“Meag” or “Mom?”

 When a woman finds out she’s pregnant, there is no limit to the number of different feelings that she can experience.  They run the gamut from excitement to panic. I hate to admit this but when I first found out I was pregnant, one of my first emotions was actually sadness.  I was sad because honestly, I didn’t really want my life to change.  Andy and I had a great life! Andy and I had met in 2003, moved in together in 2004 and got married in 2007.  By 2012, we had “us” figured out.  And it was awesome.

Me and Andy in Salzburg Dec 2011

"Pre-Tess"

The realization that we were going to have a baby meant everything was going to change.  Of course we would continue to love each other, but now we were not only going to be “Meag and Andy” but “Mom and Dad.” Our social lives and bank accounts would be vastly different. I had only finished my PhD the year before, was (and am still) mostly clueless about what I wanted to do with my degree and hadn’t even had a chance to start building a career for myself yet.  I wasn’t sure if I was ready to say goodbye to our lives as we knew them.  

Eventually, my excitement about being pregnant really made a lot of those thoughts get pushed to the back of my mind, and then actually having Tess here has been so fun and incredible I couldn’t be happier.  As much as I was scared to lose my old life, I couldn’t be more excited about my new life.  Looking at Tess’ sweet face as she nurses, hearing her little “coo” sounds, seeing her smile, watching her little hands learn to make a fist and grip your finger, watching her learn and develop at this insanely rapid pace… I never realized how amazing those things would be.  I never thought I could love being a mom SO much.

Me and my girl.

I love being a mom, but I have also loved being Meag for 30 years.  I want to maintain my identity and simply add this new role to who I have always been.  I do not want Andy and I to forget our old selves or our old life. It’s difficult, especially in these early days.  When we first brought Tess home we brought her out with us a bit, to grab a beer or to meet a group of friends, and that felt great.  OK our pub visits involved having 1 beer - maybe 2 – rather than the marathon all night sessions we used to have, but we were maintaining a social life despite having a newborn! 

Our girl was quite the bar fly in her early days!

Then Brian Williams and George Stephanopolous started making me feel like it was 1918 with their talk of the flu epidemic all over the news, and I panicked. We went on lockdown and stopped taking Tess out. When we had to take her to the pediatrician for a weight check, I refused to even sit in the “well patient” waiting room. I insisted Andy wait inside while I sat in the car with her until we were called. We were also invited to a neighbor’s house for brunch with some other friends – since there were going to be a couple of other kiddos there we had to turn down the invite.  It sucked! I know, I’m totally crazy and paranoid.  But I just can’t take the chance of her getting the flu at this age! We like to go out for walks, weather permitting, but otherwise we are being hermits until March.

Tess looooves being in the Baby Bjorn for a walk.

This is SUPER hard for us since we are both very social people.  I went to a baby shower a couple weeks back that was the most exciting thing to happen to my social calendar this season! There was a time not so long ago when a baby shower would have not have been my cup of tea, but now I love babies and baby stuff and talking babies so damn much, it was awesome. But since we can’t go out with Tess, and we don’t have babysitters to help us out with date nights, we were struggling to find a way to keep any semblance of our old life going at all. 

The thing we have started trying to do then is cook dinner for ourselves every night. Andy and I LOVE to cook and have always enjoyed putting together elaborate meals.  For my birthday 2 years ago, for example, we cooked a 10 course meal for 14 of our closest friends.  It was insane and awesome.  Cooking and enjoying good food has always been an important part of our marriage.  In fact, before meeting Andy I could barely boil an egg.  He taught me how to cook, and now its probably my favorite thing to do.

Table settings for 16.

One of the courses. Lobster ravioli.

 

Palate cleanser - lemon sorbet. 

We even made that ourselves from fresh squeezed lemon.

Our peeps enjoying their meal.

And, yes, Andy is wearing tails. We fancy!

