Good Things Ahead

As much as Connor has grown in the past three years, from a baby to a little boy, I have also grown as a mother and as a person.

Anyone who is close to me knows that three years ago, I was in a dark place. It is mind-boggling for me to think about how happy I am now compared to how I was feeling three years ago – lost, alone, and sad. I had a lot of trouble adjusting to motherhood and I let my fear and anxiety overcome me.

My mind was so focused on catastrophic events that could possibly happen one day in the future because of something that I did or didn’t do that I wasn’t focused on the present. In short, I couldn’t “carpe diem.” Far from it. I was so worried about ridiculous things that might happen years from now that I would go out with the baby and forget to bring so much as a diaper or a wipe. I wasn’t enjoying life and I wasn’t present for my son.

Unprepared for day-to-day life, I felt like a horrible mother, but I knew that I loved this little boy more than anything I had ever loved on this earth. I tried to be perfect, but I was so far from it. I wanted Connor to be happy and to have a perfect life. I knew that I could be better. I had to get better for my son.

I realize now that Connor doesn’t need a “perfect” mom or a “perfect” life. And I've also realized that life doesn't have to be perfect to be wonderful. What Connor needs from me is love, support, and guidance – a kiss when he falls, a hug when he’s sad, encouragement when he fails, and celebration when he succeeds. And I have given that to him. And I will continue to give all of that to him for as long as I live.

Over the years I have learned how to manage my anxiety better, but more than that what has helped me get better is seeing Connor grow into the amazing and wonderful and smart little boy that he is. I couldn’t live my life without him.

The sense of impending doom is finally gone and those dark clouds have blown away.

I hate that I wasted so much time in my life feeling sad and worrying about events that I couldn’t control. But all that I can do now is pick myself up and move on from here, trying to create a beautiful life with my family, and my two incredible children, Connor and Lila. I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for us, as a family. I know that good things are ahead.

Here is a look back at the last three years:

Happy birthday to the little boy who turned me into a mommy!

For as much as I have taught you, you have taught me more about life than I could ever learn on my own.

Lila's Birth Story

Lila Sophia Morrow

Born August 1, 2011 at 3:16 p.m.

7 pounds, 7.5 ounces, 21 inches

I woke up in the middle of the night on August 1, 2011 at 1:00 a.m. to a small gush of fluid that drenched my shorts enough for me to suspect that my water had broken. I lay in bed quietly for a couple of hours thinking about my next step, but was too excited to sleep. I knew that this would be the day that I would get to meet my baby. At 3:00 a.m. I called the Bryn Mawr Birth Center and paged the midwife on call. I described to her what had happened. She told me to go back to sleep or try to get some rest, to call back at 8:30 in the morning. So I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn’t. I woke up early, showered, and packed my bags (for the 200^th time). I called the Birth Center again around 8:45 a.m. and the midwife told me to come in so that she could confirm or negate my suspicions. I got into the office around 10:00 a.m. The midwife on call did the “litmus” test on me and it was negative for amniotic fluid. But then she used a speculum to collect fluid and when she put it in under the microscope, she confirmed that it was indeed amniotic fluid. This was it! I suddenly felt so unprepared for this even though I had the last nine months to prepare.

Since I was using midwives and planning a completely natural childbirth, I was not admitted to the hospital. The midwife did mention to me that it was OB protocol to admit a patient whose water was broken and start an immediate induction and she said I could choose this option if I wanted. I really wanted to avoid an induction if I could because of my strong desire for a natural childbirth. I expressed this to the midwife and she said that midwives consider it safe to go for about 24 hours with ruptured membranes. However, she said that if I was not in active labor by 1:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning, that I would have to be admitted to the hospital and given Pitocin to jump start my labor. Then she did a non-stress test on the baby. The baby’s heart rate was fine and I had three contractions in about twenty minutes that I didn’t feel at all. 

At this point, she told me to go home and wait for contractions to start. In the meantime I could try drinking castor oil, do acupuncture or reflexology. The latter two sounded like a bit of a hassle to me to get an appointment within a few hours, etc., so I decided to go the castor oil route. She handed me two bottles of castor oil, told me to put both of them in a milkshake and drink it all at once.

On my way home I stopped at Hope’s Cookies in Bryn Mawr (right by Villanova and close to where I lived senior year) and ordered a vanilla milkshake (24 ounces!), and put the castor oil in the shake and gulped it down, amidst some curious stares.

