The Birth Story

Early Birdies

On the morning of her birth we woke at 4 AM in preparation to be at the hospital by 5 AM, the cesarean section scheduled for 7 AM. As Scott and I scurried about getting ready to leave we communicated wordlessly, just passed frightened/excited looks. I had personally resolved to keep myself focused on simple and immediate tasks. Find shoes, put on shoes, grab overnight bag, locate jacket, wear jacket, so on. I slept maybe 4 hours the night before and being tired helped dial down my nerves.

Oh, and incidentally, I haven’t slept more than 4 consecutive hours since.

We checked in at Hotel Baby and made our way down elongated hospital hallways towards the security camera monitored, baby-stealin-proof doors of the “Maternal Child Unit” where we were buzzed in and greeted by our nurse. Now I promised my self I would remember this nurse’s name, being that she was so great to me and so terrific at her job, but alas it’s been three weeks and I’ve already lost it. She had brown hair and kind eyes…..I think. Over the course of two hours she got me into my hospital gown, provided Scott his surgical scrubs, hooked me up to an IV, various machinery, appropriate drugs, and a catheter which SUCKED. All the while I’m beginning to notice that the Braxton Hicks I’d been feeling on and off for the past few weeks were suddenly way more ON than they were ever off. They were actual, honest to God contractions. It seems the baby would have come that day whether we’d scheduled her to happen or not. And I was, at long last, experiencing true labor …. which, by the way, SUCKED.

By a quarter to 7 AM I was reconsidering my whole “c-sections are a breeze” approach of the previous 9 months when in walks Mr. Friendly the anesthesiologist. The fellow who would be sticking needles into my spinal cord this morning. The fellow who was surprisingly NOT so friendly. He was a middle aged man of Asian decent who interrogated me like a suspected felon and came at me in such an overtly gruff manner that every one in the room shot me the wide eyed “Is this guy for real?” look.

Needless to say his demeanor was NOT a confidence builder towards his ability to NOT paralyze me for life.

7 AM – Showtime (Beep! Beep!)

At 7, without delay, I was led to the O.R.
Scott was to wait outside this room while they prepped me for surgery and administered the spinal block. My first impression of the O.R. table was that it looked very much like a prone cross, with two long, skinny panels protruding from each side to hold my outstretched arms. Suddenly I’m having kooky thoughts about sacrificial lambs.

My nurse had me sit up on the OR table and lean forward so Mr. Friendly could work his friendly needle magic in the small of my back. My legs were stretched out before me and shaking badly. I told my brain to tell my legs to knock it off or we might indeed never walk again and a moment later the shaking stopped. And I’ll say this for Mr. Friendly, what he lacked in personality he completely made up for in skill. I barely felt the needles and it was over before it seemed to have ever begun.

With the lower half of my body slowly losing feeling, and temporarily ignoring any further orders from my brain, they laid me out…. on the cross. In this most holy of positions they hooked something up to my right arm, I know not what, and left my left hand free to hold that of husband’s, whenever he was let in.

Assorted people in blue scrubs began to file in. My nurse noted that my blood pressure had really shot up. “You must be nervous” she said. But the best was the heart monitor. I could hear my heart rate loud and clear, a steady “boop-boop-boop” from the monitor. As activity around me increased and I began to have a panicky thought or two I could hear my heart rate go from “boop-boop-boop” to an urgent “BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!” and then I was embarrassed. As though everyone in the room could actually HEAR my coo-coo thoughts, and I’d calm myself back down to a “boop-boop” status as soon as possible.

It’s here that I realized Mr. Friendly was standing behind my shower capped and oxygen masked head (boop-boop-boop) where I could not see him but could occasionally hear him (boop-boop-boop) at the head of this seeming crucifixion (beep-beep-beep-beep) like some sort of ancient high priest (Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!) presiding over the sacrifice (BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!) My doctor strolled in ever so nonchalantly (boop-boop-boop-boop), as docs are wont to do. He said hello to me (boop-boop-boop) and greeted the others (boop-boop-boop). They all disappear behind a curtain of blue that rises from my neck upward (boop-boop) and while I’m staring at nothing but ceiling it sure sounds as if they’re getting started (beep-beep-beep) and yes, it sure as hell sounds as if they’ve gotten started (beep!beep!beep!BEEP!) and I wonder, almost aloud, “Where the EF is my husband!”

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!

Seconds later they brought in Scott and (sure enough) to hear him tell it afterwards they’d already had their hands inside my sliced abdomen when he was escorted in. The expression on his face told me as much. He took one look at my midsection, quickly averted his gaze and rushed straight to the stool that awaited him at my side, safe behind the blue curtain. He squeezed my hand. I smiled at him behind my oxygen mask. I felt the tug, tug, tugging sensation associated with c-sections and presto chango! Before 30 minutes had passed we heard “CAH!”…..the very first sound made by our baby, followed shortly by furious crying.

No one said a word to us. I did hear someone comment that it was a big baby. Scott reported to me by sneaking peaks past the surgical curtain. “It’s here” (pause) “It’s purple” (pause) “They’re taking it over to a table” (pause) “It’s a girl” (pause) “It’s pink now”. All the while the baby is crying boisterously. Much more so than my Maddy ever had. I couldn’t help but think anything other than how this baby was totally pissed off!

Untold moments went by and she quieted. I repeatedly asked Scott if she was okay until finally they held her next to my face (not yet able to hold her myself whilst still strapped to the cross) and I cooed over her, said hello to her and I kissed her soft little newborn cheek. It was such a touching moment that even Mr. Friendly smiled…….that or I was really high.

They gave her to Scott to take to the nursery and he later told me he’d never been so scared, or held anything as precious, in his entire life.

Tying Up Loose Ends

With Daddy and Baby gone my doctor and my nurse spend the next half hour chatting over me while they clipped my fallopian wings and sewed me up. And while the good doctor is literally tying up my loose reproductive ends I have a small case of the “last minutes” and wonder if I should’ve shut the door forever on having more children.

Good doctor and Even Better Nurse chatted the way your dentist and the hygienist do – like you’re not even there….with your mouth wide open and drooling beneath them. They talk about their kids, their co-workers, their spouses, the last movie they saw, their favorite recipes, etc. But for added flavor my doctor, who’d always been the consummate professional during my every prenatal visit with him, busts out cussing like a trucker. A casual “f*ck this” and many more “f*ck that’s”. I was quite amused! That is until I heard him say “Oh shit”………that one still has me worried.

When they finished with me Good Doctor bid me adieu and Mr Friendly oversaw the hoisting of my whale-sized self from O.R. table to hospital gurney. I was wheeled back to my room where I waited for daddy and baby and felt one hundred times better than I had only one hour earlier. Special thanks to my friends Morphine and Demerol.

Post-Op

It was perhaps a half hour to an hour before I saw Scott bring baby Lily to me. This is an instance where the picture of him handing her to me to hold for the first time tells the whole story.




8lbs. 9 oz.
5 ounces less that her older sister. She was crying again but not as angrily. I Instinctively I knew she was hungry but wasn’t yet prepared to whip out boobies in front of one and all. I held her close to my chest and kissed her. I marveled at how CUTE she was for a newborn, and just how much she looked like her daddy. And I itched.

And itched. And itched and itched and itched.

One side effect of the spinal that I did not recall was this incessant itching. By the second day I had managed to rub off a layer or more of skin from my face. Maybe not the best way to exfoliate.

Hotel Baby

Daddy and me and baby made three for a few days in the hospital. I was put on a liquid diet until allowed some crappy hospital food instead. Daddy ate equally crappy cafeteria fare, slept on cot at my feet and was the better of us at calming the baby in the early morning fussy hours of 2, 3 and 4 AM.

