One Goal at a Time: Another Update on Sleep

I want to write about something besides sleep again, but until I’m actually getting enough, this topic will remain forefront on my brain. So here goes, one more time.

I’ve been tired lately. And busy. And we have tackled a lot in the last six weeks. We went from all three of us sleeping in one bed, with Cedar waking every few hours and nursing back to sleep for his entire life, to-- in six weeks—Cedar now sleeping in his own bed, in his own room, and sometimes for a nine hour stretch without nursing or waking. It sounds like we should be celebrating, right? It's hard to, though, when most nights he is still waking a couple times and the new wake up call is often 5 a.m.-- resulting in an even more sleep-deprived child than before.

           

The back story (last post): we moved our king bed into the living room, creating a little nook for my husband and I, and giving the bedroom to Cedar. Now, even if we still have plenty of bad nights, it does still feel like a small miracle each morning I turn to my husband and ask, “Did he wake last night?” And he says, no. Even if nine hours is still is not enough for Cedar to be fully rested (he needs at least 10), it is still a major milestone. Here is how we did it.

The first couple weeks after moving the bed, I would rush in whenever Cedar woke and nurse him, eventually just giving up and going to sleep next to him because I couldn’t fall asleep apart from him myself. Not only did he seem to be waking more (and not less like we’d hoped) without our presence in the bed, but I also didn’t realize how much I would miss sleeping next to him, how strange it would feel to be so far away from him. Of course, this feeling was only compounded by the fact that my body felt tensed on alert, ears listening closely for to any noise coming from the adjacent room—regardless of the fact that my husband said he would listen for Cedar and wake me. Somehow, just knowing that I’d be on duty sooner or later, and wanting to be able to respond right away to my son in order to ease the transition and any potential anxiety he might feel about suddenly being made to sleep alone, made it near impossible for me to drift off easily in a separate bed. Co-sleeping for two years was too deeply ingrained.

So, for the first couple weeks of the new arrangement, I more or less slept with Cedar in his new bed. I didn’t consider this a failure (despite the fact that I thought it sounded this way to others when they would ask how it was going), for to my mind it was enough just to introduce him to the new furniture arrangement and the idea of his new bed, all his own. That part actually went over really well. Step one was accomplished.

At this point, I decided that I needed my husband to take over. We agreed that what really needed to happen now was to night wean. No more milk at night. I’d heard from many sources that once night weaned (or weaned altogether), their former terrible sleepers finally started sleeping through the night. So I convinced my husband to take over for a couple weeks (to start)—meaning to be the one to go in when Cedar woke, and he’d remind him that there was no more milk at night. I could then put in earplugs and fall asleep peacefully, knowing that—for the first time in over two years—I was no longer on night duty. Hallelujah!

As was to be expected, the first few nights were the worst. Lots of waking and complaining. Then we had one breakthrough night where Cedar slept for eight hours. Then 9.5 the next night. High five! I couldn’t help but proclaim my joy on Facebook. Of course, I knew better than to think that it would be smooth sailing from then on, and true to form, the last several weeks have been up and down—some bad nights, a few more nine hour nights, and most nights, something in between. On top of that, my body still seems to be trained to wake a couple times each night, and when I wake I have to pee. In short, sleep hasn’t really improved tremendously, but when you consider the fact that Cedar is now in his own bed and night weaned, and that we’ve had a fair number of before-unheard-of sleeping through the nights, then I realize that we’ve already come a long way.

We decided that “after the sun came up” would be our way of letting Cedar know when he would get milk. Coincidentally (or not so coincidentally), Cedar’s been waking around 4:45-5:00 every morning, and at that waking he’ll either stumble out to find me or Matthew will nudge me and I’ll go in. Then, Cedar will proceed to nurse or at least be attached to my boob for something like two hours! And since it’ll take him a long time to fall back asleep at that hour (if he does at all), I don’t dare move him off of me for fear I’ll ruin my chance of him—and me—getting in another hour or so of sleep. Because otherwise, like I said, nine hours sleep (and averaging six for me) is not enough.

And so, that brings me to the present, where we’re all doing okay, operating most nights on almost enough sleep, but not really—which over the course of a week creates quite a deficit. Matthew gets to crash hard for another two hours after Cedar wakes at five, so that helps to counter the couple times a night he might still have to get up. And I get the peace of mind, at very least, of knowing that when Cedar goes down around 7:30 or 8:00 each night, I’m off duty till the next morning. There is great joy in that.

Matthew was hoping that around now he could be relieved of exclusive night duty and we could start switching off nights. But I’ve convinced him to give it a little longer, with the hope that the longer the new sleep patterns can get ingrained, the easier it will be when we introduce yet another new variation on the norm.  I did put Cedar down one night recently when Matthew came home late, and I was a bit wary of what would happen when I would have to put him down without nursing (something I’ve never done). But to my great relief, it went just fine; Cedar didn’t even ask for milk until about ten minutes in when a light suddenly went on and he remembered this missing ingredient in our ritual, but then he only gave me a few token whines when I reminded him that there wouldn’t be anymore until morning. I did sing to him still and rubbed his back for a bit, but mostly he just lay there himself, and was asleep in 15 minutes. Success.

Later that night though, when it was my turn to try out night duty, I couldn’t fall asleep again—the curse of my anxious listening body reigned. Rather than risk all-night insomnia, I woke and begged Matthew to go back on duty, and he agreed. The next day I asked if he could just keep being the default nighttime parent for now, and he could let me know if he needed a night off. I reminded him that at least he got that nice last two hour chunk in the morning, whereas I’d be hardly functioning if I had to wrestle with my own insomnia, go in if Cedar wakes, and wake up at five to boot.

He agreed, for now, and I thanked him profusely. He has been a great support throughout this process. It would be so much harder to make this transition without him.

If he’d protested, however, I might have reminded him that I’ve been on night duty for over two years, so surely he could stomach a couple weeks, or even months. “But we had no other choice then,” he protested once. “Yes, I’m not saying you’re at fault, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I’ve been doing this for two years.” He was silent. I also told him about several couples I know of where the husbands took over at night once the baby was night weaned. I understand how it might be too much to ask if Cedar was still waking a ton and if it was increasingly hard for him to function at work, but if he was functioning okay, then surely he could handle a little more sleepiness. After all, it’s not like I don’t value my brain functioning well during the day as well. I suppose one could argue that my work is flexible enough that I have the luxury of deciding not to work on the days where I am brain dead, but this is increasingly not always the case.

Anyway, this argument is moot, because my husband has agreed to keep going like this for the time being. Our next hurdle to tackle is to try to get rid of Cedar’s 5:00 waking. We are thinking of getting one of those devices where some kind of light comes on or animal pops up at the time that you’ve decided it is okay for your child to call for you—even 6:00 would be so much better than 5:00. We’ll try to teach Cedar that he cannot get out of his bed until this magic moment. Although it sounds like a stretch, I know it’s worked for some parents and I also know that a mere couple months ago, the idea that he’d transition so smoothly to sleeping in his own bed for most of the night would have blown me away. Never mind that he’s not sleeping through the night every night yet still. We are on our own timeline. Other people’s norms do not apply.

