Happy 1 year birthday, Zac!

It was one year ago this date, May 29, 2008, that the mass of cells were created that would become Zachary Aidan Cortez. As I held him in my arms tonight to feed him his last bottle of the day, I sat in awe while I looked at his beautiful little face, soft skin, eyelashes, perfect lips and ever growing body. I don't understand how a mass of cells can become this amazing little human being, but I'm glad that it does and that it worked for Michael and me.

Overall the past month has been a good one but has definitely provided some intense challenges. I'm back in full swing at work which makes it very, very difficult to get "it" all done. ha! Who am I kidding? I ain't gettin' "it" all done. This has been a hard pill for me to swallow, especially since my mother-in-law is here full-time and has not only taken over the duties of caring for Zac five days a week, but she also does laundry, cleans and cooks dinners! I've got plenty of friends who work full time and have kids and do NOT have that kind of help AND have to get to the daycare by a certain time to pick up their kids. I don't know how they do it. And, because of this, I feel like a total loser.

But, I can't compare myself to other people. I've learned a long time ago that doing that is the quickest way to depression. And speaking of depression... I'm realizing that the "de-pregnatizing process" is a bitch. Worse for me than the actual 9 months of pregnancy was. My hormones are a mess, my hair is falling out in clumps and my body still feels all weird and not quite right. It took me nine months to get ready and then *WHOOP* within moments Zac was ripped out of me leaving my body in one helluva heap. Not sure if I'll ever be the same again.

Two comments/questions that I'm consistently asked are:
1) Have you ever felt love like this before like you have for Zac?
2) Yea - having kids turns your life upside down, but it's all worth it!

These frustrate me and this is how I wish I could respond without making people feel like heels for saying anything:
1) Yes - I have felt love like this before - for myself and for Jesus. Love for Michael is up there pretty high too. It's not that I don't love Zac and it's not like I don't shower him with affection and attention. But, I'm not feeling this rip-my-heart-out response that people keep alluding to. Should I???

2) I am in mourning over the loss of my old life and haven't quite reached the "it's worth it" part yet. I remember when I was preparing to get married I was afraid that it might be a tough adjustment to have someone around me all the time after living alone for 18 years. But, Michael and I do life pretty similarly and we give each other a lot of freedom to be ourselves. So, instead of it cramping my lifestyle, it has enhanced it because I get to do what I want AND have my best friend around me whenever I want. Doesn't get much better than that! But now as a mother, EVERYTHING is changing. There isn't one part of my life that isn't affected by the presence of Zac. It's not that I resent him, but I don't think there's any amount of preparing that a person could do to get ready for this upheaval. All the books and head knowledge in the world can not set a person up for the experience. Perhaps this is where my age becomes a bit of a detriment since I'd had a chance to plot out a pretty even course for my life before Zac and now that's all been changed. Doesn't mean I won't adjust again, but it's definitely been the biggest adjustment of my life so far and quite frankly it is NOT feeling "worth it" quite yet. Perhaps when he starts talking and becoming more interactive then I'll start feeling the grooviness?? Time will tell.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful. I'm just in shock, I think. And, as mentioned, I'm still adjusting. Being Lynette, I don't do anything half-ass and quite honestly, I can't think of a more demanding and unrelenting task than raising a child well. So, it's going to take awhile but I'm pretty sure that we'll figure it out as we go along.

In the meantime, I am very thankful for my beautiful son, my encouraging, helpful, amazing husband and my generous, attentive and gentle mother-in-law who has uprooted her life to help us raise our son.

Things I've learned thus far

Over the course of the past two-plus months that I've been a parent, several people have asked me if there is anything that I've learned that I didn't know before. As a whole I would say "No." However, one can be intellectually aware of certain things but not have any on-hand experience which adds a completely different dimension. That is where I'm at.

