You know that thing where you go to Nordstrom Rack for sports bras and buy two based on the look of them and then they don't fit your newly giant boobs so you go back and when you take off your shirt to try them on, your baby sees your boob and says "GOOOOO!" and then you squirt boob juice all over the stroller (fortunately not all over the clothes you weren't going to buy) and then your baby starts crying and then you have to feed her in the handicapped Nordstrom Rack dressing room and you're sure everyone knows?
You know that thing where your infant slept through the night and it was blissful and then you told too many people about it and the karmic gods saw fit to teach your baby how to roll onto her face while swaddled and now you can't swaddle her any more and she's too young to self soothe so no one sleeps anymore?
You know that thing where you go to a new mom meet up group and you're so desperate for a friend who understands you that you overlook significant personality differences like a girl who doesn't know how to choose a boyfriend and when you find someone you like for reasons besides that their kid is your kid's age you have to try really hard not to come off too needy but really you just want to hang out and talk about squirting your boobs in Nordstrom Rack?
...where you get exactly one third of a chore done a day because you get interrupted and also your attention span ain't what it used to be (and sometimes you just go on Facebook or blog instead of doing laundry because you long to taste the sweet freedom of doing something totally selfish)?
...where you have people over and at some point the baby freaks out and you have to hang out with her in her room and you pretend you're really sad about it but really you're not used to this much adult human conversation at once and you appreciate the chance to speak in gibberish and pick at your daughter's eye goo crusties for a few minutes while you hear them discussing world politics you don't care about anymore because you have become a giant boob?
...where your baby is the cutest and sweetest and best and most advanced baby in the whole world simply because you made her and that's the most narcissistic and god-complexy thing that ever was and you don't care it's just true, duh?!
...where they told you breastfeeding would burn a ton of calories and so don't worry about the number on the scale but you do because it's shorts season and you are always hungry for hamburgers because of the breastfeeding and then you're like "screw it" and then you remember you're in a wedding in three weeks so you go push the stroller up and down the hills in your neighborhood and then get so hungry you need a hamburger?
...where you're just waiting for the houseplant to die already so you don't have to feel guilty about not watering it and you totally could if you cared but it's just a plant and am I a bad person for not caring about a plant?
...where a shirt is still clean if it has baby vomit on it as long as it's rubbed in?
...where your google search history now contains phrases such as, "neon green baby poop" and "why do my armpits itch when I nurse?"
...where you think you've got it all covered from a parenting perspective until every day when you realize you're just making it up as you go like when you didn't know to give her vitamin D or when the campfire made her eyes red or when she pooped everywhere and you had to give her a bath but normally Daddy Doctor gives her a bath and you realize you have no idea how to give her a bath and want Daddy Doctor to know that you're fallible because you know you can be too know-it-ally with the baby stuff?
...where you wake up several times a night to make sure she's still breathing even though you know deep down that she's fine but you worked so hard cooking her you're not about to lose her now and end up waking her up by being close to her and she looks super pissed at you and you feel guilty but do it again a few hours later?
...where the most interesting thing in the world is watching her sleep or coo or especially smile at you and you have no idea what movies are in theatres and don't care at all which celebrities got married and you're sitting in your living room in a nursing bra and underwear and dirty hair and smelling like baby vomit and you wouldn't have it any other way?
Right now I am writing this instead of thank you notes. Sorry to those of you who have not yet gotten thank you notes for your generous and adorable baby gifts. I promise, I'll do it. They're sitting right there in front of me. I just am so excited to have some "free time" right now that I had to spew out some thoughts.
Right now, little lady Booberry is asleep in the pack n' play in our bedroom with the sound machine on really loud. This is miraculous because generally she refuses to sleep flat and, in fact, almost always refuses to fall asleep in anything except the Doctor's arms while he's bouncing on the yoga ball or the MAGICAL swing my sister-in-law loaned us. Seriously. There are INFINITE mom blogs talking about all the baby products you NEED and my two cents on this is SWWWWWWIIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG. There are other things that are good to have (yes those fancy muslin blankets are awesome), but the swing makes it so I can occasionally eat a meal with other adults at my dining room table or sleep for more than two hours (like three hours...).
Right now, Booberry is ONE MONTH OLD (happy Earth day).
She is still more a pooping, eating lump of tears than a human, but she did see her reflection yesterday and smile (She's so vain. Actually, she just had gas). Her emotions range from
"I am confused by this thing in front of me that isn't a boob"
to
"I need attention so I'm gonna cry"
to
"I'm pretty sure I'm dying so I'm gonna cry so hard it physically hurts my mom's body"
to
"There's a boob in my mouth so I'm cool for a minute."
That's a lot for a ten pound thing! Ruby is roughly the same size and her emotions are:
"Catdome is being mean to me so I'm upset"
"I'm asleep or close to it."
"There's lunch meat somewhere look how cute I am gimme."
"Booberry is crying, how can I help?" (so cute)
I feel like this post is sort of unorganized. I was pretty sure I was well rested. But I'm also pretty sure my brain hasn't grown back yet from pregnancy. My phone app, like always, tells me that's normal.
Ok. The last month. Here's what I learned:
C-section recovery is just awesome. Every time I pee, I'm thankful for my c-section. Too much info? Don't care. It was great. I've been off drugs for a while now so I can say with (some) mental clarity, that recovering from that major abdominal surgery was really not that bad. Sure, it hurt to laugh or cough for a while there, and sure, I'm still not supposed to lift things heavier than the baby but I do all the time and then I feel like I pulled my uterus, but I have to LIVE MY LIFE sometimes and take my SUV of a stroller out of my SUV of a forrester. I obviously haven't experienced birth any other way, but I highly recommend a good surgical removal of baby. As I said to my OB as I said goodbye at my checkup, "Let's do this again sometime."