On day two I was up walking the halls. Or rather hobbling down just one short hall. It was required of my recovery.

Visitors came and went, like our moms, our Maddy, our friends. Expected people showed like the on call nurses, doctors, pediatricians, as well as random folks like the lady sent from the state of Arizona who went from room to room looking for crack head parents. Mostly faces that are a blur to me just three weeks later.

On the third day, about noon, I sat in a wheel chair holding a tiny Lily in her Pooh Bear outfit as we were wheeled out of the hospital and into rest of our lives together.

And I was so intensely grateful! If I hadn’t been stapled together in precarious places I might have gotten on my knees that morning and thanked the whole damn universe for this one beautiful baby. For the years of joy she’ll bring me, and every one else who’s lucky enough to ever know her.

The Last Day

Just a quick note because I have to go rest soon, must be up at 4 AM. I’m still a mixture of nerves, excitement and exhaustion. Woke up early this morning, realized it was the last morning I’m going be able to sleep in for at least two years, went straight back to bed and slept until noon.

Darling Hubby'O’Mine slept not at all. He instead heavily regressed into his childhood with his hobby of man dolls, all night long. I don’t know that he’ll be sleeping much tonight either. Mr. “Let’s not get your tubes tied, let’s keep our options open” is a nervous wreck over just the one baby. And I’d have sympathy for him if I wasn’t already 9 years pregnant and going under the knife in the morning.

The moms are here and in charge of the Boo Boo.
The Boo Boo kicked ass in the Nutcracker this afternoon.

Here’s to hoping all else goes well.

Two days to go....

This morning I woke up and wondered how Amy Poehler pulled off the "Artic Rap" while 10 months pregnant???



I am in awe of her.
I can't even breathe.

But I put up Christmas lights outside this morning, all by my not-so-little self. No ladder climbing involved. So I'm still good for something.

Two days to go and I'm hauling around a full sized newborn inside my body. Her activity has slowed somewhat, mainly because she’s running out of room in there. I'm guessing she's 8 lbs at least. I was telling a friend that I'm going to be really embarrassed if the baby is only 4 or 5 pounds. I am far too large to be carrying a preemie. If the baby turns out to be only 5 pounds it will mean the rest of me is pure ice cream!

Week 39: Tick Tock...(make it stop)

………..still pregnant.

And I came down with a cold around Thanksgiving. Because some cosmic force with a hell of a sense of humor thought “You know, a woman’s last week of her 9th month of pregnancy isn’t nearly tough enough. Let’s send her some germs.”

My doctor says not to worry (fat chance). I will be allowed breathe near and even hold my child. I’m not that bad off and should be even better come Monday morning.

Oh lord….Monday morning…..

So I’m not complaining. I’m just tired, grouchy, thirsty, hot, achy, stuffy, bloated and nervous. Or rather, in some kind of limbo between excited and nervous.

Baby Madelyn

See her perfectly round little head...



I've been watching home movies of her as an infant as well. Musing over the early days.

I was madly in love with this baby.

Well Wishers

7:00 AM, the sun is up and the house is quiet. Every one sleeps but me. It’s rare that I’m up before I have to be on any given weekend (and “have to be” is purely subjective) but I’m sleeping in four hour shifts now. The migraines have returned. My feet look like two large russet potatoes, the albino kind. My contractions (Braxton Hicks) aren’t so easily ignored these days and it’s altogether a restless time to be me.

Atop all of that there’s the slight sense of panic. I don’t feel that everything is in place and I’m heavily dependent on others for help in getting there. So the stillness of this morning is nice. It calms me.

It also gives me a moment to blog, which I’ve been not nearly as motivated to do any longer. Especially in light of the fact that not all the baby blog readers are family, friends and well wishers and I was unfortunately reminded of this recently. I know what you’re thinking. Who oh who in the great wide world would wish us ill? After all Baby Daddy and I are good people. Good people who have overcome a considerable amount of adversity in the last 5 years or so and have thus earned, and are absolutely entitled to, our happiness. Who would poo-poo that? Well I’ll tell ya’ who, BAD PEOPLE… of course. Har - har. Not many. Less than a handful. But enough to creep me out and inspire me to think of a different medium for relaying baby news once baby comes.

And the baby comes all right, 9 days from now. Though it seems like she wants to be here much sooner. As she gets bigger and stronger it feels like she is literally trying to kick down the front door. It’s just a waiting game now, with well wishers waiting for the phone call, and I’m just hoping that the baby indeed waits.
Just wait, little (or perhaps not-so-little) baby…..no surprises please!

A Baby Scottie

Until the other day I’d only ever seen photos of my husband from about age 2 or 3 on. Earlier in my pregnancy I’d asked my mom-in-law to send me a few pictures of him as a wee babe. There’s that whatever percent chance that my little oven roasted bun will look a great deal like him, so I was naturally curious. But mom-in-law was in the middle of a move at the time so I waited. And while I waited I made jokes about how they weren’t giving up the baby photos for a reason. They were hiding something, and I was onto them.

As it turned out his mom decided to give me all his baby pictures, just the other day. Alas Baby Daddy had an adorable baby face, once upon 36 years ago. Very cute. Cuter than I was as an infant I think. And as I sifted through these images, ooh-ing and awe-ing, he heard me say “Oh look at you, such a cutie” with the slightest note of relief in my voice.....and he caught on quick.

“Wait a minute!” He says, “You didn’t want these pictures to see how cute I was. You wanted these pictures to see if I was an ugly baby!”

Hahaha!
Ya' got me!

I like to call this one Old Man River Baby.



The best part is that he still looks exactly like this!
Save for a significant difference in height.

Stranger Danger

Every time I leave the house people react to my very obvious condition. I’ve finally gotten used to strangers smiling at me and I guess it’s sad that this should take getting used to. But some of these people really beam at me and it's startling.

Then there’s the others……with the comments. I wasn’t inside Home Depot but five minutes today before an older woman approached me, patted my arm in a gesture of sympathy, and said (in a half whisper) “You look miserable”. Then beamed her stranger smile at me, of course.

“Oh no! Um, I’m actually doing okay today,” I told her.

I know she was just commiserating. She truly didn’t mean any harm, but sheesh. I get these little comments everyday now. So, without further ado, let me introduce some rules in regards to approaching your local pregnant lady.


• Do NOT tell the pregnant lady she looks tired, miserable, or anything of the sort. Because all the pregnant lady hears is “You look like sh*t. Why are you even out in public?”
• Do not tell her how big she is. Chances are she’s well aware of her size. Her back reminds her, you need not.
• Do not ask if she’s carrying twins (especially if you know damn well that she isn't).
• Do not assume you’re a comic genius by asking if she’s carrying her HUSBAND in there!
• Do not ask if she’s delivering next week, the next day or in the next ten minutes.
• And when she politely answers your questions concerning when she is in fact due, do NOT shake your head and say “Oh, well, you’re not gonna make it”.

Touch my belly all you want!
Smile at me all you want!
But, for the love of God, please leave the subject of my fat ass alone.

They Say Timing is Everything

Look at how SMALL this diaper is!



You really have to see it live to get the full miniature effect. It’s a Pampers Swaddler designed for newborns up to 10 lbs. I’ve packed the diaper bag for the hospital with 2 or 3 of these little guys inside. It isn’t necessary, the hospital provides almost everything in the way of infant care, I just wanted to.

This afternoon I bought Lily’s going-home outfit. A soft off white Pooh Bear jacket with weetle matching pants and weetle matching shoesies. I want to sew weetle matching ears on the hood of the jacket because there is NOTHING cuter than a baby with (weetle bitty) bear ears.

Tee-hee!
Oh man, I want to have this baby already!
I am totally stupid about this baby!

