cindy's world

I had mused before about the fact that I was unaffected and dispassionate in dealing with criminal cases with children victims when such cases seem to bring out the inner murderer of other adults, and assumed it was because I was not a “kid-person.” I’d wondered if I’d feel differently if I were a mom. Today, I figured I would get to find out.
This morning we were given an assignment to do a preliminary hearing in which the victim is a 17-month-old little girl. Allegations are that the 22-year-old mother’s boyfriend (who is not the father) slammed the little girl onto the floor or some other hard surface, causing fractures and enough damage to her skull and brain stem that it killed her. The mom and defendant seem to say that the kid fell off a chair on accident while in the defendant’s care and it was not child-abuse related. The defendant is charged with a count of murder and a count of assault of a minor.
Before knowing anything about the case, just flipping through the evidentiary photos almost brought me to tears, and the autopsy photos of her skull were…*gag*. Now we’re in the midst of an expert witness pediatrician’s testimony about the injuries, and we’ve heard a part of the mom’s testimony. None of it has moved me to tears and the mom was rather giggly and rather clinical in her testimony (she’s a nurse). So I’m doing pretty well, I haven’t lost it in a fit of hysteria, yet. This is going to go on for a couple of days.
Meanwhile, I think this is a good time for sharing something I saw the other day and loved, cuz it’s SO TRUE. I have friends who occasionally comment about how we Asians don’t age, and I usually respond something to the effect of, “Yeah, but when we turn 60, overnight we look like our grandmas.” Observe:

Last Friday, I aged another year but I insist that I remain in my “mid-thirties.” I figure 38 would be “late thirties,” so I’ve still got a few years. It seems like just a couple of years ago that I was making this argument about being in my “mid-twenties.”

Mr. W kept asking me what I wanted for my birthday. There really wasn’t anything I could think of. If Allie weren’t in existence, or if Dodo weren’t doing pretty well, I may have a few birthday wishes. Not knowing what else to do, Mr. W ended up bringing home what seems like 2 dozen beautiful yellow and sunset roses from his Costco shopping trip, and taking a couple of hours off work so he could take me out to an early dinner while Jayne was still at home with Allie. We had a delicious adults-only meal at Seasons 52 at South Coast Plaza, and after that, walked into the attached swanky mall to Sephora, where after a looooong hunt (and being delayed half an hour by an annoying salesperson who insisted she was “like, like, a makeup artist, like, you know,” and wasted my time putting unwanted shades of eyeshadow on me that made me look like a zombie despite my saying I just want a simple matte gray to go), I found my gray eyeshadow. It was a Sephora store brand, cuz EVERY OTHER brand they carried was either metallic or glittery or shimmery. I got overexcited and selected 3, and Mr. W insisted on paying for them at the register. So yay for a very much appreciated birthday gift! And good gawd, when did some powder pigments start costing $13 each?!

I was SWAMPED trying to clean up a certain problematic floater’s mess with a 3-defendant attempted murder trial at work, but I don’t want to dwell on that. It’s a good thing that in this day of layoffs and difficulty in getting a job, that I’m gainfully employed. Unfortunately, certain others are also equally gainfully employed, even tho apparently I’M doing THEIR work. Okay, I’ll stop now. There were good things that happened at work on my bday, too. For instance:

My former court reporter Louise must’ve had early notice that she would be in our courthouse on my birthday, because she popped in prepared with three very sinful, very gourmet cakelets (yes, I just made that up) from The Great Dane Bakery for me. This place makes wedding cakes, so you can imagine how fancy her little cakes were. I was being floated all over the building, so I “didn’t get a chance” to share. In the afternoon, a few hours after consuming one such cakelet for lunch, my courtroom assistant noted after witnessing my 700 wpm phone conversation about a case, that I was on a sugar high. Later, the nausea and headache set in. Amazing how sensitive my system has become given my very careful eating ever since I started prepping for pregnancy (and now breastfeeding). That didn’t stop me from eating the other 2 cakelets. YUM.

Of course, given the above birthday indulgence yesterday, I had to go for a run this morning. Mr. W opted to not go, so he stayed home with Allie. Finding myself not accountable to anyone for my run, I got lazy and slowed to a walk shortly after starting up a hill. Suddenly, I looked up and saw this:

So I sighed, obeyed, and ran the rest of the way, not stopping again until I reached home. As my friend Danielle said, “Sign, signs, everywhere are signs.”

