Everything I know about parenting, I learned from my daughter

I had some serious postpartum issues with Daphne. I can't guarantee that hormones won't try to make my life miserable this time, but I can say for sure that I learned a few things the first time around that will definitely be different with this baby.

1. Scheduling. I had read a lot of books by the time I had Daphne. Without a doubt, the worst was "On Becoming Babywise" by Gary Ezzo. What I remember most about this book is its emphasis on getting your baby to sleep through the night. While I definitely agree that sleeping through the night is a necessary goal, this book places a lot of emphasis on enforcing a schedule or else the child will never lead an organized life. It basically implies that if you do it the way they tell you, there's no reason that your child won't be sleeping through the night after a few short weeks.

Do you know when my daughter finally slept through the night? After I forcibly weaned her from that final middle-of-the-night bottle when she was about ten months old.

You read that right. Except for the one night Ken took over and the night my mom spent the night with us to give me a break, I did not get a full night's sleep (or more than four hours at a time) for the better part of a year.

This even though I did exactly what the book said. And it was awful.

For example, the book says that babies should not ever nurse to sleep. If they do, they'll not be able to calm themselves from wakefulness into sleep alone. They say to feed the baby and then keep it awake for an hour or two before putting it down for a nap. If your baby starts to fall asleep while feeding, you are supposed to do everything you can to try to keep it awake, and the one thing I remember doing exactly one time and feeling like a creep then never trying again was to take off Daphne's clothes and rub her skin with a cold washcloth. It made us both cry.

You are supposed to keep a schedule, like a robot, ignoring the cues of your child and forcing them onto a feeding, playing, sleeping schedule that works for you. Well, I'm sorry, but as a clear-thinking older adult who now has some experience with infants, I see that you really can't force a newborn to do anything. They're creatures of need and demand and expediency. They do what they need. Just as we are told to listen to our bodies and not eat when we're not hungry, or to stop eating when we're full, babies do this and can thrive.

I spent so much time fighting and setting alarms and worrying that I was doing it wrong, and why my kid wasn't sleeping six hours a stretch when her month-younger cousin was that I absolutely failed to relax and rest myself, and this was a huge factor in my postpartum stress.

Oddly enough, what shook me out of this stress mode was something a server at the Cheesecake Factory said in passing. We'd met some out of town friends for lunch and Daphne, several weeks old, was sleeping in my arms. The waitress asked me how I was doing, and I said, "I'm really tired!" She said, "Welcome to the new normal."

This made me feel better, for some reason. She was not promising a time when it would be less stressful if only I would do this plan. She was saying, "This is how it is now. Embrace it." And she was right.

(Also adding to the stress of her not sleeping through the night was that after Daphne was two months old, we lived in a residential treatment home with six teenaged boys, and I hated to think that she would wake them up with her crying. That's obviously not going to be an issue this time.)

2. Stimulation. If Daphne woke up wanting to feed any time after 5:00 AM, I'd just stay up for the morning until she went back to sleep. I'd drowsily feed her, then felt like I needed to do something to engage her, like talk or sing or make faces. I sang the alphabet and pointed to parts of my face to name them, etc. And I was exhausted. Now I realize that babies are CONSTANTLY stimulated because everything is new. If I wake up at 5 AM with this baby, and all I want to do is hold it and lay my head on the couch for a while while the baby looks around, that's plenty of stimulation. It's all information going into a tiny head, and I don't have to force it. Oh, but I felt like every moment had to be rich with meaning and purpose. Bleh.

3. Breast-feeding, diapering, sleeping, responding to needs, etc. This is all a personal matter, but people outside of me and my family have extremely pointed and vocal views on how to handle all of them. I was especially surprised to see how militant the La Leche League was about insisting that I breastfeed. Don't get me wrong: I wanted to breastfeed. It is ideal, both in terms of health and cost. But Daphne was tongue-tied and couldn't latch on. I didn't realize this until after three miserable days of trying to get her to nurse and her being mad and groggy and finally starting to lose weight and become jaundiced. When someone suggested that I try to give her a bottle and see if that helped, as she started sucking that stuff down, I felt a wave of relief come over me. I could tell the breast-feeding didn't seem to be going well, but I didn't know why. And once she finally started gaining sustenance, she was obviously happier and healthier. I was very grateful.

When I mentioned this during a follow-up (from the hospital) call that the La Leche League gave me several weeks after Daphne was born, they said that I needed to stop bottle-feeding her immediately and get her back onto the breast at once. Never mind that she'd never actually been *on* the breast. They told me that they even had coaches who had experience with tongue-tied feeding, and they could send someone over to help me until I got into the swing of things.

Frankly, I was tired. I didn't want an "expert" barging into my house and showing me how to undo the wrong I'd done out of desperation. But they insisted that if I didn't want a sick baby, this was what I had to do.

