Emergency Manager | Speaker | Writer

Tag: parenting

The Birth of Sasha Mae

Sasha’s first day at home–3 days old.

Sasha Mae Brown was born via scheduled C-section on Wednesday, August 11th, 2021. Scheduled C-sections typically lend themselves to routine and uneventful birth stories. It could be as simple as selecting a date on a calendar, counting down the days, packing your bags and having a baby. However, Sasha’s birth story was anything but simple.

Sasha’s older sister Scarlett was born during the summer of 2019 after a failed induction. With Scarlett I did not want to be induced, but was pressured into it by my healthcare providers. I have chronic hypertension and best practice is to induce at 39 weeks. Many physicians would try to induce sooner than that. I pushed back as much as I could, convincing my provider to schedule the induction for 40 weeks and 1 day. After days of labor that culminated in nearly 4 hours of pushing, we went into the operating room to deliver Scarlett via C-section. It was a difficult recovery, since I had essentially had the worst of both worlds–the physical pain of labor, prolonged pushing and then the surgery on top of it. It was not a scenario I wanted to repeat and I couldn’t help but think that she was just not ready. If we had not induced so soon Scarlett could have made her debut naturally and would have been much more willing to descend if she had initiated the birth.

I got pregnant with Sasha at 15 months postpartum. My first birth was still quite fresh in mind, so I wanted to avoid induction at all costs with my second child. My goal was to go into labor spontaneously and to have a successful VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean). From the very beginning, I received pushback from the slew of different OBGYNs I saw at Kaiser throughout my prenatal care. I was surprised by this, given the high success rates of VBACs and that Kaiser seemed to promote vaginal deliveries as the best option in nearly any scenario during the childbirth courses we had taken two years earlier. Yet here I was running into multiple roadblocks and skeptical faces as I tried to advocate early and often for the birth that I wanted.

In my second semester, I switched back to the South Bay / Harbor City hospital where I had delivered Scarlett. A pregnant friend recommended the OBGYN and midwife she was seeing there, telling me that they were not pushy about setting any induction date for her. 

I also enlisted the help of a Doula, knowing that success rates are higher for women who have additional support from a Doula. Meredith was great–she met with us in person three times before the delivery. She helped me feel ready mentally and encouraged me to relax. 

Our babymoon in Maui

JB and I took a babymoon to Maui over Memorial Day weekend and while I was trying to relax and enjoy the sunshine, I received a phone call from my OBGYN on a holiday. Since it was a holiday, I answered to make sure it wasn’t something urgent. She told me she was reviewing the notes from my first delivery and that the doctor who performed the C-section wrote in the notes that I had CPD (Cephalopelvic distortion), which essentially means that my pelvis was too small for delivery. I was never told that verbally, and through the help of my doula I had been well educated about the myths surrounding CPD and the rarity of true CPD. My doctor told me that she was now recommending that I change my birth plan from a VBAC to a scheduled C-section, stating that she didn’t want me to go through a long labor just to fail in the second stage again.

Although the conversation plucked me straight out of vacation mode and into fits of tears, I told her as best I could that I wanted to stick with my plan. I was well informed of my options and was choosing to pursue VBAC.

As my due date of August 4th loomed nearer, Kaiser started turning up the pressure to get a date on the calendar. They wanted to either induce me or schedule a C-section. The time came for the doctor to let me know that my chronic hypertension meant I should get this date on the calendar for no later than my 40 week due date: August 4th. Prepared for this, I politely declined. I was firm that I did not want an induction. While I really didn’t want to feel the calendar crunch, I understood that I was going to have to make a choice if the baby didn’t come. With my knowledge that the ideal timeframe for birth is 39-41 weeks for healthy pregnancies, and understanding that I was already in a high enough risk category where professionals recommended delivering earlier, I decided I wasn’t comfortable going past 41 weeks. So I would either need to schedule a C-section for August 11th or schedule an induction for a few days earlier if I wanted her out by 41 weeks. I knew I wanted to give the baby as much time as possible to initiate labor. I also knew I wanted to avoid a repeat of my first labor experience, which all began with an induction. Considering all these factors, I begrudgingly conceded to scheduling a C-section with my OBGYN for the evening of August 11th, even though I hoped with every fiber of my being that I would not need the appointment.

Since she was my second baby, I also had childcare to consider. My parents were planning to fly down and be in town for Scarlett’s birthday on July 31st and about 2 weeks afterward. I didn’t know if the baby would come early or late, but I knew that she needed to come and we had to be released from the hospital by the time their return flight was scheduled–August 14th.

Sasha’s Birth Announcement photo at 8 days old.

As I drove to my Non-Stress Test appointment on July 27th, just after I picked up my parents from LAX, I started to feel a funny crampy sensation. It seemed to be coming at regular intervals. I was incredibly excited. I had heard so many birth stories where the mom’s body kicks into labor as soon as she has secured childcare for older children. When I arrived at the NST, I was overjoyed to see that the crampy sensation was indeed coinciding with the contractions that the monitors were picking up. At 38 weeks and 6 days, I was thrilled to think that my labor might be starting.

Unfortunately, the contractions subsided later that evening and I could no longer feel them by bedtime. On Friday, July 30th I had my 39 week OBGYN appointment. Once more, she tried to offer me an induction or C-section date for the following week. I declined again as my blood pressure readings had been beautiful, usually in the 110s/high 60s. She performed a cervical check–and revealed some great news, I was already 3 centimeters dilated and about 50% effaced. During my pregnancy with Scarlett, I was only about 1.5 centimeters dilated before the induction and remained there for the first 24 hours or so of labor until I got the epidural. So I was already farther along! I was so excited and we went home that morning with lots of hope. It didn’t seem possible that this baby was going to stay inside for another 12 days!

In the afternoon, we had to return to the hospital for a growth ultrasound. Apparently because of my high risk pregnancy (due to chronic hypertension which was never an issue in either pregnancy), they wanted to make sure the baby was not too small or too big. I was a little leary of the extra exam. They hadn’t required it with my first pregnancy and I had heard many stories about extra exams leading to unnecessary interventions. But I agreed to get the scan done since my doctor really wanted me to. 

They were 45 minutes late calling me into the appointment. I was so upset and had nearly got up to leave before they finally called my name and told me it would be quick. The tech was true to his word and told me that the measurements were looking good. I was relieved and glad to get home to my parents and Scarlett, who was anxiously awaiting her favorite Friday night dinner of beans and rice from the local Mexican place on the eve of her 2nd birthday.

Sasha Mae Brown

Saturday, July 31st was Scarlett’s second birthday. We took her to swim lessons in the morning and she had a blast. Everyone was in good spirits. When we got home I put her down for a nap and sat in the room with her while she fell asleep, a common request that she had at that age. I checked my email on my phone and saw the standard Kaiser email indicating that my results from the growth ultrasound were in. I opened the app, expecting to see everything well within normal range. While the measurements looked good, I was shocked to see that the fluid levels were low and highlighted in italics as falling outside the normal range. My heart started racing, as I was worried that this was indeed going to lead me toward the unwanted interventions and recommendations to induce. 

Sure enough, labor and delivery called within an hour and told me I needed to come in and get the fluid levels checked again since they were low on Friday’s scan. We were planning to have a small group of friends over in the evening to celebrate Scarlett’s birthday with cupcakes. The big party had been 3 weeks earlier as we knew the risks with making any firm plans so close to a due date. 

