DItto the Epidural

Remember how (waaaay) back in April I was bursting at the seams to bust this baby out my lady parts? How I was so bummed that he (she!) hadn’t come out early despite my cervix’s valiant efforts at effacement and dilation? How that crazy-stretchy dress was itself going to burst at the seams itself if I got even one millimeter bigger?

Well…the truth of the matter is that I signed up to get induced two days after my due-date because I COULD NOT WAIT to meet this baby. Also, I COULD NOT BEAR the thought of being pregnant for eight more days (assuming baby #2 was going to follow the same schedule as baby #1) because eighty-two weeks of pregnancy is way too much for me in this lifetime, thank you very much. Also, I wanted to medicalize my birthing experience as much as possible! To stick it to all those “natural” people who shun medication and make the rest of us look bad! To show the world (or anyone in it who could be bothered to pay attention) that a little Pitocin doesn’t make a woman any less a woman! Ditto the epidural!

Seriously, though, I fretted about getting induced at forty weeks and two days because I did not want to be judged by others even though (because?) I could not stop judging myself.

“What will we tell the kid?” I asked Dr. Husband at 3 AM a few days before my induction date. “Mama hated being pregnant so much that she couldn’t stand to gestate you even one more minute?”

“No…” he said, seemingly unperturbed by my jumping into the middle of a conversation in the dead of night. “We’ll just tell him that we were so excited to meet him that we didn’t want to wait any longer. Of all the things you should worry about, this really doesn’t even make the list. You should really get some sleep.”

Then he rolled over and fell immediately back asleep while I racked my brain to come up with all the things I “should” have been worrying about. The epidural not working? Going into spontaneous labor before my induction and not getting to the hospital in time to get an epidural? Something being wrong with the baby? Dying during childbirth? THE BABY dying during childbirth?!? Oh, the options!

In the end it turned out not to matter because—for me at least—it’s all about having a baby, not having a birth—or, more precisely, having a particular birthing experience.

Speaking of, vaginal childbirth with an epidural is actually kind of fun. Yes, I said it. With no pain and everyone telling me I was doing a great job and—this part is key—the whole “pushing” thing only lasting 45 minutes with baby #1 and 15 minutes with baby #2—I enjoyed the experience.

Especially compared to nine months of pregnancy.  Similar to pregnancy, the worst part of childbirth for me is the barfing, which this time freakishly didn’t occur until it was time to push—and then for a few hours afterward. I was all, “Give me that baby—uh—wai—bleggghhhhh—okay, now give me that baby. But just for a second.”

Also, I was super fortunate once again to nap/doze/rest most of the way through active labor. Shoot my spine full of anesthesia when my cervix is three centimeters dilated, and I’m suddenly narcoleptic.

I dozed while Dr. Husband ran—literally—to get himself some dinner. “No rush,” I tried to assure him. “This is going to take a while.”

Being a doctor—and being someone who was present for the birth of our first child, in which I went from 3 centimeters dilated to 10 all within the course of a nap—he was unconvinced. “I’ll be right back,” he swore as he dashed out, returning ten—maybe fifteen?—minutes later, stuffed full of submarine sandwich.

Then suddenly I started barfing, the nurse checked my cervix on a whim, and it was party time.

And fifteen minutes later—voila! I was no longer pregnant.

Oh, and I had this really cute baby (already one month and two days old!):

Americans for Healthy Priorities

Today is a triumphant day, not because I survived my first morning alone with both girls while Dr. Husband was at work nor because I not only survived but managed to take the three of us on a walk (in the rain! My born-and-raised-in-Seattle two-year-old was undaunted!) up a flight of eighty stairs to a local coffee shop for my second dose of morning caffeine nor because I not only survived and took us on a walk but also managed to make a batch of granola (the muffin granola finally ran out), shower, do a load of laundry, and only snap at the whining two-year-old once—no, today is triumphant because I am wearing jeans for the first time in about seven months.

Jeans!

