Random Thoughts on Babydom

I think of about 85 things to blog about daily, but sadly, I have almost no short-term memory thanks to my sleeplessness. Scratch that, to be precise, I have no transfer to long-term memory. But nobody talks like that. Except Dr. Burns.

Breastfeeding is ridiculously easy. Breastfeeding is ridiculously hard. True story. We're on week 7 of working through it, and I still don't feel like an expert. I have one, ahem, team member on the injured list. How long has she been there? Oh, about 5 weeks. I'll describe. She's gone from slightly cracked, so a spiral crack from tip to base, and now, well, she looks like a Mercedes symbol. Yowza. Blood? You betcha. Or I might be producing strawberry milk. ANYway, that part is hard. The rest of it? Easy as pie. She cries, I'm about 2 layers of clothing from happy baby. No bottles to wash, no scoops of formula to spill. Just WAAAH, splat, done. I highly recommend, if you can swing it.

She's smiling. Daily. When it started, I would work and work and work and coo and baby talk and then, after 30 minutes, she'd grin. Now, I pick her up and WHAM, in-your-face emoting. I love it. Of course, from smiling-rarely to smiling constantly was about a week. It felt longer than that.

Here's the sad part: I have to go back to work in three weeks. How did the time pass so fast? The first two days, daycare can't take her, so Mike is staying at home with her. That should be interesting for sure. Mike, every time she cries, looks at me and says, "I think she's hungry." Every time. I could be burping her, with milk still on her chin, she peeps, Mike declares that she's hungry. I'll get back from work and she'll weigh 40 pounds. And spit up all over me. Of course, back to work means pumping and bottle-making. So much for the ease of breastfeeding. Now feeding her will be twice as much work. Fancy!

Crying baby... must run.

Babytime: All the Deets

It's been awhile, adoring fans, and I'm sure you're wondering how delivery went. Well, it went. Unpleasantly.

Evidently my body had never planned on going into labor. Why would it? The baby is fed, safely surrounded by a water bubble, and happy. Once out, these things proved more challenging. My uterus new that would be the case, so I can't blame her for trying to keep the baby on the inside. My doctors, however, seemed determined to make me raise a child that could breathe air. My uterus and the doctors were really butting heads on this issue. The docs would check my progress and unhappily report that I was -7 centimeters dilated and so un-effaced they couldn't believe it. Round one: uterus.

On my last appointment, one week after my due date, the doctors announced that I would be checking into the hospital that night and have a baby either that night or tomorrow. "Fabulous!", I thought. Life will change! So Mike and I packed for the hospital. (YES, I realize I should have done this before one week past my due date.) Then we went out and ate a fabulous meal at Soby's downtown, and said goodbye to coupledom. (At least we thought we knew what we were getting into--HA!) Round two: doctors.

So I check into the hospital. They tell me that I'm getting a drug to make my uterus "ripen". Oh, joy, that sounds like a beautiful process! It wasn't. Basically, they place a credit card on a string in a very unfriendly place. Then attach an IV, fetal monitor, and blood pressure cuff. "Now try to get some rest! Tomorrow will be a big day!", the nurses say. "Oh, but the cuff will take your BP every 30 minutes--good luck with that!", was somehow left out from their instructions. So we waited. Round three: uterus.

Got up the next morning at 6:00 a.m. They checked my progress. How dilated? You guessed it, NOT AT ALL. But the drug worked, and now I'm "ripe"--sure, I think. Round four: uterus.

The doc started the pitocin to induce contractions. Low level, nice 'n easy. I could barely feel anything, and it was pretty comfortable. They checked me again at noon. Progress? "Mmm, maybe 1 cm", they say. I sigh. On we go! Round five: uterus.

At 1, they check me again. Still 1 cm. They decide to "break my bag of waters" with what I'm sure was some nurse's knitting needle. Whoosh, there goes that, and HOLY MOLY did that turn up the contractions! I immediately start trying to deal with quite intense pain (pitocin contractions are stronger and more frequent than natural contractions). I made it one hour and asked that they come and check me again. They did and I'm at TWO centimeters! (We're on our way to ten, mind you, and I'm almost in tears.) I ordered an epidural. Round six: pitocin.

Side note: Yes, I wanted to go natural, but I didn't work out. Then the pitocin, then the no progress, ugh! I made it 9 hours on pitocin. That's something!

The man comes to do the epidural and I am terrified of it. Absolutely terrified. I read about all the side effects before hand, and the list is lengthy. I didn't want to have to get one, but I could not deal with the pain. Long and short of it: I cried like a child and Mike held me through the procedure. Once in place, my contractions immediately started to get less intense, and in an hour, I could feel that I was contracting, but had no pain associated with it. They checked me at 4 p.m.--2-3 cm. I think they were being nice and didn't want to tell me I was still at 2. Round seven: uterus.

At 8 p.m., I'd been in the hospital 24 hours. I'd been at the highest level of pitocin since about 11 that morning. They check me: 4cm. I am hating life. I want nothing more than to remove the monitors and the stupid BP cuff, which is now, because of the epidural, taking a measurement every 15 minutes. I want to sleep. I can't sleep. Round eight: uterus.

They check me at 11, 1, then 3 a.m. Lo and behold I'm making progress. I was a whole 6cm at 3 a.m. Earlier that night, they stopped and re-started the pitocin in hopes of jump starting my progress. Wow, it worked wonders (note the sarcasm). At 5 a.m., I get checked again and FINALLY, I am complete. When the nurse said it, I couldn't believe her. She said we'd start pushing in a half hour. We did. And I pushed. And pushed. And pushed. I pushed for 2 and a half hours. Round nine: uterus.

The nurses tell me that I'll have a baby by 8 a.m. It's 7:45. I'm wondering where the doctor is. She shows up and declares that she'll need a vacuum extractor to get the baby through the last little bit. My uteris and birth canal really teamed up at the last stretch. She delivers my baby at 7:59 a.m. on June 4th, 2010, 36 hours after I checked in the hospital. Round ten, and winner by TKO: doctors.