And… the next step after that? Total weaning. Maybe by the end of summer? Or mid-fall? “Why are you waiting?” my husband asked. “Why not now?” Well, think of all the changes we’ve already introduced recently, I explained. I want to do this all gently, one thing at a time. Also, every week that passes, his diet expands. I’m still gauging each day just how much more dairy I can get away with giving him, thereby increasing his protein options exponentially. (Soy is not an option; meat is often rejected). I know he’d be “okay” without my milk nutritionally, but there are plenty of days still where he doesn’t get much more down than fruit, almond milk, and bread products, and on those days in particular, my milk source still feels like such a blessing.

The other hesitations? The fear that tantrums will increase, or be harder to calm down once full-blown. And? Of course, just losing our precious bonding ritual. All those chill moments of cuddling and winding down together. The end of an era, I suppose. And, yes, certainly I know this too: the beginning of a new one, filled with so much more freedom to get away. The ability to go on a week-long writing retreat, in theory anyway, if I could convince my husband and our parents to take over for that long—not an easy logistical feat. 

We’ll get there when we get there. For now, we got plenty on our plates. Namely getting over this whole sleep saga hump, which can be likened to the metaphor where you’re climbing a mountain and think you’re nearing the top, only to then realize that there’s yet another big hill to climb, and so on and so on. For now, we just need to remember to celebrate that what we've already accomplished is huge, and we just need to keep taking it one goal at a time.

Sleep Deprivation, Bed Swapping, Night Weaning, and the Pain of Separation

Last week, an acquaintance I was talking to on the phone commented on how tired I sounded. I was surprised. Yes, I was tired, as I often seem to be, but I hadn’t realized that my voice had betrayed this. After all, there have been plenty of days recently where I’ve been even more tired. I had thought I was doing a pretty good job of keeping up my end of the conversation despite my occasional pauses where I’d grasp for the right word.

After hanging up, I felt a little sad as I thought about how for the majority of these last two years since my son was born, I’ve been functioning at a sub-par level. How although I’ve been able to congratulate myself for still managing to write, volunteer, and finally get back into teaching, all while taking care of Cedar, I’m still only achieving a fraction of what I might be capable of if I woke up every day refreshed-- if I, for just one night, actually had an unbroken night’s sleep, and didn’t still consider a night where Cedar “only” wakes two times a “good” night. Big sigh. Yes, sleep has been a saga.

A lack of sleep has been the main reason why I have posted so little on this blog over the last couple months. It’s not that I haven’t tried to write new entries, but I’ve been so tired every time I actually have a chunk of time to write (and not pay bills, do dishes, shop, cook, etc.), that I’ve just ended up spewing out a convoluted tangle of words. I’ve logged three attempts at blog posts in the last couple months, and not surprisingly the topics have revolved around sleep—or topics related to sleep, like breastfeeding and weaning (for if I night-weaned perhaps I’d get a better night’s sleep?) or co-sleeping vs. giving Cedar his own bed (because maybe he’ll sleep better if he’s alone, or maybe he’ll sleep worse?).

It’s sad when you’re so used to sleep deprivation that you don’t even realize you are functioning in a compromised state anymore, when it’s just become your reality. If I pause to think about it, I can specifically recall the few mornings at Cedar’s preschool co-op where I’d gotten more rest the night before (and/or indulged in coffee), and thus actually had the energy to start up conversations with the other moms around the snack table. I can’t help but wonder if non-sleep deprived moms still do things like leave the keys in the front door. And I get so tired of answering the question, “How are you?” with “Tired” because that’s the only word that really sums up my condition.

Anyway, needless to say, I’ve been sorely needing some change on the sleep front. Initially I considered night weaning as the first line of attack, banking on what others have said about how night weaning leads to fewer night wakings. But the idea of night weaning while co-sleeping, of having to lie right next to my son and then deny him my breast which he has used to fall back to sleep from day one, and then having to listen to him howl and rage (and quite possibly hit or grab?), does not sound ideal. I would probably end up getting out of bed to “sleep” on the couch (or rather to listen on the couch, since you can hear everything in this house), while letting my husband deal with the brunt of my son’s fury. There’s no knowing how long this might have to go on before my son would accept the new status quo, and no saying if once I moved back into the bed if he wouldn’t just fuss for “milk” all over again.

So, I talked myself out of that approach. Instead, we decided that an easier strategy might be to first make the transition of getting Cedar used to sleeping in his own bed—no small task in itself since we’ve co-slept since Day One. Then over the last month we have slowly began to clear room in the corner of our living room where our king-sized bed would now live, and in the bedroom in its place we installed a full-sized futon for Cedar.

Week by week, friends kept asking if we’d moved the bed yet, and I would explain how busy my husband and I were, and how we had to pick a date a whole month out in advance where we would both be home and have childcare for Cedar while we made the final furniture switcharoo. (We didn’t want him to be home while we did it because, based on past experiences, we figured it would be more upsetting for him to be involved in the chaotic rearranging process—especially while Matthew and I were both busy-- than to simply come home to it all nice and arranged anew.)

Finally, after a month of anticipation, we moved the beds.

From one perspective, the move has gone quite smoothly. Cedar liked his new bed, sheets, and rug, and with the exception of seeming a little weirded out by the changes the first few nights (as in, being hyper-aware any time he woke up and calling out, “New bed!”), he hasn’t seemed upset at all that his “old bed” is now in the living room. But I know that this “success” is only the first small step toward our larger intentions of one day having him sleep alone, and one day, finally, please Lord, sleeping through the night.

So far when Cedar wakes up around midnight, I’ve ended up crawling into his new futon and staying for the rest of the night. Prior to that, I lie with my husband in “the big bed” in the living room, feeling strange to not have his little body and sweet breath at my side. So strange in fact that I could not go to sleep hardly at all for a few nights, hyper-alert of any sounds coming out of his room, knowing he was going to eventually wake up and that I would then rush to his side, ready to assure him that Mama was still here, even if he couldn’t find me immediately upon waking.

I want to do this whole thing gradually and gently. After all, it isn’t as simple as what most parents go through when they make the switch for their children from a crib to a toddler bed; it isn’t just about changing the bed. It’s about changing his—and my-- entire way of sleeping at night. I don’t want it to feel like we are “banishing him” from his old place of belonging next to Mama, and forcing him to “grow up” overnight, tears be damned.

Maybe if I could actually fall asleep again before midnight then I wouldn’t be so hyper-aware when wakes, and maybe he’d surprise me some night by actually going back to sleep on his own. But so far, it doesn’t seem this way. So far, neither Mama nor Cedar are used to being in separate beds.

***

When you’re chronically sleep deprived, it’s hard to embark on any big changes that threaten that sleep is going to first get worse before it could potentially get better. After several nights last week with insomnia, (and prior to that about 3-4 months of a downward spiral of Cedar waking more at night-- was it from teething? Teething’s always an easy target.) I still just want to get a decent night’s sleep. Not great, just decent. So after lying awake for a couple hours away from my son, I practically run to his room now when I feel I’ve “given the separation thing a fair shot” and can call it good, settling back in snuggled next to him where it feels like I belong.