Mind you, they are in NO WAY my pre-pregnancy jeans or even my early maternity jeans. These are jeans I bought yesterday in a brand-new-to-me size—and even though they are alarmingly wide and ridiculously high-waisted, they look pretty great. Paired with the right top (loose, ruched, and black) they make me look NOT like someone who just had a baby but like a healthy rugby player. At least in dim lighting.

And this is what really matters, right, people?

photo courtesy jusben, morgueFile

The Three-Armed Woman

Hi. Remember me? The woman who would not shut up about her cervix? I'm back with a pressing evolutionary question, which is this: why don’t moms grow an extra arm when they give birth to their second child? It would be so much easier to manage all the nursing and simultaneous picture book reading and imaginary soup eating and potty emptying* and snack making and owie kissing and washing machine loading and forehead smacking and 3pm beer drinking with one more upper body appendage.

But, no. Somehow we are expected to do it all (and, if the media reports are correct, to Do It All) with the regular number of arms. Which is why I haven’t written in over three weeks because, dude! Not enough arms!

Not to mention the fact that I’ve had nothing more interesting to say than, “Man do I love this baby,” and “Could someone else please take this baby for a few hours so I can nap—or maybe hop a quick flight to Hawaii?”

It turns out that having two kids isn’t quite the logistical nightmare that I’d anticipated—nor is it a breeze. Like everything in life, it falls somewhere in the middle, shifting slightly toward one pole or the other depending on everyone’s level of sleep deprivation and hunger and hormones and propensity for regurgitating their meals (thankfully that’s no longer me!). Which is all to say that we’re all doing quite well, considering—even though only two people sent us muffins.**


*The two-year-old claims to love her new sister but naturally has been acting out in various ways ranging from a dramatic increase in whining and clinging to, more winningly, deciding to potty train herself.

**One batch of muffins was technically not “muffins” but “granola,” as that was deemed more likely to stay fresh when shipped across the country. If you want to send us granola, too, we won’t argue.In fact, we’ll even give you credit for sending us muffins.


photo courtesy earl53, morgueFile

It's a...

Girl! (!!!!!!!!!)

She was born around 9pm on Monday night, weighing in at 7 pounds, 13 ounces—nearly a pound less than her sister.

Full story before long. Until then, the short version: contractions, epidural, nap, 15 minutes of pushing, then she slid out all by herself. No rips, no tears—sort as if it was a job a vagina was meant to do.

We're thrilled to have a family of girls. I'm already looking forward to movie nights.

If you're in the mood, send snacks. We especially like muffins.

Forty Weeks and One Day

Still nothing...

Forty Weeks!

Hi. I’m still pregnant. Naturally.

As I’ve mentioned a gazillion times, almost no one delivers on their due date, and though a certain percentage of people get to deliver before their due date, I am not one of them. Which is fine because, you know, I LOVE BEING PREGNANT. When you’ve felt yucky for nine straight months, what’s another few days? (Insert usual caveats HERE about how I know I’m lucky to be able to get pregnant, to have a healthy pregnancy, historically cute babies, etc.)

Tonight I’m going out for a due-date dinner date with a friend. Dr. Husband, who has wicked bouts of sympathetic pregnancy symptoms, is too pooped to be my date, though he did join me yesterday for a matinee and a trip to a local watch repair store to buy a band for the vintage watch he bought for my 36th birthday—over a year ago. Nothing like an impending birth to get shit crossed off the list, man!

Tomorrow I plan to spend the day berating myself for thinking—twice—I would get to give birth before my due-date. Optimism, or self-flagellation?

~10 weeks
(Holy shit, was I ever really that skinny?)

 

~20 weeks

~30 weeks

40 weeks

Thirty-Nine Weeks and Six Days (But Who's Counting?)

No baby yet.

Hot Pink

I went for my “daily” (read: biweekly) walk this morning, which has become a slow, epic waddle rather than a brisk 30 minute walk, but which I’m proud of myself for doing. I harbor no illusions that these walks will induce labor—it’s clear my offspring are the kind of people who will wait to do things when they’re good and ready—but it feels good to move my body, to get fresh air, to take in the riot of tuplips and daffodils and cherry blossoms that make this whole  “spring baby” thing a delight. (Well, a theoretical delight—were I capable of feeling delight rather than just profound pressure on my bladder and lady parts.)

