Nursing Strikes

Did you ever hear of a nursing strike? The La Leche League Womanly Art of Breastfeeding Guide reads. It’s when a baby abruptly refuses to nurse.

First drops of milk I
ever pumped, while still
in the hospital.

My start with breastfeeding was a bit unique – pumping around the clock for almost three months before my premature baby could even attempt to breastfeed – but we did manage to make it work, with the help of lactation consultants, hospital grade breast pumps, nipple shields, galactagogues, and various other techniques, and it worked relatively well…until…

I went back to work.

Then the nursing strikes began.

Given how hard I’d worked to protect baby boy’s milk supply, I was devastated.

I consulted several sources I had been referred to by various lactation consultants. A nursing strike could be teething related or due to a number of issues, these sources suggested. A common suggestion attributed nursing strikes to the baby receiving too many bottles.

I did not find these suggestions particularly helpful for the working mom, much less for the working mom nursing a premature infant. A popular suggestion from these sources is to discontinue all bottle feeding immediately…feed the baby with a spoon or an eye dropper… take your baby to bed with you for a “nurse-in” and breastfeed only for as many days as possible.

Feed him with an eye dropper? Are you kidding me? He sucks down four ounces at a time. Feeding him with an eye dropper would be like dangling a piece of meat in the mouth of a lion. Not to mention that unfortunately I can’t do extended nurse-ins. I went through eight years of sick time to be with my baby while he was in the NICU.

Last year we had $300,000 worth of medical bills. I have to work. I have to provide health insurance. So I cannot have nurse-ins. I cannot feed him with an eye dropper.

Despite my reservations, I tried what suggestions I thought were feasible for us. Like trying different nursing positions. Nurse him standing up. Nurse him while walking around. Nurse while lying down. Nurse when he’s drowsy. Pump first to get the milk to let down, then nurse him. Imagine me running around the house trying all these different things—a process I will refer to as the breastfeeding dance. If a person had any reservations about nursing in public, imagine doing the breastfeeding dance with a nursing striker. If I have to stand on my head, clap six times, and do a special dance to get him to nurse, it’s one thing for me to do it at home, but another thing to do it out in public! Obviously I had to start bringing bottles with me so I had a means of feeding him when he wouldn’t nurse (a big no-no in the sources I've been mentioning). But in my opinion, that baby needs to be fed, one way or another.

Baby boy! 9 months old

One day, after doing the breastfeeding dance, baby boy was lying beside me in our bed and he just sat there and looked at me. He looked so peaceful and trusting. Big eyes. I had been really worried about him, about the nursing strikes and was he getting enough and what should we do. In that moment he looked at me and I just felt like he was saying, mom, I’m ok. It’s fine. And then I realized that perhaps I needed to go with his cues. Perhaps I was having trouble letting go because I had worked so hard to provide his milk. I realized that he primarily preferred bottles during the day and nursing at night. Why wouldn’t he, after all, since that is his routine for most of the week. I decided to just go with it.

All the bottles and pump parts
that need to be washed multiple
times per day.

Baby boy had breast milk exclusively, whether by bottle or breast, until he was seven months old. After that we had to supplement with formula. The first time I mixed up the formula I was astounded. One scoop for every two ounces of water. He gulped it down. The whole process took only a few minutes.



I was astounded. For nine months, I’ve spent around 20 hours per week pumping and washing pump parts, between work and home.

It’s free. Plus it is what’s best for the baby. These were my thoughts (in that order) about providing breast milk when I first found out we were expecting.

Providing breast milk is what's best for the baby. I view it as the most important thing I've ever done, and I would do it all over again. But I wish someone had given me a realistic view of it and prepared me for the fact that pumping and providing milk would be equivalent to a part-time job.

Sign outside the pumping room
at work...let's just say there have
been walk-ins!

My point is this. If you know someone who is breastfeeding or expressing breast milk and bottle feeding, perhaps you will now have some insight into how hard she is working, how many challenges she may be facing just to provide milk for her baby. Give her a pat on the back. Assure her that any amount of time providing breast milk is amazing and she should be commended. Remind her that she is the only one who knows what is best for her and her baby.

