I couldn’t fall asleep last night and I started wondering what I should blog about – besides rambling on about Entourage. I know I said I have NOTHING on my mind right now but the truth is this is one of those times when I only have one thing on my mind and it’s something I wish I wasn’t thinking about so I tried ignoring it for awhile and pretending it wasn’t there but that’s completely not working, so here it is.
The truth is I feel fat. Right now I feel really fat. And for me, at least, I kind of am fat.
I am not sure how exactly how much I weighed when I gave birth but pretty much, I’ve gained weight since I gave birth. It’s rotten. I hate thinking about food all the time and I hate being stressed about what I look like when I worked for so long and so very very hard to be thin. I hate it. I really hate that none of my clothes fit me and that eve the things that do fit are all bunchy and too tight and unattractive. I hate the tightness of things and the shortness of things and pulling things down and hitching things up.
Even thinking about this stresses me out so intensely. I hate that I am right back here again. And please don’t tell me that I have nine months to lose it or that I got a baby out of the deal. I know all that. I do. It doesn’t change the fact that I have ONE pair of pants that fit me and a closet full of size 4 clothes and that I weighed 156 pounds when I gave birth and I weigh 149 pounds now and that I just spend two years working my ass off to lose all that weight and now it’s right back on and this feels really hard and really awful and it’s making me feel panicked. I worked harder than I ever have in my life to not feel gross in a pair of shorts and now I can't even look at those shorts. Thinking about shorts and my thighs makes me want to throw up, I'm so stressed out it. That's got to stop, I think.
So. I don’t want to have to buy new clothes. And I don’t want to feel stressed or panicky or fat any more. I don’t want to look down and see rolls. I don’t want to have to fidget with my t shirts. I want to spend some of my summer wearing shorts instead of elastic waisted pajama pants. And I also don’t want to hide the fact that I had a baby and I gained weight and I’m having a lot of trouble with that.
My goal is simple. I want to lose enough weight to fit back into all my clothes. At the same time, when I get there, I want something else I never had before. I want to feel ok about myself. I want to feel enough. I want to feel like I am attractive and I am the right size. I don’t want to wish I weighed five less pounds for the rest of my life.
I’m signing back up with Weight Watchers online. Right now, I think. I was going to wait until Tuesday but I think I have to do it now. I’m going a little crazy and I need something to help me, kind of right now.
I’ve got some new challenges that are scaring me this time around. I’m lucky because I know I can do this, I did it once before. But I also know how hard it is because I already had to do it once. And now I’m also stressed out and bored and really really hungry (from breastfeeding), which for me is a deadly combination. When I am bored and stressed and hungry AND there are ice cream bars in the freezer, look out. All I can think is that it’s just gonna have to be hardcore for a bit. We might just have to buy not buy any freaking ice cream bars for awhile.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
A Glimpse Into the Vast Nothingness That is My Brain
I have to say, it's really wrong how much I love Entourage, and also how often I think to myself "Ooooh, I really like Vince's outfit" As in, I want it for myself. I keep thinking about this navy blue t shirt and these dark jeans and these aviators he had on and wondering where I can get all three of these things. I also can't help but notice that Vince wasn't wearing a two month old baby in a Moby Sling. Perhaps if I get the stupid sling in navy blue it will blend in? Now that I'm a mom I feel hopelessly unhip. I'm one step away from elastic waisted jeans. Actually I'm not even, because the only jeans that would fit me, if I allowed myself to wear them, would be maternity jeans, with an ELASTIC WAIST. Sigh. Tuesday night while watching Entourage I noticed Eli was watching it and that's bad dude! Babies should not watch tv. But it's his favorite show and so I had to ask Mr. E "Do you think Entourage is appropriate for two month olds?" (kidding. I mean, I did ask that, but I was KIDDING.) Although if Eli was allowed to watch TV, I'd let him watch Entourage before Baby Einstein. HATE.
Apropos of nothing, I once asked a friend of mine who was in the navy if he had to wear the "navy outfit" and he gave me a look of withering scorn and informed me that men don't wear outfits. So now whenever I can always tell guys I like their outfits. Isn't that fun? Life of the party over here.
Speaking of men and outfits, Eli is outgrowing all of his little blue sleepers and such at a rapid rate as he doubled his weight in only two months. The doctor seems shocked, but it doesn't surprise me, seeing as how my breastmilk is likely comprised of chocolate, chocolate, and leftover Easter chocolate (thrown in for a little variety).
So, the Moby Wrap. Eli has three snuglis, a maya wrap, another ring sling made of thai silk (it really is gorgeous), an infantino sling rider, and a baby bjorn. Yikes! Luckily, I didn't buy any of this crap, as the only one he likes is the Snugli, but it's hard to get him in and out of, he can't nurse in it, and it hurts my back and shoulders. We're going to try the Ergo once he can hold his head up, but since he refuses to EVER be put down, I need something to use until then, and I'm thinking the Moby wrap. If nothing else it's returnable and my decision has nothing to do with the fact that Brad Pitt is wearing one with Shiloh in it on the cover of US Weekly.
And coincidentally I think I just decided to give up celebrity gossip magazines. I don't read them a lot, as in I don't have a subscription, but I do read them sometimes and I realized they don't make me feel good about myself and who needs that shit? I prefer beating myself up over Martha's stupid impossible craft projects rather than Jessica Biel's ass. But then what do I read on the rare occasion that I get a pedicure? Sartre? Somehow that doesn't seem right.
Must start running again. Am nervous about state of the boobdom during running. Wish me luck.
Have decided to dress child only in stripes. Very Gaultier.
That is all.
E
Apropos of nothing, I once asked a friend of mine who was in the navy if he had to wear the "navy outfit" and he gave me a look of withering scorn and informed me that men don't wear outfits. So now whenever I can always tell guys I like their outfits. Isn't that fun? Life of the party over here.
Speaking of men and outfits, Eli is outgrowing all of his little blue sleepers and such at a rapid rate as he doubled his weight in only two months. The doctor seems shocked, but it doesn't surprise me, seeing as how my breastmilk is likely comprised of chocolate, chocolate, and leftover Easter chocolate (thrown in for a little variety).
So, the Moby Wrap. Eli has three snuglis, a maya wrap, another ring sling made of thai silk (it really is gorgeous), an infantino sling rider, and a baby bjorn. Yikes! Luckily, I didn't buy any of this crap, as the only one he likes is the Snugli, but it's hard to get him in and out of, he can't nurse in it, and it hurts my back and shoulders. We're going to try the Ergo once he can hold his head up, but since he refuses to EVER be put down, I need something to use until then, and I'm thinking the Moby wrap. If nothing else it's returnable and my decision has nothing to do with the fact that Brad Pitt is wearing one with Shiloh in it on the cover of US Weekly.
And coincidentally I think I just decided to give up celebrity gossip magazines. I don't read them a lot, as in I don't have a subscription, but I do read them sometimes and I realized they don't make me feel good about myself and who needs that shit? I prefer beating myself up over Martha's stupid impossible craft projects rather than Jessica Biel's ass. But then what do I read on the rare occasion that I get a pedicure? Sartre? Somehow that doesn't seem right.
Must start running again. Am nervous about state of the boobdom during running. Wish me luck.
Have decided to dress child only in stripes. Very Gaultier.
That is all.
E
Monday, April 23, 2007
Thin Skin
When my son was born I didn’t have an instant bonding moment with him like I’ve heard some people say they have. Waves of love didn’t wash over me and I didn’t cry and I didn’t think “oh my god I love this creature more than anything else on earth ever no matter what.” Which was ok. I was kind of prepared for that. I know myself and I know that sometimes I am slow to warm to these things that involve massive amounts of change all at once and when I didn’t have the overwhelming love wave crash I was fine with it. Plus I was so so so tired and out of it I really didn’t even think that much about it, you know. I knew I was happy, don't get me wrong, but there weren't fireworks in my hospital room or what have you. I'm not that girl.
And then we went home and the business of taking care of another human being took hold and right in the thick of it, covered with breastmilk and spit up and poop and being so incredibly tired and having your period for five weeks and all that, bonding is pretty far down on the list of things you worry about. You just don’t have time. You’re too busy changing diapers and dealing with visitors and endless feeding and baby poop charts and breastfeeding consults.
But we sent out birth announcements for Eli about two weeks after he was born and I was waiting in the car in the post office parking lot while Mr. E mailed one to my cousin who lives in Japan. Eli was in the back seat and despite my misgivings regarding of the moment hipster indie wailings, Sufjan Stevens was playing on my IPOD and the song John Wayne Gacy Jr. came on. And I will admit I’ve never paid super close attention to the words of any Sufjan song but I’ve always found the melody of this particular song really beautiful and haunting and yet when Sufjan started to sing about Mr. Gacy Jr and his predilection for young boys although I am sure I will be kicked out the hipster club forever for saying this, that was it for me and that song. No more for me.
And then when I read a few days later that little Iraqi kids – LITTLE KIDS – were being used as decoys and killed in car bombs in Iraq – I don’t know. Hearing that hurt me in a way it never had before. And then Mr. E’s mom told me about what it was like when her parents sent her brother off to Vietnam and all I could say was I couldn’t imagine and I really couldn’t. I could not imagine that. Eli going off to war. It makes my breath catch just to think of it.
And when Mr. E came home that day last week and told me about what had happened at Virginia Tech I felt the ground lurch under me and I had to grab the counter to keep from throwing up. People’s babies, older, yes, but still, just like mine, lined up and shot. Again, it’s hard for me to breathe when I think of that. It's hard for me to think that we live in a world where that happens. And then I tried to watch Blood Diamond and even that’s just a stupid fake movie and little boys were getting strafed with gunfire and I had to turn it off ten minutes after I started it and when I tried to explain why I couldn’t watch I couldn’t even really explain it but I think Mr. E understood anyway.
People often say that parenthood is like forever having your heart walking around outside your body. I don’t know that I would describe it that way. For me, it’s as if I’ve developed this incredibly thin skin I never had before. I think I’ve always been sensitive, but this is to a different degree.
This might not even make sense. But this is the best way I can think of to explain this thin skin of mine - and what feels like a constant heartache for the violence of our world. I heard that Sufjan song, thought of boys scared and hurt or worse; and on that same day I looked down at Eli’s hands and saw that on one of his fingers he has this tiny little ragged crooked fingernail. And it hit me, all at once, that somehow that tiny tiny fingernail, something so incredibly small - had just become my whole whole world.
And then we went home and the business of taking care of another human being took hold and right in the thick of it, covered with breastmilk and spit up and poop and being so incredibly tired and having your period for five weeks and all that, bonding is pretty far down on the list of things you worry about. You just don’t have time. You’re too busy changing diapers and dealing with visitors and endless feeding and baby poop charts and breastfeeding consults.