Today I’m washing onsies, blankies, little hooded towels and booties in Dreft. For those not in-the-know Dreft is an infant specific detergent that smells like tiny puffs of angel babies sent from heaven. It's true.

I’ve set up the nursery (will post pictures soon), I’ve nested like crazy in-between periods of severe discomfort and 50 extra pounds of aches and pains and so…..I WANT TO HAVE THIS BABY ALREADY!

However, having this baby before the set scheduled c-section date puts a crimp in almost everyone’s plans. Baby Daddy is in the middle of instructing a class that does not graduate until Dec 4th. This means long days teaching and even longer nights grading papers. I’ve hardly seen him in the last two weeks. Doo Doo Monkey is in the local production of the Nutcracker Dec 5th and 7th. This means practice every day, a winter parade, and an urgent need for a mommy who is not bed ridden. And speaking of mommies, MY mommy flies in Dec 6th with the high hopes of being present for the birth.

But my mother-in-law flies in this weekend, which is such a relief. If I do indeed end up in the hospital with a newborn, before the scheduled date, at least she will be kind enough to stick around and take us home!

Week 36: GO TIME

This morning my doctor informed me that if I go into labor in the next four weeks they will not attempt to stop the labor, it’ll be go time. And I was being foolish to fret over hard labor, undue stress on my uterus is exactly what they’re trying to avoid. But the baby is considered full term now. I am 9 months pregnant now. I’m here. I made it. It’s the beginning of the end….of this.

This is also the part of the pregnancy where everything went to hell the last time. I never get heart burn but I have it now, since my stomach has been slowly shoved into my throat. And I wonder how long I’m going to be able to wear shoes. I get so warm now, especially when I try and sleep, that my cheeks are almost constantly sporting sand dollar sized circles of pink. I gained five pounds of water in one week and STILL have not crested the 200 mark, but fast approaching. There’s other less than lovely stuff, but you get the idea.

Yet today I’m feeling pretty good. When the nurse had me lie down this morning to check for the baby’s heart rate said baby kept kicking her little hand held machine. This tickled the nurse to no end. I made some comment about how active the baby is and she said “I know it’s uncomfortable for you but it’s a good thing for us. It’s the ones that just piddle around in there that we worry about”.

And lastly, the other day my friend says “Niki, I just don’t think it’s a girl. I have this nagging suspicion”. People have asked me if I have a feeling about the gender one way or the other. No. Not this time. I initially thought it was a boy but had a dream about a baby girl….and have since had a dream about a baby boy that looked Chinese. So, no. I haven’t a single inkling that I trust anylonger. With Maddy I knew. When the technician announced to the room of family and friends that the baby was female I punctuated that with “I already told you this”. But this baby? The lady performing this baby’s ultrasound was 99.9999999 % sure of the sex. In fact this technician had a “feeling” it was male as well, so she continued to check and check and check to make certain. “No, that’s a girl…wait…...oh yeah, that is definitely a girl”.

But some sneaky whisperer in the back of my mind has said “well what if it’s wee-wee is just really, really small and they couldn’t see it”. Hmmmmm, the super small wee-wee theory, food for thought. All I’m saying is that I haven’t opened any of the pink stuff.

Wanted: Sensory Deprivation Chamber

My relationship with sleep is becoming a strained one.
Let me tell the story of last night.

12 AM
Around midnight my eyelids were drooping. Already in bed, I turned off the television and rolled onto my left side. Sleeping on the left side of my body shifts my mammoth uterus off a major blood vessel, which helps with the swelling (that and I’ve always slept this way). Baby Daddy takes this as his cue to snuggle up and drape his arm around me. This is how we have slept since the beginning of us. And since the beginning of us it has been a contest to fall asleep before he starts all the god awful snoring. The minute his arm comes over me I hear the crack of the gun in my head, the race is on. I know I have mere seconds to fall asleep before he starts in. I rarely win this race.

I’m not always sensitive to his sawing of logs but I’m reactive in general lately so…… I spend the hour between 12 AM and 1 AM fighting the Great Big Snorehead. “Hey, you’re snoring” and “Stop snoring!” and “No snoreheads allowed!” and “Dude… seriously?” all to no avail. Holding his nose until he gasps for breath via his mouth, no good. Putting pillows over my head, putting pillows over his head, kicking shins and throwing elbows, nothing. Finally I roll him over on his right side, damn near rolling him off the bed itself, and then…. eventually……I fall asleep.

2 AM
I hear a noise in the kitchen. I’ve been asleep for an hour. I don’t know how or why I heard the noise but I literally shoot out of bed and storm into the kitchen shouting “Hello!?”…. only to find a startled little Night Walker (formerly known as Boo Boo, formerly known as Doo Doo Monkey) staring at me wide eyed, and she says “I was…I was just thirsty Mama”.

Now I am WIDE awake. I go back to bed with Snorehead (formerly known as Baby Daddy, formerly known as Loving Husband) and try to fall back to sleep, only to realize I have to pee. Of course. The first pee of the wee hours. The first pee of many, many a pee.

2:30 AM
I’m still awake, bladder empty, belly huge, when Night Walker suddenly appears at my bedside complaining of “weird noises” in her room. Any other night I might have investigated, put her at ease and tucked her back in but tonight I just threw back the covers and said “Get in”.

3 AM
THEY ARE BURNING ME ALIVE!
I’m cooking in their body heat, being sandwiched between the Snorehead and the Night Walker. One of them has to go. Snorehead will be getting up shortly to go to work, and is not afraid of weird noises. In fact he cannot possibly hear weird noises, or ANY noises, over his own noise so….. I shake him awake and very sweetly request that he move to the spare bedroom. He does so, groggily and graciously. I roll into the warmth of the space he left while Night Walker sleeps at arms length from me.

4 AM
Night Walker is all up in my grill! Over the course of an hour Night Walker has inched all the way over to my side of the bed, flung her leg over me, attached her hands like suction cups to me, and gluing the baby fat of her cheek to mine. It’s so warm inside her grip I’m convinced I will catch on fire. I spend the next hour pushing her back over to her side of the bed only to fight her off again every five minutes.

AND…. I have to pee.

5 AM
Snorehead no longer snores. He’s coughing instead. He’s awake in a bathroom somewhere in the house and I hear his incessant morning coughing. It sounds like an old man dying. I can’t remember, at that early hour, if it’s due to his medication and I should feel sorry for him or if he’s doing it on purpose just to make me crazy. I think it’s the latter.

6 AM
Would not at all object to a catheter.

6:30 AM
Somehow, someway, found me some sleepy town.

7:30 AM
RISE AND SHINE!
Snorehead has made me coffee and kissed me goodbye already. Night Walker wakes bright eyed and all sorts of 6 year old busy. I play games with the snooze button until at least 8 AM, deluding myself that this means I’m somehow getting more sleep. Except that I can't EVER go back to sleep since I ALWAYS have to PEE.


Surely this is how God prepares one for 3 AM feedings.

Voting & Nap Time

We voted! Baby and I, that is.
Whoo-hoo!

A little boy at the polling place points to me and hollers to his dad: “Woh! She has a REALLY BIG BELLY!”
(Boo-hoo)

And now....we nap.
We really enjoy the naps lately.

The Boob Thing

Boo Boo had a first grade project in where she was asked, amongst other questions, to list 3 facts about herself. She chose that she was born in Seattle, WA, that her birthday is on Christmas Eve and after that she was stuck for a third fascinating factoid. I suggested that she add how she was going to be a big sister, and she shook her head no.

“The other kids will just talk about the boob thing.”

“The WHAT?” I said

“The boob thing…..you know….they always talk about the boob thing. It’s gross.”

