I have so much to say about motherhood and no time to say it--I barely have time to bathe let alone blog--so this is just a quick update to say that we're alive and well and happy and only partially losing our minds.
It's a good thing Josephina is so sweet and smart and beautiful, because she's a little on the high-maintenance side. Breastfeeding is a major struggle. I'm determined to make it work, but we're dealing with multiple factors that are making it a constant battle. And because of her eating issues, she's not the best sleeper, either. Her doctor gave her a clean bill of health, so we think these are just behavioral issues. Needless to say, we're pretty exhausted, emotionally and physically. Everybody tells you how hard labor is, but I'm finding the postpartum period to be the really hard part.
The good news is that she's the cutest thing in the universe and we love being her parents. Tim is the most doting father ever. I don't think it's possible for him to look at her and not grin. We spend a lot of time admiring her and laughing at the faces and noises she makes. We adore her so much it's kind of disgusting.
Be sure to check out my Flickr for pictures of her.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
labor and delivery
note: i'm writing this in spurts between baby-wrangling, so it's kind of a big rambly ineloquent mess. i just needed to get it all down before i forgot the details.
At midnight on June 16 I'm lying in bed reading O magazine and watching South Park, getting ready to go to sleep, when I start feeling weirdly crampy. I'm slightly freaked out but I really think it's just gas pains. Like most birth-related happenings, it's not like I expected. I expected labor to start like it does on TV--with my water breaking dramatically or a sudden, undeniable, major contraction doubling me over. I didn't think I would just feel stank and farty. Anyway, it gets annoying enough that I hobble out to the living room to sleep on the couch, which for some reason usually makes me feel better. Tim is sitting out there getting ready to go to bed. He asks if I'm okay and I tell him I'm feeling really crampy. I think he says something like "Aw, that sucks. 'Night!" He's used to me bitching about every ache and pain. He goes to bed and I just sit there for a few minutes being a lump of pain and confusion. Like, "Could it be? But no. But ow. Really? No. Okay maybe." I hobble back into the bedroom and stand in the doorway and say very tentatively, "Babe? I think I might be in labor."
Tim comes out to the living room with me and times what I refuse to believe are contractions. They're coming every 3 minutes, which seems impossible to me. According to the baby books I should be in the pushing stage by now if they're really that close together. I use this to convince myself that these couldn't possibly be real contractions. Nevermind that they're painful, increasing in severity, and are accompanied by crazy lower back pain--all signs of true labor. Tim keeps saying we should call the doctor and I'm all, "But it's 3 am! That's so rude! It's nothing!" I'm just walking around cringing and clutching at myself wondering if I should take Bean-O or something. I'm that confused. Finally Tim calls the doctor and makes me talk to him. I explain my symptoms and he says we should go to the hospital.
I whine all the way there. We're just going to get sent right home; this is stupid; I don't wanna be *that* pregnant lady who goes to the hospital every time she's constipated. Tim keeps saying "I'm pretty sure this is real" but I don't believe him. We get there and the nurses at the counter tell me I picked a bad day to give birth because they're really busy. Oh! I'll just come back later then! They say they don't have a room for me yet and I have to go sit in a tiny dark waiting room until one opens up. I hate my life at this point. We sit in the Waiting Room of Doom for what seems like an eternity. Do you have any idea how much it sucks to labor in a hard plastic chair? My contractions are getting worse. I keep muttering "I don't want to be in this room." Finally a nurse escorts me to a real room, which looks like paradise in comparison.
They check me and I'm only 3-4 cm dilated, but the monitor confirms I'm having real contractions every two minutes. They tell us we could go home but we'd likely be back later in the day. We decide to stay. Horrible Nurse #1 tries to give me an IV and succeeds in making my hand swell up like a balloon. Another nurse is brought in to try. I have needles shoved into me for no reason three times before the IV is inserted right. "You have really fragile veins, so if you feel any pain in this arm, tell someone right away because the vein might blow." THE VEIN MIGHT BLOW? BLOW?! I want to go home. The IV and monitors I'm hooked up to mean I have to lie on my side which is incredibly uncomfortable. I want to sit up and they won't let me. People keep coming in and sticking me and strapping things on me and asking me the same annoying questions over and over. Meanwhile my contractions are getting worse and worse. The back pain is brutal. I tell Tim I totally regret coming to the hospital so soon. At least at home I could move around without dumb nurses all up in my face.
After a few hours of suffering and hating the word, my doctor comes in and checks me. "You're 5 cm dilated, fully effaced, with a bulging bag of wa--" and suddenly my water explodes in his face. It's the weirdest feeling ever and I gasp in shock. His face quickly turns serious and he tells me that the water is brown, which means it contains meconium, which means the baby pooped inside me. This is bad. The baby will have to be whisked away quickly upon delivery to make sure she doesn't inhale the meconium. I'm worried sick. Then he tells me I shouldn't get an epidural unless I really need one. Um, okay. I wanted one 3 cm ago, but I'm trying to obey.