But we sent out birth announcements for Eli about two weeks after he was born and I was waiting in the car in the post office parking lot while Mr. E mailed one to my cousin who lives in Japan. Eli was in the back seat and despite my misgivings regarding of the moment hipster indie wailings, Sufjan Stevens was playing on my IPOD and the song John Wayne Gacy Jr. came on. And I will admit I’ve never paid super close attention to the words of any Sufjan song but I’ve always found the melody of this particular song really beautiful and haunting and yet when Sufjan started to sing about Mr. Gacy Jr and his predilection for young boys although I am sure I will be kicked out the hipster club forever for saying this, that was it for me and that song. No more for me.
And then when I read a few days later that little Iraqi kids – LITTLE KIDS – were being used as decoys and killed in car bombs in Iraq – I don’t know. Hearing that hurt me in a way it never had before. And then Mr. E’s mom told me about what it was like when her parents sent her brother off to Vietnam and all I could say was I couldn’t imagine and I really couldn’t. I could not imagine that. Eli going off to war. It makes my breath catch just to think of it.
And when Mr. E came home that day last week and told me about what had happened at Virginia Tech I felt the ground lurch under me and I had to grab the counter to keep from throwing up. People’s babies, older, yes, but still, just like mine, lined up and shot. Again, it’s hard for me to breathe when I think of that. It's hard for me to think that we live in a world where that happens. And then I tried to watch Blood Diamond and even that’s just a stupid fake movie and little boys were getting strafed with gunfire and I had to turn it off ten minutes after I started it and when I tried to explain why I couldn’t watch I couldn’t even really explain it but I think Mr. E understood anyway.
People often say that parenthood is like forever having your heart walking around outside your body. I don’t know that I would describe it that way. For me, it’s as if I’ve developed this incredibly thin skin I never had before. I think I’ve always been sensitive, but this is to a different degree.
This might not even make sense. But this is the best way I can think of to explain this thin skin of mine - and what feels like a constant heartache for the violence of our world. I heard that Sufjan song, thought of boys scared and hurt or worse; and on that same day I looked down at Eli’s hands and saw that on one of his fingers he has this tiny little ragged crooked fingernail. And it hit me, all at once, that somehow that tiny tiny fingernail, something so incredibly small - had just become my whole whole world.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Picking Up Socks
You know how when you were a kid and your brother never did any of his dishes and so you did them for him every single time? Or when you were in college and your roommate left her rabbit in her room and you ended up cleaning up the rabbit poop that was all over the hallway of your apartment? Or how when you first moved in with your now husband and he left his socks on the bedroom floor and you picked them up for him every fucking morning? And you know how every time you did the dishes and picked up the poop or washed the socks it pissed you off immensely, but not as much as the fact that every time you complained to each of these totally irresponsible people their answer to the situation was always "Well, don't do my dishes, then" or "Don't pick up my socks, if it makes you so mad."
I wish, with every fiber of my being, that I was that person. I so wish I was the person who could step over dirty socks every morning of my life, ignore them forever, and leave them there until they crumbled into non existence, eons from now.
I am so so so so so so not that person.
I wish, with every fiber of my being, that I was that person. I so wish I was the person who could step over dirty socks every morning of my life, ignore them forever, and leave them there until they crumbled into non existence, eons from now.
I am so so so so so so not that person.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Thanks Mom
Lately I find myself doing something I really don't want to be doing.
And that is this:
I'm very judgemental of moms who don't breastfeed.
Not out loud, and not on purpose, and I told myself ahead of time I wouldn't be a mommy judger and I'd just mind my own damn business, but the judgement happens, in my head, all the same, despite all this. Of course I wish I wasn't like this, and so I'm working on not doing it, and as I thought about how to not be like this I started thinking about why am like this and I think it's the same reason that while I was in the process of losing sixty pounds I was so judgemental of everyone else who wasn't. I was extremely judgemental of the larger person in my office who ate a bag of Chex Mix every day as a snack and I couldn't help myself then either, and the reason I think I do this is because when I work so hard at something, it's really hard for me when other people don't.
In other words, dieting sucks. NOT eating the ice cream sucks. And guess what? Breastfeeding sucks too. It's really hard and it's never ending and it's just not something I really enjoy. I do it anyway, because it's something that's important to me. Just like I DIDN'T eat the bagel. But when you are making yourself do something that is really difficult and that often times sucks and that you wouldn't choose to do if there were any other way, it makes you really bitter towards all the other people who aren't choosing that path. Not eating the bagel makes you kind of hate the bagel eater even though you know all the good reasons why you shouldn't. Breastfeeding is so hard, and I am making myself do it any way, and so I judge people who don't.
Man, that sucks to admit that, because it makes me sound like a huge asshole, I know. Maybe it's just that simple. I need to not judge people who chose another way because otherwise I am a huge asshole. And there's really no excuse for it, sadly.
The more I think about it the more I think that my problem is that breastfeeding is a thankless task. Although I have convinced myself that it is of the utmost importance that my child never consumes a drop of formula, let's be honest here...we'll never know if it made a damn bit of difference in anything, in the long run, and he'll almost certainly never say thank you, at least not out loud. When was the last time you called up your mom and thanked her for all the boob time so many years ago? Yeah, me neither.
What it comes down to is this. There's so many good reasons to breastfeed and none of them mitigate the fact that for me, breastfeeding is incredibly hard and I have to force myself to do it every single time and this makes me resent everyone who doesn't. In my search for freedom of this resentment I searched for some deeper meaning, some real reason why I was doing this besides the fact that supposedly someday my son might have improved muscle tone or some other La Leche league hoo ha and all that. And then I remembered that once upon a time, someone breastfed me. My mom sat with me for countless hours and breastfed me for a gazillion years and I never said one word of thanks to her either.
So yeah. I'm breastfeeding. It sucks. And I'm doing it anyway, beacuse someone who loved me once did it for me. And I hope that this circle, this feeling of, I guess, repayment? Will somehow give me a chance to let go.
And that is this:
I'm very judgemental of moms who don't breastfeed.
Not out loud, and not on purpose, and I told myself ahead of time I wouldn't be a mommy judger and I'd just mind my own damn business, but the judgement happens, in my head, all the same, despite all this. Of course I wish I wasn't like this, and so I'm working on not doing it, and as I thought about how to not be like this I started thinking about why am like this and I think it's the same reason that while I was in the process of losing sixty pounds I was so judgemental of everyone else who wasn't. I was extremely judgemental of the larger person in my office who ate a bag of Chex Mix every day as a snack and I couldn't help myself then either, and the reason I think I do this is because when I work so hard at something, it's really hard for me when other people don't.
In other words, dieting sucks. NOT eating the ice cream sucks. And guess what? Breastfeeding sucks too. It's really hard and it's never ending and it's just not something I really enjoy. I do it anyway, because it's something that's important to me. Just like I DIDN'T eat the bagel. But when you are making yourself do something that is really difficult and that often times sucks and that you wouldn't choose to do if there were any other way, it makes you really bitter towards all the other people who aren't choosing that path. Not eating the bagel makes you kind of hate the bagel eater even though you know all the good reasons why you shouldn't. Breastfeeding is so hard, and I am making myself do it any way, and so I judge people who don't.
Man, that sucks to admit that, because it makes me sound like a huge asshole, I know. Maybe it's just that simple. I need to not judge people who chose another way because otherwise I am a huge asshole. And there's really no excuse for it, sadly.
The more I think about it the more I think that my problem is that breastfeeding is a thankless task. Although I have convinced myself that it is of the utmost importance that my child never consumes a drop of formula, let's be honest here...we'll never know if it made a damn bit of difference in anything, in the long run, and he'll almost certainly never say thank you, at least not out loud. When was the last time you called up your mom and thanked her for all the boob time so many years ago? Yeah, me neither.
What it comes down to is this. There's so many good reasons to breastfeed and none of them mitigate the fact that for me, breastfeeding is incredibly hard and I have to force myself to do it every single time and this makes me resent everyone who doesn't. In my search for freedom of this resentment I searched for some deeper meaning, some real reason why I was doing this besides the fact that supposedly someday my son might have improved muscle tone or some other La Leche league hoo ha and all that. And then I remembered that once upon a time, someone breastfed me. My mom sat with me for countless hours and breastfed me for a gazillion years and I never said one word of thanks to her either.
So yeah. I'm breastfeeding. It sucks. And I'm doing it anyway, beacuse someone who loved me once did it for me. And I hope that this circle, this feeling of, I guess, repayment? Will somehow give me a chance to let go.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Days to Remember (BTW, this is incredibly long)
Previously:
Mr. E came home from his week long trip to San Francisco.
The nursery was finished.
Our tax return came.
Our dryer started working and every scrap of baby clothing was washed and folded and put away.
We blew off our final childbirth class.
I went in for my non stress test and the doctor said the baby was doing fine.
Mr. E’s mom sent an embroidered ABC for the nursery and when I opened the box a piece of styrofoam had worked itself loose from the packaging and there, clear as day, was a styrofoam E, staring up at me.
I got a new cell phone that actually worked.
Mr. E and I went out for a really nice, quiet dinner. Chinese food. We got these two fortunes:
An important word of advice may come from the mouth of a child.
Now is the time to call loved ones at a distance. Share your news.
We were headed into a three day weekend.
I breathed a sigh of relief. And for the first time in nine months, I relaxed.
I woke at 6 am on the morning of February 16th and I thought it might have been the Chinese food from the night before but probably not and I said to Mr. E “I think I might be having contractions.” They weren’t anything super painful, in retrospect, and they didn’t last very long, and I wasn’t sure they were much of anything, but at the same time, they seemed different than any of the weird random periody pains I’d had before. Still, they seemed like not much, so Mr. E went off to work and I said I’d call him if things picked up.
I didn’t do very much that day. It’s weird, but I can honestly say I have never in my life felt so mellow. Maybe I was tired, I don’t know, but I just felt this bizarre calm and I think that’s what made feel that I was in labor, more than anything else. I actually took a nap, and I am so not a napper. I just felt this intense peace, an intense calm and that’s not something I normally feel, really ever. It was weird, but cool at the same time.
At about 3:45 I noticed I had some bleeding and since I couldn’t remember if that was one of those “go to the hospital right now” kind of things I called labor and delivery and they told me it sounded like early labor and not to come in until my contractions were 4-6 minutes apart.
At that point I decided that yes, I was really in labor, even if it was early labor, and that this was really happening, and I called Mr. E. He was in his company’s annual meeting so I told him to stay there but then I realized I was HAVING A BABY and in a rare moment of decisiveness I said “No, you know what? That’s stupid. Come home.” And he did.
