The Readiness Is All

I realize it's only been a week since my last post, but I feel like I'm already doing a lot better, and I'm being proactive. Here's what I did this week.

• Had a long talk with Eric about how I've been feeling. We bounced around ideas, and he was 100% supportive and helpful.
• Planned a night out with another new mom friend who is going through something similar.
• Caught a ride with Eric down to Utah County to visit a friend while he doing some work-related stuff down there.
• Managed to talk myself into leaving CB with my sister-in-law DURING NAP TIME so I could get a hair cut, and it totally worked out and was fine. She napped, I enjoyed a scalp massage and a $5 haircut (thank you, friend going through training at the Aveda salon!) and I now know that I can leave her during nap time and will probably not come home to screaming baby and crying caregiver.
• Signed up for a Parent/Tot swim class at the Bountiful Rec Center! It's not until April because the one in February was full, but it's twice a week for 5 weeks, and I think it will be fun. 
• Talked to my mom, my sister-in-law, other awesome friends, and got some nice feedback from lovely blog readers. (Thanks, everyone. I will probably take you up on your offers.) 

I still have a post in my head about our Christmas travels, and it will happen, I swear. But I have a lot of things I've been thinking about, and I want to talk about them, and then I'll decide later whether to actually post it.

Although I've had some mini-bouts of baby blues over the last few months, they've mostly been event-related - after a frustrating day involving lots of crying, generally. I haven't felt like I wanted to talk about those times, because overall I feel really blessed and happy, and I feel like I spent enough time whining about dating on this blog, so I'd like to avoid whining about motherhood if I can avoid it.

 It's funny that the hardest bout to shake has been over the last couple of weeks, when CB has been remarkably wonderful, enjoyable, and happy. We've gotten over the nap problems at last, it's fun to feed her real food, she cries a lot less than she talks and smiles, she's funny and happy and interactive and adorable.

I've been trying to pinpoint where my blue feelings are coming from, and although I'm sure that lots of it is hormonal and some of it is seasonal, there are also some components that fall into categories that are a little more under my control.



1) An overwhelming sense of responsibility for another person.

You know why your friends who are parents only ever talk about their kids? You know why this blog has been completely taken over by CB? She is ALL I EVER THINK ABOUT. I have a secret hope that at some point I will think about other things. I mean, I read books sometimes, watch some TV shows, spend time with Eric after CB's in bed, but I also spend the vast majority of my time thinking about how to change CB's nap schedule, how I should introduce solids, whether I can make something she needs or if I should buy it, whether I should continue/resume/give up cloth diapers, etc. When Eric wants to do something, the first thing I think about is how CB will factor in. Could someone babysit her? Will I have to pump for her? Will she need a nap while she's out with us? There are some really wonderful things about realizing a little person relies on you completely, and there are also some major drawbacks. Don't get me wrong: Eric is a fantastic father - very supportive, very hands-on, very helpful. But. Because he isn't with her all day, he doesn't think about things the same way. AND because I'm a breastfeeding mother, I am THE food source for at least a few more months, so that's double the insanity. She'll eat more and more solids, and that will be wonderful, but until about two weeks ago I was the ONLY food source, which doubled as the calming medium for getting CB ready to sleep. I was IT. It's a very big adjustment.

2) Feelings of isolation.

I live in an overwhelmingly older neighborhood. There are a few people with small children, but there aren't many babies, and most of the babies are third or fourth babies. Most of my close friends live too far away to just jaunt over to their house when I'm feeling lonely. Eric works from home, but I can't say more than a quick hello to him during the day, because well, he needs to work so we can buy food and stuff. CB is wonderful, but she doesn't talk yet, and she also needs to be somewhere in which she can take a nap every 2-3 hours, and she goes to bed by 7:30, so we have to plan outings around that.


3) Boredom.