The only nurse I like, who I only see twice, comes in and asks if I want the epidural. I tell her what the doctor said and that I'm trying to hold out. She can see I'm not winning the battle. She basically says "Dude, get the effing epidural, it's good shit." She tells me I'll be more relaxed with it and the relaxation will help my labor progress. Well, twist my arm then. I say yes, give it. The anesthesiologist comes in twenty minutes later, right when the pain is becoming intolerable. I'm really scared about getting the epidural. I've heard horror stories about paralysis and spinal headaches and permanent back damage. It takes 10 minutes to complete the process. Tim is watching with this stricken look on his face. Later he tells me he was totally terrified and could hardly bear to watch. The anesthesiologist is really nice and everything goes well. And in ten minutes the pain is gone and I feel like the "Walking on Sunshine" girl from Intervention.
My nurse is the most un-reassuring person in the universe. She keeps reminding me about the meconium in this really uncompassionate we're-all-gonna-die kind of way. Then she moves my monitor and tells me, alarmed, that my stomach feels really hot and then takes my temperature and tells me, alarmed, that I have a slight fever and that this means I might have an infection and they need to put me on antibiotics because I could give it to the baby. This is about the same time that my doctor checks me and finds that I'm still 5 cm. My labor has stalled and they're going to start me on Pictocin, which I don't want because it seems scary. The nurse informs me that she has to put Tylenol in my rectum. Of course she does. I'm a humiliated worried lump of unhappiness, quietly crying into my hospital pillow. The nurse keeps barking at me to relax because my pesky emotional distress is raising my heart rate.
Nothing changes over the next few hours. I just lie there painlessly, silently freaking out. I feel helpless. Tim keeps telling me everything's going to be okay. The nurse keeps coming in and saying crazy things to me. At one point she says "I know you're worried, but we're going to do our best." WTF? That's something you say to someone dying of AIDS and even then you probably wouldn't say it. I hate her. Where is my doctor? Finally he comes in. I expect to be dilated another centimeter or two. Instead he says, "Okay, Megan, we need to start pushing." Start the what, now? I'm shocked. "Wait, so how dilated am I?" I say, in what is undoubtedly the stupidest question ever. "You're fully dilated. It's time to push." I suddenly have a burst of energy and excitement. My baby's almost here!
Apparently I am a good pusher. That's what everyone keeps telling me. I respond well to that kind of encouragement. I'm pushing with everything I have. I'm in some other place, so deep inside myself that it's like I'm outside my body. It's hard to explain. Horrible Nurse #2 won't tell me when to push so I have to figure it out myself. Tim coaches me. 45 minutes later, the doctor is back to deliver the baby. He tells me to reach down and feel my baby's head, which is amazing. As I'm pushing and moaning and panting this child out of me, my doctor makes a joke and the team of people suddenly in the room all laugh hysterically. It's a long joke. I'm just sitting there stunned that I'm trying to have a baby and it's suddenly become a comedy club in here and everyone is ignoring me. I don't even remember this until Tim reminds me of it later when he mentions what a surreal bad-movie moment it was.
After five minutes of everyone telling me I'm SOCLOSE and me pushing with strength I didn't know I had, I feel an incredible sense of relief as the baby slips out of me. She's rushed to the baby station in the corner and all the people surround her and look busy and important. While the doctor stitches me (I tore slightly) and delivers the placenta (I didn't even have to push it out), I look at Tim as he's looking at her. He's crying a lot, in a happy way. I can tell by his face that she's okay. That's my favorite part of the whole experience, watching him look at her for the first time. My doctor tells me the cord was wrapped around her neck twice and that we're really lucky. Aside from a major conehead, which they assure me will go away, she's totally healthy.
They give the baby to Tim and he brings her over to show me. I'm crying with relief and happiness. The first thing I see are her chubby cheeks. She's beautiful. Finally they let me hold her. I'm in awe, but in a different way than I expected. I thought she would feel familiar, like a natural part of me. Instead she is this whole new different person, a mystery. We made this? She's ours? All that sappy stuff moms love to spew about how wonderful that moment is when you hold your baby for the first time, how it makes all the suffering worth it--it's all true.
And that's how Josephina Rownan Green came into this world on an ordinary June 17th, a totally unexpected 11 days early, to two parents whose only plans for the upcoming week was to go out for Thai food. I usually hate the world "miracle" but it suits her. She's beyond anything we ever dreamed and we love her more than words can say.