So there we were. The contractions weren’t coming that often, and they weren’t that severe. It was a weird feeling because they hurt, don’t get me wrong, I was breathing through them and they definitely didn’t feel nice, but I was laughing and joking and talking to Mr. E in between them and every time I did I could feel myself think “Oh, laugh now, you fool, they’re going to get so much worse.” (And so they did.)
For awhile Mr. E and I just hung out. We sat on the couch and he rubbed my feet and we just talked. At one point I turned to him and said “You know what’s crazy? All those times you heard your mom tell you the story of the day you were born? This is HIS story, happening right now.” And we both just looked at each other and I think somehow that was the moment that it all seemed real.
But then it got sort of boring, and we didn’t have any food or anything in the house, and we still needed like, diapers and wipes and god knows what else. So we went to Target and bought $350 dollars worth of stuff I thought I needed to give birth and I am here to tell you – don’t take the tags off this stuff. As you will see later on in the story, most of it I did not use. But we did get diapers and stuff and I also think it adds something to the story that I went into labor and went to Target. Really, that says a lot about me, no? Perhaps just that I really love Target.
We also stopped by the grocery store because despite all the warnings of barfage I was starving and I just really needed a turkey sandwich, and right when I walked in there was the nurse from my OB’s office. The only nurse I had the whole time I was pregnant, the one who told Mr. E he was an inspiration, right there in Safeway while I was in labor. Crazy. She gave me a big hug and asked how I was and I said “I’m fine, I’m in labor!” She said “I can tell!” and told me not to eat anything I didn’t want to see later. She was right too, but I’d eat that turkey sandwich again if I had it to do over. (I was really hungry.)
We went home, did some laundry, and then the contractions started to ramp up. Now, let me tell you. I really really didn’t want to be one of those people who got sent home from the hospital. I just thought that seemed so…stupid. Like, can’t you tell when you should go to the hospital? Did you not pay attention in birth class? I was not going to be one of those girls. Except that I totally was and I also had no idea what I was doing, and also my contractions were so erratic that it was hard to tell how far apart they were and Mr. E thought we should go to the hospital and I pretty much agreed and again, had no idea what I was doing, so we went.
As soon as we got to the hospital, I could tell they were going to send us home. I could tell we were there too early. And they made me lie down and put monitors on me and of course lying down made my contractions slow waaaaay down to the point where they were barely coming at all. When they did come, they hurt, so there was no doubt in my mind that I was in labor, but to be honest with you, the nurse seemed dubious. They told me I was maybe 1.5 centimeters dilated and asked me all sorts of questions and after leaving me on the monitors for a while longer they sent me home. We signed early discharge papers and the nurse told me not to come back until my contractions were 3-5 minutes apart for AN HOUR. She said “FOR AN HOUR” loudly and slowly like we were total morons – and told us that we could try having sex to speed things along. (I might not have been in active labor or what have you at that point, but I so wasn’t going to have sex. Eight minutes apart or no, the contractions HURT and I wasn’t about to stick anything else up there if I didn’t have to.) The nurse also said to come back if I had a contraction that I couldn’t walk, talk, or breathe during. And to keep my next doctor’s appointment on TUESDAY. (This was Saturday night).
I have no idea why I didn’t say “Lady, unless I’m in labor for 72 hours, I won’t be having an appointment on Tuesday”, but I just…didn’t. Deep down I knew that wasn’t going to be happening, that I was really in labor, and I wouldn’t be pregnant for that much longer, but I guess I didn’t really realize that at this point, the nurses really didn’t think I was in real labor, or something. I don’t know. I’m not one to argue with authority. I just assumed they knew what they were doing. Just goes to show you. Trust yourself. Trust YOURSELF.
I should have trusted myself.
And so we went home. I think I had about three contractions in the parking lot walking back to the car. They started to really hurt. And I was really really tired. Mostly I was discouraged because I had just become that girl who gets sent home from the hospital. I had not aced the having a baby test and it just felt…shitty. I felt like I had failed and I felt like an idiot.
I think it was about midnight when we got home, maybe a little bit earlier. I was exhausted, which absolutely sucked, because I don’t know about you, but it was hard for me to sleep knowing I was going to experience blinding pain about four minutes from the last time the blinding pain woke me up. But we went to bed and I tried to sleep while I went on having contractions.
At some point things started to blur. I know the contractions got worse, but not necessarily closer together. Mr. E would fall asleep, and a contraction would hit, and I’d yell his name and he’d wake up, write down the time, rub my back, and then fall back asleep after the contraction was over. At some point we’d called my best friend and she arrived and Mr. E got up and made coffee and watched tv in the other room and then I’d yell his name and he’d come running in from the other room. I’d check with him sometimes since he was the one writing down the times to see if things were progressing and getting closer together, but he was always sort of vague, mainly because the timing was so erratic and so the contractions still weren’t three to five minutes apart.
Meanwhile Mr. E had called all of our family members and I’m here to tell you if you go into labor and you’re at home turn off your phone! The phone kept ringing and it was driving me crazy. I have no idea why we didn’t turn it off. To be honest with you at that point I don’t think I was at my most coherent. I don’t think I was capable of saying “Turn the phone off please it’s driving me crazy.”
I remember reading that there’s this stage of labor you enter where the joking ends and you are doing the serious hard work of labor and you just settle down to business and you sort of…go to another place. I can say looking back that this was 100% how it was for me, but at the time I didn’t realize it was happening. I was just sort of…in it. I didn’t want any music, I didn’t want to talk to anyone or be touched. I just wanted to do my thing and be left alone. And this is when I didn’t use my magazines or my labor music cd’s or my birth ball or my fancy massage oil or my slippers or my new soft pajamas or my us weekly or my popsicles or any of the other crap I was convinced I needed to give birth correctly, so keep that in mind. If things had gone according to my plan I probably would have been in the hospital with a fatty epidural, whiling away my time while checking out my freshly pedicured toes and eating a popsicle and reading about Britney, but for natural childbirth? I doubt you would need any of that crap.
Sometime around four in the morning I threw up, three different times on three different contractions. Considering how much I hate throwing up, it wasn’t that bad.
The contractions got worse. But still not more consistent. At some point I decided that the birth class people and their various admonitions to breathe and relax and move around could go fuck themselves, and I started holding my breath and tensing my whole body during every contraction. I would scratch the back of my hands and down my arms with my fingernails because that other pain was the only thing that helped me get through the contractions. I have never wanted to get away from anything more in my whole life. I had a strong feeling that I wanted to run away from my own body.
And yet, I endured. I had a strange calm. And honestly? The pain is bad. It is bad. But it lasts for maybe, a minute? And then it goes away. So really, you can take it, because it just doesn’t last for that long, you know?
There’s this line in the sand between women who have given birth and women who haven’t. After I gave birth, all my friends and family called to congratulate me and then after the initial niceties every woman friend I have who hasn’t had a baby yet wanted to know about the pain. How much it hurts, what is it worse than? And I always said the same thing. It really really hurts. It’s worse than really, all other pain you’ve ever felt. But it’s for a very short amount of time. It goes away. And you can take almost anything for a minute at a time.
Things started to get more intense. Every time I would have a contraction, I’d get incredibly hot, throw off all the covers, and then as soon as it was over, I’d be freezing cold and I’d start shaking I was shivering so hard and I’d have to pull all the blankets back over myself and try to get warm. Mr. E would push on my back as hard as he could and he would also rub my stomach, which helped a lot. And because the pain was so intense even though the contractions still weren’t very regular, at some point he called the hospital again. They told him again that it sounded like I was still in early labor, and that I shouldn’t come in yet. I was having contractions so intense I would see stars and I could tell that I would black out soon, and that was when I decided that if this was still early labor, I could not do it without an epidural. If it was going to get worse, I knew I could not do it without an epidural, so my goal was just to make it to the hospital, where I would hopefully be dilated enough that they wouldn’t send me home, and then I would have an epidural. I remember thinking that I was going to have to do a blog post about how it turned out I was a giant wimp who couldn’t take any pain at all and had to have an epidural in early labor at about three centimeters. I think my title was going to be “It turns out I am a giant wimp”
I don’t know if you can tell from reading this, but I was SO NOT in early labor at this point. Even though my contractions were never within the time frame that the hospital specified, I was way way way into like, transition labor. But we had no way of knowing that. Looking back I have no idea why we didn’t realize that I would have been dilated at least enough to stay at the hospital if we had gone, but all I can say is that I had no idea what I was doing. I’d never had a baby before and I was also totally out of it, and in so much pain, and I had already been sent home once and by god I was going to follow their rules and every time I had a contraction even though I would almost black out I would think “I probably could have talked during that if I really had to” and the contractions were still sometimes six minutes or seven minutes apart and so we stayed at home.
Mr. E went in and got all the shit out of the shower and turned it on high and turned on the heat lamps in the bathroom and he made me get in the shower and lord, that helped so much. I argued and argued and argued with him about getting in there as I had told him ahead of time that I would and so he ignored me and pretty much grabbed me and took my clothes off and put me in the shower. And then the contractions started to come much much faster. But the shower was heavenly. It helped my back so much. I had to sit down on the floor eventually because my legs were buckling underneath me with every contraction, and I was afraid I would fall, but I stayed in the shower until the hot water ran out.
When I got out of the shower and got back in bed, once again the contractions slowed way down, maybe to five or six minutes apart. And so even though they had been very close together in the shower, I was convinced I would get to the hospital, they would make me lie down so they could put on the monitors, the contractions would slow down again, and they would send me home.
Thank goodness for Mr. E. He called my sister in law, who’s an ob gyn nurse, and she told him that the intensity of the contractions also mattered a lot, and she asked if I had started telling people to shut up or if I seemed crabby? Mr. E told her yes, and yes, and she told him to get me to the hospital right away.
So then we finally went to the hospital. I argued the whole way. I did not want to go. I was convinced that we would be sent home. The contractions slowed down again, although I did have three or four in the car. I couldn’t even yell out anymore that I was having one, I would just grunt. Other than that no one said a word. Every time a contraction would hit, I would grip the armrest as hard as I could, push my body upwards, rigid, out of the car seat, and hold my breath and clench all my muscles as tight as I could. It was just…how I got through it, good or bad, that was how I did it.
I do remember thinking how surreal it was that it was the middle of the day, a bright sunlit morning. I always thought of having babies as something that happened at night.
