Tag: fourth trimester

Phase two

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My husband is back at work this week. It feels like the end of a chapter – 3 months in, past the harried days and nights of the newborn stage. For weeks, my husband and I took turns holding the baby days and (some) nights while the other tried to “get things done”. Usually things were a shower, cooking a meal, tidying something up. In the mornings, we tag teamed to get the older kids dressed and set up for virtual school or out-the-door for in-person school. He held the baby in the car when I had an appointment. I held the baby in the car while he went into the store to get groceries. We ate lunch together (and if we got take-out, this was also eaten in the car because of COVID). One of us would stay home while the other drove to pick up the older kids. When we were less sleep-deprived, we checked off some items from our to-do list. We also watched movies, TV shoes and read books. We took walks around the neighborhood. I feel very fortunate that he was able to take 3 months off this time. We talked during the day about our kids – adult conversations, something we can’t do when 4 kids are in the house. This hasn’t been the case after every baby’s birth, and I can tell you that the toughest postpartum period for our marriage was when our third was born. He kept working because the baby arrived 2 weeks early and he had some things to wrap up at work. Then, because we had family help, he decided to save his leave for when I returned to work. But it was hard. As the only person who could help me overnight, he would stay up and then be tired for work. I leaned on him to help around the house as well and this was an added responsibility for him. In sum, I am grateful for this time we had together, and also feel a bit sad that we are closing the chapter on our newborn days. But, as my husband would say, “we’ve done it 4 times. I think that’s plenty!” And he is certainly right about that.

So this week, I am adjusting to our new normal. He’s working from home and I’m in charge of getting the kids ready in the morning, driving them to school, tidying up, planning meals and spending time with our littlest one during the day. I, again, feel incredibly fortunate to have this extra time with my baby. I also have to admit that this is the hardest part of maternity leave for me, because I do think there is an imbalance in our marriage when my husband works and I do not. It is especially exacerbated during COVID since I have no alternative social outlet at the moment. I take great pride in my career. I love working with and helping my patients. I respect the trust they have in me and think about them when I’m not at work. I also have amazing colleagues and feel so indebted to them for keeping me safe during my pregnancy and covering my patients while I am out.

As I start planning for my own return, I am having a hard time deciding what to do. I am worried about going back to work during the winter COVID surge, but also feel that it is my duty to do so since I have “sat out” the past few months. I am concerned about committing to a schedule since the kids’ schedule is so up in the air. There are potential quarantines if any of the children or teachers in the classes test positive, and the kids have also had to stay home for a myriad of “symptoms”. Once, my 4 y/o had a temperature of 99 and “was not acting like himself”. Another time, my 6 y/o thought he might have felt a sore throat but it was gone by the time my husband went to pick him up. He still had to come home and get a COVID test (it was negative). Yet another time we quarantined at home for 14 days because our 2 year old was exposed outdoors to someone who later tested positive for COVID. I very much appreciate how cautious the school is – so far they have had no COVID cases – but it also throws quite a wrench in any plans to work as I so hate having to cancel patient appointments. So, basically, I am now having to deal with COVID reality for working parents. I have had a reprieve during leave and it was immensely helpful during the start of this crazy school year, but now I find myself incapable of being decisive on what 2021 should look like.

For now, I am trying my best to set up some sort of schedule for my remaining days at home while mulling over the return-to-work possibilities in my mind. I am enjoying these last few weeks of snuggles because this is our last baby. Maternity leave seems like a slow uncoupling, in preparation of returning to work. First, there is the full immersion in your newborn – he is held in arms all night, worn in slings or carriers all day, nose to sweet-smelling newborn head. I am there for every minute of his day – obsessing over details like wet diapers, hours of sleep, when he last nursed and on and on. Slowly, there is a move towards (relative) independence. Trying to get him to sleep on his own at night. Working on a morning schedule – now so that he can join me on the car ride to drop off his brothers and later so that I can feed him before heading into work. Soon I will have our nanny hold him for longer stretches so that he can get used to her and her to him. We’ll try a bottle while I pump (we have never followed the “introduce a bottle early” rule with our infants. I know it’s not recommended but so far we have not had issues and it honestly just seems like more work). Maybe I’ll run an errand without him, leaving him home with my husband. And that’s how we’ll transition from spending almost 24 hours joined together to my being away during the day. Again, I am fortunate: I work full-time, but my hours aren’t terribly long. I don’t have to be separated from him at night. I have the option of doing some of my work from home. Despite this, it is clear that this next phase is bringing me closer, day-by-day, to being away from him for longer stretches of time. And even though it is a choice, it is still hard.

