Espen Insomniac

My baby is apparently going through what they call a "sleep regression".  I only quote this because I was forced to run to the interwebs for some kind of explanation after the second night of Espen waking after 4 hours of sleep and screaming inconsolably for 3 hours. That was over a week ago.  Repeat performances have continued, yea, increased, in intensity and frequency every day since then.

Naps are a thing of the past.  It is breath-taking how quickly a tiny human can go from having two regular 1-2 hour naps every day to NADA...or at the very best, 30 minutes whilst strapped in the Ergo Baby after being awake for 6 hours straight. (Normal length of time between waking and first nap was MAX 3 hours heretofore)

Whereas before this descenrt into waking purgatory commenced, my baby was remarkably coordinated, accurate, and sunny, he has transformed into a stumbling, erratic, emotional tornado. He has retained some of his earlier developmental quirks, such as crawling with his wooden ball in one hand, which produces the peg-leg-crawler phenomenon. Think bi-polar pirate.  He yaarrrghs, gnashes his two teeth, howls, and flails around yowling baby profanity to anyone who is within earshot.  He's your best friend one minute and your mortal enemy the next.

Internet wisdom informs me that this is due to his brain going at warp 9 in a mad attempt to connect dendrites flapping about in his baby brain.  I firmly expect to wake up one of these mornings to Espen standing by my side asking me for breakfast in Danish.  Of course, this could take anywhere from 2 to 6 weeks to be completed, but it'll be worth it.

Only thing is, it's pretty sad to see tired babies lurching about drunkenly, unable to just sleep despite all efforts and attempts to induce some shut-eye.  Espen gets this sort of crazed, red-rimmed glaze in his eyes that seems to say, "Sleepy....must...close....OHMYGOODNESSLOOKATTHATMIRROR!!!....sooo tired.....AAAAAA!!!MAKINGSOUNDSLIKEMOM!!!" It's fairly tragic.

Granted, there are some small upsides to this desert of sleeplessness.  One is that he now sits still long enough to read him books.  Another is that he now tolerates cuddles.  Still further, is the fact that he has become deeply needful of being in Tobias' and my presence at all times. By that I mean, he wants to be held NOW MOM. MORE.  Sweet baby.

I haven't been this tired in a real long time. It's like a second go at having a newborn.

Having a baby, this baby, is like being addicted to Bikram Yoga. For those of you who don't know what this is, it's doing yoga in 110 degrees for 90 minutes.  At any point in time, you inevitably ask yourself, "WHY am I doing this at 6am?!"  And then you look down and realize you're touching parts of your feet you could never EVER reach in a normally heated world.  You sweat like a pig, get way more flexible than you'd normally be, and come back for more the next day, even though you feel like you've just had all the electrolytes sucked out of your body by salt vampires.  You do it because it makes you feel high in a natural, self-induced kind of way.

Ahhhh, conscious insomnia and exhaustion. Is there anything better?

Even so, for Espen's sake, I hope he finds his way to verbal expression, walking, or whatever Major Development he's working on, real soon.  Everyone knows that being sleep deprived is just as influential as being intoxicated.  I am just glad he's so close to the ground and relatively spongy.  In the meantime, it's Ergo babies and grandparents to the rescue for those moments when Tobias and I have used all the tricks in our bag and the Pirate Child is still knocking back the rum and yelling out drinking songs at the top of his lungs at 3 am.

Twas the night before the night before Christmas and in a new house...

At 10 pm all was silent, except for Espen Mouse. He, for the nebenefit of all beings everywhere, was howling up a storm.  This was no passing squall. No. This was Hurricane Wesp.  For the next three hours he wept, he moaned, he screamed, he screeched.  The Bear would not be pacified by rocking nor milk.  He was not to be distracted by calm pacing or quiet songs. Only gale force emotional winds would do.  When he finally collapsed against Tobias around 1am, it was due to sheer exhaustion instead of a peaceful surrender to sleep.

How did all this transpire? Well.  The holidays bring out the best and worst in all of us.  

This year, we decided to switch up the old standard of Christmas at the Farm and head to The Dalles to spend Yule with Jackie and Sean and Mom and Dad.  Sunshine and rivers instead of rain and forests seemed like a move in the enlightened direction.