She was horrified to learn recently that she had been breastfed. She calls it “the boob thing” with her eyes averted and her arms crossed.

I almost opted out of doing “the boob thing” this time though. For purely selfish reasons, I’m worried about the longevity of my ta-ta’s. You see God preformed a small miracle for me the last time I breastfed. Usually a year of "the boob thing" will effectively wipe out your hooties. I remember when my breasts were engorged in those first weeks after delivery and I looked down to see that one boob was the size of my head. Each pore so stretched and enlarged that it looked like the surface of an orange peel, and I thought “Oh no, they’ll never be the same……” And they were never the same....they were BETTER!

I don’t know how that happened. After weaning they dried up to look like a couple of fried eggs. We’re talking National Geographic and I was devastated! But then, within six months time, they literally bounced back and were better than before. I couldn’t have wanted for better looking hooties. Some one had sprinkled the magic booby dust on them. A for real deal modern day miracle.

All that said, it would be completely self-serving of me to deny this next baby the countless and undeniable benefits of breast milk just because I want to keep a hot looking rack……but you best believe I considered it.

And I’d like to go on record and address those who cringe a little at “the boob thing”. Certainly no other experience in my life has quite so reminded me that I am a mammal, but it is indeed a sweet and natural thing. It is not sexual or pleasurable in anyway, whatsoever (it actually hurts like a son of a bitch) and I don’t have enough time or energy to list the immeasurable benefits of breastfeeding here, so just quit being weird about it. I don’t advocate mom’s whipping out the teet in crowded restaurants but other than that….. let’s give “the boob thing” a break already.

The boob thing is a GOOD thing! But good luck trying to tell Boo Boo that.

OH, as for her third fact? She wrote "I have the best mom".
(And I have the best kiddo!)

Busy Baby Bee

My baby widget (the spinny baby graphic to your right) is upside down. How appropriate since I think the real baby has flipped as well. I felt her hiccups in the lower half of my abdomen yesterday and it now feels like I’m being punched in the bladder, rather than kicked. You’d think the punching would be better than the kicking but you would be wrong.

It’s recommended that I keep track of fetal movements at this stage. 10 movements in and hour is a good sign that all is well in there. My baby moves 10 times in 10 minutes. Not every single hour but ….this baby is very busy!

I try to imagine how she must be keeping herself entertained. All the super important things she has to do in there. Tying the umbilical cord in knots, then untying them. Random spells of River Dancing. Searching for new places that she has yet to push, kick or sock me in. Scratching off the days on the uterine wall.

She likes to get up to all this ruckus most rigorously between 12 AM and 3 AM so I’m anticipating a lot of late nights with the newest little pumpkin face. And oh, I can’t wait to see that face!

One Baby Shower in Pink

Do you measure the success of your baby shower in the amount of goods you rake in, the amount of guests that attend or the amount of compliments you receive? Because I wasn’t looking for tons of gifts, I don’t have many girlfriends down here and I sure wasn’t expecting to be showered with praise but as we sat around Annixa’s kitchen table nibbling on red velvet cake (courtesy of the lovely Miss Lauren) these ladies dubbed me radiant and debated over which movie star I looked like.

Those are some good friends!

Special thanks belong to Miss Annixa (who doesn’t even read this) for being yesterday’s hostess and being such a great friend to me during the last leg of my pregnancy. Such a great friend that I have gone so far as to forgive her for drinking the Kool-Aid and becoming a Fox News fed Republican. She’s that great a friend, ha-ha! Truly she is, and she made sure the whole affair was superb.

My favorite photo came late in the afternoon when Baby Daddy crashed the shower and posed with me. One shower reveler, who’d never met him before, watched us banter for awhile and beam at each other and told me privately what a beautiful thing we have, B.D. and I.



I couldn’t agree more.

Next Week?

“Next week?” asked the sweet little Asian lady doing my pedicure yesterday.
“I’m sorry?” I said, indicating I didn’t understand her meaning.
She pointed at the enormous growth under my shirt and repeated herself.
“Next week?”

“Oh!” I said “Oh no. Um, next month….or so.”

I’m not leaving the house anymore!

8th Month Photo

Alas....a sighting of the Great White Bell.
Week 32

Week 32: Itchy & Scratchy

Officially 8 months along now! And the beach ball I swallowed itches more and more every day. Do you know what that means? It means my skin is stretching. You know what happens when your skin stretches to proportions that accommodate a small planet? Well, depending upon the elasticity of one’s skin, or lack thereof, it could mean stretch marks. The dreaded stretch marks.

I got off pretty easy last time. Three or four lines on each hip that faded fairly quickly. No grooves, gouges or roadmaps on my stomach. But holy cannoli am I BIGGER with this baby. My giant hubby insists this is because I’m carrying his equally giant dinosaur sized baby. Maybe. Whatever the reason I gained all the weight I was supposed to by month 6.

Whoops.

This happened to me last time too. You’re medically advised to gain no more than 30 pounds. That 30 pounds usually melts off very quickly after delivery. I gained approx. 60. I went from 135 lbs (which I already thought was terribly fat at 24 yrs old…….such a moron) to 196……I stopped looking at the scale at 196, the week I delivered.

I promise you that’s where I’m headed again. I don’t think I’ll ever tip the scales over the ominous 200 mark but…..never, ever, ever say never-never.

The interesting thing is my doctor has said nothing on the subject of my weight gain. My former OB had made me feel lousy for it. “You can’t gain 10 lbs a month” she’d said (and I’d thought “Oh you wanna bet?”) and even though I did just that I thankfully returned to my original size….eventually. But I wonder if this doctor, this time around, doesn’t bother admonishing me because of my age. Does he know something that I don’t? Does he assume my body is now a lost cause?

I should ask him, but I’m too chicken! Because this is the part where my youth screams “WAIT……I’m too young to die!”

Ye Olde Pro

Besides sometimes seeming (and feeling) like an old vet at all this pregnant mommy stuff it surprised me just how much I’d forgotten about the days leading up to and following the big event. Then I remembered I was half comatose in my 9th month and out of my freaking mind in sleep deprived delirium the first two weeks of my daughter’s life….so it’s no small wonder a few details have escaped me.

I forgot, for example, that B.D. leaves the OR with the baby while they sew me up. I forgot that he is to stay by baby’s side that entire first day because I won’t be competent enough to be left alone with her (they’ll have me drugged on something close to morphine). I forgot that he has to spend his nights on a crappy cot next to my hospital bed. I forgot if or when I get to shower…..or how I’m supposed to even do that as a stapled together, crippled mess. I forgot about the birth certificate, social security card and first photos, all done right there in the hospital while I’m damn near out of it.

I’ve been taking a refresher course by way of two TV shows on TLC, A Baby Story and Bringing Home Baby. With A Baby Story I find that I cry every time they have the baby……even though I KNOW they’re going to have the baby. It’s the whole point of the show. There’s never an episode where they DON’T have the baby. It’s called A BABY STORY!…..and still, I tear up every single time the baby is born. I could be across the house in the laundry room, have the television on just for noise, be passing by the living room on my way out the front door, hear the “waaaahhhh” of the baby being born and BAM…..salty tear city.

Because I’m the silly hormone monster.

Bringing Home Baby serves to remind me of the reality of it all. It’s a show that documents the parent’s first 36 hours home with a newborn. Their haggard faces following the first night home says it all. We’re going to be fortunate enough to have my mom and mother-in law there to help entertain and care for Boo Boo (formerly known as Doo Doo). I count myself especially blessed because my mom isn’t the naggy know-it-all type and my mother-in-law isn’t the disapproving dictator type. They’re both terrifically lovely AND…. get this…..they get along!

