A lesson I want to learn

When we meet other parents (straight), if it happens to come up in conversation that each of us carried one of our children, the relatively consistent response is approximately "What a great idea!" or "I wish we could do that!" Members of two-mom families, who understand the work and luck it takes to get pregnant as lesbians, and who have experienced some of the pitfalls and struggles of building our families, know it might not be all that rosy. But in general, I tend to agree with the positive assessment of surprised straight parents who sometimes seem to think we've invented something new and amazing by structuring our family this way. It is great. We got a deeper level understanding and empathy for each other by both experiencing both paths to motherhood. Residual tension around the donor's place in our family, that we hadn't even known we still had, has fallen away not least because he no longer poses as much of a threat (albeit hypothetical) to our family structure. Instead of moving onto parenting our second child with the previous relatively comfortable roles we'd developed, we were forced to question some of our assumptions and find some new ways to interact as a family. Parenting Ira has made me appreciate even more what I built with Leigh, and I'm loving watching Gail and Ira form a similar bond. I think Gail has experienced a similar shift, all for the good.

But among all the good, there's one thing I'm finding somewhat difficult about this arrangement. This isn't all about looks, but I'll start there. Our donor, bless him, seems to have a peculiar genetic quality of producing "mini-me's." If anyone were to look at our family portrait (that is, if you could get all four of us into a photo at one time), there would be absolutely no guesswork involved in figuring out who was genetically linked. Ira has my coloring to a T. Comparing pics of him as a baby to me as a baby, the resemblance is undeniable. Leigh looks like a mini-Gail, to every detail except her dimples (which I like to claim credit for…). But the similarities don't seem to stop at looks. From all the stories I've heard from my in-laws, Leigh is much like Gail as a child, extremely talkative and curious, thrilled to connect with people but a little shy around new ones, deeply compelled by stories of all sorts, intent on figuring out how people interact and why they do what they do. There are differences, and she certainly also has many of my speech patterns and mannerisms, but still, it's hard to deny the similarities. Now that Ira is getting older, we see pieces of my personality in him. He's a little more sensitive, and focuses intently on his little baby "projects," patiently trying to figure out how his sister's scooter works, or diligently and persistently undoing our various childproofing efforts.

But the thing I wonder about is how much of this is that we're perceiving our kids with too much of a framework of genetic determinism, particularly since the only genetic piece we see is our own contribution, and the donor is still anyone's guess. We've both birthed one of our kids, so I think we may end up missing the lesson that straight families learn easily, that kids are different, even with identical genetic contributions. I should know this. My sisters and I, all of us with the same genetic make-up, are different as night and day. We look around our neighborhood kids and see this, too, but it's a lesson we're not primed to learn in our own family, in it's current structure. During the fleeting moments when I wish for another child, it is this lesson that I'd love to learn. In the meantime, I'm looking for ways to remember more often that our kids are not us. They really are their "own people" -- as we frequently remind Leigh when she tries to treat Ira like an overgrown doll.

It's a good thing big sister can't read

Early on in Ira's pregnancy, my older sister, who at the time had two and four year old boys (and now has added a third kid) gave us some good advice: "Be really careful of the books for older siblings. They are almost all extremely negative."

It turns out she was right. Leigh is so excited about being a big sister (and generally doing a fabulous job of it!) that she picks out any book from the library that has an older sibling (especially a sister) and a baby in it. Fortunately, she still hasn't figured out our propensity to change the words, so we can get away with liberal editing.

She picked out such a book last week, and when we sat down to read it, every single page was filled with how awful the big sister thought her new baby brother was and how mad she was at her parents (and now I've completely forgotten the title, and the book went back to the library, so I'll spare the author my wrath). Sure, there was a bit of a turn at the end where the sister decided maybe the baby was sort of OK, but 99.99% of the content was about how her brother's arrival ruined her life.

