burnt toast life

don’t make me go…

I’m going back to work on Monday.

sadpuppy

I’m going to admit something that anyone who has talked to me over the past few weeks might be surprised to hear: I can kind of understand why 6 weeks is the time when most moms go back. That doesn’t mean I agree with it. It just means I understand it.

When I was pregnant, I started dreading going back to work – before she was even born! Those first few weeks post-partum, it wasn’t even a thought. Even at 4 weeks, the thought of leaving her for any length of time was simply unfathomable. But right around the 6 week mark, I started to notice a marked change in her. She started holding her head up better. She finally started filling out. No longer the 4 lb, 4 ounce little peanut I brought home from the hospital, my baby was just less fragile in general. That didn’t mean I wanted to leave her… it just meant I started feeling like maybe I could and she would be OK.

I’ve been home for 8 weeks (one perk of a c-section…2 extra weeks to recover). It’s not enough time. Five years would not be enough time. Is the work I’m doing more important than spending my days with my daughter? NO. Do I need to work so that those days aren’t spent living in a cardboard box? Sigh… yes. I know it’s hard for every mom to go back, but I seriously think there should be some special grant or something that IF’ers could apply for to let them stay home longer and still collect an income. I fought like hell for 3.5 years for this child, and now that I finally have her, I have to leave her for the better part of her day. It’s just really unfair.

I think the other hard thing is that in this age of technology, it seems like most of us in the corporate world should be able to work from home most days. Especially since I’m a writer. Then at least I could see her during the day, even if I would need someone to watch her while I was working. Unfortunately, it’s not an option at my current place of employment. It’s just not something they do.

It’s funny – a week after having her, I was showing up at my mother-in-laws with a full face of makeup, house vacuumed and spotless, all by 10 am. These days I’ve been experiencing a kind of productivity regression. Maybe I’m mentally digging my toes in, refusing to do anything. Lately I’ve been showering every other day and only leaving home out of necessity. This morning Molly and I stayed in our pajamas until 10:30 making pancakes. These are the things that I’ll miss the most.

Every morning Eric cheerfully reminds me how many days I have left until I go back to work, and has been since a week ago. I think a part of him expects me to reply one day with a staunch refusal, and maybe he’s just testing me to see if I’m really planning on going. I know that I have to. I know it will suck, and then it will slowly get better until it feels normal. I guess that’s the problem – right now this feels normal, being with my daughter every minute of every day. I don’t want that to change. I don’t want anything else to feel normal.

This sucks.

oh… Bird

Anyone who has been following along for any length of time knows that Bird is my “problem child.” Lovable, yes, but also naughty. Prone to antics. (Remember this?) (And this?)

Well, this time it may not be his fault, but the incident caused us plenty of headaches nonetheless.

Every year when we go on vacation, we have to board our dogs at the kennel. Up until this year, we’ve taken them to the same place – it’s in town, it’s convenient, and it’s reputable. But part of me never felt good about it, mostly because the dogs are kept in large cages all day and night. Yes, part of the caged area is outside, so they can “enjoy the outdoors.” And yes, my dogs are kept in my bedroom for 8 hours a day during the work week usually, so it’s not really that different. But still. I always felt so bad leaving them there, especially since I was going to enjoy a beach vacation. Ryder would usually come home with some sort of physical proof of his anxiety, like last time when his paw was red and hairless from being chewed on all week.

So you can imagine my delight when a new kennel came to town a few months ago. Not only did they have open play for dogs (and doggy daycare), but boarders enjoyed luxury dog accommodations. They got their own little rooms with beds and windows (no cages). So all week while I was at the beach, my dogs would socialize with the other dogs, play on the outdoor kiddie toys, bathe in the multiple pools, and then go to sleep tired out and happy in their own private room. It was perfect! And I even managed to convince myself that it wasn’t THAT much more expensive than the other place (ahem… $200 more expensive. Eeesh).

I took the boys for a personality evaluation a week before we left to ensure they would get along with the other dogs, and of course they passed with flying colors. I left them there for a day of daycare, just to test the waters, and the owners raved over their awesome personalities and said they were welcome to come and play anytime. We left for the beach feeling really good about the whole situation. And zero guilt!

That is… until Wednesday. Early in the morning Eric got a phone call from the Pennsylvania Department of Health. They were calling to inform him that there was a complaint filed against Bird for biting someone. Eric assured the woman that there must be some mistake, as his dog was safely ensconced at a kennel and we were on vacation. And we had received no phone calls from the kennel.

Well.

Apparently it went down like this: one of the employees at the kennel left a bagel unattended (um, why was she eating a bagel around the dogs in the first place?). Bird and another dog, Fred, stole the bagel and started eating it. The employee removed Fred from the area, then attempted to take the bagel out of Bird’s mouth. So…he bit her.

Apparently he bit off the tip of her finger and she had to go to the hospital and get stitches. She wasn’t mad or anything, but since it was a dog bite it did need to get reported to the state. Luckily, the whole place is equipped with web cams (which we were able to view remotely, another huge selling point on this place), so the owners were able to view the incident and confirm that the employee handled it 100% incorrectly. The bite was reactive, not aggressive. They were totally on our side. But despite this, Bird had to be quarantined for the remainder of his stay, and he is never allowed back there for boarding or daycare.

Also, when we asked why the hell they didn’t call us, they said, “It is what it is. We didn’t want to ruin your vacation.”

Um…OK? Really? Because it wasn’t much better hearing it from the Board of Health, that’s for sure.

The whole thing just sucks big time. Because now, not only can we never go back to that place, but also Bird will have this mark on his permanent record forever. So we can never board him anywhere. Trust me, one of the first questions on any application for a kennel or doggy daycare is, “Has your dog ever bitten anyone?” and now we will always have to answer “Yes.” What are we supposed to do next year on vacation?

Because of the incident, the girl who got bit was fired. Not that I’m ever happy to hear about someone getting fired… but it sounds like she’d be better suited to a different profession anyway. Too late for us, though.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with this dog. But then something like this happens, and all is forgiven:

birdmolly1

hospital captivity journal

It occurs to me that I really should have written this when it was more fresh in my mind, because now I’ve been home for 10 days and I’m fully immersed in baby bliss-dom. A.K.A., I’m not as distraught as I was when we were stuck in the hospital. However, I would like to try to record everything that happened, if for no other reason than to have it for myself for later.