At first it was impossible for me to try to figure out how to take care of Tess and make dinner, but we were lucky enough to have some incredible friends who brought us dinner every night right after Tess was born. That was amazing!  Since then, we have had to figure out how to do that for ourselves again.  I am following the recommendations of this book “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby” where they recommend at least one nap in the morning, one in the afternoon and an early bedtime.  When Tess is taking her naps, I go in the kitchen and whip something up for dinner.  The key to making this work is doing a slow cook meal.  Having a meal I can start when I have a free moment and let cook until 6 or 7 or whenever we want to eat is crucial.  The crockpot is getting used a lot, curries are also on the menu at least once a week.  Anything I can leave in the oven, on the stove or best of all – in the crockpot.

One night's dinner. 

Soup - mushrooms, kale, orange bell peppers, chicken.

It might seem silly that something as simple as sitting down to a home cooked meal is so important to us, but it really is.  We knew we needed to figure something out after a couple nights of Andy leaving work at 7 or later and stopping to pick up Chinese and another night even… WENDY’S! ACK! I hate to even admit it… But I would go crazy and never drop the last of my pregnancy weight if we continued to do that shit.  So I started thinking ahead, and that has made all the difference in putting together nightly meals.

"Enough with the photos, mom!"

Of course, cooking some of the meals I used to spend hours preparing while we chatted and drank wine is largely a thing of the past, at least for now.  Although, Saturday I did make pasta from scratch since Andy was here - NOT writing a grant - and was hanging with Tess.  During the week I have maybe an hour to put something together while Tess is having a nap.  But it is still possible to have a delicious healthy home cooked meal even with an 8 week old!  It just requires a bit more planning, and it doesn’t have to take much time at all. 

Pasta!

Peacefully napping in her swing while I cook.

We now put Tess to sleep at 7pm and eat with our video monitor going so we can keep an eye on her.  If we want to eat earlier, we’ll just stick her in the baby swing while we eat.  We are enjoying it so much - it is so important for our state of mind and our marriage.  Maybe cooking isn’t your thing, but whatever is… I think its important to try to keep doing it whenever you can once you have a baby so you can remember who you were pre-parent!  It is for me at least.

Tess playing with her toys.

Family Life and Grant Writing Do Not Mix.

Sorry its been a minute since I’ve updated the blog – Andy was, until recently, working on an NIH grant (this would be to fund the research in his lab). So while Andy has been living in a mini-nightmare (i.e. working 16 to 18 hour days), I’ve been trying to do most of the taking-care of Tess.  I think Tess realizes that he’s been a bit more absent than normal, because Tess has either peed or pooed on him during all the diaper changes that Andy has done in the past couple of weeks.  She never does that when I change her, and I do 90% of her diaper changes!  Poor Andy. 

My fellow “science friends” reading this probably know what I mean about life during grant writing – it is a total, all-encompassing hell.  It consumes your every waking minute for at least month – even when you’re not actively sitting at your desk writing, you’re thinking about it.  Oh, you’re asleep? Doesn’t matter. Dreaming about it. It consumes you.  The closer you get to the deadline, the worse it gets.

This was Andy after writing a grant a year ago.  You can see what it does to him.

We were burning old papers in our fire pit here 

as therapy for how depressing science can be.  

Of course, while life is crazy the world just throws more crazy on you to make things interesting.  For example, the day before his grant was due, Tess decided to just be in a foul mood for no reason.  She was fussy and wouldn’t sleep.  And I was on my own trying to calm her down since Andy HAD to finish he grant.  It sucked.  I didn’t have 5 seconds to call my own that day. She’s lucky she’s so darn cute and snuggly!

Tess can get a lil cranky sometimes!

"But mommy, look at how cute and snuggly I am!"

Another lovely unnecessary life complication happened the week before.  We had some pretty bad thunderstorms last week here in Atlanta, and as it was rolling in I heard some of the towns west of us were getting hail.  Our driveway is only wide enough for a single vehicle, so one of our cars always blocks the other in.  Since my car is old and Andy’s is brand new, I went out and switched our cars so Andy’s was under the carport instead of mine, just in case we did get some hail.

Andy's car - clearly this was a few months ago.  

It isn't that green even in Atlanta right now.

I haven’t been out much lately so it had been a while since my car had been started.  The morning after I switched our cars, Andy went to leave for work but my car wouldn’t start because the battery was dead.  Apparently there was enough battery power for me to start it the day before, but I didn’t leave it running long enough for the battery to re-charge.  Oops. 

