Everyday Life

Categories Pregnancy

When the Rubber Hits the Road

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Compared to what many women experience in the first trimesters of pregnancy, my pregnancy with Tirzah Mae was easy. No signs of danger until we started rounding the corner from trimester two to three, when I started retaining excess fluid and my blood pressure started rising.

So when people have asked me how the pregnancy is going, my response has been cautious.

This has been a very easy pregnancy. Easier than Tirzah Mae’s. I’ve had virtually no nausea, have had mostly manageable energy levels, have felt baby move from impossibly early weeks.

But early pregnancy is not necessarily a predictor of pregnancy outcome. I know that.

The odds of having preeclampsia as severely as I had the first time? They’re low.

But they were very low the first time too.

I’ve been cautiously optimistic, knowing that the real struggle would come in trimester 3.

And now, as I begin to turn the corner from trimester 2 to trimester 3, the rubber hits the road.

Do I trust God like I say I do, that whatever comes is in His control and is for both my good and His glory? Have I learned the lesson He was teaching last time around, that His grace is sufficient for what He brings, not for the anxieties I’ve been told to cast on Him? Do I really believe that whatever happens, Christ is enough?

This is when the rubber hits the road.

So far, my body is doing well. Weight gain is appropriate; blood pressure remains low; baby is active all.the.time.

My mental state? It varies. Sometimes I’m bawling with terror, other times confident that God has it all in hand. You’d think the terror would be connected to my physical state, but it doesn’t really seem to be. The day it was super hot and I gained a few pounds of water over the course of the day? I was good. It was three days later, after the weather had cooled off and my weight was stable from morning to evening, that I fell apart and spent the morning crying.

It’s an exercise in trust, here in trimester 3 as the rubber hits the road.

But while my mental state goes up and down, one thing is certain these days – I’ve got tennis shoes on my feet.

The combination of weight gain and pregnancy-induced relaxin production means my feet ache from the time I step out of bed in the morning until I fall into bed in the evening – which means I had to run out and grab a new pair of tennies to make it through trimester 3 (My previous tennies were pretty much destroyed by constant use and massive swelling during Tirzah Mae’s super-short third trimester – and I don’t wear tennis shoes unless I absolutely have to, so I didn’t bother to replace them once she was born.)

Pregnancy tennis shoes

I got these pretty white and pink jobbers at the Sports Authority store that’s going out of business – at $30, they mark my most expensive pregnancy clothing purchase thus far.

Categories Book Reviews, Pregnancy

Book Review: Your Pregnancy Week by Week by Glade B. Curtis and Judith Schuler

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The front cover of Your Pregnancy Week by Week proudly announces that it is “The only best-selling guide written by a doctor.” The spine contains a medallion announcing “The only best-selling guide written by a doctor.” The back cover proclaims the book to be “The expanded, fully updated edition of the best-selling pregnancy guide written by a doctor.”

So the major selling point of this book is that it is written by a doctor. Glade Curtis is a board certified OB-GYN, which means he’s the perfect guy to walk a woman through every week of her normal pregnancy, right?

Well, that depends a lot on your view of what pregnancy is. Is pregnancy a medical condition to be monitored and controlled (as you would diabetes or heart disease?) or is it a life event to be cherished and enjoyed (as you would an engagement and preparation for a wedding?)

Curtis (and the obstetric community as a whole) tends to think that pregnancy is a medical condition to be monitored and controlled. As such, Your Pregnancy Week by Week consists of telling a woman all the things that might go wrong with her at any given point during her pregnancy, all the tests which might be necessary to make sure that nothing is going wrong, and why she should trust her doctor implicitly and herself not at all during pregnancy.

Okay, someone not quite as passionate about pregnancy and birth as I am might feel that I’m overreacting to this book. Things can go wrong during pregnancy, they might say. Tests are sometimes necessary. You should be able to trust your doctor. Your own instincts aren’t always right when it comes to pregnancy. And, for that matter – pregnancy isn’t simply a life event like an engagement. Things are happening in your body!

