Progress and stressors

As I close in on Week 27 of this pregnancy, my Pregnancy Mellow has all but disappeared. There are a few things I'm still chill about, but about most things I'm feeling a little frantic. The craziness at work is slowing down a little. A LITTLE! But it allowed me to take yesterday off so I could focus on the rest of my life for a minute. Here are some things that we've made progress on, and some that are still stressing me out.

PROGRESS

Baby's Doctor -- I managed to call the doctor we want the baby to see and get the scoop on how to add him/her as a patient. If you're curious, it's as simple as scheduling an appointment for 5-7 days after birth. Both Mike and I are patients there already, so it's easy. After much thought, we decided to bring the baby to our family doctor rather than a pediatrician. This is mostly because we both LOVE our doctor, and she knows our situation, and she will take good care of our child. So would a pediatrician, but this way we're going somewhere we already feel great about.

Baby's Room -- We're getting much closer to finishing the paint job in the baby's room. You can read about it here. We made it our goal to finish painting by this weekend, and then we can start to set up furniture and put away some of the baby stuff we've already accumulated. If you clicked that link up there, you saw that we're also making slow progress on other parts of the house, which is also helping with my sanity.

Doula -- Yes, we hope to hire a doula. I'll probably write more about this later, but basically I was feeling a lot of anxiety about the hospital. I worried I'd feel out of control and out of the loop. That things would be done to and for me without my consent or knowledge or understanding. I worried I'd be sucked into the "routines" of the hospital without consideration for my individual situation and needs. We began to discuss and consider a doula, and I immediately felt my anxiety lessen. The mere thought of having an advocate and coach who knew what was up helped calm me. So we interviewed one candidate last week, and we'll meet another tomorrow, and then hopefully we'll be able to hire someone. Lots more information on this later because, though I know it doesn't make sense for everyone, it really feels like the right thing for us.

Appointments and Such -- I've been on the every-four-week-appointment schedule since week 10, but this time I'm only going 2.5 weeks between appointments. Looks like they'll be more frequent from now on. Today I had my glucose test for gestational diabetes. For anyone who hasn't done one, I assure you, it's easy. You drink some glucola, wait an hour, then do a typical blood draw. I'm awful at eating or drinking things I don't like, and I was actually a bit worried about getting through the glucola, especially when they told me I had only 5 minutes to do so. I opted for orange flavor, and besides being really sweet, it tasted fine. They keep it cold and it's less than a can of soda, maybe 8-10 ounces? Then you wait an hour (bring something to do - Mike came with me and we did some meal planning for the next few weeks), and finally a blood draw and you're done. I don't know the results yet.

STRESSORS

Daycare -- I'm not sure what to say about this. We were long planning to have my mom watch the baby 2-3 days a week, so all we needed was part-time daycare. We were leaning toward a daycare center because we hadn't gotten any recommendations on in-home care, and it was too overwhelming to go through the state database of THOUSANDS of care providers. But now it turns out we'll need full-time care, and centers are way too expensive for our budget if that's the case. So we're desperately looking for a good in-home recommendation, one that is affordable and awesome. Unfortunately we know very few people who actually use daycare, so we're getting nowhere. Plus, I'm heartbroken that my baby, starting at six weeks, will be in daycare 8-10 hours a day everyday. I was happy to send it to facility a couple days a week because I knew the rest of the time it would be with my mom, someone who would love it as much as me and someone who would be in its life for a long time. The thought of going to work all day while my baby is at daycare, the thought of basically working to pay for the 'privelege' of not seeing my child...it's all just too much. My mom reads this, and so I don't say any of this to call her out or guilt her (she has very valid reasons for the decision), but rather to commiserate with mothers who have gone before me. How did you do it? How did you find good child care? How did you afford it? How did you deal emotionally?

Names -- This is still bugging me, though I've managed to take a little pressure off myself after conversations with Mike and with friends. But I'm still no closer to a boy's name I love than I was when I mentioned it last week.

Circumcision -- How do you even make this decision? I kind of wish we knew we were having a girl so we didn't have to think about it right now. This will probably make a good blog post on its own soon.

Maternity Leave -- I'm blessed to get six weeks off at full pay, but seriously? That is not enough. How can our country think six weeks is adequate when many other developed nations support several months, even a year or more, off? I'm glad for the time I'll get, but I'm trying to figure out how to go back to work when it's done without panicking. I want to work, I have to work, but so soon after the birth?

