getting pregnant.

I have wanted to be pregnant for as long as I can remember.

Have babies, oh dear yes. But I am not one of those women who wanted to have a stork magically drop off a baby. I wanted to be pregnant. I wanted to be round and full and radiant. I wanted that glow a pregnant woman gets as she stops and gently touches her swollen belly, smiling at no one and everyone as her new being kicks and tumbles inside of her. I wanted morning sickness and swollen feet and a sore lower back so I could place my hand there dramatically and sigh as I lowered my giant pregnant self onto the sofa. I wanted every single part of it because every part meant I was growing a new little person. Not everyone is lucky enough to experience pregnancy. I wanted to appreciate every second of it.

I started taking prenatal vitamins in high school. "They have everything a woman needs," I would tell people when they asked. Secretly it was in case I got knocked up. In France I discovered the phenomenal world of herbs. Anything that related to the reproductive system I knew about. I had a binder filled with notes about what plants helped prepare and strengthen the uterus, what helped with pregnancy-related nausea or hypertension, how to stop early contractions, how to induce labor, what herbs helped labor progress and contractions strengthen, what plants helped the body heal postpartum, what magic nature provided to help stimulate the flow of milk or help baby sleep better at night. Every now and then I would sneak the notebook off the shelf and leaf through page after page, almost in tears with excitement that some day I might be able to use all of the information I had so carefully cataloged to help me, pregnant me and my little baby.

I was ready at sixteen to be pregnant. Not in the typical adolescent "Awww, I want babies someday" type of way. But a primal, physical need to be with child. Whenever I was around someone lucky enough to have a baby in their belly I literally felt my uterus pulled towards their fertile body. I sometimes named the eggs I released during ovulation. Often when I bled each month, I wept not because of hormones, but because I was mourning an empty womb; that time symbolized the passing of yet another childless month.

I was ready.

And yet I was patient. When I met my husband, I knew. Not instantly; it wasn't love at first sight, but rather deep intrigue and passion. It was love soon thereafter. It had taken me moving to France to find him and I knew that I could not find a better father for my children in all of the world. But he was young and he was not ready and I did not need to ask him to know all of this. I waited patiently, knowing when he was ready he would tell me and he would give me the world in ways I had never imagined possible.

He knew I had been ready when we met and he did not need to ask me to know all of this. He saw my eyes glance longingly at women with their bellies smooth and round like a bowl of wood. When we got married he whispered gently in my ear, "Now I am going to call you Madame until the day I can call you maman." I blushed and nearly fainted.

Thanksgiving of 2011 he was finally ready.

"It's never going to be the right time," he told me. "And it is always the right time." I smiled. He smiled. "Let's do this. I want to call you maman."

We decided we would start trying in January. I immediately stopped drinking alcohol, crossed the street whenever someone approached smoking a cigarette and drank gallons of herbal teas every day to tone my uterus, all in the name of preparing my body to be with child. Red raspberry leaf; nettles; oat straw. I bought cases of Mommy-to-be and Pregnancy blends from our local co-op. I meditated, mindfully visualizing becoming rounder and fuller with every day. I devoured any literature about pregnancy I could get my hands on, carefully copying down pertinent passages in my ever-growing binder.

The holidays came and went in a foggy haze; we were drunk on dreams of what life would be like the following year with our little miracle. When we kissed on New Years' Eve, it was epic. January had never so fully symbolized a new beginning.

I wanted this baby and this pregnancy more than anything I had ever wanted in my life.

A few months before getting pregnant, I had a conversation with some co-workers about being pregnant. Everyone was jokingly saying if they were going to have kids, they'd want to get it over with all at once by having multiples, twins or even triplets.

"I would never want to have twins," I started, dead serious. "Not because I don't want lots of children, because I do, but because I so want to experience being pregnant as many times as I can!"

Everyone looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I am crazy. But how often do you get to be pregnant in this day and age? I am not Catholic and I am not rich. Once or twice, three tops, that's it! How many things that are so mind-blowingly life-altering do you get to do in your life? Why wouldn't you want to experience it as many times as you possibly could?