It’s funny…I used to get annoyed at the new moms who stopped posting. I used to think, “What the hell are they doing, anyway? Home from work… sleepy newborn…good God woman, just give us some snippets!” I vowed to never become one of them. I vowed that I would blog more often on maternity leave, not less often.

And then I had a baby.

I can’t believe how much of my time I spend doing nothing of record. Breastfeeding is so time-consuming. When she sleeps, I usually throw her in the Moby wrap and rush around trying to keep up on chores – dishes, laundry, etc. A simple trip out to Target has become a carefully orchestrated event. And by the time Eric gets home from work to help me, I’m usually too exhausted to blog, plus I want to spend a couple of hours of time with him (at the moment, that means slogging through the 120 episodes of LOST. I mean, it’s a great show, but I didn’t realize the level of commitment it required when we started!).

So anyway. The thing that sucks is that I have so many posts in my head. Posts about breastfeeding, about our time home and our routine, about how my husband has stepped into his role of new father so well that it makes my heart hurt with happiness to think about it. That said – and I’ve said this before – I think this blog is going to be different from here on out. Not that I’ve forgotten where I came from. I’m still carrying these scars of infertility, and I always will. When it comes time to try to expand our family, we’ll need to contact New Hope and pay a few thousand dollars for another FET, not just go on a date that ends with a roll in the hay. That’s the painful truth. But for the near future, the things that I’m going to talk about will have to do with navigating the world of being a new mom, hopefully with a sense of gratitude and joy and a healthy dose of humor. So if you find that you need to stop following me for your own sanity, I totally understand. I just wanted to forewarn that baby-centric topics will most likely be the norm now.

And if you’re still with me… good! I have so much to say. I’m going to try to cram it into the next 30 minutes before it’s time for Molly’s sponge bath, because once again she smells like sour milk and we have a visitor coming in an hour. Apologies in advance for typos.

We left off right after the birth, when I was exhausted beyond belief, yet wishing I could bond with the baby. At that point it still didn’t feel like she was really mine. Unfortunately, that feeling would continue for the next few days.

Day 2 (Tuesday)

After a C-section, after your catheter is removed, they encourage you to get up and go for a walk. This is nice because for all the time you’re stuck in bed, they put these large cuffs on your legs to discourage blood clots, and the constant inflation of the cuffs every 10 minutes is super annoying. So being released from bedrest definitely comes as a reprieve (though I must admit, tired as I was, the catheter was actually a welcome apparatus. Not getting up to pee = the ultimate in lazy living).

For my first walk, Eric took my hand and gingerly led me to the edge of the bed. Together, we eased my feet onto the floor and I stood up. And I felt…good. Like, surprisingly good. I slid on my flip flops and started walking at a good clip down the hall. “How about you slow down a little?,” he said. “No, no, I feel really good!,” was my reply. I couldn’t help but wonder why people made such a big deal about C-sections. I felt like I was healed already.

Little did I know that I was still feeling the effects of really good intravenous pain medication (Morphine? Yes, please!). And that by the next day, I’d be downgraded to nothing but Percocet and Motrin. I had not made a miraculous recovery. I was just drugged out and didn’t even know it.

On the breastfeeding front, Molly was doing pretty well. She made good attempts at latching, but would detach often and never got a good flow going. She was still having lots of wet and poopy diapers, so I wasn’t very concerned.

Friends came to visit. I got more morphine. I only have vague recollections of our conversations, as I desperately tried to sound normal while feeling like my head was floating way above my body. The good news was that I felt no pain at all.

Day 3 (Wednesday)

This was when things started to go south with breastfeeding. Despite all the progress we had made, things seemed to get worse instead of better. She would attempt to latch, get frustrated, and scrunch up her little red face and scream at my breast. I cried. She cried. I’m pretty sure this is when she had her first low blood sugar reading, and coupled with her small size, the hospital staff started to get concerned. The lower limit for blood sugar range is 45, and her reading was 44. So it wasn’t yet a 5 alarm situation, but again… they were definitely concerned. People started showing a lot more interest in my feeding record and it seemed a nurse was always “conveniently” present when I attempted a feeding. Of course, the more they watched me, the more stressed out I was, and the worse we did. Eventually our hospital pediatrician insisted on supplementing with formula. Mama was not happy.

Here I should mention the pediatrician fiasco. Our family doctor is equipped to do pediatrics, and all along we had assumed we would just go to him rather than search for a separate pediatrician. I’ve been seeing him since I was a little kid. He knows me, my history, and my entire family and their history. Since Eric and I have been married, he’s been seeing Eric too. It was really a no-brainer. The problem, then, was that the hospital only had a limited number of pediatricians who visited the hospital and checked on the new babies, and he wasn’t one of them. Despite the fact that he would be seeing Molly once we were released, I was forced to pick one of their providers from a list, at least for the duration of our stay. I chose a group that another mom I know had highly recommended. Little did I know this would be the biggest mistake of my stay (cue ominous music here).

From here on out, we’ll call him Dr. Satan.

I can’t really blame him for insisting on the formula supplementation. Low blood sugar for newborns is no joke, and if left untreated it can lead to things like permanent brain damage. Was I upset that she’d be having formula? Of course I was. But in that moment all that mattered was getting her a stable reading that made everyone happy.

Here’s a fun fact about me: I am really good at producing colostrum (or as they call it, liquid gold!). While some women pump and pump and only get a few drops (which is usually sufficient, since it’s so packed with nutrients), I was somehow able to produce an ounce per pump session. The nurses all expressed their surprise and awe over this apparent miracle of my breasts. In this case, it was a real plus, because I got to mix my pumped colostrum with formula rather than just give her straight formula. When it was all said and done, she only received one ounce of formula total in her entire stay. The rest of her feedings were pure colostrum, delivered to her hungry belly via a combination of finger feeding and SNS (supplemental nursing system).

My pain levels were finally what they were supposed to be since my morphine prescription had run out. It hurt to bend forward, to walk, to sit, and to lay flat. It felt like my abdomen was way too short and they had stitched me too tightly. Plus, I found out that rather than stitches, my doctor preferred staples. The thought of seeing my lower abdomen all stapled up like Frankenstein’s monster was enough to make me glad for my big belly to hide it. I couldn’t bear to look. And it hurt just to exist. I’m officially not a fan of C-sections.