I arrived back home around 11:45 a.m. My dad was at our house watching Connor and I told Sean that he should go into work to tie up any loose ends because the baby was going to be born later that day. However, I figured it would take a while, at least four to five hours or so, for the castor oil to take any effect. I still wasn’t feeling any contractions or pain at all. I honestly thought it wouldn’t work at all (just an Old Wives Tale!) and resigned myself to checking into the hospital the next morning to be induced.  

I told my dad that I was going to lay down to rest so I went upstairs. Soon thereafter I started to feel sick and began regular trips to the bathroom. I knew this would be a side effect of the castor oil. I did just down several ounces of a powerful laxative. Then around 2:15 I noticed that the stomach pains were coming in waves of about five minutes, then 4 minutes, then three minutes. At 2:30 p.m. I was texting my friends Julie and Maureen and describing “mild pain.” By 2:45 p.m. my pain was getting pretty bad and I called the midwife who told me to come in right away, just based on the sound of my voice. 

At that point I was still thinking that I had at least several hours to go, but that was I was feeling was *probably contractions* (I still wasn’t really sure!). Then about five minutes later, things took a turn for the worse. I called Sean and told him to get home immediately. I kept getting on and off the toilet, and then I got on my hands and knees in the bathroom. I kept saying to myself, “I have to get up and put on my pants,” but at that point I was frozen in pain and couldn’t move. Around 3:00 Sean came home, burst into the bedroom and said, “Okay, let’s go!” At this point, I knew that I could never make it to the car. I certainly couldn’t make a half-hour drive. It was too late. I felt the urge to go to the bathroom and I got on the toilet again, and lo and behold, her head was already coming out.

I said, to Sean, “Call 911.” Somehow I managed to drag myself on the bed, and the baby’s whole head came out almost immediately. I could hear the 911 operator barking instructions, and Sean was in a pure panic. I felt that the cord was around once around the baby’s neck. Sean was able to quickly get the cord off of her neck and at that point I knew that I had to get the baby OUT. In one more push, at 3:16 p.m., the baby flew out and Sean caught her. He saw her take her first breath and she began crying immediately. I rubbed the baby’s back for a few seconds before I looked down and noticed that I had a baby girl! (I was totally expecting another boy).

All the while my dad was downstairs and Connor was napping. Neither of them had any idea what was happening! About two minutes later, the paramedics ran in. (This is when my dad realized what was going on). They helped us clear out the baby’s mouth and cut the cord. After about thirty minutes of asking me questions with Sean and I still in complete shock, the paramedics carted me out of my house and into the ambulance. I could see some of my neighbors outside staring in concern at the ends of their driveways and as we drove off; some people ran up to my dad to see what was going on. I asked the paramedics to take me to the Birth Center but they said they had to take me to the closest emergency room so I ended up at Phoenixville Hospital where the on-call OB (Dr. Cohen) delivered the placenta. I didn’t need any stitches (great job, Sean!). The nurse checked out the baby and said that she looked great. They also did extra blood tests on her because of her unplanned home birth. All checked out perfectly. That night we talked about what to name her. Sean said, “I’m sorry, but I already think of her as Lila. I just don’t see her as anything else.” So I said, “Okay, Lila it is.” I ended up staying in the hospital for a day and a half where Baby Lila and I were monitored. Wednesday morning, August third, both Lila and I were discharged and went home to start our lives together as a family of four.

Despite the craziness of her birth, we were both so very lucky that everything turned out as well as it did. Thinking back, if any little thing had gone wrong, we both could have died. Lila and I were lucky that God and her Grandpa Morrow were watching out for us that day. I could never have imagined in a million years something so spectacular, scary and wonderful happening to me all in the same day.

If my daughter's spectacular and miraculous entrance into this world is in any way indicative of what is to come, I can't wait to see what my baby girl's future holds.

Before You Know It

I am certainly not a person who doesn’t realize the value of the present. When I began college at Villanova, my orientation counselor, a senior, said to me:

“These will be the best four years of your life. Cherish every second. Sooner than you know, it will be over, your friends will move away, and the real world will begin.”

During college, I thought about this phrase every day. Every pound of my foot on the pavement, every crowded car ride to the local bar, every night spent with my roommates Dan and Julie in our Ardmore apartment, with the leaky bathroom ceiling and wild mushrooms growing in the living room, laughing and reminiscing over a huge pot of paella and wine – I burned each moment into permanent remembrance. My inner monologue constantly reminded me, “Cherish this time. Life will not be like this forever.”