Point is, we won’t be left wanting for helping hands and a great deal of it will come back to me, like some foggy dream I once had. And what B.D. doesn’t know I can help him with. But I sometimes wish I wasn’t so experienced. It would have been nice to have had my first child with him. Not that I’d give up my Boo Boo for love or ridiculous amounts of money, but how nice if he’d been there for her birth. Both of us being brand new at this thing called baby, rather than me appearing to be an old hand at the prego trade.

But oh well. Nothing is ever ideal, at least our little family comes awfully close.

Get in ma' belly!

Every few days some one asks me "Where are your belly pictures? I want to see your belly!"

The answer is that I don't really have any yet. But my daughter took this way flattering one last night....



...which accurately depicts how I plan to spend most my time from here until December.

Hotel Baby

We took our hospital tour last weekend. Our tour nurse was warm and welcoming. This way to the OR, this way to your room, be sure to take advantage of our continental breakfast and enjoy your stay.

This hospital isn’t as nice as the one I delivered my first kiddo in but it is WAY better than what had been described to me by the locals. I was told to expect drab, extremely dated décor and to have to share a room with another laboring/recovering mother. To my great joy they’ve remodeled in the last few years and ladies are now treated to their own space. THANK GOD!

Our tour led us to the nursery. As is the custom in modern times most babies room in with their moms so there weren’t many little ones to ogle. One small newborn lay under the UV lights of what looked like a mini tanning bed in order to treat it’s jaundice. Another larger baby was wriggling under the care of a nurse while a young woman watched enrapt outside the nursery door window. At that moment our tour guide asked if we knew the gender of our child and when I answered that it was a girl the young woman at the nursery window turned toward us, pointed at the wriggling infant (the one not getting a tan), grinned at us and said “Yeah, he was supposed to be a girl too.”

At this the darling hubby’s eyebrows shot upward and his eyes positively twinkled with the possibility. Earlier in the tour, outside the doors of the operating room, the nurse had explained to me that I could change my mind about having my tubes tied at the very last second, if that’s what I wanted. The doctor will essentially ask me, last minute, if I’m sure. Baby Daddy joked that he’d take that opportunity to knock me unconscious and tell the doc that I’d changed my mind.

A joke…..except that he’s kind of serious. I’m not sure he’s 100% comfortable with the idea of never having a son. Even though I’ve made all the compelling arguments against us having 80 kids…..or even just 3. Even though he has been surrounded by girls his whole life and really ought to be used to it by now. Inundated with them almost. From several great aunts in his early years, to a close relationship with his mother and sister, maternal aunties, a high majority of female friends including his best friend...…..OF COURSE his children will be girls too! But of course.

But I guess there is that who-knows-what percent chance that we’ll walk out of our stay at Hotel Baby with an unexpected son. And that wouldn’t be terrible. That wouldn’t be terrible at all. He'd better look good in pink though.

Eeek!

Oooookay, I’m scheduled for surgery. Eeek!

I’ll be having a c-section two days before my due date. That ups the chances that I might go into labor before the set date. Eeek!

I don’t know what to do in labor. I don’t know what labor IS. I didn’t have labor before. I don’t WANT labor now! Eeek!

In any event, I get to meet my baby soon.
EEEEEK!
(That's a happy "eeek")

Let Ye Without Sin....or Sense

My regular wandering through the internet brought me to one woman poo-pooing other women for choosing to be induced or opting for c-sections to “fit their schedules”. I was compelled to ask her if she was aware of just how many women used to die in childbirth? If she knew that c-sections are statistically safer?
And I reminded her that maybe mothers make the decisions they do with the health and safety of their unborn child in mind, rather than as a matter of convenience.

I already abhor overly judgmental people (they're usually the world’s largest hypocrites) and unfortunately I’ve often times found no greater concentration of them than in the land of motherhood. I’ve actually sat across the table from a woman going on and on about someone else’s child using a pacifier while their own child sat next to them GNAWING THE WOOD OFF THE TABLE!

It’s just amazing to me.

Week 30: It Really is Beautiful

Nine more weeks and we'll call it quits on nine long months. I may schedule surgery as soon as this Thursday. My baby shower will happen in about three weeks and my best friend of the last fifteen years, the fantastic Miss Teague, will fly in for the occasion. VERY excited about this. Appropriate since I wouldn’t be pregnant right now if weren’t for her. She introduced me to my husband.

But a little over four weeks ago I woke up and didn’t want to be pregnant anymore. Neither did I want be to married anymore. And I sure as hell didn’t want to live in Arizona anymore. A minor panic attack, which slid downward into something of a depression. And my, did I feel guilty about being depressed. I have NOTHING to be sad about! But I was.

I searched “depression during pregnancy” on-line and found very little help or comfort. One article read “For most women this is the happiest time of their lives…………but for YOU…..” But for you……the aberration. That’s how I read it. Because that’s how I felt.

Every time a friend told me “Oh I just looooove being pregnant” or “Aw….I wish I were having a baby!” or “You look sooooo cute, you and your baby tummy!” I just truly thought one of us had to be insane, and I didn’t think it was me. I felt guilty, so guilty, for not being in looooooove with my pregnancy.

I passed a few weeks like this, went to Disney Land and got over it. So I guess it really is the happiest place on earth.

I still feel as though this whole experience is slipping by without any discernible significance. That I’m taking it for granted somehow. That I’m not enjoying this, my last pregnancy. It’s rushing by and I’m merely along for the ride, shifted into zombie gear.

But then.....

Last weekend while preparing for a bath I stood sideways in front of the mirror, naked, to really take in the new temporarily extended outline of me. The changes in my face, my arms, my new "HELLO D-CUP" breasts, my hips, my tush. While I was at this examining my husband walked in, smiled at me, stood behind me, wrapped his arms around me, resting his hands on my swollen stomach, leaned his cheek atop my head, met my gaze in the mirror and said “It really is beautiful”.

I could have cried. I closed my eyes and soaked up the moment instead.

It really is beautiful.

Rosemary's Baby

Did I say the next two months?
10 more weeks to be exact.
Wowza.

Last night, while lying in bed, the baby moved in such a way that you could see her turning in my abdomen. If you’ve ever seen the ground rolling wave-like during an earthquake it looks similar to that. I tapped B.D. on the shoulder, got his attention and pointed toward the action. Upon watching the skin of my tummy slowly undulate up and down his eyes, already big and brown, grew wider and wider as he slowly slid backward and hid behind a pillow…..one crazy cartoon eye peeking over it.

I laughed so hard I almost fell out of bed.
I suspect my darling hubby is starting to panic…..quietly of course.

He plays it cool for the most part but whenever we see a tiny baby at the market, at a restaurant, in a friend’s arms I can see the fear in him. “They’re so LITTLE” He says, “So helpless…..for so long”. He’s never been around babies really. My daughter was three years old when he came into her life. She was potty-trained, well mannered, disciplined and durable. And though he is most definitely an experienced dad by now (and deserves a hundred million accolades for being such a fantastic one) he has no skills with the wee babies….. this totally freaks him out.

Me? How am I absorbing it? I’m a little rusty with babies, myself. It’s been almost 7 years. But I know how it just comes to you. I remember I didn’t want to leave the hospital. I wanted a nursing staff on-call, at my finger tips, just in case I f*cked up somehow. I remember being so scared to diaper her, so scared of her first bath, so utterly “I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL I’M DOING HERE! SOMEBODY HELP ME!” But it passed. I know that the act of caring for this baby won’t be so scary this time.

What frightens me are any and all gruesome possibilities. I worry about everything else. All the many ways it can go horribly wrong. All the awful stories you hear, they haunt me day and night. I’m even too suspicious to elaborate……I just pray.

