The virtues of motherhood

Motherhood is refining. In a way that even marriage isn't. And boy is marriage refining. But motherhood has a way of cultivating (forcing?) virtue that is unlike anything I've experienced otherwise, and my daughter is my most effective teacher so far.

She teaches me humility. I'm sure 30 years ago, they would have just called her a slow crawler, or said that she was "moving at her own pace", but this week E was officially labeled with significant gross motor developmental delay. Seeing the check box on the physical therapy referral form dealt quite the blow to my ego, as both a mom and a pediatrician. I worry for her. I want the best for her. And yes, I want everyone to look at my child and say, "oh, how advanced she is!" But as my patient and understanding husband reminds me, this is just who she is and we love her exactly how she is. More than our pride.

She teaches me gratitude. When I'm about ready to explode because she just won't stop fussing when I set her down, or when she ruins a clean pair of pants because she can't hold onto her food, or when it's emergency bath time in the middle of the day because, poop in the hair. Just then, when my exasperation and need to control things is at a peak, her goofy little 7-tooth grin melts my heart, and I know that being a mom is one of the best things I will ever do.

She teaches me selflessness. Like it or not. Every time I'd rather take a nap, or go for a bike ride, or have a beer, or sleep in, or not wash onesies in the sink, or have control of my schedule/body/choices. I can be resentful, or I can submit and learn that it's not all about me. I don't always choose the right one. But I try.

She teaches me generosity. As an introvert, the grocery store was still one of the public errands I enjoyed. It reminded me of time with my dad. It allowed me little indulgences for under $5. And after the advent of self-check-out, I could do it all without talking to another human being. Enter the world's most social baby. She waves. at. everyone. Everyone. She smiles with her whole body and people just can't help but talk to her. The butcher. The pharmacy tech. The produce stocker. The self-checker monitor. Every retired old lady in the whole store. And so my solitary shopping trips are no more. I must stop and entertain the masses. But I can just tell it makes their day, and I certainly don't want to stifle E's magnanimity, so I'm learning to be okay with it. I can give them some of my time and energy without it killing me (at least it hasn't so far).

She teaches me flexibility. Because sometimes the nap doesn't go according to plan (like, almost always). Sometimes she just wants to play peekaboo for seven minutes (trust me, that's a long time!). Sometimes we don't make it home and end up nursing in a parking lot. Sometimes the laundry doesn't get done. Sometimes, most times, life happens, and I don't get to be in charge. Which is probably a good thing.

A priest friend of mine was recently talking to another priest friend and said, "We're too selfish. We need kids or something." Not that the ordained life doesn't have virtue-building characteristics. But there is something unique about motherhood (and fatherhood, yes, but motherhood specifically) that empties us, and fills us, unlike anything else. It's the hardest and most beautiful thing I've ever done (along with marriage, but marriage with kids is the next level). And it's definitely my path to holiness.

Mother Mary, pray for us!

Delighting in motherhood

I distinctly remember being asked, sometime when E was almost five months old, "Don't you just love being a mom?" My eyes welled up involuntarily. I paused to compose myself, then forced a smile and said, "I love her." And then I quickly changed the subject. At the time, and for much of the last year, no, no I haven't loved being a mom. My thoughts were largely occupied with how hard it was to learn so many new things, be good at none of them, have everything change constantly, lose all sense of my identity, and feel guilty for all of it.

But this past week I realized that something had changed. More importantly, I had changed. I still am learning all sorts of new things, still am not very good at most of them, everything is still changing, and my identity is still in flux. But now I am loving it.

God has given me the great grace to enjoy motherhood. I look at my baby girl, at her adorable toothy grin and crazy reddish hair, and I delight in being her mom. She charms everyone we meet, which is terrifying for an introvert like myself, because I suddenly find myself having conversations with everyone. No longer can I skate through life under the radar, avoiding human contact--she smiles all the time and draws every passerby into her little sphere of cuteness (today at the DMV, we had the whole bench laughing at her). At the same time, I love showing her off. I am so proud of her friendliness, curiosity, and expressiveness. I love watching her try new foods, discover new toys, meet new milestones. I love holding her tight and having her pat my arm and snuggle into my shoulder.

I know there will be many other times throughout her life when being a mom does not feel like one of life's greatest blessings. But today it does. And I know that it is a gift from God. And I am so grateful.

