Parenting Equality

I was always the girl growing up who was determined that IF I did ever get married (and that was low on the priority list) that my marriage would be one of full equality.  Housework, breadwinning, child-rearing would all be a 50/50 split.  Fast-forward many years, a wonderful DH and our first DLO and things are not quite like I had "planned."  Don't get me wrong, DH is really as wonderful as wonderful can be, he cooks and cleans like a pro.  He took just as much paternity time off as I took maternity time.  But as our DLO has gotten older, her care has fallen more and more primarily on my shoulders and mostly my fault.  The problem is, I suffer from that terrible and unproductive "mommy guilt."  I am a working mother and thus feel like I am a terrible mother.  My own mother (and grandmother) were SAHM's so do little to assuage this guilt.  So when I rush home from work I dedicate every minute to my daughter.  Almost none to DH and most certainly not to myself.  I pat myself on the back when she prefers me, I revel in dinner time and bath time and tell myself that the gabillion times she wakes up at night just is extra time for me to make up for the time I am at work.  But as she nears her first birthday, several things are happening....1) I am SO worn out.  She is not a good sleeper.  Plus by devoting every non-working minute to her care means I feel tired and yucky and worn down.  2) My relationship with the wonderful DH has definitely taken a hit.  How could it not?  Our dating, courting, and fun together as a married couple has always revolved around bicycles.  Bike racing, long bike rides, hanging out and riding bikes with other "bike" people.  We both really stopped doing the bike thing but again as she nears her first birthday, DH is getting back in the swing of things but I feel like if I take the time to go on those bike rides, I am taking that time away from the little I have to spend with DLO.  I think we've gone on one date (we weren't huge "date" people to begin with) since she was born and even then I was torn by guilt being away and made DH feel bad about it too. 3) I am going to medical school this fall.  This has been a major source of distress in my life.  I will be commuting to a school 3hrs away because its only for 3 semesters (all clinical rotations are local) and it was silly to make DH quit his job for such a short period of time and our daycare is the greatest thing in the world and wasn't worth losing/leaving.  But that means I'll likely have to spend a few nights away from home.  Mother guilt, rear your ugly head. One of the things we're attempting is "easing" DLO from her mommy-only evening/night routine to a daddy involved one.  SO last night he tried to feed her dinner.  First I was super stressed, he really didn't have an idea of the consistency food had to be at this stage or what foods were best to give her; he didn't know the right amount or which ones to feed her and which ones to let her self-feed.  I was also devastated to lose my bonding time with her; her meal-time and bath-time are ways I can feel that I am providing for her as her mommy even when I work during the day.  So there I was, wanting parental equality, needing parental equality but devastated (actually crying) over losing the special moments with my daughter that I have always cherished.  In the end, I went in and "helped" aka took over because DH hates it when I micromanage and when I'm sad.  I really need to get over the mommy guilt and relish each moment I do have with DLO knowing that I will always be her mommy and she will love me just as much whether I am a working mommy or a SAHM; easy to say, hard to do.

Piggies

Yup, on top of all the rest of the craziness in our lives, we decided to get piggies (what we call them to DLO).  We actually got some really nice Large Black pigs and are in the process of acquiring some Tamworths and actually breeding a few of them next winter.  We've done crazy things like build a "piggy house," made wallows, hauled loads of food (whoever said they eat 3-5% of their body weight is a liar...they eat more like 30-50% of their bw!) and water and generally just carry on as pig farmers.  That's on top of the big garden, 17 laying chickens, and our aspirations of a few dairy and beef cows.  I'm trying to remind myself, I will be a full-time, commuting medical student mommy in a few months but part of living way "up north" is enjoying getting to do things like be piggy farmers.  Pictures to follow....

Fear of the Fall....

At this point, the point of no return on my decision-making process has arrived.  Work won't really let me change my mind since they need to hire someone to replace me and without a job, I really have nothing better to do than go to medical school.  But everynight as I lay there trying to get back to sleep after another cuddle session with DLO, I try to calm the panic attacks that tell me "you're making the wrong decision!"  I am giving up a very good job and going back to school in a city 3 hours away from my family.  While you do not have to be present for every part of medical school, there will still be nights I will be away from my family.  I'm not sure I'm ready for that.  I'm not sure I can handle that.  I struggle with wondering how much it will impact DLO or if its just me that it will worry.  DH is amazing with her and I'm sure they will be just fine but I NEVER had plans to be an absent mother (ok, it's only for the occasional night or two a week...but still) and despite ALL of the reasons on why this decision is good for our family, the "in-the-moment" emotions of it tell me it might be one big terrible mistake.
I hope I look back and read this in several years to find I've over-reacted and everything went swimmingly but as a rather Type-A personality (shock, I know!) I can't plan or control or even foresee the impact this decision will have.  Frankly I'm just scared.  So here we go...