But as we're sitting there, and I'm trying to make up this or that nonsense story (it was truly unreadable), Leigh fortunately took over much of the reading. The book had absolutely beautiful pictures and she was exclaiming "Oh! Look how cute the baby is! He's yawning! That's a big sister just like me! She's going to take good care of the baby. She'll help put him for a nap and play with him and make him laugh..." She went on and on and every single word out of her mouth was about how great it is to be a big sister and how wonderful babies are. Now, you might say she was just buttering me up, but she could barely contain her excitement and was practically bubbling over with everything that's great about having a brother. I'm so glad that with my sister's warning, we mostly managed to avoid giving her a script ahead of time about how awful the baby was going to be.

There are a few other indications that she's pretty fond of our new family structure. The other day at dinner she said, out of nowhere, "It is really great to have a baby. Don't you like having a baby, Ima?" A few weeks ago, she was "reading" to me from a "letter" she "wrote" to me at daycare which said, "Dear Mama, I don't know if you are going to have another baby (author's note: unlikely), but if you do, Thank you."

I know we might be in the sweet spot right now. Ira isn't very mobile yet (he's a little mobile, but not fast!) so he can't take any of her things, but he's smiley and interactive, and clearly thinks she's the bee's knees. I know when he's a toddler it will be a whole new ballgame, but for now, we're grateful that Leigh has taken to big-sisterhood like a duck to water, at least for the first 6 1/2 months.

[PS: If you are looking for a good book for older siblings, we have two recommendations. Of course, neither of them is 100% perfect for queer families, but you can't have everything. The first is I'm a Big Sister by Joanna Cole. It's a simple book about having a new baby and is very positive. It also shows both mom and dad caring for children, which is a plus in my book. (The same author has written I'm a Big Brother which is likely similar.) The second book is Not Yet, Rose by Susanna Leonard Hill with illustrations by Nicole Rutten. This is a sweet story about a girl, Rose, anticipating the birth of a younger sibling. She eagerly anticipates the new baby, wondering whether she will have a brother or sister. She has a couple of fears, but they are introduced gently and Rose talks herself out of them. The end of the book when the baby comes is one of the sweeter moments I've seen in picture books about siblings. My only complaint is that the division of labor is overly gendered in this book, but otherwise it's a joy to read.]

This job is impossible; how are you going to help?

Yesterday, I was in the drug store with both kids, buying Halloween candy and bottle nipples with a faster flow so I can feed Ira in under 45 minutes. We'd already had a lovely trip to the hardware store and the grocery story. The stroller was loaded with cider, a pumpkin, and the three bags of candy I was about to buy. Then the baby, who was riding on my back in an Ergo, really needed to fall asleep but couldn't quite do it on my back. So I put down the giant bags of halloween candy, took off my babywearing coat, took the baby out of the Ergo, strapped the baby into the stroller, and tried to figure out how to carry the halloween candy, push the stroller, and answer my daughters incessant "But why aren't we ever going to buy it?" questions.

The baby was on the verge of sleep and I was wandering around, exposing my three-year-old to more products we weren't going to purchase when I finally found the bottle nipple aisle. I set the giant bags of candy down again, parked the stroller right next to them, and walked eight feet or so down the aisle to the get the nipples. Nipples in hand, I came back to the stroller, but then had to deal with the Q-Tips my daughter had aquired. Back at the stroller again, I was ready to step two feet away to buy the stupid candy from the cashier. This series of obviously neglectful acts got the three cashiers up front freaked out, so the highlight of my shopping trip became getting told what a bad job I was doing as a parent by exposing my baby to all those potential kidnappers by stepping 8 feet away from his stroller.

You can imagine what that did to my mood for the day. Just in case you can't, it sent me into something of a tailspin of bad parenting. Back at home the stroller tipped over with the Ira in it (he was unharmed). Then everyone needed lunch at once so I had a screaming baby as I warmed a bottle and got something filling but non-nutritious ready for Leigh. Later I neglected a very fussy Ira so that I could have Leigh help me make dinner. I turned my back and my daughter was hitting my son over head with a toy. I got angry and frustrated while trying to put the baby to bed and was then mean to my Leigh. I left Leigh in rest time a little longer so I could watch "Supernanny" on Hulu. When Ira started crying in the bedroom I felt glad he was doing it in there and not out in my space.