Baby weight does not just come off like some people promised. First of all, they gave me so much dang fluid in the hospital that, when I weighed myself at home, I hadn't lost any pounds from the birth...which basically means I gained ten pounds from giving birth because the baby and all the other stuff was gone. But that chunk did come right off in the form of COPIOUS DRIPPING SWEAT. Now I'm just stuck with the actual pregnancy weight which seems to be quite cozy hanging out around my midsection. Of course, I'm technically not allowed to do strenuous exercise, so I can use that as an excuse. The $10 of half-off Easter candy I bought yesterday does not need to be entered into the record.
mmmmm....worth it....
Babies do not take good newborn photos. WELL mine doesn't. Seriously, do they drug the kids before they take the pristine, sleeping with one arm propped up pics?
Not my child.
They surgically removed my modesty and vanity. Right now I'm wearing sweatpants I slept in last night because the slightly nicer sweatpants I put on this morning when I "got dressed" got puked on. Also, I will probably show you my boob. When I was on drugs, I forget how many people I showed my boobs to...not like on purpose...but just because I couldn't be bothered to cover up. I'm trying to show less people my boobs now. And, I've sort of made peace with my stretch marks (which appeared on my legs as a result of the post-birth edema despite an entire pregnancy of moisturizing). Finally, I continue to talk about how ridiculously amazing having my water break was (best thing that ever happened to me...we can say it's because it led to the birth of my sweet, hangry little Boo, but also because it ended the bonus week of pregnancy).
My whole world is boobs. My whole. WORLD. I spend MANY hours a day with my own boobs (I mean, technically, all my hours I'm with them...but I'm actually USING them now). Sometimes her ladyship likes to have hour-long, leisurely luncheons. Sometimes I have to pump so the Doctor can feed her at night and I can sleep a little after spending the afternoon cluster feeding her (cluster feeding is when they eat always...which my child does from about 3pm to ? every night like the invite to a frat party). Sometimes I get unpleasant infections (mastitis) and more than one person (man) said, "Oh. Cows get that." (gotta love Oregon dudes). Yep. I'm a milk cow. Moo.
I'm still crazy. I would argue that I'm less crazy now. The Doctor would probably make a face, though, indicating that we should not argue with the crazy lady. But, yeah, still kinda hormonal. Like most people, I had a few days of "baby blues." For me, baby blues felt like inexplicable, inconsolable grief. Like someone had died and not just been born. It wasn't triggered by anything in particular and I had no ability to self-soothe. The Doctor could usually talk me down by telling me this was going to go away and that he loved me and crap like that (love you). My OB said, "Of course you have baby blues! Look at all the things that are happening to you: you have mastitis, you're exhausted. your husband is back at work, your hormones are insane, and you have a baby now." Fortunately, the blues went away pretty soon after I got better thanks to the most glorious antibiotics, but I really feel for people who get postpartum depression and try to just deal with it. Super unpleasant. Don't do it. Also, as predicted, I regularly accidentally wake her up while checking to make sure she's still breathing.
Oh yeah and I have a baby now. Sometimes I forget that I didn't always lug around a carseat full of screaming adorableness (she does not like getting into the carseat but will eventually fall into a deep, beautiful slumber if I can calm her down or drive on a bumpy enough road). It's super weird having this tiny(ish) creature that I cooked in my body now hang out in my house. Neither the Doctor nor I ever spent significant time with a newborn (I don't really remember my sister at that age and didn't have to take care of her anyway) so this little thing that seems mad at us all the time is sort of a mystery. I tried to read to her today because my phone told me to and she wasn't having it...I'm still pretty confused on how reading to her at this age will do anything. All she wanted to do was lie face down on my chest while I sang Sondheim until she got hungry again. We see older babies and long for the day when we can play with our creation and that she will maybe show us more preference than a guinea pig would. Yet, I still love her somehow. She does not do much or give me much back in return (I mean she gives me massive amounts of bodily fluids, but I didn't really ask for those), but I still get excited to wake up to her in the morning (early, early morning). Well, my boobs are, anyway.
I should take a nap. The whole "sleep when the baby sleeps" thing is well and good, but I'm an adult and I'm not programmed to sleep at 2pm when it's sunny out.
People, it finally happened! I am NO LONGER pregnant. As you may have surmised, I did not much enjoy being with child. I can tell you, having a kid that lives on the outside of you is INFINITELY better than having one suck the life force from within (although I will say the sucking of the life force from without in the form of breastfeeding is as painful as people described to me, but that's what GLORIOUS lactation consultants are for...that's another post).
Lots of people want to know the gory details of exactly how Booberry entered the world. If you do not want to know, perhaps skip this post and keep your innocence. After last weekend, I no longer have any shame, pride, or personal boundaries, a fact I fully realized as I chatted with my mother-in-law yesterday while pumping about how the machine sounds like repetitive Scooby Doo (ruh uh, ruh oh, ruh oh).
My story begins...