And my six year old Doo Doo Monkey? How is she dealing?
She’s just excited.
Purely and simply.

She is the only worry-free, panic-free, hang-up free entity in this house.

I mean, we’re ALL excited in our way. It’s only that B.D. and I have the “enormous responsibility” part of the equation. Doo Doo Monkey just gets to hang out and watch sister grow. I haven’t had to address any signs of jealousy from her yet and if or when I do I have a feeling it will be minimal. She’s so mature for her age, so kind-hearted, so considerate of others, such a sweetie ……….not like an only child at ALL. Trust me, I know.

And precisely because my Doo Doo is so good, and always has been, is why I joke with every one that my next child will surely be Rosemary’s Baby. That I’m working with an unknown set of genetics here and anything can happen. There’s just no way I’ll luck out twice, right? And that’s okay. As long as Baby Lily is healthy and relatively happy I’ll care not if she’s a little turd.

Holes

They stuck me full of holes this week. They tell me this is the last time, until surgery that is.

My doctor insisted I be injected with a dead virus. I normally shy away from the flu shot and usually manage not to contract it, but I trust my doc so……*shudder*.

They took a few more vials of blood. One antibodies test related to the above, one glucose test (again) and….something else? I don’t remember. And I don’t have to. There’s an entire chapter in every pregnancy book on absent mindedness. So for the next two remaining months I have an excuse for how I regularly am.

Then there’s this, I’m Rh Negative. As are 15% of all women. I could go into a lengthy explanation but…..ugh, that’s too hard (everything is hard now, if you hadn't guessed). Very basically my negative blood factor would respond to the baby’s positive blood factor (and baby daddy is a positive blood type) as a foreign entity and my immune system would react by attacking it. Nice, huh? So for this there's a little somethin'-somethin' called RhoGAM.

I got a shot in the ass and called it a day.

Week 28: "It's the Fiiiiiinaaaaal Countdown...."

My body now resembles that of a gummy bear.
And I don't know that I care anymore.





-"Sunning in Oceanside, CA - Sept. 2008"-

A Not-So-Secret Secret

It’s a girl.

Uh oh. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

And I was able to keep this secret from Baby Daddy (who wanted to be surprised at the birth) for exactly two whole days.

We were falling asleep around 2 AM and the baby was especially active. She often kicks the snot out of me in the wee hours, very strong little bun in my not so little oven. So as I was drifting off to sleep I said “This baby is going to be a night owl like her parents.”

Prompting Baby Daddy to snap awake, “Did you just say HER?”

We’re already calling her Lily, short for Lilian, but we were considering Bianca…….the reactions I’ve collected on those two names (via a myspace blog) are high-larious. One friend actually wrote “my husband says Bianca sounds like a black girl’s name”, meanwhile my black cousin, named Bianca, commented not at all.

The feelings are many and mixed about another little girl. For a moment there my husband wanted me to forgo the tube tying I’m having done at delivery and instead “keep our options open”. As gently as I could I let him know that he could keep HIS options open all he wanted, but my uterus is retiring after this. OUT OF BABY-MAKING BUSINESS. I can’t keep trying until we get a boy, that’s insanity.…we’ll just end up with eight girls.

Two kids are plenty.
Two girls is God's way of punishing me.
Two college tuitions are out of control expensive.
Seven years between siblings is enough of an age gap.
Thirty One years of maternal age is nearing the end of the healthy reproductive line and eventually heading into mandatory amnio, high-risk territory.

Whatever happens, this is my last baby.

Fried Niki (With a Side of Baby)

In the famed and favored pregnancy book “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” there is no chapter, paragraph or smallest mention of what to expect when you are electrocuted. Just so you know.

Via the index I found “Electric Blanket”, “Electrolysis”, “Electropuncture”……no "Electrocution".

I’m fine though. I was in a monsoon storm. Lighting struck near me just as I touched the metal automatic door of a van. I saw blue and white flash in my right peripheral vision. My right arm was zapped. It ached slightly for about an hour.

But I’m fine.

My baby will now become a super hero.

I Can Grow People

A Wal Mart employee asked me what this shirt meant. Apparently it means I’m at that stage where people aren’t sure if I’m pregnant or just extra chunky with nuts. However, I thought the shirt would sorta clear that up for everyone.

But what else should I expect from Wal Mart…………I’ll tell you what, I expected to find bright yellow curtains for the baby’s room but it seems that color is not very trendy at the moment. Seven thousand other shades of hideous, but no bright yellow.

Oh, and let’s scratch anything I ever said about having a boundless supply of energy.
Let’s instead pretend that everything I say will mean the exact opposite happens tomorrow. Just for fun.

Antsy Pants

That man I share a bed with tells me I laugh a lot in my sleep now. I believe he said it sounds like I’m laughing AT something rather than WITH something.

I’ve sent the Doo Doo Monkey off to her first day of first grade and now…..I don’t know what to do with myself. I miss working. I wasn’t cut out to be a homebody. And I would make a terrible soccer mom.

I have all this energy now (so long as I stay out of the 100 degree heat) and no outlet with which to expend it. Oh….except to blog, obviously. Because that’s always a good way to spend my time.

I feel antsy in the pantsy.

Someone actually suggested I start knitting.

Oh brother.

Helloooooo Gorgeous!

Baby profile -



Baby face -



Wittle baby footsie -




In love.

Maddening

The military hospital gave me a picture, four in fact. So, as usual, that’s what I get for talking smack.

They also tried to show me the gender, being prohibited from actually saying it. I would have fared better at charades. I can’t possibly make out those ultra sound images! She pointed to a leg, another leg and in between the legs……and I saw nothing.

Which means it’s a girl, right?

I went to Bisbee last Sunday to see the witch (and by witch I don’t mean a wicked woman but rather the wonderful 66 year old Wiccan) that married us and SHE said she was pretty sure it’s a boy. She told me she’s never been wrong.

But I did not see a wee little penis today.

This is driving me crazy.

Meanwhile, somewhere across town, my husband is playing proud papa showing off the ultrasound pictures to his co-workers without a care in the world as to whether he’s presenting a son or a daughter.

BUT I HAVE TO KNOW.
(pictures to follow)

Week 20: I just wanted a stinking picture….

I’m not sure if I mentioned that my husband doesn’t want to know the sex of the baby. Which is perfectly fine (after much eye rolling from me and “do you have to be SO different from everyone else ALL the time?”) but I have to know. I would gladly ride the mystery baby train with him towards it’s surprise finish but…..I HAVE to know.

I have to.

And for this it seems the universe is punishing me.
Or at least most certainly giving me the finger.

First off, said hubby o’mine is an active duty military career guy and so my healthcare is as such. The healthcare provided by my former employer didn’t cover maternity related costs. You might say the upper management hissed at children. It wasn’t exactly a family friendly gig. Anyhow, I have almost nothing to do with the military hospital throughout my pregnancy, but I do have to have my ultrasound done there. And the folks there will not reveal the sex of my unborn child due to some lawsuit for a once faulty prediction. But what’s more, they will not provide me with a picture.

Not even one lousy picture. Is the paper really expensive, do you think? From what I recall they print those pictures on what feels like the consistency of receipt paper. I will BRING THE GODDAMNED PAPER! The lawsuit thing I could understand. Just another case of one dumbass ruining it for everyone else. But no picture? That is just asinine. I decided to take matters into my own hands.

While in Washington for the last month I attempted to schedule a 2D sonogram with a reputable business recommended by a friend. I would not only get my baby’s picture I would also get a DVD, a gender confirmation on my little munchkin as well as having the added pleasure of cramming all my friends and family in the room to take part in the experience. All for around $115.00 out of pocket. I was not far enough along to have the super cool 3D imaging done.