I grabbed my purse and JB and headed for L&D, telling my parents we’d be back soon—hopefully before Scarlett woke up from her nap. 

At Labor & Delivery, I was placed in a triage room and hooked up to the monitors for a Non Stress Test. We waited anxiously, hoping that we could get some attention soon so that we could head home and celebrate Scarlett’s birthday.

When the medical team finally came in, they performed the ultrasound and had some bad news. The fluid levels had decreased since yesterday. However, they explained that it wasn’t an exact science because the measurements could be obscured by the baby’s position. So it was possible that she was blocking their view of the available fluid pockets. But that wasn’t the only problem. They had also measured a heart deceleration while I was hooked up to the monitors. Baby’s heart rate had recovered, but given that I was full term at 39 weeks and high risk, they were recommending that we stay and get induced.

The entire pregnancy the one day that I did not want Sasha to be born on was Scarlett’s birthday. It was already going to be hard enough with birthdays within a week or two, they didn’t need to share the exact day. Plus, I did not want to be induced. We called our doula, who told us the flaws of the fluid measurements and that low fluid levels was not linked to adverse outcomes at full term. She encouraged us to leave, and that’s what we wanted to do too.

It was difficult to make a decision to go Against Medical Advice (AMA) and leave. I was nervous about it as I have been a believer in western medicine since it saved my life in 2012. But I knew what I wanted out of my birth plan, and I knew that I wanted to spend Scarlett’s birthday with her. I wasn’t ready to stay then. At the very least I needed to go home and celebrate Scarlett’s birthday. I asked if they could check my cervical dilation, but they said they would not until I agreed to stay.

She slept through her first Doctor appointment at 10 days old.

We left anyway. I felt a little crazy and rebellious on the drive home but I also felt like I was finally standing up for myself after being pushed around during my first pregnancy. At home, we had cupcakes and sang to our two-year-old. It was a restless night of sleep for me as I worried that my baby might be in danger, maybe without enough fluid, maybe laying on her umbilical cord which could have caused the deceleration detected at the hospital.

They had promised to call us in the morning and let us know when a bed was available. I still wasn’t sure that I even wanted the induction. But after talking it through with Meredith, I felt like I could possibly be induced and have a different outcome. After all, the circumstances of the first time were markedly different. I had hardly been dilated at all and now I was already at a 3. My body remembered how to get to a 10 and it could be easier this time. Maybe just a little bit of Pitocin would push me into labor. But maybe not. Maybe the contractions would be as intense as they had the first time and I would end up with another cascade of interventions and a C-section.

But I had said I would do what I had to to protect my baby, and now it sounded like she might need to come out. Maybe I couldn’t wait as long as I wanted to. I spent the day Sunday trying to psyche myself up for an induction that I had spent my whole pregnancy swearing I wouldn’t get. It was evening, after 5PM before they called to say that a bed would be ready for me at 7PM. We said good-bye to Scarlett and my parents. This time our bags were fully packed and ready to go. We stopped for ice cream on the way then made the familiar drive to Kaiser South Bay as the sun set. It was surreal to know we’d be coming home with a baby. Her birthday would likely be August 2 or 3. She might share her special day with my dad (8/2).

When we arrived, we had to wait. And wait and wait. I called Meredith to let her know we were just waiting and that we wouldn’t need her to come over until the induction actually started, which could be a while. Labor & Delivery was quite busy. I had been told that it was a pandemic baby boom and they had a lot of trouble finding beds for women.

When we were finally admitted into the same triage room as the previous night, we were met with a kind a doctor who performed an ultrasound and checked my dilation. She had some good, but shocking, news. She said that she was seeing plenty of fluid on the ultrasound, baby had several pockets that were sufficient to keep her well protected in the womb. I was also at 3 dilation and even more effaced. The baby’s heartrate was beautiful on the monitor, no decelerations or other signs of stress. My blood pressure was excellent. She told us that we did not have to stay if we didn’t want to. The induction wasn’t medically necessary, although since I was full term she recommended that we stay. She said induction would likely be easier starting from a 3 and that the baby wasn’t going to get any smaller if I decided to wait, which could make for a more difficult delivery.

It was a tough decision. We had all our stuff there. We had said goodbye to Scarlett and promised baby sister upon return. I had spent all day trying to convince myself to go against my original plan even though I knew in my heart I did not want to be induced. But we decided to leave. And this time they didn’t make us sign the AMA paperwork. The doctor had said we were free to go if we wanted to and the baby was doing well. It was quite the roller coaster of events in one weekend. We went home, happy, tired, and hopeful that our baby girl still had time to come on her own. After all, she still had 10 full days until 41 weeks.

On my due date. I was feeling contractions in this picture.

What I hadn’t anticipated was how difficult the ‘days between’ would be. I hit 40 weeks on JB’s birthday, August 4th, a Wednesday. I had some contractions that day which seemed to intensify and I really hoped that it was happening. But once again they fizzled out. After hitting 40 weeks, the countdown was really on. I was officially past my due date and now had to hope that the extra week I had built into my birth plan would make a difference.

Every day that week was excruciating mentally. We waited. And everyday she didn’t come we grew more and more anxious. We knew the clock was ticking down to the scheduled C-section and to my parents departure date.

On Thursday, August 5th we had an appointment with a nurse practitioner. We had intended to go into it changing our minds, choosing to schedule an induction rather than a C-section. I had been thinking a lot about what the doctor said, and Meredith had been working on convincing me too. I could go for it with the induction and likely get different results, starting from a 3.

The nurse practitioner delivered some shocking news. I was now barely a 1 and my cervix was hard, not effaced. She checked me twice as I relayed to her that two different doctors had told me I was a 3 the previous week. She said that was no longer the case. I had regressed. I was numb with the horror of the revelation. I had thought I would be further along. And yet, I had actually regressed. She said that I was not favorable for induction. We took a few minutes to try to decide what to do. In the couple minutes that passed while she stepped out of the room, my pendulum swung back toward the C-section. I didn’t want the same experience as before after receiving this terrible news.

Devastated, we drove home with the C-section still scheduled. It now felt like it was impending quickly. We decided not to tell any family members about the regression, hoping that if we didn’t say it out loud I could will it not be true. I could mentally coax my cervix into opening.

The next few days I did all the induction things. I walked like crazy. Ate spicy foods, dates, pineapple, did sidewalk walking, had sex and even got out the pump to try breast stimulation. Nothing seemed to be working. Now I felt no contractions. I just felt a sinking sense that my baby would not come, even though I desperately clung to each new day as a possibility that I may get to experience the wonderful spontaneity of labor’s onset. 

C-section day.

But baby never came, and on Wednesday, August 11th, we drove back to Kaiser for the scheduled C-section. There were contractions on the monitor, but I didn’t want to be checked. They offered an induction but I turned it down, knowing now that I needed to get home and wanted at least a day with my parents in the house to meet the new baby before they had to return home.

The scheduled C-section was a much more calm and routine process compared with the unscheduled one I’d had during labor 2 years earlier. An all female team delivered my baby and at 6:34PM Sasha Mae was born. She was beautiful, with big blue eyes and the slightest mop of white blonde hair crowning her head. For a scheduled c-section, her birth was certainly accompanied by a roller coaster of emotions. But in the end, she was happy and healthy and I was able to be in charge of my birth, making choices for myself right up until the surgery.