The real highlight of this morning’s walk, though, was not the explosion of flora (which you would think in and of itself would induce labor) but the fact that I managed to walk quickly enough to pass a fellow walker! Granted, he was, like, eighty years old and walking with a cane, but still! I passed him! Take that, old guy.

I then took Dr. Husband up on his offer to take the two-year-old out for an adventure (read: to the grocery store that has carts with giant plastic “drivable” cars attached to the front), while I got myself a cherry-blossom-pink pedicure and started reading Jillian Lauren's memoir about life in a harem. Generally speaking, I’m not a pedicure kind of woman (granted, I did love the one I got in Chicago in January—which lasted literally for months), but when facing the imminent prospect of staring at your feet in stirrups, it’s nice to have, you know, a hot-pink focal point. Plus, I couldn’t reach down there myself to strip off my old, peeling polish. Plus, what other treats even exist for a nine-months-pregnant lady? I mean, besides the treat of GOING INTO LABOR ALREADY, GODDAMMIT!

photo courtesy mensatic, morgueFile

Thirty-Nine Weeks, Four Days

It turns out my kid's eardrum (which we did not realize was infected) perforated, and my hyper-competent cervix stopped dilating.

In other words: no baby yet. And no Parent of the Year Awards, either.

Alsoooo...

Dr. Husband has a huge, anxiety-inducing work thing tomorrow, the two-year-old is home from preschool all week for "spring break," my therapist is out of town, and could someone PLEASE just focus on ME this week?

Thirty-Nine Weeks and Two Days

Last night I dreamed about things spilling—water, juice, milk, glue. I dreamed twice of glue spilling—or, more precisely, a glue stick melting for unknown reasons onto our coffee table. Twice.

I thought maybe the dream was a sign of impending labor—cervical effacement analogies, anyone?—but no.

Instead I have a kid with an ear that mysteriously smells like an extra-yeasty English muffin and a pediatrician's appointment during her regularly scheduled naptime tomorrow. By which time I had hoped I would have magically given birth, as I have an appointment with my OB in the morning and was harboring plans to demand she wave her sparkly wand over my lady parts to get this show on the road.

Thirty-Nine Weeks

Don't trust this face!

So. My due-date is one week from today. I'm decidedly in the window in which I could go into labor AT ANY MINUTE, though I'm trying not to think about it this way. It turns out that thinking, "This might be the last time I visit the grocery store before I go into labor," and "This might be the last time I take a slow, huffing walk (waddle) before I go into labor," and "This might be the last time I get to shave my legs before I go into labor" and "This might be the last time I have to put on this stupid dress and have my picture taken" makes the time pass excruciatingly slowly.

Instead I'm pretending that I'm going to be pregnant forever. I'm depressed as hell, but the time is just whizzing by!

38 weeks

35 weeks

32 weeks

29 weeks
27 weeks
 22 weeks

20 weeks

19 weeks

17 weeks (for reals)

fake-out 17 weeks (really 16)

16 weeks (really 15)
15 weeks (really 14)
14 weeks (really 13)

13 weeks (really still 12)

12 weeks

11 weeks

Things I Will Miss About Pregnancy

1. The awesome power of creating new life with my own body.

2. People giving me stuff because I look enormous and uncomfortable—like a seat on the shuttle at the airport. Or like yesterday when a woman gave me her lightly-nibbled biscuit at my favorite neighborhood cafe when she heard me lamenting that they were sold out.

Things I Won't Miss About Pregnancy

(One for each year of my life, listed roughly in order of how deeply I will not miss them.)

1. Barfing. (I spared you yet another barfing post last night. You can thank me in the form of gift cards sent to my email address.) Relatedly, carsickness-like nausea (it's not just for first trimesters, it turns out!)