Almost every day is about the same. CB learns new things, sure, and I work on different tasks, but it's pretty much always CB and me, hanging around the house, maybe going to the grocery store if we're feeling adventurous. Whenever I think about this one I think about whether I'd trade this experience to be back working in a library, which I truly loved doing. And I always come to the conclusion that for now at least, it would tear my heart out, and that as long as we're making it without the extra income, I'd rather be here. I love that I've been here for CB's first smiles and laughs and foods, and I can't wait to see her walk and talk and play make believe and everything else that's coming. I love our relationship. I love that she reaches for me when she sees me, looks for me when I'm not there, knows my games and jokes. I wouldn't trade it for anything. But that still means that right now I spend the majority of my days covered in spit up and pureed foods, listening to my very vocal baby babbling and shrieking and squealing. Loudly. For hours.

I know that someday I will look back on these baby days with longing. I already feel a sense of loss that my baby isn't a newborn anymore. I just had three friends have babies in a 24 hour period, and it's making me itch to have another teensy one in my arms (stupid hormones). But I also know that it will be a good thing that this won't be my life forever. I'm working on ways to make it better now, whether it's finding a book club or joining a playgroup or finding something that gets me out of the house by myself a few times a month or finding a hobby that is easy to pick up and put down again and can't be ruined by or harmful to curious little hands. It might be something else entirely. I'm open to suggestions.

I love my little girl. I love being her mom. I hope I will have more little ones, and that I will figure out how on earth you take care of more than one at a time. But right now, I also have to figure out what being a person with emotional needs and being a mother at the same time means for me right now. It's a process

Half a year never went so quickly! CB, at this rate you will be in college before I know it!

Likes:

• Dancing, especially to The Batty Bat. I'm assuming this is because there's lots of twirling and waltzing and bouncing while I sing, "Batty batty batty batty batty batty . . ."
• Her feet. So tasty, those feet.
• Her rattle monkey, which she plays with while she's going to sleep and when she wakes up.
• Her Johnny Jump Up (thanks to my sister-in-law, who found it at Nickel Auction and snatched it up for me). She looks like a little ballet or tap dancer in it, and she spins around so she can't see me, then turns back when I say, "Where's CB?" and laughs when I say, "There she is!" I think she's figured out how to play with me, and it is adorable.
• Sweet potatoes, butternut squash, applesauce, rice, and solid foods in general. We've only been doing solid foods in earnest for about a week (we waited until we got back from vacation because I didn't want to mess with it on the road, and there are all kinds of recommendations about waiting until 6 months anyway, so I just went with it) but she has loved everything she's tried so far. 
• Having Daddy change her clothes, because he pulls her pants off by the bottoms and it's HILARIOUS. Apparently.
• "This is the way the lady rides," especially when it ends with Daddy's version, "This is the way the dinosaur rides." The higher the bounces, the better.
• Kids and babies. She loves my nieces and nephews, and the other day when my friend brought her baby over, she started grinning at him and reaching for him. 
• Yelling, squealing, shrieking, cooing, and generally making noise. Goodness, she is a loud, high-pitched baby, happy or sad. 
• Baths, especially with her new bath toys.

For my records:

• Room, Emma Donoghue
• The Woman in Black, Susan Hill
• The Little Friend, Donna Tarte
• Mariana, Susanna Kearsley
• Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand
• A Room With a View, E.M. Forster
• Secrets of the Baby Whisperer, Tracy Hogg
• Mr. Harrison's Confessions, Elizabeth Gaskell
• Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell
• Foundation, Isaac Asimov
• The Thirteenth Tale,Diane Setterfield
• Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
• The Night Circus,Erin Morgenstern
• Bringing Up Bebe, Pamela Druckerman
• Digging to America, Anne Tyler
• Princess Academy:Palace of Stone, Shannon Hale
• Zeitoun, Dave Eggers
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Phillip K. Dick
• Because of Mr. Terupt, Rob Buyea
• The Blind Contessa's New Machine, Cary Wallace
• Graceling, Kristin Cashore
• The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski
• Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West, Blaine Hardin
• The Wednesday Wars, Gary D. Schmidt
• The River of Doubt:Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, Candice Millard
• Cold Sassy Tree, Olive Ann Burns

In an attempt to be fair while writing this post, I gave it a couple of days so that it wouldn't just be a raging spewing of fury. But it is still going to be lengthy and ranty, so if you don't want to read it, I won't be offended.