Just born.

Navigating the Pandemic as a New Parent

Last summer I gave birth to a baby girl who will turn 8 months old during the pandemic. Living through this crisis as a parent is completely different than it would have been if I was still looking forward to motherhood. There are so many layers of responsibilities and emotions for parents as we cope with this new reality of the world. My child is definitely too young to understand what is going on and certainly won’t remember this, but it’s an even more complex situation for parents with older kids who don’t understand why they aren’t in school and why they can’t go to their friends birthday parties anymore. I’ve been reflecting on how the crisis impacts my new identity as a parent.

The Protector

The primary way that I am approaching this situation differently is that I am now a protector. I work in the field of emergency management and my job for the last 3 years has been focused on response, so in this situation I theoretically should be going out into the world to help manage this crisis in any way I can. But in my new role as a mom I am the protector of an infant who is just learning to wobble on her own two feet. It has spurred me to seek opportunities to support my agency’s mission remotely so that I can keep my daughter home from daycare and self isolate the both of us as much as possible.

There is nothing more important to me than her safety so I will have to make difficult choices while navigating the career path that I loved so much before. While I retain the ambition and drive for my career and remain passionate about crisis management and disaster relief, I am finding myself needing to rethink my approach. How can I best apply myself professionally while prioritizing my role as a protector for Scarlett, especially in the era of the pandemic? I am challenging myself to find new, creative ways to remain productive and to thrive professionally while working from home and entertaining my daughter. I think many parents may be grappling with similar choices and exploring new productivity strategies, especially those who have careers that could put them in harm’s way during the outbreak.

Playing with her flash cards during the pandemic.

The Curator of their Universe

Especially now that so many of us are home with kids who would normally be in school, we are more responsible for crafting our children’s worlds than we ever were before. Shaping each day is now solely within our control, we can’t rely on teachers and strict school schedules to guide their days. It is up to parents to design the pace of day and find a good balance of playtime and learning, breaks for snacks and exercise, and the ratio of time spent indoors vs outdoors. Scarlett and I have settled into a good schedule–I have set up a couple different play areas that I rotate her between while I fire off emails and enter resource requests in the system. For conference calls, there are a few safe places I can use to keep her entertained and contained while mama moves to the office for the call. Her morning and afternoon naps provide an opportunity for me to catch up on the bigger projects that require utilization of my double screen set up in the office. 

While the work that I’m engaged in deals directly with the impacts of the pandemic and how we move resources to assist local government with their response, I know that I need to also be mindful of the atmosphere in the household. The tone of my voice when I’m speaking, my body language as I react to new urgent tasks, will all have an effect on my daughter. While Scarlett is too young to remember this time, it’s especially important for parents of older children to be purposeful in the atmosphere that they create. The situation is grim in many regards but within your own household you are the curator of their universe. You can shape this memory into a deeply meaningful, positive era when the family got to spend more time together and take a break from the hurried American lifestyle. They can learn to cook dinners or experiment with baking, perhaps learn to garden, change the oil in the car, learn to scrapbook or engage in other crafts that they wouldn’t normally have time to do in school. This is a great time to learn extracurricular skills and if we create a world where the quarantine is actually a fun vacation rather than a prison sentence our children may look back on this time fondly.

Scarlett G around 3 months old.

The Student

While many of us are taking on the role of teacher whether or not we like it, I think we should also try to take on the role of the student. Our kids for the most part are blissfully unaware of the greater world and the threat of the pandemic. They aren’t worrying about transmission and mortality rates or the status of the economy. They are waking up each day ready to experience life, explore new things, grow, and learn. Their outlooks are inherently positive because they have so much life to live and so much to look forward to. My daughter has been babbling excitedly at us and is so thrilled to be able to stand now. She loves to practice curling her toes under and elevating herself. The house is a brand new place to explore for her as she can now see and touch things that she never could before when she was limited to army crawling. She starts each day with a smile. Teenagers may not have the blissful naivety of Scarlett, but are probably at least thankful for some extra time to sleep in and access to household snacks all day.

When I feel myself getting overwhelmed with the devastation and isolation of COVID-19, I try to focus on Scarlett’s face, her attitude and the smile she gives me when I make a silly face and just absorb the small moments of mother-daughter bonding. We may be newly minted teachers but our kids actually have a lot they can teach us about focusing on simple moments of bliss throughout the day and the uncomplicated joy of smiling and laughing in the sun. Give yourself this opportunity to recapture the innocence of childhood and allow them to share with you their hope for the future.

COVID-19 and Society

Today we watch the outbreak known as COVID-19 continue to grow with ferocity, spurring emergency proclamations from more than half of the United States. The number of Emergency Operations Centers active in California softly escalates to what is likely an all-time high since my career in emergency management began. The scale of impacts the COVID-19 virus will have on our society remains to be seen, yet there are already some salient lessons that can be gleaned from this experience. These are my thoughts so far as my world is slowly consumed by the first pandemic of my emergency management career.

Photo by Rodion Kutsaev on Unsplash

Social Distancing, Telework and Disproportionate Impacts

The Governor of the State of California announced late last night a statewide ban on public gatherings and more and more agencies are implementing telework policies that allow employees to work from home. Universities throughout the nation are moving toward online classes and almost all conferences are being canceled / postponed to a later date. Major music festivals such as Coachella and major sports such as the NBA are being suspended. The impacts of COVID-19 are widespread. I commend the decisions in most of these cases to minimize the spread of disease, especially the move of computer work to an online environment. I have always been a proponent of telework, even in a blue skies environment, particularly after becoming a mother. So many people work in industries that are almost entirely computer based and don’t actually require in person interactions at all. So why do we still get in our cars everyday and drive to an office, making traffic just a little bit worse? I think that the widespread usage of telework in response to COVID-19 may enlighten agencies that telework can be a feasible option that actually increases productivity and boosts employee morale (and people will see how much this helps traffic in urban areas!). Especially as a breastfeeding mother, the ability to directly nurse throughout the day would actually increase my working hours as pumping, washing bottles, and properly storing and rationing breastmilk is significantly more time consuming than nursing.

Today, anyone who can definitely should try to complete their work in a place of relative isolation. Those of us who are young and relatively healthy may not see this as imperative, but if it slows the spread of this disease that could be fatal to our elderly families and immune comprised peers (including pregnant women!) then it is certainly worth it. I believe we will find that many of the in person meetings we previously held may have been a drain on resources and will be shorter and more efficient if conducted in an online environment—either through video conferencing, phone calls, or email exchanges.

However, the move toward online work will inevitably leave behind many hourly workers who typically earn lower wages than their salaried office counterparts. Even though the disease does not discriminate based on wealth and fame, as we have already seen with Tom Hanks, politicians, and NBA players being impacted, exposure will almost certainly be disproportionate. In line with so many other disasters, this outbreak will impact socially vulnerable groups, particularly low income populations who already struggle day to day. These are the folks who most often work in customer service roles at gas stations, grocery stores, as hotel maids, as servers in restaurants. Often they don’t have paid sick leave, and shifts may even be canceled due to event cancelations as many aren’t represented by unions to guarantee a set number of hours. These are the people we need to consider and support as a community to ensure that they feel financially secure enough to stay home if they are sick and feel able to care for family members who may be sick. I am fully supportive of extending government paid sick leave for these purposes. We need to think through how we can best protect these workers and how we can sustain these functions with as little human exposure as necessary. I think we need to be innovative now and rise to the challenge of public health to protect all citizens not just those privileged enough to be able to work from home.