Sweethearts

I meant to say it at Christmas. I meant to say it on Valentine's Day. I meant to say it all year. I am filled with gratitude. My heart could just burst.

As I wrote in an earlier post, The Ambivalent Parent, I was never sure I wanted to be a parent.

But now that he's here, and as hard as some things have been (with his premature arrival), taking care of Wesley has been my greatest honor, and my most important achievement.

I have everything I could ever want. Anything more is just a bonus.

And, I resolve to write more. I have a lot more to say. Hopefully I still have some readers out there.

The Early Bird

Born @ 27 weeks 5 days gestation
1 lb 15 oz, 12.9 inches long

Wow. Over 3 months have passed since we brought Wesley home from the hospital, and almost 6 months have passed since he was born. Most importantly, he is healthy and doing very well. Honestly, on most days, I feel like a shell-shocked zombie.

I don't mean to sound negative (and if you read all the way through, you'll see I'm talking about gratitude) but I am not going to sugar-coat parenthood as constant bliss, the way so many people do. I am going to be real and honest and up front. I knew going into this it was going to be hard. Turns out, I was in no way prepared for how hard it has been (premature rupture of the membranes at 27 weeks 5 days, emergency helicopter ride and c-section, baby in the NICU for 10 weeks, and all this even before we brought our baby home and began our sleepless nights...)

I feel like I am catapaulting through my days and nights at record speed, a whirlwind of working, expressing breast milk, caring for Wesley, going to doctor appointments, and stealing 1-2 hours of sleep when I can. As fast as this pace feels, parts of my heart and mind are still caught in the days just after Memorial Day, hanging in slow motion, in small spaces where I'm still trying to figure out exactly what hit us.


Going Home from the Hospital,
38 Weeks,
6 lb 1 oz

 After ten weeks in the hospital, Wesley came home two weeks before his due date. He weighed just over 6 pounds and he was so tiny in his car seat that we rolled up blankets and placed them around his head. I sat in the backseat with him and I have never been so nervous. It seemed like every little bump jarred him. I know he was nervous because he sucked vigorously on his pacifier the whole way home. When we got home he was wide-eyed for several hours. Our little baby had never known any world except the hospital, and all its alarms, and constant poking and prodding.

I recently saw a Facebook conversation in which some friends were discussing their kids, and one person said, “the nights are long but the years go by fast.” I know exactly what he meant. Fatigue and sleep deprivation have been the hallmark of our lives for six months now, with probably another two months to go before Wesley is even capable of sleeping a 4-6 hour stretch.

Every night when we’re up every few hours, I wonder, how long we can do this? People always say, “sleep when baby sleeps.” I just smile, but I want to say, will you come over and load my dishwasher and do my laundry, so I can sleep when baby sleeps?! Our lives seem chaotic. Some of our loved ones simply can't survive the shock. Our plants are dying. We've lost a starfish. Our cat died (she was 16 years old and in declining health for a while). We're constantly losing ground against the dirty dishes and laundry. I can tell that it will be years before my house is dusted or deep-cleaned in any fashion! Anything beyond the basics is simply unattainable right now. (And boy, did I yearn to make and can some apple butter this year...)



5 1/2 Months Actual,
13 Weeks Adjusted,
11 lb 15 oz

 Just when we start to make some progress with sleeping, or just when I start to feel like I am "getting it," everything changes. I felt like we were just out of the colic phase and starting to develop some longer sleep cycles, when suddenly baby Wesley is a drooling, fist-sucking mess. We feel a tooth coming in! I don’t think I’ve slept more than 2 hours in several weeks…and my bizarre dreams have returned. I dreamed that a cat named “The Struggle for Profound Thought” was perching on my neck at night, and that a co-worker was placing life-size, color cardboard figures of us around the building.