Four lightening-fast years later, I’m shivering in the spitting rain on the football field at graduation, gripping the hand of my future husband, tears dripping down my face, unsure of what life had in store for me. Those four years were fleeting, but the memories that I have will last a lifetime.

To this day I still follow the advice of the orientation counselor. Only now it has become even more significant as I learn how to raise my son. I just spent sixty nine days at home with Connor and every minute of those sixty nine days I cherished, even the ones filled with crying and misbehaving toddler. Even those I loved. We spent so many beautiful summer days together, at the zoo, at the park, running errands. Despite not being a morning person in any sense of the term, I loved feeding Connor his early morning breakfast of fruit and cereal while I sipped my coffee. I loved the long walks to the playground, the afternoons in the baby pool, the play time in his room. I am so grateful to have had this time with him.

These days with Connor didn’t necessarily go by quickly, but as I think about the last fifteen months and I look at what a little kid Connor is becoming, I can’t even believe that the time has flown by like it has. The older I get, the faster time goes by, and the harder I work to live in the present, and file away my memories, one by one. It’s still a daily challenge for me to not let my anxiety or fears about the future get in the way of the present. It’s a struggle that I’ve admitted to and have taken proactive steps to fix. I know that anxiety will always be a part of motherhood and will always be a part of who I am, but in learning to control my anxiety and keep it from overwhelming me, I am also learning to be a better mother and to appreciate Connor for the unique little person that he truly is.

…For all too soon, I will be sitting in the bleachers of football field at some graduation somewhere, gripping the hand of my husband, tears dripping down my face, watching the little boy that we’ve raised, turn into a man…

Taking a Step Forward

I realize that I haven’t written anything in quite some time. For those of you who are mothers, I’m sure you can appreciate how all-consuming motherhood is. For the last year and three weeks, my life has revolved around a single focus: my son. Every minute that the little wiggle worm is awake I am interacting with him, playing with him, teaching him new words, encouraging him, cheering him on, and taking him on various baby-friendly adventures. The time that he is asleep I spend planning out his meals for the week, researching vaccines and child development, planning new trip ideas, and working on his scrapbooks and photo albums. Most days end with me collapsing on the couch, a harried and hungry and un-showered mess.

Yesterday was the first day since school let out that I’ve spent more than a few minutes apart from Connor. His nanny Victoria came over to watch him for the afternoon. She wanted to see him throughout the summer so that he would remember her and it wouldn’t be such a shock when I went back to work. So I decided to get some errands done while she was here. Driving to the salon with an empty car seat bobbling behind me was strange. Maneuvering that ridiculously large cart around the Wegman's Friday afternoon grocery shopping crowd unencumbered by 19 pounds of baby strapped to my chest was weird. But it gave me time to reflect on my life while I silently decided between the smooth and crunchy peanut butter.

With the way things are going, I most definitely am going to be that woman who at 46, sends her son off to college, comes home a blubbering mess, finally takes a look at herself in the mirror for the first time in 18 years and sees a shocking sight. What she sees looking back at her is a fat, middle-aged woman with no friends, no relationship with her husband, and frankly no identity of her own.

Yes, I can see it now. And it’s a scary thought.

Like any good mother, I want to be the best mother I can be. I want to be loving, involved, and caring. I want to be there for Connor’s first step, his first “I love you,” all of the soccer games, the band concerts, the school plays, the parent-teacher nights. All of happy times and all of the sad times. But while I want to do all of this, I don’t want to make Connor my one and only hobby. I’m sure that twelve years down the road, my adolescent son will certainly appreciate a mom with her own identity whose life does not revolved around him.

So yesterday while I was out on the town, baby-free, I took my first step in two years towards developing an interest of my own. I bought my very first pair of running sneakers. I went to one of those running stores where the skinny college kid behind the counter observed me critically as I strode back and forth across the store like a silly short runway model and subsequently recommended the perfect sneaker for my awkward stride. I’m going to be a runner! I’m going to take it slow, day by day, but I hope to eventually run a half-marathon, maybe even by the end of this year. I’m so excited about it!

This will be me next year:

There are so many things that I want to do and so many challenges I want to take on. Motherhood is the greatest and most important challenge but I realize how important it is to keep up with my own identity. Many of the things that I want to do are super expensive, like professional photography classes and getting my Ph.D., but some, like writing and running, are not. And for what it’s worth, the continued development of my own identity will help me in my ultimate goal: being the very best mother for my son.

My sweetheart:

Before Motherhood

Ah, I miss the carefree days of my life before I became a mother.