So now his car was blocked in by mine, which wouldn’t start. And we don’t own jumper cables.  First, Andy went across the street to see if our neighbors had jumper cables. They did not.  Crap.  So then we decided that we would push my car out into the street using Andy’s car – our driveway is on a slight incline so we wouldn’t be able to push it ourselves.  But our neighbor’s mother had parked her car right across from our driveway, and since my car wouldn’t have power steering I was nervous I wouldn’t be able to turn it quick enough and might hit their car.  So we also had to ask them to move the car. 

OK so after all this running around with the neighbors, we are finally ready to do this.  Except for one thing – I just don’t know what the rules are about babies and being alone, so I err on the side of caution and don’t ever leave Tess alone.  I don’t even leave her sleeping to go take a shower, so clearly wasn’t going to be able to leave her in the house while we screwed around with our cars for a half hour.  So I had to get her up out of bed and into a carseat to just sit in the car with us while we tried freeing Andy’s vehicle.  Of course this had to be just one of the only cold mornings we’ve had all winter, so I have to bundle Tess up in wool sweaters and a hat and blanket and mittens and God knows what else.  I stopped short of using an electric blanket. She was dressed like damn Nanook of the North and was going to be outside for precisely 3 seconds as I walked her from the front door to the heated vehicle. 

I need to learn how to dress this child.

This was us out for a walk and it was about 48 degrees out.

She's literally in a snowsuit. What's wrong with me?

OK Tess was locked and loaded, and we were ready to do battle.  We put a towel between our two bumpers, got into our cars and used our cell phones as walkie-talkies to coordinate this mess.  So Andy starts backing up and pushing me back up the driveway. So far so good, this was totally working! When we were about at the top of the driveway my wheels must have been turned slightly one way, and Andy’s were turned slightly in the other direction, so we were slightly off kilter and I heard a horrible scraping sound.  Shit. 

At this point I also realize that there was no way I was going to be able to turn the wheel fast and far enough to parallel park in front of my house on one go without any power steering.  What if my car was in the middle of the street and I was stuck?!  OK back to the drawing board then.  At this point Andy decides to instead pull his car onto our front lawn, so I can roll back up into the carport space and he could snake his way around me to get out.  What a shit show it was.  When we were finished, he went straight to the ace hardware at the top of the street to buy our first set of jumper cables.  Now we know.

But now the grant is done and Andy is back!  I can’t wait to take a bath and sleep through a midnight feeding!  

Tess and Dad will be spending lots of time together watching 

6 Nations Rugby now that the grant is done!

Our little monkey.

And here's this video I took for my mom just because she's cute!

Tess' nursery

I thought I'd give a tour of Tessie's nursery for this post.  We chose a The Jungle Book theme. We wanted to design the room not around the Disney movie but rather the collection of short stories written by Rudyard Kipling in 1894.  I was inspired by this image from a Restoration Hardware catalog: 

But of course, all this stuff from Restoration Hardware is insanely expensive and the nursery would have cost probably $10,000 to outfit.  Those pencil drawings are $800 each!  Yikes. 

I actually do have a seldom used artistic talent - I was really into my art growing up and even started college with the idea that I might major in studio art. Then I took a neuroscience class, and well... I guess I just really went the other way on that one...  So I thought I'd try to do my own drawings for Tess' room.  Here is what I came up with:

This is just a verse from one of the stories from The Jungle Book - "Maxims of Baloo"

Tiger

Alphabet with a drawing of an animal found in India that starts with each letter. 

Here are some closeups:

These I did with pencil by the way. All the other drawings are with charcoal.

Langur monkeys - and bookcase.

Indian elephants

 The frames I got at Michaels for $40 each.  They are all 32"x 24". The drawings themselves were of course free since I did them... well I guess the charcoals and pencils cost probably $10 and the paper was about $5.  I hung them on the wall with these security wall mounts that are used for hanging frames in museums and in hospital lobbies and stuff - they are earthquake proof and hold up to 70 lbs.  I was paranoid about them falling off the wall onto the crib or something so I went overboard on the safety precautions!

The dresser is actually from our old bedroom set (so it was free essentially, can't remember what we originally paid for it), and the elephant and mini globe are from Home Goods.  The elephant was $15 and the globe was $25.  