We got the hospital at about 10:50 AM. Mr. E parked, and we walked in from the parking lot. I would stop and hold onto his arm and brace my whole body against him every time I had a contraction. We must have looked sort of funny, a woman stopped and asked if we were ok, and Mr. E said, very matter of factly “Oh, she’s in labor.” The woman said, “Oh, I just had a baby three days ago, I’ll get you a wheelchair.” A few moments later, two nurses came running out with a wheelchair, and I remember thinking, I don’t need a wheelchair! And as soon as I sat in it, it was wonderful. It was amazing. One of the nurses ran ahead to alert labor and delivery, and I remember thinking “the contractions aren’t that close together, no one needs to alert labor and delivery”. It is really interesting to note how differently we were treated the two times we came in. Outside observers could easily tell the difference in my state, and I couldn’t.
As soon as we got to Labor and Delivery I was wheeled to my room and they said a nurse would be in shortly. Changing seemed like such an enormous project, and I almost just gave up right then and there, but instead I took off my pajamas and my University of Minnesota sweatshirt and put on the hospital gown and sat on the bed. The nurse came in to check me and as soon as she did I could tell that things were different this time. I had my eyes closed and I was really out of it, but I will never forget that moment when the nurse, sounding shocked as hell, said “Oh hon. Hon. You are at ten centimeters. You are DONE.” That was when I decided I was going to change the title of my blog post to “It turns out I’m a ROCK STAR.”
I was so out of it at that point, I don’t remember too much. I think I was relieved, that I wouldn’t have to go home, that I had made it as far as I thought I had to make it. Someone asked me if they could get me anything, and I said (polite to the end) “I would like an epidural as soon as possible, please.”
People were running in and out my room. I remember chaos and lots of fast talking, and looking up and seeing a nurse or someone ripping a bag open, people wheeling carts and pushing things around. Things were hectic, to say the least. My room was full of people, everyone doing something as fast as they could.
My memory from this time comes only in flashes. Whole chunks of time passed as if in an instant.
I could not stop shaking. Someone told me to nod my head if I gave Mr. E consent to answer questions for me and I nodded and then they started firing questions at him. They tried to put an IV in my arm and they were fucking it up and I remember feeling so glad that it was hurting because that pain was so minor it actually felt NICE.
The nurse who told me I could have an epidural came back and told me that she had talked to my doctor and that unfortunately there wasn’t any point in giving me one, that I had done all the work and that it wouldn’t make any difference in the pushing part of it, that it was a whole different kind of pain and I just didn’t need one now. I don’t remember this part, but Mr. E says that when they told me that, I started to cry.
My doctor showed up, in jeans and a t shirt. I was very relieved to see her, because a.) she’s awesome, and b.) I was worried that when they said they had to call my doctor that it would take forever for her to get there.
By the way. Let me say going into this that I am not your most cavalier of people. In the months leading up to giving birth, I worried about how much it might hurt, of course, but I was also worried that it was going to be really embarrassing, that I might poop and how gross that would be, that everyone would see my cha cha, that I’d have to breastfeed afterwards in front of everyone, that it would be so…undignified when they moved the bed around and got it all set so I could give birth.
And let me just assure you that (no pun intended) by the time I got that point, I didn’t give a crap about any of that. The end of the bed was whipped off and there was a giant spotlight situation going on down there and fifty million nurses and interns and various sorts staring at my girl parts and I could not have cared less. Just simply didn’t care at that point.
My doctor told me she was going to break my water, and I remember thinking…WAIT. Wait. It was all going so fast. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready. But birth waits for no man, and my water was broken.
Before she broke my water the doctor felt my stomach and said that she didn’t think the baby would be small after all, but after she broke my water she said that she was changing her mind, that there was so much fluid that she was pretty sure that yes, he was going to be tiny.
She told me how to push. I asked her long it was going to take. It makes no sense but I was both terrified that it was going to take hours to push the baby and certain that it would not. She pointed out that my room was full of people and that was a really good sign, and maybe that was it, the level of frenetic activity, that reassured me that things weren’t going to be lengthy.
Pushing was my least favorite part of the whole process. I was not prepared for pushing. I had somehow believed, up to this point, that pushing was going to feel great. That the pain would subside and I would have this incredible urge to push and I would push like hell and it would be AWESOME.
People. It was not awesome. I could not tell when to push. I never had the urge. And it hurt, in a terrible grinding relentless burning shoving tearing kind of way that I was not prepared for. The nurses and my doctor coached me like hell and got me through it, and it only took about three contractions, but it was not fun. And indeed, the earlier contraction pain was very different. It felt useful. It felt like my body was doing something it was intended to do. Pushing felt…horrible. It felt like I was doing something horrible to my body and it felt wrong, like I was ripping myself in two and nothing was happening and it wasn’t right. But the nurses helped immeasurably and they told me when to push and my doctor told me I was losing the power of the contraction, and to take a deep breath when they told me to and then to push like hell, and then when the nurse said “don’t lose this one, don’t lose your progress” I made up my mind to just push through it and that the worse it was, the faster it would be over. I am sure I pooped, and I did not care. You are pushing so hard and it hurts so much, I am sure you must always poop. How could you not? You’re pushing with everything you have.
And then the head was out. It hurt like hell. The doctor asked if I wanted to touch his head, and I said no. I held Mr. E’s hand and I held my best friends hand on the other side and I pushed one more time and then he was half out, they make you wait to push again while they suction him and that part is terrible, you just want the baby OUT and you have to wait. You breathe and you wait. Then they said “give one more tiny push” and I thought it was the best moment of my life when I gave that one tiny push and out he came. Man. It was amazing. It felt amazing to have that pain over with. The cord was wrapped all around him so they unwrapped him as quick as pie and it all happened in an instant, that tiny push, the pain ending, someone saying “it’s a boy” and him slung way up high in the corner of my vision - that long gray body - and then crying and then there he was on my stomach.
And Eli was born.
They took him away and cleaned him up and Mr. E cut the cord and the placenta came out. I didn’t have to push for that, it just came out, and my doctor said “after the placenta comes out, you are going to feel GREAT” and she was right. THAT was the best feeling in the world. I thought I felt great before after the baby came out, but man, I felt so much better after the placenta came out, I felt amazing.
I could not stop shaking. I must have been in shock. At no point do I remember wondering where the baby was. They brought me three blankets from the warmer before I stopped shaking.
At this point all the nurses and everyone must have heard the story of how I got I sent home and then came back at 10 centimeters dilated and I was getting a lot of comments. One nurse saw the book from our childbirth class on the table and asked who it belonged to and when I told her it was mine she said “Well, you get an A on that class.”
They brought Eli back when he was all wrapped up, wearing that weird little hat they give the babies, with the pink and blue stripes. He was all swaddled up and I remember what a warm and compact and surprising little bundle he was. All the nurses had commented on how long his arms and legs were but he was indeed tiny, 5 pounds 6 ounces. It sounds not so tiny, really, when you hear it, but when you see it in a baby, when you see a baby that size next to the enormous clothes you brought to bring him home that he can’t wear, you realize how tiny it is.
I remember things only in patches from the rest of that morning. Mostly I remember holding my son and thinking “This is it. This is the most important moment of my life.”
And most of all I remember staring at Eli’s tiny perfect face and then tilting my head up to look at Mr. E and seeing him and just smiling. Just staring back and forth between the two of them and I could not stop smiling, and I was still so out of it I didn’t ask about Apgars and I didn’t count toes and I didn’t really think or say or do anything more than just sit there, holding my son, and feeling happy, and this sounds cheesier than anything I would like to admit in printed form, but I swear I had that song “These Are the Days” running through my head the whole time.
And then we were three.
Mr. E came home from his week long trip to San Francisco.
The nursery was finished.
Our tax return came.
Our dryer started working and every scrap of baby clothing was washed and folded and put away.
We blew off our final childbirth class.
I went in for my non stress test and the doctor said the baby was doing fine.
Mr. E’s mom sent an embroidered ABC for the nursery and when I opened the box a piece of styrofoam had worked itself loose from the packaging and there, clear as day, was a styrofoam E, staring up at me.
I got a new cell phone that actually worked.
Mr. E and I went out for a really nice, quiet dinner. Chinese food. We got these two fortunes:
An important word of advice may come from the mouth of a child.
Now is the time to call loved ones at a distance. Share your news.
We were headed into a three day weekend.
I breathed a sigh of relief. And for the first time in nine months, I relaxed.
I woke at 6 am on the morning of February 16th and I thought it might have been the Chinese food from the night before but probably not and I said to Mr. E “I think I might be having contractions.” They weren’t anything super painful, in retrospect, and they didn’t last very long, and I wasn’t sure they were much of anything, but at the same time, they seemed different than any of the weird random periody pains I’d had before. Still, they seemed like not much, so Mr. E went off to work and I said I’d call him if things picked up.
I didn’t do very much that day. It’s weird, but I can honestly say I have never in my life felt so mellow. Maybe I was tired, I don’t know, but I just felt this bizarre calm and I think that’s what made feel that I was in labor, more than anything else. I actually took a nap, and I am so not a napper. I just felt this intense peace, an intense calm and that’s not something I normally feel, really ever. It was weird, but cool at the same time.
At about 3:45 I noticed I had some bleeding and since I couldn’t remember if that was one of those “go to the hospital right now” kind of things I called labor and delivery and they told me it sounded like early labor and not to come in until my contractions were 4-6 minutes apart.
At that point I decided that yes, I was really in labor, even if it was early labor, and that this was really happening, and I called Mr. E. He was in his company’s annual meeting so I told him to stay there but then I realized I was HAVING A BABY and in a rare moment of decisiveness I said “No, you know what? That’s stupid. Come home.” And he did.
So there we were. The contractions weren’t coming that often, and they weren’t that severe. It was a weird feeling because they hurt, don’t get me wrong, I was breathing through them and they definitely didn’t feel nice, but I was laughing and joking and talking to Mr. E in between them and every time I did I could feel myself think “Oh, laugh now, you fool, they’re going to get so much worse.” (And so they did.)
For awhile Mr. E and I just hung out. We sat on the couch and he rubbed my feet and we just talked. At one point I turned to him and said “You know what’s crazy? All those times you heard your mom tell you the story of the day you were born? This is HIS story, happening right now.” And we both just looked at each other and I think somehow that was the moment that it all seemed real.
But then it got sort of boring, and we didn’t have any food or anything in the house, and we still needed like, diapers and wipes and god knows what else. So we went to Target and bought $350 dollars worth of stuff I thought I needed to give birth and I am here to tell you – don’t take the tags off this stuff. As you will see later on in the story, most of it I did not use. But we did get diapers and stuff and I also think it adds something to the story that I went into labor and went to Target. Really, that says a lot about me, no? Perhaps just that I really love Target.
