5

Placement and Attachment Parenting

Sometimes I wonder about myself and my parenting choices. Would I be as into attachment parenting as I am if I wouldn’t have placed the Munchkin? If she had been with me since day one, would I have done similar things with her as I did with her younger brother(s)? Would I have been all about babywearing? Would I have considered cloth diapering? More over, if I wouldn’t have been lead by the unethical agency to believe that breastfeeding the Munchkin would be detrimental to all involved, would things have been different? If not with her, with BigBrother? Would I not feel overwhelmed with everything now?

How much does placement affect and/or change how I parent now as compared to how I would have parented then? Was I always this type of parent in theory? Or did the loss of my first born change how I practiced parenting?

These questions often haunt me as I make decisions for my family.

If you knew me prior to BigBrother’s birth, you may recall that I loved being a woman working in broadcasting. I loved my job. I was going to return and be a full-time Mommy and full-time career woman. I had all of these lofty goals. Then BigBrother came out of my womb and those goals, though still lofty, changed. Drastically. I was done working and back in the home by the time he was nine months old. Would that have happened even if I had parented the Munchkin? Or was I feeling a need to be so close to my son because I had lost my daughter?

I’m not sure I can ever figure this out entirely. I think things may be too intertwined, intermixed. Obviously, things in my past have made me who I am today. But are parenting decisions solely based on past experiences or are some of them just who we are, regardless of experience?

It’s curious. I do know that I’m overly cautious with my parented son(s). BigBrother can’t be out of my sight in public or I have a panic attack. It took me over a year to find the courage to leave him in our well-manned church nursery. I have nightmares that he is kidnapped or that I leave him places. Is this all connected? Or is some of it simply my anxiety? Motherly worries? What is it?

I want to visit this in more depth after I ponder it some more. Hmm.

11

The Visit Dreams are Made Of

I can’t figure out how to explain this visit. I’ve erased three different posts in process thus far because it gets all jumbled. How do you properly explain everything that happened? How do I explain that simply looking at her makes me want to spin circles and sob for hours all at the same time, in the same breath? How do I explain how hearing her say my name, over and over just to make sure that I was still there, made my heart swell with love and pride and simultaneously break? How do I explain how I was in a constant state of overwhelming emotion but in a mostly good way? How do I explain how seeing my two children interact, well on the most part, made me feel like a failure as a Mother? How do I put words to how I felt when I told her to come “say goodbye” and she got very angry and said, “No! Say Sit! SAY SIT!”? How do I explain the joy I felt in taking her for a walk, alone, on the beach and having a woman come up to us and ask me if I wanted to show my daughter… MY DAUGHTER… a jellyfish? How do I explain the guilt that comes with not correcting the woman and letting her believe that I was more than just a firstmother? How do I adequately explain how it felt to carry her in the Mei Hip carrier? You know I love babywearing but never got to do so when she was a wee-one. And now, I’ve experienced it; I’ve got to do something that I thought I would never get to do in regards to my own child. How do I explain how watching her swim, by herself in the pool, for the first time made me feel? I witnessed a first! How do I explain how watching her jump waves for the first time with her daddy made me feel short of breath as I remembered jumping waves with my Mom and Dad… and felt a pang of sadness that I wasn’t standing out there with her? How do I explain how my heart shattered when she started singing Kelly Clarkson from her car seat behind me? She sings, folks. Not like little kid yell-singing. She really, truly sings. Proper notes and intonation. She got that from me. And I don’t get to witness it or help her form it. It hurts. But I’m so very, very glad that she has that gift.

It was the visit that dreams are made of; the kind of visit that agencies tell expectant Mothers that they will get to have and, sadly, it just doesn’t happen for the most part. We bonded on this trip. She grabbed my hand and took me places. She told me she loved me. She asked for me when I wasn’t visible and after I left. She gave me good morning and goodnight kisses. She was never weird, as in stranger danger, with me or with Baby BigBrother, as she called him the entire time… except for once when she called him My Baby BigBrother and Sweetheart. While she’s never been strange with me, she’s been wary for the first day or two, staying close to Mommy and Daddy. She laid on my chest. She sat on my lap. She held my hand. She petted my hair. She made me feel important. She made me feel loved. She brought me some more of the peace that I have been needing.

Needless to say, this visit was much better than the last time. I feel no need for a break. In fact, if I could go visit again next weekend, I would. In a heartbeat. Some other great things were spending so much alone time with D. Since all three children are, for the most part, sleeping through the night now, D and I got to take walks at night and just spend some alone time together as friends. I felt that we bonded on new levels as well. We asked each other some harder questions and were honest with each other. It was good for the two of us to have that time; it was a bit of healing after a not-so-good visit right after BigBrother and JD were born. I’ve decided that firstparents should wait until their newborns are sleeping through the night to have a visit with their child’s family. Sleep deprivation and raging, changing hormones aren’t conducive to easy visits.