Booberry followed in her mother's footsteps in so many ways, one of which was that she stayed put past her perfect due date of the ides of March. The Doctor and I decided to get Booberry her own cherry tree which will grow with her in the front yard and we will take milestone pictures in front of. We were in sight of the nursery the Sunday after the due date when the Doctor stops for a pedestrian, a mother and her toddler. The woman isn't crossing and is giving us an inquisitive look when BAM! we're rear-ended. Both cars pull to the side and the Doctor goes to talk to the driver. The driver, like a line from a "what not to do" video, says, with a hint of surfer-dude, "Oh man! I'm so sorry, I was just reaching for my phone..." So, yeah, we'll call that a "no fault" accident on our part. I thought to myself, "Hey, something just happened to me, I should just call my ob to see what's up." And so, even though I felt totally fine, I called the doctor's office and they paged the doctor on call, a lady by the name of...Dr. Cherrytree. Yes, that's a real person and not a character in a sitcom. She's super nice. But she did say we had to go to the hospital to be monitored for four hours. BAM! Shit got real.
But we still went and picked up our tree. The Doctor planted it soon after:
Then I changed into my "going to the hospital" outfit and we packed the car for what could be THE BIG ONE. We got to the hospital and were quickly escorted to triage where I was hooked up to fetal and contraction monitors. Booberry was galloping away in there, totally fine, which we all had a feeling she was. My uterus was steady as a flat line. No contractions to note. I could see the hope fade from the Doctor's eyes, resigning to spend yet more time with the giant crazy person who ate his wife. We went home that night and neither of us slept a wink, too dejected and stressed from our non event.
Wednesday the 19th my doctor said they'd induce me, but not until the 24th to which I whined in a tone I am not proud of, "but that's soooo long from nowwwwwww." So, Booberry would be in there an extra ten days. Then the OB did what the Doctor refers to as "when Stephen Colbert fingered you" because my OB looks a bit like Stephen and he "swept my membranes" which is, yes, like a very unpleasant fingering. The OB also said that, because of my dainty little pelvis and what he was guessing was a baby over nine pounds, I should mentally prepare myself for a c-section. The Doctor was catatonic on the way home. He reminded me of Cameron in Feris Bueller's Day Off after he saw the mileage on his dad's car. He went to work and I sobbed hysterically into Catdome. My friend brought over her six week old and let me hold her foot for an hour, which helped me feel better except for the CRUSHING WEIGHT OF MY OWN BODY.
Thursday was dark, emotionally. The Doctor was working late and then decided to go hang out with a couple guy friends and said he'd be home by ten. I probably could have nagged him into staying with me, and I did feebly try, but thought it might be good for him to get his ya yas out before this thing eventually went down. I literally spend the whole day alone in the house, unable to walk more than a few pathetic steps and listless in my lack of purpose. I knew it was bad when I identified a strange, electronic noise that was only audible in the living room and seemed to have no source and I became obsessed with it like the guy in "The Telltale Heart." My in-laws called to check up on me and I could tell they thought I was becoming pretty unstable because, despite their 9pm bedtime, they offered to come over. I declined and went to bed myself. I was just dozing off, thinking, "Man I'm tired, it's gonna feel so good to be unconscious for a while..." when I felt the sensation of peeing. Except I wasn't controlling it. I jumped out of bed and made it the two steps to the bathroom when a large amount of clear liquid soaked my pants and puddled on the floor. I did the STEVE HOLT pose:
because I'd been told that, once your water breaks, they always deliver the baby within 24 hours. THIS WOULD BE OVER IN A DAY! Ruby sauntered into the bathroom. She'd been weird all day, following me around the house puking. I almost took her to the vet but was too disabled. I tried to shoo her away from my puddle but she went up to it and sniffed...and then started PURRING SO LOUD. WTF, cat?!
I sat on the toilet, liquid still trickling out of me, and called my husband. No answer. I left a cheery message. Slightly unnerved, I called his friend.
Me: Hey is the Doctor with you?
Friend: No...he just left. What's up?
Me: NOTHING BYEEEEEE!
I called my doctor's answering service. I called his parents who were dead asleep. I called the Doctor again and left a message along the lines of, "YOU ARE NOT DOING THIS TO ME RIGHT NOW, MATTHEW CRAWLEY!" If you don't get that reference, you are not caught up on your Downton and need to get on it. I called my dad and found out he ALREADY HAD A FLIGHT for the next day...how?! He just bought a bunch of flights and had been cancelling them as days past due date rolled around. I got the call back from the doctor on call at my OB's office. It was that midwife I don't like. She informed me that my normal doctor wasn't on call and asked if I might prefer a midwife. "I WANT AN OB!" I said, forcefully, and she promised to leave a note with the intake people at the hospital.
I called the friend again.
Me: Ummmmm....can you call the Doctor....?
Friend: Is something going on? Do you need me to get in a cab and come over?
Me: (still on toilet) NO! Just keep calling him...repeatedly.
I left the Doctor a message along the lines of "WHAT THE FUCK?!"
I got in the shower and my phone started ringing. I could see the Doc's pic and said, out loud, alone, in the shower, "LET HIM WORRY!" The phone continued to ring until I got out of the shower and I found out that the Doctor was very nearly home and was, as I hoped, freaking out that I didn't answer. I was going to go get dressed in my backup "going to the hospital" outfit but liquid was somehow still coming out of me so I just wandered around in a towel getting things together until the Doctor came home and it was ON.
He was so excited in the car. He was this excited:
I had to tell him to calm down and drive safely.
In the parking lot of the hospital, I felt another GIANT GUSH of liquid (geez, how much is there?!) and I sloshed to triage where they had to check my pee to make sure it was my water that had broken and not just me peeing my pants. Uhhhh....yeah it was my water. Duh.