Photo by Matcha & CO on Unsplash

Health is Precious

With my daughter starting day care recently and immediately being stricken with a tough cold that had her home for a week and the anxiety of a recent personal health scare, the subject of health was already at the forefront of my thoughts. But now that COVID-19 has so rampantly run through our society, we need to rethink health as a priority. Every day, healthy people take for granted their ability to breathe, to walk, to eat without pain or difficulty. But this status can change rapidly at any moment, especially with such a highly contagious disease that is now so prominent worldwide. This is another way that COVID-19 will have disproportionate impacts, in this case on those who are already challenged by underlying medical issues. We need to take actions to boost our health and our immune systems and to actively be thankful when are well. Far too many of us only think of and wish for health when we are already sick. Instead, I challenge you to be mindfully thankful for your health every day—take pride in heathy choices that you make, eat your veggies, go on that walk, do that yoga, drink that water, EmergenC and green tea! Wash your hands, stay home if you can and remember that if we can slow the spread of this disease we can diminish the immediate need for finite resources such as hospital beds and ventilators, giving older people and those with compromised immune systems the best chance to fight this illness.

Photo by Rodion Kutsaev on Unsplash

Technology and the Culmination of Couch Culture

I just recently returned to work after a 7 month maternity leave, some of which I didn’t have a personal vehicle. I am well practiced at social isolation and one of the major factors that makes me feel empowered to stay home is technology. Particularly the plethora of readily available delivery services—I am a regular user of Amazon Prime, Uber Eats and Vons grocery delivery. All of these were not available with the speed and precision just 5 years ago and are still not as accessible in many rural parts of the country. These technologies are a very powerful weapon in the fight against COVID-19 and I think we should make ready use of them. There is no need to make a rush on Costco or Walmart when you can have the essentials brought to your door step. I am aware that there are humans involved in these logistical processes, but I guarantee there are far fewer total opportunities for exposure in the quick interaction of the exchange at the doorstep then there are if you went to a crowded store or restaurant and spent an hour there. As technology progresses, it’s possible to envision a future where we could utilize drones and other automated technologies such as autonomous vehicles rather than Ubers to further mitigate the spread of this biological threat. It goes without saying that the Internet, smart phones, and tools such as Zoom and Go To Meeting are huge technological enablers in the work from home revolution. I know that loss of some hourly jobs is inevitable as we lean more heavily on technology, but I believe there will be more opportunities for creative, strategic employment for the next generation who, like my infant daughter, are practically born with a knack for technology. And isn’t this the perfect culmination of the ‘couch culture’ that we have been cultivating for years?? This generation of 20 somethings goes out far less than prior generations, and who can blame them with so many movies, shows, tasty foods, and even alcohol available with a few swipes of the smart phone? We have already been training for social isolation, now it’s game day.

These are my immediate musings on COVID-19, as I enter a week long period as the Emergency Management Duty Officer for eleven counties in Southern California. In the first nine hours of my shift I have received ELEVEN proclamations of local emergencies for cities and counties in CA. Wish me luck as I attempt to stay on top of this dynamic situation, and feel free to share the thoughts this pandemic is triggering for you.

An Ode to Maternity Leave

In the beginning of your life there were three: your father, you and me. We thrived for six wonderful weeks free from the hassle of commutes and the distractions of office work.

When dad returned to work, it was just you and me, I wasn’t quite sure how it would be. It hasn’t always been easy but it has always been marvelous. Although it surpasses the depth of words, I will try to paint for you a picture of the most special time in my life and the most precious memories that you have given me.

Early afternoon weekday walks through our neighborhood, you watch the seasons change slowly for the first time from your seat, catching glimpses of falling leaves, jack o’ lanterns, wreaths, then trees banished to the curbside.

As a sleepy newborn with closed eyes you raise your eyebrows and jut out your lower chin, seeking out my nipple.

When you awake from night’s slumber we partake in our morning routine, opening blinds and bidding good morning to each room and your reflection in the mirror.

I watch the wonder in your eyes when you feel your first rain and we hunker down, not leaving the warm walls of the house as the rain patters softly around us.

Your eyes droop closed while nursing, your cherub cheeks so still and perfect as your rhythmic suckling slows gently to a mere instinctual reflex and I let you sleep on my breast in the house’s midday silence while I read a mystery novel.

The smiles you elicit from strangers midweek at the grocery store while I show you where we find our food and fill the cart’s cupholder with a Starbucks treat.

I chart the shadows of the house at the tail end of summer, learning when they allow for blanket time in the backyard as you learn to lift your head steadily.

Unaware of the hour, we accidently mix with the backpack clad children walking to school while we are enroute to the local coffee shop, I daydream about how you’ll look at that age.

Errands that I used to drive to become excuses for exercise, another opportunity to show you the world through the vantage point of your stroller.

We watch the cars clear one side of the street for the weekly sweeping, and push past the sweeper driver and parking enforcement officer casually chatting on a crisp morning.

Unexpected cuddles transform my afternoon and I forgo my loosely made plans in favor of the soft warmth of your skin on mine as we lazily watch a Lifetime movie.

I retrieve my mixer and show you how to bake holiday goodies that we take to the neighbors who smile sweetly at you and your wild hair, strapped snuggly to my chest.

We hear tales of traffic on the morning news and I imagine its snarling storm around us while we are nestled comfortably in our little neighborhood bubble.

I let you carve the path of my agenda-free days: feed you on demand, snuggle you when you’re tired, and move through each room in the house to entertain you.

From the library’s alphabet carpet you smile shyly at the other babies with their nannies and look anxiously for me while perched on your tummy.

Monday morning at 9am we join the other littles for a swimming lesson in place of the staff meetings I once endured.

Always vigilant of your safety, I dial deeply into the neighborhood routines and anticipate each jogger and dog walker’s passage on our street.

The coming of the garbage truck is a weekly milestone, and we take note of when it comes and goes.

We follow the Amazon delivery van from house to house, you in your stroller—blissfully unaware of how many of your accessories came into our home that way.

We burrow so deeply into the house that we become familiar with microclimate that shifts diurnally and I adjust the layers of your clothes to your comfort.

You watch in fascination as the patterns of sunlight dance across the living room in late afternoon, I marvel at how they differ from season to season.

I bring you to the studio for your first yoga class and you roll across the shining wooden floors while I attempt my first sun salutation as a mother.

Your little hand grabs at my favorite ceramic mug as I sit leisurely sipping my morning coffee, smugly pleased at the retirement of the travel mug.

We indulge in the independence to feed on demand: you free from the confines of a clocked bottle and me liberated from the mediocrity of a boxed lunch.

I tell my friends they can come over anytime to meet you and I mean it, our schedule can be molded around theirs.

When you struggle with sleep overnight I am up to comfort without hesitation or complaint since the next day presents no hurried obligations or mental challenges.

We shoo away the neighborhood cats that come to play with a mouse in our backyard because they assume we are all away for the day.

You teach me a whole new meaning of prioritization, your beautiful smile is my day’s only true goal.

I make time for weekday phone conversations with friends who are all so excited to meet you.

The intimacy between us knows no bounds as I have been with you every day of your life, cherishing the nuances of your bowel movements, your naps and your meals.