January came and with it my first ovulation. I knew my body like clockwork from years of family planning, though with opposite intentions. I knew exactly when the egg was released; I could feel a slight pinch. I knew which phase the moon was in during each stage of my cycle. I knew exactly when I was most fertile. I knew the exact window of time in which I could become pregnant.

It made making a baby the least romantic thing I have ever done. It was a daily struggle.

I wanted this baby to be natural. To be the result of my husband and I loving each other in the most intimate way. I did not want this baby to be the result of crazy calculations and heightened expectations. But there I was, upside down on the couch after making love like Phoebe from Friends, trying to let gravity help the best swimmers get to the egg faster.

January came and went. February came and went. Only one pink line on each white stick. I was devastated.

After two horribly long, horribly stressful months I gave up the game. Every day had been the worst day because I was not yet pregnant. Hours felt like years. I bought pregnancy tests in bulk. My poor husband had suddenly found himself married to a crazy person.

By March I decided enough was enough. I concluded the only way I could not know when the time was right was by not knowing the time at all. I hid all calendars, changed the date on my phone and purposefully avoided looking at the night sky so as to not accidentally see the moon. I continued to drink tea and take my vitamins, to exercise and meditate, but I stopped trying to visualize myself getting pregnant and instead focused on relaxing. I returned all the pregnancy books to the library and checked out novels instead. I started drinking the occasional beer (or two or three) or glass (or two or three) of wine. I stopped seeing my husband as a sperm-provider and remembered all the reasons I had fallen in love with him in the first place.

We decided we needed a change and started looking for a new place. We found the perfect house in the perfect neighborhood at the perfect price. And as we starting packing all of our belongings I felt the pinch but ignored it. Put it off as a cramp from heavy lifting. And the next day when I felt a twinge again and frantically started looking for a calender and counting backwards to my last cycle I stopped myself and laughed, relaxing at the thought that I had finally missed count and had no idea where I was. No idea what was my body and what was the influence of the outside world.

Little did I know I knew my body better than I ever could have imagined.

And so, as my husband and I moved all of our belongings by ourselves into our new home, lifting heavy object after heavy object and drinking beer after beer (a necessity to any successful moving day, no doubt), we were completely oblivious to the fact that I was gestating not just one, but two.

Little did we know my deepest desire had come true in ways we didn't think were possible. Be careful what you wish for. Sometimes life delivers on those wishes.

I didn't know it yet, but I was pregnant.


Finding out you're pregnant.

flash.

random acts of kindness.

We are so lucky to live in such an incredible neighborhood. Never in my life have I felt so supported, so loved, so welcome and such a part of a community. In fact, before moving here I never imagined neighborhoods like this could truly exist outside of old Mr. Rogers reruns.

It seems there is a story of how we have been supported, loved, welcomed or surprised by random acts of kindness every month since moving here just over a year ago, but since having our babies in December it has become a weekly occurrence. There are simply too many stories to recount in detail in such a little space (a local restaurant donating and delivering food to help us with crazy postpartum life; dozens and dozens of moms donating and delivering breastmilk when we were struggling to feed our babies; neighbors watching our backs, feeding our pets, repairing our appliances, providing moral support to name a few), but this week's deserves to be told.

My husband works at the local co-op here, and it seems everyone in the whole zip code knows and loves "the French guy"; I run into members of our community daily who know me and my boys by name, who know my story, who followed Owen's struggles in the beginning, who send us their love and wish us well. Stranger is not an appropriate word here in Columbia City/Hillman City/Seward Park. A bit strange as in quirky, perhaps, but we are far from estranged. We are all members of one big communal melting pot of love and there is comfort somehow in knowing you have a place in the hearts of people you have never even met.

A few days ago my husband was making conversation as he always does with a customer going through his check-out line. She was wearing a hiking backpack designed specially for wearing your baby and he asked if she liked it. We have been talking about getting one (or two) for months and months, maybe years, probably since before I was even pregnant. We'd daydream about going on hikes with our baby (yes, singular, as we were expecting only one), how we'd get out of the city every weekend and let our new little person breathe in the fresh mountain air.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you how many times that has happened since the boys arrived.

