The fourth trimester

DJ is now a little over three months old, bringing us to the end of the fabled fourth trimester.

A lot of you have probably heard of Harvey Karp (Happiest Baby on the Block) and his theory that human babies are essentially born three months too soon, which is why they're so much less mature than other primate newborns. They have to be born that early, he claims, because otherwise their heads would be way too big.

With that idea in mind, people talk about how babies suddenly get a lot more interested in the world around them at 3 or 4 months old, and that's certainly true of DJ who is now almost 14 weeks old. It's fascinating to watch. The other day when we were out for a walk, he was staring at our shadow. He's been grabbing stuff, and today, for the first time, he grabbed one of his hands with the other.

I also feel like I've arrived at a point of recovery. My ab muscles don't feel so slack anymore, and all my pelvic processes are just about back to normal -- better than I predicted.

And I've also kind of "arrived" as a parent. A month or so ago I'd be holding DJ and thinking that I should be getting something done, as if holding DJ wasn't doing something. Now I'm perfectly at peace just sitting around with him. I have also ditched the books and stopped thinking about what DJ is "supposed" to be doing developmentally or predicting future milestones. He still eats every 2 hours and wakes up 2-4 times a night when lot of babies his age are nursing every 3-4 hours and waking up 1 or 2 times a night. Good for them. DJ will sleep longer whenever he's ready. This is all to say that I'm much better at living in the present.

Looking back over the last few months, here are some things I wish I knew:

1. One has to recover from childbirth. Somehow I was totally blindsided by being injured giving birth. I naively expected to just be a bit sore for a few days. I felt pretty broken for quite a while, and that affected me emotionally. It's so obvious, but somehow I didn't anticipate it. I cried every day for two weeks postpartum, for some reason or another. Sometimes it was just "He's s-s-s-so b-b-buh-beautiful!!" But some other times it was more like "I'm pretty jacked up here and J is the only one who seems to care!" Which brings us to ...

2. The attention one gets as a pregnant woman stops abruptly (and, surprisingly, that bothered me) . Once I was sobbing to J that everyone was taking a million photos of DJ, but no one seemed interested in taking any pictures of me and DJ together -- somehow that symbolized my new invisibility. When we met with the pediatrician before DJ was born he said, in a jocular tone, "You're getting all sorts of attention now, but everyone will forget about you about 2.6 seconds after the baby is born. Your job, Dad, is to take care of her." He was totally right. People would ask me about the birth, but they were only curious about (1) whether I had a C-section and (2) whether I had an epidural. Two close friends wanted to hear the whole story, and I was so grateful. Way back when I was kind of annoyed that I got so much attention during that pregnancy. I needed care and concern before I had a trouble-free second-trimester pregnancy underway; not during it. And apparently I needed care and concern after I pushed a 9 lb 3 oz baby out of my hoo-ha, but it wasn't so forthcoming -- like it's not supposed to matter as long as DJ is OK. I'm hugely grateful that DJ is OK, but, y'know, my well being matters too.

3. Most babies have a peak fussiness period around 5-6 weeks of age. This was in the books, but I didn't really notice it until week 10 or so. DJ was extremely fussy around that age, and I really wondered if we were making total hash of it. The nurse in the hospital baby care class told us that all babies have a growth spurt at 10 days old and it will make them fussy. We should write it on our calendar and plan to just stay home and nurse all the time. It was totally true for DJ, and it was SO much easier being prepared for it. I wish we were similarly prepared for the fussiness peak at 5-6 weeks.

4. Babies aren't linear. At first DJ hated baths. Now he seems to like them. At first he liked riding in the car, then he hated it, and now he seems OK with it again. Two months ago he had two nights in a row where he slept for 5 hours straight. When he stopped doing that, I got all distressed, feeling like he should be doing that consistently. Now I know better. Last night he actually slept for 6.5 hours straight. I now know that just because he did it once doesn't mean he'll be doing that consistently any time soon.

5. To be a parent is to be conflicted. The week before last we started trying to get DJ to take his daytime naps in the crib instead of in the Moby, because he's at least 16 lbs now, and it's giving us backaches. I'm very conflicted about that. He did well the first week, but last week he started rejecting the crib more. And it's become harder to put him to bed in the crib at night. I'm often wondering if we should have co-slept longer or should start doing it again. I try to remember how fidgety and snorty he is sleeping and how we can't nurse well lying down and how nice it is to have an hour or two to myself in the evening. But it seems like my little baby is all by himself for so many hours. And maybe we gave up on swaddling too soon. And I always thought I would do a lot of baby massage, but I haven't yet. In general, I feel great about our parenting, but I guess these conflicted feelings are inescapable.

And, to close, a cute photo of DJ with a handmade sock-monkey hat and matching afghan: