gluten-free rocks!

That’s for everyone [you know who you are] who’s been so great and helpful about calming my fears about a gluten-free diet. I really appreciate it, and I’ll stop hatin’ on gluten-free cookies and pancakes Although I haven’t yet been tested, I started today a wheat free diet. Not sure if I’ve eliminated all gluten yet, but I have to start somewhere. If I don’t get rid of this rash, I’m not sure what ‘ll do.

And, on another notes, thanks to all who expressed outrage at my son’s treatment at the doctor’s. So often things happen where at the time it seems off and wrong but it’s hard to put your finger on exactly what doesn’t seem right. You are trying to maintain good relationships and you constantly question if the way you perceived something is reality or just your take on it and you don’t want to be all sociological on people. Thanks for letting me know that I wasn’t just being super-sensitive.

accidents happen

WA had an accident yesterday at day care. Apparently he was walking on toys he’d put on the floor, lost his balance, and hit his head, right above his eye, on the edge of a table. I had just arrived at the library for what I’d hoped would be 3 hours of productive time before class when I got the call from MT. She said she wasn’t sure if it needed stitches, but she wanted me to come and check it out. So much for being productive.

I went to MT’s and he seemed fine, but the eye looked bad. So I took him to the doctor where they did nothing but take my $20 co-pay and tell me that getting it stitched was mostly a cosmetic issue (due to his “darker skin”) and that they’d have to send me to a cosmetic surgeon to do it because it was in a place too close to his eye for them to do it in office. But if I went that route, insurance probably wouldn’t pay for it because it wasn’t a medical necessity (due to his “darker skin” again? I’m not sure.)

Well, I’d rather my son not have a permanent large scar above his head, but I don’t have the money to pay out of pocket to fix what is largely a cosmetic issue. The nurse said something to the effect that, “well, he won’t be a supermodel,” which kind of pissed me off and made me wonder if they would have given the same advice if 1) this was my daughter who’d come in with this laceration and 2) if he was white. The first doctor who saw him told me, quite glibly,  that when daughters come in with this type of issue, most parents are like, “yes, fix it” while parents of boys usually just “shrug and brush it off.” The second doctor told me to use a Chapstick with sunscreen on the scar in the summertime to make sure it, well, I’m not really sure why I need it there and not everywhere anyway. I guess to not cause further problems with his “darker skin.”

Can I say again that I detest the medical profession (not doctors as people per se, but just in their role as doctors)?

itchy itchy

I have this itchy rash over my entire body, and I think it may be related to a gluten intolerance. I’ve thought before that I may be allergic to wheat, and generally think my allergy symptoms are better when I don’t eat wheat. But I lack willpower, and usually just put up with not being able to breath through my nose and sneezing just so I can have a cupcake.

I’m going to the doctor later this afternoon (earlier if they let me) and want them to test me for celiac’s disease. If I have it, I’ll be both relieved and upset. Relieved because I’ll finally have an answer to the various digestive and allergic issues I have been dealing with for the past couple of months. Upset because a gluten-free diet sucks for someone like me who loves all forms of carbohydrates and thinks stuff like gluten-free cookies are an insult.

I also think it increases the risk that my kids will also have a gluten allergy, which I am starting to suspect in my son because his body is refusing to increase in weight. He is perhaps one of the skinniest kids I have ever seen. He’s in less than the 5th percentile for weight for children his age. The doctor says that he probably just has my metabolism as I’m on the thin side, but I think I want some further investigation.

The kid right now only wants waffles and pancakes so a gluten-free diet would cause a major meltdown in my house.

good advice

I got some really good advice the other day. It was given to me from one former grad-(now tenured)-mommy to another, but I think it can apply to others as well. I was talking about my high expectations for myself and feeling like I can’t live up to my career goals due to my family obligations. And she said,

resentment and redemption

I started this blog due to a post over at scatterplot about choices, consequences and constraints. I realized Monday how true that post was, and how resentment about parenthood can sometimes get mixed up in my life.

I wanted to do a project for a class that would require me to go to the city once a week in the evenings to do participant observation and interviews. The class did not require this, but it was the project I wanted to do. But after going up there twice, I decided I had to ditch the project. The distance was too far, the effect on my family was too much. And This really pissed me off.