We bask in the apricity of our little corner of the world and I wonder if you remember the sunflowers of summer that used to line these streets.

When we get a late start to our walk, we are joined by the cars returning one by one from the outside world as the empty driveways begin to fill.

Untethered from time’s obligations, I rock you to sleep in your clockless room, cherishing the soft stillness of your skin on mine, not knowing or caring how long it takes.

Our walking route shifts and meanders as the days grow shorter and I grow stronger, we add a jog up the hill to the river vista.

I read your favorite books so often that I have committed them to memory, adding new inflections to the stories as I please.

We attend your first music class, you make friends and learn Christmas music rhymes while mom and dad smile and sing to you proudly.

Laying on the couch, we FaceTime with grandma filling the hour between your afternoon nap and dinner preparations.

Our relationship is priceless, so deeply intimate that our bodies still merge as one for your feeding several times a day.

When strangers join us, you look around anxiously for me and give them a big sad lip, crying until you are in my arms again.

We take a field trip to Garden Grove to enjoy a picnic lunch in the park with Aunt Ellen.

I lounge in moments of calm and silence gazing at you lovingly through your baby monitor while you snooze peacefully in your crib—happy to rest but excited to see your smile again.

I am deeply familiar with the daily pattern of your eyes, from their wide early morning excitement to the drowsy fluttering droop after your evening bedtime story.

We walk to the wetlands daily where we monitor the water level and marvel at the colony of ducks that shifts through the seasons.

You gave me this new and wonderous life as mama and transformed my perception of the life of a stay-at-home mom from skeptical to envious.

I will forever be thankful for the luxury of reflecting on this time in months and seasons rather than days and weeks.

I will never forget the beauty and bliss of these minute moments and the intimacy we’ve shared during your beautiful first six months of life.

Advancing Your Career While on Maternity Leave

As 2019 ends, my six month maternity leave from my full-time job is drawing to a close. Before deciding to take such a long leave of absence, I was aware of some of the drawbacks that parents (women in particular) face when taking time off from a career to care for children. A 2018 study by the National Women’s Law Center revealed that mothers earn only 71 cents for every dollar that men earn—meaning that having Scarlett G theoretically decreased my earning potential from the 81 cents on that dollar that females without children earn. This so-called ‘motherhood penalty’ results in mothers earning an average of $16,000 less annually than men. The same study shows that employers view mothers as less devoted to their jobs. Another study shows that women’s income drops 30% and never catches up!

As I begin to think about the impending sad day where I will leave my girl at day care all day of course I feel tempted to just prolong my leave and stay home with her, especially given the price tag of the day care. But I also remember that taking additional unpaid time off or quitting my job to become a stay at home mom comes with an even steeper motherhood penalty. According to the Center for American Progress, a young woman who takes 5 years off to care for children can expect her lifetime earnings to be reduced by a whopping 20%. While this may seemingly make immediate financial sense due to the rising costs of childcare (particularly for infants), there are hidden factors that must be accounted for such as the opportunity cost (the impact of the break on her potential raises and promotions) and the reduction in wages saved for her retirement. These hidden lifetime costs could actually amount to 3 times the wages lost alone. Additional studies have shown the longer the maternity leave, the heavier the burden upon return.

Knowing all of this (and being the ambitious, career-oriented type that I am) I wanted to make sure that my maternity leave was productive. I wanted to stay in the game and view it as a sort of sabbatical rather than a break in my career. As glorious as it has been to stay home with Scarlett and play with her, I do my best to stay engaged in my field of work and use the time wisely to hopefully continue advancing my career trajectory and offset those pesky motherhood penalties and opportunity costs. For mothers-to-be who are considering these factors as well, here are some ideas to help keep your career growth pointed upward even when you aren’t working your full-time job.

Writing in a coffee shop just before Scarlett arrived.

Writing

If you’re reading this it’s probably no secret to you that I’ve been pretty busy with writing while I’ve been off work. I have been writing articles for my website regularly—every other week has been a feasible frequency for me. I have also been writing for a book project that I’m working on. While I’m not yet paid to be a writer, I have been writing best practices and reflections on my emergency management career that I hope will continue to elevate my profile as an SME in this profession. The great thing about writing and putting your work out there is that people will continue to read it long after you first shared it, and it’s something productive that you can do in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep after a nighttime feed. All fields cherish written communication skills and with the rise of LinkedIn and other social platforms you can easily share your written professional thoughts with potential future employers, headhunters or clients. If straight up writing articles isn’t your thing then work on a portfolio website–it’s so easy to build your on site these days with Wix and other similar sites and a great way to ensure your work pops up first when someone Googles you.

Reading on the Kindle with a sleeping baby.

Reading

My wonderful husband gifted me a Kindle for our one year anniversary in September. At first I was very surprised and not sure I’d like it—I’ve always been a physical book person and one year is supposed to be the paper anniversary and this was the true opposite of a paper gift! But I came to find that reading digitally on my super lightweight, palm sized Kindle was extremely easy to do while breastfeeding Scarlett—so much better than using an app on my massive ipad or straining to flipping the page constantly on my phone. I have been able to read several professional books on Kindle in the past few months, which help me keep up to date with ideas in both EM and general leadership / management. For me, reading stimulates continued thought growth on the professional world even when I am physically outside of it and feeling like my sole purpose is as a milk factory.

Scarlett during one of our lunch dates.

Coffee / Lunch Dates

Relationships are at the core of my realm as an emergency manager, but I’m a firm believer that they are pretty dang important in every field. The best way to grow your career potential is through your network—where you’re likely to learn about optimal opportunities. This is not something you can do immediately—certainly not within the first 4 weeks, wait until baby gets a little bit bigger and slightly more predictable. I reached out to a couple of previous managers and just asked to grab lunch, as well as met up for coffee (and happy hour) with a couple past colleagues. Staying in touch with colleagues and leaders in your field is always great and since you’ve got some time on your hands and an adorable little baby to introduce this can be an ideal time to deepen the connections in your network.

Professional Associations

I’m already pretty heavily involved in my professional associations, so I didn’t really amp up my participation much during this time, but I did continue it. Join a committee, listen in on a webinar, or just use it as a chance to really read the organization’s newsletters and better understand what they’ve been up to and how you can become a more engaged (or at least informed) member! If your organization offers a credential or certificate for certain professional contributions (like the CEM in our field) now is a great time to strategize how you can achieve this and start chipping away at the requirements or documentation involved.

Education

I’m not currently in a place in my life where I’m looking to continue formal education since I already have a Master’s degree and am a Ph.D. dropout with no plans to return. But if I didn’t have my master’s or if there was a certificate program I had my eyes on I would most certainly have looked into taking a class online or worked on an application. While being a mom to a newborn is extremely taxing, the reading and writing required of online class participants is something you can fit in during the downtime and in your PJs!

At an all staff meeting in our EOC 8 weeks postpartum.

In Conclusion

Obviously your priority during this time should be snuggling and spending quality time with your new mini human, and many people wouldn’t trade any of their brain power for career stuff during this sleep deprived time. But the motherhood penalty is sadly very real, and you will have the benefit of weeks with no meetings scheduled to pursue some of these activities if you want to take a break from baby brain. I would love to hear what other types of professionalization career-oriented parents have pursued during their time off work!

Breastfeeding: Challenges and Solutions for New Moms

How is Breastfeeding ‘Hard’?