Most every moment of the rest of the day reminded me that I can't do a really good job as a parent of two children, if "good job" means meeting their needs, having them both directly under my watchful gaze at all times, making sure they're moderately presentable and behave well (especially in public), protecting them from everything, keeping them happy, and helping them to develop -- all things expected of parents these days, every moment of every day. I guess I really couldn't do that with one child, but with two I'm totally out of my depth.

Having two kids isn't easy, and I'm still holding myself to the same standard of parenting I had when there was just one kid. Somehow I have to cut myself some slack without just deciding to throw in the towel (or to never go to a store again with two kids, which I was seriously considering yesterday). What I need is a community that gives me a hand, supports me as a parent, and provides extra sets of ears and eyes. I guess I should consider myself lucky, because I get that with my friends and in my neighborhood park. But in much of the rest of the world that extra set of ears and eyes seems to be concentrating on finding my flaws rather than helping watch over and care for my children.

Sharing Lactation, Part I

Either Sunday or Monday, I am finally going to take the plunge and begin nursing Ira. At this point, I'm pumping about 10-13 ounces a day, or a little over 2 ounces each time I pump (5x daily). This isn't enough to be the sole milk supplier, but it is enough to feed half of a baby perfectly well. My supply is still increasing, but it is likely that I will need to supplement with pumped milk during days that I am home with Ira alone in the fall.

We're going to start the ball rolling by having me nurse once a day; Lyn will pump to keep up her supply. We are thankful that supply isn't much of an issue for her -- if anything she has a little too much -- but we still need to safeguard her milk. My first nursing sessions will be during the day, but if that goes well, we'll probably quickly transition to having me take over the second nighttime feeding (around 4 or 5am). In this feeding he nurses a little less actively and it should be relatively easy for Lyn to hold off on pumping until she wakes up (so that she'll actually see a sleep benefit from having me nurse).

I'm feeling a combination of excitement and anxiety. As I pumped myself dry earlier today, I told Lyn, "I feel like I'm cramming for an exam!" Really, it feels a bit like going out on a first date with someone who has been a friend for a while but who you are hoping will be a little more. What if he doesn't like my milk? What if he won't latch on?

Nervousness aside, I can't wait to get my hands on him (or, rather, my boobs). I wonder if Lyn felt this same way as we got close to doing Leigh's first bottle feeding, or if this feeling is different because it involves my body. I suspect it is a very similar feeling. Lyn and Ira get to spend so much time together, and Lyn gets to provide for his most important physical need in a way that I have not been able to. I'm ready to start providing for my baby, and I'm hoping that both Lyn and Ira are ready as well.

(Interested in hearing Lyn's feelings as we move forward: Sharing Lactation, Part II)

Sleeping like a Log with a Baby?

Many parents report that the birth of their first child represents the end of sleep. There's the difficult newborn stage to get through which requires you to be up every few hours, but it's more than that. Parents report that a kind of hypervigilance sets in that keeps them from falling or staying deeply asleep.

I'm a little different. As a child, I struggled with insomnia. As a childless adult, I was easily awakened by noises at night (much more so than Lyn). As a parent, I sleep like a rock.

It seems strange to me that while so many other parents seem to become more sensitive to their childrens' needs, waking at the drop of a hat, I have learned to sleep like the dead. It happened while Leigh was a baby. For a while she was sleeping in the bed with us and she was a restless bed companion. I think she would have nursed all night if I had let her. So I would wake up, feed her, coax her back to sleep, and then roll over and ignore her hard. I learned to fall asleep quickly with a noisy, wriggling baby right beside me, wanting to nurse. I aslo learned to stay asleep through Leigh's noises until she was really, insistantly hungry.

Parenthood turned me into a much better sleeper, so you might ask what happened to Lyn. Back when we were first married, Lyn could sleep through anything. After Leigh was born, Lyn often had to sleep in the other room if she wanted to get any sleep at all. She woke up every time Leigh rustled or whined in her sleep and had a hard time returning to sleep after wake-ups.