And I agree completely, dear not-so-passionate-about-birth-as-I. Things do go wrong during pregnancy – I, of all people should know. I could have died during my pregnancy with Tirzah Mae. Tests are sometimes necessary – the ultrasounds to make sure Tirzah Mae was still growing when my body was no longer functioning as designed, the blood tests that finally told us that my kidneys and liver had stopped doing their jobs – those were necessary (and without the blood tests indicating the need for delivery both Tirzah Mae and I would have died.) It is incredibly valuable to have a caregiver you can trust – which is why I am SO grateful for my midwife, who was alert to normal pregnancy and knew when to refer when my pregnancy became anything but normal. That’s why I’m SO grateful for my OB, who values women and who works with them to help them have as normal a delivery as possible.

Pregnancy isn’t SIMPLY a life event like an engagement. Your body is changing, your hormones are changing. You’ve got extra blood pumping through your veins, an extra body inside your own. Things are happening to your body that you want to understand. You want to know if those changes are normal or if they’re something to be worried about. In some cases, you NEED to know if they’re normal or if you should be worried about them (ten pounds weight gain in one day – that’s not normal. It’s definitely something to be worried about.)

But Curtis and his co-author aren’t simply helping women understand what is normal and what isn’t. They are detailing, every week, another horrible thing that can go wrong during pregnancy (tacking a line at the end about how really only two in a thousand women are going to have this problem, so don’t worry.)

Curtis explains (week after week) why a woman shouldn’t ever be afraid to get a test or a procedure because they only ever help your doctor and you and your baby (and have never been PROVEN to be harmful – the anti-precautionary principle). And he explains (week after week) why a woman should be afraid to drink caffeine, eat sugar, eat artificial sweeteners, take an over-the-counter drug, etc (because it has never been PROVEN to be safe – the precautionary principle.) The doctor is always right and can do no harm. The woman is always to be doubted and will kill her baby if left to her own devices. (Okay, I’m exagerating a little.)

Oh, and don’t even get me started on the unscientific suggestions Curtis has for labor. He encourages enemas (for the patient’s safety and comfort, of course!), fasting during labor, lying down during labor, and episiotomies. Continuous fetal monitoring is necessary for baby’s safety. And if you aren’t sure you want a natural labor? A doula is a bad idea (well, actually, are you SURE you want a natural labor? If I give you this epidural, then you’ll be so much more comfortable and will be so much easier to monitor and won’t try to move around or anything… big plus? you won’t have to hire a doula!)

Yeah. No.

Choose to have a pregnancy and childbirth not defined by fear. Choose to trust that your body is fearfully and wonderfully made. Choose NOT to read Glade Curtis and Judith Schuler’s Your Pregnancy Week by Week.

Rating: 0 stars
Category: Pregnancy
Synopsis: An overmedicalized, fear-based, doctor-is-always-right tome on pregnancy
Recommendation:If you want to be scared out of your mind by all the things that could go wrong in pregnancy and to be convinced that every intervention your doctor might suggest is absolutely the right decision, you’ll want to read this book. If you prefer to learn what a normal pregnancy looks like, how to deal with the normal problems of pregnancy, and to make evidence-based (versus fear-based) decisions for your pregnancy and childbirth – this is not at all the book for you.

Categories Everyday Life

Happy birthday to me

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I generally take a nap on Sunday afternoons while Daniel is home to take charge of Tirzah Mae.

This week was no exception. After completing a range of household tasks, I took myself off to bed.

I napped a bit, glad for the sleep and woke up to Tirzah Mae awakening from her own nap. I got her up, changed her diaper, fed her afternoon tea.

Daniel was nowhere to be found.

We went to investigate and found him in the garage, clearly hiding something.

Daniel’s work took him rather late into the afternoon, later than our usual dinner time – so, after a quick consultation with him (having warned him that I was going to open the garage door), Tirzah Mae and I started into dinner on our own.

About midway through our meal, Daniel came into the house, instructing me to close my eyes.

When I opened them, he was holding this windchime!

My birthday windchimes

Happy birthday to me!

(I’ve always wanted a windchime, but am not much of a shopper so it’s an item that’s perpetually been on the “buy some day” list. Except not anymore, ’cause Daniel made me one for my birthday!)

Categories Pregnancy

Skirt-Wearing in Pregnancy

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Dressing for pregnancy is hard.