I don’t think I realized how hard not sleeping--or trying not to sleep-- next to my son would be on me. I don’t think I realized just how much of me truly loves it, or is deeply attached to it, despite the agony of being consistently woken or squished or lay upon by a thirty-pound nursing toddler.

I love the intimacy of being able to snuggle in and settle down with relief at the end of the night next to my son. I love the way his head will stretch out to find my shoulder in his sleep, or his hand will rest on my arm, and how I can tell that this physical closeness—even as he sleeps—comforts him. All is right in the world; Mama is here.

But I also admit that perhaps I suffer from my own form of separation anxiety. From the beginning it did not feel right to sleep apart from my son, and my desire to stay close to him has not abated. It was heavily reinforced during the first year and a half of his life when he’d often wake up in pain from gas; I would rush to his side or else already be right there to bring him to my breast and offer physical relief to his tummy. And by now? I’m just conditioned to hurry to his side.

           

Perhaps I have a touch of PTSD from this period I joke, although I’m actually serious (even if a diagnosis PTSD may be too extreme). Because there is some part of me that still bolts up to attention when my son cries out for me at night, especially now that I’m lying in the big bed apart from him, trying to go to sleep on one hand while the other part of me is just lying there, aware of the silence, waiting for Cedar to wake up.

For now I console myself with the fact that even though we are a way’s off from proclaiming any true success in the sleep department, at least we’ve already reaped some benefits from the big move. For one, it feels great to have another comfy space to hang out in the evening hours, to luxuriously spread out and read in bed, or to lie, talk, and be intimate with my husband, just the two of us. I am also fond of sitting on the bed during the day and reading or writing, occasionally glancing up to look out the adjacent window. Miles, our cat, likes the added lounging space as well and has quickly tried to assume his old spot sleeping next to our sides. And the space that the bed occupies actually looks more streamlined and visually pleasing now than it did before when it was filled with a bunch of clutter. And finally, even if I’m still mostly sleeping with Cedar and he’s still waking, I think overall I’m sleeping a tad better because I’m not sandwiched between two people.

After sleeping next to my son for two years and counting, after never having felt like there was a right month, developmental milestone, or moment where he or I were “ready” to make a sudden change, it’s hard to try and change it now all at once. It starts to make me question if even a good night’s sleep is worth the sadness of taking away the bond we have through co-sleeping. Though a larger part of me feels like it’s time, I still worry about how this could lead to more separation anxiety for Cedar or more tantrums. It makes me wonder (not aloud until now) whether it’d be such a bad thing to go to bed with my husband and then keep sleeping with Cedar for part of the night. After all, it’s up to us to decide “what works.”

At the end of the day, I just want the solution that will guarantee the most and best sleep for everyone.

And yet… at the end of two years, I gotta ask myself if it isn’t time to bite the bullet and do something hard. Now, two weeks into this whole bed-change thing, I’m starting to suspect again that the more critical change that needs to happen is night weaning. So many people I have talked to who were in similar situations have confirmed that once they night-weaned (or weaned for good), their chronic poor sleepers started sleeping SO much better. The lure of this promise looms big. Not to mention the fear that taunts, The longer you wait, the harder it may get.  

Every child is different, of course. Some kids “wean themselves” at 12 months, 18, or 24. Others, like mine, I suspect would just keep going and going if I let him. I’m not okay with nursing Cedar until he’s five. At least I don’t think I am. Even until he’s three is sounds a bit long, even if I have always said that is my cut off point. I do want to keep going for a while, especially since nutritionally it still helps my peace of mind so much to know he's getting the extra protein from my milk since he can't tolerate much dairy or soy. But now, I’m thinking I’d like to wean by the end of the summer—by the time he’s two and a half or so. Mostly because of the fear that the stronger, more verbal, and more demanding my son gets, the harder it will be to wean.

Basically, until we’re willing to lose more sleep while I night wean (meaning telling Cedar that Mama and milk need to sleep and that he can no longer have milk at night-- or at least “until the sun comes up”), I’ve realized that sleep isn’t gonna get a whole lot better. And so Matthew has agreed to play the role of the enforcer, going in when Cedar wakes up to bear the bad news, because it feels like it will be easier this way than if I tried to deny Cedar my milk while it was right there in front of him (especially if, say, he’s been crying for an hour and we all just desperately want to go back to sleep).

I told Cedar last night about our plan. That in a few days, there wasn’t going to be any more milk at night, and Baba was going to come in to Cedar when he woke. I didn’t elaborate much further; I didn’t emphasize how Mama and Cedar would no longer be sleeping together at night. I just said, no milk.

Cedar listened closely, then clung to me. I’m not sure what he understood, for instance I don’t think he knows what “in a few days” means, but obviously he got the gist of it. I will continue to remind him in the coming two days, and then on that last night, I will tell him, “this is the last night,” just so the pain of change will come as less of a slap of surprise. Then our plan is for Matthew to start putting him down every night (right now we alternate), because we think it will be easier for Cedar to wake to Baba’s presence if that’s what he’s gone to sleep with as well.

I know that once we start this process, we’ll have to stick with it lest we want to backtrack and erase whatever work we’ve already invested. So we’ve picked our night to begin; we’ve steeled ourselves for a long, sleep-deprived weekend to follow. And then we hope, pray, that within a few days it will already start to get better, and that within a few weeks, the transition will be complete.

Sounds so easy, huh? Right. No one says it’s easy. But plenty of parents have done this before. I guess it’s finally our turn.

Guest Post: A Family-Centered Cesarean Birth by Stacy S. Hirsch

A few years ago I had the honor to work with a friend on her birth story. I asked Stacy if I could post her story on my blog, with the hope that it might inspire some of you to write your own stories. A version of Stacy's story was also published in Midwifery Today. 

A Family-Centered Cesarean Birth

by Stacy Hirsch

I was 34 weeks pregnant when we learned our little one was breech. An ultrasound confirmed the positioning and showed a nuchal cord (a cord around the neck). I had never worried about the possibility of a breech baby and in that moment the nuchal cord sounded more alarming to me. Our midwife assured me that many babies have the cord around their neck at some point during the pregnancy and this typically does not present any complications. The larger, more pertinent issue didn’t register for me immediately; I didn’t know enough to know that if our baby didn’t flip we were unlikely to have a vaginal birth.  

     We had chosen a midwife for our prenatal care and we had always planned to have a home birth. For me, home is where I reconnect with myself. It is the place where I can easily let my mind rest and where I can feel my body vibrate at a softer frequency. Having a home birth meant being surrounded by warmth, history, familiarity and love. It meant having our child born into an environment full of intention. The idea of not having a home birth was at first devastating. It seemed so unfair. To feel the vision I held for our birth slip away was incredibly painful. Unpeeling the layers of this disappointment took time.  

     I had already purchased a majority of my home birth supplies and they were neatly organized and labeled in brown paper bags. I was beginning to envision myself giving birth in our home and I eagerly began designing each detail for the event. The birth tub was ordered and I even planned the snacks I would have for our midwife and her assistant: hummus, herbed cheeses, hearty breads, fruit and vegetables slices, olives, nuts and seeds. All of my favorite finger foods that could easily be prepared ahead of time without a lot of fretting. The home would be warm, inviting and full of welcoming hearts, and the nourishing food would ensure my supportive team would have the strength to go the distance with me.

