Room For More?

In a given day, I have added up I do about 8-10 feedings totaling 6-8 hours, and I pump for about 2 hours total a day.  This means I still work full-time being a mom just in feeding alone.  It is going faster as baby's throat/swallowing is getting better and so we are finally able to drink four ounces at a time, but we are still eating about every three hours.  This week my business partner and I for my private practice are planning a big move to the Fishers/Castleton area for the summer and to renew our yearly partnership agreement.  In thinking about returning to work at the school in August, being a mom with full-time activities of feeding, changing, and not sleeping, the thought of expanding a business is either going to be through God's blessing or the universe aligning in a miraculous way, so that I can work two jobs, be a mother and a wife, manage a home, and still do my hair and shower every day???  

Tomorrow we brainstorm my long-term goal of moving over to private practice and the marketing campaign it will take to make that endeavor a reality.  While my heart races with excitement, my body and brain is still struggling to make it through the day without OD'ing on caffeine.  I want so badly for this practice to work, but I also know I have a secure job waiting for me when the school year starts.  I want a job where I can be a mother for Kaylie, but also be true to my passions in the clinical field.  I felt like God was calling me to have my own practice, but the timing of everything is coming down to the wire, and the safe decision is to just go back to my full-time job in community mental health. I am constantly praying, "do I play it safe with an easy 8-3 job or do I take a leap in a job where I have over double the earning potential in half the time, but I don't have clients yet??"

I have two hearts: one of service to the poor but the other to do work with clients who are driven to make life change through the art and skill of psychotherapuetic techniques, not just life skills.  I want people to go deeper in therapy than proper routine, family rules, and a discipline technique.  I want to talk about attachment, bonding, play therapy, family genograms, emotionally-focused couples work, Imago therapy, filial therapy.... the stuff I went to school for.  I know what I love, but I also know God has blessed me with the skills to serve the poor communities in the city where kids often find therapy as their only emotional support. 

Can I do both?  Do I really have room for that much more?  While I was pregnant, I had one private client a week and a full time job and I was fried.  Now that she's here, I don't even shower and I'm not working either... How will I do all this?  What will I do?   What is God's plan for my life as a mother and therapist?  Can I really fit all this in or will I have to give something up?  Will I give up my dream or give up my security? 

I am not sure what to do but I have until August to truly decide.  Maybe there is a way to make it all work but I need one of those cute postcards from heaven that give me clear direction (you know what I am talking about... doesn't God send you direct and clear messages about the best choices to make??:) )  Yeah, I know.  I think sometimes discernment is an art form that I have yet to master.  So now starts a season of prayer in between learning how to be a mom, I will either make a dream come true or put it on a shelf.  So much of it will be up to the big man upstairs, but I want to be open to whatever that looks like for my life. 

I am doing ok

As I sit in my over-sized PJ's watching Kaylie sleep on the couch next to me, I've been trying to figure out if I have been doing ok, trying to figure out if I got this mom business down yet.  There are times she cries and I try the list of things and I am not sure if I got it.  My house is still quite messy and I haven't put on make up in two days.  Yesterday, I didn't even brush my teeth until Chris got home.  After another night of three hours of sleep, an hour feed, and then three hours of sleep/wake intervals, I am tired, but feeling ok.  The new normal... and I am getting better at it.  I feel more confident most days.  I cooked dinner yesterday and I haven't cried in two weeks.  She's making milestones, eating better, and we have a routine (as much as a 6 week old baby can have a routine).  We are planning things on the calendar from baby dedications, dad's knee surgery, and visits to family in Michigan and Chicago.  I have my inventory of diapers, wipes, and formula.  But like my usual self, I needed an extra pat on the back of assurance.  I know it's just a dumb commercial, but my eyes welled up... It was what I needed, so I thought I would share it with my mommy friends:

A Tiger-Striped Fanny Pack

While I was pregnant, I knew people kept saying, "Gosh, you're huge" or "oh my, when are you due?".  When I would respond, they were usually shaking their heads because I had blown up so much.  When my family and close friends saw me week after week, their eyes continued to grow with how large I was becoming.  I felt large, too.  My stomach felt like it was maxed out by month 6, but it continued to grow and grow.  I remember feeling like my belly button was going to rip open.  By the time Kaylie arrived on Feb 2nd (apparently 3 weeks early to their calculations), I did not know how I was going to get any bigger.  I knew the recovery would be hard.

Five weeks after birth and my C-section, I am trying to get used to the new reality of my body.  I saw these posts about calling them "tiger stripes" and it's helped accept what's going on.  The scars that my daughter has given me have forever changed my body, forever changed who makes up "Kerrie".  Kind of like her forever changing my life even though she's only been in it for less than a year.  The dramatic change of my body truly reflects  my heart, my journey into motherhood.  Scars have a funny way of being reminders of things.  A scar on my wrist from when Chris and I went to Target and a stubbornly wanted to get a box in the cart that was too heavy for me.  A scar on my knee from falling off my bike at five and one of my forehead for itching off one of my chicken pox.  I have a scar on my hand after surgery from a cyst from years of spraining my wrists from falling in soccer and a scar on my belly button from two surgeries for Endometriosis.  I've never quite had so many scars all at one time, but my life has never changed so much as it has been lately....