Once in labor and delivery, they decided to put me on pitocin to speed things along. The risk of infection goes up when your water breaks before you're in active labor. I found out I was in the super special 10% of people whose water breaks as the first sign of baby time. I am so gifted. We all went to sleep and the Doctor proceeded to snore peacefully for six hours while I began to get contractions I could feel. Nothing too dramatic, but those were real.
In the morning, when my in laws showed up, I had not slept all night, being woken up by the contractions which were still only at a...5 on the pain scale, I thought. I was offered the magical epidural.
Me: But I can still talk through my contractions!
Nurse: You can still get it now since you can't sleep though them.
Me: LET'S DOOOO THIIIIIIS.
I actually ended up getting two epidurals because, as I've been saying for years, I have slight lower back scoliosis and the first one didn't work. Lots of people say getting an epidural is the worst part, but, honestly, it wasn't that bad. It was a little scary being told to hold completely still because there was a needle entering my spine, but it was a lot less painful than how my hips had felt the last week of pregnancy. Soon I was on a painless cloud and made a glib facebook status about how I was having a contraction right then but could still fb because of the perfect epidural. We wikipedied March 21st and were thrilled to learn it was World Poetry and World Puppetry Day. What a great birthday for Booberry. I took a nap.
My doctor just HAPPENED to be on call that day and came in to say hi.
Me: I'm so awesome! It's the best I've slept in three months!
OB: (poking at my swollen feet) Sometimes when we get bored, we like to poke at the women's edema. They can't do anything about it.
And we determined that I was in... ACTIVE LABOR.
I don't know what time that was. I know I was at four centimeters and needed to get to ten. I know my family stuck around until the fourth hour I was at eight and then we sent them home and that was 9pm on the 21st. At 11pm, still at eight, the baby had been having decreased heart rate with big contractions and I had what was called "failure to progress." They had me on oxygen which I think was scary for everyone to see but my nurses were so good, they never let me see the severity of the situation. Time for the C-section. The Doctor got quiet. I was secretly just so thankful they weren't going to make me push. I hadn't slept, really, and hadn't eaten anything besides hospital "gelatin" and ice chips since some cheese and crackers Thursday night and a spoonful of peanut butter I forced down after the midwife told me to eat a meal before coming in. I ate it on the toilet...
I felt like I was cheating the system, never having had hours of painful contractions to count before being admitted and never having to push. My mother-in-law is helping me work though this feeling of inadequacy.
My WONDERFUL and amazing nurse who I want to track down and hug came in to...shave me, and they upped my epidural so I couldn't feel anything below the boobs. The OB and my husband made jokes to each other about shaving shapes into me and landing strips which I thought was perhaps not appropriate but, frankly, didn't care AT ALL because at least the Doctor wasn't just silent and pale any more. Off we went to OR 1. It was past 11:30 and the Doctor was still saying Booberry's bday would be the 21st and I started betting on the 22nd. The OB and nurses started taking bets on the size of the baby and my OB and I were in the "over 9 lbs" pool while most of the nurses were voting for 8 lbs.
They took me in alone and splayed me, Jesus-like, with my arms out, tubes going into me. The Doctor got to wear a cool spaceman outfit and had to wait in the hall for me to be prepped. They put up a big blue sheet so I couldn't see what they were going to do to me and I was warned there would be "pressure" but not "pain." They brought in the Doctor and I said to him, as he earnestly held my hand and told me everything would be okay, "You think you want to look beyond the curtain, but you don't. DON'T LOOK." (he totally looked).
The whole extraction of child took only 10 mins. Yes, I could feel them pulling me apart by hand, but, no, it did not hurt. I am SO GLAD it was a c-section because, not only was Booberry not responding well, my pelvis little, her big, but she was also face up, which would have been near impossible to push out. The OB said they opened me up and she was just STARING at them, alert. Incidentally, that's what they said about me when I was born. The Doctor had the normal, human reaction to her being born: red eyes, smile. When they brought this 9 lb 4 oz lump of flesh around the corner to show her to me, my reaction was just...shock. As in, "HOW THE F WAS SOMETHING SO BIG INSIDE OF ME JUST NOW?!" They plopped her down and the Doctor held her in place and a nurse took our first family picture:
Then they took her away and the Doctor went with her to get her various reflexes checked and they sewed me up. I accidentally saw the medical refuse as they wheeled me away...all I can say is...GIANT BUCKET OF BLOOD. But, it's cool. Something else weird about the whole procedure is that I was not cold, but everything I could feel was chattering uncontrollably. It was like my body knew I was being ripped apart but my brain didn't. It went away a little while after I got back to my room, where the Doctor was waiting, proudly proclaiming that she passed all her tests, and they put my daughter on my chest...where she promptly injured my nipple so severely the lactation consultant described it as "the most purple I've ever seen." That's my girl...
Recovery is for another post, but I tell everyone I meet that having a baby is SO MUCH better than being pregnant with one. Yes, I'm on heavy narcotics (my dad had to fill out a lot of paperwork to pick them up at Walgreens), but I'm in significantly less pain than I was that last week of pregnancy. True, I didn't sleep more than an hour at a time from Wednesday night to the next Wednesday, but the reason for being awake was pretty cute. Yes, my feet have been described as resembling "hairless hobbit feet," but I don't have shooting pain when I walk. Yes, my child is a biter and I spend HOURS a day feeding her or preparing to feed her, but I could care less about any of the inconveniences. Yes, the Doctor and I parent and sleep in shifts, but he is the CUTEST in the world with her and is exceeding all my expectations in his amazingness as a dad.
My friend asked me what the best part of being a new mom is and I didn't really know what to say.
All I could come up with was, "I don't know...I just love her."
