Early Childhood Health Centre

During my antenatal classes and while staying in the hospital, the midwives stressed the importance of reporting to the Early Childhood Health Centre (ECHC) as soon as I left the hospital. A midwife would visit me at home, answer my questions and I'd be referred to the local parents' group. This sounded great to me because these services are provided by the government for free and I'm a nervous new parent who can use as much help and support as I can get.

I returned from the hospital on a Saturday, the following Monday was a public holiday so I promptly called the ECHC on Tuesday. I was greeted with a lengthy voicemail message informing me that the office was open two days per week (Wednesday and Thursday) and that a midwife would get back to me then as long as I answered my phone. The message stated that nurses spend a lot of time playing phone tag with new mums who need to answer their phones: "when we call, our number will display as 'private,' so please pick up our call." Jeez, I get it.

Anyway, I didn't want to fail Lachie in the first week of being his mom so I left my phone on full volume during normal business hours awaiting a call from the ECHC nurse. It took them seven days to return my call. The earliest they could see us for my baby's one to four week check was in one month. That seemed a little late, but I said okay. In setting up my home visit, I was asked a series of strange questions which, after the fact, felt like a quest to find something that would impede our meeting:

Nurse: Are there any renovations happening in your building?
Me: (Idiotically answering this question honestly) Oh, all the time!
Nurse: ...Uh... (obviously unaccustomed to hearing the wrong answer given so enthusiastically) Anything that would impact Denise's safety?
Me: No (Did she think I'd bring my baby home to a construction site with asbestos and metallic dust?)
Nurse: Is there abuse in the home?
Me: No (very sorry for the people who respond 'yes' and are in obvious need of support, but are probably denied a visit)
Nurse: Is there parking available where you live?
Me: Oh, yes, we have a car spot in the garage, but no car so she's free to use that.
Nurse: How will she get in?
Me: We leave her name with the concierge and he'll instruct her to go to our spot, number 787.
Nurse: How does the nurse get out of the garage?
Me: ... (Is this really a question?) ... There are doors leading to the lobby.
Nurse: Our staff have gotten trapped in garages before. Can someone meet her?
Me: Yes.

This inane conversation went on longer than it needed to. A friend had a similar experience when they phoned about her home visit. They asked if they'd prefer the midwife to remove her shoes in their home. My friend and her husband usually do this so she said 'sure.' The midwife replied, 'well, she has to leave her shoes on.' Okay...

Again, it felt like they were using any excuse not to do their jobs. When the day of Denise the midwife's visit finally arrived, my mom and I were curious and eager. At the appointed time, Denise rang and said she'd be there in half an hour. One hour later she phoned again from outside the garage. I was feeding Lachlan so I told her my mom would run down and meet her. Ten minutes later the midwife rings and says she can't see my mom and also her mobile doesn't work in the garage before the call dropped. My mom calls me and says she can't find the midwife. I tell her that she just phoned, but the call dropped would she please have a look around the garage. Ten minutes later my mom is back in the apartment saying that she jumped into a car with an old lady she thought was the midwife and rode into the garage with her before learning that she spoke little English and was not in fact the midwife. My mom went back to the garage and hollered for her before noticing a car parked on the second level with its lights on. My mom approached the car and found the midwife sitting in her car. When my mom asked her why she didn't get out of the car she said something about, 'oh, we don't do that. We need you to come to us.' Right.

Once everyone was finally upstairs the midwife asked a number of questions that I'm surprised she didn't have the answers to. When I told her that Lachie was five weeks old, she said, 'we don't usually see babies older than five weeks.' That's when we wanted to tear our hair out, but I calmly tried to explain that their soonest appointment was five weeks after I called.

Nurse: Well, have you booked in your 6 - 8 week check?
Me: No, I thought I had to sort out this visit first. How long does it take to get that appointment?
Nurse: Several weeks so you better arrange that now.
Me: No kidding.

Denise weighed Lachie and said he appeared to be in great health. I walked her back to her car to make sure she wouldn't get trapped in the garage.

I had high hopes that my conversations with the other midwives at the ECHC wouldn't be as nonsensical when I visited the center to attend my first parents' group meeting. During these 2pm meetings, new moms sit around a circle and state their name, baby's name and any issues/questions she has about her baby. The midwife gives a vague, unsatisfying answer and then they move on to the next mom in the circle. I quickly learned to ignore most of the baby advice and just enjoy the time commiserating with the other moms.

Unfortunately, the midwives didn't ignore me. Denise gave her colleauges at the center a heads up that I was suicidal or something (see my previous post on anxiety) so they were always calling me to see how I was doing, referring me to other people who didn't know anything about me and making sure I was attending the next parents' group. At one point they asked if I wanted to attend such and such support group and I agreed because it was helpful to meet other new moms. Yet another midwife then left several messages on my voicemail explaining that there was no room for me in the group that they had referred me to. Great.