We also stopped by the grocery store because despite all the warnings of barfage I was starving and I just really needed a turkey sandwich, and right when I walked in there was the nurse from my OB’s office. The only nurse I had the whole time I was pregnant, the one who told Mr. E he was an inspiration, right there in Safeway while I was in labor. Crazy. She gave me a big hug and asked how I was and I said “I’m fine, I’m in labor!” She said “I can tell!” and told me not to eat anything I didn’t want to see later. She was right too, but I’d eat that turkey sandwich again if I had it to do over. (I was really hungry.)
We went home, did some laundry, and then the contractions started to ramp up. Now, let me tell you. I really really didn’t want to be one of those people who got sent home from the hospital. I just thought that seemed so…stupid. Like, can’t you tell when you should go to the hospital? Did you not pay attention in birth class? I was not going to be one of those girls. Except that I totally was and I also had no idea what I was doing, and also my contractions were so erratic that it was hard to tell how far apart they were and Mr. E thought we should go to the hospital and I pretty much agreed and again, had no idea what I was doing, so we went.
As soon as we got to the hospital, I could tell they were going to send us home. I could tell we were there too early. And they made me lie down and put monitors on me and of course lying down made my contractions slow waaaaay down to the point where they were barely coming at all. When they did come, they hurt, so there was no doubt in my mind that I was in labor, but to be honest with you, the nurse seemed dubious. They told me I was maybe 1.5 centimeters dilated and asked me all sorts of questions and after leaving me on the monitors for a while longer they sent me home. We signed early discharge papers and the nurse told me not to come back until my contractions were 3-5 minutes apart for AN HOUR. She said “FOR AN HOUR” loudly and slowly like we were total morons – and told us that we could try having sex to speed things along. (I might not have been in active labor or what have you at that point, but I so wasn’t going to have sex. Eight minutes apart or no, the contractions HURT and I wasn’t about to stick anything else up there if I didn’t have to.) The nurse also said to come back if I had a contraction that I couldn’t walk, talk, or breathe during. And to keep my next doctor’s appointment on TUESDAY. (This was Saturday night).
I have no idea why I didn’t say “Lady, unless I’m in labor for 72 hours, I won’t be having an appointment on Tuesday”, but I just…didn’t. Deep down I knew that wasn’t going to be happening, that I was really in labor, and I wouldn’t be pregnant for that much longer, but I guess I didn’t really realize that at this point, the nurses really didn’t think I was in real labor, or something. I don’t know. I’m not one to argue with authority. I just assumed they knew what they were doing. Just goes to show you. Trust yourself. Trust YOURSELF.
I should have trusted myself.
And so we went home. I think I had about three contractions in the parking lot walking back to the car. They started to really hurt. And I was really really tired. Mostly I was discouraged because I had just become that girl who gets sent home from the hospital. I had not aced the having a baby test and it just felt…shitty. I felt like I had failed and I felt like an idiot.
I think it was about midnight when we got home, maybe a little bit earlier. I was exhausted, which absolutely sucked, because I don’t know about you, but it was hard for me to sleep knowing I was going to experience blinding pain about four minutes from the last time the blinding pain woke me up. But we went to bed and I tried to sleep while I went on having contractions.
At some point things started to blur. I know the contractions got worse, but not necessarily closer together. Mr. E would fall asleep, and a contraction would hit, and I’d yell his name and he’d wake up, write down the time, rub my back, and then fall back asleep after the contraction was over. At some point we’d called my best friend and she arrived and Mr. E got up and made coffee and watched tv in the other room and then I’d yell his name and he’d come running in from the other room. I’d check with him sometimes since he was the one writing down the times to see if things were progressing and getting closer together, but he was always sort of vague, mainly because the timing was so erratic and so the contractions still weren’t three to five minutes apart.
Meanwhile Mr. E had called all of our family members and I’m here to tell you if you go into labor and you’re at home turn off your phone! The phone kept ringing and it was driving me crazy. I have no idea why we didn’t turn it off. To be honest with you at that point I don’t think I was at my most coherent. I don’t think I was capable of saying “Turn the phone off please it’s driving me crazy.”
I remember reading that there’s this stage of labor you enter where the joking ends and you are doing the serious hard work of labor and you just settle down to business and you sort of…go to another place. I can say looking back that this was 100% how it was for me, but at the time I didn’t realize it was happening. I was just sort of…in it. I didn’t want any music, I didn’t want to talk to anyone or be touched. I just wanted to do my thing and be left alone. And this is when I didn’t use my magazines or my labor music cd’s or my birth ball or my fancy massage oil or my slippers or my new soft pajamas or my us weekly or my popsicles or any of the other crap I was convinced I needed to give birth correctly, so keep that in mind. If things had gone according to my plan I probably would have been in the hospital with a fatty epidural, whiling away my time while checking out my freshly pedicured toes and eating a popsicle and reading about Britney, but for natural childbirth? I doubt you would need any of that crap.
Sometime around four in the morning I threw up, three different times on three different contractions. Considering how much I hate throwing up, it wasn’t that bad.
The contractions got worse. But still not more consistent. At some point I decided that the birth class people and their various admonitions to breathe and relax and move around could go fuck themselves, and I started holding my breath and tensing my whole body during every contraction. I would scratch the back of my hands and down my arms with my fingernails because that other pain was the only thing that helped me get through the contractions. I have never wanted to get away from anything more in my whole life. I had a strong feeling that I wanted to run away from my own body.
And yet, I endured. I had a strange calm. And honestly? The pain is bad. It is bad. But it lasts for maybe, a minute? And then it goes away. So really, you can take it, because it just doesn’t last for that long, you know?
There’s this line in the sand between women who have given birth and women who haven’t. After I gave birth, all my friends and family called to congratulate me and then after the initial niceties every woman friend I have who hasn’t had a baby yet wanted to know about the pain. How much it hurts, what is it worse than? And I always said the same thing. It really really hurts. It’s worse than really, all other pain you’ve ever felt. But it’s for a very short amount of time. It goes away. And you can take almost anything for a minute at a time.
Things started to get more intense. Every time I would have a contraction, I’d get incredibly hot, throw off all the covers, and then as soon as it was over, I’d be freezing cold and I’d start shaking I was shivering so hard and I’d have to pull all the blankets back over myself and try to get warm. Mr. E would push on my back as hard as he could and he would also rub my stomach, which helped a lot. And because the pain was so intense even though the contractions still weren’t very regular, at some point he called the hospital again. They told him again that it sounded like I was still in early labor, and that I shouldn’t come in yet. I was having contractions so intense I would see stars and I could tell that I would black out soon, and that was when I decided that if this was still early labor, I could not do it without an epidural. If it was going to get worse, I knew I could not do it without an epidural, so my goal was just to make it to the hospital, where I would hopefully be dilated enough that they wouldn’t send me home, and then I would have an epidural. I remember thinking that I was going to have to do a blog post about how it turned out I was a giant wimp who couldn’t take any pain at all and had to have an epidural in early labor at about three centimeters. I think my title was going to be “It turns out I am a giant wimp”
I don’t know if you can tell from reading this, but I was SO NOT in early labor at this point. Even though my contractions were never within the time frame that the hospital specified, I was way way way into like, transition labor. But we had no way of knowing that. Looking back I have no idea why we didn’t realize that I would have been dilated at least enough to stay at the hospital if we had gone, but all I can say is that I had no idea what I was doing. I’d never had a baby before and I was also totally out of it, and in so much pain, and I had already been sent home once and by god I was going to follow their rules and every time I had a contraction even though I would almost black out I would think “I probably could have talked during that if I really had to” and the contractions were still sometimes six minutes or seven minutes apart and so we stayed at home.
Mr. E went in and got all the shit out of the shower and turned it on high and turned on the heat lamps in the bathroom and he made me get in the shower and lord, that helped so much. I argued and argued and argued with him about getting in there as I had told him ahead of time that I would and so he ignored me and pretty much grabbed me and took my clothes off and put me in the shower. And then the contractions started to come much much faster. But the shower was heavenly. It helped my back so much. I had to sit down on the floor eventually because my legs were buckling underneath me with every contraction, and I was afraid I would fall, but I stayed in the shower until the hot water ran out.
When I got out of the shower and got back in bed, once again the contractions slowed way down, maybe to five or six minutes apart. And so even though they had been very close together in the shower, I was convinced I would get to the hospital, they would make me lie down so they could put on the monitors, the contractions would slow down again, and they would send me home.
Thank goodness for Mr. E. He called my sister in law, who’s an ob gyn nurse, and she told him that the intensity of the contractions also mattered a lot, and she asked if I had started telling people to shut up or if I seemed crabby? Mr. E told her yes, and yes, and she told him to get me to the hospital right away.
So then we finally went to the hospital. I argued the whole way. I did not want to go. I was convinced that we would be sent home. The contractions slowed down again, although I did have three or four in the car. I couldn’t even yell out anymore that I was having one, I would just grunt. Other than that no one said a word. Every time a contraction would hit, I would grip the armrest as hard as I could, push my body upwards, rigid, out of the car seat, and hold my breath and clench all my muscles as tight as I could. It was just…how I got through it, good or bad, that was how I did it.
I do remember thinking how surreal it was that it was the middle of the day, a bright sunlit morning. I always thought of having babies as something that happened at night.
We got the hospital at about 10:50 AM. Mr. E parked, and we walked in from the parking lot. I would stop and hold onto his arm and brace my whole body against him every time I had a contraction. We must have looked sort of funny, a woman stopped and asked if we were ok, and Mr. E said, very matter of factly “Oh, she’s in labor.” The woman said, “Oh, I just had a baby three days ago, I’ll get you a wheelchair.” A few moments later, two nurses came running out with a wheelchair, and I remember thinking, I don’t need a wheelchair! And as soon as I sat in it, it was wonderful. It was amazing. One of the nurses ran ahead to alert labor and delivery, and I remember thinking “the contractions aren’t that close together, no one needs to alert labor and delivery”. It is really interesting to note how differently we were treated the two times we came in. Outside observers could easily tell the difference in my state, and I couldn’t.
As soon as we got to Labor and Delivery I was wheeled to my room and they said a nurse would be in shortly. Changing seemed like such an enormous project, and I almost just gave up right then and there, but instead I took off my pajamas and my University of Minnesota sweatshirt and put on the hospital gown and sat on the bed. The nurse came in to check me and as soon as she did I could tell that things were different this time. I had my eyes closed and I was really out of it, but I will never forget that moment when the nurse, sounding shocked as hell, said “Oh hon. Hon. You are at ten centimeters. You are DONE.” That was when I decided I was going to change the title of my blog post to “It turns out I’m a ROCK STAR.”