My OB and I were joking about how, in the movies, people always have their water break and then they have like one contraction and then they go to the hospital and then they have a baby and that whole thing takes twenty minutes and how that's not realistic. Realistic is that one feels progressively worse for a period of several weeks until one cannot take it any more and then one gets driven to the hospital and stays there for another day and they break your "bag of waters" (why is that such a weird and gross expression?) and then there's a baby. And babies are adorable even if they're not the three month old cherubs portrayed on TV.
To quote Carrie Bradshaw, "I couldn't help but wonder..."
How do some of the movies get it right and wrong when it comes to the CREATION OF LIIIIIFE? Like many people, pre-pregnancy, I did my research and re-watched or watched some movies to inform me about the subject. Some of these movies are awesome and hilarious. Some of these movies are youtube clips of episiotomies (don't do it).
In honor of the Oscars, here are my awards. The...Bumpies.
Best Depiction of How Crazy Pregnancy Makes You Feel: Rosemary's Baby
How it's right: sometimes the hormones make you feel like the whole world is against you...that even your loving husband is in a coven sent to turn you into a gestational machine for it's own personal gain at the expense of your life.
How it's wrong: Not positive, but pretty sure Booberry is not the antichrist. She seems pretty cool so far. Even though, DANG IT KID, it's time to be born (tomorrow is D day)
Most Quotable: Juno
How it's right: it's just FUNNY. Because, yeah, Juno gets pregnant like our moms and teachers and is not super rosy colored about it. (on the left: thank you to my sister for the awesome photoshopping). Also, TEENAGERS: this is a good lesson on how easy it can be for your tiny, fertile bodies to get pregnant. DON'T HAVE UNPROTECTED SEX unless you want a human. Also the scene with JK Simmons in the hospital after she gives birth and gives up the baby (spoilers) makes my cry EVERY TIME. And it heavily features a Toyota Previa which makes it cool.
How it's wrong: Some say it romanticizes teen pregnancy because Juno doesn't really have any terrible repercussions for her actions and her parents don't disown her or whatever...but whatever. It's unrealistic because Jason Bateman plays a skeezeball and that's just never gonna fly.
Honorable Mention Most Quotable: Baby Mama
How it's right: Ok this might be too much info. But there's this scene in the movie where the childbirth coach tells the characters to rub oil "down there" to prepare for the stretch of childbirth. And Amy Poehler has a great line about just spraying some PAM down there. SOOOOOOO, my phone app (see next award) mentioned this and I went down into the man cave and announced that the Doctor needs to "rub olive oil on my taint" (Tina Fey's line) and then he informed me that his microphone was on and his dental school buddy just heard that...
Also, this clip made me laugh SO HARD this last viewing:
"Just me and two fatties." is the part that gets me. The Doctor is not fat...and people have said things to me like "I can't believe you're due next week, you're so small" and I'm like "TELL THAT TO THE SCALE! YOU LIIIIIIIAAAAR." But yeah, I'm concerned about how much I feed Booberry and that she will be large and break me. It's cool. I love her.
How it's wrong: How could two women basically MISS first trimester? Neither woman has any discernible morning sickness for like two months (Ok Tiny Fey has some stuff at the end but like eight weeks in!). I started feeling like a lump about two days before the positive test and just kinda chalked it up to summer heat until I found out it was because the hormones were strong with this one.
Best Adaptation of a Phone App: What to Expect When You're Expecting.
How it's right: I am SOOOO Elizabeth Banks in this movie. Throughout, she has every "normal," "textbook" pregnancy symptom and she keeps waiting for her glow (HINT: the glow is actually just sweat) and doesn't get it until she has the actual baby.
How it's wrong: the hilarious dad group is way too good to be true. I wish the Doctor had a group of witty stroller dads to hang with. Chris Rock is the ring leader (and has our same cool stroller). Chris Rock is amazing in everything he does, even CRACKED OUT children's movies.
Best (worst) Picture: Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I
First: why did I watch this movie? I have no idea. I'd read about a third of the first book because I thought I'd like it since I teach the young adults and HATED IT SO MUCH I'VE BEEN COMPLAINING SINCE about what a terrible role model Bella is and how awful everything about the book series is: the writing, the plot, the sparkly vampires. So, for some reason I watched BD pt 1...maybe I missed Oregon that day.
ANNYYYYYWAAAAAAY:
Here's how it's right; How I felt yesterday can be (overly dramatically) summed up with this clip:
Ok, let's break this down:
1. Bella gets pregnant by not using protection (TEENAGERS...SEE?!)
2. Immediately the fetus starts to suck away her life force, leaving her a shell of who she once was.
3. The baby breaks her spine and kills her
4. The baby is a superhero and Bella is reborn as a vampire.
So my situation isn't quite as dramatic: basically the baby is nice and low now which is fantastic except she's sorta off balance or something because I went for a long walk yesterday in the beautiful sunshine and kinda can't walk now without shooting pain going through my right hip down my leg. I spent the day yesterday watching movies, alternating between bouncing on the glorious yoga ball (who'd have thunk I'd like YOGA things) and snuggling with Ruby in a chair. Ruby ONLY snuggles me when I feel like I'm dying. The last time was during first trimester when I was too queasy to function and the time before that was when I had a migraine. So I know I deserved sympathy. She just follows me around, even when there's a vacuum (thanks, awesome husband) and gives me love. Awwww....RUUUUUBY, you have no idea what's coming.