There’s trying to figure out how to adjust to a figure that’s changing on a weekly (no, make that daily) basis. There’s trying to avoid spending too much money on clothing you’ll wear for five months or less. There’s guessing what size you’ll be at what season, and figuring out how to layer to make that outfit you bought for when it’s hot and you’re huge work for now (when it’s chilly and you’re not quite huge yet.) There’s trying to strike just the right balance between comfort and style.

It’s hard.

One thing I’ve found, as a mostly-skirt-wearing-woman, is that skirts are an absolute lifesaver.

My pre-pregnancy pants stopped fitting somewhere around the end of the first trimester – and while I wore them for a little while with zipper unzipped and a belly band covering, it wasn’t long before I needed maternity pants.

Skirts, on the other hand, don’t have that pesky crotch that forces the waistline to a specific place. You can wear them high over the belly (if they’re flowing) or low under the belly (if they’re more fitted or if you find it more comfortable that way.

Wearing a skirt over my bump

Wearing a skirt over my bump

In addition to being easy to wear, skirts are wonderful for a variety of weather. If it’s cold outside, you can always throw a pair of tights, leggings, or pants underneath. If it’s warm, you can go bare-legged and enjoy the breeze.

One extra benefit – if you’re a leaker, you don’t necessarily have to resort to pads around the house. If you leak a little, you can just change your underpants without having to worry about changing your “over”pants as well. (TMI? Maybe. But this is pregnancy we’re talking about here – plenty of potentially embarrassing material to cover.)

Wearing a skirt over my bump, part 2

Check out how high that waist is!

I’ve had to retire a few skirts so far this pregnancy due to length issues (I generally prefer to wear a waisted skirt high over the bump and an elastic-waist skirt low; if the skirt is waisted and short, it gets a little TOO short once it’s over the bump) – but I’ve still got almost a dozen skirts that I’m still wearing, and expect to continue wearing for at least another month or two.

BONUS: My sister-in-law was giving away a strapless maxi-dress and I grabbed it on a whim, thinking it might make a good pregnancy skirt. I’ve been wearing the elasticized part (that’s supposed to go over the breasts) over my bump and and letting the skirt (which is supposed to start just below the breasts) hang just below my bump. It gives me the security of coverage while still letting me have a maxi-skirt. This tip probably only works for tall gals like myself, but I’ve found it to be wonderful.

Maxi dress turned maxi skirt

Maxi-dress turned maxi-skirt

Did you wear skirts during your pregnancy? What are your best tips for overcoming the clothing hurdles of pregnancy?

Categories Faith, Parenting

Happy/Sad. Good/Bad.

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Happy. A little boy wore a gleaming smile to match the word.

Across the page, the same little boy had giant tears rolling down his face to illustrate “sad”.

I turned the page to continue reading to Tirzah Mae, but then stopped short – for the next two words were “good” and “bad”.

After a bit of quick thinking, I told Tirzah Mae that the words were “kind” and “naughty”.

I won’t be buying that particular book for Tirzah Mae, nor will I be checking it out of the library again for her or her siblings.

Good and bad are such loaded words.

In one sense, the illustrations were apt – showing good or bad behaviors. But the rest of the book was describing opposites that modify not behaviors but the child. While each page included only one word, a parent could have “read” the sentence “The child is [insert word].”

“The child is happy.”

“The child is sad.”

“The child is alert.”

“The child is sleepy.”

Tirzah Mae is MESSY.

“Tirzah Mae is messy.”

But when it came to “good” and “bad”?

“The child is good.”

“The child is bad.”

It doesn’t fit my theology.

There is a sense in which every child is good. There is a sense in which every child is bad. But neither have to do with the child’s behavior.

Every child is good in the way that God declared Adam and Eve “very good” after creating them. Every child is created by God and, in some small or large way, reflects God’s image. In that, he is good.

Yet every child is bad, in that every child is born sinful. “No part of [him] is untouched by sin, and therefore no action of [his] is as good as it should be, and consequently nothing in [him] or about [him] ever appears meritorious in God’s eyes.” (J.I. Packer’s definition of total depravity from Concise Theology.) In that, every child is bad.