I was very lucky in my pregnancy because it was relatively easy. I was happy, I was pain-free, I didn’t get morning sickness and I was able to go on long daily walks right up until the day of my induction. By far the hardest part of the whole parenting experience for me so far has been the so-called ‘fourth trimester’ or post-partum period. Particularly the very first 3-4 weeks was the most difficult and the main reason was breastfeeding. As special, important, and beautiful that breastfeeding can be, it can also be an incredibly painful, anxiety inducting, emotion laden imprisonment. I am happy to say that Scarlett and I have a great breastfeeding relationship now, but there were definitely dark, difficult times in the beginning when I often questioned how others could find it so amazing and whether it was for me.

I had heard from many sources that breastfeeding can be ‘hard’ or ‘frustrating’ or ‘challenging’ while I was pregnant. I took a 90 minute class at Kaiser where the instructor basically told us we had no excuse to not breastfeed. It wasn’t very helpful. I really didn’t know what, if anything, I could do to prepare for breastfeeding before Scarlett was born. I focused all my energy on preparing for the labor and delivery because breastfeeding was a big unknown and I assumed we would naturally find our way. I still don’t think there is much you can do to physically prepare for it, but I do think that really understanding what those first few weeks might be like could help you prepare mentally.

In this post I want to share the nitty gritty of my experience in hopes it might help someone. I know my experience wasn’t the easiest that could be had, but I also know that it wasn’t the most challenging. I am not a lactation expert of any kind, all I can do is genuinely convey what my world was like for the first few weeks, explain what makes it ‘hard’ and solutions that I used to cope.

My anchor in the early days.

Time Consuming

The first big surprise to me was how time consuming it was. I don’t think that I really realized how often newborns need to feed before I had one. The rule of thumb is pretty much every two hours and this includes through the night. If you are breastfeeding ‘on demand’ though you watch for feeding cues from the infant and feed them more often if they desire it. Some newborns will ‘cluster feed’ which basically means feeding nearly constantly or with very short breaks between sessions. So be prepared to literally not have time for anything else in the beginning. The frequency is counted from the beginning of the feed, so if you feed at 8AM expect to do so again at 10AM, 12PM, 2PM, etc. In the beginning, my baby wanted her feeding sessions to be extremely lengthy. It was not uncommon for her to go 30-40 minutes on one side before even switching to the next. My sessions sometimes lasted more than an hour, they were regularly 40 minutes. That’s what I planned for every time. So if I needed to feed her in public, it meant excusing myself from the activity to go to the car and feed her for 40 minutes. If we had visitors, I excused myself to her room for a 40 minute feeding. If you do the math, you also realize that it leaves very little time to do much else before the next feeding commences. You get used to living basically an hour on, an hour off, for weeks. And if you are trying to also pump after each feed to increase your supply, expect to spend an additional 15 minutes or so doing that afterward. The pace was grueling, the emotions ran high, I was struggling to nourish this precarious new life and set my motherhood on the right course.

Time itself seemed to transform. It was no longer a marker for my working hours, meeting up with a friend or when the game started. It was a tracking device for my every movement—for a while I was instructed to feed 15 minutes on each side—no more, no less. I then needed to pump for 15 more minutes. I would have gone insane without a clock to time this, to give myself pep talks—just five more minutes to go. When we changed her, we took note of the time. The clock measured my life in a way that I never knew it could. I was “off work” and freed from any time dictated obligations, yet I was more bound to the minutes that passed than ever before. I tracked the time in small increments, without much thought at all to whole days passing or what the date was.

I also didn’t realize that I would need both hands to feed her. One hand to guide my breast toward her mouth and cup it into a ‘sandwich’ and the other to guide / hold her head so that she correctly faced the breast and give us the best chances of getting a good latch on one of the first few tries. This meant that I wasn’t able to read, scroll through my phone, get a drink of water, blow my nose or anything that I might have wanted to do to occupy my mind for 40-60 minutes each session. This is why having some shows lined up to binge watch hands free can be such a lifesaver while breastfeeding!

Incredibly Painful

As much as I had been told that breastfeeding might hurt, I was unprepared for the true physical pain of it. Somehow between leaving the hospital on Friday afternoon and visiting the lactation consultant Saturday morning Scarlett managed to shred my nipples. They were scabbed over, but the thin scabs ripped and oozed fresh blood each time my hungry baby attempted to feed. I inhaled sharply and yelped ‘ouch’ and other obscenities each time she tried to latch on. I think she could sense my negative energy and instinctively knew that the metallic taste of blood was not the sweet milk her body craved. That Friday night became the night of hell as our baby screamed, wailed, and lashed out at us inconsolably as her face scrunched redder, angrier and hungrier as the hours wore on sleeplessly. When the lactation consultant saw my nipples, scabbed over and adorned with hickey-type purple ridges she knew that I needed a break. I had expected some version of ‘power through it’ which I had heard from countless friends and stories on the Birth Hour podcast. When I pumped only a few drops of colostrum after 15 minutes, she told us firmly that we needed to supplement with formula so that she could get her weight back up after losing 10% of her birth weight. She assured me that it was just a rest for a few days for my nipples to heal and I could still pump to stimulate milk production. I cried raw, unrestrained tears there in the office, trying to come to terms with my failure yet thankful that she had granted me some respite from my torturous endeavor. I also felt ashamed and embarrassed because I had wanted so badly to be a part of the ‘exclusive breastfeeding’ club. While we were able to resume direct breastfeeding after a few days and it became easier when my milk came in it was definitely not pain free until the next month. The latch would send searing pain rippling through my chest and I would have to gear up and brace myself for it when she began feeding. I would exhale slowly and count in my head, using some of the same strategies that had gotten me through her labor. I also felt the strangest tingling and burning sensation throughout my breasts after each feed. It was as if the milk was being regenerated and I could feel that sensation as they refilled slowly. It was uncomfortable and each time I longed for the relief of warm water or a compress. This was every day, 8-10 times per day. It only got better incrementally, so slowly that you could barely notice improvement but by eight weeks nursing was pain free.

Scarlett sleeps after a feeding.

Failure and Rejection

Breastfeeding is the natural way for us mammals to feed our offspring. That is why so many people assume it will be easy or that they can just figure it out. It is also why failing at it feels like the ultimate, deepest, most personal failure. What is wrong with me if I can’t even feed my baby? Am I just not cut out for motherhood? How can some people enjoy this? These types of thoughts ran through my head and tears sprung from my eyes when Scarlett turned her head away from my breast, howling from hunger but unwilling to suckle. She was frustrated with failing to latch too and horribly hungry. I wanted to help her but I felt powerless to force my breast into her mouth in the correct position and stimulate her to suck to extract milk. As we continued to try I swatted away the help or advice my mother and mother in law tried to provide. I wallowed in feeling a deep, personal rejection by my daughter when she would not feed from my breast. I felt so small, like I wasn’t fit to perform this function that should be instinctual. My own child did not want anything to do with momma’s milk and I was miserable. My husband can attest that on more than one occasion I screamed out of despair, pain and frustration, “I hate breastfeeding!” I felt inadequate as a mother and ultimately a human being. How could the wail and turned cheek of a baby reduce me to a worthless, sobbing pile of nothingness the way that it did? Somehow feeding my daughter was more mentally challenging than responding to a disaster, crafting an emergency plan, battling cancer, or any other obstacle I had yet faced in my life.