I’ve taken Percocet in the past when I got my wisdom teeth out, and all I remember is that it made me pass out into a deep sleep – HARD. I didn’t want to sleep like that because I knew I had this baby to take care of, and on top of that she was having issues. So I requested the Motrin. A few hours later, crying from the excruciating pain, I caved in and took one Percocet. When that made absolutely no dent in my suffering, I went for two. It did not make me fall asleep, but it did take the edge off enough so that I could function. For the rest of the time I found the perfect mix was to alternate between Percocet and Motrin every 4 hours.

Day 4 (Thursday)

Going home day…

…or so we thought.

Dr. Satan came into my room fairly early. He went over Molly’s stats… good, good, everything looked good. But then. Because of her low blood sugar, there was no way he could let her go home. He also couldn’t tell me when she might be able to go home.

This news was delivered nonchalantly, and I, in my incredibly hormonal, sleep-deprived, overwhelmed new parent state, immediately started hysterically crying. I mean, full on, borderline hyperventilation, uncontrollable sobbing. Did Dr. Satan offer a sympathetic pat on the shoulder? Did he try to explain further why they were keeping her? Did he even take a break in his spiel and acknowledge my distress? No, no he did not. He kept talking. When he finished, he stood, and without a backwards glance, exited my room. I was left alone and confused.

I immediately called Eric, who probably had a hard time trying to figure out what the hell I was trying to say as by that point I was totally freaking the hell out. At the time, he was busily loading up my car with the car seat, with every intention of bringing us both home in the morning/afternoon. But alas, it was not to be.

He came to the hospital and really just having him there calmed me down immensely. My nurse came in and immediately assured me that since I had a C-section, my insurance would cover the extra day, so no need to worry about that. We found out through her that every single feeding should be 30 mL minimum (1 ounce), and since it wasn’t, Dr. Satan was displeased. That along with those low blood sugar readings (though at this point she was back within range) and the fact that she lost 10% of her weight (within limits, but on the high side) made everyone nervous. So we were stuck.

This 30 mL thing came out of left field. I knew that for the one supplemental feeding that was the goal, but no one ever explained that every single feeding was supposed to be that much. As it was, she would sputter and choke if I tried to feed her too much. I mean, she was tiny. Her stomach was the size of a grape. It seemed logical that she wasn’t eating a ton.

The rest of the day was not fun. Eric was mad. I was sad. Molly was still being a fussy eater, and as much as I tried to breastfeed, she just wasn’t into it. Each time I fed her felt like a mini science experiment – I had nipple shields and SNS tubes all hooked up for every feeding. As soon as I was done feeding her that way, I’d pump and pump to assure I wouldn’t need to supplement any more with formula and that I’d always have an adequate amount on hand. I prayed desperately for my milk to come in, assuming this would make everything better.

The hospital allows you to keep your baby in the room, provided you put him or her in the plastic bassinet whenever you’re in the bathroom or sleeping. All night long I held her and cried, drifting somewhere between sleep and delirium. Every time a nurse came in, I faked being wide awake so they wouldn’t make me put her down.

Day 5 (Friday)

Pretty early in the morning Dr. Satan came in and made the call – he wanted to keep Molly another day. Since I was no longer covered by insurance, he talked about having her transferred to Pediatrics.

This time I was openly hostile. I explained that her blood sugar was still good. I explained that all of her feedings the previous day had been 30 mL, or pretty damn close to it, just as he had prescribed. Her weight had gone up, from 4 lbs. 14 ounces to 4 lbs. 16 ounces. I demanded to know why he was torturing us like that and making us stay. Again, rather than explaining anything, he simply said, “She must stay,” and left the room.

I think this is the point where I legit went crazy. I called Eric, hysterical again, and told him that this man was trying to steal our baby and keep her forever. In that moment, it really felt that way. The nurses (I seriously cannot say enough good things about the entire nursing staff at this hospital) came in and tried to calm me down. They promised that no one wanted to keep her, he was just being thorough, and that I would not have to leave her side, even if we were transferred to Peds. Unsure of what our rights were, we asked for a second opinion.

At some point Eric arrived. My head was pounding, my face was puffy, and thanks to clinging to my baby all night and nonstop feeding and planning for feeding, I’d slept a total of 2 hours in the past four days. To say I was a hot mess would be an understatement.

Our second opinion ended up being the hospital’s neonatologist, a woman who we shall call Dr. Angel. She had a soothing voice, a competent nature, and a calming bedside manner. While she essentially drew the same conclusions as Dr. Satan, she took a good hour to explain in-depth exactly why they wanted Molly to stay. She had charts and research to back up her decision. She commiserated with us. She also promised that Molly could potentially go home later in the afternoon or first thing Saturday morning if we kept doing what we were doing. I really should write her a review or send her a note and thank her – she managed to take me from crazy deranged mother who thought a pediatrician was trying to steal her baby to calm and determined mother who could form rational thoughts and sentences.

We kept feeding her and hoping that we would get discharged that night, but one of Dr. Angel’s colleagues came by the room a few hours later and said he would rather err on the side of caution and evaluate her first thing in the morning. He promised that her chances of going home Saturday in the AM were “very, very good.” For once I was not devastated to receive the news because at least it was coming from someone on Dr. Angel’s team and at least there was an end in sight.

Luckily, the maternity wing was quiet and mostly empty, so even though I was discharged as a patient, we got to stay in the same room. The nurses even encouraged me to quickly order myself dinner from the cafeteria and have a last dose of pain meds on the house before I was kicked out of the system (see, told you they were all awesome). That night I met a nurse who really helped me with the whole breastfeeding thing. I gave up on the SNS contraption and the finger feeding completely and just focused on her feeding with the aid of the nipple shield and nothing else. By this point my milk had come in, and feedings began to last longer and she managed to stay latched for the duration. I was still pumping just so I could keep an accurate record of how much she was getting, but it seemed like overkill. I was pretty sure we could switch to just breastfeeding by the time we went home.

Day 6 (Saturday)

The neonatology team checked on Molly early, at 7 a.m. This time her weight went up again – she weighed 5 whole pounds! Woo hoo! We got the all clear to go home soon after. I excitedly called Eric and told him to bring the car seat…for real this time. A few hours later and we were finally on our way.