I was so out of it at that point, I don’t remember too much. I think I was relieved, that I wouldn’t have to go home, that I had made it as far as I thought I had to make it. Someone asked me if they could get me anything, and I said (polite to the end) “I would like an epidural as soon as possible, please.”
People were running in and out my room. I remember chaos and lots of fast talking, and looking up and seeing a nurse or someone ripping a bag open, people wheeling carts and pushing things around. Things were hectic, to say the least. My room was full of people, everyone doing something as fast as they could.
My memory from this time comes only in flashes. Whole chunks of time passed as if in an instant.
I could not stop shaking. Someone told me to nod my head if I gave Mr. E consent to answer questions for me and I nodded and then they started firing questions at him. They tried to put an IV in my arm and they were fucking it up and I remember feeling so glad that it was hurting because that pain was so minor it actually felt NICE.
The nurse who told me I could have an epidural came back and told me that she had talked to my doctor and that unfortunately there wasn’t any point in giving me one, that I had done all the work and that it wouldn’t make any difference in the pushing part of it, that it was a whole different kind of pain and I just didn’t need one now. I don’t remember this part, but Mr. E says that when they told me that, I started to cry.
My doctor showed up, in jeans and a t shirt. I was very relieved to see her, because a.) she’s awesome, and b.) I was worried that when they said they had to call my doctor that it would take forever for her to get there.
By the way. Let me say going into this that I am not your most cavalier of people. In the months leading up to giving birth, I worried about how much it might hurt, of course, but I was also worried that it was going to be really embarrassing, that I might poop and how gross that would be, that everyone would see my cha cha, that I’d have to breastfeed afterwards in front of everyone, that it would be so…undignified when they moved the bed around and got it all set so I could give birth.
And let me just assure you that (no pun intended) by the time I got that point, I didn’t give a crap about any of that. The end of the bed was whipped off and there was a giant spotlight situation going on down there and fifty million nurses and interns and various sorts staring at my girl parts and I could not have cared less. Just simply didn’t care at that point.
My doctor told me she was going to break my water, and I remember thinking…WAIT. Wait. It was all going so fast. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready. But birth waits for no man, and my water was broken.
Before she broke my water the doctor felt my stomach and said that she didn’t think the baby would be small after all, but after she broke my water she said that she was changing her mind, that there was so much fluid that she was pretty sure that yes, he was going to be tiny.
She told me how to push. I asked her long it was going to take. It makes no sense but I was both terrified that it was going to take hours to push the baby and certain that it would not. She pointed out that my room was full of people and that was a really good sign, and maybe that was it, the level of frenetic activity, that reassured me that things weren’t going to be lengthy.
Pushing was my least favorite part of the whole process. I was not prepared for pushing. I had somehow believed, up to this point, that pushing was going to feel great. That the pain would subside and I would have this incredible urge to push and I would push like hell and it would be AWESOME.
People. It was not awesome. I could not tell when to push. I never had the urge. And it hurt, in a terrible grinding relentless burning shoving tearing kind of way that I was not prepared for. The nurses and my doctor coached me like hell and got me through it, and it only took about three contractions, but it was not fun. And indeed, the earlier contraction pain was very different. It felt useful. It felt like my body was doing something it was intended to do. Pushing felt…horrible. It felt like I was doing something horrible to my body and it felt wrong, like I was ripping myself in two and nothing was happening and it wasn’t right. But the nurses helped immeasurably and they told me when to push and my doctor told me I was losing the power of the contraction, and to take a deep breath when they told me to and then to push like hell, and then when the nurse said “don’t lose this one, don’t lose your progress” I made up my mind to just push through it and that the worse it was, the faster it would be over. I am sure I pooped, and I did not care. You are pushing so hard and it hurts so much, I am sure you must always poop. How could you not? You’re pushing with everything you have.
And then the head was out. It hurt like hell. The doctor asked if I wanted to touch his head, and I said no. I held Mr. E’s hand and I held my best friends hand on the other side and I pushed one more time and then he was half out, they make you wait to push again while they suction him and that part is terrible, you just want the baby OUT and you have to wait. You breathe and you wait. Then they said “give one more tiny push” and I thought it was the best moment of my life when I gave that one tiny push and out he came. Man. It was amazing. It felt amazing to have that pain over with. The cord was wrapped all around him so they unwrapped him as quick as pie and it all happened in an instant, that tiny push, the pain ending, someone saying “it’s a boy” and him slung way up high in the corner of my vision - that long gray body - and then crying and then there he was on my stomach.
And Eli was born.
They took him away and cleaned him up and Mr. E cut the cord and the placenta came out. I didn’t have to push for that, it just came out, and my doctor said “after the placenta comes out, you are going to feel GREAT” and she was right. THAT was the best feeling in the world. I thought I felt great before after the baby came out, but man, I felt so much better after the placenta came out, I felt amazing.
I could not stop shaking. I must have been in shock. At no point do I remember wondering where the baby was. They brought me three blankets from the warmer before I stopped shaking.
At this point all the nurses and everyone must have heard the story of how I got I sent home and then came back at 10 centimeters dilated and I was getting a lot of comments. One nurse saw the book from our childbirth class on the table and asked who it belonged to and when I told her it was mine she said “Well, you get an A on that class.”
They brought Eli back when he was all wrapped up, wearing that weird little hat they give the babies, with the pink and blue stripes. He was all swaddled up and I remember what a warm and compact and surprising little bundle he was. All the nurses had commented on how long his arms and legs were but he was indeed tiny, 5 pounds 6 ounces. It sounds not so tiny, really, when you hear it, but when you see it in a baby, when you see a baby that size next to the enormous clothes you brought to bring him home that he can’t wear, you realize how tiny it is.
I remember things only in patches from the rest of that morning. Mostly I remember holding my son and thinking “This is it. This is the most important moment of my life.”
And most of all I remember staring at Eli’s tiny perfect face and then tilting my head up to look at Mr. E and seeing him and just smiling. Just staring back and forth between the two of them and I could not stop smiling, and I was still so out of it I didn’t ask about Apgars and I didn’t count toes and I didn’t really think or say or do anything more than just sit there, holding my son, and feeling happy, and this sounds cheesier than anything I would like to admit in printed form, but I swear I had that song “These Are the Days” running through my head the whole time.
And then we were three.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Long Ago, and Oh So Far Away
Eli doesn't like to go to sleep at night. I think he gets bored or lonely or maybe he just hasn't really figured out how to flip that switch and turn off but regardless of the reason a lot of 2 oclock in the mornings have passed lately with Mr. E and me trying to figure out how the heck to get this child to sleep. Most of the time he doesn't even cry, he just grunts...and only loud enough and often enough so that we can't fall asleep. It's like he's not really in a bad mood, he just wants to chat, and he doesn't care that we want to sleep. I can relate, since that pretty much describes my entire relationship with Mr. E up to this point. Poor guy.
So every night now we begin the Get Eli To Sleep Project, sometimes with better results than others. I am the Project Manager, since I have boobs, but Mr. E is right in there assisting, and i think I can say that we are both equally disturbed by the fact that the only song that ever shuts our son up and puts him to sleep, even as sung in our querulous and out of tune voices, although as loudly as possible?
Superstar, by the Carpenters.
Yikes.
Apparently bad musical taste doesn't skip a generation.
So every night now we begin the Get Eli To Sleep Project, sometimes with better results than others. I am the Project Manager, since I have boobs, but Mr. E is right in there assisting, and i think I can say that we are both equally disturbed by the fact that the only song that ever shuts our son up and puts him to sleep, even as sung in our querulous and out of tune voices, although as loudly as possible?
Superstar, by the Carpenters.
Yikes.
Apparently bad musical taste doesn't skip a generation.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Leggings Be Damned
This weekend I fell victim to the 5.99 leggings at Target. Then I came home
and wept tears of despair when I saw them on my short stubby legs and I promptly threw them out after Mr. E informed me it would cost more in gas to bring them back than I'd get for returning them. I never thought a simple pair of "pants" could be so tragic and I really didn't think anything could make me look shorter than I already am. Vile. The whole experience was vile.
Speaking of diabolical fashions of the young that I've not managed to pull off, I think I may have missed the entire dark nail polish train. I will
tell you I tried to buy some of that dark stuff I can never remember the name of (Vamp?) at Chanel over Xmas and they were out of ALL the good colors. Last weekend when I finally got my belated "I need a pedicure before I give birth" pedicure, I just decided "screw it" and went with hot pink. You can't go wrong with pink.
Speaking of which, I just watched Marie Antoinette (because it never came to the theater in this desolate burg) and I loved it. I have never seen a movie before with a montage of desserts and shoes and it was the best three minutes of my life. I wish my life was a montage of dessert and shoes. It was really spectacular. It made me want to buy shoes. Or desserts. Also, apropos of nothing, Mr. E hated it. That doesn't surprise me, really, seeing as how he is not a gay male, but I was shocked anyway. How could anyone hate such an awesome movie? He just kept saying there was no plot. Whatever! There was a plot of awesome shoes and cute miniature desserts! What more could you need?
Then we rented the Illusionist and I have to say I was not impressed, and I also had
a really hard time explaining to Mr. E how Jessica Biel was famous just for having a really nice ass. I mean, maybe she is famous for more than that, but not really, at least according to US Weekly, which is where I get all my most
important and accurate news, and also how I know that the stars are just like us, and buy bottled water and such all by themselves at the grocery store.
Also, I hate to ask this, but Britney? Has she just lost her freaking mind? I don't know what her deal is but I am starting to worry about my own sanity as I caught myself thinking last week that maybe she should GET BACK TOGETHER WITH K FED. Anything that makes you think Kevin Federline might not be that bad after all isn't right. Just isn't right.
and wept tears of despair when I saw them on my short stubby legs and I promptly threw them out after Mr. E informed me it would cost more in gas to bring them back than I'd get for returning them. I never thought a simple pair of "pants" could be so tragic and I really didn't think anything could make me look shorter than I already am. Vile. The whole experience was vile.
Speaking of diabolical fashions of the young that I've not managed to pull off, I think I may have missed the entire dark nail polish train. I will
tell you I tried to buy some of that dark stuff I can never remember the name of (Vamp?) at Chanel over Xmas and they were out of ALL the good colors. Last weekend when I finally got my belated "I need a pedicure before I give birth" pedicure, I just decided "screw it" and went with hot pink. You can't go wrong with pink.
Speaking of which, I just watched Marie Antoinette (because it never came to the theater in this desolate burg) and I loved it. I have never seen a movie before with a montage of desserts and shoes and it was the best three minutes of my life. I wish my life was a montage of dessert and shoes. It was really spectacular. It made me want to buy shoes. Or desserts. Also, apropos of nothing, Mr. E hated it. That doesn't surprise me, really, seeing as how he is not a gay male, but I was shocked anyway. How could anyone hate such an awesome movie? He just kept saying there was no plot. Whatever! There was a plot of awesome shoes and cute miniature desserts! What more could you need?
