Mom guilt..just say no!

When my first child was born everything was perfect. He was perfect, my pregnancy (for the most part) was perfect, I worked full time and worked out, breastfeeding was a breeze...It was all perfect; until it wasn't!

First of all, none of it was actually perfect, but I wasn't having any extreme symptoms and was able to stay active during my pregnancy so I was thankful for that, but once he was out of my body that baby kicked my ass!  It was exhausting, even for two physicians who were used to not sleeping and taking call... it was like taking call Every. Single. Night!  Other than the exhaustion (and other post pregnancy related stuff that nobody ever talks about) I thought things were going pretty well. Until his 2 week visit at our pediatrician's office. He wasn't gaining weight, my milk production was low, and I was starving my precious child...everything was NOT perfect! Here it comes, the "mom guilt", in full force. As a pediatrician I knew breast was best and of course that was all my precious baby was getting.  I tried everything, lactation consultants,  drugs, herbs, teas, even guiness beer!   I nursed every 2-3 hours and then I pumped...after every damn feeding to increase my production... I did it all!!!  I finally, begrudgingly, started him on formula when he was a month, he gobbled it down!  I was starving him, my body was failing us and there was nothing I could do about it.  Some members in my family encouraged my nursing only stance, others were ecstatic when I finally started formula, none of them were wrong, but nobody supported me how I needed supporting or maybe there was no way to support me?

Before we have babies we all have a certain image of the way things should be,  images of doing yoga while we connect with our child, of the birthing plan that's perfectly planned out down to what song is playing while we "naturally" birth our child, and breastfeeding our baby as we stare into each others' eyes and bond and then he naturally weans himself  off when he's ready.....ummm, yeah, sure, that's all totally realistic!

Where does this all come from?  These images and pressures we put on ourselves, on each other? Too much to live up to, too much guilt to be had.  No, no, no!  I was the product of being formula fed, because at that time, that was best, better than breast milk, so why bother with nursing? But, you know what, I turned out okay.  I love my mom (I talk to her daily) and I graduated from med school! The bottom line is we all do the best we can.  We care for our kids and only want what's best for them but it should not come at the cost of our sanity.

It breaks my heart to tell a mother they need to add formula to help their baby gain weight, because it broke my heart when I had to do it.  But Thing 1 also turned out okay, he's now 10 and so far so good! And breastfeeding was my downfall, but there's unfortunately so many ways we can feel like failures; there's the mom who is so nauseous that she can't even get out of bed, let alone work out! Or the mom that had her heart set on a natural delivery but instead she had to have an epidural and c-section. Or maybe you had all of this down, but you couldn't get your baby to sleep through the night and convinced yourself you did something wrong...!?!?

There's countless examples of mom guilt, the list is endless.  It's partly society, magazine images, even medical professionals,  but ultimately for me it was just me!  I had to accept that I couldn't only nurse, realize I had a healthy baby and move on.

I drove myself (and my family) crazy with my nazi-like pumping ritual!  It had to stop! I wasn't enjoying my baby and getting more emotionally attached to that pump than my baby (that dreaded pump!) It's not easy but we all have to find ways to let go of mom guilt, it serves no purpose, and in the end what we usually end up with is a healthy baby (thank G-d) that really doesn't care about you birth plan, whether his next meal comes from a bottle or a boob, or if he came out of your tummy or the other way!  Or if he didn't come out of you at all! It's all good!!!!!! None of it really matters. And it doesn't stop at the baby stage...oh no...the guilt never ends!  We work too much or don't work enough, we missed the school performance or we miss our sanity!  It keeps going, and going....and going!

SO let it go, let it all go and just love your babies (big or small).  Your babies will love you back and know that you are the most important person in their lives because you give them love, not a whole lot else matters after you cover all the basic needs!

What's your mom guilt?  Have you been able to let it go? How?

Don't Judge Me...

I think of myself as pretty non-judgmental.  I listen to my friends with an open mind and an open heart.  I know I don't do it all perfect (or anywhere close to perfect) and have no expectations of anyone else doing it perfect.  I actually make a conscience effort not to judge.  BUT my subconscious on the other hand, that's a different story! 

I find myself waiting in line at the supermarket judging how people dress, peek into their carts to see what they're buying.  I judge people when I'm driving and they are speeding, honking, cutting me off (like I've never done that...)  I judge people in a split second, literally.  But I'm trying to make those unconscious judgments conscious and stop them.  I know nothing about those people, nothing, and yet I have the gall to judge anything about them. 