I must’ve earned my karma, because Allie was THE PERFECT BABY today. She took her first nap at 8:30a for an hour and a half; took her second nap at 12:30p for another hour and a half. Mr. W’s son came over during Allie’s 2nd nap and we all went out to sushi for Son’s birthday which was earlier in the week. Thanks to her great rest, Allie was so happy, she didn’t even get stranger-shy around Son like she did about a month ago. She was super well-behaved and patient while we ate at the sushi bar, too. After this early dinner, Mr. W and Son went to purchase Son’s bday gift, an iPad3. I swear, Mr. W should get commission for those things. (My mom called, and I told her what our plans were today. She said, “An iPad? And you only got eyeshadow for your birthday?!” I guess she’s a lurker on my social networking site.) I stayed home with Allie and got to enjoy her wonderful mood all day, giggling, playing, dancing, humming. It inspired me to take a 10-minute video of her doing basically nothing but hanging out, crawling and playing, enjoying herself and her blocks that I stack up and she likes to knock down, and a sturdy plastic bag that I inflated and ziplocked. (I know, I’m not supposed to let babies play with flimsy plastic bags or any plastic sheeting, but she was well-supervised.) She’s so like her brother Dodo. You can buy all the expensive stuff you want for them, but their favorite things will be plastic bags, cardboard boxes, and crinkly paper. Mr. W and Son got home from the Apple store in time to spend some time frolicking with Allie before her bedtime, which was also caught on my 10-minute video.

Allie went to bed for the night without a hitch, and Mr. W is spending quality time chatting with his son in the backyard. I finally have the computer to myself. Now, if only the screaming neighbor boys would stop making all the noise playing basketball on their driveway outside of Allie’s bedroom window, it would be a great evening. They kept Allie tossing and turning. I blame summer’s long days and Daylight Savings hours.

For the longest time, Allie just looked like “Allie” to me. I didn’t see Mr. W in her like his friends/coworkers kept saying, and sometimes she’d have an expression that looked like an expression that I’ve seen in photos of Baby Cindy, but I didn’t really see “me” in her, either. Well, I still don’t see Mr. W or me in her, but recently, I’d see her and in a shock, realize she looks like a total white baby. I’d have a moment of feeling odd, like, “Whose baby ARE you?” but then she’d smile at me or do something cute and funny and all would be forgotten.


Meanwhile, why has it become impossible to get eyeshadow that just simple gray? Just a flat, gray, normal eyeshadow. Not something silver and dramatic and shimmery. Not black glitter. I guess the trend now is all about sparkles, which SUCKS cuz what about us working women? By that, I mean those of us who work in a professional setting, not strutting our stuff up and down Hollywood Blvd. I spent forever browsing the makeup aisle at my local drugstore yesterday, studying all the various brands of eyeshadows, and the matte colors didn’t have gray, and the grays all were teeny-bopper glittery. I finally found a set that seems pretty flat and basic (actually, Mr. W found it), and bought it. But at home, after trying it on, I looked about ready to deny my age and hit da clubs. Or maybe sprout some fairy wings and fly around Disneyland granting wishes. I can’t go to work in a COURTROOM with that crap on my eyelids! I can just see my conservative judge in the morning greeting me, and then doing a double take while saying, “Whoa!” So the little palette is now sitting on a more appropriate wearer’s desk, in the stepkidlet’s room waiting for her to come home from Germany and Spain. More and more, I see a need for a time machine. (So I can go back to the 90s and stock up on plain gray eyeshadow.)

We got a 3-week civil jury trial yesterday. Today we’re starting jury selection. I was dreading this because a case this complicated (6 attorneys in the courtroom representing plaintiff, multiple corporation defendants and individual cross-defendants) means I’ll have to REALLY stay on top of it, the exhibits will likely be crazy. However, I have to leave at 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. during session to pump. I won’t have the jury room to use for that, since we’re going to have jurors, so I’ll have to go elsewhere to pump, which will add to the time away. When I come back, I’ll have a hard time catching up without Louise’s transcriptions coming through my computer on realtime so I can see who a witness is, what rulings have been made, what exhibits have been introduced, etc. This is our first trial without a regular assigned building court reporter, thanks to new provisions in place due to the state of California’s fiscal shortfalls.