Wesp thought so too, until it was time for bed.  This baby loves new things.  He loves new people.  He will stay up all night so he doesn't miss anything.  We learned this on a whole new level last night.  

Now he knows all the folks here, so it wasn't the quality of exposure to new people that sent him into mental meltdown, rather, I suspect, it was the quantity.  

He is used to spending the bulk of his days with me or Tobias and having limited stints of exciting interactions with the world.  His routine is very established.  

And suddenly, out of nowhere, BAMO! Aunties! Uncles! Grandparents! Dogs! Packages everywhere! Sparkly things hanging from the sky!  WHOA.  

So I get how it might be difficult to stay asleep.  Now.  I get it now, after a sleepless night reminiscent of his newborn days.  I'll admit, I may have gotten somewhat cocky about my baby's flexibility.  It's easy enough to do when you have a predictable schedule in place and then decide to change up something minor like, say, pushing nap time back a half hour. 

Ok. I may have gotten somewhat cocky about MY flexibility.  

Things that I wouldn't have thought about before became flashing beacons of warning.  Televisions for example. We don't have one. Apparently I've become hypersensitive to the noise levels on Espen's behalf and can only hear the screaming children, the raccous laughter, and the backfire of cars in Christmas classics like A Christmas Story.  Even Christmas music. No Manheim Steamroller thank you.  Perhaps some Silver Bells, but only very quietly please.  

I may have contracted some Holiday Neurosis.  But this is not about me. This is about the fact that my baby cried for three hours straight last night and I'm keen to find a reason WHY. WHY OH WHY. 

We may never know, but in the end, we all fell into a grateful sleep, which, though not nearly long enough in the grand illusion of Relaxing Holidays, was still sleep. 

Now my dearest Christmas wish can be summed up in an old yule hymn.  

Silent Night

Holy Night 

All is calm

All is bright. 

Yes please.  If not, well, at least I have an adorable baby, sleep deprived or not.

Merry Christmas- My Baby's On Fire

We are nearing the nine month mark now and Espen has generated enough energy to launch himself out of the earth's orbit and into outer space.  On the back of his red rubber pony.  This was apparently supposed to be a secret until lift off, but I happened upon him in one of the final test launches and discovered his plan.  You can see that this clearly was NOT in his master scheme.  

Needless to say, the only course of action I could take at that point, was to get him sleepy on Thanksgiving turkey and let the tryptophan do the rest.  

Regardless of my attempts to keep his feet on the ground, at least until his first birthday, The Bear already had his helmet picked out and had his eyes fixed on the heavens.  There is no stopping that boy when he sets his mind on something. Or somewhere.  The photo he sent us of the moonscape was eerily familiar and I could only wonder if this child is actually a tiny, adorable alien sent to us from a place much like earth, to help us remember how to truly live life.

He makes sounds these days... Baa, baa BAP, daaa daaa daaaaap, that could just as easily be communication with the Mother Ship as pre-verbal practice sessions. He also loves nothing more than gazing with rapture at Christmas Lights and ooooohhhing, and ohhhhhhhhhhhhhing at them as if they are communicating special messages to him as he careens around the house trying to coax the cat off her perches by shrieking at her and burbling as he approaches.  Cats, apparently, do not exist in the same form on planet .  It is a good thing our floors are tile because the speed at which he crawls could easily catch a hardwood or carpeted floor on fire.

Other clues that he may spontaneously combust and reveal his true celestial nature are:
1. He hates being changed because it requires him to be still and lie on his back for FAR to long.
2. He abhors large bodies of water, like swimming pools.  Hates. Them.
3. He screams at being put into his car seat unless he is very sleepy or distracted by something. (apparently the long ride here was too much for him to want to make a repeat voyage to the mother planet, even at warp speed)
4. He is freakishly strong and has started doing pull ups on the oven handle when he thinks we aren't looking.
5. He crawls in circles around other babies his age and tries to eat their faces. We're working on that.

Whatever star system he hails from however, we are most pleased to have him as the central part of our earth family.  Should he decide he must return to another planet at any point in time, we will, of course, join him.  In the meantime, we are taking regular naps so as to keep up with him, buckets of water and hugs in tow, for when he inevitably goes harder and faster than his chubby baby body can handle and ends up bonking his head, yet again. Merry Christmas and may all your babies stay at room temperature.