Maternity leave in review

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In two days I’ll return to work after my third maternity leave. That’s one job, three pregnancies, three maternity leaves and three “first days back at work”. My first post on this blog was about returning to work after my second was born (see October 2016 archives) and now here we are again! In honor of this occasion, I wanted to spend some time (kid naps allowing) to reflect on the past few weeks.

This maternity leave started earlier than planned when my contractions started the morning after my last day of work. I had been expecting at least a few days (if not weeks!) of extra time to wrap things up, but baby had other plans. I subsequently spent the first 3-4 weeks wrapping up work. I know that sounds really terrible, but it was actually okay. Everyone knows that newborns don’t sleep, so it gave me something to do in the wee hours of the night, and it was something that would definitely prevent me from dozing off with the baby. I am also fortunate to have a lot of support staff and they helped me make phone calls to patients (since that’s not something that can be done in the middle of the night!).

My husband didn’t take his paternity leave right away, so it was a bit of a whirlwind. Even though we had family helping out, if I had to do it again I would ask him to take a few weeks off in the very beginning. It would have been immensely helpful to have a bit more overnight help those first few weeks and I would have probably been able to take some daytime naps without the baby! It seemed pretty stressful for him to work while so sleep-deprived and this definitely led to more bickering than usual. Fortunately, things improved with time (and sleep!).

We briefly had a night nurse helping us out…until she fell asleep holding the baby. I couldn’t believe it. As my husband always says “why are people so bad at their jobs? You have one job – learn how to do it right!” So I guess another thing I would do differently is not hire a night nanny. Yes, it was helpful to have someone hold the baby for a few hours overnight, but I did enjoy doing the bulk of evenings since so much baby bonding happens during that time. I also found that I didn’t rest easy when she was over, perhaps because I was worried about the above. Fortunately, our little guy persevered and now his sleep isn’t as atrocious (although it is definitely nowhere near ideal for having to go back to work!).

My older kiddos have done really well with their new little brother. Toddler Y (our middle child) had a tough time those first few days, but now he is sweet as pie. One of our major challenges when I return to work will be carving out individual time for all three kids. Right now, the older kiddos have independent activities on Saturday mornings, and I plan to build onto that time.

One of the highlights of maternity leave was seeing a lot of family. My mom spent a few weeks with us right before and after Baby Z was born – not quite as long as the last time, but just the right amount of time during the hardest days. We also had both of our families visit on separate occasions and I was able to visit home twice (the last time for 3 weeks!) during maternity leave. The kids have a blast around family, so it was so nice to see everyone on multiple occasions.

Another highlight was meeting an awesome group of moms with kiddos around Baby Z’s age. I have excellent mom friends whom I met shortly after my first was born. Some had second babies so I didn’t feel the need to branch out much with Toddler Y. But this time around I knew that Baby Z would need some baby buddies and went out of my way to meet people. Well, this group of moms is just awesome, and it’s been great getting to know them.

On an organizational front, I did a TON around the house. I cleaned out the whole attic, donated and threw out a bunch of items from all throughout our home (trying to get a head start on minimalism for 2019!), made headway on two home improvement projects we have been working on, had the guest room painted, reorganized the guest room/soon-to-be Baby Z nursery, cleaned out the entire shed and organized all of the kitchen drawers. I gave away a ton of baby things we no longer needed, worked on Baby Z’s scrapbook and first-year album and also researched and toured a slew of private schools in the area. I did much of this with the baby strapped to my chest, but needed a bit of assistance for the manual labor.

Of course, the highlight of maternity leave was the hours upon hours I got to spend with Baby Z. I wore him almost constantly in a sling (now carrier) during the daytime hours. He often slept in bed with me overnight (not necessarily by choice, but we made sure the bed was as safe as possible for infant sleep) and he accompanied me to appointments, a handful of work meetings and a slew of errands. He’s an excellent eater, and I will forever be grateful to my employer for allowing me to have all of this time with him.