During one meeting I made the mistake of telling the group that I was concerned about Lachie's weight gain following his cold and tendency to regurgitate an entire feed. I had seen the doctor about this and he wasn't too concerned. He was confident that Lachie would gain the weight back quickly after his cold and the vomiting subsided. The midwife cornered me after the meeting and lectured me about feeding Lachlan more and waking him up in the night to feed him. She threatened that if I didn't and he didn't gain enough weight, 'his brain wouldn't grow.'

The midwife who replaced her wasn't on my case, but was kind of grumpy and useless. Once I began attending mother's group meetings in the park, I stopped going to the ECHC. Friends and other mothers agreed and had similar stories and bad experiences. One mom said that the midwife yelled at her and made her cry. My friend Meaghan said that though government midwives in Victoria are required to have masters degrees and a certain level of experience, "any old grandma could get this job." Meaghan was right. When I learned that the government didn't trust these midwives enough to allow them internet access in the ECHC offices, I finally wrote them off.

At my last meeting at the ECHC, a midwife complained about potential budget cuts to their program. I felt like raising my hand and asking how I could give the government my feedback about the program. Dear NSW, your attempts to help new moms are admirable, but if the best you can deliver is poor service from lazy, mediocre staff then don't bother.

On a More Serious Note...

I am amazed by how profoundly my experience as a new parent is shaped by expectations and confidence.

Like Rufus Griscom in his TED talk: Let's Talk Parenting Taboos, I expected to be hit by a "Mack truck of love" upon holding my new baby for the first time. Though I loved Lachie and in a way had loved him since before he was born, I did not feel an overwhelming surge of love in the way I had expected. The experience of holding him and looking into his eyes for the first time was surreal. I found myself dumbly asking him, 'are you my baby?'

I had grown up loving the story of my own birth: the doctor announcing "it's a girl!" and mom declaring it the happiest day of her life. Unconsciously, I had expected to feel the exact same way when Lachlan arrived and when I didn't, I immediately felt deficient. In the days following his birth, I tearfully asked my mom and Mickey, 'when will I love the baby the way I'm supposed to?' I felt a bit of relief when my friend Shannon told me that falling in love with your baby is a lot like your other loving relationships: they build and grow over time.

Mickey surprised me by putting Lachie in our bed

Still, during those first weeks I was filled with overwhelming anxiety. I was on the lookout for post natal depression (PND), a condition which affects 15% of new mums in Australia. The literature and websites advise you to call a doctor if you feel like you don't want to get out of bed, can't cope or have thoughts of harming the baby. That all sounded very alarming and I couldn't really relate. Instead, I felt a paralyzing fear of making the wrong decision in regard to looking after Lachie. It felt like there were a zillion decisions to make about the new baby (Should we swaddle him? Is he still hungry? Should we change his diaper when he seems so sleepy?) and I couldn't bear the thought of him being uncomfortable and unhappy while I struggled to respond to his needs. I found these decisions so exhausting that non-baby decisions were likewise impossible. Even deciding what to have for dinner felt unbearable. I found myself looking for excuses to do housework even though my mom was doing most of the cooking, cleaning and shopping. Tasks such as emptying the dishwasher were gratifying to me because I felt confident doing them. Nothing about caring for Lachie was as straightforward or satisfying because I felt like I was doing it all wrong. I fantasized about being our housekeeper because then I could help with the baby, but not be so completely responsible for a new little person. I constantly asked Mickey and my mom to tell me what to do.

Sleep deprivation, of course, compounded the problem. It killed me that we weren't up all night because Lachie was. On the contrary, he gave us decent blocks of sleep between his feeds, but I found that I couldn't put myself back to sleep easily. I nearly had a panic attack one day while lying down for a nap thinking, 'I need to sleep right now because he is, but I can't.' There was so much pressure to sleep when he was settled and I was always sure that the moment I dropped off to sleep, the baby would wake and need me.

After one particularly heinous night, I stayed in my pajamas the following day so that I could nap, but I couldn't nap and then felt even worse. From then on, I made an effort to shower and dress each day not because I was going anywhere, but because I needed it mentally. Nights were like this really strange sick joke; let's all put on pajamas and brush our teeth and pretend that we're turning in for the night, but really we'll be feeding and settling the baby around the clock.

Impractical, but cute overalls

I made the mistake of sharing some of these fears with the Early Childhood Health Centre midwife (whose visit is worth its own post). She must have decided that I was suicidal because mental health specialists turned up at my door the next day. They began making appointments for me that I never agreed to attend. When I didn't turn up to these appointments, they visited me again and when I didn't allow them in, they phoned Mickey and left cryptic messages on his voicemail. The madness didn't end until I visited one of their doctors. It's unfortunate that the government's response to my request for help with anxiety only yielded more anxiety and I regretted ever sharing my feelings with this midwife.

