Making Concessions

Last week I wrote about night laundry.  Our dryer had broken, so even though it’s February I was hanging laundry on the line to dry.  The weather was clear and mild.  I was putting laundry on the line in the evening either while Nathan was watching Levi or after they’d both gone to bed.  I was excited to be saving electricity – good for the planet and our bank account. I loved the winter fresh smell when our laundry came in, and the whitening power of sunlight.

And then it rained.  I couldn’t hang the laundry outside. I ran out of room to hang laundry inside. I ran out of fitted cloth diapers because they were so slow to dry indoors.  (I pulled some prefolds out of storage to tide us over) Nathan took a second look at the dryer and discovered a small connection had been missed.  Voila! We had a dryer again. Hanging laundry outside works when the weather is clear at the times I have available to go hang it outside and we’re not expecting rain or snow before I’ll have time to bring it in again. So I’m making  concessions.  The diapers are in the dryer; the load of whites are out on the line.  I’ll take it ‘one load at a time’ and do what’s necessary to keep us all clean and dry.

The other concession I’ve had to make lately is in the area of sleep and night weaning.  Levi was a great sleeper until a growth spurt, teething, and the time change collided on the same weekend when he was 6 months old.  He was up every couple hours all night long.  To preserve our sanity, Levi started sleeping in bed with Nathan & I so that he could nurse as needed through the night while I at least rested.  3 months of this came and went.  I was supposed to go on-call in late February. Nathan could manage to distract Levi with solids and a bottle during the day, but if I got called out to a birth and Nathan had to feed Levi in the middle of the night – that would be a whole different matter.  I made the decision to night-wean, and Levi would go back to sleeping in his crib next to our bed.  I would hold, rock, bounce, jiggle, and sing to him as needed – but no milk. And no bed-sharing either because then Levi gets desperate looking for the milk.  Not that he’s hungry, he mostly likes to twiddle and play.  Let me tell you – that’s a little distracting to sleep through!  It’s been going reasonably well.  He’s still awake a few times a night.  If it’s a good night I can pat his bottom and he’s back to sleep. On the hard nights I’m up bouncing him multiple times. I said from the beginning that if he cried or was obviously hungry then *of course* I would feed him. That hasn’t happened… until this weekend.  Thursday he slept from 10:30pm to 6:30am.  I was overjoyed.  I thought we’d finally turned the sleep corner.  Yeah right.  Friday night he nursed to sleep at 10:15 but woke up for more milk just as I was going to lay him down.  He went to bed at 11, I came to bed at 11:30, he was up at 12:30.  I patted him back to sleep.  12:40 he woke up;  I patted him back to sleep.  12:50 he woke up;  I patted him back to sleep.  1:00am he woke up; I finally get out of bed to bounce him back to sleep – that usually works in less than 5 minutes.  Not this time.  After 45 minutes of trying, Nathan got up to take a turn while I rested.  After 45 minutes of Nathan trying it was my turn again. It’s now 2:30 in the morning.  I really get desperate and turn the tv on to watch a movie in the hope he’ll be mesmerized to sleep.  Not the healthiest choice I know, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  Uh huh.  That didn’t work either.  By now it’s 3am and Levi is wide awake and irritable.  As am I.  I manage to find a moment of clarity though in which I realize the only reason I was night-weaning was because of going on-call in March.  I’m not on-call after all.  Forget it then!  Let’s feed this kid some milk and call it a night.  3:30am I tuck him into his crib and burrow down for a few good hours myself.  You guessed it.  4:30am he’s awake again.  But it’s okay.  This time he’s just coming to bed with me.  I don’t go on-call again until the end of April.  By then he’ll be pretty much a year old and Nathan won’t have to mess with defrosting breastmilk to feed him.  Let’s just go to sleep.

I had been determined to hold firm.  On using the laundry line, on night-weaning, on so many things.  But life is too complex to hold firm.  Sometimes you have to make concessions, let go, change your mind.  For sanity’s sake.

Night Laundry

I've noticed lately that it's been taking our dryer longer and longer to get things dry.  An average size load takes over two hours, and sometimes even that isn't enough.  We mostly line dry in the summer, but it's February.  Seriously?!  What kind of nut line dries in February?  Apparently me.

Our dryer died this week, the same day our electricity bill arrived: 

5 kilowat hours/day during On-Peak time

5 kilowat hours/day during Mid-Peak time

33 kilowat hours/day duing Off-Peak time.

Yes, it's great that we've managed to arrange our lives so that over 75% of our electricity usage is during the lowest-cost Off-Peak period.  But 33 kW?!  That's a lot of electricity compared to the rest of the day.  The main thing we do during Off-Peak hours is laundry, especially drying.

I put two and two together (broken dryer we can't really afford to replace + electricity bill which shows the dryer is our biggest energy hog) and decided that we'd try going without a dryer.