With Ira's birth, I'm still a champion sleeper. I can sleep like a brick with him on my chest or snuggled in my arms. Because I had become such a good sleeper as a nursing mom, Lyn wondered if (hoped that) once she started to nurse Ira, she would become a champion sleeper, able to pass out after popping a boob in or to sleep soundly through Ira's rustling. No such luck. She finds that she is still hypervigilant. For a couple of nights last week, she slept in the other room and I brought Ira out to her, just so she could have a chance to get some really restful sleep. She reports that things are a bit better this week and she's able to get good rest with the baby in bed, provided that the baby isn't snuggled right up next to her.

So that's the sleep report from here. Ira is doing three-hour stretches and Lyn gets to sleep in most mornings, so we are all doing OK. But I am curious. Anyone else out there sleep better with a baby than before, or am I just a freak of nature?

Now I get it (being a non-bio mom is hard)

Earlier this week I was feeling like I had this whole two-kid thing locked up. Sure, I can take care of Lyn, keep the house clean, change poopy diapers, and deal with a toddler. No problem.

Yesterday I had to face up to the fact that it's actually hard. Sure, I can do everything needed to keep our household of four running, especially because I have the hands-on support of friends and family. But yesterday I realized that it's Lyn who does the lion's share of taking care of new baby Ira (yes! he has a name now!). I bring Ira to Lyn for a feeding and change his dirty diapers, but Lyn is the one who feeds him and who knows everything there is to know about his ears because she spends hours a day staring at them while nursing.

It turns out that being a non-biological mother is hard. I think it is especially hard for me right now because I remember being in Lyn's shoes, being the source of nourishment and having the close immediate bond that comes from nursing. I'm afraid I didn't realize at the time what a privileged position that was. I want Ira to need me and right now he doesn't. Yes, he will. Yes, I'm working to establish a bond that will be every bit as vital as Lyn's. But I want him to need me now.

Lyn and I were talking about these feelings this morning, and Lyn pointed out that Leigh needed much more active care-taking when she was a newborn. She demanded constant attention as a little baby (and, um, still does). Lyn had to learn to pacify Leigh very early; otherwise we would have gone crazy from all the crying and/or Leigh would have chewed my nipples right off. Ira (so far) just doesn't need as much, so there's less parenting for me to do.

I'll get over all of this. Ira will need more and more from me. Eventually I'll even get to nurse him. I'll grow more and more comfortable as an NGP. But before he was born I apparently believed that knowing all about the challenges of being a non-bio mom and already being comfortable with the role of mother meant that I would not have to feel any pain at all. Now I feel what I knew before in my head: that being a non-bio mom isn't easy. But it does come with a lot of benefits. I got to be with Lyn, supporting her in one of the most challenging things she'll ever do. I got to feel and hold Ira as he was being born. I even got to nurse him for a few minutes after Lyn was taken to the OR to get repair work done. And I get to fall in love with Lyn all over again because she's given such a precious gift.

Monday morning quarterback

It's really difficult to sit down and write about something as life-changing and intense as the birth of your son. I could write down a blow-by-blow of events from my point of view, but the more I talk about what happens the more ordinary the events seem and the further away the actual experience of them drifts. Instead I'll just try to get down a few rambling thoughts.

Over the last week or so I have come to appreciate Lyn's experiences three years ago. I appreciated her before, but labor, birth, and newborn time for a partner is very different that it is for a birthing mother (duh!). During labor, Lyn's only job was to focus on herself, but my
job, to a certain extent, was to manage the whole experience. I learned information from doctors that I didn't share with her because I judged it wouldn't be useful. I called family and decided what to share with them. I was instrumental in making decisions that potentially changed the course of labor, and it's really hard not to play the Monday-morning quarterback.

When I gave birth to Leigh a few years ago, I had a lot of clarity afterward. I knew that the birth went exactly how it needed to go, even though it was different than what we had planned. I had some regrets about not getting to birth Leigh at home, but mostly I felt the experience was wonderful and fundamentally right, both the parts at home and the parts at the hospital. Lyn had more doubts, and it took longer for her to come to terms with the birth.