Since coming home, things have been much, much, MUCH better. It’s only been 10 days since we left the hospital and already we have a great little routine going. Molly is still stuck on the nipple shield, which felt a bit like failing at first, but yesterday we had a lactation consultant come by and she assured me that some babies just need a little extra help at first. She said Molly has such a small mouth, and sometimes latching comes harder for smaller babies. She said she was confident that soon she wouldn’t need it at all.

I am happy to report that she is definitely getting enough to eat, and she’s growing! Yesterday was also her two week check-up with our actual pediatrician (family doctor). Babies are supposed to at least be back up to their birth weight by 2 weeks old, and Molly succeeded – she was 5 lbs, 8 ounces. She poops all the time (like, literally every diaper change) and has plenty of wet diapers too. It appears that our rough start in the hospital was just an adjustment period, and not an indication of things to come.

What else can I say? It’s still utterly surreal and magical. I still can’t believe she’s mine. I think I’m handling it all pretty well, and the only thing I do that I know I shouldn’t is hold her all the time. I really dislike putting her down if I don’t need to. When she’s sleeping and it’s just the two of us at home, she’s usually nestled against my chest in her Moby wrap (a new mom essential, as it turns out). When Eric comes home from work, he gets his turn. Even though we have swings and papasans and rockers and baby loungers, I find myself reluctant to put her down in any of them. I’ve just waited so long to hold my baby… I don’t want to waste a single second of it.

I’m sure there’s more to say but once again, this post is very long. I promise to post more updates soon. This weekend we’re going camping (yes, camping with a newborn!) and we’re also counting down the days until our family beach trip at the end of the month.

In the meantime, I’m just going to hold her.

a birth story

Lots of drama for this birth story! Would you have expected it any other way? The only item on my birth plan (besides the generic “deliver a healthy baby!”) was that I really, really, really didn’t want a C-section.

I’m sure you can see where this is going.

It now makes sense to me why most people choose to divide birth stories into two or even three parts, because this post is going to be obnoxiously long. Of course, I don’t really have time to write any of this. But I also need to write it all while it’s fresh in my mind, because I do want an accurate record that I can go back and re-visit in the future. Plus, I love reading other people’s birth stories, so I knew I wanted to share mine.

I’m going to break this up as much as possible. I started writing it long before I was induced, so the first few parts are boring. (Sorry). The action picks up on Sunday night.

Friday, June 20th (40 weeks + 2 days)

I woke up and took a shower at 6:30 with every intention of going to work. While I was blow-drying my hair, Eric complained of indigestion from the red sauce with onions that I had poisoned him with the night before. He said he was taking a sick day. At this point I was having a few contractions here and there, plus I knew I wouldn’t really have a lot going on at work. I decided to start my leave one day early. Immediately after making the decision, it felt like a weight had been lifted and my mood improved by 1,000%.

Eric and I went to a gigantic warehouse frame sale at 9, and I was happy that we didn’t have to wait for Saturday like we had originally planned, since all the good stuff might have been gone. We stocked up on frames for future baby photos and spent less than $100 for piles and piles of merchandise. I was feeling great! I was still having contractions at this point, but very sporadically, nothing sustained. We met up with my mom at the frame sale and she kidnapped me to take me to the chiropractor (remember him?). Apparently he had been bugging her to make me come in for an adjustment pre-baby, but I had just never gotten around to it.

I got adjusted and he did some pressure point stuff in my feet, and then my mom and I went to Starbucks. Weirdly, I had been wanting daily Frappucinos, and I knew my days of consuming that many calories in one sitting were drawing to a close. Then we stopped at my sister’s house to drop off some frames I had bought for her. My contractions at this point were definitely intense, but still sporadic. After watching me wince a few times, my mom scolded me and said I should be writing them down. She said to be sure to note the date and year because she still has some scribbled down contraction logs and can’t remember which kid each one is for. I recorded one contraction and time and then forget to do it for the rest of the day.

Back at home I quickly became bored just waiting for my OB/GYN appointment at 2:30. (Boredom is a big theme here!) I vacuumed the house (obviously). Finally, it was appointment time. I thought that maybe there would have been some progress since I was having so many contractions. But no…I was still only 1/2 cm, although the doctor said my cervix was “definitely thinner.” My blood pressure was high-ish again, and she said that if I hadn’t already scheduled the induction, she would have made me do it that weekend. This made me feel better, knowing that I wasn’t just being induced due to my own impatience, but also out of medical necessity.

I knew I didn’t want to go home and sit around. I went to the grocery store and picked up random items that I probably didn’t need. I went to the library and got one book, not knowing how many (if any!) I’d have time for in the upcoming days. Finally I went back home, and Eric and I decided to start watching LOST since neither of us had ever seen it. By this point my contractions had stopped completely, and she was moving around a lot. We went to bed around midnight.

Saturday, June 21st (40 weeks + 3 days)

The first day of summer dawned sunny, gorgeous, and not at all humid! The weather could not have been more perfect. I was immediately envious of everyone camping (my family and part of Eric’s family).

I wasn’t having ANY contractions in the morning. I’ll admit that it was kind of exciting to know that my potential Gemini baby was now officially a Cancer – many of my best friends, including my sister, are Cancers. That is a sign that I know I get along well with (not to discount Geminis, of course). I decided to embark on some unnecessary shopping trips to waste some time. Oh, and vacuum. And get a Frappucino. It was starting to feel like Groundhog Day.

I really didn’t do anything productive for the rest of the day…watched some more LOST. Stopped by my sister’s house to visit. Had my first real gluten-filled meal since September (pizza…and yes, it gave me an instant headache). I managed to convince Eric to have relations, thinking this could help bring something on since that’s what everyone kept saying. It had been A WHILE. But no…even several hours and many episodes of LOST later, no contractions, no nothing. We went to bed about 1 am.

Sunday, June 22nd (40 weeks + 4 days)

I cannot fully express the boredom leading up to this event! Eric and I were seriously just pacing around the house, trying to come up with things to do. He installed the carseat in my car. We sat at the kitchen table and stared at each other. We contemplated how the HELL we were going to survive yet another 12 hours with nothing to do. It was such a weird place to be – we didn’t want to start any major projects (trim painting, backyard clean-up, etc.), but at the same time, the gorgeous weather made it hard to justify a day spend vegging out in front of the television. This was so not how I expected it to be. I expected to be running around, throwing things in bags, bickering and panicking and trying not to forget anything as we hurried over to the hospital. In reality, all I kept repeating was Phoebe’s gem of a line from Friends: “The miracle of birth sure is a snooze-fest.”