Then we rented the Illusionist and I have to say I was not impressed, and I also had
a really hard time explaining to Mr. E how Jessica Biel was famous just for having a really nice ass. I mean, maybe she is famous for more than that, but not really, at least according to US Weekly, which is where I get all my most
important and accurate news, and also how I know that the stars are just like us, and buy bottled water and such all by themselves at the grocery store.
Also, I hate to ask this, but Britney? Has she just lost her freaking mind? I don't know what her deal is but I am starting to worry about my own sanity as I caught myself thinking last week that maybe she should GET BACK TOGETHER WITH K FED. Anything that makes you think Kevin Federline might not be that bad after all isn't right. Just isn't right.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Unexpected
I didn't think I would miss my husband so much. I spend a lot of my time cuddling someone else now and that's as it should be and I love every minute of those amazing baby cuddles but I really still need cuddles of my own and I miss it. I'm really hoping that once the two weeks of non stop Grandma time comes to an end we'll get some time to - I don't know, reconnect is the wrong word, but I miss just hanging out with Mr. E. My doctor said I was supposed to come in six weeks after giving birth for a check up and to discuss birth control options - I think I can just tell her we have a co sleeper and be done with that conversation.
I didn't know that I wouldn't be a baby talker. But I am so not. To the point where it kind of gets on my nerves when other people do it. Eli and I do have little chats - all the time, but not in ga ga goo goo speak.
I didn't think 5 pounds six ounces would be so very very tiny. Eli doesn't fit in any regular clothes. He doesn't even fit in preemie clothes. And when I see him out of his clothes I am struck every time but how tiny, and yet how perfect, this miniature child of mine is. He makes all the other babies I see look like great hulking beasts (but not YOURS, of course).
I didn't realize I would care so little about having my entire life taken over by this tiny creature. I have to feed him every three hours, sometimes more depending on how well he ate the time before, and even though it gets a little old because it takes him so long to eat each time, I really don't even care. We spend most of our time just hanging out and sleeping and eating and it's really my favorite time I've ever spent with anyone. If I had known how much fun it would be to be a mom, if I had known how little I would care that I can't go to the movies now or that I don't have any time to myself or I can't pee alone - I wouldn't have waited so long. I wouldn't have worried so much.
I never realized I would feel so lucky. I have moments where I look over at my husband whos been just incredible every moment of when I was pregnant and every moment since Eli's birth and I look at my tiny perfect son and I have moments like when our pediatrician said to me in her thick Indian accent "Oh, he has a BEAUTIFUL heart" and I just feel so lucky in those moments it feels almost dangerous, how wonderful and happy I am. I don't know that I deserve it.
I never expected to get over myself so quickly. Before I had Eli, I was really wrapped up, waaay too wrapped up, in everyone else, in what everyone else was doing, when they were having kids, what they thought of me, if they would have better baby furniture, if my sister in law would buy a pottery barn crib I couldn't afford, if someone else would take the names I wanted to use, if I would have an emotional breakdown when someone else had a girl before I did. And then once I had him I simply stopped caring about all that. It sounds weird but I just don't care anymore. It's not that I don't wish everyone else love and happiness and babies and puppies and rainbows, I do. It's just that it's irrelevant to my happiness. I've got mine. I hope they get theirs, but whether they do or don't doesn't add or subtract from my own.
I never expected that this tiny creature would make me feel so connected to everyone else that came before. It's more than just the stories of all the people who came before, of the grandfather who gave him his middle name or the great grandmother who raised nine kids on her own after her no good husband Beuxregard left her. It's glancing down at Eli's face and seeing my mom for an instant, it's my brother's chin in miniature, it's glimpses of Mr. E in a curl of hair or in Eli's long perfect fingers you know he didn't get from me, it's seeing my own nose right there on his tiny baby face and remembering my own mother teasing me about my pouty lower lip and seeing it all over again in my son.
The one thing I did expect, the one thing I was counting on? That indescribable new baby smell. It's there, and it's better than I ever expected.
I didn't know that I wouldn't be a baby talker. But I am so not. To the point where it kind of gets on my nerves when other people do it. Eli and I do have little chats - all the time, but not in ga ga goo goo speak.
I didn't think 5 pounds six ounces would be so very very tiny. Eli doesn't fit in any regular clothes. He doesn't even fit in preemie clothes. And when I see him out of his clothes I am struck every time but how tiny, and yet how perfect, this miniature child of mine is. He makes all the other babies I see look like great hulking beasts (but not YOURS, of course).
I didn't realize I would care so little about having my entire life taken over by this tiny creature. I have to feed him every three hours, sometimes more depending on how well he ate the time before, and even though it gets a little old because it takes him so long to eat each time, I really don't even care. We spend most of our time just hanging out and sleeping and eating and it's really my favorite time I've ever spent with anyone. If I had known how much fun it would be to be a mom, if I had known how little I would care that I can't go to the movies now or that I don't have any time to myself or I can't pee alone - I wouldn't have waited so long. I wouldn't have worried so much.
I never realized I would feel so lucky. I have moments where I look over at my husband whos been just incredible every moment of when I was pregnant and every moment since Eli's birth and I look at my tiny perfect son and I have moments like when our pediatrician said to me in her thick Indian accent "Oh, he has a BEAUTIFUL heart" and I just feel so lucky in those moments it feels almost dangerous, how wonderful and happy I am. I don't know that I deserve it.
I never expected to get over myself so quickly. Before I had Eli, I was really wrapped up, waaay too wrapped up, in everyone else, in what everyone else was doing, when they were having kids, what they thought of me, if they would have better baby furniture, if my sister in law would buy a pottery barn crib I couldn't afford, if someone else would take the names I wanted to use, if I would have an emotional breakdown when someone else had a girl before I did. And then once I had him I simply stopped caring about all that. It sounds weird but I just don't care anymore. It's not that I don't wish everyone else love and happiness and babies and puppies and rainbows, I do. It's just that it's irrelevant to my happiness. I've got mine. I hope they get theirs, but whether they do or don't doesn't add or subtract from my own.
I never expected that this tiny creature would make me feel so connected to everyone else that came before. It's more than just the stories of all the people who came before, of the grandfather who gave him his middle name or the great grandmother who raised nine kids on her own after her no good husband Beuxregard left her. It's glancing down at Eli's face and seeing my mom for an instant, it's my brother's chin in miniature, it's glimpses of Mr. E in a curl of hair or in Eli's long perfect fingers you know he didn't get from me, it's seeing my own nose right there on his tiny baby face and remembering my own mother teasing me about my pouty lower lip and seeing it all over again in my son.
The one thing I did expect, the one thing I was counting on? That indescribable new baby smell. It's there, and it's better than I ever expected.
Monday, February 26, 2007
The Birth Story is in progress, but please note I have had headaches for which I took more pain medication. Until then enjoy this update in list form
-Have lost 20 pounds in nine days!!! Diet of chocolate and constant breastfeeding appears to be magic diet. Must work on marketing strategy and become millionaire. When not breastfeeding.
-Have already compromised all previously held morals as only place to buy preemie clothes in town is at Walmart. (please note: Child is not preemie, only preemie sized).
-Am forced to threaten Mr. Baby daily with ice cube hands and a lifetime of girls clothes from Walmart as Mr. Baby would rather poop than eat. Clearly takes after father.
-Will retrieve non maternity clothes from garage later today. Expect imminent emotional breakdown.
-Am strangely intrigued by that movie The Queen after having watched last half hour of Academy Awards. Am clearly huge loser.
-Child's umbilical cord just fell off. Is clearly genius.
-Thank you to all for congratulations and well wishes. Am feeling very very very lucky.
-Have already compromised all previously held morals as only place to buy preemie clothes in town is at Walmart. (please note: Child is not preemie, only preemie sized).
-Am forced to threaten Mr. Baby daily with ice cube hands and a lifetime of girls clothes from Walmart as Mr. Baby would rather poop than eat. Clearly takes after father.
-Will retrieve non maternity clothes from garage later today. Expect imminent emotional breakdown.
-Am strangely intrigued by that movie The Queen after having watched last half hour of Academy Awards. Am clearly huge loser.
-Child's umbilical cord just fell off. Is clearly genius.
-Thank you to all for congratulations and well wishes. Am feeling very very very lucky.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Welcome to the World, Baby Boy
Eli Green_w00d Ekd@hl
born February 17, 2007
5.6 pounds, 19 inches long
Friday, February 16, 2007
Everything is Fine
We had the non stress test and Thor performed beautifully...after looking at his heart rate and movement and various other printouts my doctor said everything looked great, and we're just going to have a small baby. Last night after the doctor's appointment I felt about ten thousand times better than I did the night before. We still have to have non stress tests twice a week as a precaution but it looks like other than that, now we just wait for the little stinker to decide when he wants to arrive. The doctor said it could be anytime now!
Thursday, February 15, 2007
No Good Way
I tried to think of a fancy way or a nice story to tell this but there really isn't one. We had an ultrasound on Tuesday and the baby is measuring small for his gestational age, particularly in the abdomen, which is how they diagnose IUGR. (Intra Uterine Growth Restriction). I have to go in for twice weekly non stress tests to make sure everything is ok and our first one is today, so we won't know more until later on today. If Thor (our nickname for the baby) responds appropriately and doesn't appear to be in distress I would imagine they'll want to leave him in there so he can try to fatten up - but they did say that it wasn't likely he'll gain much at this point. I'm small and I was small at birth so that could be the reason - maybe he is just a small baby. At this point they think he is about five pounds, but that is give or take 13 ounces either way.
If Thor fails the non stress test either I will start on steroids or they will deliver the baby if they think it's better for him to just come on out now.
Like I said right now we don't know much. I spent much of yesterday freaking out and blaming myself and crying and calling my mom but now I'm feeling better. After all everything else on the ultrasound was fine and Thor is still moving around and all that. I'm frantically cleaning my house in case we're about to have a new baby around here - and the dryer is fixed, thank god. I don't have all the stuff I need for my hospital bag and we don't have any diapers but at this point I don't care, I just want my boy to be ok. That's really all I care about. That and a clean toilet.
Like I said I am doing ok most of the time. I am used to having horrible valentines days (aren't we all?). We skipped our last childbirth class because I just wasn't up to it and I watched American Idol with Mr. E and some heart shaped Junior Mints and I felt better. Of course everyone tells me things will be fine and this is very normal and this happens all the time and to relax and not stress and don't be nervous and don't be scared but really unfortunately it is not something I can just turn off.