Our regular reporter Louise has been clearing out her office, getting ready for being a full-time floater reporter starting Monday. She will be at the mercy of her headquarter offices, and has to call in each morning to see where in the entire County of Los Angeles they decide to send her for the day. She may be driving 2 hours away if they decide there’s a need in Lancaster, for example.
Louise is here today finishing up her packing, and very nicely has helped the private reporter that the attorneys have hired with plugging into the realtime equipment, giving her a heads up on the habits and likes of the judge, etc. The floater reporter, thank goodness, does do realtime and it has been working all morning. She kept commenting how nice Louise is to her, and it’s true. Other building reporters whose positions have been closed and are being replaced by private reporters on hire by each trial’s attorneys have been resentful. One refused to help the outside reporter connect his equipment with realtime for her judge. She threw a fit when her bailiff allowed the outside reporter to use employee restrooms in the back hallway. She raised problems about security if outside reporters are given access to our hallways and are plugging into judges’ networks to provide realtime feeds. Louise was surprised by their actions; she feels that it’s not these individual reporters who are the cause of the courts shutting down court reporter positions and laying off court reporters. She said it’s hard enough floating into a foreign environment, especially knowing you may not be welcome. She made herself available to the very grateful outside reporter for questions and tips. The more resentful reporter who made the waves in the building later asked a bailiff, “Should I have helped with the realtime connection when the judge asked me to?”
The bailiff responded that as with any situation she comes across when she finds someone that needs help, she has two choices. If she were to see someone laying on the sidewalk in front of her when she’s walking by, does she (1) stop to see if the person is okay, and whether she can offer assistance or get help? Or does she (2) just keep walking and pretend she doesn’t see the person? I guess it’s not as simple as that in this situation, though. The replaced court reporter has to put aside any hurt ego and help an ex-staff have a smoother transition to a stranger who’s doing a job that she had been doing for years and did not voluntarily leave. Another reporter described how she feels about the whole situation as “betrayed.” It’s just all pretty sad stuff. Damn housing crisis that started this whole downward financial spiral worldwide. (Okay, I know it’s more complicated than that.)

It’s Friday, we’re going to have angry jurors who thought they were going to get away with not having to serve jury duty until they got notice to come in the very last day of their on-call week, and I’d much rather spend it hanging out with my ex-(sob) court reporter, Louise, for the last time than stuck in the beginning of a 3-week-long trial about a yard sprinkler system that injured someone.

Snack bar, thank you for existing. Because of you, I can work late into lunch, go a mere few floors down, and obtain indulgences to consume minutes after leaving my work behind. Then as my body turns your edible nutriments into milk, I can pump half an hour before trial resumes in the afternoon session. Your selections aren’t varied or healthy, but they are readily available. That’s good enough for me on days like this.

Oh, tuna salad sandwich on wheat, why are you sweet? I mean that literally. Wherefore art thou so sweet? Did they put sugar in your ample mayonnaise? Is that relish in there? Well, whatever the reason, at least the fishy part of you lays between what I assume to be wheat bread given the color, although I guess it could be food coloring to give the appearance of nutrition. I did feel a little bad after throwing your wrapper away, with the sticker on it displaying an expiration date of 5/18. I had selected you because the only other tuna sandwich had an expiration date of 5/16. I didn’t realize until after getting back to my computer that 5/16 is today. What will happen to the other sandwich that I’d left there, looking through the refrigerated glass at potential customers like so many pound puppies and kitties? If nobody picks it today, does it just go to waste? If the prior owners of the snack bar were still there, they’d simply change the sticker and the sandwich would magically be given new life.

And oh, Cheetos, I’ve saved the best for last. Ah, Cheetos, my familiar old friend. You taste of theatres flashing movies like “Mo’ Money” and “Jurassic Park.” Each persistent crunch calls to mind footfalls on a high school hallway traveling between second period P.E. and third period English II Honors. There were days when the ignorance of teenagerhood made you regular company, a time when 320 calories per serving of deep-fried corn meal did not bring with it a concern of lesser-quality milk to feed an infant. (Of course, back in the early ’90s, I’d thought “Allie” would be 11 years old by now.) It’s been a year without you and I’ve succumbed to your bright orange siren call twice this week, unable to resist your crinkly bag depicting promises of miniature Neanderthal clubs in the identical unnatural hue used to paint your speedy mascot. Until and unless shown that your “Artificial Color [including Yellow 6]” appears in my milk production, I shall not regret today’s walk down memory lane.

Allie’s been rolling from her front to back for awhile, which is very disruptive to her naps (that she takes on her tummy), because she hadn’t been able to roll back to her front. During our road trip earlier in the month, Mr. W swore Allie rolled from back to front while she was playing, but I didn’t see it. She’d been getting close, sometimes “accidentally” doing it, but often trapping her arm underneath. Early this morning, we saw on the monitor that she was peacefully sleeping on her stomach in the crib altho I’d put her down as usual on her back. I think it’s official now. And I’ll have to remove her bear that she sleeps on and wrestles and cuddles with, now that it’ll become more of a suffocation risk. 🙁 I hope a flat mattress instead of a cozy bear, when she’s half-awake and reaching for comfort, doesn’t jar her fully awake.