The Doctor came home last night and brought me a heating pad which I greatly appreciated except it didn't work so he went BACK to the store and got me a fancier one and I've been wearing it since and also he convinced me to take some Tylenol so I'm feeling better now. Still hobbling, but not weeping while I do it.
Conversation I just had with the Doctor when I thanked him for making me feel better:
D: I feel like you are like Michael Scott on The Office when he burned his foot. (episode recap: Michael burns his foot on a waffle iron and totally over-reacts, unable to function that day and requiring nursing)
Me: that is so mean.
D: Not because of the severity of your injury but because of your over thinking of pain medication. He crushes advil into his oatmeal and then is like "Oh I feel the healing going into my foot." That's you.
Me: So mean.
D: I mean, you being pregnant is nothing like Michael burning his foot. I don't mean it like that...maybe this wasn't a good example.
Me: Thank you.
How Twilight got it wrong: so many ways, of course. But mostly because pregnancy makes Bella a skeleton and then she gets reborn a super hot (or at least that's what we're supposed to believe) vampire and she has NO weird post-baby pooch and her hair is MORE lustrous even though everyone knows pregnancy makes your hair lustrous and then it falls out in terrifying chunks after you give birth. Also, Bella's pregnancy is accelerated and she only has to be pregnant for like a second whereas I, as of tomorrow, get to be pregnant for the full nine months plus overtime (looks like). Everyone says ,"first babies are late" and then everyone tells you stories of how they had theirs like two weeks early and how fun and surprising it was. Nope. I get the full experience. Screw you, Bella, for getting to pass out and miss the whole thing. JK. I don't want to die like Bella even if my sparkly husband can make me eternally nineteen after he EATS THE BABY OUT OF ME...ew wtf is wrong with Stephanie Meyers??
So, happy pi day everyone. I'm going to go back on the yoga ball with my heating pad and bounce the day away because the good Doctor thinks I should just stay inside. "Good thing our house has plenty of rooms for activities" I said. To which he replied, "Because it is your prison..."
Week 38. DUN DUN DUN! My various phone apps have stopped giving me new information every day...it just recycles old info because so many people have had their kids already. But not me. We want to shoot for at least 39 weeks to make sure all the brains get juiced up and ready to rock and roll. But the story of my own birth is as follows:
It was a hot California May and Laura was due to be born May 10th. June 6th rolls around, and so does a heat wave. Finally, my poor mother went into labor that continued for MANY HOURS (June 7, the glorious day of my birth arrived) until they determined that I would have to dragged out of that cozy uterus via C-section. So I was from my mother's womb untimely ripped as MacDuff would say...untimely my giant baby butt. I was 9 lbs 8 oz and the doctors said "She's the most alert baby we've ever seen!" (they told my mother my sister was "the most beautiful" but fine).
I do not want to follow in my own footsteps. Here's hopin' for a bday on any of the following days:
Any time on or after March 7. Before March ends omg. Special preference for pi day, the ides of March (actual due date), or even St. Patty's. Really, once we hit St. Patty's, I'm gonna be reaaaaaaal crank city.
My pregnancy spirit animal is the bulldog.
This picture describes how I feel most of the time: stout, squishy, and sleepy.
Sometimes I'm also wearing glasses (because pregnancy makes your eyesight bad...which is another one of those weird things).
Also this sounds really good to me right now. I really like ice. And I'm always hot and sweaty. Bulldogs are known to overheat easily.
How wikipedia describes bulldogs: "There are generally thick folds of skin on a Bulldog's brow; round, black, wide-set eyes; a short muzzle with characteristic folds called rope above the nose; hanging skin under the neck; drooping lips and pointed teeth, and occasionally an underbite."
I have some of that, yeah. I mean...I really just have the skin under the neck...
BUT I TOTALLY SOUND LIKE A BULLDOG. Especially last week when I had a cold and Booberry's BUTT was where my stomach used to be. Many people have remarked on the impressive depth of my breathing. The Doctor actually went and slept in the guest room last night. WE'RE ONE OF THOSE COUPLES NOW...He did do a hilarious impersonation of my wheeze/snore. It sounds like a goose to me. He described it as, "a tauntaun f@%$ing a wookiee." I'm too sexy for my lungs. Wikipedia quote, "They can be big snorters and heavy breathers, and they tend to be loud snorers." I had to look up how to spell tauntaun and wookiee because I'm cool and don't know every little thing about Star Wars.
Wikipedia also says that bulldogs cannot withstand the rigors of running. That's true of me. Bulldogs and I also have hip problems in common...and I was also delivered by C-section...but we are hoping Booberry will not be...but if she is...so be it. TRUST THE WESTERN MEDICINE.
People keep asking me if I'm ready. Well, sure. I mean...I have all the stuff...that seems to be the criteria for readiness.
We also took the childbirth preparation classes. The Doctor hated them with the fire and passion of a thousand suns, describing the teacher as, "that midwife shooting granola out her vagina." I'm gonna go ahead and not put that on the official class survey I got in my email. I mean, yeah, she was SUPER anti-epidural even though everyone in the room kept asking questions about epidurals so clearly she should tell us about the drugs without insinuating that we're making bad life choices...and yeah she was a terrible public speaker and talked SO SLOWLY and made us watch a lot of videos of natural childbirths that make me cry. And, yeah, we didn't really learn anything we didn't already know from my phone app and as The Doctor kept saying, "I KNOW THIS STUFF I'M A DOCTOR" (YOU'RE A DENTIST, SWEETIE..."delivering a crown" is the not the same as delivering a human). But my level of anxiety is so high and my level of information retention is so low that I think it was helpful to hear it, even though the information was delivered extremely slowly and with a significant bias against everything I believe about childbirth and modern medicine.