At my next pediatrician's visit (doesn't it seem like you're in the doctor's office every other day with a newborn?), I asked him about this. He asked me a couple of questions in return. He asked, "Is your baby eating?" Yes. "Is she gaining weight?" Yes, finally. "Does she appear to be thriving?" Yes. "Then I don't care what exactly you're doing, as long as it works."

Again, freedom.

I appreciate good advice, but I won't be bullied into feeling guilty that I can't attain some perfect version of eco-friendly, crunchy-granola, attachment-parenthood. I will do what works for my family, and I will make no apologies.

For what it's worth, my daughter has barely been ill ever in her life, save that 6-month stretch when we lived at Boys Town and she caught every bug that the boys brought home from school. So I'm thinking that the formula foundation didn't ruin her.

4. Labor and delivery. Oh, my goodness. My experience actually having a baby was ridiculous. First, I went to a female doctor I really liked, but after three visits was informed by my insurance that they were changing providers and that doctor was no longer authorized. I sadly transferred to another office, one where I had the typical 10:00 AM appointment that actually started at 11:15 and ended at 11:18. Toward the end of the pregnancy, I had dutifully created a birth plan, which, to his credit, the doctor read through. But he asked why I didn't want drugs that were specifically designed to help certain things. And he said that since this was my first child, I'd probably have to have an episiotomy. Sigh.

My water broke while my sister and I were looking at model houses, trying to get my parents to move to our side of town in Las Vegas. We went back to my house to get things in order, send the dog to a friend's house, pack our bags, etc. I didn't start having contractions until after I'd taken a shower. When they came on, they were intensely painful, which I suppose is kind of the normal labor experience. My sister called the hospital to tell them that I was having contractions, and they told her something she didn't tell me, which was that they didn't have any beds for me at the time so that I needed not to come in yet. They suggested I walk around the neighborhood until I couldn't. Well, I couldn't. At all. So we headed to the hospital.

At the check-in desk, the nurses told me what my sister wouldn't which was that there was no place for me to go yet, so they had me fill out the paperwork and go into the waiting room to sit. The waiting room was full of people who were not pregnant, and the television was on pretty loud. The Goldfish crackers jingle was on, and as I sat there with my head in my hands listening to "This is the jingle for Goldfish... the tiny snack that smiles back until you bite their heads off..." I seriously wanted to throw an axe at the television screen.

I walked back to the nurse's station and asked if I had to stay there or if I was free to leave and go to a different hospital. They said, "You don't have to stay, but we recommend you don't leave. If you go into labor in the parking lot..." shrug. Blank stare. Murderous rage.

I slowly headed back to the waiting room when a particularly painful contraction hit. I squatted down on the floor to wait for it to pass. While I was down there, a lady walked by and asked me if I was okay. I told her that no, I was not okay, that I was in labor and in pain and they were making me sit in the waiting area. She told me to hold on and she'd be right back. Somehow, she found a bed, rolled it into a linen closet, and told me that I could go in there to be alone, if that would be better. It was. I welcomed the dark, and the quiet.

Every half our or so, someone would come check on me. At some point, I suppose, a room opened up. I was lying there, very still, focusing on breathing and keeping my muscles loose when a nurse came in to move me. She remarked to another nurse, "Oh, look. She's sleeping. That's good."

Again, I wanted to punch her. Sleeping?! How could anyone sleep through that?! I was WORKING. Rrgh.

The next few hours are a blur of pain and focus and finally getting an epidural, which I loved at the time. After that, my legs were really shaky, but the only way I knew I was having a contraction was that it showed up on the monitor.

The one very awesome spotlight in an otherwise frustrating hospital experience was my delivery nurse. First of all, my doctor wasn't the one on call. His partner was. I was happy about that. I told him that the doctor and I had agreed on several things (this was a lie) including no episiotomy. "Is this your first?" he asked. Two other nurses asked the same thing. I didn't want to be cut! I wanted to be left alone. No pitosin drip. Nothing to speed or slow anything. And the only person who listened to me was this one angel nurse. She came in and talked to me for about three or four hours, massaging me and, well, stretching me so I'd be able to deliver without any surgical intervention.

At some point, she said, "I should call the doctor. You're close... But we'll wait a few more minutes." When she finally did call the doctor, I pushed maybe three times and that was it. Boom. Baby born. I really appreciated that woman. She was awesome.

Here's the part that's kind of sad. I had felt no pain in a few hours. I didn't really feel any strain in pushing, and I didn't feel Daphne being born. I didn't have any endorphins kick in after she was delivered. I felt detached and insulated from the entire process. As much as I loved the epidural at the time, now I think it kept me separated from a moment in which I'd been more participatory.

But it was good. Healthy baby. After an hour or so, she was taken to the nursery - No vitamin K shot, please! - and I was escorted to the restroom. I was left there long enough that I fell asleep on the toilet, if you must know, because they'd asked me not to try to walk back to the bed until someone came to help me.