We’re in day 2 of a Family Law divorce trial. Not really interesting, and it’s been a challenge to pump while trial’s going on. I’d simply leave and pump in the jury room with the door closed, and while I’m gone, my judge will swear in any new witnesses and jot down new trial exhibits identified, and when I return to my desk, I check my court reporter Louise’s realtime transcript on my computer and compare it with notes, and catch up for my minute order. This is all going to change. With the $15 billion deficit that our governor announced earlier this week, California has been cutting its budgets by going beyond trimming the fat, deeper than the muscle, down to the bone. For us, in addition to other measures, this means the state is ripping every court reporter in our county out of their positions, lining them up by seniority, laying off the 60 lowest on the totem pole, reducing the next 60 into part-time workers, redesignated a bunch of courtroom as no-court-reporter and/or partially-reported courtrooms, and the remaining reporters are going back into available courtroom positions by seniority. With this upset, we are losing the reporter we’ve had since I’ve worked for this judge (which is practically my entire career of 13 years).
We’re a trial courtroom and we do primarily Civil Law trials. Under the new rules Civil Trials will not be provided a court reporter. If the parties/attorneys want the proceedings recorded, they have to provide their own private reporters. This is crazy to me. How are they going to appeal anything without transcripts? What if there’s a dispute as to what happened? It’s all going to be he-said-she-said? For me, it means also that I no longer have realtime, so when I leave (to go pump) and miss something, I miss it completely, forever. I guess I can have my courtroom assistant take some notes for me, but it’s still very uncomfortable as she’s unaware of what kind of information I would need written down. And I’d have to count on her to pay attention AND understand what’s going on, both of which are not guaranteed. :/ Also, if I’m going through my notes at the end of the day and I realize there’s a discrepancy, like I have two exhibits with the same number written down, I can’t just go to my reporter’s office and say, “Hey, I think I may have misheard an exhibit number…can you check your notes for me?”
On a more personal level, Louise has been more than a coworker to me. She’s been a big sister, giving me guidance with work issues, personal/emotional issues, and a friend who’s been kind unconditionally, not just to me, but to people around in general. She’s been my outlet at every major emotional episode since I was 21, using her own life experiences and compassion to help me through very hard times. She gets my humor and laughs when I made oddball comments that go over other people’s heads. She’s changed my life in so many ways. Emotionally, she’s taught me to recognize the difference between negative actions stemming from my ego feeling hurt, vs. legitimate reactions to protect or improve myself. She’s taught me about the strength of acceptance and inaction (i.e., resisting retaliatory behaviors, or in childish terms, not “getting someone back for what they did to me”). My physical health has improved thanks to her, too. I started running way back in 2000 with her advice and encouragement, as she has been a lifelong marathoner and gave great tips on training. We worked out at the same local gym for some years, and would give each other new workout ideas and exercises and tips. Since she started her health and nutrition kick some years ago, she’s been sharing her knowledge (and sometimes, cookies!) with me, taught me so much about nutrients, vegetables, organic foods, cooking. Oh yes, and we took a few cooking classes together for fun at a bakery she’d discovered. And she found Rebecca. She’s also helped me out in so many little ways when I was overwhelmed at work, whether it be from putting a cart of files together (when I was in Law & Motion) or by babysitting the courtroom because I had to get away to do something in another part of the building. She also co-threw me my work baby shower.
She’s still in our courtroom reporting this Family Law trial because Family Law has been designated as reporter-required proceedings, but as soon as this trial is over, she’s released from us, as if the Powers that Be just cut the cord that bonds us all to this courtroom, and she’s being dragged away and will be sent on a day-to-day basis to who-knows-where. Wherever her assignment office decides they need a reporter for that day. Louise has been well-adjusted about it all and her perspective is that she’s grateful to still have a job and a reliable paycheck, but our little work family is going to be forever changed.
I keep telling myself that my losing her as “my” reporter doesn’t mean I’m losing her as “my” friend. She’s not disappearing off the planet, and I still have her phone number and we’re online social networking friends so I can still stalk her (heh). As far as my finding one of my favorite people in the world, this job has already done its job. Staying in each others’ lives is in our own hands.
One of the joys of coming to work is dimming, though. Mr. W is becoming ever more eager to leave California as we watch this state go on its downward spiral…and I’m starting to come around and resist less.

RE DODO:
Dodo has a vet appointment this Saturday to get an update on his kidney disease condition. He started vomiting bile more often over the weekend, and I relayed that to the vet, who’d called to check up on him over the week. She explained a process from the kidneys’ failure to do their job efficiently which ends up with excess acid production in the stomach. The end result is that I have to add another medication, this time an antacid, to his morning and evening medication routine. Luckily, I was able to get it in liquid suspension form, also tuna-flavored. It should be delivered directly from the pharmacy this week. I think the stages of this disease are progressing faster than I’d initially expected.