I'm now in Lyn's position. I keep thinking about moments during the birth when I might have made a different decision and wondering if I was "right." In particular, I worry that I should have encouraged Lyn to have an epidural during the evening of the 27th. She was really struggling and I'm afraid that my decision about what to tell her and how to support her might have been based too much on my own experiences and not enough on what was happening with Lyn. For her part, Lyn says that everything happened just as it should have. She seems to see the birth as a series of events that went just right, including the bumps in the road. This is harder for me to do, just as it was harder for Lyn after my labor with Leigh.

Birth is a transformative experience for everyone involved. But I have learned over the course of two births that you don't get to pick the kind of transformation you have. Instead you have to be fully present and deal with each new twist in the road as it comes. It's great to plan ahead and imagine how you might deal with different alternatives, but things will most likely happen that you are completely unprepared for. That's the part that actually transforms you.

[By the way, all four of us are doing well. Lyn is recovering slowly but surely. I'm enjoying taking care of the family. Leigh loves nothing more than to kiss her baby brother and help with diaper changes. Our beautiful new baby boy is growing both in his body and in our hearts.]

He's here!

Our son arrived very late on Wed night (May 27th). He's a healthy 7 lbs 4 oz with a full head of reddish blond hair. We have lots of recovering to do around here, so details and pictures may be slow to appear, but know we are all doing well. His name (both on the blog and in real life) will be forthcoming on day 8.

"Is this your first child?"

This isn't an easy question to answer. In a medical situation, the relevant answer is "Yes" since they need to know I've never been pregnant before, but I refuse not to claim my first daughter, and if I don't mention her, I miss out on all of the great bonding conversation over how cute and infuriating 2 1/2-year-olds are, or maybe some unsolicited advice on preparing the big sister (I actually like unsolicited advice of that sort, I'm kind of weird that way). So usually I say something like "This is my first pregnancy but our second child." If I feel like coming out, I'll clarify that "my wife gave birth to our first." If I don't, I'll leave it at that, and let whoever is asking puzzle out the situation. That all works great if I'm alone. But the last two days, as we've interacted more with the hospital and Gail has been with me, it's not working as well.

Prior to this whole liver thing, Gail was coming to all midwife appts but I was handling the OB appts on my own, since we considered them secondary. She hadn't actually even been to the hospital until our appointment on Monday. Our plan is now for her to come to pretty much everything, since she needs to get really comfortable at the hospital ASAP and it would be good for the various staff/nurses/OBs to see her around. We certainly have plenty of appointments so she should catch up quickly.

We've now had two slightly disturbing incidents where I was asked if this was my first child (once by the PA who does the initial BP check, and today by the very nice nurse who did the non-stress-test that the baby passed quickly with flying colors). I gave my standard answer and indicated that Gail had given birth to our first daughter. In both interactions, the person inquiring immediately turned to Gail and asked her how old the first is (one may have even said "how old is your daughter" to Gail, but I'm not certain), even though they had previously been talking directly to me. The first time, we thought maybe this was just a one-off thing. But the second time, we realized it is probably a pattern, at least in an institutional setting where you have lots of interactions with lots of people who don't necessarily know you very well (this was never an issue with our midwife, but she already knew us, so that makes sense).

In both cases, we did our standard thing where Gail tried to quickly punt questions back my direction, but it was kind of tricky and didn't go all that smoothly (we got in this habit when Leigh was a baby and we had the rule that "whoever isn't holding the baby answers the questions." It was a great trick to make sure we were perceived as a family). This automatic assumption that Gail would answer about Leigh, presumably since she had birthed Leigh almost three years ago, rankled both of us, and Gail proposed that she simply not answering at all next time. It will make for an awkward silence, but might get the point accross. I think we'll try that. Since we're at appointments about this baby, and she's the "note-taker" and "researcher" (she's reading up on all of this, not me) she is automatically doing great public parental interaction re: baby two, so I think we'll be covered on that front.