I was wheeled into my "recovery" room, which I didn't know existed. I had been given a tour months ago, during which they showed off the amazing labor and delivery room. They neglected to mention that I'd spend the following hours in a "semi"-"private" room.

My first roommate was a lady with a colicky baby. I was exhausted and as much as I'd thought I'd want Daphne in the room with me, I fell asleep before the nurse came back, so Daphne ended up spending the hours between about 2:00 AM until 6:00 AM in the nursery.

After she was brought to my room, I was visited by a La Leche League lady who showed me how to get her into position, etc. I pulled my curtain to try on my own, and found that the curtain didn't close all the way. The nurse had told me that they were moving the crybaby to a separate room, and I got a new roomie. Quieter, but she had a very big family. So I would sit there in my bed next to the door, trying to get my new baby to latch onto my breast, and some affable Hispanic man would walk in. We'd make awkward eye contact, and he'd bow into the other half of the room. Over and over. Sometimes ladies. But mostly men.

My sister came to visit me. My mom came by after work. It was lonely and I hated it. I wanted to go home.

When I needed to use the restroom, I'd have to walk across and through the literally half-dozen to ten people sitting around the other bed. I knew I had blood all down the back of my gown. The restroom didn't have a vent. I'd turn on the shower, the sink, and flush the toilet all at the same time just to drown out the noise of me doing my business three feet away from a bunch of strangers. This happened two or three times that day, and it was humiliating.

I wanted to leave, so I wanted the staff to see how healthy and strong I was. I picked Daphne up and walked into the hall to get some exercise. Immediately, nurses yelled at me that I could not carry my daughter. She had to be in the crib, and I could push her. Seriously? Whatever. So Daphne and I did laps around the nurses' station. I told them I wanted to go home. They told me that I'd already been released but that Daphne needed to be seen by the pediatrician, and he wouldn't be there until after his office hours.

By the end of the day, the pediatrician had had a busy one and decided not to make his hospital run. I suppose I threw a minor fit. He did eventually come by at about 7:30 PM and said that Daphne could go home after she'd urinated. Well, as 9:00 PM approached, she still hadn't. Obviously now I see that's because she hadn't gotten to drink enough.

Taking matters into my own desperate hands, I took my "personal cleansing bottle" and squirted what I thought was "enough" liquid into her diaper. She'd already done the other thing. I told the nurse, and she took the diaper with her somewhere... I was terrified that they were going to send it to some lab to analyze the contents, and then sue me for hospital fraud or something. I guess that they were just weighing it.

Whatever. At 9:00ish, we were both released and got to go home. I was so relieved. Even with the stress and being overwhelmed by having a new baby... I was grateful to be home, and able to decide to walk with my baby or to go to the bathroom in private.

I never wanted to have another kid, but I immediately decided that if I ever did get pregnant again, I would have a midwife. So far, this experience is awesome. When I first started calling people last year when I was pregnant, I qualified myself by saying that I was probably high-risk because of my back and the fact that I was "too old" to have a baby. The midwife I chose said, "Ehh, the medical community might tell you you're too old, but if you're pregnant, then you're not too old to have a baby."

When I've gone in for testing, she tells me, "Listen to your body. It knows what you need to eat. It knows when you need sleep. Do what it says." This is so much better than, "Try to keep your first trimester weight gain to x pounds." Etc.

I already paid the midwife for everything, up to and including the delivery and four post-natal visits. What I paid her is $900 cheaper than 9 months' of insurance premiums would cost me. And I get to walk a block up a hill when I'm in labor, then after I have the baby, I get to walk a block home. I get to deliver so close to home, without having to clean or prepare my place for the delivery. I get to give birth in a big old bedroom, with a birthing pool, and a birthing stool, and a yoga ball. I get to choose my position and who I want there, and they really don't want me hanging around too long after the birth, as long as everything is okay.

What's also cool is that the 48-hour check-up and the 5-day check-up she will do at my house (which might be more impressive if I lived further away from the office!), then I go see her at 2 weeks and I think 8 weeks.

But a midwife facilitates a birth that works for us. She guides me when I want or need it, and otherwise gets out of the way and lets me have a baby. That's amazing to me.

There are probably a lot of other things I learned with Daphne that I will do differently, but those are the ones that will help my stress level most. Cost-wise, I've decided to go with cloth diapers just because the buying of diapers over and over again is such a drain. But that probably won't eliminate any stress. Just expense.

There are other differences, too. Like, I'm not looking at starting a new job two months after I have this baby. We're in a financially secure place. I have an older kid to talk to even when I don't see other grown-ups during the day. I have an attentive and enthusiastic partner. I am grateful for all of these things.

And even given my stressful first-time parenting experience, I'm actually looking forward to it!