RE ALLIE AT HOME:
Allie has been doing well this week. Jayne has been following my written instructions/diagram, so Allie’s had all 6 naps on time Monday and Tuesday. Monday was picture-perfect and she had substantial naps. Jayne had to wake her at the 2-hour mark from her Monday noon nap so she doesn’t oversleep, and she had to again be awoken from her late afternoon nap yesterday. She did take a short morning nap yesterday (about half an hour), but she was left in her crib until the full hour had passed before she was picked up and fed. The feedings are in normal stretches after the naps, too. So as long as I can avoid looking at the cameras in the day, I don’t feel too much anxiety.

RE PUMPING:
Milk production dropped dramatically in the past week, but yesterday appeared to pick up a little again. I’ve given up trying to pump at night before I go to bed as the amount I’d get out makes the exercise a waste of time, but I’ve pumped in the mornings prior to Allie getting up, which has been working out. I’m usually so engorged at that time that I don’t need a let-down to get out at least 4 ounces, and I’m finding that I’m more engorged earlier in the mornings, so overnight milk production has increased. This morning I got out 7 oz an hour before Allie was to be up, still leaving enough for her to nurse with in the morning. I’ve also gotten out a half ounce more in each work-pumping yesterday than I had the day before, so I’m hoping it’s an upward trend. I think it helps that I’m less freaked out about what’s going on at home.

RE WORK:
It’s been a pretty light week as far as court hearings go for us, so I’ve been taking advantage of it by washing out and drying the pump parts after each pump session (when it gets busy I’d only have time to wipe the parts out), and by hammering the 30+ divorce cases sitting in the bin waiting for me when I got back. The relief clerk who was at my desk most of the time, Andy, did his best in keeping up with those and did process a gi-normous quantity of the cases, but I heard the clerk’s office was so behind in getting the defaulted divorce files farmed out to the courtrooms for processing that they put 5 people on the default desk to clear the backlog, and each courtroom was hit with 7-8 cases a day in addition to the courtroom’s regular work. Everyone’s grumbling and everyone’s behind. Well, after a week and a half of pounding on these cases, I cleared my cart yesterday and got caught up. I still see it as what may stand between me and my baby at the end of the day, and I don’t ever want to give a supervisor a reason to tell me I can’t leave for the day because I’m leaving work behind.

YESTERDAY EVENING’S STATUS MESSAGES:
“Cindy daringly took a shower 15 mins after Allie went to bed, aiming for the deep sleep part of Allie’s sleep cycle…& Allie reportedly didn’t move from the shower sounds! This could mean a shower daily is now possible! *moved to tears of joy*”
That’s huge! Allie’s finally outgrowing the overly noise-sensitive sleep phase of her babyhood!

“Cindy would love to take a field trip back in time to see the day when ice cream was invented. Was it an accident? Was it a stroke of genius? What was everyone’s reactions when they tasted it for the first time? What flavor was the first ice cream? Who came up with adding vanilla? In fact — oh, look at that, it’s 8:50. Time for bed.”
I think I’m gaining a little weight back. I’d like to gain it back by hitting the gym, but having to be back from lunch to pump at 1pm, gymming is out of the question for now. Altho…hmm…I should be able to do some stuff at home (floor exercises), and at least do some walking or SOMEthing at lunchtime.

Nap re-training went really well over the weekend. After the stunt Allie pulled on her first nap on Saturday when I had to let her cry for 23 minutes before she went back to sleep for 2 hours (I had to wake her so that she didn’t oversleep), she didn’t try it again. She hit all her naps on time and woke up from them at the right times, usually about one hour and 45 minutes. No fits in between REM cycles, no rolling around in her crib. I did notice latency has increased (taking longer to go to sleep during soothing); it used to be about 10 minutes, now it’s up to half an hour on some naps, with sometimes a few minutes of protest crying before she zonks out. I wrote detailed notes of her naps and her behavior before and during them. I also did a 12-hour daytime timeline with color-coded brackets and instructions for naptimes and feeding times. Jayne got here late again this morning so I didn’t have a lot of time to go over all the specifics, just went over things generally. I hope she reads the chart and notes. Stepdaughter conversationally said yesterday that she was hanging out with Jayne and chatting and they saw Allie wake up and cry on the monitor, and that they waited 5 minutes before Jayne went up and got her. Stepdaughter almost said it in a defense, like, “We did wait, though — we waited 5 minutes.” 5 minutes is not effective, obviously, because Allie then learns she can easily outlast Jayne and get picked up early from the nap. The point is to have Allie in her crib for an hour whether or not she sleeps the full hour, so she doesn’t expect to play during naptimes. Given the chance (i.e. she isn’t getting picked up after her first REM cycle), Allie sleeps for at least 90 minutes in a nap, and soon doesn’t even bother moving much during that initial REM wake-up, but goes right back to sleep. Altho Allie was crabby and would cry for no reason on Friday, we got our happy smiling well-rested baby back on Sunday. We also got black-out curtains for her this weekend and Mr. W installed them right away. They block about 70% of daytime light. I don’t want it black in her room cuz I still want her to know the difference between daytime naps and nighttime sleep.