At midnight on June 16 I'm lying in bed reading O magazine and watching South Park, getting ready to go to sleep, when I start feeling weirdly crampy. I'm slightly freaked out but I really think it's just gas pains. Like most birth-related happenings, it's not like I expected. I expected labor to start like it does on TV--with my water breaking dramatically or a sudden, undeniable, major contraction doubling me over. I didn't think I would just feel stank and farty. Anyway, it gets annoying enough that I hobble out to the living room to sleep on the couch, which for some reason usually makes me feel better. Tim is sitting out there getting ready to go to bed. He asks if I'm okay and I tell him I'm feeling really crampy. I think he says something like "Aw, that sucks. 'Night!" He's used to me bitching about every ache and pain. He goes to bed and I just sit there for a few minutes being a lump of pain and confusion. Like, "Could it be? But no. But ow. Really? No. Okay maybe." I hobble back into the bedroom and stand in the doorway and say very tentatively, "Babe? I think I might be in labor."
Tim comes out to the living room with me and times what I refuse to believe are contractions. They're coming every 3 minutes, which seems impossible to me. According to the baby books I should be in the pushing stage by now if they're really that close together. I use this to convince myself that these couldn't possibly be real contractions. Nevermind that they're painful, increasing in severity, and are accompanied by crazy lower back pain--all signs of true labor. Tim keeps saying we should call the doctor and I'm all, "But it's 3 am! That's so rude! It's nothing!" I'm just walking around cringing and clutching at myself wondering if I should take Bean-O or something. I'm that confused. Finally Tim calls the doctor and makes me talk to him. I explain my symptoms and he says we should go to the hospital.
I whine all the way there. We're just going to get sent right home; this is stupid; I don't wanna be *that* pregnant lady who goes to the hospital every time she's constipated. Tim keeps saying "I'm pretty sure this is real" but I don't believe him. We get there and the nurses at the counter tell me I picked a bad day to give birth because they're really busy. Oh! I'll just come back later then! They say they don't have a room for me yet and I have to go sit in a tiny dark waiting room until one opens up. I hate my life at this point. We sit in the Waiting Room of Doom for what seems like an eternity. Do you have any idea how much it sucks to labor in a hard plastic chair? My contractions are getting worse. I keep muttering "I don't want to be in this room." Finally a nurse escorts me to a real room, which looks like paradise in comparison.
They check me and I'm only 3-4 cm dilated, but the monitor confirms I'm having real contractions every two minutes. They tell us we could go home but we'd likely be back later in the day. We decide to stay. Horrible Nurse #1 tries to give me an IV and succeeds in making my hand swell up like a balloon. Another nurse is brought in to try. I have needles shoved into me for no reason three times before the IV is inserted right. "You have really fragile veins, so if you feel any pain in this arm, tell someone right away because the vein might blow." THE VEIN MIGHT BLOW? BLOW?! I want to go home. The IV and monitors I'm hooked up to mean I have to lie on my side which is incredibly uncomfortable. I want to sit up and they won't let me. People keep coming in and sticking me and strapping things on me and asking me the same annoying questions over and over. Meanwhile my contractions are getting worse and worse. The back pain is brutal. I tell Tim I totally regret coming to the hospital so soon. At least at home I could move around without dumb nurses all up in my face.
After a few hours of suffering and hating the word, my doctor comes in and checks me. "You're 5 cm dilated, fully effaced, with a bulging bag of wa--" and suddenly my water explodes in his face. It's the weirdest feeling ever and I gasp in shock. His face quickly turns serious and he tells me that the water is brown, which means it contains meconium, which means the baby pooped inside me. This is bad. The baby will have to be whisked away quickly upon delivery to make sure she doesn't inhale the meconium. I'm worried sick. Then he tells me I shouldn't get an epidural unless I really need one. Um, okay. I wanted one 3 cm ago, but I'm trying to obey.
The only nurse I like, who I only see twice, comes in and asks if I want the epidural. I tell her what the doctor said and that I'm trying to hold out. She can see I'm not winning the battle. She basically says "Dude, get the effing epidural, it's good shit." She tells me I'll be more relaxed with it and the relaxation will help my labor progress. Well, twist my arm then. I say yes, give it. The anesthesiologist comes in twenty minutes later, right when the pain is becoming intolerable. I'm really scared about getting the epidural. I've heard horror stories about paralysis and spinal headaches and permanent back damage. It takes 10 minutes to complete the process. Tim is watching with this stricken look on his face. Later he tells me he was totally terrified and could hardly bear to watch. The anesthesiologist is really nice and everything goes well. And in ten minutes the pain is gone and I feel like the "Walking on Sunshine" girl from Intervention.
