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May. 1st, 2005 07:45 pmEvery time Alex nurses, she stimulates the production of oxytocin in my body. Oxytocin has been helping me recover from childbirth, slowing the postpartum bleeding and shrinking my uterus. It also stimulates maternal behavior and pair-bonding. It's one of the many biological mechanisms designed to prevent me from killing or abandoning her.
I've been noticing that a lot, lately - the overwhelming biology of motherhood. The way her cry zeroes right in on the deepest panic buttons in my brain, so that it actually hurts me physically. The way that her scent is one of the most satisfying things I have ever experienced. The way that my love for this tiny, helpless, infuriating thing overpowers me, even when it makes no sense at all. I know that we've both been designed for this. Her features are what my brain finds maximally cute and appealing: the broad forehead, the large, wide-set eyes. She stimulates oxytocin in me, and I feed it back to her in my breast milk, so that we'll both fall deeply into that pair-bonding drive. It's a finely orchestrated system. It's amazing.
The other night, Alex had what we have tentatively identified as an overtired fit. She started crying, interspersed with episodes of frantic, choppy, and unsatisfying nursing, around 8:30pm. She would calm briefly, and then get hysterical again - waving her little arms and legs, stiffening her back, and yelling. (Already, "yelling" is different from her pain-and-distress cry, which is at least helpful.) None of the things that are supposed to calm her down worked for long. She kept indicating that she wanted to eat, and then pulling away or biting or otherwise sabotaging nursing. I finally got her to sleep at 1am, using a combination of methods that hadn't worked earlier in the evening: tight swaddling, further pinning-down by my body, and pacifier sucking. I was a wreck. A complete wreck.
I woke her up at 4am that night to nurse. She snuggled up to me happily, skin against skin. She didn't cry when I changed her diaper, which is usually a big point of outrage. She nursed deeply and efficiently, and when I swaddled her and put her back into bed she took a few sucks on her pacifier and fell peacefully asleep. It was as if the earlier episode had never happened. But here's the thing: not just for her and her limited newborn memory, but for me. I held her close at 4am, breathing in her scent and feeling her warm little body curled into my breast, and I just had not the slightest bit of resentment - or even lingering unhappiness - for the trauma that had me in tears a few hours earlier.
Don't tell me that's not biological.
On the Alex front: she weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces at the lactation clinic yesterday, so she continues to gain an ounce a day. The lactation specialist told me I could stop setting the alarm to nurse her at night - and so, last night, I got to sleep from midnight to 5am. (Did you ever hear of anything so luxurious?)
Alex is actually - and here I cross my fingers - pretty easy at night, these days. She's caught on to the general idea that nighttime is when we sleep. We nurse, and then I swaddle her, put her into the cosleeper, stick her pacifier in her mouth, drape one hand over her little body for reassurance,[1] and go to sleep. And she lets me. She sucks for a while, and then drifts off herself. Words cannot express how good it is to be able to put her down while she's still awake. That's not something we've mastered during the day, but she really gets it at night. For now.
In other Alex news, she likes riding in the car, is kind of unsure about the sling and the stroller, and hates baths with a fiery passion. She has been to her first committee meeting, at which she was exceptionally well-behaved. She tries to latch on to everything in the world that's either vaguely nipple-shaped, or smells like milk - including my bra, various non-nipple portions of my breast, and her Papa's nose. She looks like a little puffball after we wash her hair.
My hormones tell me that she's perfect.
[1] It reassures both of us. She likes knowing that Mama is right there, and I like knowing that she's still alive even though she's being quiet.
I've been noticing that a lot, lately - the overwhelming biology of motherhood. The way her cry zeroes right in on the deepest panic buttons in my brain, so that it actually hurts me physically. The way that her scent is one of the most satisfying things I have ever experienced. The way that my love for this tiny, helpless, infuriating thing overpowers me, even when it makes no sense at all. I know that we've both been designed for this. Her features are what my brain finds maximally cute and appealing: the broad forehead, the large, wide-set eyes. She stimulates oxytocin in me, and I feed it back to her in my breast milk, so that we'll both fall deeply into that pair-bonding drive. It's a finely orchestrated system. It's amazing.
The other night, Alex had what we have tentatively identified as an overtired fit. She started crying, interspersed with episodes of frantic, choppy, and unsatisfying nursing, around 8:30pm. She would calm briefly, and then get hysterical again - waving her little arms and legs, stiffening her back, and yelling. (Already, "yelling" is different from her pain-and-distress cry, which is at least helpful.) None of the things that are supposed to calm her down worked for long. She kept indicating that she wanted to eat, and then pulling away or biting or otherwise sabotaging nursing. I finally got her to sleep at 1am, using a combination of methods that hadn't worked earlier in the evening: tight swaddling, further pinning-down by my body, and pacifier sucking. I was a wreck. A complete wreck.
I woke her up at 4am that night to nurse. She snuggled up to me happily, skin against skin. She didn't cry when I changed her diaper, which is usually a big point of outrage. She nursed deeply and efficiently, and when I swaddled her and put her back into bed she took a few sucks on her pacifier and fell peacefully asleep. It was as if the earlier episode had never happened. But here's the thing: not just for her and her limited newborn memory, but for me. I held her close at 4am, breathing in her scent and feeling her warm little body curled into my breast, and I just had not the slightest bit of resentment - or even lingering unhappiness - for the trauma that had me in tears a few hours earlier.
Don't tell me that's not biological.
On the Alex front: she weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces at the lactation clinic yesterday, so she continues to gain an ounce a day. The lactation specialist told me I could stop setting the alarm to nurse her at night - and so, last night, I got to sleep from midnight to 5am. (Did you ever hear of anything so luxurious?)
Alex is actually - and here I cross my fingers - pretty easy at night, these days. She's caught on to the general idea that nighttime is when we sleep. We nurse, and then I swaddle her, put her into the cosleeper, stick her pacifier in her mouth, drape one hand over her little body for reassurance,[1] and go to sleep. And she lets me. She sucks for a while, and then drifts off herself. Words cannot express how good it is to be able to put her down while she's still awake. That's not something we've mastered during the day, but she really gets it at night. For now.
In other Alex news, she likes riding in the car, is kind of unsure about the sling and the stroller, and hates baths with a fiery passion. She has been to her first committee meeting, at which she was exceptionally well-behaved. She tries to latch on to everything in the world that's either vaguely nipple-shaped, or smells like milk - including my bra, various non-nipple portions of my breast, and her Papa's nose. She looks like a little puffball after we wash her hair.
My hormones tell me that she's perfect.
[1] It reassures both of us. She likes knowing that Mama is right there, and I like knowing that she's still alive even though she's being quiet.