All Monday night as I rode the train home from the city and then tried to do some work at the dining room table, I could barely contain my resentment. While the project in an of itself was a bit shaky anyway, had I been a single student with no kids I would have gladly continued to persevere, enduring the wishy-washy-ness of the organization with which I was dealing. But no - I have kids so I can’t be gone for four hours on a weeknight in a city that I’m not really familiar with. I can’t have the schedule change at the last minute because my kids have routines that we need to stick to. In essence I felt like I can’t do the work that really matters to me and may make an important contribution to the field I am interested in because I made a CHOICE to have kids which comes with it the CONSEQUENCE of not being able to do whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it and the CONSTRAINT I think it’s going to have on my career because I have to switch to a project that is more do-able but perhaps less interesting.

These feelings were not a good way to start the week.  And I felt guilty as hell for having them.

But alas, I was redeemed, forgiven by two little people who didn’t even realize that was what they were doing. Tuesday morning was a long morning with mommy and the kids, for my day care provider had an early appointment and therefore wasn’t opening until late morning. Reminded by a quote I’d read several days ago, I attempted to wake up leaving the happenings of yesterday behind and adjusting instead of being angry. It didn’t take long, for before I knew it, I had two kids on my lap, reading The Hungry Caterpillar and Where the Wild Things Are and just being and breathing and living as if nothing else existed in the world. And it was one of the most soothing times I have ever spent with my kids, knowing that all they want from me is ME, to be there, present, and engaged. Everyday they get more independent and while my interesting project will probably still be there in five years, my kids will never be like they are right now in this moment. So I was reminded to treasure that and be thankful for it. I went from resentful to redeemed, all thanks to a two year old and a five month old. Who’da thunk it?

my baby turns two

My baby turned two today. We had a great party in our (really small) house, where like 40 people were crammed into our living room. But it was so festive - kids running around hitting balloons and sucking icing off cupcakes, leaving half-eaten cupcakes everywhere, adults on the floor laughing, students sitting on tables talking only to each other as students tend to do. Big shout out to my bestest friend, who baked the cupcakes and made the icing and then shipped them from New Jersey.

Since A is turned two, I thought I’d list 12 things about him (2 is not enough.)

1. He likes cars. He has a convertible, school bus, race car, and thomas the tank engine. They are his favorite toys.
2. He loves to read. He can basically “read” all his books as he has them memorized. The favorite is “I’ll Teach My Dog a Lot of Words.”
3. He’s going to be the class clown one day, which scares me. He loves to perform for an audience. You just have to say “Dance A!” And he starts to get down.
4. He dances like a white person right now, as in without much sense of rhythm and timing. I think it may be the way all toddlers dance, but it worries me. So I have to make sure he gets access to lots of black dancing people.
5. He likes Janet Jackson’s new song, “Feedback.”He’s right now saying “Feedback, feedback.” That’s a boy after his mama’s heart - I love JJ.
6. He used to eat vegetables but now all he wants is crackers. [This one is courtesy of Hubby, who isn't too keen on this list.]
7. He likes to play with his “special part.” Again, I think this is all little boys?
8. He’s the “funniest guy in the courtyard,” according to the older children that live in our courtyard. “He copies,” which means they tell him to say not-so-good words (even in other languages) and he repeats them because they laugh when he does.
9. He can’t stand to see Hubby and I sharing any intimate moment. If we are even close to each other, he will find a way to get between us. If he see us kiss, he’ll say “Hey!!” and whine and separate us.
10. He loves his little sister. He gives her her pacifier if she’s crying, and looks ta us like we are crazy if we don’t attend to her quickly. He even yells, “[Sister's] crying!” at the top of his lungs as if we’ve suddenly lost the ability to hear.
11. He only has 7 teeth, with a molar being the last one. It’s difficult to feed him because you can’t be sure what he can chew, and I think as his caloric needs have increased, he just swallows things whole b/c of the teeth situation. I wonder if his language (he’s not wholly intelligible) has anything to do with his slow teething.
12. He likes things most toddlers can’t stand, namely the vacuum cleaner, the broom and the bathtub. He loves to take a bath - he gets this big smile on his face at bath time. Sometimes, for a punishment after he’s thrown his food on the floor, we’ll make him sit in his high chair and watch as we vacuum or sweep the floor. He gets downright irate.