Someone said this to me today and as I was nodding in agreement it suddenly struck me that even before I was a mother, I was never carefree. Sure, I get it. Kids are stressful, kids require lots of work, and kids mean little to no sleep for apparently many years. This is what I signed up for. But I was never “free from care.” The anxiety that I struggle to manage daily holds me back and prevents me from letting go and enjoying the life that has been set out before me. Before I was a mother, I got more sleep, sure, but I certainly wasn’t carefree. I was always stressed out about one thing or another. To me, each and every situation was an “end-of-the-world” state of affairs. If I didn’t get an A+ on my essay, well that was it, I might as well curl up and die. If I didn’t fit into size 2 jeans, why keep plugging on? If I didn’t graduate with honors, how could I call my life worthwhile? If I didn’t find a great teaching job, well, it’s over! If my lessons for the next day were not meticulously planned out with super-fun activities that engaged and excited the students, I was not worthy of living. You get the point. That being said, I can’t remember too many times in my life where I actually let go and had fun.

My teaching job was a colossal source of stress for me for many years. I was so dedicated to my job at Downingtown High School and at the time, it seemed like the most difficult job in the world. For three years, I was at that school for 12+ hours a day, 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The hours that were not spent at the school were spent at home, pouring over essays, research papers, new novels, and assignments while sipping (okay, chugging) glasses of pinot noir. Weekends were spent in much the same way, and I started to lose friends while my family relationships suffered. How could I possibly plan to do anything fun for myself when my students were waiting with baited breath for their essays on the Great Gatsby to be returned to their grubby little hands? Little did I know that juggling the instruction of five separate novels simultaneously to four different grade levels and grading 150 research papers in one weekend was nothing compared to the task that would soon be set before me:

Motherhood.

It sounds simple enough, but the word carries so much more gravity than anyone would know unless they live it. When I became pregnant, every other priority in my life dissolved. It was as if I put on blinders and the only thing that mattered to me was my baby’s health and well-being. Yes, I realize that this is unhealthy. In combination with my anxiety, I also deal with an obsessive and addictive personality. People with this type of personality are those people who become alcoholics, drug addicts, hoarders, and anorexics. If I don’t keep my anxiety and obsessive-ness in check, my life could easily spiral out of control. So keeping things in perspective is crucial for me. If I stop nursing Connor at one year instead of two, will he suffer some dire consequence of immune system breakdown and immediately contract the measles, meningitis, and chicken pox? If he falls down the stairs (see previous post) will this affect every area of his gross motor development? If he breathes in pesticides that are sprayed on the lawn, will he sustain some degree of neurological damage? If I leave him overnight with my mom while I attend a wedding in New York, will he be so traumatized that he won’t forgive me until his high school years? If I don’t pick him up immediately when he cries will he grow up to be a child who lacks self-confidence and has severe attachment issues?

The answers to these questions are: No. No. No. No. And no. I know this logically. I’m not an ignorant person, but motherhood has turned up the knob on my anxiety level so far that it is broken. (The knob that is). I just have to keep reminding myself that the decisions I make now are based on what I know at the time and what I think is best for Connor. One misguided decision won’t ruin him for life. Yet, for a person like me, this is an impossible task. The task of raising my son perfectly is an inauspicious one. I set goals of perfection that are unattainable; this is the nucleus of my anxiety. Maybe if I didn’t set unattainable goals, I’d be able to enjoy life a little bit more. But then I’d question if I could have done something more, better, longer, maybe Connor would be better off.

For me, the answer, despite being obvious, is not so simple.

A little boy, a flight of stairs, and an emergency room.

A baby, a set of stairs, an hour-long ride to the hospital, and a head bump the size of Texas was all it took to turn a calm and cool mommy into a frantic, blubbering mess. Okay, so maybe I’m not calm and cool. In reality, I’m pretty much the opposite of calm and cool. Uptight. Overwrought. Anxious. Stick-up-her-butt Lisa. Whatever you call me, I’m not the laid back type.

So what happened? Rewind one hour and Connor and I are playing upstairs in the hallway. Actually, he’s playing at one end; I’m folding laundry at the other. My normally super-cautious little boy lunges backwards for a toy and tumbles down the stairs, slamming his head on the corner of the baseboard. He only tumbled down two stairs but in my mind, it was just as bad as tumbling down the whole flight. Immediately he breaks into a blood-curdling scream (which I later was told was a good sign) and a silver-dollar-sized bump appears on his forehead within seconds. Oh. My. God. Stupid stupid mommy! What were you thinking? Shaking, screaming, crying, I call Sean, I call the doctor, I consider calling 911 and I don’t remember what I said to any of them. Thirty seconds later I am in the car, racing as fast as I can through rush hour traffic to the Grand View Hospital emergency room.