When it's hard

I'm in the midst of some of the most trying weeks of my life. I'm going on four months now with one hand's worth of chunks of sleep greater than 4 hours. I'm working at least one day of every weekend this quarter save one, and many of those weekends, it's both days, or worse, both nights. My husband is working more than 40 hours a week in a traditional schedule for the first time since we've met. And in the midst of it all, I'm trying to keep up with the laundry, the cooking, and the shopping, not to mention some semblance of physical activity, spiritual discipline, or creative work. Many days it feels like I'm a failure on all fronts.

And in times like this, it's easy to resent the main reason why life is so hard right now. It doesn't feel okay to say it, but today, and other days, it's true: I resent my daughter. I resent the fact that her neediness means I almost never remember to brush my teeth in the morning, or that I burn half the things I cook, and the other half sit cold on the table until I have time to eat, or that I have no time to decorate our house into a home (or complete any of the dozen other projects I keep tucking away). I resent the changes in my body that bear witness to her existence. I resent the loss of autonomy, of freedom, of rest, of spontaneity. I resent that I only have 10 minutes to write because this is the 7th time today I've tried to lay her down for a nap, all without success.

And I resent the fact that I resent her. I know it's not always butterflies and sunshine, but I should have the heart to struggle. I should be able to look past the pain to the gift. Past the cross to the Resurrection. But today I can't. I don't have an answer, or a solution, or a quaint Bible verse to make it all okay. Today it's just hard to be a mom.

Pagers and phantom cries

The last time I had to carry a pager was in residency. We each had our personal pager, each inpatient team had a pager, and the code team had pagers, so that, at any given time, one person could have up to 4 pagers they were responsible for answering. At the beginning of the shift, those of us neurotic enough to do so would change the ring tone of each pager so that we knew which one was going off without having to pull the pager out. The benefit of this was paramount if you were carrying the code pager. The code pager going off meant you started running for the stairwell before you even read the page to know which room you were headed for. All the other ringtones could wait for you to finish whatever you were in the middle of before responding. I so dreaded being on the code team, and it got to the point that I dreaded the sound of the code pager going off. So much so that if I ever forgot to change the team pager ringtone and it was the same as the code pager, I would suffer a minor panic attack the first time it went off during my shift. And then I would immediately change it. The code pager ring tone gave me so much anxiety. I would think about it going off and my world would get small, my breath would get short, and my stomach would start doing flip flops. It got to the point that I would hear phantom code pager tones as I tried to go to sleep.

Now I no longer carry a pager. Instead, I have a newborn. And the anxiety of waiting for the other shoe to drop is even worse. As I lay her down and tiptoe out of the room, I cringe every time I hear a noise. Is she awake? Is she crying? Have I lost my 25 minutes of peace? (Because that's how long every. single. one. of her naps are right now.) I turn the shower on, or lay down for a nap, or start cooking dinner, and I start to hear phantom cries. I even hear them in the car when I know I've left her at home with Daddy. I'm always on high alert, trying to listen for her. And I can feel my cortisol spiking. It's the same claustrophobia, the same shortness of breath, the same sense of dread. But this time, there's no end of shift coming when I can pass the code pagers off. There's no end of the rotation, or even end of residency. Parenthood doesn't have days off. And I think that's why it's even more stressful. Even if she does stay blissfully asleep until I'm ready for bed, there's no telling when she will get up in the middle of the night. And even if she doesn't get up (much) in the middle of the night, there's always the crappy napping tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day.

Yet just like in residency, I can't control when the interruptions will come. I would rather lay down and be woken up than sit up all night waiting for the pager to chime or the baby to cry. I tell myself it is just a phase, that someday, hopefully, I can get more than 25 minutes to myself during the day, or get more than 3 hours of sleep in a row at night. But I may not. And that's the lifestyle I've chosen. Truthfully, it's the life I've been blessed with. And I wouldn't trade it for all the sleep in the world.

Wait, is that an option?

Mom of the year

I think every mother, at some point, feels inadequate. I'm pretty sure for many mothers, it's a frequent occurrence. Like I should be reading my daughter stories instead of blogging. Or I should have just bought a nail file instead of clipping her fingertip a second time while trying to trim her nails. Or I should be able to get her to nap without throwing her in the car seat and letting the rhythm of the ride work its magic. I get the sense these are pretty normal.

