to recoup federal money already paid.”

This is what our taxpayer money is being spent on? I think it violates my conscience to think of paying money for such nonsense. Can I get a refund please?