And just for fun, here's what I look like today:

Comments

[Charm City Kim]

I'm so behind on commenting on your blog! So I'm going to comment on everything right here. :-)

Love the color of the nursery. I totally feel your pain with the painting. We hit a lot of those issues when we initially painted our house. It was so bad that when it came time to repaint, we felt it was worth the money to hire a painter. My husband & I rarely fight but put paintbrushes in our hands and all bets are off. We also encountered the same messy window issue at my mom's house. Jeremy just spent several hours scraping the caulk and paint from the window panes.

I'm glad to read that you got the doctor situation figured out. Interviewing pediatricians was kind of strange for us. We only interviewed one guy and he was highly recommended by our good friend (Katie from From Magerks to I Dos). I think it is awesome that you can use your regular doctor for your baby. How convenient!

As for names - I like alliteration (despite not having done it for my daughter's name). So whatever the last name, try names that start with that letter? Zeke? Zeus? (totally kidding... unless Greek mythology is your thing). Even Xavier or Xander (sounds like a z)?

Lastly - about daycare. This isn't easy. I took a full 12 weeks off (although was only paid for 6 of those weeks). We lucked out in that there is a parenting group in Baltimore City. I joined their listserv and received great recommendations for people. We looked at some of the centers but were turned off by their costs. We ended up with in home daycares. The first woman ended up moving but I met a local mom through a Stroller Strides class that recommended her daycare. And I couldn't be happier with this place. Even though we're moving out of the city, we're still planning to use this in-home daycare. Try looking online for parenting groups in your area. Or maybe even a Stroller Strides class (they seem to be everywhere). I feel like networking with local parents (that are roughly your age) is the way to go.

[anon]

Signing on to some wait lists can take a little edge off the stress. It's a concrete action step that expands potential options. I wouldn't rule out seemingly imperfect (too pricey, too far, schedule not ideal) providers at the wait list stage -- just get on the lists and keep doing your research. You never know how your situation, perspective, or the center's/provider's policies (and even location!) might change.

Meeting other working parents whose babies are having great experiences in non-family care arrangements helps a great deal too -- not only because you get leads, but because you get to hear positive perspectives on childcare. Easier said than done, I know ... prenatal classes, family/neighborhood events, the gym, yard sales are all places I remember chatting w/other parents about care arrangements.

Once my baby started daycare, I got such joy from watching her relationship with her teachers blossom and I remain so happy that teachers have been part of her upbringing (and part of my support network -- oh, the amazing tips you can get from an experienced infant teacher/care-provider!) from the get-go. I know it's not always helpful to hear from someone who's "all set" with the very situation you're stressing over ... but I wanted to gush for a moment because I remember anticipating heart break (that's what I kept hearing about) when it came to starting daycare and then for a while I almost felt isolated in my non-broken-heartedness ... at work people clucked over me and attempted to empathize over the guilt/anguish they assumed I was experiencing, etc., etc. It wasn't until I started connecting more with the other parents at her school that I realized my contentedness surrounding her care and our career/family situation were actually the norm among the community of parents at our center. Whatever you feel when you start care and return to work, keep in mind that daycare is only one piece of the adjustment puzzle -- it's easy to assume that difficult feelings/emotions during your first few months of parenthood primarily stem from your care / career arrangement when that may not be the case (and altering your care / career arrangement may not be the answer). Also remember that some of the difficult feelings/emotions you may experience may be short-term -- you are adjusting to so many new things, while experiencing sleep deprivation. How you feel about your care / career arrangements when everything is brand new and when you haven't had a good night's sleep may be completely different from how you feel seven months into parenthood.

[alibaba41]

My husband and I also waited to find out the sex and decided if we had a boy not to circumcise. Once our son arrived, we thought about it more (they don't do it right away) and chose not to.

We live in CA and I was able to take disability leave along with my maternity, so I had 12 weeks. Don't know if this is an option where you are, but my OB helped me with this.

Anyway, I truly hope your pregnancy mellow will return, you deserve that! I hope the prenatal yoga helps you, for me it was one of the things I looked forward to every week. Hang in there Shan.

[Amber]

We, too, chose our family practitioner as our baby doctor for both of our kids. Best choice we could have made. Although, sadly, our doctor recently left the practice, so we switched the kids over to a pediatrician. Liking that decision so far, as well. :)