Six weeks later

Yesterday Evan turned six weeks old.  Wow!  I went to a weigh in clinic at the hospital on Thursday evening and found out that Evan now weighs more than 10 lbs!  10 pounds 2.9 ounces to be exact.  That means he's gained about one ounce per day since he was born.  From what I've read, babies should and/or will gain between one half to one ounce per day, so Evan's doing quite well gaining 43 ounces in 42 days!

So it's been six weeks since I gave birth to my sweet baby boy.  What's the significance of that?  Six weeks is often the timeframe that the OB-GYN wants to have a postpartum check up, for which I will have mine on Monday.  Six weeks is also the length of the traditional maternity leave period in the U.S.  This period is often unpaid, unless a woman has short-term disability coverage.  The U.S. does have a Family Medical Leave Act policy that allows a woman (well, those that work for large enough companies) to take off up to 12 weeks after the birth of a child without any negative repercussions on her job, but the leave (beyond the six-week period already discussed) does not have to be paid for by the employer or by any other party.  Rather, it is often taken as unpaid leave or as vacation time.

In Australia, a woman can take off up to a year (52 weeks) of unpaid leave after the birth of a child without any negative impact on her job.  And recently, beginning in January 2011, parents (typically the new mother, but it can be split between mother and father) can qualify for 18 weeks of paid parental leave after the birth of their child in Australia.  The pay is at the national minimum wage level, but nonetheless it's a start to helping new parents have time off from work to care for the new baby while also earning money to help pay the bills.  Prior to this, both the U.S. and Australia were the only two developed countries that did not provide paid parental leave (see USA Today article, 2005).

The U.S. is unfortunately the only western country that doesn't have paid time off for maternity leave now, and still has the shortest allowed maternity leave period of any of the developed countries in the world.  In Europe, there is a minimum maternity leave of 14 weeks, with pay for that period to be no lower than the locality's sickness pay.  Plans were underway to extend the paid maternity leave in Europe to 20 weeks, but so far that plan has been rejected.  The maternity leave benefits vary by individual country within Europe, however, and some countries (for example the United Kingdom) have paid maternity leave for up to 39 weeks of the year that a new mother would have off from work.  In general, European countries have definitely put a priority on families' well being by allowing new mothers (and fathers) to have plenty of time off from work, along with some form of financial compensation during the leave period, to care for infants.

I am lucky enough that my employer provides me with "salary continuation pay"(SCP for short) for when you have a medical condition that requires you to be off work (in other words, it's basically short term disability coverage).  This coverage provided me with the first 6 weeks of my maternity leave to be paid for without having to use my vacation time.  However, that is not entirely the case as the SCP policy only kicks in after an employee has been out for a medical reason beyond ten days.  Meaning, I must use my vacation time (or "paid time off", aka PTO) for the first ten days of my maternity leave.  Then SCP kicks in up until the time that my doctor has certified that I need to be off work, which in my case was six weeks (if I had a C-section it would have likely been eight weeks).  Therefore, SCP really only covered four weeks of my maternity leave and that ended this past Thursday.  Then on Friday I began using my PTO to get paid during the remaining six weeks of my 12-week maternity leave period. 

I am again fortunate that I have saved up enough PTO to be able to take this entire period off with pay.  I do plan to start working from home here and there to be able to not have to use as much PTO.  Either way, given that I am now just past the six week postpartum period, I could not imagine going back to work yet, or giving Evan to a caregiver that I don't know.  We are starting to get in a bit more of a routine, but each day's schedule is still mostly defined by Evan.  Most importantly this includes our sleeping schedule, which at this point would not suit me getting up at a set time and getting ready for work.  I have determined that if Evan's last feeding of the overnight period is before 7am, I am usually too tired to get up and stay up.  Thus I often go back to sleep while Evan goes back to sleep, and then I get up for his next feeding about 2-3 hours later (usually around 8-9am).  If Evan's last feeding overnight is after 7am, I am able to stay up for the day.  On the days that his feeding schedule lands a feeding around 5-6am, for example, I'd have a rough day at work those days having to get up soon after finishing feeding him.  I'm really not quite sure how moms that go back to work at six weeks handle that situation, unless they are blessed with a baby that sleeps through the night early so it's a non-issue or maybe they just succumb to being zombies at work?

Evan typically still has two overnight feedings, spaced about 3-4 hours apart.  He has been so kind as to give us two nights so far in which he went a whole five hours between his bedtime feeding and the next, such that we only had one middle of the night nursing session!  The first time this happened (a week ago Friday, the night after arriving home from our road trip), John and I both were shocked to see the time on the clock when Evan woke us.  Normally after his nurses at night we calculate about what time he'll probably wake us for his next meal, and given he'd last eaten at 10pm we were expecting the clock to read 1am or so.  When it said 3:45am, I had to rub my eyes good and hard to make sure I was reading the time correctly!  And then after the reality of it hit me, I couldn't help but be excited for this new milestone we'd just reached.  Not to mention that I felt refreshed and well-rested compared to any night I'd had since he'd been born!  Just last night he did this again.  He nursed at 9:45pm, allowing me to get to bed around 10:30-11pm (which is also a typical/preferred bedtime for me).  He didn't wake us up for his next meal until 3:30am.  After John changed him and I nursed him (yes, John helps share the overnight duties and I am so thankful for that!), I was able to put him back to bed by 4am or so.  He then awoke around 7am for his next feeding, and I was able to get up after nursing him for the day.  This is the routine we need to establish on a daily basis before I'd be able to cope with a daily work schedule.  Eventually, I'd love for him to sleep all the way through the night of course, but that is probably several weeks (maybe months?) away still.

Evan is also now waking up in the morning more alert and sometimes quietly gurgling.  He smiles a lot and coos more often.  I like to play with him while changing him by blowing raspberries on his belly and just kissing him and making faces and silly sounds at him.  He seems to love it and so I hope this means he'll enjoy changings more and not dread the shirt getting pulled over his head or his arm getting pulled through a sleeve.  John has started playing music while he changes him (who isn't calmed listening to Enya?), so we're both developing some fun changing table rituals with him.  Evan also spends a lot more time staring at my face.  When I hold him close he looks at me very intently, watching my facial expressions and listening to my voice.  Our bond is definitely growing stronger.

John is still doing so much to help me out and to help his son grow, and I am truly thankful.  John still changes the majority of the dirty diapers, and is the primary bath-giver and nail trimmer.  (I'm really thankful for the latter, as I'm too scared to trim those little nails!)  One notable story from today happened as John was holding Evan trying to console him while he was fussing.  John was holding Evan on his chest, in the way I like to do to snuggle him after burping him.  We weren't sure if he was fussing because he was just tired or if he had gas, but we soon learned that it must have been his tummy not feeling well.  John suddenly asked me to get a burp cloth because Evan had just puked on his neck and he told me it was running down his neck.  This may sound funny on its own, but until I saw the curdled white "fluid" all mixed into John's chest hair I didn't realize just how funny the situation was.  I tried to get the camera for a picture to capture the sight, but John preferred that I just help wipe it off him. (You can't blame him!)  I don't think I'll ever cease to be amazed at the ways, and places, that Evan will make a mess!  Six weeks down...many more weeks of these kinds of stories to go! :)