Below is a list of a few things that I've experienced on my own terms:
1. Every day with an infant is a new day. I've deduced that they add something to their bag of tricks at least every six hours - a new cry, a new movement, more alertness, longer chunks of sleep, more poop, etc. This is a good thing to remember because what might be a frustration one day could easily become a distant memory the next day.
2. You can get a lot more milk out of your boobs if you massage them while you pump. If I didn't do this my baby would starve to death and my boobs would explode!
3. Don't resent the crying. That's their only way to communicate and if I were limited to only that you'd probably NEVER get me to shut up. Actually, according to my parents that was the case with me as a baby! ha! This helps me realize that when he does cry I don't have to jump up and freak out to try and console him immediately. If I know what the problem is, then I'll take care of it. May take a few minutes to warm up the bottle or get to the diaper changing, but it will happen.
4. Thank God for my husband. I wasn't exactly sure how Michael would be with a baby because I had never seen him around one. But, I know him to be a gentle, tender, attentive man, so I figured he might need awhile to warm up to it but eventually he'd be great. Turns out, he immediately activated into the Protective Daddy/Husband role and several times has been the one to offer me tips and advice on how to best care for our son. What a blessing! I never wanted it to be the "Just Mommy" show and he has definitely stepped up to the tasks at hand.
5. It's difficult to leave my son with anyone but Michael. Last week was my first week back to work. Michael took the week off and took care of Zac so when people asked me if I'd had a hard time going back to work I said NO. But, this week, my mother-in-law moved in and has started taking care of Zac for us and, well, I found out that I DID have a hard time after all. Not that she isn't capable and trust-worthy and his safety is not what concerns me. Rather, it's the little nagging doubts in his psyche that could start developing when he looks around and doesn't see mommy or daddy. I know I can't protect him from everything and I realize that learning good survival and coping skills requires facing adversity. But then another part of me wants to protect him as long as I can from pain of any kind. I got through the pain, however. I cried for a few minutes, dried up, put on my makeup and headed out to work and didn't get home until 7pm that night. Zac was fine when I got home.
6. A peaceful home is becoming even MORE important to me. Once I got out of college and started life on my own terms, I became dedicated to making my home a refuge from the crazy world and a place of peace. This does not mean that frustrations and woes are ignored or not allowed. But the focus is more on resolution than consistent re-hashing or worse yet, getting to a point of escalated emotions. So, from the bedroom I rented for three months in the home of strangers the summer of 1990, to the 600 sq.ft. furnished one-bedroom house I rented on a month-to-month lease for 12 years, to our beautiful 4-bedroom home today, I've tried to make sure that the outside never ruined the inside and that whomever entered my home would quickly feel at ease. One of the biggest compliments a guest in my home can give me is, "Man - I slept better than I've slept in a LONG time last night!" And now that we have Zac, I'm even more tenacious about protecting our home from the crazies. Perhaps we're just lucky, but I truly think this has a lot to do with the fact that we have a 10-week old who is now sleeping anywhere from 6-8 hours a night with no interruptions. THANK YOU, JESUS!
7. Once again, I've realize that God's timing is always the best. Back in my 20s I was convinced that I was ready to be married. Having kids wasn't as much of a priority, but I seriously wanted to be in love and be married. That didn't happen until I was 36 and even then I wasn't sure if having kids was a good idea. But now at 40-going-on-41, I realize that if I'd gotten in my 20s what I was sure I was ready to have, it would have been a disaster! So, while it feels a little weird to have my fellow college mates or 40-somethings talking about their teenagers and I have a 10-week old, I know that this is the best timing for me and I'm glad that God didn't give me then what I thought I needed.
8. It is possible to sleep sitting up. I was never able to do this before, but a few middle-of-the-night feedings gave me the opportunity to learn that I could!
9. I have been reminded of the generosity and awesomeness of my wide variety of friends. Between offering solid advice, to listening to me process, to coming to watch Zac while I shower in the early days to the prayers, cards, gifts and phone calls to "check in" on us, we have been abundantly blessed.
10. The personal mantra that I came up with in 1999 is still applicable in this situation:

Show up
Look good
Use all that God has given you
The rest will follow

In the meantime, Zac is becoming more and more vocal, is smiling a lot and for three nights in a row has slept for 8 hours straight. He's an amazing little creature and we're enjoying each moment whether it's a crap-filled diaper or a delightful squeal. He's healthy and happy and for that we could not be more grateful.

So, I don't know that any of these things are "A-Ha!" moments, necessarily, but they are things that I've noted and have learned from in some way. And, we're just 10 weeks in! Only going to get more interesting as he grows, I'm sure.