And knowing someone does not make it any better.  It could be your best friend in the whole world, your kids, your spouse.  You really can't judge their behavior or their feelings or their actions.  We really don't know what's going on in anyone else's life.  Even the people closest to us sometimes have things that we just don't know about. Or feel something that they aren't sharing with us.

My first child completely spoiled me, he literally only cried when he was hungry or tired.  And the first month he cried a bit more because I was starving him (blog about mom guilt in a future post).

Once we added formula he was angelic.  My daughter on the hand was a screamer...naturally. And of course after having Thing 1, Thing 2 had a hard act to follow.  So there were times that I wanted to launch her out of the window. I could picture the whole thing happening in my head.  I just wanted it to stop.  I was exhausted and not running on all cylinders....

But I would never act on it and I knew I would never actually do it.  At one point I even said I could understand child abuse, NOT CONDONE IT, but understand it. (I'm an advocate for the little people, child abuse is NEVER acceptable!) 

If reading that last paragraph made you queasy or made you want to report ME for child abuse, I'm telling you now, we can't be friends.  When I was feeling those feelings I needed my mom friends to say, I hear you, I'm here for you, and what you're feeling is ok...hopefully while we are drinking a glass of wine.  There are so many things that we all do and don't do, that we should do and shouldn't do, that we want to do but can't do, that we don't want to do, but can't stop.  I don't need a lecture, and I usually don't even need advice....I just need someone to listen and say; I hear ya sister...we've all been there!

So don't judge me, I know I'm not perfect, not even close.  I know I have things that I can improve on and I'm  working really hard on trying to fix them (I really am) but I don't need more mom guilt (I have enough).   The concept of judging favorably comes from the original self help book, the Bible.  (And if you're not religious, that's ok, because it's really not about religion, it's about living our best life!) I have attended a number of lectures on this topic (Lori Palatnik, Adrienne Gold, Sharon Shenker) and one of my favorite quotes is; "You are meeting this person in chapter 3, you don't know what happened in chapters 1 and 2." We can't judge anyone if we are not walking in their shoes. And although you may know everything that's happened with your kids or spouse, you don't know their feelings, their interpretation of each situation and therefor you can't judge their response.

If you need to vent about your kids driving you crazy, dreaming about running away to tropical Island, need to let off some steam about a fight you had with your spouse, even if you want to launch your baby out of a window.... come over, have a glass of wine and tell me about it...I won't judge!

Do you feel like you get judged by others? In what circumstances?  Do you (consciously or unconsciously) judge? (No need to answer that, just something we all need to think about!)

Attitude of Gratitude

I have the privilege of being a doctor,  I have the distinct honor of taking care of people, little (very cute) people to be precise.  I don't take this task lightly but much of what I do is run of the mill colds and flus, earaches and throat aches.  I work with a population which, for the most part, is healthy and I'm happy about that. But that doesn't mean I don't see my share of badness. Bad things happen to good people, bad things happen to little people.  Babies and young children that live and unfortunately die in hospitals.  As a doctor, we sometimes have to develop these hard shells to deal with it, to be able to keep going, to see another patient and then go home and hug our families. A recent visit melted my shell and shook me to the core.

 The patient was a newborn baby boy and he was doing just fine.  His mother, on the other hand, was a young mother of 2 boys with a new diagnosis of terminal cancer, she was diagnosed only one month before giving birth to her second son.  A son she may never see walk or talk.  As she told me her story, she started crying and tears sprang to my eyes as well.  My shell was gone and in its place was fear, anger, sadness, hope and most of all gratitude.  Gratitude was my first thought as she shared her diagnosis.

I was doing a home visit and felt so fortunate that I could have the time to spend with her, that she didn't have to sit in a waiting room full of germs, that I didn't have to rush her because I had a roomful of patients waiting.  All I had to give her was my time and support and my prayers.

So why does it take this tremendous tragedy to make me feel gratitude? I wake up every morning (wishing I could go back to bed) checking my Facebook/Instagram and email (see previous post),  thinking about my day ahead, my errands, my schedule, my kids' schedule, who needs to be where and when and how I'm going to get them there,  what am I making for dinner and whether I had time to sneak in a nap (I never do but I like to dream I do).  Of all those thoughts I have first thing in the morning, none of them are thoughts of gratitude.