The ceiling fan I bought online from amazon, I think it was $125.  The blades are leaves, and the light itself looks like a lantern.  

The crib was an amazingly generous gift from my mom and sister Steph.  Its a Baby Europa Palisades collection, that we got at Baby Depot for $270!  Elsewhere its usually closer to $400.  Its the highest rated crib according to consumer reports.  I used consumer reports to decide on all my baby purchases.  Its the most amazing resource. Anyway, isn't it beautiful???  I can't wait until we actually start to use it! Tess is sleeping in a bassinet for now.  

Next to the crib is some old timey looking luggage I bought at Michaels - I think they were 3 for $10 or something ridiculous.  We thought they went with the whole "Englishman in colonial India" thing. The crib has bedding from Pottery Barn Kids that has grey elephants on it.  Last night though, our amazing friends Jim and Beth Richardson gave us a BEAUTIFUL animal print bedding set that is currently hanging to dry after washing it!  It was even MADE in India! Its perfect.  I will put up another photo when its dry and on the crib.

The lanterns were the only thing we actually purchased from Restoration Hardware, were on sale, and weren't even meant for the nursery at first. But we really liked how they looked so here they are.  I won't admit how much they were but they are nearly the most expensive thing in the room. Yeah... Restoration Hardware ain't cheap.  

The baskets are filled with stuffed animals like elephants, a snake, a bear, hippo... Twicky thinks they are for her though.

The floor lamp was from Ikea, probably around $15? I can't remember.  The changing table was from Target, $85 I think.  The boxes in the changing table hold our diaper stuff - also from Ikea.  These were maybe $8?

The curtains were also from Ikea.  A pair was around $60 I think. I don't know if you've ever bought curtains from Ikea but they are SUPER long, like 94" or something, and you are supposed to hem them yourself. Of course because its Ikea they make it easy - you don't actually have to know how to sew (which is good because I don't!)  They come with an iron-on hemming set.  

So here's a great story to finish up.  I had ordered these amazing wooden/leather light switch and outlet covers from Home Depot that went with the room so well.  The outlet covers came, there were 5 in the room, and they looked perfect!  I was psyched.  I was still waiting for the light switch covers to come, but went ahead and put the outlet covers on.  They looked fantastic.  

Then finally the light switch covers arrived but they were Buzz Lightyear plastic light switch covers.  What the hell?  I called homedepot.com and told them that they sent the wrong item, they were very apologetic, told me they'd send the right ones immediately but would have to charge me again and I would have to go to a Home Depot store to get my refund for the incorrect covers that they sent me.  Ug.  I was pretty irritated since I had to A) pay twice and B) make a trip to go to Home Depot to get my money back.  But whatever, I wanted my outlet covers. 

I went to Home Depot to get my money back, but they tried to reimburse me for the cost of the cheapy plastic Buzz Lightyear light switch covers since that's what I was bringing back to the store. But I needed to be reimbursed for the expensive wooden and leather ones I ordered and paid for but did not receive.  It took me about 30 minutes and spoke to 4 different people to explain the situation and get my refund, but it worked.  SO I returned home to await my beautiful light switch covers.  

A few days later a package arrived containing 2 Buzz Lightyear light switch covers!  Are you f'ing KIDDING me???  I couldn't believe it.  Someone was really trying to send me a message that I should have had a Toy Story theme to this nursery.  Again I called homedepot.com, explained to them how angry I was about this and tried to find out what was going on.  They said that these covers were from some other company that homedepot.com was selling on their behalf and there was a breakdown in communication somewhere. Oh, you think? So they said they would order me two new light switch covers, but again I would have to pay again and go to a Home Depot store to get my money back.  I REALLY wanted these light switch covers, not only because they would look good but because I already had 5 outlet covers installed in the room that matched them perfectly.  And they were $6 each!  

Back to Home Depot I went, repeated the entire process of explaining to a bunch of different people how I needed to be refunded the money for the expensive light switches I ordered, paid for but did not receive NOT the cheap Buzz Lightyear ones I was returning.  I was beginning to really hate Buzz Lightyear at this point. Not to mention homedepot.com.  I got my refund and again went home to await the arrival of my beautiful $6 light switch covers.  