Now comes the on-going task of getting my body back a little bit.  With a C-section, added to the stripeds comes this sewn-in fanny pack of left over skin.  I feel like a Biggest Loser contestant where they weight dropped faster than the skin could catch up.  At first it dramatically got smaller as the swelling went down, but the last week or two it has plateaued.  I am trying to get geared up for the workouts and training to come when I am cleared in 12 days to workout again.  Again, I am looking at a body change that I've never dealt with before.  My weight loss journeys before have been for 10 pounds in college drinking or 10 pounds in grad school carb-loading.  

I think the hardest thing for me is accepting I am moving on to a new phase. In body and in life, the changes of having a baby don't stop after they start.  After having two full nights of sleep with the help of my in-laws, and I think my brain is finally working again, I am realizing and seeing now that all of this is real and really happening.  The first month has been a bit of a blur.  I've been so worried about feeding and her gaining weight, that I haven't really reflected about how much my life has truly changed.  And while each day seems a little easier, and definitely each week seems easier and easier, it's crazy to think there is no going backward.  Just like my body will always have these scars and likely always have some changes due to having a baby.  

My mom always said, "you can't compare yourself to other people, Kerrie" and for now, I really need to remember that as I try to start losing weight and getting a figure back.  I won't return to the pre-mommy figure and my hip and bust will be larger than before.  I might drop the fanny pack, but I will probably have my tiger stripes.  I won't be like my friends who haven't had kids yet, they haven't earned their stripes.  I might even lose enough weight to look better than I did before like a few of my mommy friends have done, but I won't be who I was.  My life has moved on to a new place, another stop in the journey of life.  As I start to move forward, I have to recognize where I have been.  Over 200 pounds the scale read just 5 weeks ago (Edema is a bitch....).  And while I got my wedding rings back on Friday for the first time since the beginning of December, I have to get motivated for months of repairative body work.   One this is clear to me: I can only go forward there is no going back.  No matter how much Maderma and Palmers I slap on each day, she has changed me.  But I am not ruined, I have earned my stripes...  

What Day is it?

6pm on a Friday night.  I am still in my pajamas from last night, pumping my breasts for the fourth time today, and thankful Chris and his parents are home to hold KK.  It's the first time today for a prolonged period of time since 11pm last night that I don't have to hold the baby.  Not that I don't love to hold her, but I am still getting used to not doing things on my time.  I am still getting used to leaving things half done: vacuumed but left the vacuum out, half dishes done, laundry got through the washer but needs the dryer...  My hair's a mess, my face is dry, and I have never looked more unattractive in my life.  Tomorrow marks 5 weeks with Baby Squiggles, and I see clearly now why you get a paid maternity leave in most jobs.  Having a baby has been so life changing and I never truly was able to imagine how different things would be.  I used to have a schedule by the minute from 6:30am until 11pm, but now every move I make is dependent on her needs.

Today, I got the best delivery, a MOBY wrap.  I say that in capitals because after I figured out the somewhat complicated tying of it, I was transported into another universe of motherhood.  I had HANDS again... actually, I had ARMS again.  My dear friend, Robyn, had no idea what I needed for KK as she lives in NY but she took a change and ordered this wrap.  I heard they were good but I did little research.  Between reading about breastfeeding, pumping, posterior tongue ties, and all the other stuff I've been reading about, I didn't think about this wrap.  So when it came in the mail today (while I was in the midst of pumping the second time), I sat down and tried to read the instructions (luckily there are pictures too).

Never in my life have I been so willing to "just try anything if it works". I have always done things my way and by my understanding, and it has been so humbling to try so many things another way.  This wrap was revolutionary to me.  The baby instantly stopped crying and went limp in it.  She was like "I'm home mommy" and fell asleep.  Then, I vacuumed, cleaned the kitchen, dusted, and wrote thank you notes.  It sounds silly and simple, but when you're home all alone for 9 hours a day with a newborn, having access to two hands at one time is a rarity.

All I know is that in the midst of the messiness that is now me, I have some amazing people in my life who think for me and help me when I feel like every hand, arm and brain cell is tied up with infant care.  As I wrote a few thank you notes today, I realized just how lucky I am to have had so many women welcome me into motherhood with such support whether they are mothers or not.  The wisdom of other women has been my informal "village to raise a child" and I am pretty sure that's why the phrase came about.

Being a mom is hard work, the hardest work I've ever done because it's not about me, my time, my goals, or my schedule.  The pay out was after her nap next to me, she looks up and for about three seconds smiles a cute little smile before she cries for dinner and has a giant diaper filled with a half day's worth of ... well, you know.  We are figuring this out, step by step, and day by day.. Well, I am almost done pumping... maybe I can get a shower in and put on clean clothes :)