     I soon learned that in our region, as in many other parts of the United States, there really weren't many options for vaginal breech delivery. Providers typically view a breech presentation as having a great enough risk to necessitate a cesarean birth. Our midwife knew that it was possible and safe to deliver a breech baby vaginally but did not have the expertise to do so. We considered trying to find someone trained in breech delivery, even if we needed to travel to another state. It wasn’t difficult to find stories on the internet of women delivering their breech babies vaginally. I imagined these women as strong, rebellious, heroic, articulate and confident. They lived their lives with a silent certainty and they always achieved their goals no matter how big the fight. I envied these women.  

     My life is full of blessings, yet I am also a worrier. At times I posses all of the attributes I imagined these other women having but I often need a little extra support to overcome the fear that passes through my mind. I wanted my doctor or midwife to have training in breech vaginal delivery. I wanted the system to agree that it was a safe and sane choice. I wanted to know I was doing everything I could to give our daughter the very best start in life. I wanted to eliminate doubt and worry. The idea of choosing a vaginal breech delivery and then having a negative outcome was difficult for me to consider. It seemed like a choice with too much risk and not enough support.  

     We were concerned about the breech presentation but optimistic that with a little more time our baby would flip. We did our research and tried everything to gently encourage her to make the journey 'head down'. Our efforts included chiropractic techniques, homeopathy, acupuncture with needles and moxabustion, craniosacral therapy, hypnosis, counseling, swimming, biking, inversions/pelvic tilt, Rebozo, coaxing, vibrations and a bright light low on the pelvis, online prayer groups of various denominations, laughter, tears and finally an external cephalic version (ECV) performed under medical supervision at a hospital thirty miles from our home. An ECV is a procedure where the obstetrician manually attempts to rotate the fetus into the proper position while the mom and baby’s vitals are monitored. It is a relatively short procedure and, in our case, was unsuccessful.  

     We tried to hold it all lightly as we ultimately put our trust in our daughter, knowing that birth was a natural process and if she could flip, she would. With each appointment or technique I would go through a range of emotions. Part of me felt certain whatever I was doing in that moment was going to work and another part of me was slightly afraid of how it would feel to have this little creature flip-flop 180 degrees in my belly. Each day was a dance. Some days I felt I was the lead partner but on most days all I could do was follow.  

     Trying all of these techniques and connecting with all of these wonderful healers had a secondary effect. They were all women, all mothers and they all became an important part of our birth. They helped me to see that birth was not a single act. They reminded me that our birth experience began many months prior to finding out our daughter was breech. They opened my eyes to the larger process of birth. They also helped me to realize that this was my baby’s birth as much as mine. This was the first but it would likely not be the last time my daughter and I would have differing opinions about how to proceed through a life event. I could give up and settle for what the system had to offer us or I could let go, regroup and create the birth we wanted for our daughter within the system. 

     As the weeks disappeared, and our due date rapidly approached, a medically necessary cesarean seemed unavoidable. I had heard stories of women traumatized by their birth experience, and I was determined that this would not be me no matter what obstacles we faced. We needed to be informed. We decided to research our options for creating a cesarean birth that would honor both mother and child and allow us to not stray too far from our original intention. Our midwife was very supportive and helped us sort through all of the new information. She connected us with a midwife-friendly obstetrician in our region and a facility that would allow us some latitude in our birth choices. She also encouraged us to draft a birth plan. We went online and found a white paper on family-centered cesarean birth from the International Cesarean Awareness Network. Using the paper as guidance, along with other resources, we crafted a birth plan that offered us the best chance of giving our daughter the gentlest birth possible given the circumstances.    

     Version one of the birth plan sounded something like this: “I really wanted a home birth and I am only here because the system says this is where I need to be but there is a chance she will flip once we arrive at the hospital, and if that is the case, I want to leave so we can birth our daughter naturally in our home.” Version one also outlined a plan for a vaginal hospital birth and included a smaller section for a non-emergency cesarean due to the breech presentation. I was still struggling to let go. I didn’t fully identify with women who choose cesarean or even hospital births but I also had to let go of identifying myself as someone who was having a home birth. I felt very alone. I saw these sides and I didn’t belong to either.

     A few days after we drafted version one, and after a few more days of processing, I was ready to revise the plan and mostly let go of the hope we would have a vaginal home birth. As I began to accept the cesarean, I was able to see more clearly what was possible. Our requests became more specific and I was able to differentiate which pieces I could and could not create. It began to feel I could still have most of what I wanted for our baby: gentle hands to welcome her into the world, being surrounded by loved ones, never leaving our side, nursing soon after delivery, no shots or pokes or vaccines, not even a bath. It was all possible if we used our imagination. I, on the other hand, would be undergoing major surgery. I was worried a bit but I was a mother now and mothers do whatever they need to in order to ensure the health and well-being of their child. I was healthy and fortunate to have lots of support. I would be fine. 

     Our next step was to discuss our plan with the birth team. My husband called the obstetrician, anesthesiologist, and charge nurse. With each conversation we carefully reviewed the details of our plan, learned more about what to expect from the upcoming process and made compromises as needed. Success! We had a green light for those items most important to us. In addition to the father being in the operating room we were granted permission to have our midwife present. I was to be administered an epidural, but requested not to have additional antibiotics or pain medications. I wanted to be awake and coherent so I could fully experience the birth of my baby. We were allowed to take pictures and video, my arms were not to be tied down, and we asked that extraneous conversation be limited during the birth. Initially, we also asked to have the lights lowered at the time of birth so the environment would feel a little warmer and less shocking for our new baby. But in the end we let this go when it seemed their version of dim was not much different from regular lighting. We had also hoped that our baby might be delivered onto my chest and even begin nursing while the sutures were being placed, but with the surgical drape and the protocols for keeping the environment clean and sterile this was not possible.  

     Picking a date for the cesarean birth was a bit surreal. How do you choose a date for your baby to arrive when you want to honor the natural process? From our research we knew that contractions, and subsequent labor, induced a release of stress hormones in mother and baby.  This was seen as beneficial to the new baby as an early survival technique and impetus into the external world. It was our hope that the little one would experience some of the benefits of those contractions. After conferring with our midwife, our obstetrician was amenable to a 42 week gestation. Knowing we couldn’t go too much past 42 weeks helped us to narrow the window and we selected a date, July ninth. Although I never went into labor, the last week was full of gentle contractions.  

     On the day we went to the hospital my contractions were more frequent and more intense. Our daughter seemed to be letting us know she was ready. I don’t remember much about the actual drive to the hospital. We arranged for my mother to stay at a nearby hotel and we prepared food for her to bring to us for each meal. The three of us arrived at the hospital and completed the necessary paperwork. Shortly after they showed me to the pre-op room, our midwife arrived. Our delivery team came to our room and we reviewed the birth plan one last time to ensure all voices had been heard. The stage was set and our little one was about to make her big debut.  