2. Indigestion. Indigestion might not sound that terrible if you've never had it, but it's taken away all pleasure in eating or drinking for many, many months now. The only foods that don't seem to trigger a feeling of "Oh my god, this food is just sort of hanging out in my esophagus making me feel a tetch queasy and more than a tetch cranky" are salted almonds. Fresh salted almonds. If I eat one almond approaching middle age, I can't digest properly again until the next day. It's dispiriting, to say the least.

3. Not being able to carry my two-year-old up the stairs, even if she's really tired and asks really nicely. Similarly, not being able to properly snuggle the two-year-old anymore, what with the giant belly in the way.

4. The total lack of uncomplicated sex.

5. Never feeling sexy. (See #4)

6. Everything from the dishwasher to the cafe down the street to our shower curtains smelling like ass.

7. Weighing more than my husband. (This is a tie with “Extra-heavy-duty-muffin-top from all the nausea-prevention pregnancy eating.") (See #5)

8. Achy hips that cause me to flip over and over and over like a rotisserie chicken all night long.

9. Insomnia—caused either by hip pain (see #6) or flippy baby or hormones or general Major Life Change anxieties—any way you slice it, it's very irritating to not be able to sleep properly in the months leading up to a period of Infamous Sleep Deprivation.

10. Varicose veins. On my vulva. (See #5)

11. Being regarded in public as nothing more than a giant stomach with legs. (Read: I miss occasionally being looked at like I’m sort of hot by various nearsighted dweebs and elderly men.)

12. Forty-pound breasts. (Which you think might help with #10, but doesn't seem to. Apparently we all have limits.)

13. Not being able to drink in any kind of quantity. (See #4)

14. Not being able to drink hard liquor (in public).

15. Not being able to wear pants.

16. Maternity clothes. (See #5)

17. Not being able to wear any shoes other than Dansko clogs. (See # 5)

18. Not being able to get comfortable in any sort of sitting position.

19. Not being able to walk up the stairs without getting winded.

20. Not being able to run—by which I mean “move quickly,” not, like “go for a run,” which I don’t do.

21. Not being able to easily put on my own socks or pants.

22. Not being able to see my own vagina.

23. Meaningless contractions.

24. Fatigue.

25. Not being able to take Advil for random aches and pains.

26. Not being able to see—or reach—my feet.

27. Frequent(er) peeing.

28. A warped sense of balance. (Read: enhanced klutziness).

29. Not being able to drink room temperature water. (See #1)

30. Someone else's elbows and knees jamming into my innards 24/7.

31. Not being able to ingest even a garnish-y amount of chives or green onions. (See #1)

32. Waddling. (See #s 5, 8 & 11)

33. Water retention. (See #7. Oh, if only it were just baby + water!)

34. Not being able to tolerate loud music for some inexplicable reason.

35. Not being able to pick things up off the floor.

36. Not being able to lift heavy things, move furniture when I get the urge, or shove bullies out of the way.

37. Not liking coffee. In fact, the thing I’m most looking forward to other than holding my new babe in my arms is drinking a piping hot cup of coffee and having it be delicious. (See #s 1, 2 & 24)

Meaningless Contractions

If I may complain for one more moment (and since this is my blog, I may)—I'm having somewhat uncomfortable contractions many times a day and many times a night—have been for about a month now—and still I probably won't go into spontaneous labor in the next week-and-a-half? Don't cramping and contractions and effacement and dilation and +1 station MEAN anything anymore?

I liked the contractions when I thought they were getting me somewhere, but now that I know they aren't getting me anywhere quickly enough to make much of a difference in terms of when I'm likely to deliver (read: I could easily be 10 days late again), they make me a little crabby. The way it would make anyone crabby to have menstrual cramps off and on for 3 straight days that you're not allowed to take Advil (or red wine) for.

I'm grateful to be healthy, grateful the baby appears to be healthy, grateful I'm not on bed rest or pregnant with quadruplets or fifteen years old or single or living in poverty or in Mississippi or with a Republican—but still. Get me a baby already.

Please!

photo courtesy duboix, morgueFile