Espen's First Sleepover-Relearning to relax...

The first night away from Wesp has occurred.  It has been eight months to the day since he was born and every night since then, he has slept under our watch.

Last night, November 30, 2013, was Tobias' and my first anniversary, and we decided to go big.  There was milk in the fridge, grandparents and aunts and uncles ready to keep the night watch, and a city waiting for us to paint it red in celebration of surviving the honeymoon period with our respect and love for each other intact.

What if, we thought, we stayed out past midnight and SLEPT IN UNTIL WE WOKE UP as our grand broohaha?!  Alright.  Now keep in mind, grandma and grandpa's house is about fifty paces away from our house, and we had decided that we had best return to our cozy bed instead of staying in a posh downtown hotel.  It's pretty far away to be from The Bear and our wanderlust is still on the rebound.

We informed Espen of the plan and he responded with his usual enthusiasm.  Kicking legs and waving arms with glee on his way to the bathtub, he LOVES grandma and grandpa's house.  Tobias and I were pleased for him.  I've read all these articles about how babies are supposed to go through a regression around this time; where they only want mom or dad and get very shy, but this memo seems not to have found The Bear's desk.  He howls and clicks in delight when he meets new people and rarely looks anxiously for us in a crowd.  Talk about well-adjusted.

People kept making comments like, "See how long it takes before you're checking in on him and talking about him...".  But here's the thing.  We wouldn't be going out for the night if we didn't feel absolutely confident and certain that he would be well taken care of and in the best of hands outside of our own.

This is one thing that I feel we are good at; really feeling solid about our choices regarding the health and well-being of our son.  This is turn, allows US to truly relax and focus on ourselves when we take the time to be Adults Doing Grown Up and Important Things For Themselves.

The evening was a huge success for us and we slept in until 10.30 the next morning. Of course, the first thing we both said was, "Great! Let's go see The Bear!"...who just happened to be napping...and is still napping 2.5 hours later.  It's almost as if he's saying, "Hey mom and dad, everyone wins when we take care of ourselves and remember to have fun!"

Thanks babyface.  Can't wait to see you when you wake up.

He crawls! He crawls!

First it began as a modified Worm. Yes, that's right. My baby started his journey to uprightness with a nod to his 80's dance forefathers-The Breakdancers.  He could oozle his way from one end of the living room to
in the time it takes to say, "B-boy". That was about a month ago.

Then, this week, Espen made his first solid debut into the world of opposing hand and feet action. Allow me to note that this was about two weeks AFTER he pulled himself up into standing against the rocking chair, unassisted. He wants to be a flaneur in the worst way and it is clear there will be no stopping his perambulations.

In other Espen news, his newest nickname is Espey Wesperton, which I think sounds like an old timey cowboy screen name.  Espey does not care about artistic details like this yet, but I believe that one day, he will.  In the meantime, check out this BABY.

Moms Take Care!

I felt pretty confident about my self-development and personal evolution before having a baby.  Self-care was right up there on the short list of Things I've Gotten Good At.  I danced regularly (good for body AND soul), cooked myself sensible breakfasts, walked to work, had a writing website, regular massages, adventures out of and around town, and practiced gratitude.  If anyone was ready to take on a dependent soul who needed absolute devotion, presence, and love, it was me.

And then, after 41 weeks of conscious and intentional baby growing and birthing, I had Espen in my arms.  There was much to be celebrating. An ecstatic, drug-free, rip-free birth and a healthy, alert, gorgeous baby.  Hell, I was within 15 pounds of my pre-birth weight a week after giving birth. Sure we had our challenges, just like everyone else, but all things considered, I was truly living the Empowering Birth dream.

Somewhere in the back of my mind a voice was calling out to me, "Don't forget to continue empowering yourself! Must. Continue. Self-Care." I made a quick promise to do so in the middle of a mad dash to deposit the twelfth load of dirty laundry into the machine that day.

Though there is an inbred martyr that lurks in the corners of my psyche, rattling its chains of eternal suffering and servitude, on the whole, I only let it out for the occasional pity party, and that, generally, is in front of the audience of me.