There are things from this visit that I hope stay with me long after Munchkin has blessed the family with children and grandchildren. Beyond that, J told his paternal side of the family about Munchkin. I can now put pictures of her wherever I want. I can now say that my Son has a sister.

I now feel complete.

8

Nick Nack Paddy Wack

I don’t write a lot about BigBrother here but, I’m going to start doing so on a more regular basis. The fact remains that Munchkin and BigBrother are half-siblings and will be raised with that knowledge. And the joy of Munchkin having yet another brother. With BigBrother included, she has five. ;) Lucky, lucky girl.

I love my Son. I can’t say that loud enough. He is a joy. But we had some problems at first. And it sucks to admit that. But, I’m all about being totally honest at this juncture in my life so, yes, we had some bonding issues at first. Most of this was my fault. And I can blame my Husband just a little bit.

In the hospital, I gave birth “after hours” on a Thursday. That means no lactation consultant was available to me until the next morning after nine o’clock, and I wouldn’t have been her first stop. (I gave birth at 6:33 in the evening.) I had stated prior to the delivery that I wasn’t certain about breastfeeding but that I was open to it.

Before everyone has a cow, hush up and listen before you point judgemental horrible Mommy fingers.

I had done the research on breastfeeding. So much so that I began to hate myself for not breastfeeding Munchkin. My agency told me not to because of the bond that would occur with her. (God forbid I decide to parent?!) I believed their lines. I didn’t breastfeed. And while you can say, “I’m a birthmom and I didn’t either,” the fact remains that there are birthmothers who have breastfed and I am insanely angry that I was not afforded that opportunity.

And so guilty. Granted, I didn’t have reliable internet during my pregnancy with the Munchkin, but I should have known (miraculously?) that breastfeeding was the way to go. I feel like I cheated her. And myself. And so, when it came time to research breastfeeding while pregnant with BigBrother, it was a tough pill to swallow. Still, I kept my head up thinking, “I can do this. I can get past my own emotions of anger and guilt and give this little guy the best start possible.”

As soon as I was asked after he was born, I said no. I just said no. No questions were asked and that was that. Skip to the first night as J heads into the (hugest) bathroom (ever) for his shower. I was sitting in the rocker by the window with the awful flowered curtains, singing him Christmas Carols. (Most specifically Silent Night.) And it popped into my head, “I can do this.” I untucked my breast from my gown, cuddled him closely to me and…

proceeded to have one of the largest panic attacks I have ever had in my lifetime. I put him down in the bassinet and returned to the window, breast tucked away, to stare out at the night below me. I didn’t tell J. I felt embarassed. Sadly, the next day, no lactation consultant came to visit and I gave up any hope of having a breastfeeding relationship with my Son. Do I think that with some encouragement I could have gotten past my anxiety, anger and guilt and been successful in breatfeeding? I don’t know for certain. I will never know. I hate doubt.

And thus began the rough first couple of weeks with my Son. I felt disconnected. There were times that I couldn’t get him to stop crying. And, to top all of this off, J was sick with the flu for our first entire week home. (Yes, a week.) So, I was basically single-mom-ing it. For someone who had been so strongly resolved NOT to be a single Mom only two years earlier, it was a scary proposition!

And then I realized, ah, I can parent by myself. And everything inside of me hurt. Yes, J was occasionally able to take him so I could shower during non-puking episodes. (J ended up in the ER because he was so sick. Poor Man!) But, for the most part, that first week was me, winging it, alone. And it hurt me, to no end, to realize that I could do it. Yes, I had grown and changed in that two years time, but I was still, at the core, the same person. Had someone, anyone, encouraged me while I was pregnant, perhaps I would have seen that I could have been a good parent. But, again, we’ll never know. All I know is that I was told that I wasn’t ready and I was too young and yaddayaddayadda.

I had to get over my hurt before I could truly be able to begin to bond with BigBrother. It helped once J was un-sick and able to help me care for our new baby. But it still took a good three weeks before I felt like BigBrother’s Mom. Sometimes I felt like I was just watching J’s Baby. Or sometimes I felt like someone was going to run in the door and take him away from me. (Hence the reason I barely let him out of my sight in the hospital.)

But slowly, with much work on my end, I started to feel like BigBrother’s Mom. He looked up at me one day with those big brown eyes and I saw his recognition light go off. And then, it was just us. In that moment, I knew that I would be the one applying band-aids and kisses to boo-boos. I knew that I would be the one to fight for him to receive the best possible schooling. I knew that I would be the one to cry on his graduation day. And the day he goes to college (or wherever). Or the day he gets married. Moves out. And while that is scary, it was the best feeling in the world.

It is true that I will know of and possibly, if she wants me to be, be involved in some of Munchkin’s bigger life accomplishments. I’d like to think I’d at least be invited to her wedding. But there is no guarantee. And that just hurts. Especially when I know now that I always had it in me to be one helluva Mom. I do an awesome patty-cake. Ask BigBrother. It’s his current favorite, right behind Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.

Knees and toes.