Fast-forward one hour and we have finally arrived and Connor is in a super good mood. Babbling, laughing, pointing at stuff, and trying to jump out of my arms to crawl around. All of this I consider good signs. Tears still pouring like a leaky faucet down my face, I describe the situation to the receptionist and am told to wait in the waiting room for the doctor. Wait? Wait?! My baby has a head injury! So we sit. And we wait. It was interesting to me that “toddler with dislocated elbow” and “teenager with dizziness” ranked higher in the pecking order than “baby with head injury.” Maybe because he was giggling and looking generally happy, he was pushed farther down the list.

An hour later we are put in a room and I’m forced to occupy my rambunctious little guy in a 6 by 6 room with nothing but a tongue depressor and an ice pack. Another hour later the doctor comes in. She’s super-bubbly and giving me sidelong glances that question why I’m even here with this giggling almost-toddler trying to climb out of the hospital bed. In these kinds of situations, though, I’d rather be asked “Why are you here?” than “Why didn’t you come?” No sign of serious head injury or brain bleeds, she tells me, but only a CT scan could tell for sure. She doesn’t recommend it based on his signs, but it would be able to tell me for sure. Awesome. Now do I just leave and hope that he doesn’t show any signs of a serious injury when we get home? Or should I just do the scan to rule out possible serious injuries? This is where choosing the lesser of two evils comes into play. Radiation: evil. Not discovering a potential brain bleed: evil. I pick option one and thirty minutes later my little trooper is bundled like a burrito and shuffled in and out of the CT scan. He was the cutest little thing ever, just laughed at us and didn’t even cry or scream.

After the scan, we’re plopped back into the hospital room again, and I’m left to wait, wonder, and worry. Being me, of course I’m conjuring up the worst possible scenarios. Thirty minutes pass. One hour passes. Where are they? Did they discover something bad on the scan? Two hours pass and by now I’m crying again. Connor is sleeping soundly on the stretcher.

Finally, I see the doctor running down the hall towards our room.

She smiles at me.

Thank. God.

His CT scan is clear. No brain bleeds or otherwise serious injuries.

One hour later I’m back at home, snuggled in bed with my baby, my husband, and my dogs. I think to myself, did I overreact? Is it just a rite of passage for new moms to have their baby fall down the stairs? Maybe. I couldn’t really see a mom of four or five children racing to the ER when one of her children falls down two stairs. But I’m not a mom of four or five children. I’m a mom of one. And a new mom. An uptight mom. And I did what I thought was the best thing for my little boy, which is what being a mom is all about.

Here is Connor at breakfast the morning after the “incident." You can see the bump in the upper right-hand side of his forehead:

Almost a toddler

In just two short weeks my little boy will turn one. A birthday. A celebration. A time to reflect. And so starts a new chapter of our lives. The blankets and swings and newborn onesies have since been tucked away and replaced with big boy toys and a new sense of freedom. As Connor's first birthday approaches, I reflect on all that we've been through this past year, and all that it took to turn a baby into a fledgling toddler. Though those sleepless nights and harried newborn days are behind us, questioning my decisions as a new mom is not. As I clumsily negotiate the vicissitudes of motherhood, I am slowly determining the kind of mother that I want to be. I've come to realize that when faced with a decision concerning Connor, I often have to choose the lesser of two evils in my quest to be the perfect mom. When I became a parent, I took on not only a new sense of responsibility, but also a new vulnerabilty. My emotions have always been raw and close to the surface, although it took me until my early twenties to realize this, but never have they been so raw as they are in my new role as mommy.
 

I decided to start this blog because, well, it's cheaper than therapy and it allows all those who care to follow our journey a little glimpse into my life as a new mom. The title of the blog is meant to mirror the phrase that I have kept in the forefront of my mind, ever since the day I found out that I was pregnant, and the overwhelming anxiety - not the boundless joy I was promised - set in: "Keep Things in Perspective." This is something that I remind myself of daily and hope to tie back to often as I write. Words and pictures have always been my friends and I hope to use them, intertwined, as a canvas on which to paint a picture of my life and capture my journey as I live it. For those trials and triumphs we experience daily, the things that are so important in the moment, can be so quickly forgotten. Good or bad, happy or sad, I don't want to forget a day that I spend with my little boy.