HOWEVER, motherhood apparently brings out a whole new playing field of opportunities to forgo one's own needs for the greater, more dependent good.  As it should. And yet, as I found myself taking five minutes longer in the bathroom than I needed in reality, checking to make sure the door was locked so nothing could come in and demand my attention, I realized that my promise of self-care may have gotten forgotten somewhere between HAVING a baby and three months later.

As a grown up, it is my responsibility to make sure I am taking care of my own grown self.  It is also my responsibility to take care of any dependents I have brought into the world.  Now, how to find the balance. You don't just sign up for a two week meditation retreat when you have a newborn that needs you.  Nor do you throw up your hands and say, "What can I do with FIVE minutes?!"

Creativity is the key.  With five minutes you can read a quick chapter in your "How to ground and stay connected to your center" book.  If you're a slow reader, you can take a quick shower.  You can brew a cup of warm tea.  You can write down three things you're grateful for, even if you're writing "I'm grateful" in front of sentence that finishes with "my bum feels like it's going to fall off."  You may not be able to nap, but you can have a primal roar or a nice long hug with your partner.  There's lots you can do with five minutes, even with a sleep deprived brain.

I started going back to acupuncture once a week as soon as possible.  It was amazing to have Tobias around to watch Espen for the hour or two required for extreme qi balancing...and it was fundamental to staying healthy enough to be able to continue operating at a level of awareness that I can respect. Now I know not everyone has the luxury of a supportive partner and I recognize that this makes it more challenging to find those five minutes. It also makes it more important than EVER that you DO.

Recently, with Espen now at 7.5 months and a good stock of milk in the fridge, I have started wandering back to ecstatic dance and its pervasive wisdom.  My body speaks of places I need to pay some attention to. My spirit reminds me of my connection to a world of beauty.  My mind rages and calms itself over the space of an hour and a half and finally resolves to a state of peace and acceptance.

This time, between acupuncture and dance probably amounts to about four or five hours a week that are mine and mine alone.  While this may seem like luxury, I am certain that it is a necessity.  One that I am most proud to say, I have prioritized and Tobias has supported intentionally.  We are forming a basis to model self care for Espen and we're walking the walk.  That makes me feel proud.

And a lot more limber for facing life's unexpected scenarios.

The Real Story of Espen's Birth

I had discovered the concept of orgasmic childbirth two years before getting pregnant.  It was through a book I reviewed on The Independent Author’s Review, a website I had started to provide a forum for critiquing independently published books.  The book was by a man named Dave Markowitz, whom I later became friends with and it briefly mentioned that childbirth need not be the horrific, painful, screaming exhibition that our society paints it to be.  I was fascinated at the thought of working with my body in such harmony that ecstacy was the result.  I became an instant convert; who wouldn’t be at least curious about painless childbirth?  That is where my intentional childbirth path began, though I had no specific plans to get pregnant at the time. I simply knew that if I did, it would be with an intention of empowerment and remembering-women have done this for thousands of years-it would be a rite of passage that I co-created with my partner and child. 

When Tobias and I discovered that we were indeed with child, I was pointed in a direction;  ecstatic, orgasmic childbirth.  I figured it was similar to the “Aim for the moon” saying…I might not hit the Oh Baby Button, but at least I’d be among the stars, so to speak. Nevermind the fact that stars are way further away than the moon. Perhaps space was really the aim.  To feel like I had an area carved out for me and this most powerful of bodily experiences, instead of being poked, prodded and monitored without thought to the spirituality and instinctual wisdom of bringing another life into the world through my body. 

The 41 weeks leading up to Espen’s birth were filled with reading, meditating, walking through Danish forests, Mexican jungles and American mountains.  It was extremely important to become comfortable and tuned into my body and walking through nature has always been one of my greatest meditative techniques.  Using my body and senses to maneuver through my surroundings gave me time and space to start conversing with Espen about my thoughts and dreams for his arrival. 

In conjunction with educating my body, I sought out and read titles like Unassisted Childbirth, Painless Childbirth, Ina Mae’s Guide To Childbirth, Home Birth, Orgasmic Childbirth and more.  Anything I could get my hands on to reprogram the societal messages of contraction, pain, fear and anxiety to that of expansion, natural, waves, profound, wisdom, and listening. 