As time flies by...

Amazingly enough, Zac will be seven weeks old tomorrow and in that time span he has morphed a hundred times already. Just this past week he started sleeping in his "big boy crib" in his bedroom, versus the bassinet at the foot of our bed. He's always been a good independent sleeper, probably due to his time in the hospital so early. He and I have a couple of hours after the 4am feeding that we sleep in Mommy and Daddy's big bed together, but other than that he sleeps on his own all the time. He's also a good eater. Every now and then he'll have weird gas issues, but that's probably due to what I eat since he's getting breast milk 90% of the time. Hard to know what it is that causes him pain since I've made my diet pretty bland these days.

Some of my favorite things about him:

1) His voice. When he's full, clean and awake he makes this delightful, beautiful cooing sound that just melts my heart.

2) His butt. It is the only part of him that seems to not have grown since birth, so it's TINY! His belly has grown, though, so we've had to buy bigger pampers that gap at his legs because there's no butt to fill them! :-)

3) His eyes. They're still shut a lot of the time because the boy LOVES to sleep. But, when they're open and taking in everything around him, I can just see his brain taking it all in and I'm amazed. I look forward to seeing how this all plays into his development.

4) His spirit. He has a very sweet spirit. Yes - we're seeing signs of a bit of an attitude every now and then, but for the most part he's a gentle, peaceful soul. May that always be true!

As parents, I think we've adjusted pretty well. However, as odd as it may sound, I'm still having a hard time grasping the permanence of Zac in our world. It still kinda feels like we're babysitting someone else's kid and eventually we'll return him and go back to our old life where we could sleep in any time we wanted, watch TV whenever we wanted, eat what we wanted and pick up and go someplace whenever we wanted. But, as time goes on, I realize that he is here to stay and that from here on out it's going to be an exercise in flexibility, a LOT more pre-planning and a constant presence of of being attentive, of teaching and guiding.

Meanwhile, I seem to keep having the same "dream" every night. At some point I will wake up, sit straight up in bed and start fishing through the blankets and pillows for Zac because in my head he was in bed with me and I fell asleep and now he's caught up in all the blankets and suffocating. Eventually I wake up and gather my senses and walk over to the crib and see him safe and sound and I relax. But there's that moment of panic that is terrible. Not sure when this will subside... Welcome to motherhood, right?

It's been a little tough for Michael and me to get some one-on-one time. In the evenings when we're both home, one of us is on Zac duty while the other is doing some essential task. In the past, bedtime has always been when we do our best talking but that has turned into Zac's late-night feeding time. I feel like we're two strangers passing in the night, but again - that will hopefully be temporary and prayfully our solid foundation will sustain us until Zac is a bit more independent.

I have to say, however, that Michael is a beautiful, wonderful dad and Zac LOVES his daddy. Just the mere sound of his voice perks Zac up. It's pretty amazing to watch. I have been so pleased by how natural Michael is with him and am so grateful that we're partners in this process. God bless all of the single parents in the world. I truly do not know how they do it.

I've only got two more free weeks before I go back to work and I'm pretty anxious about that. Not so much that I'm going to miss Zac, but more of worrying about how we're going to get everything done and not let our jobs suffer and get at least SOME sleep. But, I've really enjoyed the time that I've had to be one-on-one with the Z Man. At least 200 people have told us to enjoy this time of Zac's life because "they grow up so fast," and I believe I've done a pretty good job of that during this time off. We've spent a lot of time just hanging out with me talking to him and him cooing back, of listening to music and dancing a bit (got to teach that boy rhythm!), of me giving him nice massages and exercises, and spending lots of time just looking at him. Bath time is definitely a big time favorite of his and mine. He LOVES water. If I were a Zodiac sign-watcher I'd say it was because he is an Aquarius, but I'll just leave it that he loves water just because. :-)

Throughout the past seven weeks, Michael and I have been so humbled by the generosity of so many people. We've received so many thoughtful gifts, cards and kind deeds and not to mention all of the prayers and encouraging words. It's definitely made us more aware of ways that we can help others in the future.