But every day Wesley does something new. It has been amazing to watch him transform from a tiny, sleepy, tube-fed noodle in an isolette to an active little baby who wants to interact with his environment. It’s like receiving a gift every day. He smiles responsively, laughs, holds his head up, kicks his legs in the air, grabs objects, and has started trying to roll on his side. He is strong and healthy. His vision exams have been normal (preemies are at risk for an eye condition called retinopathy of prematurity). He is strong-willed. And loud, opinioned, and fiesty at times! I guess this is the strength that got him so far. He weighed 1 pound 15 ounces at birth and almost 6 months later (adjusted age: 13 weeks) he weighs 11 pounds 15 ounces.

I meant to write during the 11 weeks I was home with Wesley, and yet, I didn’t often have a free hand, and when I did, I was too tired.

Born @ 27 weeks 5 days gestation,
7 weeks in the NICU,
3 weeks in a Special Care Nursery

I did manage to write a 1500-word essay called “Liquid Gold,” which I adapted from a previous blog entry called Pumping, Pumping, Pumping) and submitted it to Real Simple magazine’s “when did you first understand the meaning of love” essay contest. This essay is about milk! Breast milk, specifically. About my experience expressing breast milk around-the-clock for almost three months, for my tiny baby who was too weak to eat on his own.

(Protecting my milk supply, by the way, is the most important thing I have ever done. If today was my last day, this is the one thing that I would be the most proud of, the one thing I would never change, and I would do it all over again if I had to.)

I think I wrote most of the milk essay in my head, during many hours in the rocking chair nursing Wesley. Then I managed to type most of it one-handed. When Wesley was that little he needed to either be held or fed (or both) virtually all the time. After the essay deadline, fatigue from sleep deprivation set in, and Wesley's colic intensified and didn’t begin to subside until he was about 7 weeks adjusted age. During that time, everything in my life disappeared except for my daily walks with Wesley, and feeding, holding, soothing, and rocking.

I Just Love His Facial Expressions!


During this week of Thanksgiving, I am filled with gratitude. For me, being a parent is at once the best and the most difficult thing ever. Just when I think I don’t have the strength to continue, Wesley smiles or giggles and everything that I’m worried about just recedes into the background. Perspective. I have gained instant, clear perspective, even during complete chaos.

I always think of the phrase, "this too shall pass." Almost as quickly as a really bad day develops, a new, amazing day takes its place. I try to enjoy the present moment, whatever it may be. Just the other day, we were talking about how quickly 6 months have passed, and Chuck said, "To tell you the truth, I don't even remember how it was before we had Wesley." He couldn't have said it any better.

Pumping, Pumping, Pumping

I have gotten a second job. It doesn’t pay well and requires lots of nights and weekends. In fact, it requires around the clock work.

Medela Symphony


“Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.” I hear this sound even in my sleep. It’s the muffled, repetitive suctioning sound of the Medela Symphony, a state of the art hospital grade double electric breast pump. It’s a bright yellow thing, about three feet high, on wheels. Much better looking than the antiquated Medela Lactina I had to rent from Mayo for home use. The Lactina is a bright blue square thing with a yellow pumping widget inserted on the front that just looks like it shouldn’t be there, or like it’s cobbled together from spare parts.

The room is small and dark, complete with a dimmer switch for the lights, as well as a radio, rocking chair, sink and cleaning supplies. I now spend a lot of my time in rooms like these. Pumping rooms, we call them. Each pumping session takes about a half an hour per session, 10-12 pumping sessions every 24 hours. This amounts to pumping every 2-3 hours, except for one four hour stretch during the night so I can sleep a little. I calculate that this amounts to about 33 hours of work per week.

Why? Because my baby cannot nurse yet. Due to hormonal levels, you only have a two week window after birth to establish your milk supply, so you must begin pumping right away if your baby cannot nurse. Thereafter, you must pump to maintain your milk supply (it’s all supply and demand), pumping frequently much the way a newborn would nurse.