To suggest that a child is “good” because he engages in kind behavior and that he is “bad” when he engages in unkind behavior undermines both the innate “goodness” and the innate “badness” of a child.

I would not want a child of mine to think that she is only valuable in my eyes when she engages in kind behavior. She is valuable because she is a human, created in the image of God.

I would not want a child of mine to think that she is only bad when she engages in naughty behavior – and to think that by changing her behavior she can change her innate badness.

No, I want my daughter (and our unborn baby and every child who enters our family after that) to know that she is precious because God made her. I want my daughter (and our unborn baby and every child who enters our family after that) to know that she is born a sinner and acts sinfully because it’s who she is.

I pray daily that my daughter would recognize that there is nothing she can do to make herself “good”. Every day, I pray that she would recognize her inability to save herself from her sinfulness. Every day, I pray that she would fall upon the mercy of Christ to make her good.

And I want the words I use to help her to recognize her need for a Savior – not to encourage her to cling to works righteousness.

Am I too picky about words? Are there any common phrases that get your guff?

Categories Everyday Life

Goodbye to Betsy

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Yesterday Tirzah Mae and I drove back to the old house (affectionately named Betsy) for what we’re hoping is one of the last times.

We cleaned the kitchen and bathroom – and gave our realtor keys to the front door.

Tirzah Mae and Mama post-cleaning
Tirzah Mae and her Mama post-cleaning

Lord willing, Betsy will be on the market by the end of the week.

Lord willing, she’ll be sold soon.

She served us well – Daniel for eight years, me for three, Tirzah Mae for one.

She was our newlywed home, the first home either Daniel or I had owned, the home where we started building our family.

And now, as we prepare to expand our family, as we celebrate three years of marriage, as we enjoy the home we built together, we’re ready to hand Betsy over to others.

Will she be home to a single person just starting out (as she was for Daniel)? Or will it be a young couple who moves in? Maybe it’ll be a family (although it’d have to be a small one – she’s just a little house)?

I don’t know what the future holds for Betsy, but I’m glad she was a part of our past – and I wish whoever comes next as much joy in her as we had.

Categories Everyday Life

Thermodynamics and me

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The first law of thermodynamics says that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Practically, this means that when something new takes up a large portion of my energy, something else must give.

Moving, and the process of settling into a new home, takes a massive amount of energy.

Since energy cannot be created or destroyed, the energy for moving and settling must be taken from elsewhere. To minimize damage to my family, my home, and my health, I have chosen to reallocate as little energy as possible from those arenas – meaning that the majority of the energy for moving has been borrowed from reading and from blogging.

The second law of thermodynamics says that entropy (disorder) always increases.

Practically, this means that when attempting to bring order to one aspect of life, other parts fall into disorder.

So as I work to bring order to our new home, all of the habits I’ve worked to establish over the course of many years tend to fall by the wayside.

Yes, I am getting our new home organized – but I struggle with the daily habits that keep a home running smoothly. Picking up toys. Washing and drying and folding the laundry. Making a menu and doing the grocery shopping. Making meals and cleaning up after them. Wiping down the tub after use. Sweeping the floor regularly.

I have kept active – loading and lifting boxes, carrying them up and down stairs. Arranging them in the car and in the garage or basement once I get them to Prairie Elms. But the habit of daily exercise – aerobic, resistance, and flexibility training? This habit has fallen aside. Daily Kegels, pelvic tilts, and squats? Nope. And relaxation exercises in preparation for childbirth. Yeah right.

But as much as the first two laws of thermodynamics have been active in my past month or so, the third has not yet exerted its power.

The third law of thermodynamics says that entropy (disorder) reaches a constant value as the temperature approaches absolute zero.

Thank God that the temperature here is quite a bit higher than that – and that disorder is not anywhere near a constant value.

In fact, it seems we are finding a new equillibrium.

Enough of the house has been moved in that things are starting to feel settled. We’re not constantly asking for some item that’s still at Betsy or hidden away in some still-packed box.

The house is moderately tidy and, most days, my cleaning to-do list is getting done.

I’ve slowly worked my workouts back up, from one set to two to three. I’m back to my previous routine.

