elimination, telepathy, and the abortion debate

Lately I've found myself measuring my days by how well I do at elimination communication. Not because I care about misses--I think there must be a hormone that makes mothers not mind their babies' bodily fluids, and when Anastasia pees on me I simply find it cute--but just because I feel so in tune with Anastasia when I know when she needs to go.

Perhaps I should explain a bit, since not everyone is familiar with elimination communication, or EC. Which is a shame--everyone ought to at least be aware of it so they know they have the option. But to briefly explain it, it's simply the method used to deal with the toileting needs of infants in countries where diapers are not readily available. Just as mothers all over the world learn to be aware when their child is hungry or tired, many mothers also learn to be aware when their babies need to go to the bathroom. Then, instead of watching them go in a diaper, they take them to an appropriate place (a toilet, a sink, a baby potty, or even a convenient bush) and let them go. Babies learn to associate a certain position (usually you hold them in a sort of crouching or squatting position) and a sound (generally hissing) with going to the bathroom. It's completely different from potty training, mainly because potty training is actually re-training a child who's gotten used to going in his diapers to relearn to recognize when he needs to go. Babies are born recognizing that need, and EC allows the parents to recognize it, too.

Anastasia and I started gradually. I learned about EC before she was born, and I knew I wanted to start as soon as possible after her birth. But after our long labor, I knew I would need a little time to recover before I started trying to learn such a radically unfamiliar skill. I waited about two weeks before I even thought about it, and during that time we used cloth diapers. (I thought I was just being lazy, so I was delighted to discover when I read Diaper Free: The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene that even places where EC is normal don't start until at least two weeks old. They use a towel or cloth before that to catch messes.) When Anastasia was about two weeks old, although I still felt really intimidated by it and not quite ready, I decided I'd better just plunge in and try. So at a diaper change, I held her over the toilet and made a hissing sound.

Like many new EC'ers, I was blown away when she peed. In the toilet. First try.

After that, it didn't take long to get hooked. One of the best parts for me about EC'ing is that suddenly diaper changes became fun: instead of just being a mess to clean up, they were an opportunity to get to know my baby better, to understand her needs and her language. After a couple months of using diapers all the time and just taking her to the toilet between changes, while trying to figure out her rhythms and notice how often she goes at different times of day, I felt ready to really go diaper-free. At least part time.

Which brings us to where we are now. In the past week, Anastasia has had several days when she went six, seven, or eight hours without a miss. Some of those days she was diaperless; some of them she was in the same diaper all day. I love having her bare-bummed (she has the cutest dimples on her bum), but I'm finding I tend to be more relaxed about it when I have a little bit of backup. Also, sometimes she passes a little bit of mess when she farts, and I hate for her to get skid marks on her clothes and have to change her whole outfit. I've gravitating more toward just a flatfold or cotton fitted diaper, with either no cover or just a breathable wool cover, because I don't like having her covered with something waterproof. I asked for some baby underwear and training pants from the EC store for mother's day, and I can't wait to start dressing her in those!--light and breathable, with just a tiny bit of protection.

We're both enjoying a lot of benefits from EC. Anastasia has no diaper rash, she never has to sit in her own mess, she's keeping her natural awareness of her body, and she's experiencing more and more immediate responses to her needs. She also will probably never develop an unhealthy self-consciousness about her private parts, and she's already used to peeing outside! I am enjoying less laundry, more enjoyment of my baby, and very few poopy messes to clean up--it's only once every ten days or so that she poops in a diaper instead of the toilet. But best of all, we're both learning to communicate with each other in ways I never thought were possible with a baby. The other day, in fact, I realized that she's often communicating with me telepathically.

Crazy, I know. But my sister, mother, and I have had many experiences that we could only explain by telepathy, and my mother has had many experiences with my aunt as well. And really, it makes sense that mothers and babies would be able to communicate this way, at least before a baby can communicate with words. Many of the commonly experienced "signals" of needing to go that EC'ers advise each other to look for would best be described as telepathy--things like feeling a phantom pee before the baby has actually peed, or hearing a phrase like "she needs to pee" in your head, or even feeling the urge to pee yourself.

And I'm starting to wonder if listening to Anastasia's toileting needs isn't helping me better "hear" her other needs as well. The other night she was crying inconsolably as I tried to get her to sleep. She'd just peed, she wasn't hot or cold, she was swaddled and comfortable and I was trying to feed her. But she kept pulling off, protesting, and looking at me pleadingly, as if desperate to communicate something that I just wasn't hearing. I tried to comfort her, but she kept giving me that look--"can't you see what's wrong?" she seemed to be saying. And suddenly it popped into my mind like a flash of insight, something I never would have thought of on my own: the light was bothering her. I didn't think of it as something that might help that I hadn't tried yet; I knew, suddenly but completely, that the light was the problem. I got up and turned it off, and she was asleep in minutes.

Coincidence? Maybe.

But looking back, I realized that wasn't the first time that happened. There was that moment shortly after she was born, as we were taking a bath together. I lowered her into the warm water, and she began to relax for the first time since her birth. "Ah," I could see her thinking, "yes, warm water; this is what I'm used to!" But after a few minutes she stretched her arms out, and as she did so she startled and gave a terrified scream. Watching the whole thing, I knew instantly what had upset her: her outstretched arms had met with no walls, no barrier, and she felt like she was falling. For a moment she had forgotten and thought she was still in the womb. In the moment when she startled, I had felt my own stomach jump, as if I were falling.

I wonder if we're all born with that kind of connection. It makes sense, after all, that a mother and baby who have been intimately physically joined for nine months would continue to feel and experience things together, at least for a while. It might be offensive to some to say it, but a baby in your womb really is part of your body--just as you are part of its body. In some cultures, newborn infants and mothers are considered to still be two parts of the same person for the first few months, so they should never be separated. It makes sense from a physiological perspective: a breastfeeding baby is eating the same things as its mother, and when mothers are in physical contact with their newborns, the mother's body regulates the baby's breathing and body temperature. I realize this argument has often been used to support pro-choice, but now that I've experienced pregnancy, that logic seems terribly flawed to me. Perhaps, instead of arguing that the baby really is a separate person, the pro-lifers ought to embrace the idea of mother and baby being, in some mysterious way, one person in two parts. Then abortion becomes as much self-injury as murder. Like cutting off your own hand. Maybe that would help new mothers, too, to be gentler on themselves and to listen to their instincts. I am becoming more and more convinced that every woman who carries a baby and gives birth has the ability to be the best mother possible to that baby. But so many of us override those instincts with the dubious wisdom of experts or well-meaning friends who tell us "don't spoil her" or "you won't have enough milk" or "babies don't know when they need to go." Mothers, I appeal to you: don't listen to the experts. When it comes to understanding your baby, no one knows better than you do. You are, in many ways, still one person--just with two souls.