No wonder why I’m tired! Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining, but rather marveling at this new, alternate universe I now live in. My concept of breast feeding was based on the experiences of friends and co-workers, all who had full-term babies. I saw that working moms generally pumped twice per day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon and I thought, I can do that. Plus it’s the best thing for the baby, and it’s free. Free? Now I have to admit, that dollar amount on formula doesn’t seem so expensive anymore compared to working another full time job!

I am attached to my breast pump. Pumping every 2-3 hours, this guideline is from start to finish, so by the time I’m done with one pumping session I only have 1.5 to 2.5 hours until the next session. It’s challenging to cram everything else into these small sockets of time, such as the two hour drive from the hospital to our home, kangaroo care with Wesley, dealing with the never ending amounts of paperwork and phone calls that need to be made, hosting visitors, etc….I barely do one thing and it’s already time to pump again.

I recently started working 1-2 days a week, to conserve some of my paid time off for when Wesley comes home. But with my pumping situation, working is quite the process! Before I went back to work, I asked one of the nurses in the neonatal ICU if I could use my Medela Pump In Style (the small, discreet kind of breast pump that comes in a black shoulder bag) while working.

“That pump is not for a mom with a baby in the hospital,” she replied sternly. “That pump is for a working mom who only has to pump twice a day.”

Medela Lactina



And so I cart a suitcase to work with me, complete with the Medela Lactina and a plethora of other equipment required.



I also calculate that for now, I am barely keeping up with Wesley’s needs. Right now, he eats 1 ounce every three hours, eight times per 24 hours, for a total of 8 ounces. I recently started tracking it and I was pumping about 12 ounces of milk per 24 hours. I gasped. All that work for 12 ounces! And will I even be able to keep up with him?



I flew into a frenzy, calling lactation consultants and researching ways to increase my milk production. I would be so disappointed if I lost my milk supply before he is even able to start nursing. After adding—yes, more pumping sessions—and making sure I’m hydrated and eating more, this week I am up to almost 16 ounces per 24 hours. Ideally, I should be at 19 or more ounces. I also produce more milk when I have direct contact with Wesley, such as after kangaroo care. (I also wonder if my lower milk production is partially due to the fact that I am separated from my baby.) Take fenugreek, the lactation consultant told me. This is an herb that is known to increase milk supply by increasing prolactin levels. This is my next step. She also encouraged me, saying that milk supply often increases on its own after the baby starts nursing. No electric pump can remove milk from the breast as efficiently as a baby can, isn’t that amazing?! Once again, it’s all supply and demand.



But regardless of the time required or the amount of milk you can produce, the benefits of breast milk in any amount are undeniable. Did you know that a woman’s body produces milk uniquely suited for the age of her baby? In other words, when Wesley was born at 28 weeks, I produced milk specifically formulated for a 28 week old baby, rather than for a full term baby. Isn’t that amazing? Pre-term milk is higher in calories, protein, and fats, as well as an enzyme that helps digest the fats. Pre-term babies have trouble digesting fats, particularly the fats found in formula.



Providing breast milk is the one thing I felt I could do for him. Even when he was in an isolette, and I couldn’t hold him without enlisting the help of at least two nurses, I could always produce his milk and know that I was doing something he really needed. In the beginning, he received only one milliliter of milk every three hours and now he is receiving 33 milliliters (about an ounce) of milk every three hours, still through a tube inserted in his nose and stomach. In six weeks, Wesley has grown from 1 pound 15.3 ounces to just under four pounds. He is making steady gains every day, in addition to now breathing independently and maintaining his body temperature, which means he is now in a bassinette and we can pick him up and hold him whenever we want. I love knowing that I played a role in helping him thrive.



But I am getting anxious. I really want to feed him. The pumping thing is getting old. It’s a machine. Right now the closest I have to feeling like I am feeding him is by holding him while he receives his 33 milliliter “bolus feed” via a pump attached to his feeding tube.

We have tried breastfeeding three times now. Still no luck. Recreational breast feeding, the nurses call it. One night the nurses were laughing hysterically because one of the new resident doctors wrote the order for recreational breast feeding as “the mother may recreate at her breast.” Anyhow, I guess “recreational breast feeding” means that we still haven’t gotten the hang of it. He’s still not quite ready…so far Wesley gets sleepy very quickly and not much happens. It’s more of a “getting to know you experience” the nurses say. We are told to practice “recreational breast feeding” once per day. Thus the pumping sessions continue, to maintain the milk supply until Wesley is ready to eat.