Pumping didn’t go so well. I get consistent advice from other pumping mothers to keep at it, pump before going to bed. The timing is fine because it would be about 3 hours after Allie last ate for the night when I go to bed, but I can’t get letdowns anymore. Squeezing the hell out of each side as I’m pumping on the hand-pump with the free hand yields about 5 mL per side in 10 minutes. Basically it’s a total waste of time because it takes me longer to clean the parts afterwards. The time could’ve been better served by sleeping. I finally pumped at 5:30a this morning before Allie’s first feeding of the day and got almost 4 oz total by squeezing until my skin burned. I know there’s milk in there, my body just won’t release it. The only reason I got out what I did this morning was because I was engorged from no release overnight. I wonder if my doing that would get me less at my first work pumping later.

Dodo yowled every 15 minutes starting at about 10:30p last night, lasting for 45 minutes to an hour. Then he started yowling every 10 minutes starting at about 4:30am this morning for over an hour. He yowled more over the weekend, too. Not sure what changed. His yowling is even louder. I’m still medicating him as instructed.

This weekend, I discovered that staying at home and just doing babycare is, surprisingly, easier than going to work. I’d expected to feel better knowing I’m getting a break from 24/7 baby issues, but it’s harder psychologically at work because not only am I not free from baby issues as I worry about Allie’s routine going nuts at home, but I have to worry about pumping (whether I can get away, where, how long I can afford to pump/store/clean, whether it’s productive). The baby stress is compounded, and I have work stress and obstacles on top of that. There’s a giant backlog of divorce cases the clerk’s office is distributing like crazy so I’ve been working like mad to try to get rid of the ones they’re assigning to me. I’ve made a sizeable dent, but not good enough. I don’t want anyone to have a reason to say I can’t leave work on time because of workload unfinished. It’s really hard to concentrate on each file’s details, however, when my anxiety level is so high about what’s going on at home. I think that may be affecting my (lack of) letdowns, too.

I was feeling comfortable enough with Jayne that I didn’t cry at all my first day back at work yesterday. I did find it hard to look at the babycam monitors and didn’t do it much, especially around the time she was supposed to go down for a nap, because I felt too emotionally fragile if I should see crying or struggling. I know that things will be fine and to expect a little adjustment period, but to see it or live it minute-by-minute would be too hard.

Work was good; I met the new supervisor (who is very nice and effective), a bunch of coworkers/friends came by to say hello and to welcome me back with warm hugs, and many judges complimented me that I don’t look like I’ve been off for maternity reasons. It’s rather amazing to me that so many coworkers observed that I appear smaller now than before I was pregnant. I am, but I didn’t think it was that noticeable. I wouldn’t have expected people to remember what my size was before I was pregnant, it was so long ago. Mr. W rearranged his schedule and got a coworker to cover for him so that he could take me out to lunch on my first day back. It was a nice day. I pumped the first time in judge’s chambers (because the jury room was being used for a mandatory settlement conference) and the second time in the jury room after lunch. We managed to make it back home in time for me to feed Allie her 4th feeding for the day, because her afternoon nap ran long. Jayne was fine and said it was a great day.

Allie’s first nap apparently went down like a dream; not a peep, not a protest. Allie’s second nap was reportedly “odd.” She had turned herself from her tummy to her side and struggled a little to turn back to her tummy but couldn’t. But she was tired, so she just napped on her left side, sucking her left thumb. Jayne said it was kind of a restless nap, but she did nap. The third nap was of course fine and ran long probably to make up for her less restorative second nap. Allie got a bath last night and didn’t cry and we started her bedtime routine a little earlier since she has been looking very tired and drowsy at 6:30p. She was fed and in bed by 7:15p, slept through the night again.

This morning, like yesterday morning, Allie woke on her own at 6:20a, saving me from having to rouse her myself at 6:15a. I’ve woken her once at 6:15a last Friday and I hated doing it. After I nursed her and brought her downstairs where Mr. W and Jayne were chatting, I asked how Jayne felt, whether she could see herself doing this long term. She gave a big smile and said, “Oh yeah, 10 years should be good.”