This week though, I took a new foray into inadequacy. And I feel ashamed. But the ever popular Brene Brown says that "shame cannot survive being spoken" and that one way to beat shame is to tell your story. So in the interest of beating shame, here it is: I was careless. And because of it, my daughter got hurt. Thankfully, everything turned out to be fine. Except my psyche. I relive the injury over and over in my head, which makes me nauseated. I think over and over if I had just done things a little differently, it wouldn't have happened. I wonder if there will be any long-term consequences. I doubt myself as a mom. I want to cry.  I feel like I shouldn't be allowed to be a mom or a pediatrician. I am awash in shame. I hate it. I hate thinking about it. I hate writing about it.

I told some co-workers what happened, and the first thing that happened? One of them shared a similar story that happened to her daughter. Everyone nodded understanding. No one judged. No one tried to revoke my motherhood. And I felt a little of the weight lift. Maybe in a few decades, I'll even be able to joke about it.

Shame is a lie. And I know the truth, even if I don't feel it. The truth is I am a good mom. The truth is good moms make mistakes. The truth is I can't control everything. And the truth is that I have a God, a husband, and friends and family that love me no matter what. And I am exceedingly grateful. And the next time I have to put her to sleep by driving, I don't think I'm going to feel quite so inadequate.

Milk musings

Our baby girl is down to usually six feeds a day, sometimes seven, depending on how long she sleeps at night, which means that most days I have about 90 minutes of captivity--stuck on the couch with my thoughts and lots of funny noises coming from this tiny miracle. It's my time to reflect, to take a deep breath, and since I got the Nook (and the library app) figured out, time to read. It's my me time, my intellectual time. While I nurse, I think a lot about this crazy journey of motherhood. And one of these days, I'm going to get back into blogging about it. Not because I think the world needs another mommy blog, or because I think my insights are particularly unique. Mostly because I want to write (maybe even need to write), you write what you know, and--right now--this is what I know. I know that I couldn't have understood, even if someone could have explained, how it's possible to love a tiny person so much that it feels like my heart will explode. I couldn't have believed that I could survive on so little sleep, that I had this much of myself to give, that it would be so hard to get one load of laundry folded. I couldn't have known how natural yet miraculous motherhood feels, because I, Laura, was made for it. But here it all is, in a 13 pound package. Right now, we're in a catnapping phase, which severely limits my time to write (or do anything else). But I'm hoping that some of these breastfeeding musings will make it to the page (screen?). Thanks for reading.

Motherhood

It's amazing how quickly a tiny three-pound baby can change one's identity so irrevocably.*

When I graduated medical school, I had to practice--out-loud--saying that I was a doctor, because that wasn't just a switch I could flip in my brain and suddenly identify as a physician. Same thing with "girlfriend", "fiance", and "wife." It took time to hear those things being said about me without doing a double take. Yet, from the moment that little blue line showed up, I've been a mother, and in many ways it hasn't taken any getting-used-to at all (as A says, "almost as if this is what you were made for." He's pretty smart).

At the end of Mass this past weekend, the priest invited all mothers to kneel for a blessing. Kneeling there, belly right up against the book rack of the pew in front of me, head bowed, it struck me that not only was this my first Mother's Day, but that, no matter what happened from here on out, I would always be a mother. Always. Whether I am blessed to carry this baby girl to term and watch her live a long life with many happy memories, whether I go on to bear many more children, or whether we tragically lose her even before she is born and never have another child. Or anything in between. No matter what, she has changed me.

My identity as a mother was sealed at her conception, even though I didn't know it at the time. It's a daunting title to have, given the example of our Blessed Mother, as well as the many amazing mothers that I know. And while I don't know what all this role holds for me, I know that it will require a gift of myself unlike anything I have experienced thus far in my life, even in marriage. I know that alone, I am not up to the task. Thankfully, God has created me for exactly this role, given me a wonderful, supportive, and patient husband, and a loving community, and He knows far better than I do what He's doing.

So for now I'll just keep relishing her little kicks, tolerating the frequent bathroom trips, offering up the ligament pain, and praying for her every day, grateful for this baby girl who has forever made me a mother.

*baby's average weight at 31 weeks, where I was for Mother's Day