He’s also very loving, but I thought that wasn’t specific enough to add to the list. He likes to sit on my lap and hold my hand and have me pick him up. He runs and jumps and sings and draws and paints and even does sculpture*! I still can’t believe that it’s been two years, or that it’s only been two years. His presence is timeless - I can’t remember my life before him, but yet he’s still so little it’s obvious he’s only been around for a little while.

*with play doh, but still special to me.

how i became a grad mommy: part five

The Not So Good Times

Unfortunately, this has to be kind of short, because I’m…well…short on time. There are not that many not-so-good times, but the worst time of the not-so-good times was the three days we spent in Children’s Hospital.

I have never been hospitalized except for having my children, so when I hear that someone has been in the hospital, that is really scary to me. And when I hear that my baby, at the time barely a year old, has to be hospitalized, I felt like the world was crashing in on me. What happened, you ask?

Let’s see, it was a Sunday, and my best friend was twisting my hair, a ritual we would do every so often. She lived in Jersey, so the three of us - Hubby, WA and I - drove up there to spend the day with her and her sister. Turns out my best friend’s aunt was there too, and her daughter, who was like 10 at the time.

I had noticed WA had some bruises on his shins, but since I read that the shin is a really easy place to bruise (and I bruise there a lot), I didn’t really think anything of it. So when WA had this really bad gas after eating this spinach and cheese thing, I didn’t think anything of it. And at some point that day he bumped his head on the dining room table, but never even cried about it. He developed a bruise on his forehead that looked really bad, but I just thought it was from bumping and perhaps he bumped it a little harder than I thought. I had also asked the little girl there if she would watch him while I was getting my hair done and his dad was sleeping, and I thought maybe he’d hit it when I wasn’t looking. In any case, I thought it was no big deal. I was really wrong.

On Monday, WA’s grandmother took him, just like every weekday. She called me mid-day to tell me that WA had been throwing up and had some more bruises on his body. I thought, “Mmm, this is strange,” but I wasn’t really concerned. Until I saw him.

He had all these little bruise like marks all over. All over. Being the internet doctor I am, I looked up “small red dots under skin” on google and freaked myself out. I immediately called the doctor, who requires you to leave a message and then they’ll get back to you within 20 minutes. After 10 minutes, I decided I couldn’t wait anymore. I scooped him up, put him in the car, and went to the doctor’s office around the corner.

Long story short, because like I said I’m short on time, the nurse sent me home the first time, telling me to come back in an hour to see the doctor. The women at the front desk, though, told me not to wait that long and come back in a half hour. Came back in 20 minutes, at which time the doctor saw him right away and told us he had to be taken to the emergency room right away. And not just any emergency room - he needed to go to Children’s Hospital where the specialize in kids. Get there, and they see us right away - no waiting at all, which is uncommon in an urban emergency room where if you aren’t dying you are waiting. They test his blood and his platelet count is 4 - normal is between 150 - 400.

He stays in the hospital for three days, getting pumped with a blood product and antibiotics which make him nauseous and give him headaches to treat his disease. We sleep on cots - I am 2 months pregnant at the time and eat hospital food, which surprisingly isn’t that bad. He refuses to sleep on his own because the beds for babies look like little jail cells with really high bars. So I maneuver his iv’s so I can hold him in my arms while he sleeps. He’s released when his count gets to about 60, which isn’t normal, but a little safer. He has to wear a helmet though - just in case he bumps his head, as little ones just starting out walking often do, he doesn’t bleed into his brain. He’s so little that even the XS size engulfs his head. He looked so pitiful - I wish I would have taken a few pictures at the time. We often joke when he gets wild that we wish we still had the helmet - his father would make him wear it sometimes months after his counts turned normal.