All I needed was my doctor’s approval.
But noooooooooo…….

My doctor wouldn’t approve because he was not familiar with this business and blah, blah, blah, medical jargon, blah, blah. I was almost in tears on the phone with him explaining my situation with the military hospital and expressing that if I couldn’t know the sex I could live with that, I guess, but why can’t I have a picture? One of the very simple joys of every woman’s pregnancy, throughout the last few decades at least, is showing off that little black and white blob that doesn’t even remotely look like a baby.

In order to placate me the doctor assured that they would do a “social ultrasound”, with their in-office machine, at my next visit. Thus providing me with a gender check and a picture. Well, I had that doc. appt. today, mentioned this “social ultrasound” and apparently they’ll do it upon my next visit……. in late August. When I’m 6 months along already. When most women, as pregnant as I, are busily buying their pink or their blue because THEY have idiocy-free healthcare and THEY know the sex of their child by now.

I am beyond irritated by this whole ordeal.

But am otherwise feeling fantastic! My four week sabbatical was perfect. I had my first sober experience in a night club and stayed out with a large group of friends until 1 AM. I have energy again, I’m leaving my house again and I’m enjoying good food again.

I have a big round belly.

And the baby is kicking!

He or she (grrrrr) is quite active, and I’m finally, finally, finally feeling excited about all of it.

9 VIALS OF BLOOD

Back in ‘01…..back in the day….. I think it was 6 or 7 vials of blood they drew from you at the end of your first trimester. But they’ve since added a few tests, such as one for cystic fibrosis, so nine vials of blood it was. Plus an early test for gestational diabetes. I get to have that test twice this pregnancy, while most women have it done just once around 27 weeks or so. I get to be so lucky because my first child was so large. She still is. She’s not chubby, just ridiculously tall for her age. She will easily be a 6 ft tall woman. My husband happens to hail from the land of the giants as well (6"5), weighing in 10 lbs at birth. His mother told me she was absolutely terrified to have more children due to the pain involved in delivering him vaginally.

Did I mention that I am like a-o-freaking-kay with having another c-section?

In any case, when you’re having 9 vials of blood extracted from you and you’ve been instructed to eat very little that day, while having had to wait an hour after having drank a 6 oz. solution of glucose, and when the world starts to go black at about vial 5 let’s hope to god you have a nurse with a modicum of sensible bedside manner.

Because I didn’t have that nurse. I had two hopelessly retarded nurses who stared at me while I began to faint, with one of them commenting “Oh she’s not looking too good, Ha ha!”

They laughed.

And then the laughter died when they realized I wasn’t joining in. They asked if I was okay. I couldn’t even speak. If I could've I might have said "Of course I'm not f*cking okay! I don't have any BLOOD to be okay WITH!" My eyes were closed. I shook my head no. Then one said “Oh….did she drink the glucose stuff?” At which point they reclined my chair, placed an ice pack on the back of my neck and gave me a minute to come around.

I did come around, proceeded to grab my purse and leave without a word to either of them. Is it not very “grown-up” of me to have seriously wanted to punch these women in the face? Because I don’t know that I care.

Ultimately I don’t have gestational diabetes or any other pregnancy related ailment to speak of……other than the fact that my boobs do not seem to be keeping up with the growth rate of my ass.

You Can't Go Home Again

My hubby held my hair while I threw up a taco at 8 PM tonight.

Yes, that is indeed love.

The migraines come to call, large and small, daily. So much for being out of the woods. I’m due for a doctor’s appointment before I skip town and I plan to ask “how normal is this?” to which I will hear “every pregnancy is different”, and then they will offer me drugs.

It baffles me that aspirin and ibuprofen are huge no-no’s for pregnant women, but popping a Vicodin or a little Codeine is perfectly okay. No joke! Sadly I’m not in enough pain to allow them to get me and the baby high just yet. I would do almost anything for a goddamned aspirin though.

As for skipping town in a week or so, I get to go home to Seattle for one whole month. As with my trip before, I’m conflicted about it. I’m so lonesome down here, yet I worry I’ll fly up there and be……even lonelier? Never mind how some friends fall away after time, that’s just life. But I’m not a barrel of laughs right now, you know, with the fatigue and the puking and the apparent brain tumors. At best I hope to make it out of my mother’s house once or twice to meet a friend for dinner……. and maybe even enjoy it.

This is my second trimester…. this was supposed to be the EASY part.

Migraines, Dreams & Shamu

It's week 14 and I think.....I think I just might be over the nausea. I'm leery to even acknowledge that aloud for fear I will jinx it. I came home from Seattle in May (wedding was lovely, I delivered my speech flawlessly, all was fab) with a six day migraine that had me vomiting in the evenings.

Every time I explain how ill I've been people start throwing around the "twins" word. As though it weren't a DIRTY word! They like to remind me that I have twins in my family and so does my husband. Whenever this comes up I promptly shut down the conversation. I am NOT, no way in hell, having twins. No. End of discussion.

With all the sleep I'm getting I've been a dreaming machine. Dreams about people I don't know, dreams about people that made no significant impact on my life, dreams about making nice, making love, making cookies and angry dreams. I sleep more than cats do now so I suppose it's my brain's way of staying active while my body further mutates.

But I'm feeling better. I've gained 8 pounds so far. My doctor says this is fine, that I could have gained two more by now. I don't think it looks fine though. While in the OBGYN's office I saw these adorable little pregnant girls (and granted, they may have been in their late teens) with nothing bulbous about them save for their cute round little bellies.

I said to my husband "I want to be cute and pregnant, with just a belly, but that won't be me. I'm gonna be Shamu"

And my husband replied: "If Shamu was a crazy white lady"

All According to Plan

I heard the baby’s heartbeat today and I actually shed tears…….. tears of joy, of course. I didn't do that with bambino number one, 7 long years ago. I think the difference here is that I KNOW everything that’s coming with that heartbeat now.

Due to the previous cesarean section they won’t even let me attempt to deliver the old fashioned way……..how tragic.

I’d had a scheduled c-section with the first because she was breech. And she was breech because I honestly think she got too fat to turn around, she was nearly 9 lbs at delivery. So they scheduled me for surgery on Christmas Eve and I was actually disappointed that all my delivery and labor classes, and my gorgeous hospital birthing room, would be all for naught. I would miss out on labor. I would miss out on the “birthing experience” and I was sad about that.

Because I was a 24 year old IDIOT!

This time I’ll be having another scheduled c-section. No fuss, no muss, no hours of screaming agony, no episiotomy, no accidental labor pooping, no cord strangulation, no oblong shaped baby head, no after birth and a recovery period that involves lots of Vicodin.

And while they have me open on an operating table I’ve chosen to have a tubule litigation preformed, otherwise known as having your “tubes tied”. All children hereafter will come in furry dog or cat form.

Thus I proudly present to you MY MASTER PLAN to make it through life, having had two children, without ever knowing the pain of labor or obliterating my vagina.

Ha! Take that nature.

To Travel

Ginger Ale and crackers……it’s okay. Not the miracle I was looking for. I’m sleeping about 13 hours a day, on and off. I’m still feeling like crap for the other 11 hours. When I’m not feeling like crap I’m just tired, and when I’m not tired it’s because I am sleeping again.

THIS IS SO MUCH FUN!

My dear friends Ryan and Jill are getting married this weekend and I’m flying to Seattle to be in the wedding.

I’m Ryan’s best man, or best WOOman. And I was so excited about this for so long. It’s obviously a completely awesome title for anyone with lady parts, but also a huge honor. I met Ryan a little over 10 years ago. He was my ex-husband’s best friend. Ryan is the only other person that truly understood the pain involved in watching my ex slowly disintegrate. We were told the same lies, we shed the same tears, we harbored the same anger. It’s like we’re war buddies. It cemented our friendship. And now, a decade later, I get to be his best(woo)man. It’s wonderful.