So they had a small conversation about hiking backpacks and the pros and cons and what she liked and so on and so forth. He mentioned we have been considering purchasing one, hence his interest in hers.

My husband is one of the most sincere people I've ever met. He asks questions like these all day because he is genuinely interested. He wants to learn. He wants to know you. People can sense it. They generally open up and truly answer. I thought this type of contact with strangers was extinct; maybe it's my husband, maybe it's the neighborhood, but I am telling you people, it does exist.

He gets home from work later that afternoon and what is waiting on our doorstep? Two baby hiking backpacks in amazing condition. No note, no explanation, just sitting there.

A man comes by and introduces himself.

"You met my wife today," he explains. "You mentioned how you were interested in one of these. We are moving to Denver in two days and don't have room for them and we figured you might find some use of them."

Smile. Shock. Disbelief. Beat.

"But how did you know where I live?" my husband asks.

"Oh, we drove by your house once when you were getting out of your car with the twins. My wife recognized you at the store so we knew where you live."

Amazing the random acts of kindness from "strangers" here, no?

Thank you so much to the family who left us such a thoughtful gift! You are too kind, so much so that it makes me blush every time I see the backpacks sitting there waiting to be used! (Which I have promised ourselves we will on the next day we all have together where the weather accommodates.) I sincerely hope you find in Denver what you are leaving behind here in Seattle.

I've heard it is the most diverse zip code in the nation. I don't know if that's true, but it sure as hell is the most inspiring. May you all continue to amaze and inspire everyone around you! My only hope is to some day feel I contribute even a fraction as much to you as you have all contributed to our well being!

98118 pride!!!

mastitis.

Mastitis is a bitch. Excuse my French (although I think my husband being French gives me a get-out-of-jail-free card), but this is an infection you really really do not want to get. I was chatting with a fellow new mom a while ago about a recent mastitis scare and at the mere mention of the word she said the exact phrase I had said to my doctor a few months prior as I was being hospitalized for my second infection. She asked me to rate my pain on a scale of 1 to 10.

"Oh my god it hurts worse than childbirth!"

Unfortunately for a lot of women this is not an exaggeration. And unfortunately the infection is not completely understood, by doctors and lactation specialists alike. There are certain risk factors, there are certain things you can do to try to avoid infection or to try to rid yourself of the infection at the very first signs, but some people are just more prone to it. You can do everything by the books, follow all the rules and tips and still end up with a nasty case. For those cases, I'm sorry but this information won't be much help. Sometimes you just need a good dose of antibiotics or a stay in the hospital. 

Hopefully it won't come to that for you. After my second infection I vowed to learn everything I could about mastitis, what it is, who gets it and how to best prevent it. I have since had two scares, and following these suggestions (one or all or some combination) has helped me prevent full-blown mastitis requiring antibiotics both times. Hopefully this information can help you prevent it, too.

What is it?

In the simplest of terms, mastitis is an inflammation of the breast.

What causes it?

It is usually caused either by a blockage of milk flow or some kind of infection (most commonly Staphylococcus, or a Staph infection). In the case of infection, it was probably introduced to the breast from baby's mouth through a cracked or damaged nipple and you will probably need antibiotics. This sounds scary but is common; babies pick up a lot of things in hospitals. It probably isn't harming baby, but once it enters your breast it can do serious damage.

Blocked flow can be caused by a whole host of factors, namely:

• failing to completely drain the breast at each feeding (especially once the fatty hind-milk starts flowing), 
• feeding problems (such as a weak suck, a tongue tie, improper latch-on technique, or always using the same position to breastfeed which might only drain one part of the breast),
• restrictions (such as a too-tight bra or top, especially underwire bras; sleeping in a restrictive position or with baby laying on top of you; too-tight straps such as on a really long drive or flight or consistently wearing a baby carrier or diaper bag in the same position)
• damage (from injury, massaging too hard or previous infection/inflammation)