When I return to work, he will be about 4.5 months old. I know international readers will balk at how little that is. However, having had all of my children in the US, I feel so incredibly fortunately to have had 4.5 months of paid maternity leave, as well as the assurance that my position is stable. When I return, I’ll be able to set time aside as I wish to pump and to adjust my schedule as needed to make this year as manageable as can be. In fact, I’m returning part-time this month, and I am so very grateful to be able to rev up gradually.

I will always be sad about leaving my baby. What will it be like for him to not be strapped to my chest all day? (Honestly, probably not as bad as it will be for me!) I will worry incessantly about something going wrong while he is out of my care and I will miss his little noises and tiny fingers and sweet smile. I will stress out trying to give everyone attention in the few hours we have before work and after work/before bed. But I have faith that it will all be okay. Not easy, but okay.

Many moons ago, when I was obsessing about going back to work vs not going back to work (not really an option for me at the time but an interesting hypothetical argument) and then obsessing about daycare vs nanny, the one thing that stuck with me was reading that kids will thrive with a decision as long as the parents are happy with that decision. So I always focus on the positive aspects of my job and the positive aspects of their relationships with other caregivers.

I also have this to get me through: my older kids are alright. They’re happy little clams, in preschool now. My oldest is four. If we repeat his life cycle 4 more times, he’ll be twenty – an adult! In other words: time flies. As my children have grown, I’ve had (some) opportunity to think about who I am independent on them, how my husband and I interact independent of them, what I will do once they leave. Yes, I am not very far in and they are still very, very small and very, very dependent, but there are snippets of time when these opportunities for thought arise. When they have arisen, I have always been very happy to be working. This is what has worked and been okay for me, but it may not be the best case scenario for anyone else, and that’s okay too.

So in less than 48 hours, I’ll be waking up and changing out of my pajamas first thing. I’ll put on make-up, grown-up clothes, triple check my bags to make sure I have my work things plus my pump things, and then I’ll leave my sweet little baby behind. First I’ll have to convince my older kids (who have been out of school for three weeks!) that getting dressed and leaving the house early is also a good idea. I am not sure which of those feats will be harder! And in a few weeks time, doing this will be the new normal, and these lovely (and hard) maternity leave days will be a distant memory!

The Blob Trimester: Baby’s Z’s 1st 3 months

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As my youngest (baby Z) is one week shy of 4 months, I find myself fondly reflecting on the fourth trimester haze. If you are not familiar with the term “fourth trimester”, it is common terminology for the first 3 postpartum months. Due to human anatomy and the limitations of the birth canal, human babies are born neurologically premature. Thus my rationale for (very affectionately) calling my newborn a blob.

Let’s put it this way: newborns would never survive in the wild. They can’t hold their heads up, they can’t make meaningful movements with their arms and legs, they can barely see, and they are easily surprised. They can only communicate via crying and they spend a great majority of their days sleeping, drinking milk, peeing and pooing. This is one reason why the fourth trimester is so challenging for new parents: you are suddenly in charge of keeping a small, defenseless human alive. No pressure!

Prety daunting, huh? Couple this with the fact that new parents are chronically sleep-deprived (newflash: babies don’t know the difference between day and night, so you may find yourself pulling a lot of all-nighters), moms are experiencing a hormonal hailstorm (why does everything make me cry? why am I suddenly so angry at my husband? why am I so worried about every damn thing?) and everything you previously knew about yourself has gone out the window (so long hobbies, singular focus on career, social life). Given all of the above, we might as well also call this time period the sob trimester.

Never fear, however. Between 3-4 months, everything gets easier. Yes, there are still challenges (hello 4 month sleep regression!), but your little blob has turned into a reciprocal mini-human who tracks your movements, produces wide-toothed smiles and even cackles with laughter, which makes the experience much more rewarding.

For the sake of preserving my own memories, here’s a recap of Baby Z’s first 3 months:

