Mini midwife

Ellen, a local midwife, held a NRP skills role playing session today. For childcare, I had Kes at a playdate and D with a sitter who only had room for him, and Eliana was home from school due to today being a furlough day. (Yes, as in no school and the teachers not getting paid kind of furlough.) So, I took her with me to neonatal resuscitation role playing at Ellen's - brought books and activities. She didn't end up using any of them, since Ellen let her play in her son's room. Elly joined us at lunch, and then didn't want to leave once we started role playing again. First, she sat on laps and watched, then inched closer until I had to tell her she needed to back up out of everyone's way.

Elly: "I want to help, can I do something, Mom?"
Me: "No, because the student midwives need to practice how to help babies who are born needing some help to breathe at first."

The next role-played scenario involved a baby who was ready to go back to mom while mom was close to passing out, so I nudged the student who was holding the baby (looking a bit like she would rather be helping mom), and pointed to Elly:
"Dad can hold the baby while you help tend to Mom."
Eliana held the uglyscaryfetusdoll and utterly beamed.

After the next role playing scenario, she asked if she could help again, and I repeated myself.
E: "When you guys are done practicing, can you do a birth where the baby is okay, and then can I help?"

So, that's how NRP practice ended. I told her to receive the baby and hand baby to the Mom, and that she could then listen to the baby's heartbeat, which was going to be just great. That's exactly what she did. It was absolutely adorable, if I do say so myself.

All boy

Society's pretty funny. Not just ours, either, but the nature of the beast of culture. The perfect paradox: culture is, on the one hand, this external construct, partially arbitrary, partially linked to our environment. On the other hand, culture is biologically mandated; our hard-wired biology for behavior is incomplete, and we need culture to help round out our behavioral patterns.

So, gender. Boys and girls are different. Sooooooo different. But gender is a cultural construct. When Donovan runs around like a wild animal, says "vroom", or attaches to my breast like it's an oxygen tank in a vacuum, he's "all boy." And these "all boy" parts of him seem to be ALL anyone else wants to see in him. And since he's my first boy, lots of parents of boys seem to think this must be the first time I've experienced these "boy" qualities (and to tell me how to handle them or what I'm in for in the future).

Not so. Eliana remains a wild animal, and was just as avid a nurser (until my pregnancy with Kes intervened). Kes LOVED planes, trains, and automobiles. Nobody seems to hear me when I say I've seen this before.

Similarly, no one wants to hear that Donovan loves shoes and pretty fabrics. Or that he cuddles dolls with more tenderness than Eliana ever did (she had zero interest in dolls until Kes was old enough to insist that's what they were going to play together). Or that he loves to brush his hair in the mirror. And if they do listen, and sometimes in my own mind, what I hear back is, "Well, it's okay if he's gay." Yep, it is, but is it not okay to be male, straight, and feminine?

But I'll say it loud and I'll say it proud, my boy is all boy: he loves trucks, boobs, frogs, shiny pretty clothes, dolls, and kisses, and all that is my all boy.

Sick

Being sick and on call sucks. It is probably my least favorite thing about being on call - the feeling that I could miss a birth. When I was a doula for hospital births, it was always about letting the moms down - I was to be the only person in a professional role who would stay with them the entire birth, so my presence was extremely important. In the apprentice role, they probably hardly miss me if at all - they'll be attended consistently by midwives whom they know as well as they know me, won't feel anything lacking in my absence, and even if outside of labor they might think, "I like Megan a lot and really want her at my birth," chances are in the moment they'll be too busy to care. But now, I need the births... and not just the numbers to check off to graduate and take my licensing exam. I need the learning experiences that births offer, whether they go completely smoothly or have complications; every experience becomes integrated into my knowledge of how to manage someone's labor - or to sit back and let it unfold beautifully on its own.

It's sort of like a wedding: I remember feeling sad when getting regrets on my wedding invitations, but then didn't notice the absence of any of the people who couldn't make it - I was too busy having the experience of the night with the people who were able to make it. But now, when I have to send regrets regarding other people's weddings, I think that night how I wish I were there, knowing full well that while they may wish I had been able to make it, they're too busy to miss me at all!

So, I sit here knowing that if someone goes into labor while I'm sick, she'll hardly notice my absence, and that my preceptors would forgive me my humanity (they don't want babies getting sick either), but that it would be one miraculous and instructive experience less in my repertoire.

Please, nobody go into labor.

Note to self

When operating on 3 hours of sleep, do not fall asleep accidentally with D at 6pm. It will not end well.

Nuh. Uh.

My best friend from college just showed up in my email inbox. I'm shaking with both excitement and apprehension - for years after college I tried to keep in touch with decreasing success and finally gave up probably about a year ago. I still care so much about her and think about her frequently, wish she was still in my life, and am afraid that this will not turn into knowing each other again, or that it will but then will stop. She is one of my favorite people. It's worth a try. I'm hopeful.

Cute, cute, and cute

Eliana: "Holy sakes, Mom, I love you so much it's even more than you love me!"
Kesenia: "Mimi, on Mother's day, can we please go to Whole Foods Market to buy you some flowers?"
Donovan: refusing to use the tightly clenched spoon to feed himself ice cream, used his paci instead.

Colloquialisms

Tonight Eliana was doing online math flashcards, sitting on my lap. The assignment was 0-20 addition or subtraction, and after she finished it, she wanted to do x2 multiplication. The first problem that came up was 9x2. I said, "Oh, they're starting with a hard one." She turns around, looks at me with this expression that I was being ridiculous, and waved me off. The "oh, it's NOTHING" hand gesture. Where did she learn that?

Then, a few problems in, she accidentally typed a 5 instead of a 6 for 2x3 and pressed enter before she noticed. She burst into tears, and as I asked her why she was crying since nobody was ever going to see her answers and she and I knew she knew the answer, she suddenly pulled herself together, smiled, and said, "Don't make a cheesecake out of a cheese crumb."

Thank you, Geronimo Stilton.

I'm pretty impressed that she read a figure of speech in a book and not only applied it correctly but that it actually made her feel better!

Nightmare

I dreamt last night that my iPhone didn't ring when my preceptors called me! They were ticked! (The iPhone not ringing is actually a pretty rational thing to dream about... the ticked off part is the funny part, since they'd really say, "Oh yeah, my iPhone does that too," whenever I noticed the voicemail or if they called back b/c it was urgent. We know our crazy iPhones...)