What did help was talking to other mommy friends and time, of course. I learned that all of my feelings were completely normal and common though not textbook PND. It turns out that I didn't really need a diagnosis; I just needed time to realize that making the "wrong" decision when caring for your baby won't kill either of you. In fact, it will help you respond to his needs better the next time around. As my friend Meaghan said when I told her I was afraid of nights, "dawn always comes," and she was right.

Lachlan is twelve weeks old now and I grow more confident as a new parent each day. It helps that he grows more settled and more communicative each day. When I first held him the day he was born we were strangers, but with each smile and cuddle I fall deeper in love.

Cool Stuff About Lachlan

Our baby boy changes everyday and I don't want to forget what he's like now at nearly seven weeks old. Here's a list of a couple things we've noticed:

Lachie in his striped cardi from Nani and red recliner

• He likes to raise one fist in what I call his 'power to the people right on' move. When he does this while feeding, I kiss his fist and congratulate him on fist bumping Mama's lips.
• He doesn't always take long daytime naps. We're okay with this because he gets a couple of good stretches at night.
• I believe that the cuter someone is and the more you love them, the more nicknames you create for them. I wish there was a nerdy graph for this theory! Here is a list of Lachlan's nicknames organized by the person who calls him each one:
• Papa calls him - chubba, chubby, chubbawumba, bubba
• Mama calls him - the Lachster my rock star (almost rhymes), pudding, puddingtons, sausage, possum, little bear, little person, my love
• Nani calls him - angel, precious, darling, sweetheart
• He can smile! As he becomes more aware and alert, he smiles at us more often. Of course these smiles melt our hearts. He's also begun cooing; it's terribly sweet.
• He "chuckles" in his sleep. Of course he cannot really chuckle, but he makes this cry/whimper noise that sounds like 'heh heh,' so we call it his chuckle and it's adorable.
• He likes hanging out in his red recliner (borrowed from Ken and Meaghan) and his swing (borrowed from Adam and Elise). He used to tolerate these for just minutes, but he can go for longer stretches in both now. This is extremely helpful because it frees up our hands and bodies to do other things. 
• If well fed and not overtired, he also likes taking a bath.

Hopefully pictures and video will help remind me of everything else that Lachie's up to.

Pregnant No Longer

When Lachie arrived, I experienced a lot of new feelings physically and emotionally. One of them was a sense of disbelief that the pregnancy was really over. There were times during my pregnancy when I felt like it would never end and then suddenly it had.

I don't miss the backaches, my slow waddle or the inability to lie on my back, but I almost miss the feeling of being special in the eyes of the general public. The first time I walked around town without Lachie a strange thought occurred to me as I passed strangers on the street, 'they don't know that I just had a baby!' Somehow, I had gotten used to my big belly alerting the world as to what was going on with me.

Likewise when I rode the bus for the first time without the babe, I thought 'people don't know that I need a handicapped seat because I don't have a belly anymore.' It took me a moment to realize that I actually don't need a handicapped seat.

With Lachlan, though, I feel just as special as I used to when walking around in public in the sense that strangers smile and strike up a conversation just as often as they did when I was pregnant. People comment on his sweet looks, mention the age of their own children and remark on how fast the time goes by.

Lachie's First Weeks

I don't know how new mums find the time to update their blogs! I have a tremendous amount of help from my mom and Mickey and still I've neglected my blog during Lachie's first weeks.

The Lachster in his tiki shirt from Papa and mittens from Steph

I'm determined to fire out a couple of ineloquent lines so that I don't forget the roller coaster ride that has been Lachie's first weeks, aka parenting boot camp for Alane and Mickey. Lachlan grows and changes just as quickly as my moods so I need to take a moment to record what's going on.

It seems like ages ago that we spent two nights at the Prince of Wales Private Hospital and two nights at the Crowne Plaza Coogee Beach, but of course it was only last month. On the whole, the care we received was excellent, but I remember being shocked by how inconsistent the midwives' advice seemed to be. Some would tell us to wake Lachie in the night to feed him while others weren't bothered by the fact that he was a little sleepy in his first two days of life. As a new mom, you just want to be told the right answer in regard to your new baby and that was tough when it seemed like none of the hospital staff were on the same page.

Lacho in his playsuit from Jennie

It's delightful that breastfeeding women are encouraged to eat 300 - 500 calories above their normal pre-pregnancy daily intake and both the hospital and hotel take that into account when preparing meals.  Hospital food wasn't great, but there was so much of it that you could pick and choose what you wanted to eat. Likewise at the hotel, new mums in the Little Luxuries program were covered for an entree, main, side, dessert and drink, basically enough food for three people.

We thoroughly enjoyed the Little Luxuries program. The hotel was far more peaceful than the hotel because you could (try) to fall asleep to the sound of crashing ocean waves instead of the nurses' call button.