At my appointment on Friday, my doctor said to be sure to eat a good meal before coming to the hospital, so Eric and I made plans to go out to dinner at Bonefish Grill for one last hurrah. The waitress gave us a free appetizer when we mentioned what we were on our way to do. I treated myself to bread and gluten galore, and it was glorious.

8 p.m.

At the hospital there was a lot more waiting around, and we didn’t get sent back into our room to get started until several hours after our 8 p.m. arrival. Usually inductions start out in triage, but they were overbooked so we lucked out and got to settle into our birthing room right away. My birthing room team included Eric, my mom, my sister Ashley, and my sister Allie. Eric’s mom and sisters had plans of coming to join us once I was further along. A lot of people wanted to watch her come into the world.

our room

our room

Allie drew this for our little Cancer sign crab baby!!

Allie drew this for our little Cancer sign crab baby!!

I was very, very swollen and hadn’t been keeping up on my fluid intake as well as I should have been. The week prior when I went in for blood work with the whole high blood pressure incident, the nurse had such a hard time finding a vein to stick that I ended up with a giant, ugly black bruise on my forearm. Well, this time I was even more swollen, and the nurse trying to put in the IV was NOT FUN AT ALL. She kept looking and thinking she found one and pushing and pushing her gigantic needle into my hand – apologizing, of course, but meanwhile I was crying and trying not to scream out in pain. In the end it took three different nurses about 30 minutes and multiple stab attempts to get the IV in. I could have kissed the one who finally succeeded.

Monday, June 23, 2014

2 a.m.

I was still only ½ centimeter at this point and it was determined that I had a “strong cervix,” so they administered Cytotec (vaginal suppository) to soften it and hopefully bring on contractions. I was to have another dose in four hours and see if I needed another. Everyone on my crew dozed off or kept me company watching TV.

alliechilling

swollen hands on the belly

swollen hands on the belly

6 a.m.

Another dose of Cytotec. I had been experiencing mild contractions, totally manageable, and breathing through them. They sucked, but I was handling it. At my next check, I was pleased to hear that I’d at least progressed to 1.5 cm, but also frustrated at how slowly it was all going.

view beyond my fat feet

view beyond my fat feet

Allie and Ashley

Allie and Ashley

8 a.m.

So much for stoic grace through the pain. HOLY FREAKING SHIT. It was around this time that the pain reached a point of unbearable, and I thought I had a high threshold. The worst part of contractions was the knowledge that right when you finished one, another was just around the corner, so even the short relief of the in between held a sense of dread. At that point I was still only 2 cm dilated, and the thought of the pain getting worse made me want to jump out the window. In tears, I asked begged for the epidural.

10 a.m.

The anesthesiologist arrived and I’m pretty sure I told him I was in love with him (he gets that a lot, apparently). Not going to lie – getting an epidural put in is no picnic. It HURT going in, and the nurse in charge of holding me still and soothing my hysterics definitely deserves a raise. But then, within minutes, the sweet numbness took over and everything felt wonderful. Contraction? What contraction?

monitor

10:30 a.m.

They started Pitocin to move things along. After a small dose, I started progressing rapidly and my contractions were 1 to 2 minutes apart. Within a short amount of time (which of course I didn’t record), I was at 6 cm. Everyone started getting excited.

11:45 a.m.

I should mention that L&D was very busy and throughout the whole night, we kept getting told that we were the least complicated and therefore least priority case on the whole floor. Minimal check-ins, minimal supervision. But then suddenly at 11:45, 7 or 8 doctors came bursting into the room like there was a fire. They raced over to the monitors and started yelling things at one another and creating a commotion and told me that the baby’s heart rate had dropped rapidly and dangerously and they needed to get it up quickly or we’d need to get her out NOW. I was totally panicked and the change in the room was instant. They turned me onto my side and put an oxygen mask on me. I started crying pretty hard because all I wanted was a vaginal delivery and most of all for everyone to witness it who wanted to see it, especially Eric. I just remember the magic of watching my nieces and nephew, not to mention my brother and sister being born. I really wanted that for Eric. Also, the fact that she was in distress was really scary.

Again, I stopped taking notes at this point, but it wasn’t a long time before my doctor came in and broke the news – we were going to have to do a C-section due to fetal distress. There are two doctors at my practice, and the one in charge of my delivery happened to be the one who is very against doing unnecessary C-sections. In other words, if she said it had to be done…well, it had to be done. I made peace with it in my heart and tried to prepare myself mentally for surgery.

They wheeled me back into the operating room and put up the huge curtain. In no time at all I was number than numb, basically everywhere from the neck down. Eric got to come in and sit by my head and keep my company. All I felt was a lot of tugging and pulling. I’m really glad that it wasn’t until afterwards that I found out exactly HOW they perform a C-section. I was picturing a nice little slit and then pulling the baby out gently. Only later was I told that all of my insides were removed and placed on a table. Uhhh… yeah. Gross.

1:32 p.m.

Molly Marie entered the world with a small wail. At that point I was nauseated and numb and just felt weird all over, but I could kind of see her over on the little table with the NICU people and I could definitely hear her, which was reassuring. It occurred to me that I was torn open and could have potentially bled out and died. I asked God to spare me at least long enough to meet her, because it really wouldn’t be fair to make it so far and not even get to see her up close.

here she is!

here she is!

Daddy gets to see her

Daddy gets to see her

it's really loud and scary out here

it’s really loud and scary out here

Eric and Molly left (they did come over and show her to me first, but I still didn’t get a chance to touch her). It took an hour to sew me up, an hour I spent alone, wondering about my baby, and listening to the doctor’s chat about this and that. It was torturous.

After they finished, I was wheeled back to recovery. Along the way I saw my entourage – a crowd of excited people including Eric’s mom and sisters, a friend, and everyone from the delivery crew cheering me on. I felt a sense of exhaustion at this point that is completely indescribable, though I tried to put on a brave face as they gushed over how cute she was. Back in recovery, I finally got to meet her, but I couldn’t even hold her in my arms yet because they were still numb and I could only move my head from side to side. Everyone took turns visiting me two by two and meeting the baby. It really was too much to comprehend at that point and honestly all I wanted to do was close my eyes and sleep forever.