I’m wearing a halter tuxedo top, a long black skirt (with tuxedo stripes down the sides and a slit up the back) and what was described as an 80s Vintage Punk Tuxedo Jacket.

It’s all wonderful, expect that I feel like POOP.

With the energy of zilcho I will travel, see friends and family, dress up, doll up my daughter to be their flower girl, take part in the ceremony of two people I dearly love, give a speech, and eventually…..if I’m lucky….. come home and pass out.

But if I can manage not to look exhausted in the photographs I’ll be doing okay.

Week 9: Make it Stop!

Every day I am ill.

Every day I feel as though I’m going to vomit yet never do. It’s a sick little game my body plays with me, day after nauseous day. No climactic projectile finish, no seeming end in sight. To actually puke would serve as an ending, at least for that day. But noooooooooooo……no pukey for me. Just illness. Just three more weeks of illness.

I was in the grocery store yesterday, selecting fresh produce like a good mommy, when a wave of nausea hit me so hard I thought I would lose the contents of my stomach right then and there. The bathroom was clear on the other side of the store and I thought “I’ll have to run! I’ll have to drop my basket and run, and I’ll never make it, I’ll throw up on a little old woman, and that’s when I’ll start crying.”

None of which took place. The wave passed. I made it out of there with my dignity intact.

I went searching for remedies on-line and just when I thought I couldn’t possibly feel more queasy some fantastic internet contributor offered up the following suggestion:

“For nausea, mix jello. Do not let it jell. Drink it warm!”

Moving on from the plain disgusting I found out and out straw-grasping…….or “tongue-grasping” rather.

“Grasp your tongue using a dry, clean cloth and pull it straight out, until it feels quite strained and uncomfortable, then hold it for 30 seconds. Feels weird, looks even weirder, but heck – it’s worth a try!”

To some jerk attempting to cash in on my misery and sell me magic anti-vomit beans.

“Here is How My Natural, Safe Technique Works to End Your Morning Sickness, Quickly and Permanently 100% Guaranteed Results or you pay nothing!”


Ultimately I’ve been told Ginger (tea, ale, etc.) and good old fashioned saltine crackers work wonders. And sweet, sweet lawdy do I need wonders. I need to not feel like my very soul is being sucked out of me. I need the man I married to go to the store.

I need a nap.

Discovery

The story goes……… the first P test gave me a faint plus sign, and I was kind of hoping it was defective.

I went back to the drug store and bought the EPT test. Now let me tell you what's great about EPT, there's no f*cking around. It’s digital and reads "not pregnant" or "pregnant". Pretty straightforward. Fairly difficult to lie to yourself after reading the results.

Mine read "pregnant"







After test number two I figured it was time to fess up to Scott. No tears or sobbing from him, no "oh sh*t" or anything of the sort. He'd been told at a very young age that, due to a medical procedure undergone in that region of his body, he may never have children.
You might say he was elated.......







And so I took a photo of my waistline.......... a farewell tribute.







Dear Waistline,

First off, I'm sorry I got really fat last year.
Whoops.

I know I just lost the 25 lbs I threw on you in 2007 and you and I were once more enjoying the company of cute clothes. I know this. I know bikini weather is back. I know. I'm well aware and I'm so truly sorry.

But I'll see you again.
That is a promise.
Let's make a date for this time next year......May 2009......

2009......Oh Lord........I have to go now, I'm liable to cry. Little emotional these days....ya' know?

Please forgive me, dear Waistline.....please find it within your 20 'sum odd' inches to forgive me.


-Nik

The Blogger

While stumbling through this site and finding other expectant mother blogs one of the first I came across was this http://babycadeau.blogspot.com/. Written by a seemingly lovely lady it chronicles about 8 months of pregnancy and ends in the death of her infant.

OH GOD!

I wanted to chronicle this pregnancy because I remember so little of my last. And if the content was dull or I lost interest there’s always the magic “delete” button.

But now…….oh god.

I don’t want to think about it. I just worked with a woman who recently lost her 4 month old to SIDS. She was not quite right in the head and it may be a long time before she ever will be.

For all my complaints at the beginning of this, I do want the baby.……..please, dear God, let the baby be well.

Happy-Shmappy Pregnancy Test Commercials

Just once in my life I would’ve liked to have taken a pregnancy test and not have it’s positive results followed by “oh sh*t” and sobbing.

Just once.

EPT and/or First Response commercials are thoroughly irritating. The “yay-we’re-pregnant-this-is-what-we’ve-always-wanted-god-bless-us-everyone” commercials. Ask most any regular woman and that was NOT their reaction to a positive pregnancy test. I have absolutely no statistics on this, yet I’m going to bet you a gazillion dollars that the majority of pregnancies on this here planet earth are of the unplanned variety.

A friend of mine tried fervently for 5 years to have children. Her struggle brought her miscarriage after miscarriage, disappointment and heartache. I became pregnant before she did and I felt so guilty. Here she was trying so very hard, she and her husband were seriously considering spending tens of thousands on fertility options, they had a house full of storage bins with baby clothes, shoes and toys she’d bought over the years……..and there I was with a “whoops” baby, and nothing else.

Very gently I relayed to her a fact that resonates as absolute truth in my soul. Children do not happen on YOUR time, they happen on God’s time. Or the cosmos time. Whichever way you like to think of it.

My friend finally conceived a few years after I did and had a healthy baby girl. 3 years after that she gave birth again, this time to twins. Within 3 years time she gained 3 children. Is she happy? Oh…um…..sure she is. Like a freaking EPT commercial. Except that I think if she woke up tomorrow and found herself holding a positive pregnancy test it would be followed by expletives and tears.

And that’s what I would like to see…….just once…….expletives and tears in just one of those pregnancy test commercials.

How great would that be? The scene opens up on a woman in a white tiled bathroom, staring down at a stick with a plus sign on it, and her only line is…..

……. “SON OF A BITCH!”

A History

Many moons ago I was alone. And that was okay.
I’m an only child and I do just fine by myself.

Exactly this time 7 years ago I found out I was pregnant. I was 23 going on 24, newly married and completely terrified. Our “little blessing” was not planned. We weren’t going to have children until we were in our 30’s. HA!

Everything sort of went to downhill after that, mostly details involving my husband’s morality and sobriety. It was somewhat hellish. We eventually divorced. I got on my own two wobbly feet and raised my daughter without aid of government assistance or that helpful little thing they call child support.

We were doing just fine…..by ourselves.

I hadn’t planned on anyone else in the picture. I was not sour on men and I refused to blame others for the mistakes of my ex but I grew up with a rotten step-father. I had so desperately tried to give my daughter a “normal” family, and when I failed at that I worried that her life would mirror mine.

We were doing just fine by ourselves… when Scott came along.

My daughter was 3 when I began dating, and those dates of mine were never allowed to meet her. I didn’t want to be the mom with all the boyfriends, no thanks. So when I met Scott, and determined within our first evening together that I would NEVER sleep with this man (for all the D-R-A-M-A in his life at the time) I deemed him a friend and thus he met my baby Maddy.

He’s the sort of man who’s ‘goodness’ reaches out and hits in you in the face. His energy was irresistible to me. We spent all our time together. Within 3 months we had fallen in love. Within 3 years we were married.

Just married, in fact. He proposed last February and we’d been busy scheduling an April wedding in Arizona and a July wedding in Seattle (don’t ask).

Two weeks before the AZ wedding I missed my period.

So here we go again.......more and more people keep showing up to my party.