Scarlett naps on the Brest Friend nursing pillow.

Literally Draining

I did not expect the hunger and the exhaustion. Breastfeeding is draining as the calories and nourishment from your own body is literally sucked into another. I have read that you burn an extra 500 calories a day. I thought I was eating for two while pregnant, but I felt the most ravenous hunger of my life while breastfeeding. I needed to eat immediately in the morning and I couldn’t last from one meal to the next without significant snacking in between. The compounding factor was that I was in the heat of surgery recovery while learning to do this. Physically, I was not at my best to take on this most difficult journey. I was still on pain medication around the clock and there was just so much to keep track of. I had to document my pill schedule as well as every feeding, how long she fed directly on breast, how many ounces we supplemented, whether it was breastmilk or formula, every time she had a wet diaper, a dirty diaper, and even her naps. I felt like I was going mad trying to document all this while it was happening. I was totally sleep deprived and absolutely running on empty. I still couldn’t get up and down from a seating position without assistance. My brain was racing around writing checks my body couldn’t begin to cash. I needed to eat and I needed to sleep, but feeding her was my life’s purpose and I was the only one that could do it. It was incredibly taxing.

The Pressure

Another mental and emotional challenge was the pressure of being the only one that could feed her. As many people that surrounded us offering help and support it still came down to me as the mother to be able to breastfeed her. It was my sole responsibility and I felt that I could never truly get a break. Even when we supplemented with formula I would have to be pumping simultaneously to make sure my supply kept up. Even if my husband or mom offered to take over one of the nighttime feeds, I couldn’t really rest because I knew I needed to be pumping so that my body would know what her demand really was. I had been educated on how critical those first few weeks would be to shape the future of our breastfeeding journey. It was an immense amount of pressure that I had not anticipated. I also did not want to give up. I didn’t want to fail at giving her what had been ingrained into my head as the most wonderful gift a mother could bestow. I had heard and read so much about all the benefits of breastfeeding, the way your body adapts to give the infant exactly what she needs based on a feedback mechanism through her saliva while attached to the nipple. I didn’t want to deprive her of this because I was too weak or exhausted. I felt an incredible amount of social pressure to keep going from the constant dialogue on how superior breastmilk is to formula. Though every day I felt that switching to a bottle would be such a mental and emotional relief. Finally we could share the responsibility of feeding her and some of my burden could be alleviated. But I endured, hoping that I would find a light in the end of the tunnel. And I did.

Tired Mama and Baby.

Solutions

Here are some things that helped me, by no means is this a definitive guide or am I suggesting that all of these things will help every person. But I know I wouldn’t have made it through my own journey without some of these external factors.

Lactation Consultants

I must give a huge shout out to Kaiser Permanente’s South Bay Lactation Center. We met with two different lactation consultants there and both were extremely helpful. It was amazing to already have the appointment set up for the day after we were released for the hospital. Even though we were struggling so much I feel like I still would’ve hesitated to reach out for help, too stubborn to accept that I needed assistance. They always set follow up appointments for us, taking the questioning of whether to go back out of the equation. They made it seem normal to struggle. They were able to hook me up with two free months of a hospital grade breast pump for home usage, which was oh so helpful. They have a super precise scale that will weigh baby before and after a feeding so that you can actually know how many ounces (or milliliters) he or she is transferring. This was extremely helpful, validating that we were making progress and giving me peace of mind that she wasn’t going hungry after I fed her directly on the breast since we had no way to measure at home. They also would observe the latch and make sure you were getting it right. I felt like I had the opportunity to ask questions and better understand what was happening. They gave us a detailed print out of instructions after each visit, which was so crucial since my mind was literally mush at that time—trying to keep track of all the tiny details of Scarlett’s life made it hard to remember what was said during conversations.

The gel soothing pads and nipple butter I used.

Accessories

There are a few things I would recommend for those of you embarking on your first breastfeeding journey. Gel soothing pads were a huge, huge help for me in the first few weeks. My nipples were always some degree of sore around the clock and these really helped to take the edge off. I would put them in the refrigerator during each feed / pumping session and then they’d provide instant cool relief as soon as I was done. Nipple butters were also a regimen that I indulged in, I had two different kinds and I kept one in the bathroom and one next to my nursing station so that I could apply as needed. It may seem basic but showering was huge. I always hear moms say that they go days without showering while taking care of little ones, but I seriously don’t think I could’ve functioned without it. Each day it was the one activity that allowed me to feel human again, the warm water rinsing over my body and reminding me that I existed for more than just to feed a newborn. It felt amazing on my sore breasts and it was the one time of day they were free from a bra. I seriously would not skip this, it was the highlight of so many of those early days. I also had gel compression pads that could be heated or cooled for relief, I didn’t use these as much as I wanted to frankly because I was so exhausted at the end of each feed it seemed like too much to even get up and microwave them. The few times I did use them it was with assistance from one of my supporters and they felt awesome! While you’re pregnant, download a baby tracker app and get prepared to track away—at the lactation consultant and the doctor’s offices they would always ask how many feedings, how many wet & dry diapers in the last 24 hours. I literally don’t think I could have remembered this if I hadn’t been meticulously tracking it in my app. The Brestfriend pillow has also been my most prized possession. We still use it and I highly recommend it, it’s the perfect level for baby and it buckles around you so that it stays in place. The pouch that it has is also perfect for storing your essentials—I have nipple butter, headphones, my Kindle and her nail file in there. I also highly recommend making sure you get all your essentials together before settling in for a session, since you never know how long she’ll want to nurse for or if baby will want to fall asleep on you right after! Cell phone & charger, water bottle, Kindle / ipad, the TV remote, a burp cloth for baby, a snack if you need it…

Eating dinner over my baby thanks to my helpers.

Helpers

I can’t stress enough how important it was to have my husband there to help me. I really don’t know how single mothers do it and I am so incredibly thankful for his support. I also had my parents come visit for a week in the beginning and they were amazing. So seriously, don’t be shy! Enlist friends and family. The most helpful things they can do are help with cooking, cleaning dishes, washing your breast pump parts, refilling your water bottle, doing laundry, even feeding you directly! There were so many times I was grateful for my mom to literally put food in my mouth while I was starving but using both hands to feed the baby. Your helpers might not be able to help with directly breastfeeding, but they can help with everything else. It really does consume your whole life, so any help you can get with your other normal functions is going to work wonders for your sanity.

Alternatives to Direct Breastfeeding

Knowing when to take a break from breastfeeding (with the help of a lactation consultant) really saved our long term breastfeeding relationship. I thought that it might be ruined when we fed Scarlett formula. But it was absolutely crucial for my mental health and to let my breasts heal. I was able to pump during this time to continue stimulating my breasts and help my milk come in. We bought formula and my husband being able to feed her formula with a syringe was a lifesaver. I felt like a weight was lifted. I would recommend researching and even purchasing a small store of formula to have on hand for after birth even if you plan to exclusively breastfeed. We had to frantically go to the store and procure some, and I found myself falling asleep out of pure exhaustion while trying to figure out which brand was best to feed her.