Then finally, hours after her birth, I got to hold my little girl.

exhausted, yet elated

exhausted, yet elated

I think she's exhausted too

I think she’s exhausted too

Aftermath

The recovery has been pretty painful. The first day I felt great – and couldn’t believe how great – but then my morphine ran out and I was stuck with nothing but Percocet and Motrin. My abdomen is very, very sore and my ankles, calves, and feet swelled up so bad at one point that it was hard to walk. Every day gets a little better.

And here is the absolutely terrifying part. Apparently the cause of fetal distress during delivery was a placental abruption, an uncommon and serious pregnancy complication where the placenta peels away from the wall of the uterus prior to delivery. This is one of those things that just happens, in my case not until actual labor, but it can cause significant risk for mother and baby during delivery. Pathology reported that my placenta was 20% detached. As my doctor said bluntly during a post-op visit in the hospital, “If we hadn’t done the C-section when we did it, your baby would have died.”

Whoa.

Sooo with that in mind, I’m not mad about it. No, the whole birth experience was not ideal, but my baby is safe and healthy and here, my pain will fade, my scars will heal, and this will just be that crazy story we tell about how Molly came into the world in her own way. Also, my doctor said that this was an isolated incident and my pelvis looked good, plus I was making good progression before things went south. She said I was an excellent candidate for VBAC, which makes me happy, because that’s something I would really like to try when we have another child. It’s funny, I was actually a C-section and all of my mom’s four other deliveries were VBAC. So it would seem Molly is following in her mommy’s footsteps.

And motherhood so far? It’s just what I would have expected and it’s better than I would have expected. I’m so overwhelmed by love that I can’t express it with words. Most nights I kiss her all over, and stare at her, and let tears fall all over her blanket and her tiny face because I can’t believe I get to be her mommy. She was worth every minute of the wait, and I would gladly do it all again a thousand times if it meant I got to have her in my life. I feel so, so blessed and so, so thankful. It’s like living in a dream world.

Stay tuned, because our post-delivery story (a.k.a. our 6-day stint in the hospital) has even more drama than her birth story! But alas, this post is creeping up on 3,000 words and I am barely able to keep my eyes open.

Here are a few more snapshots:

Daddy and his baby

Daddy and his baby

proud Aunt Allie

proud Aunt Allie

the little smile that makes my heart melt

the little smile that makes my heart melt

big bathroom reveal

The bathroom is finished!

It’s been finished for a little while now, but I’ve been a lazy blogger. I’m also easily overwhelmed, easily winded, and I cry at the drop of a hat. But despite all of this, I’m pretty excited about my new bathroom.

First, a quick reminder of the “before:”

ugbath2

Oh, yeah, that’s the hotness right there.

But now…

bath11

Yayyy! There are still a few things to finish (of course). We need towel bars, a tp holder, some art, shelves, a clock… just a bunch of annoying little things. Plus the trim and the doors need to be painted. But, the majority of the work is done, it’s fully functional, and I’m not brushing my teeth in the kitchen sink anymore. I call that a win.

Another shot:

bath22

Shower time:

bath44

Huge new linen closet (needs some organizational help, but again, my motivation levels are low these days):

bath33

And this I’m really proud of. We found two single vanities on clearance at Home Depot and had a friend seal them together. Want to know how much they cost? $150 each – for the vanities, the countertops, AND the sinks. The full priced versions of the same brand, similar styles were $350 and up… each! So we scored a custom double vanity for $300, all in. That’s my savvy shopping moment of the year, for sure.

Love my vanity most of all:

bath55

So that’s it!

And before you even ask the burning question…

Yes, as of yesterday, the nursery is painted!

nurserywall

On the eve of 37 weeks, I have a (mostly) empty painted room. I told you we’d be cutting it close, didn’t I? Hopefully a post in the near future will announce the news that the nursery is done, and hopefully that post will precede the one that says, “She’s here!”

But hey, only time will tell.

POP! goes the baby shower

My baby shower was on Saturday.

Though it feels inaccurate to describe it that way. Baby downpour, perhaps? I wasn’t showered with love and gifts. I truly feel that I was deluged. I’m still overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness and generosity of my friends and family. It was too much! Plus, blog-based burnt toast gifts? I mean… come on!! Everyone is just too kind.

It really made me think. I’m sure if I had been fertile and I would have had a baby shower years ago, it would have been lovely. I would have been happy. We would have received nice stuff. But this… I mean, with all we went through, and with everyone following along with the drama every step of the way, this felt like finally getting to where we were headed. People weren’t excited… they were ecstatic. They weren’t happy for us… they were overjoyed. Every emotion was heightened to an extreme because it’s been SO LONG and we wanted it SO MUCH. So again, not that I’m happy for being infertile, but in a way it just made everything super dramatic, and yes, incredibly, inexplicably happy.

But pictures are worth a thousand words, right? So below I snapped photos of the decor, along with some of the gifts.

The theme and the decorations are all courtesy of my sister, who everyone agrees has missed her calling as party planner. She did such a good job. It was beautiful. The theme was POP! – complete with homemade popcorn favors and cake pops and plenty of other pop stuff. It worked, too, because I do look about ready to pop.

so pop

so pop

A table of pop!

A table of pop!

pop games

pop games

game

what's a shower without a diaper cake?

what’s a shower without a diaper cake?

cupcakes

pop favors

pop favors

me and pro party planner, Ashley

me and pro party planner, Ashley

I was “that girl” who probably bored everyone to tears opening gifts for like three hours. But she got a MOUNTAIN of stuff. I mean… just know that each of these bags is full to bursting with stuff. And suffice it to say she will be a thousand times more well-dressed than I, and has enough clothes that she’ll never need to wear the same thing twice. Like, ever.

mountains of presents

mountains of presents

Every gift was special and amazing. Here are a few.

First things first – I GOT MY PETUNIA PICKLEBOTTOM DIAPER BAG!! Wooo hoo!

oob

Hand painted art from a dear friend:

sweetdreams

Star Wars stuff to make daddy happy:

starwars

Ok, here’s a good one. Despite how overwhelmed I was, I managed not to cry. Until, of course, I pulled out a picture my sister made to honor the babies I lost to miscarriage. AND she thought it was a good idea to give it to me during this event. Yeah, I freaking lost it, sobbing, with everyone staring at me. Oh, well.

butterflies

And then there was the TOAST STUFF! My friend Sarah even custom designed onesies to match my blog. How thoughtful is that?! I’m already planning multiple photo shoots for all of these items.

sweetest

toaster

toast

Finally, they pulled out a gift from Eric. I’ve never heard of that before – the husband buying his wife a gift. And this was so thoughtful and considerate… I had just seen nursing necklaces the other day on zulily, and they sound awesome! So the fact that he got them handmade on Etsy… and the card…I managed to hold back the waterworks this time, but just barely. He scored major points for this one.

sweetgift

So that was it. The most amazing day. Just when I thought I couldn’t be more excited about her arrival…

Due date: one month from today.