In as Long as Out

This weekend was BG's 9-month birthday.  It's crazy to think that she's now been in the world as long as she was in utero.  Seems like a big right of passage for her mama and really highlights just how long you are pregnant!  It also really mirrors the rapid growth during pregnancy.  Looking back at her birth and then monthly pictures it is stunning to see the rapid growth and development.  I'm not usually the sappy type but as I fed her yesterday, she was insistent that she wanted to drink water out of a glass like her mommy.  She still hasn't mastered drinking out of a cup because she still leaves her tongue on the outside but she would hand me the glass so she could watch me drink and then try it again herself.  Just a times back and forth and she figured out (with no prompting) that she had to pull her tongue in. It was a small moment but so stunning to me how intelligent she is and how quickly she is growing up. She's so damn determined to figure things out and picks things up so fast.  I love every minute with her and am so fortunate to have some extra vacation and days home with her before I head back to the classroom myself that I am trying to savor every minute.  Seems funny but I'm sure she'll be 9 and then 19 in the blink of an eye.  And that makes her mommy very very sad.  All I can say, I thought being a parent would be great but I had no comprehension on the joy that a child brings into one's life.  There is no doubt a lot of work involved but every minute is repaid a million times in the brightness they bring.

Mamava: Good for breastfeeding women?

I think the company itself has the right idea. Breastfeeding woman need a comfortable place to pump.  When only a dirty bathroom stall would be an option, these pods are great.  But at the same time, it gives others a new excuse to ask you not to breastfeed your child in public.  I was at an airport once being extremely discreet, sitting in a far corner, even using a nursing cover but refusing to go sit in a space pod to feed my daughter while waiting for a flight.  An airport employee walked over and said "you do know that there thing is for you to feed your child in?"  I couldn't decide if he was trying to help me or protect his own sensibilities.  Why should I have to go sit in "quarantine" so that my DLO can eat?  We don't make anyone go sit in quarantine to stuff their face with the big mac and large fries they grabbed down the way.  I also feel like it allows companies, businesses, etc to be lazy.  My place of employment just recently put in two lactation rooms but on the campus they are both located in a building that is a 10min walk for me.  It just isn't practical during a short class break for me to be able to utilize it.  I found an old locker room and pump in the shower.  Recently the building I am located in, installed a Mamava; nice, right?  But seriously?  They couldn't find a classroom or any small storage space they could convert into a lactation room?  They had to put this huge space pod in a busy area where everyone sees you pop in and then pop out.  I know I shouldn't feel awkward about it but I do.  And now, again, when I use my old locker room, anytime anyone hears/sees me, they're like, "you do know there'es a Mamava for that?" Yes I do.  And I choose to continue here and my apologies if it makes you uncomfortable!  Am I the only one who feels this way???

Good Daycare=Priceless

Priceless doesn't seem to do justice to how it absolutely changes everything to have good daycare.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I went through three daycares in three months with mounting anxiety and frequent panic attacks everytime i dropped DLO off.  I wanted to try a new one but didn't know if it was worse to try a new one and go through a big change or stay with sub-par.  So first off, I only had 3 weeks maternity leave.  Luckily for all of us, DH was also able to get 3 weeks paternity leave.  So with me fudging a few days of "working from home" and DH spreading out his leave we made it to 8 weeks with her at home with mom and dad.  Then, we were so thrilled and extremely grateful when both sets of grandparents stepped up and watched her a few days a week, so DH and I each took a day a week and the grandparents filled the rest.  That got us to the new year and 4 months old.  Grandparents could no longer help and it was time to go out into the real world with DLO :(.
Daycare #1: a small in-home daycare that seemed cozy and sweet.  Put the cons started surfacing VERY quickly.  First, (minor issue but issue nonetheless), the lady wore a noxious perfume that caused us to strip and scrub DLO and all her accessories everynight.  Second, anytime DLO cried, she fed her.  Not even kidding.  She would try milk first for every cry.  DLO is exclusively breastfed and this lady would go through 16+ oz in under 8 hours.  Even if I would drop her off late or pick her up early, we never got below 16oz in a day.  And the lady had the nerve to tell me that if my supply couldn't keep up, we should just accept I hard put in my best effort and move on to formula.  Daggers.  She also kept the babies in front of the TV.  And a couple times we came unannouced 30+ minutes early to find DLO already strapped into her carseat waiting for pick-up.  Two VERY long weeks and I was done.
Daycare #2: a large group daycare.  Highly ranked and rated, I had avoided it knowing it was so many kids in one room with lots of stimulation and less nurture time for babies.  They didn't watch TV and the ladies really did do an awesome job but they were definitely teetering on the edge of illegal ratio with 7-9 babies and only 3 caregivers.  And the other half of the room was the 1-3 year olds so it was very noisy all the time.  DLO, a light sleeper, never slept and came home completely wrecked.  Since she was one of the youngest, again she was often just moved from chair to swing to crib and back so the more mobile babies didn't trample her.  There was often much more crying before attention was given as well just because of the pure numbers.  It wasn't terrible but everyday I stayed with her as long as I could and raced out of work early to pick her up from baby prison.  The final straw really came when I walked in and one lady was rocking and feeding a baby with one arm and was holding a bottle over DLO who was in a bouncy chair falling asleep with her little neck and face strained up as high as she could go to latch and suck on the bottle.  To watch her sit alone and suck from a bottle like a little baby cow was too much for me to handle.  But again, pull her out and put her through the stress of a new daycare?  One that might be just as bed?