     As I lay in the operating room, life simplified for a moment. My husband and I had been on a rollercoaster for the past eight weeks. Now our only job was to welcome our daughter into the world. Time had been our friend, allowing us to lay the groundwork for the type of birth we both wanted when our original plans were no longer an option. All of my awareness was focused on being present; I didn’t want to miss a moment of this life-changing event. I was nervous, excited and deeply grateful for the support of my husband. He would be the one to first touch and hold our baby. He would be our advocate if necessary. I needed him to be where I couldn’t. I trusted him to take care of us as we navigated this new territory. 

     As the obstetrician gently guided our baby into the world, the anesthesiologist held my head up so that I could watch her little red bottom emerge from me. Once our baby’s head was out the doctor quickly unwrapped the umbilical cord from around her neck and body and gently held her upside down for the natural removal of mucus from her air passages. (Typically, this piece is done with suctioning.) Within moments there was a tiny cry followed by several more substantial cries. She was here, she was healthy and we were all happy. The cord pulsed while the proud papa held our baby and the Apgar scores were assessed. The nurse brought warm blankets and a hat. My husband cut the cord once it stopped pulsing and carried our baby to me and placed her next to my face. She gently suckled on our fingers and on my husband’s nose while the doctor stitched me up. She was so at peace in our arms, patiently waiting to nurse. Our midwife took beautiful pictures and video of our first moments as a family. Forty minutes later we were in our hospital room and our daughter was latched to my breast. The charge nurse for the neonatal nursery said to our midwife, “You know, there really isn’t any reason why all cesarean births couldn’t be like this one.” Hearing this made us feel something even larger could come from our daughter’s birth.

     We stayed at the hospital for two days. As part of our birth plan we also drafted a section on infant care. We requested our baby never leave our side and, that all routine exams be delayed until after we had time to bond with our child; we did not give permission to bathe her, use eye ointments, vaccinations or injections of any kind; and we informed them that our baby was only to receive breast milk and no formula. We brought a small lamp from home so our room could remain dimly lit and my mother brought us nutritious food for each meal. We asked for our privacy and did not consent to examinations that had more to do with hospital policy than with our health. The staff was very accommodating even when it seemed we had taken them out of their comfort zone.  

     I am filled with gratitude when I recall our amazing journey and everything it took to bring our daughter into this world. I will never forget the intention and care provided by everyone involved. I thank our midwife for supporting us and the vision we held for our birth through lots of change and uncertainty. Having been through this experience I strongly believe that every parent should have access to resources that empower them to create the type of birth they want for themselves and their child no matter what circumstances. I believe that those who facilitate birth —midwives, physicians, nurses —play a critical role in making this happen by cultivating trust and meaningful working relationships with one another at every level.  At 34 weeks we didn’t have time to change the system for our birth. We didn’t have time to advocate that every obstetrician and midwife have training in delivering breech babies vaginally. What we did have time to do was to work with our team to create the most beautiful experience possible for our family.  

Bio:

Stacy Hirsch lives in Olympia, WA with her beautifully curious 3-year old, talented husband and overly indulgent cat that never passes up a warm sauna. She is an Integrative Health Coach, Founder of Two the Root and Co-owner of Beyond Medicine, An Integrative Wellness Clinic. Check out more of her work at TwotheRoot.com.

Here's what Stacy had to say about her writing process:

"I knew early on that I wanted to write the story of my birth. I wanted it for myself, for my daughter and to connect with expecting moms who might face a similar experience in their pregnancy and birth. Writing gave me a way to process the disconnects of my journey and create a fluid, seamless understanding of my experience. It gave me closure and at the same time opened a whole new world of possibilities.

Working with Anne was a tremendous gift. She skillfully stepped into one of the most intimate moments of my life and held it with tenderness and integrity. Anne's insight offered me the opportunity to try on new perspectives that I may not have seen without her help. She was a sounding board - a mirror to reflect my own thoughts, feelings and words so I could go deeper. Even now, years later, I am filled with warmth and gratitude for the experience. It changed me as a person and I believe it changed me as a mother."

Writing Your Birth Story: June Online Workshop

Have you always wanted to write your child’s birth story, but are worried that too much time has passed or that you won’t be able to do it justice? Or have you simply lacked the time or focus to sit down and write it?

Procrastinate no more! In this four-week workshop, you will gather online with a small group of women and support each other in writing your birth stories. Maybe you simply want to remember and preserve the story of what happened for yourself; maybe you have lingering questions or layers of understanding that you still need to unearth and process about your experience; or maybe you want to create a polished personal essay that you can share with others. Whatever your intentions are, whatever your experience with writing is, and whether you gave birth five months or five years ago, this workshop is for you!

First we will read about and discuss the process of writing, and more specifically how this applies to the process of writing your birth story. Then we will free-write from prompts about our birthing experiences to help us stir up our memories and explore the different layers, themes, and questions that may reside within our stories. By week three, you will have written and submitted a draft of your birth story to the group. Anne will respond with extensive feedback for each person, asking questions and providing suggestions for ways in which you could further explore your story if you should so choose. Workshop participants will also be required to read and respond to at least one other woman’s birth story, following Anne's guidelines for ways to give respectful and constructive feedback.

By the end of our time together, you will have: written and received feedback on a draft of your birth story; gained insight into stages of the writing process from free-writing to revision; and emerged with a deeper understanding of your birthing experience’s significance to you. 

DETAILS:

When: Sunday, June 3^rd – Sunday, July 1^st, 2012.

Cost: $120 Sliding scale available- please inquire.

To Register: Please email Anne at: alkellor@gmail.com and confirm how you would like to pay. (Personal check, cash, or Paypal.) Receipt of payment necessary to hold your spot.

Format: We will use googlegroups to post our documents and manage our discussion threads. Group size will range from 3 – 6 women.

Questions: Please don’t hesitate to ask! Email Anne: alkellor@gmail.com


Here's what one mother had to say about working with Anne on her birth story:

"I knew early on that I wanted to write the story of my birth. I wanted it for myself, for my daughter and to connect with expecting moms who might face a similar experience in their pregnancy and birth. Writing gave me a way to process the disconnects of my journey and create a fluid, seamless understanding of my experience. It gave me closure and at the same time opened a whole new world of possibilities.

Working with Anne was a tremendous gift. She skillfully stepped into one of the most intimate moments of my life and held it with tenderness and integrity. Anne's insight offered me the opportunity to try on new perspectives that I may not have seen without her help. She was a sounding board - a mirror to reflect my own thoughts, feelings and words so I could go deeper. Even now, years later, I am filled with warmth and gratitude for the experience. It changed me as a person and I believe it changed me as a mother." - Stacy Hirsch

Unsure whether you want to write your birth story, or what kind of story you might have to tell? Check out my old blog post that reflects on how many different versions of one person's birth story exist. So much depends on when we tell our story (how much distance and perspective we have); how we tell it (what aspect of the story might we choose to focus on), and what our intentions are for telling it (What is our ultimate purpose here? Who is our audience? What do we seek to understand?).

On Toddler Ear Infections, Trusting Doctors, and Trusting Your Gut

It’s been a bit of a rough week around here. Nothing unmanageable, just a runny nose that turned into an ear infection. A trip to the doctor’s, some muddied advice about it being up to me whether we “watch and wait” a couple days to see if it gets better on its own before starting antibiotics, or whether we start them right away.