WA has been all good since then - his counts have only gone up every time they were tested after the hospital stay. I still get nervous though - ITP (the disease) sometimes comes when a child gets a virus and the body overreacts and attacks the platelets while it’s fighting the virus. So whenever he gets sick I check his body all over - I know he must think I’m crazy. It’s heartbreaking to see your child in the hospital and there’s little you can do to help him besides hold him while he sleeps. I was a grad student then too, and I had to ask for extensions and permission to miss class. Everyone was really great about it, but it was then that I realized that being a gradmommy requires a commitment to not procrastinate.

The post tomorrow will really be about WA since it’s his second birthday. So far they’ve been abut how he has affected me, but tomorrow it will be about him - his personality and the joys and challenges of raising him. Have a good weekend!

how i became a grad mommy: part four

The Plan Changes

Planning while pregnant and once you have kids is really important. They are totally dependent on you, and you want your decisions to reflect a healthy amount of thought about their wellbeing. That being said, let me start this with a related aside:

I noticed on my blog stats that I was getting a lot of hits from a particular site, and when I clicked on it, it was for Law School Discussion, specifically the pre-law forum. For those who are not familiar with these sites, prospective 1Ls join the site to discuss everything from what schools to apply to give one’s stats to which school to finally accept. A thread onto which my blog was posted started with the following post:

Does anyone know of any women who have managed law school while pregnant or as a new mom? I was accepted to law school before I got this surprise news and was planning to attend a t25 school but am now concerned that I should consider going part time or put it off a year. My due date is August 26. I will likely be supporting my child on my own. Any thoughts?

Apparently a former classmate of mine (I still cannot figure out who this is) linked to my blog since I am a woman who was pregnant last year in grad school and is raising two babies in grad school again. What irked me was this post:

being pregnant in law school can only detract from your legal education and is therefore inadvisable. if you stop your route to becoming a lawyer and find these other priorities more important, than you did not prioritize law school as the most significant aspect of your legal career.

First, I can only assume - and it is indeed an assumption - that the writer of this post does not have children while in law school. In other words, they are talking about something that they know nothing about. Second, doing A while also doing B will always detract from B. That is just a fact. You cannot devote 100% of yourself to more than one thing at a time. This applies to everything in life, not just grad school and motherhood. Third, Doing A does not mean one needs to stop doing B. Just because you aren’t devoting 100% does not mean that 60, 70, ot 80% is not good enough. Oftentimes, it is. And lastly, doing A says nothing about your priorities. For all the reasons listed above.

As much as it may be a pain sometimes, being a grad mommy is doable. Let me say it again - being a grad mommy is doable. Now I may agree with some of the other advice, such as deferring for a year, which I did do for the birth of my son. But to say that having children means that you obviously do not see law school or your career as a high priority in your life is WRONG. You just need to plan.

This provides a good lead in to part four. So WA was born in January 2006, and at the time I was deferring law school. I had actually dropped from my original school and asked, considering my circumstances, if the local school would ignore the fact that I declined their offer of admission and allow me to defer there instead. They did.

I went back to working full time knowing I would be going to law school in the fall. But one day, really by accident, I came across the website for this program and really wanted to be a part of it. I didn’t even know this discipline was a real one. But anyway, I applied and was accepted. Given my son’s age, though, I asked the law school for another deferral so I could do the master’s. I assumed (and I think I am right) that while the first year of a master’s/PhD program is not necessarily easier than 1L, it is probably less stressful. So as of Fall 2006, I planned to get my master’s and then go to law school.

But one year later, I am here instead of there. Why?

Well, a few reasons. In my (then) 25 years, I had lived only one year outside of hometown, including college. I liked to tell myself that I just loved hometown so much, but really it was because I was scared. Although I’d lived on my own (i.e. my own apartment) since right after college, there was just so much comfort in having my family around. As dysfunctional as my family is, they are still a part of me, something that makes me feel grounded and rooted when I feel too exposed and isolated. I also know the city really well - I could go anywhere I wanted, do anything I wanted. And I had help for my child - one grandmother took care of him while I was at work, while another demanded to have him at least one day on the weekend. My life was comfortable.

It was too comfortable. I never took any risks. I played it safe. I stayed at my university because I knew it like the back of my hand. I had friends who were students, faculty and staff. There was no where to go where people didn’t know my name. It became boring and uninspiring. WA’s birth kinda changed that - he made me believe that things I once thought were impossible - being a mother in graduate school - were doable. And not only could I do them, I could do them well. The only limitations I had were self-imposed.