So for now, I keep pumping, pumping, pumping.

Everything I Know About Wesley

Wesley James really shocked us with his early appearance on June 3rd (his due date was August 26th). In the middle of our labor and delivery class at the hospital, I felt a warm gush and I hoped I had peed my pants. Not so much. It was a “premature rupture of the membranes” at 28 weeks and suddenly I had a helicopter ride, c-section, and a tiny baby in neonatal intensive care…so many things happened so fast and so unexpectedly, there is a large, blurry hole in my life between the day after Memorial Day and just recently. But that is another story…for now I want to give an update on little Wesley.

First Father's Day

Wesley is almost four weeks old and weighs 2 lbs 11.8 ounces (up from his birth weight of 1 lb 15.3 ounces). He is stable and just needs to grow, grow, grow. His main issues are feeding, weight, and breathing. When talking about going home, Wesley’s nurse Chelsea said it’s not so much the weight that holds you back, it’s the feeding and the breathing. He needs to progress in these areas before we could go home, which still seems to be a long way off. Doctors have told us to expect that he will go home around his due date, which was August 26th.

There are ups and downs. I learned to expect this when my mom was in the hospital six years ago. Still, it’s hard! Two weeks ago Wesley was up to 2 lbs 4.7 ounces and then he lost weight three days in a row so he was down to 2 lbs 3 ounces. It’s hard not to obsess about every ounce. The doctors had lab work done when he had lost weight for the third day in a row, and after waiting, waiting, waiting…everything came back normal. It’s hard to see him poked and prodded, and then wait for all the results, worrying. But by the end of the week he was back up to 2 lbs 4.3 ounces.

The same week in which Wesley was losing weight, he seemed unusually drowsy and was having more spells with his breathing (apnea, more about that shortly). Doctors determined that his hemoglobin was low and he needed a blood transfusion. They said the low hemoglobin was probably because of all the blood draws they had to do to check blood sugars and various other things. They draw Wesley’s blood and then he is so little he can’t keep up with making new red blood cells. Around the same time, they removed Wesley’s IV line (from his belly button/umbilical cord, through which they administered glucose, lipids, etc. until he was ready to receive breast milk). Sometimes these things just seem so invasive…when he is being poked and prodded I have to fight back the tears. I know that he is receiving the best possible care, but sometimes I wish I could just grab him out of his isolette and take him home.

As for feeding and weight gain, Wesley is up to 11 CCs (mLs)/hour of breast milk feeding (he has a tube in his mouth). He has 3 hours of feeding with one hour of rest and then this cycle repeats itself. After each cycle they check to make sure he has digested all the milk. They are adding some fortifiers to his milk to give it more calories...and it seems to be working. This week his average daily gain was 19 grams, up from 9 grams the week prior (they like to see an average gain of 20-30 grams/day). The nurses have told me that he will probably show signs that he is ready to breast feed around 34-35 weeks, which would be mid to late July.

Wesley’s breathing is stable—after he was born, he was intubated for only about 24 hours, then moved to another type of breathing assistance known as a CPAP for a few days, and now is on a high flow nasal cannula, which consists of two prongs in his nose that send a combination of room air and some oxygen when he needs it. He has periods of apnea, where he forgets to breathe, and periods of tachypnea, where he has labored breathing. The doctors say he will outgrow this as his lungs mature, but for now they have to monitor it closely. Wesley is receiving caffeine, which is a respiratory stimulant, to help with his apnea. The doctors are also now trying to wean him from the cannula, by slowly reducing the amount of air flow that the cannula provides.

Kangaroo care!

There have been days when the doctors tell me scary things. That Wesley needs to have head ultrasounds to check for brain bleeds and other scary sounding things like periventricular leukomalacia (a brain injury that preemies can have). I sit and wait for the results, worrying. Everything has come back normal, just some “immaturity of the brain,” which is consistent with his age.