I also think that, particularly at the NST today, when we were booking about a million monitoring appointments, and quickly talking back and forth in shorthand about what to do for childcare for the various appointment times (certain days necessitate sending Leigh to a neighbor, some times necessitate a grandma daycare pick-up, it gets a little complicated), it probably became very clear that we are both parents to both kids. It is those kinds of interactions that help to break down some of the assumptions that rub us the wrong way, but it is interesting to be reminded, precisely because we are now interacting with so many people who don't know us as a family already, that the assumptions really are there.

Facing the Costs of Nursing

Many other folks have weighed in on Hanna Rosin's article The Case Against Breastfeeding, including both Amy and Marc at Equally Shared Parenting and Lisa Belkin at Motherlode, so I'm a little late to the party. But I can't let the article go by without making some comment, because it is an important issue that is difficult to talk about.

First, I want to say, "Thank you Hanna Rosin." Thank you for saying what I've been afraid to say of a couple of years now. Thank you for pointing out the sexism in the attachment parenting philosophy (especially as promoted by Doctor Sears). Thank you for a thoughtful look at statistics, which as a mathematics educator I appreciate. I am a little miffed about the title of your article, but I'm going to blame that on an overzealous editor. The point isn't to make a case against breastfeeding, but, rather, to take the rose-colored glasses off of the choice for breastfeeding. While it has many advantages, breastfeeding also has disadvantages: it can sideline non-nursing parents and make it difficult to share the work of caring for a baby, it can be painful and difficult, and it can be incompatible with working.

As a university instructor with a private office, I still found pumping to be a challenge -- I can't imagine trying to pump if I didn't have a completely flexible schedule and my own office with a locking door. Still, I nursed for 14 months and pumped for 9 or 10 of those months. My daughter's lips never touched formula. Why? Sure, nursing saves money, but it didn't for us. Between pumping supplies and medical complications, I'd say any money we saved was marginal. Yes, nursing provides a way to bond and be close with a baby, but I saw my wife create that same intimate environment through bottle feeding. Absolutely, I think nursing was a wonderful experience that brought my daughter and I closer, but it was also a frustrating and upsetting experience for both of us that at times seemed to drive us apart. Yes, nursing melted away my pregnancy weight (and allowed me to eat anything), but it also cracked my nipples and caused me to develop a painful breast abscess that left me with a scar. Sure, my daughter has enjoyed great health during her 2.5 years, but most of the bottle-fed babies I know have also been very healthy, and some of the breastfed babies I know have not.

For me, every positive aspect of nursing has an equally strong negative shadow. Looking back, I wonder why I nursed for so long. Even more, I wonder why I nursed exclusively. My wife and I had so many stressful conversations about whether I had pumped enough at work that day and whether she could feed the baby now or should try to wait until I got home. Why didn't we just give her some formula? Guilt. And the need to be perfect parents. Like Hanna Rosin, Lyn and I live in a community where breastfeeding is the norm, and where women who cannot nurse usually feel sad or guilty. We are also a two-mom family, and we have unspoken fears lingering in dark places within us that our family, with it's missing father, is deficient. Thus we have to make sure that we are above reproach in all other ways. I still feel occasionally defensive that Leigh and I stopped our nursing dance at 14 months. I was wildly happy to be done, but was I supposed to push for more? After all, many of my friends nursed for much longer.

We're expecting another child in June, so we have a chance to do it over. How will we change things this time? Instead of backup up and deciding maybe some formula is OK, we're going for the four-breast treatment. I'm inducing lactation, so this new baby will hopefully be able to nurse with both it's mommies. Perhaps it will be twice as healthy and twice as smart for all our trouble. I have only one good reason for my choice -- I want to be able to share the care of our new baby more equitably with Lyn. As I've said before, I struggled with nursing, and I'm feeling more anxiety than excitement at the prospect of nursing another baby. But I'm still taking hormones each day, and taking medication to stimulate lactation four times a day. When the baby comes, I'll be pumping while the baby snuggles up to nurse. Every time. Even at night. So I'm already going deep into the minus column in order to nurse this baby. I'm excited at the prospect of getting to share the feeding responsibilities with Lyn, but it remains to be seen if the results will be worth all the effort, or if I'll be wondering why we just didn't relax and use formula.