This might sound stupid but I finally just covered up the ultrasound pictures that we got on Tuesday of Thor and his little face and that I had put on the refrigerator. I just couldn't look at my little baby and his tiny chubby baby face and think that there was something wrong with him and not break down so I just covered up the pictures and now I feel much better.
Will let you all know what we hear from the doctor today.
Send good thoughts.
If Thor fails the non stress test either I will start on steroids or they will deliver the baby if they think it's better for him to just come on out now.
Like I said right now we don't know much. I spent much of yesterday freaking out and blaming myself and crying and calling my mom but now I'm feeling better. After all everything else on the ultrasound was fine and Thor is still moving around and all that. I'm frantically cleaning my house in case we're about to have a new baby around here - and the dryer is fixed, thank god. I don't have all the stuff I need for my hospital bag and we don't have any diapers but at this point I don't care, I just want my boy to be ok. That's really all I care about. That and a clean toilet.
Like I said I am doing ok most of the time. I am used to having horrible valentines days (aren't we all?). We skipped our last childbirth class because I just wasn't up to it and I watched American Idol with Mr. E and some heart shaped Junior Mints and I felt better. Of course everyone tells me things will be fine and this is very normal and this happens all the time and to relax and not stress and don't be nervous and don't be scared but really unfortunately it is not something I can just turn off.
This might sound stupid but I finally just covered up the ultrasound pictures that we got on Tuesday of Thor and his little face and that I had put on the refrigerator. I just couldn't look at my little baby and his tiny chubby baby face and think that there was something wrong with him and not break down so I just covered up the pictures and now I feel much better.
Will let you all know what we hear from the doctor today.
Send good thoughts.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
I Think She's Here
There was no one else like my Grandma Jackson.
She was, from start to finish, a class act.
Because I am named for her she is inextricably tied up in my birth story, the one my mom used to tell me every year on my birthday. How my mom called up my grandmother when I was born to give her the news… and she asked who was calling and my mom said “the mother of Elizabeth Jackson” and at first my grandmother didn’t understand because that was HER name and then she figured out that her first grandchild had been born and had been named for her and she went and had a moment and then began bragging wildly to all her friends who were over at her house playing bridge.
When my brother was born my frandmother came to our house to help out and she taught me to make scalloped potatoes and I still make them today, the same way she did.
We didn't always live nearby but we used to visit her every year in the summer and to me her little stucco house in LA was paradise on earth. It was always sunny and she would have made me a new dress and her backyard would be full of the roses she grew and she’d make her famous lemon meringue pie from lemons she grew in her yard and I still remember a time she took me to the grocery store and when I asked her if I could get some Klondike bars, she said sure and put them in the cart. I’d never had a Klondike bar before. I still remember that day and how it felt. It felt like pure love. Because it was, I think.
When my sister was born and my mother called people to tell them that Annie had Down Syndrome my Grandmother Jackson was the one person who didn’t act as if some sort of death sentence had been handed down. She reacted as she had to the news of all her other grandchildren – with congratulations and love. My mother still talks about it and how much it meant to her.
No one was ever a greater advocate for my sister than my grandmother – no one was ever more patient. It’s a cliché and old fashioned but my grandmother tried hard to teach both me and my sister what it meant to be a lady and a decent human being, in the best of ways.
She always wrote thank you notes. She wrapped packages without any tape, so the paper could be reused. She wouldn’t buy grapes. Whenever I would come to visit she would just “happen” to have three or four desserts on hand to offer me. She taught me to make Christmas ornaments out of Lifesavers and she loved to play Rummikub.
My Grandma Jackson died about five years ago from lung cancer. I still think of her all the time. I still sleep under a king size quilt she made by hand. She never owned a sewing machine. This weekend I made some very simple baby blankets for our impending arrival because I was just plain sick of blue fleece and as I was stitching and pinning and folding I thought of my grandmother and I wished, purely and simply, that she were here. I wish she knew that her great grandson was about to be born.
And then I thought maybe, in some small way, in the stitch of a baby blanket, in the fold of a seam, maybe she is here after all.
She was, from start to finish, a class act.
Because I am named for her she is inextricably tied up in my birth story, the one my mom used to tell me every year on my birthday. How my mom called up my grandmother when I was born to give her the news… and she asked who was calling and my mom said “the mother of Elizabeth Jackson” and at first my grandmother didn’t understand because that was HER name and then she figured out that her first grandchild had been born and had been named for her and she went and had a moment and then began bragging wildly to all her friends who were over at her house playing bridge.
When my brother was born my frandmother came to our house to help out and she taught me to make scalloped potatoes and I still make them today, the same way she did.
We didn't always live nearby but we used to visit her every year in the summer and to me her little stucco house in LA was paradise on earth. It was always sunny and she would have made me a new dress and her backyard would be full of the roses she grew and she’d make her famous lemon meringue pie from lemons she grew in her yard and I still remember a time she took me to the grocery store and when I asked her if I could get some Klondike bars, she said sure and put them in the cart. I’d never had a Klondike bar before. I still remember that day and how it felt. It felt like pure love. Because it was, I think.
When my sister was born and my mother called people to tell them that Annie had Down Syndrome my Grandmother Jackson was the one person who didn’t act as if some sort of death sentence had been handed down. She reacted as she had to the news of all her other grandchildren – with congratulations and love. My mother still talks about it and how much it meant to her.
No one was ever a greater advocate for my sister than my grandmother – no one was ever more patient. It’s a cliché and old fashioned but my grandmother tried hard to teach both me and my sister what it meant to be a lady and a decent human being, in the best of ways.
She always wrote thank you notes. She wrapped packages without any tape, so the paper could be reused. She wouldn’t buy grapes. Whenever I would come to visit she would just “happen” to have three or four desserts on hand to offer me. She taught me to make Christmas ornaments out of Lifesavers and she loved to play Rummikub.
My Grandma Jackson died about five years ago from lung cancer. I still think of her all the time. I still sleep under a king size quilt she made by hand. She never owned a sewing machine. This weekend I made some very simple baby blankets for our impending arrival because I was just plain sick of blue fleece and as I was stitching and pinning and folding I thought of my grandmother and I wished, purely and simply, that she were here. I wish she knew that her great grandson was about to be born.
And then I thought maybe, in some small way, in the stitch of a baby blanket, in the fold of a seam, maybe she is here after all.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
I'd Like to File a Formal Complaint...
...I just got out of the shower and it seems all the towels in our house shrank!
Must be all that line drying.
Must be all that line drying.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Making the Best of Things
So ever since I started to wonder if our house was centered on some kind of ancient Indian burial ground or maybe a localized power inversion or perhaps the Hellmouth? I decided that maybe I should stop announcing to the world that I just couldn't take it anymore and I should instead try to make the best of things. Because you know what? There is no point to annoucing that you need a break and that you can't take it anymore. Things happen and you can't control that and you try to learn from them as best you can and then you soldier on. You take it. You have no choice, announcements or not. You hang your laundry out to dry and think of Antonia hanging her laundry out to dry back in the day on some prairie in the middle of Nebraska and you think of all the power you're saving and you transport yourself into a summer's eve commercial and tell yourself things like "fresh!" and "clean with the power of the sun!" and try not to notice that your pillowcases smell actually quite a bit like exhaust and your towels have this new exfoliant quality they never had before.
Mr. E assured me that despite my new pioneer spirit we needed a new dryer but I was caught up in making the best of things and so we did not get a new dryer, and then he went away for a work thingee and simultaneously it rained for a week. I don't know if you know this but pioneer spirit or no, large scale flood type raining isn't really conducive to laundry drying and really who I am not to support the local economy with my hard earned tax refund? So this weekend Mr. E and I went to Lowe's and bought a dryer and when a dark bitterness at having to spend a shitload of money on something I already had one of instead of something I wanted and had been dreaming about buying for a year I again made the best of things and told myself I was lucky to be able to afford a new dryer when we needed one and besides think of the soft soft towels, and I actually kind of got excited about my dryer, and the lovely folks at Lowe's promised to bring it the next day, a SUNDAY! So even when the Lowe's man called at 7 am ON A SUNDAY to tell us they would bring it by at noon I looked on the bright side and thought "Eh, now we are up early, we can get so much done, and now we will have our dryer and tonight I will wear soft fluffy pajama pants and sleep on clean sheets and we will once again have soft towels and yea! A new dryer."
Oh friends.
We do, in fact, have a new dryer, sitting dead, unworkable, in our kitchen, on this fine and gray February morning. We also have an appointment with an electrician, so he can come look at the wiring in our kitchen and tell us why, two dryers and three power cords later, NO DRYERS WILL WORK IN THIS HOUSE.
And try as I might to look on the bright side there is something that happens when you find yourself outside in the cold at nine oclock on Sunday night hanging out the very laundry you just naively assumed you'd be pulling from your BRAND NEW $500 dryer that sits useless in your house that demoralizes you just a little.
On the bright side, it isn't raining. Yet.
Which is lucky, because the new roof?
Leaks.
Mr. E assured me that despite my new pioneer spirit we needed a new dryer but I was caught up in making the best of things and so we did not get a new dryer, and then he went away for a work thingee and simultaneously it rained for a week. I don't know if you know this but pioneer spirit or no, large scale flood type raining isn't really conducive to laundry drying and really who I am not to support the local economy with my hard earned tax refund? So this weekend Mr. E and I went to Lowe's and bought a dryer and when a dark bitterness at having to spend a shitload of money on something I already had one of instead of something I wanted and had been dreaming about buying for a year I again made the best of things and told myself I was lucky to be able to afford a new dryer when we needed one and besides think of the soft soft towels, and I actually kind of got excited about my dryer, and the lovely folks at Lowe's promised to bring it the next day, a SUNDAY! So even when the Lowe's man called at 7 am ON A SUNDAY to tell us they would bring it by at noon I looked on the bright side and thought "Eh, now we are up early, we can get so much done, and now we will have our dryer and tonight I will wear soft fluffy pajama pants and sleep on clean sheets and we will once again have soft towels and yea! A new dryer."
Oh friends.
We do, in fact, have a new dryer, sitting dead, unworkable, in our kitchen, on this fine and gray February morning. We also have an appointment with an electrician, so he can come look at the wiring in our kitchen and tell us why, two dryers and three power cords later, NO DRYERS WILL WORK IN THIS HOUSE.
And try as I might to look on the bright side there is something that happens when you find yourself outside in the cold at nine oclock on Sunday night hanging out the very laundry you just naively assumed you'd be pulling from your BRAND NEW $500 dryer that sits useless in your house that demoralizes you just a little.
On the bright side, it isn't raining. Yet.
Which is lucky, because the new roof?
Leaks.
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