Who is at risk?
Theoretically everyone is at risk, even non-lactating women and sometimes even men (this is very very rare). We're going to focus on the lactation-related kind here. In this case, certain factors can increase your risk, such as:

•  the first few weeks of breastfeeding (most cases occur within the first three months, although it can occur any time during breastfeeding)
• engorgement or oversupply
• changes to breastfeeding schedules (such as going back to work, or increased supply after a tongue tie release, etc)
• being a mother of multiples,
• past history of mastitis,
• a hospital stay (for mom or baby, due to increased exposure to infections),
• too much stress or fatigue

What are the symptoms?
At the very first signs, there is a chance you can avoid a full-blown infection with some home remedies. The signs to look out for are:

• a tender area of the breast that starts to form a lump, 
• it may start out a little painful to the touch but the pain will usually quickly increase and become constant,
• it may be swollen and/or red,
• it may feel hot to the touch,
• it may be painful to breastfeed,
• you may start to feel feverish

Once the infection has progressed to include these symptoms, call your primary care physician immediately (if it is after hours, GO TO THE ER!!! The infection can worsen very quickly and can cause serious and irreversible damage to your breast!):

• fever over 101° F
• chills
• nausea or vomiting
• flu-like aching
• red streaking on the breast towards the nipple

What can I do at home to prevent it?
At the very very first signs of infection:

• Increase your fluid intake to at least a gallon and a half per day, focusing on clear liquids such as herbal teas, 100% fruit juices and Emergen-C or something similar.
• Take your vitamins & herbal supplements, but especially vitamin C, zinc and echinacea. 
• If you have access to herbal tinctures, take immunity boosting ones.
• Homeopathic Phytolacca Decandra 30c - dissolve five pellets under the tongue every two hours from the very first signs of infection until absolutely every symptom is gone.
• Eat as much raw garlic as you can handle.
• Remove as much stress as possible - ask friends & family to take care of food and chores and other children until you are better.
• If possible, bed rest in a dark room with nothing but you & baby. Sleep topless and nurse as often as baby will take the breast. 
• Nurse, nurse, nurse & pump, pump, pump! You are trying to unblock a blockage, and that can only be done by stimulating the milk ejection reflex. 
• Use heat to help with let down before nursing or pumping. Apply a wet hot compress, as hot as you can stand, and insulate with a dry towel to keep the heat in as long as possible. Soaking the affected breast in a hot bath works, too. (Some women find steeping either rosemary, dandelion or fenugreek seed and using the resulting infusion in their compress or as a soak.) Hot showers are very helpful, too, especially when combined with massage.
• Massage your breast continuously before and during nursing or pumping, stroking in the direction of the nipple and making sure to massage all areas of the breast (not just the infected and sore part, although you definitely should concentrate there).
• Use cool compresses as needed between nursing or pumping sessions for the pain.
• Make a warm castor oil compress to draw out the infection. Soak a piece of wool or felt in warmed castor oil and apply directly to the affected area. Cover with something cotton and keep it there for a half an hour to an hour. Wash off the castor oil residue when finished. Do this up to three times a day.
• Take Ibuprofen to help with pain and inflammation. 

If this doesn't help in 24-48 hours (you will know if it hasn't worked and is getting dangerous, call your doctor or go to the ER!!! I am not exaggerating about going to the ER! If mastitis isn't treated in the early stages it can progress incredibly quickly. If the infection festers too long it can require lengthy hospital stays and may necessitate draining the breast. This is as awful as it sounds. It is literally sticking a needle into your boob and draining out the infection. With no anesthetic! Ouch and yuck!

Hopefully thanks to a few home tricks it won't ever come to that!

Happy nursing!

bliss.

Everyone deserves a little break now & then! Soup + grilled cheese + beer + babies + barbecues + croquet + husbands = happiness!!!

Happy long weekend, mamas & papas of the world!

you know you're a new parent when #3.

You hear a song with bagpipes in it and look around frantically thinking it's your crying baby.

maman musing #3.

Why do I feel guilty taking the carpool lane with my babes? They are tiny little people, but they are people and if anyone should have a special lane to themselves it's parents.