Well, of course, if you leave it up to me, and you tell me about the potentially adverse side effects of antibiotics like allergic reactions and diarrhea, and then I get online and find out that since 2006 the AAP has actually recommended the ‘watch and wait’ approach, since many ear infections do get better on their own, and since a tendency to over-prescribe antibiotics can lead towards increased resistance to antibiotics, then I’m going to choose to wait and see. After all, I’m someone who doesn’t even like to give my child Tylenol too often, especially with all that high fructose corn syrup. You might think this sounds silly, but my child gets itchy and rashy when he has too much processed GMO corn.

Anyway, so I waited on the antibiotics, and meanwhile started giving Cedar Ibuprofen around the clock, and he seemed to be feeling better. But, of course, that was probably because of the Ibuprofen. So how am I supposed to tell if he’s truly getting better if I’m suppressing all the symptoms (fever, fussiness, etc.)? He seemed better and hadn’t been pulling at his ear anymore, but he was still sleeping poorly and he still had a temperature (although it was hard to know if I was getting an accurate reading with a squirmy toddler and the under the arm approach). So two days after going to the doctor, I called the consulting nurse. She took notes on everything I told her, consulted with the doctor, and advised me to wait one more day, then call back. She also made some remark about antibiotics to the effect of, “Well, and you don’t even know if they’ll work for sure. And over-prescribing antibiotics has led to cases of resistance to Merca.” Or something like that. So, okay, let’s wait one more day. I’m all for natural healing if that’s a likely option.

That said, I’m also someone who ultimately errs in favor of Western medicine—especially when something seems bad enough that I want immediate results. So I still drove to the pharmacy that afternoon to pick up the antibiotics just in case things took a decided turn for the worse. I wouldn’t have much time the next day to deal with the pharmacy, and maybe my gut was already telling me that we were going to need them in the end.

On the following day, Friday, Cedar was still following the same pattern of being okay, but increasingly fussy once the Ibuprofen wore off and still sleeping poorly. We were on day three of Ibuprofen, and although Cedar didn’t seem worse, he also didn’t seem better. His temperature had gone down a degree—or so I thought, until I called the consulting nurse one more time, and was reminded that you needed to add a degree to the reading when doing the under the arm approach. Oh, right. I knew that, once upon a time. Cedar has never had a fever before, so I’ve only taken his temperature once since he was a baby!

In any case, I was pretty much thinking we should start antibiotics that night, but like a dutiful patient I was calling one more time as advised. Well, the nurse this time clearly though that I had already waited too long and that I had some irrational fear of antibiotics. “Is there some reason why you don’t want to give it to him?” she asked in a slightly exasperated tone.

“Well, just because of the various side effects that the doctor told me about and that the articles I read online mentioned.”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. Is there some specific question you want to ask the doctor?”

“No, I just wanted to call and tell you his symptoms since I was advised to do so by the nurse.”

“Let me see who was on yesterday when you called. Oh… Dr. X.” she said, with a clear note of disdain. “Well, it certainly doesn’t sound like he’s getting better. I’d say you’ve certainly waited long enough. It says here in the notes that you were told to wait 24-48 hours and to start antibiotics if things did not improve or got worse.”

Yes but, I think to myself, it says on my notes from the doctor to wait two or more days. “Yes, well, it’s hard to tell if he’s really getting better or not because we’re suppressing the symptoms with Ibuprofen, but I agree that it seems like time to start. I thought his temperature had gone down, but now I realize it hasn’t. He doesn’t seem worse, though. And I just don’t know how long it typically takes for these things to clear up when you are supposed to wait.”

Anyway, suffice it to say that the nurse I talked to that day was of a different persuasion than the one I talked to the day before. And the doctor I saw? He seemed pretty neutral on the matter, but I trusted that if it had seemed like a bad enough case, he’d have told me to start antibiotics right away.

Some quick research online also revealed that this is a source of debate in the medical community. Recent research that came out in early 2011 shows that toddlers may recover sooner and have less chance of having reoccurring infections when treated right away, so the current AAP advice or the general sentiments amongst doctors may likely swing back towards advocating immediate antibiotic treatment. But other previous studies have also shown that the problem may lie in diagnosis— “Doctors vary in their opinion of what defines an ear infection when looking at the ear drum. The enlightenment in this new research is the use of strict criteria for diagnosis: bulging eardrum, redness on the drum, pain, and an inventory of acute symptoms. The study highlights the essential challenge with ear infections–make a good diagnosis.” says Seattle pediatrician and blogger, Wendy Sue Swanson in this article. 

She goes on to say that parents should thus question the doctor about the nature of what they see in the eardrum to make sure it indeed looks like an infection. “When the pediatrician diagnoses an infection, push them on the appearance of the eardrum. It’s always okay to ask what it looks like! Ask if the eardrum is bulging, if it has pus behind it, or is red in color. It’s okay to ask the pediatrician to clarify and explain the difference between fluid in the ear and an ear infection. In combination with your child’s symptoms, it will be important for making a plan.” But who in reality does this? Or who has the forethought to read such articles before taking their child in to the doctor? Not me. My first response is always: go to the doctor. Second response: question what they say from the comfort of your couch and with Internet access.

It seems that the more you read and learn about your own health or children’s health, the more it teaches you to not blindly trust your doctor’s word or sometimes pithy statements of reassurance. We all want to just be able to trust and get on with it, to not have to play detective and doctor ourselves. And most of the time, this is probably okay if we have good doctors and fairly normal diagnosis. But unfortunately, this is not always the case. I have been given questionable information by my child’s doctor a number of times. And when Cedar was having so many problems with his body rashes and intestinal pain, it was ultimately through seeking out the advice of naturopaths that I was able to find any answers—with clear, tangible results—as opposed to the treat the symptom, not the cause (“We don’t know what the cause is”) approach of the Western pediatric dermatologist I saw.

Like I said, I still err towards Western approaches. I am fully immunizing my child (also after much reading and considerations towards alternate schedules, etc.). But we have also been relatively healthy and not been placed in situations in which your willingness to do your own research, seek second opinions, and make your own decisions might make the difference between life and death. 

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to make it sound like Cedar’s ear infection is THAT big of a deal. But these recent interactions have just brought up for me these thoughts and feelings. And we are approaching 48 hours of Cedar on his antibiotics, and unfortunately, he does not yet seem to be getting better as he should. But again, this is hard to say because, after calling the consulting nurse one more time to see if it was okay, I started giving him some Ibuprofen again to help him in the meantime before the antibiotics take full effect. I guess if he’s not feeling better by tomorrow, I’ll need to bring him back in. Sigh.

The last two nights he’s been sleeping terribly, only seeming to find rest when attached to my boob or lying on top of me, and then waking up in 30, 60, or at most two hour increments. This has meant I have gotten very poor sleep myself. I would not be functioning, much less sitting here writing, if my dear husband did not let me catch up by sleeping in. I slept an extra three hours this morning until eleven, when I was brought a tired toddler to nurse back to sleep for his nap. I had just enough time to put on my robe, drink a cup of tea and have some cereal before said toddler woke up again. I tried to get him to go back down, seeing how tired he still was, but his nose was all stuffy and when he tried to nurse he was uncomfortable, and this—plus who knows what other discomfort—set him into a tizzy of screaming, which turned into a full-blown tantrum that lasted a full 30 minutes.