Today, I probably shouldn’t have looked at the monitor at 9:15a but I expected her to be already in her crib for her morning nap, which should’ve started around 8:30a all things being “normal.” Instead, I saw that she’d scooted herself all the way to the top of the crib, her head against the corner of the bumpers (thank goodness we put in her crib bumpers last week), propping herself up, looking around, running into the bumper corner, not sleeping. I was kinda messed up after that. Not to the point of tears, but the anxiety hit. I stopped watching immediately. By the time I looked again later, Jayne had picked her up and was bottlefeeding her, which was a good thing if she wasn’t napping. I’m hoping she didn’t miss her nap, she just had a shorter one. She was eating on time at 9:40a or so because her morning feeding was now 6:30a instead of 7a-ish. I looked next a little after 10:30a and saw Allie already napping in her crib. I assume she was giving sleepy signs early from her morning nap being short. And Jayne did the right thing; advance her next nap because she had a shorter first nap. Allie had against scooted herself up to the front end of the crib and her head was against or near the front bumper. I guess she’s just about to start crawling.

Meanwhile, work is at a nice pace. I’ve had a few little hearings and events in the mornings, but nothing overwhelming and I’m grateful I didn’t come to work after being off for 5 months and walk right into the midst of a death penalty jury trial or something like that. Today, I did my first pumping in the judge’s chambers again. It seems to take a long time (20-25 mins) to set up, pump, store, and clean up (and I’m not even washing). I gotta figure out how to streamline it more, or if I’m gonna take the same amount of time wiping out the pump parts and pouring the milk together, I may as well do the pouring into storage bags and thorough washing of the parts so I can save myself that work when I get home.

The gardeners came yesterday while I was breastfeeding Allie, so that’s good; they didn’t wake her up. The cleaning people came late at 3:15p, and I’d just put her down for a nap at 3p. When I opened the door, they must’ve seen something in my face when I told them I’d just put the baby down 15 mins ago and I didn’t know what to do, because they said simply that they’d come back in an hour and 20 minutes. I gratefully closed the door. Allie ended up taking that nap all the way until they came back at 5p, and I went in and opened the door and she woke up in a great mood. Mr. W was home by then, so we went to pick up the prescription low-protein cat food from the vet, had some Italian at the restaurant next door to the vet, then went to the local drugstore to buy some diapers. Allie was very well-behaved in public, altho she started crying in the car on the way back, struggling against the carseat. I put her to bed with no problem as she was very tired and ready to go down at about 7:30p when we started her bedtime feeding. Dodo took to the new food seemingly also without a problem, and was a perfect gentleman all night.

Allie, however, decided to have 2 middle-of-the-night feedings for the 2nd night in a row. The first one was very early, 10:30p. The next one was also very early, albeit in the morning, 4:50a. I comforted myself saying it was 3:50a to her. One of my now biggest fears regarding her nights happened at her 10:30p feeding. Altho she was falling asleep eating and did fall asleep after on the Boppy, and I let her sleep for a minute or so in hopes she’d be really tired when I moved her back to her crib, the moment she hit the crib she was wide awake and upset. I walked out when I heard her suckle her fingers in a self-soothe attempt. As soon as I entered the bedroom, she was all-out wailing and flailing. I went back in, trying to get her thumb back in her mouth. Nope. Patted her comfortingly. Nope. I had to pick her up as she screamed and cried and struggled against me. I patiently held her and walked her a little bit in her room, the way I put her to nap. She tried to get into the sleepy position and suck her thumb, but seconds later she’d pull her thumb out, stiffen up against me pulling away from my body, thrash her legs, and scream and cry again. This happened over and over. I considered maybe she had her nose stuffed from the crying and couldn’t breathe well with her thumb in her mouth, but then she started settling for multiple seconds at a time so that I could hear breath come in and out, so I knew she was fine. After 15-20 minutes of this, Mr. W poked in and asked if I wanted him to bring the swing upstairs into her room. I shook my head vehemently, still trying to keep things very calm, quiet, dark, and as commotion-less as possible so she doesn’t get used to hyper-interaction in the middle of the night. Mr. W couldn’t see me in the dark and assumed I didn’t answer, so he went downstairs and lugged the big electric swing up. I whisper-hissed at him, as he came in the room, “No, no no! Too much commotion!” I think I offended him as he went back out. She finally settled into the sleepy position, sucked her thumb, and fell asleep on me. When I put her in her crib, she sighed and moved, curling onto her side putting her thumb back in her mouth, and as I snuck out, I heard her suckle. By the time I was back in our bedroom apologizing to Mr. W, she was asleep. Looking back at the app where I’d recorded her feeding and her sleeping, the time between the end of her feed and the beginning of her sleep was about 30 minutes, but it felt like hours of screaming, struggling, sweating.