11pm laundry under a skiff of snow.

What can I say?  I'm frugal.  It does take a bit more time, but so far it hasn't been too much of an inconvenience.  I wash one medium load of laundry in the evening, hang it on the line for overnight through till the next day sometime, then bring it in and hang it on a rack under a furnace vent in the basement to finish.  I do the same with a small load of diapers each night.  If its snowing or raining, clothes go directly to the indoor rack.  If we are due for a multi-day stretch of clear weather, then I do towels & bedding. Strictly speaking the outdoor step isn't necessary, but it makes our clothes smell great (winter fresh!) and it allows me to have multiple loads going at once.

I thought I'd hate it.  I thought I didn't have time. I thought only crazy environmental frugalistas line-dried in the dead of winter. Nathan immediately dismantled the whole thing to find what was broken and repair it if possible.  When it started blowing the breaker each time we tried using it, he was willing to buy a replacement (used) dryer by the end of the week if needed.  But if we don't have a dryer, we can't use it, and that means a lower electricity bill.  Yep, I'm that kinda crazy.

Their story is not my story

As a doula I attended births right up until I was 34 weeks pregnant.  I needed to sit more, eat more, and take more frequent bathroom breaks, but other than that it felt normal.  Thankfully no one was due during that exhausting and nauseating first trimester.

During my pregnancy I had the opportunity to work with local midwives quite a bit, and felt like I was really developing a professional rapport with them. I was busier than I had ever been as a birth doula and I turned down as many births as I attended. Some of the last births I attended before giving birth to Levi were intense, but thankfully the very last birth I attended was a calm and beautiful homebirth. Either way - positive or negative - I reminded myself often that 'their birth story is not my birth story'.  I wanted to remain open to whatever our story was going to be, and not spend my last days of pregnancy wondering if my birth would be just like those of the women I knew.  Our story would be our story, with its own struggles, wonders, and discoveries.

I haven't been at a birth since April 2011.  I've done some private childbirth education in the meantime, brewed up some herbal infusions, creams, and tinctures, and even helped catch 10 miniature goldendoodle puppies last week.  None of those carry with them the same pressures and joys as a birth though.

I go on-call a week today for my first 'post-Levi' clients, and may have a second couple due around the same time.  I've never been this kind of nervous about attending births.  I love it.  I miss it.  I believe that what I do makes a significant difference in the lives of women, babies, and their families. I'm looking forward to providing doula care once again.  And yet, I'm nervous - that Levi won't cope well without me;  that my family won't cope well with a potentially hungry & unhappy Levi. The sort of things any mother returning to work is nervous about I think.

I tell myself that I could just wait - refer clients out to other fabulous doulas in the area and take more time with Levi before returning to birth work.  But I know myself.  I know there will always be a reason for me not to do it, even though I want to do it, so I may as well jump in now as later.

I know that the nervous butterflies aren't ever going to leave me now.  No matter where I am, or what I'm doing - thoughts of Levi will flit about the edges of my consciousness, and even wiggle their way to the forefront of my mind.  I'll see the sweat and effort of a mother pushing her baby into the world, and remember what those final moments before Levi emerged were like. I'll see a new baby and remember how it felt to hold Levi the first time.  I'll help a new mother bring her baby to the breast, and my own body will remind me that Levi hasn't nursed for a while.

Their story is not my story.... and yet they are the same story: struggle and emergence; joy and heartache; becoming and loving.... All women who have carried life within, even for a brief moment; all women who have wished and prayed and hoped for that spark within to take life but haven't yet had it catch, share this story.  
We each have our own story, and we're all part of the same story.

In going back to births, I feel like I'm journeying into something that is both comfortingly familiar, and scarily unknown. Only time will tell how it all unfolds.

Where Did My Mind Go?

I forgot a rather important task at work last week.  I was supposed to pick up the Annual Reports from the local printers so they could be distributed on Sunday.  At 10:30pm Saturday night I realized I hadn't done it.  Don't get me wrong - I love being a mother - and please don't be offended if you're one of those moms who has it all together - but I kinda feel like becoming a mom has made me 'stoopid'.

There is so much more whirring around in my brain now, and less sleep, and I can't resort to caffeine or ginseng to keep me alert....  Just when I'm about to return that phone call, Levi needs a diaper change.  When I'm about to place that order of herbal supplies, Levi needs to eat. When I'm supposed to pick up the report at the printer, Levi falls asleep in the carseat so I opt to drive straight home so as not to disturb him - completely forgetting that I was supposed to stop at the printers on the way home from a client meeting. And on it goes.  I've heard that being a mother doesn't actually make you stoopid - your brain just re-prioritizes what information is important and mother-baby stuff trumps everything else. I think I'm gonna stick with that theory.  ;) It makes me feel better.