So, that's the update. I'm definitely in love but still in the early, can't-believe-it-quite-yet stage And, I am extremely grateful for God's divine grace and wisdom that he's provided exactly when I need it. We'll see how the next seven weeks go!

Two weeks later...

While preparing for the birth of Zac, one of the things I consistently blogged about was the anxiety that I struggled with over the mystery of the whole process. While I could prepare the nursery and other external things, the actual delivery experience was 100% out of my control.

Well, here I am on the other side of it and am still amazed and somewhat confused by how it all turned out. We have a healthy, beautiful baby boy and that's all that matters. But, the process of bringing him into the world was not anything I would have imagined and the two weeks following his arrival have definitely NOT been anything normal.

We had to do a C-section, which has ended up being fine and it seems that my body is recovering well from it all. But, within a week of being home, I was back in the hospital with pneumonia and that was DEFINITELY NOT on the plan or radar. Perhaps in a few years I'll understand why this happened. But for now I'm a bit confused. Typically I try to find the lesson in my experiences. But, not sure if there is a particular lesson to be learned other than life will throw you curve balls and you pray that you'll be surrounded by the right people and resources to get through it. That has been the case, and fortunately I have a husband who is phenomenal enough to take on the role of Daddy to the full extent and do it all by himself. And who knows? Perhaps this is going to lead to the discovery of something else with my health. After all, I've had lung/respiratory issues most of my life and perhaps finding this now could prevent something more serious later. Whatever... Doesn't always have to be a purpose or reason, I guess. I just know it's been difficult and I hope that once this is behind us we will be able to start formulating our new lives with Zac as a crucial part of it.

Zac Day Eve

Tonight I check into the hospital for them to start preparing my cervix and then tomorrow they'll start the inducing process. WOW.

I'm all tangled up with emotions, both positive and negative. On one hand I'm excited to get the process started and can't WAIT to see our little guy. But, the fear of the process has me pretty nervous. Who in their right mind signs up for pain? Kind of like I don't fear death because it leads to eternity with Jesus, but I sure as heck dread the process of dying because I fear pain.

But, as my mom and others have been quick to remind me, trillions of women have survived it before me - even my great-great-great grandmother who gave birth in a mud dugout on the plains of Oklahoma! Not sure how that helps ME, but it's a nice thought. ha!

So, in 48 hours I'll have my OWN birthing experience to share. I kind of wish the process had started on its own because I've been curious to know what it feels like to have my water break and all of that. But, my body knows that it's time and that if I waited I could push myself to a dangerous point. So, my doctor and I are both in agreement that it needs to happen this way.

Jesus - I give my body and my baby to you and trust you to protect us so that we can begin our lives together.

The waiting is the hardest part

38 weeks and 5 days is where I'm at today and there doesn't appear to be any significant changes in Zac's desire to get outa there. Of course I can't say that I blame him. Knowing that I will be in labor within the next week (either naturally or by force) is both comforting and terrifying. But, I'm ready for it to be over because it is really getting uncomfortable to do everything, including breathing!

Not feeling in control of this situation is probably the most challenging for me personally. But, I think I know in my gut that I'd better get used to that feeling since parenting will make me feel that way on a regular basis. It's definitely going to be a lesson in constantly give Zac to God.

Meanwhile, on the subject of waiting, I had a break-through last night that took 15 years to occur. It was 15 years ago next week that my life got ripped into a million little pieces in Dallas, Texas. It took me a year to finally stop crying at least once a day. While it was the most difficult year of my life thus far, it also led to major self-revelations and a commitment to honesty and integrity that will stick with me forever. But, there were two people who instigated my destruction whom I've been praying for an opportunity to clear the air between for the past 15 years. Through Facebook I reconnected with one of them and we talked on the phone last night for 2.5 hours hashing through the events of February 1994. Man - what a relief. I didn't sleep too well because my brain was filled with all sorts of memories, emotions and thoughts. But I did feel lighter and just THAT much more peaceful in my soul. So that leaves just one more person that I am praying for a confrontation with and then all will be well with me and the world.

So, while waiting is nerve-wracking, I've been around long enough to know that leaving everything in God's hands always leads to perfect timing. And that the more I can live in the moment and let things happen naturally, the more rewarded I feel in the end.

And so, I wait.