Something in my heart told me staying in hometown was not the right thing to do. Something was pulling me west - maybe it was the sunshine, or the healthy living lifestyle, or just the need to be somewhere radically (within reason of course) different from home. So I reapplied to choice school #1. And I took the biggest risk of all - I applied to a very selective PhD program, even though I had never taking a class in the discipline. it was a risk for me b/c I had never applied to a school and not gotten in - rejection of this type was unknown to me. And, like I said, I shied away from taking chances - the certain is comfortable, the uncertain is not.

But, I got in. I visited. I accepted. I enrolled. And here we are. With two kids in tow.

Next in the series: The Not So Good Times

Also in this series:
part I: the conception
part II: the worst summer of my life
part III: the birth story

a new middle passage; don’t forget to blame the victim

I was supposed to be devoting this week to my son, but some things come up that I just cannot ignore. Take this NYT article about European pillaging of African fish. There are two issues here. One, the overfishing is destroying African fishing industries up and down the northwestern coast. But do the perpetrators take responsibility? Does the media place blame where it rightfully belongs? Of course not. It’s those corrupt African governments who are mostly to blame:

The region’s governments bear much of the blame for their fisheries’ decline. Many have allowed a desire for money from foreign fleets to override concern about the long-term health of their fisheries. Illegal fishermen are notoriously common; efforts to control fishing, rare.

If I steal a cookie from the cookie jar while my mother is supposed to be watching me, is it her fault that I stole, when I knew what I was doing was wrong?

Furthermore, blame requires choice. Is there a choice for these governments?

“I don’t know a government in the region that can say no,” said Mr. Chavance, the French scientist. “This is good money, and they need it.”

The second issue is the migration this is causing. Tens of thousands of Africans are now attempting to migrate to Europe to join the fishing industries there. It sounds like a second middle passage:

Last year roughly 31,000 Africans tried to reach the Canary Islands, a prime transit point to Europe, in more than 900 boats. About 6,000 died or disappeared, according to one estimate cited by the United Nations.

This is craziness. Outside of the issue of African economic slavery at the hands of the rest of the world, think about this: your hometown is known for having the best apple trees in the world. Apple trees grow in your backyard. But you aren’t allow to pick your apples; the right has been sold to another town. So now you have to migrate illegally - cause they don’t really want you to mess up their business - to the other town, just to come back to your hometown to pick your apples.

How does the old saying go - “Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. But teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime”? But if there’s no fish, then what?

how i became a grad mommy: part three

The Birth Story

Two days after a false labor trip to the hospital, I woke on a Wednesday in January 2006 with a tightening feeling in my abdomen that I hadn’t felt before. By 9 am, the contractions were about 15 minutes apart, and not yet painful to the point that I couldn’t move through them, but on the high end of uncomfortable. I called Hubby at work to let him know what I was feeling, and to tell him that I would call him in an hour. The midwife at the hospital two days before told us that if I thought I was in labor and got into the tub, real contractions would stay the same or get stronger, where false contractions would go away. I planned on getting in the tub around 10 am, but the contractions were getting stronger, and around 9:30, I just needed a little relief.

So, I entered the tub, both wishing they would get stronger, since that meant my baby was on the way, but also wishing they would go away because they were so uncomfortable. As it went, they pretty much stayed the same, and I knew that this time must be different. I didn’t want another false alarm, so I was still pretty cautious about getting excited. I called Hubby again to update him. He asked me if I was timing them, and I told him no, I was 1) too uncomfortable and 2) afraid they would stop if I paid them too close attention. I let him know I would call again in another hour.

In the meantime, I decided that if this was the day, I wasn’t going to the hospital looking a mess. So, I fixed my hair, and put on my makeup. I wanted the baby to see his mommy at her best, or as best as possible after an event such as labor. I then alternated walking around the apartment, which made the contractions stronger, and sitting down, which was very uncomfortable. And the whole time my body was ridding itself of all matter, so I was back and forth to the bathroom as well. In the morning, I also knew to eat a little, as the end may be a whole day or so away. Before I had a chance to call him back, Hubby called me and told me he was coming home. I knew something must be happening because I didn’t even have the urge to tell him not to come home.