And now that my world is slowly returning to a new normal, it’s time to add in those last few items of my previous routine.

Reading.

And blogging.

Old friends forsaken by the laws of thermodynamics.

But I’m resisting, I’m returning. Thermodynamics won’t have the final word.

Temperature’s not at absolute zero quite yet.

Categories Pregnancy, Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday: Prenatal visit

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Thankful Thursday banner

I got a call from my OB’s office as we were traveling back from Lincoln. My OB is on medical leave, the receptionist told me, and would I like to reschedule my first appointment with one of his partners?

Except she had a question first. Are you planning a home birth? Because none of our other providers work with home birth midwives, so… I tried to explain that while we’re hoping for a home birth, we’re also intending to follow with our OB in case a hospital birth is necessary. She was reluctant to reschedule me with another provider, given my home birth hopes. I began to get a little frustrated. “I still need my labs done, don’t I?” “Well, if you’re going to give birth in a hospital, yes.”

Sigh.

I finally convinced her that yes I really did want an appointment with someone and she offered the midwife. Great! I thought. While my OB is the only one in town (to my knowledge) that works with home birth midwives, I am familiar with the practice’s nurse midwife and know that she is pro-physiological childbirth and pro-VBAC and is on friendly terms with my home birth midwife (definitely NOT givens in the large group practice my OB belongs to.)

So when I arrived for today’s appointment, I was thrown off kilter to learn that I hadn’t been scheduled with the nurse midwife but with the nurse PRACTITIONER, an entirely unknown quantity.

This week I’m thankful…

…for good first impressions
I was prepared to tell the nurse that I’m continuing to breastfeed my fourteen month old (oh my – I just realized that Tirzah Mae is as old now as my big sister was when I was born. Crazy.) I was also prepared to face disapproval for that practice.

What I was not prepared for was for the NP to knock on the door while I was breastfeeding Tirzah Mae, to have her insist that I not interrupt “lunch” on her account, and to sympathize with me over how Tirzah Mae’s difficult start meant I had absolutely NO lactational amenorrhea.

She put me right at ease.

…for gentle probing and full acceptance of my right to decline
When I asked that we try doppler to hear baby’s heartbeat rather than doing a ultrasound, she asked if I was afraid of the procedure. I explained that no, I wasn’t but preferred to use the least invasive tests necessary to obtain needed information. She explained that yes she could use Doppler but that the heartbeat might not be detectable at this point. She didn’t want me to be worried, she said.

This made clear to me that she’s used to dealing with normal pregnant women who think the more information they have (as far as prenatal testing goes) the better. But her recognition that the purpose of ultrasound at this point is more for reassuring a mother that everything is fine than for any diagnostic purpose and her willingness to skip that for me encouraged me greatly. (For the record, we didn’t hear a heartbeat on Doppler – but we have no reason to think that all isn’t well with this baby.)

…for a timely reminder
When the NP asked if I had any questions, I couldn’t think of any. But when I got home, a blog post I was reading mentioned the US Preventative Services AHQR EPSS App to help clinicians determine which screenings and preventative services to provide their patients. Medical wonk that I am, I downloaded it and entered my information. And there, under Grade B recommendations was the use of aspirin for prevention of preeclampsia. My OB had mentioned that at a postpartum visit after I’d had Tirzah Mae. I called the NP to ask her advice – and since the reminder had come at just the right time, my case was fresh in her mind and the question easy to answer.

…for prenatal peace
Given what happened in my previous pregnancy and how my previous delivery turned out, it would make sense to be anxious this time around (yes? at least, it would be plenty normal.) But I am at rest with this pregnancy (thus far). Even as I hedge my bets, seeing both my OB (who performed my c-section) and my home-birth midwife, I feel at peace about whatever the outcome may be. God is sovereign over pregnancy and preeclampsia, over care providers and birth settings, over babies living and babies dying. So while I hope and pray for a long pregnancy (Maybe I can get that 41 weeks, 1 day I expected from my first pregnancy?), for an uncomplicated unmedicated home VBAC, for a healthy baby and a healthy me both through and after pregnancy…I am resting in the reality that God knows and God chooses best.