We are so, so blessed.

on this day

Hope everyone survived May 11, 2014 relatively unscathed.

You know, I was really impressed with the way my church handled things today. And last year, for that matter.

First of all, during the homily the priest made it a point to mention that we should take a moment today to think of the women who want nothing more than to be mothers, and who may not have any children. Then they took things a step further during the Supplication part when we prayed for specific things (Followed up with a “Lord, hear our prayer.”) One of the supplications today was, and I quote, “For all women struggling with the pain of infertility, that their hearts may find comfort and that their prayers may be answered…LORD, HEAR OUR PRAYER.”

It was nice. We were recognized.

Last year, they had all the mothers stand up. This might have been awkward as I had just suffered my miscarriage and was gearing up for IVF round two. But then the priest clarified, “And when I say mothers, I mean can all of the mothers, grandmothers, godmothers, aunts, or anyone who has ever shown love and motherly compassion towards a child please stand and be honored.”

Pretty cool. I felt OK standing up. I’m definitely a godmother, an aunt, and I’ve definitely mothered children. And yeah, this year I might be more noticeably a mother, but I’m no more a mother than I was last year.

So on this day, I want to continue that tradition. Because whether or not you’ve physically birthed a child makes no difference. We are the mothers – the ones who have mothered a child, any child at all, or even the ones who have longed to.

This is our day.

dirty, flirty 30

So yesterday was my 30th birthday.

I’m going to preface this by saying that I’m going to complain again. When we were TTC, and experiencing loss, and when I was staying up nights crying into the darkness about how I’d do anything for a baby, hearing anyone complain about pregnancy made me irate…and understandably so. That’s why I just want to acknowledge, again, that I know complaining may sound ungrateful and it may cause some of my homegirls to want to punch me in the face. That’s OK. Please feel free to skip these posts (or, you know, punch me in the face if you really think I deserve it). But I have decided that since I’m all about honesty, and since this is my blog, there’s no use in sugarcoating the ugly reality of the third trimester and how uncomfortable it’s been making me. I’m not glowing…I’m dripping with sweat. I’m not all belly…I’m pretty much obese. And HAHAHA! is what I have to say to the me of several posts back – it turns out you CAN look pregnant from behind. I look pregnant from behind. I definitely do. Do I know it’s going to be worth it? Heck yeah. Do I take back asking for all of this? HECK NO. But still, to properly document my life, I must tell it like it is right now. And right now… it’s rough.

I take birthdays very seriously, and not only do I take the day off work (I now have a 30 year streak of never working on my birthday, and I don’t plan to break it anytime soon), but I also force my mom and sister to take the day off and hang out with me. Generally the plan involves going out to breakfast (by far my favorite meal of the day) and lots of shopping, and then going out to dinner. Most years we drive an hour and a half to the King of Prussia mall (KOP, affectionately), which as anyone in the Philadelphia metro area will tell you is pretty much the best mall ever. It is MASSIVE. Any store you could hope to shop is there.

This year I knew my limits well enough to know that KOP was out of the question. I have a list of nursery needs that I’ve been carting around, and I figured these items were best procured from a discount store, like Marshalls or Ross or Big Lots or Christmas Tree Shops. These are my favorite places to shop lately anyway.

We started out our day running two hours behind schedule just because that’s how it worked out. The birthday crew included my mom, my sister, and my two nieces (aged almost 3 and just turned 1). We drove to my favorite breakfast place, paid for parking, dragged the kids out of the car, walked over and… it was closed for renovations! Boo, hiss. Loaded everyone back up, consulted Yelp real quick, and ended up finding a perfectly respectable place with yummy food. Crisis averted.

We went to Marshalls and spent a couple hours hunting bargains. I was pretty disappointed because of course last time I was there I found a TON of items that perfectly matched my intended nursery decor (and of course I didn’t purchase anything because I wasn’t ready to commit to the theme or the fact that I was actually having a baby just yet), but this time I found nothing. Strangely, they had a lot of cute boy nursery items but not as many things for girls. The one thing from my list that I did find was a robe and comfy pants for the hospital so I don’t have to take pictures in the ugly hospital-issued frock. The robe is black and white, made of a really cool and comfortable stretchy microfiber, and it was $12.99. Score one for Marshalls.

Even though we were running behind schedule, we still had time to go to a few more stores. I should mention here that by this point, after approximately 2 hours of shopping and walking and standing, my feet were completely miserable. These days I can’t help but think of a friend who was pregnant a few years ago who wore these intense white orthopedic shoes every single day, even with skirts and dresses. At the time I was thinking, Oh, weird, if/when I ever get pregnant I’ll never do that. But do you know how much I would have paid to have orthopedic shoes yesterday? Infinity dollars. My feet were K-I-L-L-I-N-G me. My sister and my mom were apparently laughing behind my back because usually on Birthday Shopping Day I’m the one dragging them around and rolling my eyes at how long it takes them to do everything. Yesterday was a huge role reversal, and I was the one constantly seeking out chairs and bathrooms and walking at the speed of molasses. I couldn’t even handle the checkout line, and opted instead to go sit in the car and wait for them.

They came out of the store and started sorting out everyone’s items and loaded up the little girls into my sister’s car (she had driven separately because she had to leave earlier). Then all of the sudden, my sister ran over in complete hysterics. She had accidentally locked her keys and her babies in the hot car, windows up.

The whole thing was so scary. I mean, when I say hot car, it was 65 and sunny, not like 90 degrees or something. Otherwise we would have found a brick and broken the window. But as it was, it was pretty terrible watching the kids cry and sweat in there with no way to comfort them and no way to open the damn doors. We called 911 and the cop came and used some giant hanger looking thing to pry the lock. The whole experience felt like it took hours but really it was only about 25 minutes start to finish. Sweaty girls were comforted, water was distributed, and we ventured on.