Again, a few days later a package arrived.  I excitedly tore open the packaging to reveal 2 bright, shiny BUZZFUCKINGLIGHTYEAR light switch covers!!!  I could NOT believe my eyes.  Now they're just screwing with me, I thought.  This time I skipped the phone call and went straight to Home Depot to talk to a manager. I explained to him the whole story and the fact that I had $30 worth of outlet covers hanging in my nursery that I did not want if I could not get the matching light switch covers.  I also explained to him that I was 7 months pregnant and RAPIDLY losing patience.  The manager was very nice and very apologetic and called homedepot.com for me.  I kid you not, he was on the phone with them for 45 MINUTES!!! I actually had to go back out to the car to wait while he was on the phone because I was a fat pregnant lady and my feet were killing me.  The poor manager was fuming with homedepot.com but assured me he worked it all out, and I would be receiving my light switch covers in the mail in a few days.  I took my refund and high tailed it out of there, hoping to never return.  

A few days later a package arrived in the mail.  This time?  Can you guess?  That sonofabitch Buzz once again.  At this point my fuming outward rage was gone and I was left with a stone cold fury.  I couldn't even talk I was so angry.  I went straight to the toolbox, grabbed a screwdriver, pulled those outlet covers from the wall, drove back to Home Depot and told them I wanted to get not only my money back for the two light switch covers but also for the 5 outlet covers despite not having a receipt nor any packaging.  I think I scared them because they asked no questions and just gave me all my money back.  Even now retelling this story I am getting hot under the collar.  It was traumatic.  Some day Tess is going to want to see Toy Story and I will start twitching and mumbling “Lightyear that rotten bastard…” and refuse to let her see it.  Don’t get me started on if she wants a Toy Story themed bedroom someday…

So it was good of Home Depot to give me my money back, but after weeks of hardwork I still did not have any outlet or lightswitch covers. And I could not find anything I liked in stores or online.  But then Andy actually came up with a brilliant idea – to use the leftover fabric from hemming the curtains and make my own covers.  I loved the idea not only because my light switch covers would match my outlet covers would match my curtains, but because making them myself would be really sticking it to "the man" - the corporate bastards who couldn't get my light switch covers right.  

Here's what I made:

 I used the old plastic covers that were originally in the room, then cut out a piece of fabric just slightly larger than them.  I used fabric glue to affix the fabric to the plastic and folded the fabric over the edges and glued it to the backside of the plastic covers - and I actually had to use two layers of fabric since the fabric was thin and you could see through it.  I cut an X for where the light switch would come through, then folded back the triangles of fabric and again glued them to the back side of the cover.  I did the same for the holes for the outlets.  The fabric glue took a few days to dry completely - I also did this outside and used latex gloves since I was pregnant and didn't want to breathe those fumes or touch the stuff.    Finally I coated them in a flame retardant fabric spray just in case there were ever any sparks from the electrical outlet or whatever.  This I had Andy do since I thought that stuff would be super toxic.  Have I mentioned I'm paranoid?

So that's the nursery, and how I was able to re-create a damn expensive Restoration Hardware nursery from Michael's, Home Goods, Ikea, Amazon, and Baby Depot.  Its definitely not as fancy but I like it.  And I hope Tess does someday too. Even if she doesn't, though, at least I didn't spend 10grand on it!!! 

And because I can't do a post without ANY pictures of my little monchichi... Here are a few shots:

Time

Time

Today Tess is exactly 6 weeks old!  This is probably an odd milestone to be celebrating but it seems to be pretty significant for a few reasons.  There are some things that I can start doing again 6 weeks after my C-section (like exercise) and some of my books suggest things start to “get easier” with Tess at 6 weeks.  Hmm… Maybe that starts tomorrow? 

Sticking her tongue out at the idea anything should be "easy" at this point

Not sure… but one thing that is significant for me at 6 weeks is that today officially marks the halfway point of my maternity leave. I can’t believe this is possible since I feel like we just got home from the hospital and I still feel clueless about everything.  I can’t imagine leaving her to go back to work at all, so I can barely face thinking about it.  I love being with her so much, and she just feels so needy… I can’t imagine letting someone else take care of her!  I even get antsy when Andy’s been holding her for a while instead of me.  On top of that, I feel like she and I are still getting to know each other… I just haven’t had enough time with her yet and don’t think another 6 weeks will be enough either.