When I was pregnant with CB, I watched The Business of Being Born. It made me ask some very pointed questions to my doctor and made me leery of inductions, epidurals, pitocin, etc, but I was still completely on board with going the whole doctor/hospital route, and although I wasn't POSITIVE I'd have an epidural, I was not opposed to the idea, and ended up having one and having a wonderful experience with it.

And I had a fantastic experience with my hospital. I loved our nurses. I loved the labor room. The recovery room wasn't as beautiful, but it was cozy and there was a couch that turned into a bed for Eric. I loved that I could have CB in the room with me if I wanted, but that the nursery nurses would happily take her until she needed to eat so I could get some rest before I took her home. It was a perfectly lovely experience that I thought I would be happy to have again.

Until we got the bill and then proceeded to have a completely NIGHTMARE with the hospital billing department, culminating this week with our being turned over to collections and putting the rest of our doctor's bill on a freaking credit card so that we could stop dealing with the madness.

So here's the story.

• First, when we were having our doctor's appointments, the people at the office gave us an estimate of what our share of our doctor's services for all of the checkups and the delivery would be, and it came to around $500. We understood that this didn't include our share of the hospital stay, but it was less than we'd been estimating, so we were thrilled. We paid it off before CB was even born. So imagine our surprise when we got a bill from our doctor for an additional $900+. When I called to ask about it, the billing department  said that our insurance just must not have covered as much as they'd thought. Whoops. 
• We also got bills from the hospital, where there were patients confusingly referred to as Megan Long and Megan Long BG (for Baby Girl, apparently.) 
• Both bills looked really similar, and had cited the hospital website as an optional way we could pay our bills. 
• The doctor's billing department called to set up a payment plan. We worked out an amount I would pay each month, and I made the first payment. I called and paid of the blessed anesthesiologist. I made a payment on our hospital bill. I set up a reminder on my phone so that I could make another payment the next month, since the billing people told me they couldn't set up automatic withdrawals. 
• The next month I paid both bills online. I called the number on the bill because I was having a difficult time making one of the payments, and they told me that was because BG Long was under a non-existent SS number, so I could just put in zeros and pay that one. Done and done. 
• In November, I got a notice saying our account was being considered for collections. We called and told them we were making payments, and they said, "Hey! We'll just set it up for automatic withdrawals! $125 for Megan, $125 for BG Long. It will be paid off in a few months." We said that was awesome. Didn't think any more about it. 
• In December, on Christmas Eve, our account was submitted to collections. We found out when we got back from visiting family for the holidays. I called the collection agency Monday morning and explained that this must be a mistake, because I'd been paying my bill every month and it was coming out of my account. They treated me like a deadbeat, and then they suddenly realized that they problem was that the hospital (where my doctor works) and my doctor (who works at my hospital) have completely different billing companies. (And by the way, the name the collection agency gave me was different than the name the billing department called itself.) And that somehow after that first time I paid my bill, I had never managed to talk to the right people again or realized that I was only paying the hospital, so my account with the doctor was, in fact, 4 months delinquent. Great. 
• So I called my doctor's office for the number of their billing company, which, by the way, was a number I had never seen before. I'd called them before, but with the number on which they called me. It was not the same number as the one on the bill. 
• They also treated me like a deadbeat. And I cried on the phone and felt like a complete idiot, while the lady at the office told me it was out of her hands (even though the collection people had already told me they could withdraw if from collections if they wanted to). She told me I could just pay it all if I wanted, but otherwise I'd have to deal with collections. Swell. 
• About this time Eric was coming home, so I let him deal with the rest of it so I would stop crying to Yolanda and Miss Lacey (really) on the phone. He called EVERYONE and asked them for itemized bills so we could make sure that we weren't being double charged for anything. He asked what we should do if we had a dispute ("Oh, you won't have one," said Yolanda) and he paid the collection agency. I suppose we could have just paid the doctor if we were going to do it that way, but Yolanda had stopped answering her phone after Eric asked her about disputes.