But they also tell me he could have vision problems and he could have growth problems later on and may need to take growth hormone. Maybe, maybe not, they say. I agonized over this for a while and then I just decided to take it day by day. I cannot worry about things that could happen down the road. He will have eye exams beginning soon, which sound very invasive, involving instruments that hold the eyelid open. There are treatments they can offer to help his vision if they find something abnormal. Otherwise, they wouldn’t do the exams, they assure me.

The nurses are absolutely amazing and I am so thankful that they are amazing educators as well as caregivers! I had to tell them that I was registered for a “newborn basics” class but I missed it, due all of these unexpected events. I barely knew how to change a diaper, much less on a two pound baby with an IV coming out of his belly button and various cords attached to him! They have helped me learn so much already.

Necklace from my friend Shannon

I am feeling better every day. Mostly I am just tired. But I do not have much pain from the c-section anymore and I am off the pain medication. I am pumping breast milk every two hours around the clock and it is much more difficult than I imagined, mainly just due to exhaustion. (I am not complaining though, I am so happy that I am able to do this for him!) I am still staying at the Ronald McDonald House, which is an amazing place (more on this later). I am touched, comforted, and strengthened by the many cards, gifts, emails, visits, and prayers we continue to receive from family and friends.

Sometimes I feel like I have been teleported to an alternate universe. One moment, we were living our lives in our little house in our little town, preparing for our baby the way everyone does, and then the next moment, I live in a downtown apartment in a new city and I only see my husband on the weekends. I also mourn the abrupt ending of my pregnancy. I returned home recently and looked at all the maternity clothes hanging in the closet, which I never got to wear. The birth plan I never got to fill out. The sadness that I didn’t get to have a choice about the way everything happened. I realize these are all small things in the big picture and the most important thing is that we have Wesley and he is healthy, but I can’t help but feel a bit traumatized by the way everything happened.

New outfit from Marnie!

But everything else aside, we are just enjoying every moment with Wesley. Our first Father’s Day with him. His first bath. We’re sure we’ve seen a couple smiles. He looks different all the time. He is getting bigger! He is doing new things all the time. Recently, his fingers are finding his way into his mouth, and he tries to hold his pacifier, which is so huge compared to his tiny little hand. He has such big eyes that I swear are staring right through me.

I do kangaroo care with him every day and I believe he has come to expect it…it is our special time together. Doctors say that kangaroo care (holding him skin-to-skin) is the best thing we can do for him other than providing breast milk. During kangaroo care, he sleeps deeply and hearing my heart beat and feeling the warmth of my skin makes him feel like he is back in the womb.



Just after his first bath



The NICU is always busy, full of many babies and many families, and all the alarms from the monitors that track the heart rate, breathing, and oxygen saturation on all the babies, but we settle in during kangaroo care, mostly napping in our recliner. But sometimes I whisper things in his ear. Just yesterday I learned that Wesley will likely graduate out of his isolette and into a crib at the end of this week. I asked Wesley if he thought he could meet the 3 lb milestone this week as well. Then I told him he can have a puppy when he gets older, and I imagined him going fishing with his dad and his puppy. And I told him, we’ll be home soon…we have so many things we need to do.

Wisconsin Great Northern Railroad: Spooner Train Ride

Me and Carley



I just have this thing for trains. I don't know why. I am intrigued by them.

This was one of the deals I blogged about on Eau Claire Consumer - dinner and a train ride for four on the Wisconsin Great Northern Railroad in Spooner, Wisconsin. And I just have to say, this was a really neat experience.

It rained all day and then miraculously, just before we set out for Spooner, Wisconsin, the rain stopped and the sun came out during our beautiful train ride.

I was surprised to see the Wisconsin Great Northern Railroad and the Spooner Depot mentioned in this MSN article, All Aboard Eight Great Railways.