If nothing else, the class made it seem like maybe we are ready. Because clearly the Doctor is ready to perform a solo c-section on me at a moment's notice because HE'S A DOCTOR AND DOESN'T NEED THIS INFORMATION. And clearly I'm ready because I installed the car seat base in the Subaru and have all the clothes organized by size and type of tiny cute baby thing...
I mean, really, it doesn't matter if we're ready. It's on Booberry now. We're placing our entire lives at the mercy of something I'M REALLY HOPING weighs less than Ruby.
So....yeah...
Now's good. Or later. But be READY! And something about a sparrow. THANKS, HAMLET.
There's this medical condition that 50% of the population is susceptible to at some point in their lives. The symptoms are quite varied. They include everything from minor hip discomfort, to nausea, to weight gain, to random tingling hands, to TOTAL INSANITY, to HORRIBLE PAIN, to BEAUTIFUL GLOWING SKIN (which my doctor says is just minor heat rash).
It used to be highly life-threatening, but now, not so much. Not everyone gets it, lots of people try really hard not to get it, and some people don't try to avoid it at all. It tends to resolve itself in ten months or so (that whole nine month thing...where did they come up with that? 40 weeks divided by 4 weeks to a month = 10 months give or take). How it resolves itself is this adorable process in which a strange foreign body makes its way out of the patient while she nakedly screams (unless she's a Scientologist--they believe in peaceful, silent births). Let the record show that google doesn't think Scientologist is a word and has red underlined it. In Scientology's defense, google seems to think google isn't a word either.
This medical condition, of course, is pregnancy. And, yes, it is sexually transmitted.
DISCLAIMER: This is gonna get a little ranty. Feel free to have your own opinion about things. Ladies, do whatever the F YOU WANT about your lady regions. If you want to boil water and stay at home, okay fine, you'll probably live. Fine by me and power to you--you are a glorious Katniss of pain management and personal self control. Or if you want to schedule a surgery to have the adorable growth removed via elective C-section, fine. Yay for you and can I have some of your money, please? But what I'm feeling a little punchy about is the notion that my choice is wrong and the "new evidence suggests" that I should be totally fine with "natural" childbirth.
DISCLAIMER #2: I totally did this whole pregnancy thing on purpose and I'M TOTALLY THRILLED ABOUT IT. But, come on, people. IT'S PRETTY WEIRD.
Here goes.
I
MAY be in a facebok fight with a stranger. I generally try to avoid showing emotions other than mordant sarcasm or "look at my adorable cat or couch" joy (couches and cats are things that are really important to me), on facebook because, honestly, I feel like facebook is a glorious and silly place where we show only our best selves. It is my preferred method for keeping track of birthdays and alerting people to my personal news (I HAVE A COUCH). I try to keep it light.
But I'm in some kind of mood today. It might have something to do with my "momsomnia" which has spread to keeping everyone in my bed awake (even Catdome doesn't try to snuggle my face anymore) all night every night. I'm sorry, dear husband, for keeping you up. You are the CAUSE of it, though. Thanks for the patience.
It's not so much that I miss sleep. Really, I'm functioning adequately without it. It's just that I never got to say goodbye. My whole life, I've been a pretty decent sleeper, often the first to doze off at slumber parties and the one who got made fun of for a self-imposed bedtime in college. I just love sleeping! I wrote a poem, an ode to a nap, which my professor said was too sarcastic to be an ode but my college literary magazine published. Sleep is an old buddy.
First trimester I slept like a cat...constantly. Second trimester, no problems...peaceful, normal slumber. THEN BAM! Third trimester, I'm up every two hours to pee or walk off a charlie horse and then spend an indeterminate amount of time just chilling in bed, thinking my thoughts. If I do sleep, I have intensely graphic nightmares. The most strangely symbolic one was that I had to rip apart a crow and fish out a tiny kitten that I was not at all surprised looked like baby Catdome. People have joked to me that waking up every two hours is training for the child, which is right, fine, yeah, except I don't have one of those yet and I was hoping to seize the...night...as it were and enjoy my childless existence for as long as possible. Oh well. So it goes.
Goodbye, my love. May we meet again in ten years or so when my child is a tween and starts doing that thing where they sleep all the time. Please let my kid eventually sleep like I did. It was grand.
So, I'm a little wired. And I started responding to a thread a friend posted about how "homebirths" are really quite safe and more people should do them because midwives are less likely to use "interventions" such as foreceps, C-sections, and epidurals.
My response: "No, thank you. I would like an 'intervention' please. In my spine. With a giant needle. As soon as medically possible. With no other medical procedure do they so casually let patients choose to go without pain management."
Several people had weighed in at this point, some saying they were thankful for their hospital births because of complications and some touting how wonderful it was to be at home. One person (who'd had a midwife and natural birth) responded to me directly, saying that she sees it differently because for her it was not a medical procedure to give birth because she was not sick.
YES IT IS and YES YOU ARE (Ahem. Respectfully and in my opinion....)
Some Possible Symptoms of Labor:
- horrible abdominal, back, and who knows where else pain (my doctor says it's time to come to the hospital when you have contractions "too painful to talk through" every five minutes for an hour)
- sweating
- vomiting
- uncontrollable shivering
- strange liquid seeping out of your genital region
- pooping yourself
- exhaustion
- multiple foreign bodies forcibly wanting to eject themselves from your genital region, sometimes ripping your flesh.
Yeah....that's normal. A dude would get to an ER as fast as possible if he had even one of those...