My nurse is the most un-reassuring person in the universe. She keeps reminding me about the meconium in this really uncompassionate we're-all-gonna-die kind of way. Then she moves my monitor and tells me, alarmed, that my stomach feels really hot and then takes my temperature and tells me, alarmed, that I have a slight fever and that this means I might have an infection and they need to put me on antibiotics because I could give it to the baby. This is about the same time that my doctor checks me and finds that I'm still 5 cm. My labor has stalled and they're going to start me on Pictocin, which I don't want because it seems scary. The nurse informs me that she has to put Tylenol in my rectum. Of course she does. I'm a humiliated worried lump of unhappiness, quietly crying into my hospital pillow. The nurse keeps barking at me to relax because my pesky emotional distress is raising my heart rate.
Nothing changes over the next few hours. I just lie there painlessly, silently freaking out. I feel helpless. Tim keeps telling me everything's going to be okay. The nurse keeps coming in and saying crazy things to me. At one point she says "I know you're worried, but we're going to do our best." WTF? That's something you say to someone dying of AIDS and even then you probably wouldn't say it. I hate her. Where is my doctor? Finally he comes in. I expect to be dilated another centimeter or two. Instead he says, "Okay, Megan, we need to start pushing." Start the what, now? I'm shocked. "Wait, so how dilated am I?" I say, in what is undoubtedly the stupidest question ever. "You're fully dilated. It's time to push." I suddenly have a burst of energy and excitement. My baby's almost here!
Apparently I am a good pusher. That's what everyone keeps telling me. I respond well to that kind of encouragement. I'm pushing with everything I have. I'm in some other place, so deep inside myself that it's like I'm outside my body. It's hard to explain. Horrible Nurse #2 won't tell me when to push so I have to figure it out myself. Tim coaches me. 45 minutes later, the doctor is back to deliver the baby. He tells me to reach down and feel my baby's head, which is amazing. As I'm pushing and moaning and panting this child out of me, my doctor makes a joke and the team of people suddenly in the room all laugh hysterically. It's a long joke. I'm just sitting there stunned that I'm trying to have a baby and it's suddenly become a comedy club in here and everyone is ignoring me. I don't even remember this until Tim reminds me of it later when he mentions what a surreal bad-movie moment it was.
After five minutes of everyone telling me I'm SOCLOSE and me pushing with strength I didn't know I had, I feel an incredible sense of relief as the baby slips out of me. She's rushed to the baby station in the corner and all the people surround her and look busy and important. While the doctor stitches me (I tore slightly) and delivers the placenta (I didn't even have to push it out), I look at Tim as he's looking at her. He's crying a lot, in a happy way. I can tell by his face that she's okay. That's my favorite part of the whole experience, watching him look at her for the first time. My doctor tells me the cord was wrapped around her neck twice and that we're really lucky. Aside from a major conehead, which they assure me will go away, she's totally healthy.
They give the baby to Tim and he brings her over to show me. I'm crying with relief and happiness. The first thing I see are her chubby cheeks. She's beautiful. Finally they let me hold her. I'm in awe, but in a different way than I expected. I thought she would feel familiar, like a natural part of me. Instead she is this whole new different person, a mystery. We made this? She's ours? All that sappy stuff moms love to spew about how wonderful that moment is when you hold your baby for the first time, how it makes all the suffering worth it--it's all true.
And that's how Josephina Rownan Green came into this world on an ordinary June 17th, a totally unexpected 11 days early, to two parents whose only plans for the upcoming week was to go out for Thai food. I usually hate the world "miracle" but it suits her. She's beyond anything we ever dreamed and we love her more than words can say.
Monday, June 14, 2010
june is busting out all over
This song came up on my Pandora radio station the other day and I thought it was funny. I'm really bringing a whole new meaning to it right now, dontcha think?
Just a quick update to let y'all know that I'm still alive and still pregnant. I haven't felt much like writing or doing anything but sitting on the couch being cranky. Everything hurts, sleep is elusive, my hormones are out of control (I'm prone to bursting into tears for no reason) and simple tasks are taking all the energy I can muster, which isn't much. In short, I'm 9 months pregnant and I feel like it. Still, I'm grateful that these are just normal aches and pains and my pregnancy continues to be healthy and uncomplicated.
It's just a waiting game at this point. The doctor says it could be any day now...but it could also be several weeks. Birth is certainly mysterious. But everything's normal with me and the baby and the doctor thinks I'll have a smooth, short labor.
I am starting to get a little nervous about the labor thing for the first time. I mean, how are you supposed to feel when you know the worst pain of your life is right around the corner? I know the suffering is temporary and totally worth it and all that, but damn, pulling your lower lip up over your head? Do not want. But I'll get through it and soon it will just be a distant, gory memory.
Can't wait to meet you, Green Bean. Please don't hurt me.
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