This idea of “time” is kind of dominating my thoughts and life right now, and all the different reasons why are connected.  For example, not having any time… I am grateful for the few minutes I currently have to devote to updating this blog!  And know that its short-lived so I better type fast!

The idea of time is also on my mind right now because the importance of Tess’ schedule has been made astonishingly clear to me this past week.  (Keeping a schedule is also what buys me some time to do things like update this blog).  

My friend Eva from Smith came out to visit us for a few days, and because I was excited to spend time and catch up with my old friend – who I haven’t seen in years – I did a bad job of keeping up with Tess’ sleep schedule.  After a couple of days of her not getting much daytime sleep Tess was pretty unhappy.  On Eva’s last day, Tess basically cried from 2:30pm until 1am.  It was awful! She was so overtired, I couldn’t get her to sleep. She would doze off for 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there, but I could not get her to lie down to sleep for a good nap or even go down for the night for the life of me.  I felt so awful!  Like I deprived her of what she needed for my own desire to hang out with my friend.  It was a tough day/night, but she slept a ton after that and we are getting back to her old routine with some good daytime napping.  It was a hard but important lesson that I need to maintain her schedule no matter what – minor changes here or there is one thing… but 3 or 4 days of everything being upside down is not an option. 

Two Smithies... and 1 future Smithie?

Which brings me back to what I was writing about earlier – how I still feel so clueless and new at this, I can’t believe my time at home to figure this out and learn about Tess and what she needs - is half over!

Tess figuring things out... like how to find her fist.

 A lot of people remark on how lucky I am that I have 12 weeks off (8 weeks unpaid FMLA time and 4 weeks of paid vacation/sick time – HA!  What a laugh… “vacation”) The sad fact is, I AM lucky because A: I can afford to not get paid for 8 weeks and B: some people don’t even get that much time (companies with fewer than 50 employees are not mandated to offer FMLA).  But that makes me sick, that we should feel grateful for 12 weeks of unpaid leave or the opportunity to use our vacation time to stay home. And I HAVE to use my vacation time by the way, I couldn’t, for example, take 12 weeks of unpaid leave and save my vacation/sick leave for later in the year.  Because, you know, mothers of babies in daycare NEVER get sick and won’t need sick leave.  

The US is 1 of 3 countries in the world to not mandate paid maternity leave – we are in the good company of Swaziland and Papua New Guinea for that statistic.  Danish mothers apparently even get 4 weeks of paid leave BEFORE giving birth.  Many European countries even offer paternity leave.  In Sweden, fathers can get up to 480 days of paternity leave.  480!!!  Because Andy and I both work at Emory, if he wanted to take any paternity leave that time would have come out of my maternity leave. In other words, if he wanted to stay home for a week, I would have only had 11 weeks rather than 12 to stay home.  Despite the fact that studies show that paid maternity leave improves breastfeeding, general health of mom and baby, lowers healthcare costs and is associated with increased economic security and independence… the truth is, I’m not even expecting paid leave – I just would like the opportunity to stay with Tess longer than 12 weeks if that’s what we need.  If I don’t go back to work the day my FMLA ends, I can get fired.  When you look and see that so many other developed nations gives somewhere around 6 months of maternity leave – often paid leave - you really realize how shitty our policy is here.  No wonder so few mothers are breastfeeding their babies for the suggested 1 year in the US.  I’m having a hard time keeping up with breastfeeding now! I just think its odd that our politicians like to harp on “family values” but don’t think its worth writing legislation to ensure maternity leave rights.  Maybe they just think I shouldn’t want to continue to work at all after having children and quit my job – oh, and be married to someone who is rich enough so I can afford to do that. 

Anyway, I will get off my soap box now.  I guess I could have moved to one of these fabulous places that offers all this maternity time, although my mom would have killed me and kidnapped Tess if I so much as suggested that. I only am depressed that this precious time I have with Tess is so short.  How can I leave this precious face???