Tobias and I shifted our language around childbirth to support the desired reality.  We talked about expansions or surges instead of contractions, practice surges instead of Braxton-hicks, birth instead of labour, sensation instead of pain.  I come from a background laced with earthy no-nonsense people, creatives, and religious worriers so my propensity for anxious thoughts, particularly around my physical self, is quite high.  I wanted to head things off at the pass so I could stay as calm and centered as possible during the actual birth.  The best way to do that for me was to set a course of what I DID want and stick to it, having the grace to accept the deviations that might occur along the way.

Pregnancy itself was low key.  I gained about 35-40 lbs, maintained normal blood pressure, occasionally felt woosy, but never threw up once…just napped a lot and had some health anxiety about my heart…it’s funny in hindsight how things you reject originally can find a place in your psyche if you have unhealed contracts with coping mechanisms like fear and control.  

Back in my mid-twenties, a cardiologist had told me that I would automatically be placed in a high risk category should I become pregnant and that they very possibly would need to deliver me at the beginning of the third tri-mester if my heart couldn’t tolerate the increased blood volume.  He also said nice things like, “You could have your Congestive Heart Failure relapse permanently.”  Despite the fact that I have had consistently normal echoes over the years AND the fact that I turned up my nose at his prediction, in the face of the unknown of pregnancy, I quickly recalled his dire prophecies despite the fact that I was healthy and showing normal in all of my tests.

Feeding the fire of fear was the last thing I wanted to do, so I opted for minimal testing during pregnancy and only had one blood test around seven months and blood pressure checks.  No ultrasounds, no amniocentisis, no continual poking and prodding.  Tobias and I compromised on who would be involved with the actual birth.  I was for going into the woods myself and having Espen and coming back with a new baby.  Tobias was for the traditional hospital and full compliment of staff on hand, though he was open to relaxing that. Our half-way point was to have a midwife who would be willing to be hands off and act as an accessible expert should we have questions or concerns during the birth itself.

Joy Jech of Blossom Midwifery was our perfect fit.  I had written to her while still in Denmark because I loved her website.  It was full of photos of pregnant women painted like flowers with babies inside and spoke of her own ecstatic birth.  “Yep,” I thought, “I want someone with me who has lived the dream.” 

We knew we wanted to give birth at home, on the farm in Oregon City.  I wanted to infuse that place with some positive energy that would permeate all the way down to its roots.  I wanted Espen to have a deep sense of being connected to the earth and elements right from the get go. After watching numerous videos about waterbirths, particularly during our Hypnobirthing class, we we sold on having a tub available during Espen’s birth.  Of course, we had no idea if he was to be a boy or a girl since we opted out of ultrasounds, we were going on the predictions of the Mayan shaman who had married us and our various acupuncturists and family members who were weighing in with their intuition. 

The tub was set up a week before birth began and we had a test run to see if our RV hose would be long enough to reach from the bathroom to the bedroom.  It did, so we just sealed around in the pool pretending to be mermaids for a good long while.  I didn’t know how much I would use the tub, I figured the Hypnobirthing would make me so peaceful I might not want to move.

Hypnobirthing was a technique I discovered in my research which allows you to self-hypnotize during the birth process and thereby relax and let the baby come down and out with minimal resistance.  I was keen because I wanted to be as gentle with my body and heart as possible and I knew that relaxation was key.   Thus, Tobias and I attended our classes and practiced our mantras, found our anchoring scents, and effleurage for weeks.  I think we could have implemented it even more if we had focused more intently but the work we did do came in very handy.

I painted a mandala a day or two before Espen’s birth.  It was exactly 9cm in diameter, the size of full dilation, to help me focus on the objective in a colorful and harmonious picture.  I wrote the words “Trust” “Body” “Open” and “Relax” on the four sides to hone my energy.

The day of the birth we cast my belly in plaster and frisked around in the unseasonably warm March sunshine.  We had gone on a walk and I had the feeling of opening, but that had been happening for a couple weeks…kind of like I’d been kicked in the groin, that dull ache that you know means something.

That’s how it all started, just longer and closer moments of the body compressing and pushing itself open.  There was nothing shocking or lightening like about it, just an inexorable movement that I knew was going to make a pathway for Espen to come topside.