  • Birth: By far the best of three (third time’s the charm!). Baby X was induced and we barely made it to the hospital with Baby Y. For Baby Z, we went to the hospital as soon as contractions started and were told to walk around until they intensified. We did this for quite some time, even coming home to shower and re-pack, so by the time we returned to the hospital, it was go-time but not baby’s-about-to-fall-out time. I was able to get an epidural (thank you, modern medicine), labor peacefully and when it came time to push, he was out after basically 3 pushes with no tearing involved.
  • Sleep: We purchased a Snoo for this guy, but I wasn’t quite comfortable having him sleep in it from day one. The rocking seemed a bit intense for me and I capped it (there is a function where you can limit the motion) and have kept it as such to this day. In the beginning, he honestly mostly slept in bed with me (my husband would supervise so I didn’t roll on him) and we also lay him down in the Snoo (without turning it on) or put him in the Rock n Play (which he honestly never liked very much and also isn’t safe for unsupervised sleep). We hired a weekend night nanny for those first rough nights and she fell asleep holding the baby on the third night she worked for us! As my husband would say: WTF? YOU HAVE ONE JOB!!! That was pretty traumatic, but baby was okay and we gently told her we were no longer in need of a night nanny. I have to be honest: the sleep was pretty rough early on. He would spend a few hours up each night and I often had no idea what to do with him around 2-5am. My husband was also saving his paternity leave so I tried not to bother him since he had to work the next day. It was pretty intense. I tried to establish an early bedtime for him, but he went to sleep around 11p for a long time! Just recently (close to/when he hit 3 months), he started falling asleep around 9. Early on, he would be up cluster-feeding for quite a few hours (e.g. 8p-11p/12a) but more recently he would do a longer stretch, waking up either at 1a or 3a. So most nights he’ll wake up 1-2 times. The first nap was also the first to fall into place, as it usually does. It’s the one I can actually set him down “drowsy but awake” for! At the moment, we are traveling (good-bye Snoo!) and have him in a Pack n Play. I have to say that he’s not loving it. Last night, he was up every 2 hours, and spent the bulk of the night in bed with me. I’m not sure if this is a Snoo transition issue, a travel/change of environment issue, or the start of the 4 month sleep regression, but I don’t like it.
  • Temperament: When we first brought him home, we were a bit concerned he would be colicky like Baby X. Turns out he was just a normal newborn who wanted to be held, cuddled and carried pretty much all day. With every need attended to/preempted, he’s happy as a peach. He likes tummy time, mat time, play time (songs and the occasional book when he gets his own) and of course still loves when we tote him around all day. So far, he’s a happy, go-lucky baby who can also entertain himself independently (for now, this mostly involves staring at something in the distance).
  • Feeding: Baby Z latched pretty easily. I had one of the nurses remind me of the appropriate position when they are little blobs and can’t hold up their heads, but he quickly got the hang of it. I don’t have him on any particular schedule at the moment. He should technically be eating every 3-4 hours, but sometimes it’s less. Of all the baby things, nursing has always been fairly easy for me. Yes, it was always painful in the beginning. I enrolled in a lactation class prior to the birth of my first, worked with lactation consultants in the hospital the first two times, and also had private lactation consultant visits after the first two were born. These steps allowed me to feel more comfortable nursing. And yes, I worried ALL all of the time whether they were getting enough to eat, especially my first. Was he colicky because he was hungry? Were those tears of starvation? Did he want to nurse all of the time because he wasn’t getting enough milk? I also always pumped just enough and was worried each time about how pumping at work would turn out. Yet I was able to nurse the first two for 15 months and pumped until they were 11 months, using up my freezer stash for months 12 and 13. We’ll see what happens with this guy. I’m a bit worried because I had 187 oz and 300 oz of milk saved up for my first and second, respectively, when I went back to work, but currently have only 55 oz with only a few weeks to go (poor third child!). But I am telling myself that the freezer stash really only helped me to stop pumping a bit earlier, so it isn’t the end of the world that his is so limited. After all, every lactation consultant I’ve spoken with has said you only need enough milk for your first day back (and this is true).
  • Developmental milestones: Baby Z was quick to roll from tummy to back. I know I sound like a delusional mom saying this, but he was doing it month one and still does it to this day. He’s flailing his arms around and kicking his legs much more now. He sees well, follows you around with his eyes, smiles and laughs, has coo-ing conversations, and has started to grip things and bring them to his mouth. Actually, everything is starting to wind up in his mouth – his hands, the carrier strap, teething toys, etc. He can also reach out with his hands to swipe things hanging above him on his playmat or on one of his chairs. His neck is pretty strong and I will often place him forward-facing in the carrier (if it’s not naptime) because he likes to observe the world. He’s actually starting to show interest in food already, which seems early to me, but I’m looking forward to introducing solids.

I honestly can’t believe he’s almost 4 months and am definitely patting myself on the back for getting through those tough first few months. Work is just around the corner (a story for another day), but I feel very fortunate to have had this time with him.