Just because you know the name of your disease doesn't mean you don't have one.
She also said something to the extent of, "you just have to be informed about the benefits and risks
of an epidural."
I had to respond to this. I have impulse control issues nowadays.
I said, "Yes. Of course there are risks with any medical intervention. I'm thankful I have a medically trained doctor who can explain those to me. Because I may be a great reader, but I went to college for English, not medicine."
When I recounted this entire conversation in great, fervent detail to The Doctor over google chat, he said, "Lol. Calm down sparky."
Valid. But now I'm all WORKED UP.
People have been having babies for centuries. And women also used
to stay home all day. And while I COULD raise, kill, pluck, skin, cook,
and then boil down a chicken to make broth, I am pretty glad I just had
to pour the broth out of a cardboard container into the crock pot and
turn it on low so I could leave the house today...(we're having soup for dinner, by the way...soup is my favorite).
Why can't the magic of technology and modern medicine be applied to childbirth when we apply it to EVERYTHING ELSE?!
Need your appendix out? Let's have REALLY COOL ROBOT do it so you have minimal scarring.
Want food? Go to a store or restaurant and they will give it to you for money. OR have a neat drone deliver it at your door (anyone tried Amazon suscribe and save? Thoughts?)
Want to contact someone? Pull out your personal phone and use one of a million methods for connecting with the world to get your message across.
Want to remember a moment? Photograph or video it with your personal phone.
Want to hear a song? Just look it up...again...on your phone.
FAST. Easy. Totally socially acceptable.
Ok, I'm not gonna lie. If babies could be born like in the Matrix where we all kinda just grow in pink gooey pods, I'd probably embrace it. I SEE THE FUTURE, PEOPLE.
The magic and intimacy of childbirth is still something I have not experienced and, who knows, maybe I'll totally change my tune and be like, "Oh yes. The exquisite pain made me love my child. Without the horrible ripping that I experienced for two straight days, I would not feel love for my child and would likely eat it and its placenta for nutrients to make me stronger."
But I'm pretty sure instead I'm just gonna get the epidural, still complain about it, and then be super happy to have the birth part over with so I can get on with obsessing about the tiny person I purposely forced to exist and making sure that she has as painless and wonderful a life as possible. And I'm pretty sure that when she has children, if she so chooses, in the glorious future in which childbirth is as clinical and painless as buying a couch (wonderful couch), she will still love her child with as much passion as the cave women who suffered before her.
END OF RANT.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Today I Cried Because...
Turns out I'm kinda hormonal. Go figure. Also, it's not like I wasn't a crier before. But the things that will set me off are ridiculous. Generally, adults can have a measured response to minor stimuli, but I, apparently, cannot. I'm told the cure for my condition is childbirth...which then gives way to the hormone let down and sleep deprivation which I have been warned leads to more crying. So, I've been hydrating and now, without further ado...
Much like the website Reasons My Son Is Crying, I bring you the exhaustive/exhausting pregnancy list from my last almost eight months: Today I cried Because...
- someone posted something on Facebook with a picture of the dog and all I saw was, "abandoned" and I spent the next ten minutes sobbing into Ruby's fur.
- I was trying to change into my pajamas and The Doctor, the perpetual little brother, thought it was funny to try to touch me with his cold hands. He backed me into the closet and, when I broke into hysterics, said, "You don't play with me any more!" and stalked off. When I tried to make it up to him later by trying to start a sword fight with empty wrapping paper rolls, he was busy...playing video games. So I cried twice that day.
- I was sleepy.
- The Doctor said something nice to me.
- The cat food was precariously perched on the door of the freezer, and when I tried to get some frozen peas, the entire container of cat food fell on the floor and scattered to every corner of the kitchen. At this point, I can pin down that the tears were not so much because of the "oops" but because the incident required me to bend over and clean it up before Ruby ate it all.
- The Doctor said something I decided was mean. He knows not to do that now...
- I ate some lunch meat and then was sure I'd killed Booberry with listeria.
- I wanted a cheese enchilada but The Doctor misheard me and ordered a chicken enchilada. This one was a bonus because it was in public.
- So is this one: I was in Babies R Us. It's just overwhelming there. I've not gone back...Target for the win (as long as they don't steal my identity).
- I had to clean the sink and I didn't like how the cleaning chemicals smelled.
- And then there was eight am this morning. Today I cried because the bed we bought a week ago inexplicably broke when The Doctor rolled out of it. The wood split and will not go back into place. The Doctor laughed as we took a picture of the damage, which is in sight of the "Made in China" sticker on my beautiful new (consignment) bed, the last piece of furniture we needed for the house to make it complete, as I wept quietly from the corner of the room.
The furniture in my house falls into the following categories:
- stuff my family members didn't want/were able to part with/loan us (we can call these "family heirlooms")
- consignment
- thrift store
- both couches are new (and glorious)
- and, of course. the infamous...IKEA.
So, really, I've put some effort into making my house not just an empty shell and doing it with limited funding. Nothing I hate more than lost time and money.
Here's hoping I can get a refund because, if not, I will GO TOTALLY NUTS on the consignment people because we had the bed for six blissful nights...not that I slept well. It's just that the three-four times I had to get out of bed in any given night were a simple two step process of, moan/roll until my feet hit the ground and then stand as opposed to my method when the mattress was on the floor up until now which was moan/roll until one foot touches the floor and then do a reverse grande plie while wincing in pain until standing while feeling like my abdomen is a water balloon about to pop. Rest in Peace, beautiful consignment bed. I will not be...