A family divided

Even before Lyn became pregnant, we were concerned about the impact that a new child, genetically and physically connected to Lyn, would have on the unity of our entire family. In switching to another birth mother, would we run the risk of splitting our family in two, each of us having our "own" child? Physically, would we look like two families, one dark and one fair (Lyn is secretly hoping for a red-haired baby that tans easily)? We worried a little, and we thought of strategies to combat the problem, realizing that we needed to pay attention to the links that could be in danger of weakening -- the link between Lyn and Leigh, the link between me and the new baby, and the link between the two of us as we respond to the demands of a larger family.

Then we had dinner with our friends Marc and Amy and we realized that this is not a problem just for lesbian families! Marc and Amy told us about heterosexual families they knew that felt like two families for sometime after the birth of their second child. After the birth of a new baby, the birth mother is in need of rest and recovery and time with the new baby to establish nursing. As a result, NGPs, whether they are fathers or mothers, end up spending more time with the older child.

In some ways, this can be a positive development. The stress and additional time demands of a new baby can lead a father (or other NGP) to become more involved with the care of an older child and thus more involved in family life. It can lead families to become more equally sharing and lead to increased bonding between fathers and older children, but can also stress the relationship between parents, and delay bonding between a father and the new baby.

It was nice to realize this is not simply of problem resulting from our ususual family structure, although in our family we run the additional risk of reinforcing genetic/biological divisions. So we have tried to think of ways to ease the transition from a family of three to a family of four, to make space for a new baby without causing fracture.

• Take time together as a family after the birth of a second child. We will have an embarrassment of riches here, as we'll both be taking two months at home.
  
• "Switching" children whenever possible. The constraints of nursing give a birth mother plenty of time with a new baby and an NGP plenty of time with an older child. Whenever the baby is not nursing, we'll be looking for opportunities for me to hold the baby (and change it) and Lyn to focus only on Leigh.
  
• Play to your strengths as parents. Post-birth Lyn will be needing to focus on physical recovery, so during my time with Leigh I will work on getting her plenty of active play and outdoor time. Lyn and Leigh can then enjoy quieter indoor play together.
• Getting alone time and social reinforcement for NGP and new baby. We always advocate having the NGP get as much alone time with a new baby as possible. Once nursing is well established, it is particularly important for the NGP to get out in public with the baby. After about three or four weeks, I will likely be going on short outings with the new baby that will last through one feeding. This will give me a change to get out in public, get reinforcement and support as a new parent, and get used to doing solo care. In other words, I'll be developing a relationship with the new baby independent of Lyn's influence, and being in public gives an opportunity to have that relationship reinforced by the outside world. This will also be time for Lyn to focus exclusively on Leigh, with no distractions.
  
• Look for opportunities to create solid threesomes. There are four ways to create a threesome in a new family of four: parents + new baby, parents + older child, two children and parent #1, two children and parent #2. We'll still have Leigh in childcare part-time during our two months of leave together, so we'll automatically get plenty of quality time as a couple with a new baby. We'll be looking to grandparents and friends to help us get quality time with Leigh alone, possibly by calling on willing grandparents. We'll also be looking for opportunities to get Leigh involved with her younger sibling. For instance, we'd love to have Lyn read a book to Leigh while nursing the new baby, or have Leigh help me change the baby.
  
• Prioritizing the older child. When all four of us are at home together, we'll be looking for opportunities to prioritize Leigh's needs and to do the things that she wants to do so that she feels fully included in our new family. Once we feel like we have our "sea legs," we hope to have summer fun as a family, going to hear music, swim at the pool, go to the park, and do other things that Leigh loves to do.
• Taking time as a couple. Ha! Dream on! We hope that if we don't allow our worlds to diverge too much, then we will wake up one day and find the chaotic newborn time is over and that we still connect as a couple. As I write these words, we are taking the last adults-only 3-day vacation that we'll have for several years. But we have faith that a time to ourselves will come again.
  

Most important to us is avoiding the creation of a rift in our family that will require repair work later. We want to create within ourselves the mindset of a whole family together and to do what we can during those crazed and dazed newborn months to hold onto that picture and work toward bringing it into reality.