Categories Parenting

My snot-nosed baby

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Since first putting Tirzah Mae in the nursery in August, it feels as though it’s been a constant parade of illness around here.

A little cold that I think might be just allergies except that one of the little girls in my class had been snuffling the day before. A virus that came on suddenly in midday, giving Tirzah Mae and I drippy noses and quickly raw throats – and that lasted 3 weeks. A bout or two of diarrhea (was that just because of her teeth, I wonder, or was it a bug?)

Generally, I’ve felt bad for Tirzah Mae because I’ve been attributing my own pain to her. Her throat has to hurt since mine does. Her ears have got to be uncomfortable because mine are. I’ve empathized in a self-pitying way, reminding myself that it’s no wonder she wants to nurse all.the.live-long.day when her throat hurts like mine does and the only thing that helps is to have a steady stream of warm liquid (that’s not snot) constantly bathing it.

That three-week-long cold? Tirzah Mae started feeling better (for all I can tell) long before I did. In fact, I only just woke up yesterday without my throat on fire.

Yesterday. When Tirzah Mae woke up with a big blob of snot on her face.

I refused to miss Bible study, kept her with me instead of in the nursery. We spent the afternoon cuddling – at least until I had to go to my doctor’s appointment to get a thing-a-ma-jigger removed from my back. She stayed up way later than her normal bedtime (as did her mother).

And she woke me up wailing at midnight.

Except when I went to get her, she wasn’t standing in her crib like she usually does – she was lying on her belly, lifting her head just a few inches off the mattress and then letting it drop back down again.

I fed her, as she snuffled hard through a snot-filled nose.

She fell asleep for a half an hour, woke up again with a muffled cry.

This cry was different, a short mew and then catching her breath.

She wouldn’t breastfeed longer than ten seconds before raising her head and flopping her body over onto my belly. She’d begin the mew again and then a desperate attempt to breathe.

Between patting her back and waving my homemade Vicks Vaporub under her nose and keeping her sitting upright next to me in bed, she managed to breathe easily enough to fall asleep again – so long as I kept her in sitting position and kept the vaporub under her nose and didn’t dare fall asleep myself.

Now my daughter is awake. Completing her morning exercises, the daily exploration of the living room. Except for the heavy mouth-breathing, the crusty eyes, and the snot that I can’t seem to keep off her face, you’d never know what kind of night she had.

And today, my empathy can’t be self-pitying. I may be exhausted, but I am only thankful – thankful that last night’s fears were naught. My daughter breathes, she plays, she explores.

We made it through the night. And, this morning?

She’s beautiful, my snot-nosed baby.

Categories Parenting

One child, fewer theories

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A little over a year ago, I wrote up a post declaring my “side” on the many different parenting decisions for the first year. To quote my introduction, this was so “I can look back years from now and shake my head at how naive and idealistic I was back before I had children.”

Well, now that I’ve had one go-round at the first year, it’s time to see what I’ve done and what I think NOW.

The first days:

I didn’t have a lot of choice about what went on during the first days – between the c-section and Tirzah Mae’s NICU stay, things were mostly done by protocol. I still hold by my theories – but we just didn’t have the opportunity for delayed cord clamping or skin-to-skin this time around (nor did the hospital ask me prior to giving Tirzah Mae her eye drops – even so, while *I* and my midwife know that Tirzah Mae wasn’t going to get chlamydia or gonnorrhea from me, I understand why the hospitals don’t just take a woman’s word for it.)

Diapering

As soon as Tirzah Mae ran out of the one bag of preemie diapers I bought for her when she came home from the hospital, we switched to prefolds and have been using them ever since. We’ve been gifted with covers that we use most of the time (although I have used plastic pants too). We used snappies a lot until Tirzah Mae got diaper rash and I started leaving the cover off around the house – then the pins hold things on much better.

Feeding

Breast or bottle?
I still hate that question. Tirzah Mae has received breastmilk exclusively – initially via a tube into her stomach, then from a bottle, and finally at the breast. Initially, she just got one breastfeeding a day and the rest from a bottle – but we switched around Christmastime (her due date) to breastfeeding ’round the clock with a bottle only before bed for her Vitamin D and iron supplement.