Me and Chuck

The article says, "The history of the Wisconsin Great Northern Railroad provides a viewfinder into the glory days of railroading, when more than 20 daily passenger trains were greeted by one of the Upper Midwest's most majestic depots in Spooner, Wisc. Seventy-five percent of the town once worked for the railroad, and no less a dignitary than the future King Edward VII of England once disembarked. Today, a coupling of local train enthusiasts maintain the Wisconsin Great Northern Railroad, which has expanded to daily summer service from what remains of the Spooner depot and includes the new Bed & Breakfast Train, inviting passengers to dine, sleep and breakfast aboard the train, an impressive feat for a scenic railroad."



Carley and Jesse



It is interesting to think about the history of the railroad--what it meant to individual towns and to our country as a whole. To think it was once the main mode of transportation, even transporting the King of England, and yet the Spooner Depot seemed to be as much of a train graveyard as it was a bustling little depot during the Saturday night we embarked on our journey. The depot was littered with abandoned trains and other machinery and things that hadn't been used in years, yet the dining car was full that night.

I enjoyed the time on the train, time with friends, and some good food (especially the cheese and crackers tray). More pictures from our night are below.



My Dinner

A view of the Namekagon River

Namekagon River

Chuck

A view of the highway that we paralleled for part of the journey

Collisions

http://www.flickr.com/photos/waferboard/

I have been putting off some of my writing because I haven't wanted to deal with some very extreme emotions that I’ve been experiencing over the past month.

The other day I was standing on the campus mall, waiting for a friend to pick me up for lunch, when BANG!!! I heard a loud crash behind me.

I turned around to see a pedestrian fall face forward, landing with a loud thud as his bare hands and knees kissed the concrete sidewalk. At the same time, a man on a bicycle plummeted head first into the grass and the bike went crashing on its side down the sidewalk.

It all happened so quickly. Two people going in the same direction collided. The pedestrian couldn’t see what was coming behind him. Perhaps he shifted into the path of the bike. What a shocking feeling, to be walking along, and then SLAM! Someone just nails you from behind.

As they exchanged cordial apologies, the biker put his hat and headphones back on. Sometimes we are so oblivious to what is going on around us. And we introduce so many distractions to our lives, on top of our already distracted minds that are constantly flowing with wants, needs, and to-do lists.

Recently I tried to help a friend who is going through a divorce. I was so shocked I didn’t see this divorce coming. Like the pedestrian-bicycle collision, it just hit me from behind with no warning. Why couldn’t I have seen how unhappy she was? Why didn’t I understand that her distance and isolation meant she needed help? It broke me to think of how long she had struggled and suffered alone, without help.

She was without clothes or basic possessions, so I went to her house to get a few things for her. It was a strange and sad and desperate feeling, trying to fill up one bag of items in the few minutes her husband would allow. What do you take? Surrounded by her pictures, clothes, jewelry, shoes, books, and various items, I quickly threw clothes and toiletries into the bag, as much as I could fit. Then I spied “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle on her dresser. Should I take it, I wondered. I grabbed it and shoved it into the bag. She will need this, I thought to myself.

I never fully realized how important that book was to me until this moment. Yes, I can see now, that in an extreme situation, I will choose to take Eckhart Tolle along with basic life necessities. When I was broken, this book opened me back up, just by helping me to change the way I think about things.

A few weeks later, I was talking to her on the phone, and she mentioned she was continuing the book, a little at a time. Yes, it’s that kind of book, I told her. You have to read little bits at a time and then give it all time to digest. She was dealing with her sadness, starting to make future plans and think about starting a new life of her own. The kind of life she had always wanted.

In the meantime, I worry about her safety, finances, legal issues, and more. I feel limited in what I can do for her because of my pregnancy…I’m not used to this. It frustrates me. I want to do more.

Sometimes, when I’m walking on the campus mall, I remember the collision. And I think of all the collisions that could happen. But my goal is not to fear all the collisions that could happen. Just focus on the moment. That’s what Eckhart taught me.

I blogged about two of my favorite Eckhart stories in a previous post, Ducks Crossing. Check it out.