I usually am able to calm him down from a tantrum within a few minutes. This time, nothing helped. He did not want cuddling or soothing. He did not want to get up and look out the window. He did not want more milk. He did not want to watch Thomas the Train. Instead, he violently flung his body about, banging his head on the bed, and trying to bang it elsewhere—on the wall, even on the bookshelf. I’ve read that head-banging falls within the realm of normal toddler tantrum behavior, but it sure is scary to think of how he could hurt himself if he’d succeeded in hitting his head on the corner of the bookshelf. Finally, after 30 minutes, he decided he would try to have some milk again, and his nose had cleared enough for him to do this, and so we lay there for another half an hour, allowing our heart rates to go down and breathing to return to normal, before he finally decided to get up, a happy and perky little two year old again.

Big sigh. In the meantime, this was supposed to have been my morning to steal away and write, but I finally got out the door at 2:30 p.m. Thank God I was able to get away at all. A week of terrible sleep + worrying about your sick child + long days staying at home with him = one exhausted mama.

I also carry a slight trace of guilt knowing that Cedar might already have been feeling better by now if I’d started him on antibiotics right away, even though I know that I made the best decisions I could given the information I was given. This whole process has just been a reminder to me that you need to take everything any doctor or nurse tells you with a grain of salt, and remember that even though they are the “experts” their personal biases and training can and will slant the advice they give you in distinct ways. During this process, I’ve talked so far to three nurses and one doctor. They each have given me slight, yet still significantly different takes on what I should do. It was only the last nurse I talked to whose voice reached out to me with a tone of mothering compassion, who listened closely to what I told her, and who did not seem like she was scolding me for being “that type of paranoid parent” or whatever the previous nurse had been thinking.

Anyway. I have other things I’d rather be writing about, but I feel all pent up and angsty and sad, so I needed to get this off my chest. Access to the Internet and too much information can sometimes feel like a curse in our modern age where everyone can self-diagnose and prescribe if they wish.  And yet. I also will not apologize for being someone who does not just blindly trust what I am told. I will ask for as second opinion if I feel the need. And a third opinion at that.

But in the end, I always have to come back to trusting my gut—which to me, is not some wild, irrational stab in the dark based on fear-- but rather a decision that is the end result of a process that includes: careful questioning of experts, close observation of my child, as much additional research as I have time for (so, not a ton, mind you), and in the end, choosing the path that feels the safest and most sound.

Sounds easy, right? Right.

Saving My Marriage from Facebook

Sometimes I absolutely hate Facebook, i-phones, and the prominence of technology in my life and home. The way my husband and I are glued to our phones and the Internet each night, you would never guess that a mere four years ago all we had was dial-up. That was back when we lived in a cabin with a woodstove for heat and a composting toilet on the back porch. That was back when it still felt like a novelty for me to even have a cell phone (which incidentally didn’t happen until 2004).

When Matthew and I lived in the cabin on 50 acres outside of Olympia, our time together was mostly technology-free. We had the occasional DVD night up in the loft where the T.V. lived (that could only be used for movies), but mostly we just hung out, made dinner, listened to music, drank wine, and stared at the stars—both metaphorically and literally. Dial-up was, of course, frustratingly slow, but because of its very slowness, it forced me to get on, do my business, and get off. No mindless surfing, no long detours into someone’s life story or web links, no wasted time online. Sounds ideal.

Of course, I also love the Internet, my i-phone, and Facebook. I would feel cut off and disconnected from the world without them. And without a fast connection, I would never have the motivation to network or do Internet research. I might very well withdraw into my old insular ways.

But what I hate sometimes, and I mean loathe, is the way these devices pull us away from the moment, pull us away from our living room, from our child, from each other, distracting us and eating away at the precious few moments that we have to connect at the end of the day.

When I come out of the bedroom at the end of the night, my son finally asleep, dinner eaten, the house quiet, a feeling of relief washed over me, I want to be able to sit down next to my husband and have him look up at me, put aside his laptop, and ask me how my day was. I don’t want to have to ask him to do this, but if I don’t ask, and instead decide to just go get a glass of wine, sit in the chair across from him, and get online via my I-phone myself, then it might be an hour before we finally look up at each other and attempt to converse. Or, we might just skip that part altogether and decide to watch an episode of Mad Men or what have you, since we only have an hour now before it will be time to go to bed.

To be fair, there are times when my husband comes into the room and I am the one who is engrossed in something online, and not immediately willing to shut it down and tune into him, or us. To be fair, I am sure that I check my email way more than he does his. And to be fair, I am probably every bit if not more addicted to Facebook than he is.        

My excuse: I’m home all day with a toddler. Some days go by where I don’t talk to a single other person besides a few words exchanged with the grocery checker. My days are devoted to meeting the needs of a two-year-old: to feeding, changing, and clothing him, to providing him with enriching, stimulating environments and play. But are these activities stimulating to me? Not very often. Perhaps in a mild, satisfying “that was a fun way to pass the day” kind of way, or in a random intensely delightful moment. But seldom in a way that actively engages my mind and creative longing.

And so? I turn to Facebook and to my email. I check them over and over again, a mindless reach of the fingers, to see if anyone new has written me, if anyone has commented on an update, or posted interesting links. It’s like candy. (Or chips, if you go more for the salty.) It’s little morsels of fluff and occasionally glimmers of opportunity or interest that inject a bit of the outside world into my day. Since I can’t just decide to take a break and go be alone, or sit down and watch a few minutes of t.v. (if I want to be a good parent), or talk much on the phone without my son trying to get my attention, then I turn to Facebook which provides the perfect take it or leave it morsel of a break that I can get away with in between activities throughout my day.

My husband’s laptop sits right next to the couch, right next to the spot where coincidentally one of us is usually planted. We also use the laptop to listen to music and stream videos, so it makes sense that it lives at the center of our living space. But sometimes I wish it weren’t so, because I know that the ease to which I can click the button, scan a few posts, and turn it off, is not always an asset. It’s a distraction. It pulls me away from my son, who is here and wants my full attention. It pulls me away from my husband. It pulls me away from myself.

And with the i-phone, it’s even easier to click on and off, wherever I am—in the bathroom, in the yard, in the car. I never wanted an i-phone, but now I’m addicted to it. Again, it’s like candy, or a cigarette, or anything you might rationalize giving yourself as a little “treat”, a quick fix, because “you work so hard you deserve it”. Never mind that it doesn’t really matter if you read that message now or later at night (when you know you’re going to check your email again anyway). It’s just habit. It’s an addiction.

I know I am hardly the first here to decry the ways in which technology is pulling us apart more than together, but I feel compelled to write about it because, like I said earlier, sometimes I really do hate what it’s done to us, and I mean HATE in capitol letters or italics, whichever you prefer.

I hate it when I realize that one of the reasons why my son probably begs for Elmo so much is because I am constantly getting on the computer, and thus reminding him of Elmo (for we stream it via Netflix). And I hate it when I want to just be with my husband, but it feels like he would rather be with his virtual fishing buddies online.