I was still exhausted by the time she cried again at 4:50a. Mr. W was already up, having gotten ready downstairs for the gym to allow me some time to sleep, but the cat was also up and moving around, meowing here and there (not yowling), and could be convinced to come to me to be petted and quieted. I was watching the baby flail around on the monitor and then yup, she started crying. I went to her room as Mr. W was getting ready to leave and I started feeding her, terrified that she’d refuse to go back to sleep like earlier. When I heard the garage door open then close, I suddenly felt very, very alone in the dark with the baby who now felt more like something I feared than something I confidently nurtured. Please, please, please, go right back to sleep afterwards, I prayed in my head. I was terrified, and so, so worn.
She went back to bed in her crib without much protest beyond the initial whimpering.

I went back to bed, also, and did not sleep well. I continue to have what feels like auditory hallucinations of the baby crying as my brain drifts thru the gap between wake and sleep. I would wake up with my heart pounding, reach for the phone to do a camera check while praying that I’m having an auditory hallucation. Most of the time this morning, I was. She slept well and I again had to debate whether I ought to start moving her wake time incrementally earlier. I finally gave up trying to sleep and I got up to get myself ready for the day, and went in her room at 7:50a, 10 mins earlier than yesterday. She was wide-eyed, so I don’t know if I woke her by opening the door, or if she was already awake. She smiled sweetly at me with her gummy mouth open. I did my usual, “Good MORning, sweetheart!” as I opened her blinds, and we started our day.

Things always seem less desperate in daylight, but I am hanging on day-by-day, very very close to total burnout. I feel a slight nausea, I feel very close to tears. I find myself spacing in the middle of playing with Allie, or in the middle of feeding her. It’s hard to plan ahead, and I don’t know what to do a lot of the time, but I still try. Yesterday, as her nap reached the point of her next feeding and she was still asleep, I started pumping with the handpump. I was so stressed I got no more than drops out of the side that normally produces a lot, and I switched sides and had just gotten out 2 ounces when she woke up. I had to stop mid-pumping, get her, prepare and bottle-feed her, then I tried to finish pumping while she was in the walker/activity center. Got nothing out of the other side still. I gave up and put that bottle in the fridge, washing the pump parts with her cooperation upstairs as she hung out in the Boppy and watched me a few minutes. The day before, I pumped while she was playing in her high chair and she lost patience just minutes in and started wailing. But I have to pump to replace the feeding I’m giving her by bottle in order to keep my supply up; and I have to feed her a bottle a day to keep her bottle-trained. It’s just hard on my own. I don’t know how people do it with multiple young kids.

Mr. W has been eager for us to go to the fertility clinic and sign the release papers so that they can stop storing our remaining 3 embryos. It costs $50/month for the storage, and if we choose to not pay it anymore, we can tell them whether to discard, donate, or use the embryos for research. The fertility doctor we’d worked the most with wanted to meet Allie, and I found out he’s in next Wednesday, so I guess I’ll take Allie down there and see what our options about the embryos are. I think it’d be nice if a mixed-race couple trying to conceive could use our “A” quality embryo(s), but I’m not sure if it works that way. Plus, I don’t want some kid in the future to have some identity crisis knowing genetic mom and dad are out there somewhere. I believe the soul that comes thru is just borrowing the vehicle of a body to do what it needs to in this lifetime, so the soul that goes to the parents was meant to be there with those parents, regardless of what the genetic makeup of the soul’s body is. But that doesn’t change the fact that a donated embryo situation could still cause a very normal human reaction of wanting to know where he/she came from in terms of genetics. Plus, I’d wonder about Allie’s full genetic brother or sister out there. I think I’m now undecided what to do. Which is why I need to talk to the doctor. Maybe donating the entire embryo to a couple isn’t even an option.

I’m just rambling now because I’m scared to let this connection go. This blog post. This cyber-touching of the outside, to other living adults, even though you guys don’t touch back at the same time I reach out.

I can’t wait until Susanne becomes available. I don’t think being a stay-at-home mom is an option for me mentally at this point, even tho that’s still the preferred situation in Mr. W’s opinion. Work is going thru major layoffs and moving people around, so it may be barely recognizable when I get back there. I think I’m losing my reporter, as the County is eliminating all court reporters from Civil trial courtrooms. 🙁 My reporter Louise has been a big sister to me for the last 10+ years, full of encouragement, level-headedness, advice, empathy, and education on life/nutrition/exercise. It doesn’t mean she’ll vanish from my life, but it sure makes returning to work less something to look forward to. Rebecca had said last November that work isn’t going to lay me off, but I’ll be working maybe 2-3 courtrooms. I’d thought that was rather impossible at the time; how can one judge’s clerk work for multiple judges in fully-functioning courtrooms? It’d be impossible. But after receiving a budget memo from the courts, and after hearing from coworkers what the budget meetings have been, it looks like that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Never would’ve expected that, even with Rebecca saying such.