First I should be grateful to be awake, that I have another day to live, to dream, to be,  to love. Then I could list 100 or  more things I should be grateful for on a daily basis (don't worry, I won't).  But if you are reading this then that means your list will be pretty long too!

I get so bogged down every day with mundane things and even get angry about them, why?  Because I'm human, because this is my world and sometimes I need to feel the petty things and then I need to let go of the petty things.  I'm working on the second part.

I told this mother that she was doing a great job, she had a beautiful healthy baby boy and she was instrumental in bringing him into this world.  She said to me she is blessed to have supportive family around her.  Let me repeat that, she said she is BLESSED to have supportive family.  At that moment, I was in awe, in her darkest times this women was able to see her life as blessed.  I stayed for a while and answered her questions, reassured her of how wonderful of a job she was doing, and left with a heavy heart and only one thought in my head, gratitude.

This does not mean I will now forever wakeup with only thoughts of gratitude, I wish it would, but I'm human.  I still get mad, sad, angry and frustrated even about the petty stuff. But I will strive everyday to live in gratitude. I will strive to always feel blessed as this courageous woman did.
How do you stay in gratitude?  How do you deal with the petty things?

Disconnect to Connect

I'm not a blogger,  I'm a mom, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend and possibly least of all that is important to me...a doctor.  Being a doctor is amazing, in numerous ways and I worked incredibly hard for those 2 letters behind my name but everything else is....life....my life.  I couldn't live without all those people in my life, I could live without the 2 letters behind my name.  So why am I blogging?  Basically becuase I want to share my thoughts with anyone who wants to listen, beacuse sometimes I want to write in a (public) diary, because I've been around long enough to know, if I'm thinking about it....probably others are too!
On my mind most recently, you have to disconnect to connect.  I always find it so ironic when I'm reading an article on facebook or other electronic modes of communication about ways to be more present in life and less attached to our devices...as I'm reading it on my device....
And now I'm writing about disconnecting from social media to be more involved in life and I'm doing it on....social media! THE IRONY!
Mostly, I just want to share my experience when I detached from social media for a short time (like a month).  It was hard,  like really hard.  It was like detoxing!  But here's what happened, I got phone calls from people I never talk to, texts just to say hi, I reached to some people just to say hi and people reached out to me knowing I'm not on social media so that I would know something happening with them.  My husband was proud of me as he thinks it's all a waste of time and there's no need to know what Sue had for dinner last night and with whom. So that was all the good things...here's some of the bad...I felt out of touch with people, I felt like I was on an island a little bit and had to rely on ships passing by to tell me the news. Mostly I missed my friends that I had been on a recent journey with, spiritually and physically, who didn't live near me.  We had our own facebook page and seeing inspirational messages or update posts from them fed my soul.
Here's another positive that people don't want to admit...no one posts anything bad on facebook, everyone's happy and smiling and doing something awesome.  No one is fighting with their husband, yelling at their kids, or washing the dishes.  So we all get this very skewed view of our friends' lives and the green monster seeps in....it's subtle but it's there and no one wants to admit it.  That was huge for me.  I would see friends out with other friends doing something cool (something I totally want to do) and say "oh, how cool" and "like" their picture but on the inside I was seething, I was sad, I was angry, I was lonely....all from a little picture of something I probably wouldn't know about if I wasn't on facebook.  OH FACEBOOK!  How I love and hate you!!!!!!
Therein lies the dilemma....and I don't believe there is a right answer.  Certainly there is no one right answer and different people feel differently about it and will approach it differently.
But what has worked for me....I'm back on facebook...and instagram (but that's all), I scroll through it daily (or ten times/day...) But I've emotionally disconnected.  I don't let toxic thoughts seep in and if they do, I stop and think...why?  Why is it bothering me that Sue didn't invite me to the cool new restaurant she went to with Debbie?  Would I really invite Sue and Debbie if I were making plans?
And if I really want to go to the restaurant then why don't I just make plans to go?
I've also tried to focus more on my family and close friends, as much as I do check my phone I really do try to make a conscious effort to put my phone away when I'm with my family and friends.  Out of sight, out of mind (kinda...)   Basically I try to connect in the real 3D world happening in front of me with the ones that are important to me.  Everything else is noise, fun noise, but noise.

What do you do to deal with feeling disconnected?  Or dealing with social media envy?