Once you’ve developed a ritual where you are used to checking certain sites every day, the process becomes like a litany of sorts, and the day feels incomplete unless you’ve done so. My husband and I both developed our habits in large part during the year and a half that he worked on the road during the week and we were both alone during the evenings. That’s when my love affair with Facebook and my online community of friends really began. Almost every night, I’d sit down with my dinner or my wine and enjoy Facebook. If it happened to be a night where I felt chatty and had posted a status update (or two or three; I tend towards either binge updating or silence), then my chattiness would no doubt be rewarded by that perky little red flag of correspondence, with new comment or ‘likes’ boosting my inner extrovert and desire to connect. Other nights, when I am not feeling that chatty, my time spent online is shorter, although I still loyally scan through the new posts, looking for those few that pop out at me with interest.

Loyalty. If you want to love it, and keep loving it, Facebook demands a degree of loyalty. Leave it for too long and it might feel like no one cares about you, no one cares what you have to say, and you were really just talking to yourself the whole time in the first place. Facebook rewards those who reward Facebook. Leave a bunch of comments, post a bunch of updates, and lo and behold, red flags will abound and your interactions will begin to feel that much more personable, conversational. But if your own interest wanes, if you couldn’t care less or be bothered to comment, then after a while, you might just find that the whole endeavor feels like a giant waste of time.

I’ve only gone on one Facebook purge since I started; it was during the three weeks I spent at Hedgebrook, a writing residency for women on Whidbey Island. I could have still checked it each day in the main farmhouse or “pumphouse” if I’d wanted, but I chose to leave it behind. It was easy. I sunk into my writing mind and the environment around me instead. I didn’t post one thing, and on the one occasion that I did glance at it, everyone’s updates suddenly seemed so… inconsequential. Petty. Striving for something to say. Striving for connection.

I’m not trying to sound all high and mighty, for it didn’t take me long (at all) to get reengaged, but what I recall here is the feeling of what a complete organism the world of Facebook is, the way it sucks you into it’s chatty, interesting, sometimes political, often apolitical, sometimes passionate, often ironic world, and makes you want to be an active part of it, makes you want to stand out and be noticed, makes you want to be followed and liked.

Sometimes, there’s nothing wrong with this. Being ‘liked’ and otherwise encouraged and patted on the back can feel great, especially after a long and difficult day. But if we come to expect this, or go to Facebook for our “quick fixes” of approval, don’t be surprised if Facebook can then also offer the opposite effect. Ever notice what happens when no one comments or likes what you post? It can be a mild let-down-- whatever, Facebook, it’s not that great, you shrug it away. Our own disappointment or delight is fed in accordance with our own expectations. But our addiction for more “positive fixes” keeps us hungry for more.  If suddenly something you write gets twelve likes and nine comments (or adjust your expectations accordingly here)—wowzas! It makes you kind of perky. People like you. Or like what you have to say. People notice you. Or people want you to notice them. Be their friends. Like them back. It’s middle school all over again.

Have you ever noticed how seeing the red flag of correspondence gives you a little zip of anticipation? And how seeing nothing gives you a mildly deflated kind of blah feeling? Of course, it’s often no coincidence that it’s exactly when you’re feeling blah, that your updates are then blah, and therefore so are your comments. And it’s when your feeling all, “Zippity-do-dah, the world is great, and I just won the Pulitzer!” that people love to give you virtual high fives. It makes me wonder how much we unconsciously (or consciously, for those of us who have thought about it) start to post things that are happier or perkier or somehow easier to “like” because we’ve learned that it elicits a response. For me, I often just don’t feel like posting anything unless I’ve got something particularly funny, exciting, quirky, or poignant to share. Or else, be prepared for silence. Mostly though, I’ve just figured out by now that I mostly only care to actively engage with Facebook (as in post on it) when I’m feeling relatively good about my life. Otherwise, all that chatter on Facebook just starts to depress me. And who wants to be a bummer online?

I know I’m never going to swear it off—the benefits of Facebook and the online world in my life are too great. Beyond the distractive qualities, I find that it can and does actually connect me to people in ways that I wouldn’t otherwise have the time or means to do. As a natural introvert (or perhaps an introverted extrovert), I benefit greatly from this way to know more people. I do end up feeling like a part of a greater community—whether that’s across the world or in my own city or amongst my extended family, other writers, or other parents. I have forged and cultivated real, in-person relationships via Facebook that otherwise wouldn’t have come about.

So call me a diehard fan, and I won’t deny it. But then what are these intense feelings of hatred that Facebook can also evoke in me? I think it comes from the same hunger to connect that draws me to Facebook in the first place. It’s the recognition that no matter how stimulating Facebook might be at times, it can also leave me feeling disappointed, distant, and sad about my lack of real-time, right now, connection. It’s that mild dissatisfaction that almost all of us feel now and then, if not every day, that feeling like, this is it? This is my day? My month? My year? Was there something else I was supposed to be doing with my life? Was there some promise that I made to myself long ago that I’m not fulfilling? When did I forget about how nourishing practices like yoga or sitting meditation can be? When did my husband and I forget that we might actually be able to do some of those important and restorative activities together? Why does it have to be just “my time” (spent writing) and “his time” (spent fishing), and then “our time” sans child, becomes the rare afternoon visit to a pub or the beach, or more like the nightly veg out state on the couch—checking our email and watching T.V.

The ultimate irony is when my husband and I are sitting in the same room at the same time and both on Facebook, and one of us attempts to ‘chat’ with the other or else comments on the other’s post. Sometimes this is humorous, but more often than not, it’s just depressing and a sign that we really need to get offline NOW.

When did we become one of these couples? When we moved to the city? When we had a child? Yes, I could blame it on child rearing, the easiest and most obvious target. But even without children, I think all couples start to sink into these levels of complacency, forgetting all the hard internal work you might have done while you were single and alone, pining for your soul mate, and then sliding comfortably into a lazy space where you don’t push each other to grow—and even more than this, you don’t push yourself to grow as a couple. You do what you can do to keep the peace, stay sane, pay the bills, reward yourself with treats. But couples therapy or retreats? Save that for when the marriage really gets rocky; that’s salvage and reparation time.

Most of all, my husband and I just need more time together. And time that is NOT being interspersed with checking our emails, Facebook, and texts. Because our lives are already marked by a decided shortage of time to do the things we need and want, it is baffling to think of all the time that we both freely give to acquaintances and distant friends online; if we were to add up all of it, I know we would be appalled. I’m quite certain that we give more time to Internet rabbit holes overall than we do to sitting down and chatting about our day. And THAT is truly sad. THAT is what makes me want to institute Facebook or Internet-free moratoriums when together—try for an evening, a weekend, a whole week even! But just as I know my husband would be hard to convince, I know that I too would want to make exceptions. This is called bargaining. This is called an addiction.

So when that familiar feeling of stifled frustration comes over me when I see you sitting there online, and barely looking up to acknowledge my presence walking into the room, I will try to remember that it’s in part my frustration with my own addiction that makes me so resentful of your own. And I will also try to remember that it is in my power to not be angry but simply be honest and forthright.  To tell you what I want and need, even if I feel like I’m repeating myself again and again. And to tell you this because I love you, because I want to be with you, and because it’s our job to keep reminding each other why we are here, together, in the first place.