The next four hours, between noon and four, are a bit of a blur to me. I remember Hubby coming home, and hugging and holding me, encouraging me to drink water after each contraction as he timed them on the computer. I remember being in and out of the tub, hoping the contractions wouldn’t hurt so much in the tub, as I’d been told, but they did. At four, I remember us taking a nap and after 15 minutes or so having to get up. It was between four and six that the contractions started getting pretty bad.

I must have asked Hubby at least 10 times between four and six when we could go to the hospital. I knew we were trying to labor as long as possible at home before going to the hospital, but I guess I just needed a time to focus on instead of just some abstract point in time of when it got to be “too much.” Finally at about 6 p.m. I started crying and saying I couldn’t take it anymore and that I wanted to go to the hospital NOW. Hubby said okay, but do you know he started cleaning up, brushing his teeth and whatnot? I was so mad, but the contractions were coming faster and stronger that I didn’t have the energy to complain. I just waited.

We got to the hospital about 7 p.m. and when they called us to the registration area, I just couldn’t believe they were asking me all these questions about insurance and whatnot while I was in labor! (Thankfully California hospital are a little more sensible in this area.) When the nurse arrived to take me up, I knew I needed to throw up, and I did - almost right into the insurance lady’s lap. I never throw up, so I knew this was very serious. The nurse told me to relax my shoulders and breath through the contractions, but all I could do was moan.

They got us settled in the room, and we called our parents. I don’t really remember a lot until my mom got there, because then Hubby disappeared and it was just me and my mom. I threw up again, and we walked around a bit. They checked me and I was 5 cm dilated. I thought I could keep breathing through the contractions, but they just hurt too much. So I asked for the epidural. The anesthesiologist came quickly. I didn’t know the drugs affected half the body then the other half. Before they got to my right side, I could feel a contraction, but only on the right side. That was weird. But once it go everywhere, I felt so much better after that. I was then about 8 cm.

The next couple of hours were pretty calm. I could still feel the contractions, but they didn’t hurt. I don’t think I ever really slept, but I did relax and just chill out. Finally at midnight, the midwife said I was ready to start pushing. I was 10 cm. I asked for a mirror so I could see what was happening.

First, she broke my water, since it hadn’t broken yet (Hubby wanted to wait until it did to go the hospital – I’m glad now we didn’t!) There was a little meconium in the water, but just a bit. Pushing didn’t hurt at all – I just pushed when I felt the contraction coming. It was slow moving. It wasn’t until about 2 a.m. that we could see the baby’s head. The midwife even pulled out a curl of this hair to show Hubby. I was a little annoyed at that - his head was still in my vagina, for heaven’s sake.

The issue though was that his heart rate was dropping with each contraction. The midwife kept having to massage his head to bring his heartbeat back up. They called the neonatal nurse to the room just in case there was anything wrong with the baby when he came out. The midwife could see that I wasn’t stretching that good, so she gave me a local anesthetic at the perineum in case I tore when he came out.

As he stayed longer and longer in the birth canal, the midwife became a little concerned and called in the head doctor. At first, he thought everything was going okay, but she called him back again. This was it. Because he had larger hands, he tried to first pull the baby’s head out with his hands, but that didn’t work. So they attached a vacuum to his head. Hubby says he thought they were just going to pull out the head, but they ended up pulling out the whole body. I had a second degree tear but I didn’t care. They placed him on my belly and I held my baby for the first time. Outside of one little yelp, he didn’t cry.

They gave him to the neonatal nurses and they cleaned him up a bit while Hubby watched and took pictures. I kept asking, “Is he okay?” because he wasn’t crying. They kept telling me he was fine, he was just a mellow baby. Before they took him to be really washed, they gave him to me to try to nurse, which went okay. Then they took him to be washed and Hubby went with him. That’s the story of WA’s birth.

Also in this series:

how i became a grad mommy part one: the conception story

how i became a grad mommy part two: the worst summer of my life

 

Next in the series:

how i became a grad mommy part four: the plan changes