Then all good things in life intervened and I got a text from a lady I had called about in-home daycare.  When we first met her, I could tell she was a little nervous about starting in-home care but we hit it off immediately.  She just radiated warmth, kindness, and peace.  She's kinda a hippy which is exactly the values I have for my children.  Lydia started with her just a few days a week and for the first time, despite missing her like crazy, I could focus on my day and not be continually panicking that DLO was getting poor care.  Now the reverse is true, when I am home with her, I wonder if she secretly wishes I was at work!  :)  There is NOTHING, NOTHING as priceless as feeling comfortable with the person taking care of your child.  Awkwardly (for her at least), I've already asked her if she'd be up for caring for a DLO #2 if we started trying...cause if I have to go through all of that panic again, I might just wait a bit longer!

Babies in Medical School

My DH and I had our first daughter just a few months after I completed my PhD (no easy feat to finish while super pregnant and living alone as DH had moved ahead to new job).  At the time I was going on round 2 of medical school applications and in the meantime managed to land a full-time faculty position at a technical college.  I'm not sure if its inherent to technical school college that generally hires "experts in the field" (people who have decades of experience, ie as a RN, CNA, welder, etc) and then come and teach, but I found I was a super minority as a mother with a small child.  For example, I got THREE WEEKS of maternity leave, and they actually had the gall to call me after one week to get a firm date of my return.  I won't even go into the very dark thoughts I had, one week postpartum and staring down at my 1-week daughter...but I digress.  As things progressed over the next 6 months, I got accepted to multiple medical schools, continued to hate most aspects of my job more and more (minus the teaching part which somehow was a minor part, and my paycheck which was the nicest I had after spending the last 2 decades of my life in school), and started having thoughts about child #2.
The decision is "mostly" made that I will quit said current and hated job and start medical school in August.  But I am terrified by the leap into the unknown.  I won't have a paycheck, I won't be an "adult" anymore (I'll be a student again), I have no idea if I'll have tons or hardly any time to spend with my family, and we are even going with the crazy plan of having me "commute" 2hrs each way so DH can keep his paycheck and DLO (darling little one) can stay at her amazing daycare that took me three months, three tries, and millions of panic attacks to find.
So, am I crazy?  I want three more kids, but I also want to do well (enough) in medical school, and we're trying to keep our current home.  It all sounds crazy and unrealistic to me!
Part of me thinks that having more children in my current job would be just as hard if not harder than having them in medical school.  I only get 3 weeks paid maternity leave here and at least in medical school I'll have summer, winter, and spring breaks plus some open blocks for studying, interviewing, and vacation...a luxury not found in my current job.  I also think that while medical school is HARD, is it any harder than a very demanding, more than full-time job?  Or getting a biomedical PhD in 4 years (by working 60+ hours a week)?  Some people swear it is, others that it isn't.  It just kills me to not know for sure what it will be like.  It's tough to leave what is unknown, even if unliked for something that could potentially be even worse.  And at least financially, I know that will be the case.  There's is something comforting about being financially stable!  Eventually we'll get more than back there but those intervening years will be tough.
So if I could have my cake and eat it too and pregnancies went perfectly and I did super well in all my classes with the normal amount of effort: baby #2 between M1 and M2, baby #3 during M4, and baby #4 during the end of residency.  Yup, I'm crazy.  But I do know for sure that nothing is more important to me than family so one way or another, we'll have to make it work!