We were supposed to hit like four more stores but after all the drama of the morning and due to the fact that my feet felt like I had just climbed up and down Mount Everest 14 times, my heart just wasn’t in it. We stopped in two more stores quickly, but again I didn’t find anything. Honestly, the most stuff I got was at Wegmans about an hour later. Leave it to a pregnant chick to do her birthday shopping at the grocery store. (Favorite purchase of the day: Turkey Hill All Natural Mango ice cream – a new flavor!).

As I may have mentioned, Eric is away on a business trip in New Orleans, so he wasn’t even there to celebrate with me. I guess it’s not that big of a deal and we can just celebrate later. He did send me lovely flowers, which were waiting for me when I got home. I had just enough time to put away my groceries before heading back out to dinner with my parents, sister + fam, and a friend I haven’t seen in a while. It was a nice way to end a physically and mentally exhausting day. Well, that and the ginormous bowl of mango ice cream I indulged in later on.

30 feels a lot like 29, except when it feels like 85, which is to say every day lately. I’m so run-down and exhausted and I hate that I can’t physically do the things I need to do (LIKE…SHOP). I don’t know why I was kind of expecting this in the last two weeks or so of pregnancy, but totally was not expecting it for the entirety of the third trimester. If I had to do a pregnancy breakdown, it would go something like this:

Weeks 1-4 – Hope against hope.
Weeks 4-12 – Absolute terror that something will go wrong.
Weeks 12-16 – Ok, all right, this is pretty cool. Cute bump!
Weeks 16-18 – Wait… why am I getting so fat?
Weeks 18-22 – Seriously, I need to stop gaining so much weight.
Weeks 22-26 – Ice cream is a food group, right?
weeks 26-30 – Now I feel stupid for saying people can’t look pregnant from behind.
weeks 30-34 – Feet! Oh, my feet! Is there somewhere I can sit down? I just need to sit down.

I’m pretty sure the solution is to be more physically active from the get-go, which would allow me to be more physically active now, which would just make me feel better overall. If I ever get pregnant again, that will be the goal. My excuse for not doing this is that I was so terrified in the first trimester that even low-impact exercise seemed ill-advised. That, and I’m a little lazy.

Anyway! My mom loved her thirties. My 87-year-old grandmother called to wish me a happy birthday and said that her favorite years were 30 to 35, which is pretty specific, and seeing as how she’s lived through almost 8 full decades I’m thinking she would know.

All in all, turning 30 isn’t so bad.

long term storage

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about our embryos in storage.

Right now they’re chillin’ (ha, I’m hilarious) in New York City, at the same clinic where we participated in that clinical trial and got our free IVF. We have three day-5 frozen embryos left. We want future children (according to my husband, he NEEDS a son). The hard, invasive, expensive part is done now… it only makes sense that we continue to store them until the not so distant future day that we choose to expand our family. And now I’m a helluva lot more confident in my ability to do so, too. No gluten. No corn syrup. Lovenox for at least 15 weeks. No sudden or abrupt movements. GOT IT.

Anyway. New Hope gives you six months of free storage from the date of your last monitoring appointment (for me, apparently, that date was 11/11/13). After that they offer long-term storage for the low, low price of $1,200 per year, but as they like to joke, “The rent in Manhattan is so high! If you wish to seek alternative storage, that is your right and we understand.”

Our six months free is up in May, so I figured I’d start calling around to see what my options were. Since I’m not going to be getting a free embryo transfer in the near future, I thought it made more sense to have them sent somewhere in Pennsylvania. But that’s where things get complicated. The clinic near me that we went to originally (where we were formally diagnosed and all that) does not offer long-term storage. They use a facility in Missouri, who I did call, and it turns out the storage fees are $400/year, or $700 for 2 years. Shipping is $215. Oh, and I already got a glimpse of the consent to ship form, which has all kinds of scary language such as “We have been informed that such a transfer may affect the embryos resulting in unknown kinds of injuries or damage that may lead up to their death.” YEAH. I know that’s all just liability stuff, but whoa. Talk about precious cargo. The woman from the place in Missouri said insurance was extra if I was interested, to which I automatically replied yes, but then I sat down and thought about it – insure what, exactly? If they’re lost, there’s no getting them back. No amount of money can replace those specific embryos. How does that even work? What exactly am I “insuring?”

Here’s the weird part, though. So I just kind of assumed that doing an embryo transfer would be cheaper in my neck of the woods (Pennsylvania: land of the Amish!). It has to be, right? Um, no. New Hope quoted me $2,400 for a transfer plus $800 for monitoring, while the place near me gave me a quote of $4,000. What the what?! Even with bus fare and Metro cards, I’m better off at New Hope. Soooo I guess that means I’ll have to keep calling places in my general vicinity, hoping to find someone cheaper. Sheesh.

This whole process has been very frustrating and time-consuming, and I caught myself getting very annoyed that I had to go through this. “Normal” people don’t have to worry about embryo storage. “Normal” people just make more kids when they want more kids. But then I started thinking about some of my favorite women of the blogosphere… women who are still waiting to get pregnant, women who just got terrible news of a failed transfer, women who are waiting patiently to take the next step in their journey. And then I felt crappy for complaining. It’s a good problem to have – too many good embryos. Yeah, it does suck that I have to pay for storage and it’s a huge pain the ass to figure out where to keep them until we’re ready to do this all over again. But I’m one of the lucky ones, and I need to keep that in mind.

In other news – Eric cleaned out the spare bedroom this weekend! There’s still no paint on the walls and no furniture set up, but at this point the room is 95% empty, which makes me feel a billion times better. We have a ski trip in Vermont this weekend with my whole extended family and some friends (they’ll be skiing, I’ll be reading/napping/visiting the Ben & Jerry’s factory and taking the tour several hundred times, harassing the tour guide about their liberal use of high fructose corn syrup in basically every single blend they make). But next weekend the calendar is clear, so I’m hoping to at least get some painting done. Baby steps here, baby steps! I think the weather has a lot to do with it, actually – I feel more motivated to clean/get moving when it’s sunny and mild than I do when it’s freezing cold. I need spring to hurry the hell up already.

Hope everyone had a good St. Paddy’s Day! Can we talk about how I’m like the only person who came in to work wearing green? And I’m not even Irish! It’s just a sign of respect, I think. And it’s fun.