As time progressed and the Waning Gibbous moon rose, exactly the opposite of his conception, I started locking into a deep awareness of my breathing…in through the nose, deeply, slowly, then out through the nose or mouth depending on the surge and its needs. 

The water was a wonderful sanctuary to live in during the progression.  Warmth and buoyancy let me develop a rhythm to meet the surges. Breathe in through the nose and drop the body down, exhale through the mouth and ride the wave back to the surface.  Amazing.  It was utterly undeniable.  I realize early that the choices were two fold.  Resist or surrender.  Either way, the outcome would be the same.  I was curious what surrender would yield as we westerners already hold a societal paradigm of resistance around birth.

During the whole process I was able to maintain a space in the corner of my brain where I could observe and marvel at the power of my body and Espen’s working together towards birth.  Marvel is the necessary word because nothing compares with the experience of giving birth.  If I had been drugged or surrounded by people and machines and noise, I would not have been able to witness birth so fully.  I felt like I was awake and THERE for the whole thing from start to finish, firmly in the seat of honor while The Bear made his way into the world.

I simply could not have imagined anything well enough to give me a visceral sense of how the body roars and stretches, how it continues and soars with a surety that is completely innate.  I could not have guessed how capable and calm my body would be while attending to its work. 

Espen and I communicated during the birth. I talked to him and told him that I absolutely agreed to being his mother and that it was good and safe for him to arrive.  He knew.  He kept advancing slowly and certainly, the midwife confirming that things were going well.  I wanted him to be born into a peaceful environment with no scary sounds of mom screaming bloody murder if I could help it.  Instead of yelling, I channeled the intensity into these deep earth mother sounds that felt like sound waves rolling out through the water carrying the surges to light.

Near the end, the surges seemed to be calming down a bit but we knew it had to be soon.  That was the only moment where I thought for a second, “Oh don’t stop! Let’s finish what we started!”  I had sung to Espen through surges, bounced on the exercise ball, stood in the shower, leaned over the bed and walked up and down the floor.  Every one was different and wanted to be greeted in its own unique way.  It was up to me to decide how to meet it.  The only time I failed to come up with a greeting was the only surge that got away from me and I understood how women can be shocked by the ferocity of birth.  It is a wild horse that knows how to run and buck and rely on pure instinct.  If you chose to run from it, you will be trampled.  If you meet it head on and let your body meld with it, you’ll find a way to ride it home.

Around the moments of bodily exhaustion and that breaking point of knowing how close you are to expiration, I reached down to see if anything was actually happening and I felt Espen’s hair.  His HAIR.  It didn’t occur to me until the midwife brought a mirror and I could see his dark mop just starting to peek out. All I could think was that we were touching on the outside as well as the inside.  We were as close and engaged physically as we ever could or would be again.  The awe completely possessed me, it does still when I remember the sense of being completely wrapped up and around another spirit. 

The next five surges almost felt incidental once I knew Espen was real and he was coming to stay.  Tobias was there every step of the way, rubbing my back, getting water, just letting me rest on him and staying incredibly present to my constantly shifting needs as I followed my body towards Espen’s birth. 

One aspect I do recall was in the final surges, my body felt as though it was stretching to the point of eruption.  Somewhere in my head the Johnny Cash song Ring of Fire was playing faintly and I had to giggle.  With another surge, he head came free and we all rested for a moment, all of us with eyes closed.  When his body followed on the next surge it was like heaving a huge sigh.  The endorphines are there making everything just flow.  It all seems so completely obvious. Take the baby in your hands, let it uncurl in the water, bring it up to your chest.  Stare.

Espen lay peacefully on my chest just breathing, pinking up from his lovely blueberry color and looking at us.  My body did this. Our bodies. Incredible. 

Sorry guys, I know birth has been made out to be a woman's curse and all, but it's a lie.  You've been lied to by a bunch of women who want to keep the utter power and magic of childbirth to themselves. Being fully conscious and aware during the whole ride from conception to birth was the most impressive thing I can imagine doing with my body and spirit and will.  There's just no way anything could be more possessing and complete for me and I'd imagine that any woman who has gone through the process, assisted or not, drugged or not, in the woods or the hospital can attest to the fact that it is unlike any other rite on earth. It is pure feminine awesomeness and absolute co-creation.