Learning to multi task after a feed.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Gradually, these difficulties got easier. I got stronger I guess, or we just learned together through practice how to make the symbiotic process work. I became accustomed to the routine and learned what to expect. I am so thankful now that I stuck through those very dark, very low days. Breastfeeding now seems like it is actually the easier way to feed her—no bottle or pumping accessories to worry about washing multiple times a day, no mental inventory on formula that I have to keep up and remember to buy. I can give her everything she needs freely and easily from my body and it carves out skin to skin cuddling time for us each day. It wasn’t easy but I appreciate the benefits that this most difficult battle has bestowed on my daughter and I hope I can prepare and inspire others to undertake the journey. I hope this knowledge can help you mentally prepare and know that it isn’t all the perfectly lit, peaceful Instagram posts you see. It’s ok to not love breastfeeding, and it’s ok to choose not to do it. And if you suffer while embarking on this endeavor, know that you are not alone.

Lessons I’ve Learned From My 12-week-old

For the past 3 months I have been spending all my time with our 12-week-old daughter, Scarlett. It’s been quite a change of pace for me as I’ve been watching the wildfires take off from the confines of my couch, fighting the urge to get out there and get involved to help coordinate response. My husband JB worked long hours at the Saddle Ridge Local Assistance Center for 4 consecutive days and on the fifth day when he was supposed to be home earlier he had to stay late to work a new EOC activation for the Palisades Fire. This meant more FOMO for me and more hours of one-on-one time with Scarlett. As much as staying home goes against my nature to get out into the field and dive straight into these emergency management challenges, I have tried to really embrace my new, non-permanent role as a stay at home, full-time mother to Scarlett G and use this new lens to expand my viewpoint on the human experience.

Having spent every day and night of her life with her so far, I have had the priceless opportunity to watch a brand new human being emerge from the womb, adjust to a shockingly different environment, and begin to grow into a little person who tries to communicate. It has been nothing short of miraculous. I recently took some time to reflect on what she has shown me firsthand about the innate abilities of human beings to adapt and overcome the incredulous challenge of being helpless, immobile, and incapable of speaking in a massive obstacle-laden landscape. Before we fill our worlds with layers of experiences and years of learning, what are the native traits that we develop immediately, to cope with such a traumatic transformation as transitioning to life outside the womb? Spending time with Scarlett has allowed me a unique ‘back to basics’ perspective on our human resilience before it is colored by the complexities of adulthood. She is simply trying to survive, and it’s been fascinating to watch her develop behaviors that promote growth and endurance in this whole new world.

The thumb.

The Power of Self-Soothing

In the first few weeks after we brought her home from the hospital, Scarlett would sometimes cry unconsolably. As a newborn, crying was really her only way to communicate and I am sure there were many things that she found frightening and uncomfortable about her new home. It used to take mom and dad spending serious time rocking her, swaddling her, cuddling her or speaking to her softly to get her to calm down. But as she has grown, she has found her own way to calm herself down and has gained a very powerful tool. My baby sucks her thumb, and it instantly pacifies her. She constantly resists the pacifier, which we’ve come to terms with although we still offer it from time to time. Scarlett has learned that her own two lips can form the perfect fit to cradle her thumb and turn it into a readily available calming tool. Now whenever she gets bored, mildly uncomfortable, cranky or tired she will simply turn her head, find her thumb, and breathe a sigh of relief. She puts herself to sleep this way and wakes up in a much better mood! This has really shown me how powerful it is for adults to discover effective tools of self-soothing that we can practice in our daily lives.

Now, I’m definitely not advocating that we suck our thumbs, but it is incredibly empowering to be able to take control of a stressful, irritating mindset and transform it into peace and clarity. Practices such as deep breathing, stretching / yoga, meditation, walking or exercise, writing or reading, going outside, or having a hot cup of tea can really work wonders on helping to soothe our anger, anxiety, or irritation. It is important to try a few soothing mechanisms and learn what works best for you as an individual so that you can keep it in your back pocket as a frontline defense when you are thrown into high-stress, crisis situations. I think coping tools which rely the least on external resources are the most reliable since you need only to exercise a behavior within your own reserves. For me, it’s walking that will immediately calm me down. Stretching and deep breathing also help me to eradicate stress and center myself during times of crisis.

Big smiles.

The Power of a Smile

I struggle to identify when Scarlett’s first smile occurred because I feel like she has been smiling since day one. But she has certainly learned to utilize her smile as a tool to break the ice with new people and to melt mom and dad’s hearts into giving her whatever she wants. It might seem simple, but I think there is an important lesson behind the fact that smiling is one of the earliest behaviors that babies develop. A smile is the gateway to friendship, to developing social capital with other humans around you. As a helpless baby, she’s learned quickly that smiling gets people to smile back at her and emit affection and love. Smiling gets people on her side. I have noticed this as her mom as well that walking around with a smiling baby instantly endears me to strangers at the grocery store or on the streets. People who would normally walk by me with their hardened big city expressions, completely open up to me and I feel more welcomed and acknowledged wherever I go.

While it’s very basic, smiling and establishing good relations with our colleagues, neighbors, and fellow human beings is a crucial survival tool. The more that community resilience is studied the more it is shown that having a strong social fabric within a community is correlated with the ability to bounce back more quickly after a disaster or crisis. Exercising good relationships makes us happier people and gives a network to rely on when times get tough. It is also well known within the disaster world that you are most likely to be helped by neighbors or people around you when a disaster occurs since first responders will be spread so thin. A smile today is an investment in your future social capital—it’s easy and completely free.

Tummy time in the backyard.

The Power of the Unknown

New babies spend the majority of their time on their backs exerting minimal energy to look up at people and things around them. When placed on their bellies, babies typically struggle. They have to work extremely hard just to lift their massive heads off the ground and look around. For some reason, Scarlett loves ‘tummy time’ and I think I know why. Even though she must push her neck muscles to new extremes, she is mesmerized by this different perspective on the world around her and will work as hard as she can to be able to access this window into the unknown. From her belly she isn’t stuck staring at ceiling fans and drab white paint. She can see blades of grass, plants, the lower shelves of bookcases, the print on the bedskirt, mommy’s feet, and the detailed pattern of the rug. There is so much to see and discover from this new perspective. The added bonus is that if she works hard enough she will be able to crawl very soon from this position, which will add the whole new dimension of mobility to her human experience.

It’s easy to look at things the way that we always do, the way that we always have. We can simply lie on our backs and see a sterile, clean cut version of the world with minimal complications, where we see the people that choose to come in and out of our scope of vision.  It’s much more challenging to force ourselves to turn around, seek out new places, try new activities, interact with different people, languages, sights and smells. Sometimes we have to take on a new challenge to open up a new dimension of ourselves and unlock the next level of our lives. If you want to someday be able to move up or move on, take some time today to open up a new portal into the world around you by analyzing the challenges you have in front of you, perhaps one that you have been ignoring just because it seems too difficult to even begin to tackle. Think about what it would take to overcome this challenge and begin by taking baby steps toward surmounting it. It’s not about improving what you know, it’s about embracing what you don’t know.

My teacher.

Even though I’m the mommy and she’s the baby, Scarlett G has taught me a lot about the human experience. I hope to be able to use the lessons I’ve gleaned from her survival mechanisms to better my own adult life. When you strip away the complexities of our adult world and truly go back to basics you can discover more than you might have imagine. Even though I’m not jumping out to coordinate the next wildfire response I am learning something new about resilience right here, in my own home. So today I challenge you to practice one of your self-soothing powers, to smile at a stranger and to identify a challenge in your life that you can work to overcome. You never know what new worlds will open up to you on the other side.