a different kind of love

Tonight while JJ and I were giving Lyd a big hug, Lyd said, “Momma, I love you more than I love Daddy.”

I responded, “Oh, that’s not good.  How do you think that makes Daddy feel?”

Lyd thought for a moment and responded, “Sad.”

I replied, “You’re right.  You love us both, but you love us differently.  I think what you mean to say is that you want to be like me when you grow up, right?”

“Yes, Momma, I want to be just like you when I grow up.”

—

I thought about that tonight, the idea of loving one person more than another because one person is more like you, or in Lyd’s case, more like the person she wants to be.  That struck a chord with me, because once in a while (usually when I’m feeling anxious, which I was a little bit tonight), I wonder if I love my girls the same, or just … differently.  Curious J is SUCH a monkey, SO active and into EVERYTHING – and is SO different from Lyd!  It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around it sometimes.  I worry that, because she’s so different, that I am responding to her differently.  I don’t mean to, but I wonder if, subconsciously, I am acting differently towards her.

However, I’m grateful for two things: I’m grateful for breastfeeding, and I’m grateful for my baby sling.  Both of those things really promote closeness and attached-ness, and it makes me feel better to know that I am actively doing things to promote our continued bonding.  Plus, I’ve been taking more time at naptime and nighttime to rock my baby as she sleeps in my arms.  She doesn’t need to be rocked once she’s asleep (and for you sleep purists out there, I would only have to rock her for a minute or so — she’s ready to sleep after that), but I’m finding it very emotionally healing to hold her finally-still body in my arms, feel her head snuggle against my shoulder, stroke her soft, soft skin, and breathe in her warm baby scent.  I need that.  Maybe she doesn’t, as she seems to spend much of her day trying to get away from me, but then again, maybe she does.  I need that snuggle time with her, and if the only time I can get it is when she’s falling asleep, then I’ve got to take it when I can get it.

—

I learned tonight that the plans my cousin and his wife made to adopt a baby have been successful; they have been matched with a little girl in Ethiopia, and will go to Ethiopia to get her sometime in late August.  They have one biological daughter who is about 3 years old, and their new adopted daughter is about one and a half.  This little girl has been relinquished by her mother due to extreme poverty.   Wow.  Relinquished by her mother.  Due to extreme poverty.  Wow.  That really hit me.  The thought occurred to me: Could I EVER relinquish my child?  What a horrible, horrible choice for a mother to make!  Don’t get me wrong: I am SO excited for my cousins, excited that they will welcome this child into their Christian family and happy for this child that it will have a better life, but tonight I was pondering that mother back in Ethiopia.  That mother who knows that her child is soon to leave her side; perhaps the child has already left.  And it brought me to tears.

Because, with all this worry about loving one child as much as the other, I thought, “Well, if you REALLY think that you don’t love Baby J enough, then imagine how you would feel to give her up.”  And to my surprise (and relief), I couldn’t do it.  I literally couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t go there.

All I could imagine was what I already know.  Because I did give up a baby once, although not voluntarily.  I lost my little Joy in my miscarriage over two years ago.  While maybe a day or two goes by without me thinking about that baby, never does a whole week go by where I don’t think about him or her.  And never a thought of that baby goes by without me also thinking, “If I hadn’t lost that baby, I wouldn’t have Baby J now.”

If I think that much about a miscarriage, a baby lost in barely the sixth week of pregnancy, the body of which I never even saw on an ultrasound but saw only the empty sac, and the only tangible evidence of that baby’s existence were the two positive pee-soaked pregnancy tests which sat on my bathroom counter for six months afterwards that I couldn’t bear to throw away, how much more would I think about Baby J if she were gone?  And with that thought came the realization — of course I love my Baby J!  I love her differently, but I certainly don’t love her less.  It doesn’t feel the same as my love for Lyd because Baby J isn’t Lyd.  But I do, I do love my little Curious J.  And I know that if the situation presented itself, I would protect her life with as much fierceness and desperation as I would Lyd’s life.  I would, as I used to say, “throw myself in front of a bus for her” if that’s what was needed to keep her safe.  She is my daughter, and I will continue to learn to celebrate and nurture her unique qualities.  So she’s different than Lyd — so what?  No two kids are alike, and J has talents and abilities that she (and I) have yet to discover.  It will be an amazing journey for our whole family.

(And along with that realization, my heart also goes out to all the mothers who have relinquished children for adoption, whatever the reason.  I can only feebly imagine what a mixture of heartbreak and bravery is involved in giving up one’s child in hopes of that child having a better life somewhere else with someone else.  What absolute, incredible courage.)

vaccine comments

While logging into my blog tonight, I noticed a post about vaccines on the main wordpress sign-in page.  I clicked, read, and was moved to comment.  As it’s practically a post in itself, I decided to add it as a post on my own blog for your enjoyment.  If you’re interested, here is a link to the original blog on which I commented:

—

It’s true, Correlation is not Causation [meaning that just because a kid got autism after a vaccine, that does not necessarily mean the two are connected], but at the same time, one would have to be blind not to at least acknowledge that as the sheer number of vaccines recommended for children under the age of two has increased, so also has increased the rate of autism.  I personally believe that there are many factors that are involved with autism, more than just vaccinations.  But at the same time, there is SO MUCH anecdotal evidence of children who were fine until they got a certain vaccine.  To say that all of those parents are wrong about what triggered their child’s autism is to also insinuate that those parents don’t know their children as well as they think they do.

As far as getting the measles go [discussing the current measles outbreak in the US, especially around San Diego], there is something to be said for having natural measles immunity via getting the measles (which is not likely to be that much of a problem in a healthy child) versus getting artificial immunity that might come with potential problems and may not be as strong of an immunity anyway.  There is also concern that while breastfeeding does pass on a mother’s immunities to her nursing child, a mother does not as easily pass on vaccine-acquired immunity as she does pass on actively-acquired immunity via actually getting the disease.  (I hope that long sentence made sense!)  I guess what I’m saying is that for some parents, having their child actually GET the disease is better in both the short-term and long-term than merely getting a vaccine for the disease.  I know that I feel that way about chicken pox.  (Of course, the chicken pox vaccine doesn’t seem to work long-term, so in my mind, that’s another reason to attempt to GET chicken pox, rather than to get the varicella vaccine.)

Vaccines are a tough call.  Good people make different decisions.  No matter what, I highly doubt that the next generation of children will be vaccinated the way our children currently are vaccinated.

As for me, I have a hard time accepting the fact that the CDC wants my child to have 27 doses of vaccines before the tender age of one.  That’s an awful lot.  I made the decision to exclusively breastfeed my child, keep her home with me (no day care), and hold off on all vaccines until 9 months, when she got her first shot, the DTaP.  That’s the decision that felt best to me.

One more thing: Vaccines have done a lot of good for society, no question about that.  So why don’t vaccine manufacturers work on creating vaccines for diseases that continue to kill people in less affluent nations, such as TB and malaria?  (Yes, there is a TB vaccine, but it’s lousy and doesn’t work.)  Instead, money is being poured to make vaccines for diseases that people can avoid getting merely by changing their behavior, such as HIV and HPV?  Perhaps that’s not politically correct to say that, but it’s true.  Stop having sex with multiple partners, and your risk of acquiring a sexually transmitted disease such as HIV and HPV decreases dramatically.  Let’s stop making vaccines for diseases that can be acquired through risky behavior (which would thereby make people accountable for their own behavior), and start making vaccines for deadly diseases that truly can be caught by anyone!  Those are the killer diseases for which the world NEEDS vaccines!