Scheduled feedings or “on demand”?
The hospital enforced scheduled feedings every 3 hours – and it absolutely broke my heart. Even as a preemie, Tirzah Mae gave very clear hunger cues – cues that said she wanted to eat every 2 to 2.5 hours. Once I brought her home, I fed her whenever she gave cues (and continue to do so.) I continue to believe this is nutritionally the best approach to infant feeding (and can be quite doable, especially for a stay-at-home mom).

Vitamin D or no?
Tirzah Mae got drops in her evening bottle until the expressed breastmilk from her hospitalization ran out (sometime in August) At that point, we were going outdoors daily (and I skipped the sunscreen unless we were going to be out longer than 15-20 minutes.) Now that it’s getting cold and we’re not out as much, it’s probably time to start them up again (this time, she doesn’t need them mixed with anything to not spit them out.)

Nursing cover, blanket, or nothing at all?
Still don’t use any hidey devices

Introducing solids?
Adjusting for age made this one difficult. My “no sooner than six months” – is that for corrected or calendar age? Tirzah Mae started eating sometime right around 6 months by the calendar – because she refused to let me eat in peace.

First foods?
The only baby food I’ve purchased is baby oatmeal, which Tirzah Mae ate three servings of. Then she ate table food – we ground it with a handheld baby food mill for about two weeks and she’s been eating it straight from the table (mashed or diced and now in chunks) ever since. I did not introduce one food at a time as originally intended – and I don’t think I ever will.

Weaning from the breast?
Still going strong and no end in sight.

Weaning from the bottle?
I ended up using one, but only infrequently after the first few months – she hasn’t gotten one since the breastmilk from the NICU ran out, and she’s never missed it.

Pacifier?
The NICU never asked, they just started her on one. I’d ask them not to if I were in the situation again – but it didn’t hurt us. She gave it up on her own sometime around six months and we haven’t used it since (even if I’ve tried a couple times in desperation :-P)

Potential allergens?
I’ve been pretty consistent with this one – Tirzah Mae gets the same foods we eat except for honey (until tomorrow!) I have given her bits of cow’s milk with meals over the past month (earlier than the one year I mentioned earlier), but it’s been pretty minimal amounts (and therefore unlikely to damage her kidneys, which is the real concern with early intro of cow’s milk.

Sleep

I REALLY underestimated what my own sleep deprivation would induce me to do in this area!

Cosleeping?
Never in our bed, I said. Ha. That did NOT happen. But we weaned her from our bed and into her crib sometime between 4 and 6 months.

Back or front?
Yep, back to sleep saves babies’ lives – but I never managed to keep Tirzah Mae asleep on her back (until summertime – and then she wanted to be on her back. So weird.

Nursing to sleep?
We still do – and I don’t wake her back up to brush. We brush and do our fluoride drops during the day.

Rocking to sleep?
While I occasionally wish I could just put Tirzah Mae down and have her fall asleep by herself, I generally enjoy our bedtime routine (which, yes, includes breastfeeding and rocking to sleep)

Swaddling?
I didn’t want to rely on this and we haven’t. It was helpful before her due date, but not so much after.

Sleep training/Crying it out?
I still believe sleep training is not for newborns (you’re unlikely to find someone who has actually studied infant sleep who thinks you should.) But I also believe sleep training can be a very loving thing to do. I really will publish that “Loving by Sleep Training” post one of these days – suffice to say that I used a modified version of sleep training on two different occasions and did so because it was the only way I could love my daughter in those circumstances.

Miscellany

Babywearing?
Tummy Time?
Car seats?
I stand by what I said – and I’ve stood by it pretty well this year.

Church nursery?
The NICU really encouraged us to avoid the church nursery until Tirzah Mae was a year old. I held off until I started teaching Sunday School and now she’s in there during Sunday School and my Bible study. She’s with Daniel and I during services. We’ve had two or three colds in the two months since she’s been in the nursery. I think I’m pretty pro keeping little ones with me unless they’re really keeping me from being able to participate (which Tirzah Mae would at this point, with teaching Sunday School and participating in Bible Study.)

So, when theory turns to action, I’m a little more realistic, but I’m still an idealogue. Bring on the next baby (so I can change my mind on more)!