Kaylee's Birth Story: Part 3

Part 1 and Part 2


Shortly after I was laid down on the table and had the catheter placed (which I did not feel at all this time, THANK GOD, because feeling the catheter through a failed epidural was easily the most physically painful part of Lorelai's birth), I was hit by a wave of nausea. "I'm feeling sort of nauseous," I said, which is Polite Patient code for "Someone get me a bowl because I'm gonna ralph in about two seconds and if it gets in my hair I'm gonna be pissed." The anesthesiologist was on it, pushing something anti-nausea-y into my IV, and the feeling was gone as quickly as it came on.

Kevin came into the OR soon after that. Last time, they already had me opened up by the time he got in; this time, I guess because it wasn't an emergency C-section, they waited till he was in the room before they started.

Once he was there, I was okay. I won't say I was totally fine, but I wasn't alone anymore, he was holding my hand and as cheesy as it sounds, I was able to draw strength from him. He was calm and excited to meet our baby girl, and I was able to pull some of that into myself and push some of the panic back. (Probably the happy drugs had started to work too.) Things got started on the other side of the drape, and I honestly wasn't paying a lot of attention to what was going on, but I know the doctor and Paula and the nurses were chatting and it wasn't the dead silence of Lorelai's birth. I do remember the surgeon telling me he was going to make the first cut, because I'd asked him to tell me that, but after that I mostly just remember lying there, watching Kevin watching me, trying to focus on the fact that we were about to meet Kaylee.

The surgeon was tall, over six feet, and Paula is probably only about 5'4". When it came time for her to push on my belly to help get the baby out, I heard her say, "Can we lower the table so I can get better leverage? This baby is really high and really wedged in there." Then she said, "Erin, you're going to feel a lot of pressure. Like, a lot of pressure. Just hang in there for me."

She wasn't kidding. I'm pretty sure she had to climb on top of me to push that kid out, because all of a sudden all the air left my lungs, the blood rushed to my head, and it felt like someone was sitting on my diaphragm. Someone said, "Hey, Dad, peek over the drape if you want to see us pull her out." To my complete surprise, Kevin actually did stand up and peer over. He's a bit squeamish about medical stuff -- well, maybe squeamish isn't the right word. It's not like he passes out at the sight of blood. But he never had any intention of looking between my legs as the baby came out if I'd delivered vaginally, he didn't want to cut the cord either time, he's perfectly content to let the doctors do the doctor-y things and stay in the dark himself. So I was really surprised when he stood up, because I thought it would freak him out to see me wide open on the table, having a person pulled out of my guts. I'm actually really jealous he got to see it, because I would have loved to, and if I'd known he was going to look I'd have asked him to get video so I could see it too. (Next time, for sure.)

The pressure lifted, my lungs refilled, and I heard this tiny little coughing sound. "Is that her?" I asked Kevin, and then she cried, and I may not remember Lorelai's first cries but you'd better believe I was paying attention this time and I will never forget the sound of that beautiful, pissed-off wail.

Someone called out, "Look at that hair! Erin, she has so much hair, and it's dark and curly!" (It's not curly. It may have looked curly when it was wet and goopy, but now it's stick straight just like mine. So was Lorelai's, though, so it's possible it'll turn curly later. But I digress.) I didn't think I was going to get to see her until she'd been cleaned off, but on the way to the warming table whoever was holding her stopped to hold her up so I could see her. She was purple and angry and she looked just like Lorelai. I'd wondered how it would be possible for me to love another baby as much as I love Lorelai, even though I knew that of course I would, and sure enough, I took one look at that squalling naked child and my heart split in two, with equal amounts of love for both of them. "Oh," I said. "Kaylee!"

They wiped her off, bundled her up, and handed her to Kevin. Before he even got to me, I was freeing my right arm from the blanket (I think I left my other arm under it, because I was freezing -- if you've never had a spinal block, there's no way to really explain the bone-deep cold that you get) and when he placed her on me, I wrapped my arm around her, touching her face, and I turned my head into the blanket she was wrapped in and just let the tears soak into it. These were good tears, mostly, tears of happiness and relief. The bad part was done, I'd managed to get through it and I had my Kaylee in my arms and no one was telling me I couldn't hold her, no one was pulling my arm away, and Kevin was there and nothing else in the room mattered.

The anesthesiologist took the camera from Kevin to get our first family photo.

I have mixed feelings on the existence of this picture. On the one hand, it's our first picture together, but on the other hand, on the other side of that blue drape my insides are exposed to the world, and that's freaky to me.

The hospital had introduced a new computer system a few months ago, and it seems no one really has a grasp on it yet, because they were trying to input Kaylee's information and were really struggling with it. This would be a theme throughout my entire hospital stay, but this time I didn't mind because they couldn't take her to the nursery until they got the info entered, so I got extra time with her and Kevin while the nurses fought with the computer. In fact, by the time Kevin and Kaylee left the OR, the doctor was almost done. I'd been worried about what I would feel like, lying there being stitched up without my husband or my baby with me, but as it turned out I didn't have enough time for it to matter. The anesthesiologist told me, "I just gave you the second half of your sleepy meds," and I said, "No, I don't want to go to sleep, I don't want to be knocked out," and I must have been more forceful than I'd intended because very quickly she said, "Sorry, I mean the happy meds, but they might make you drowsy. I'm not going to put you under, don't worry." Then she made small talk for a few minutes, asking me about Lorelai and what the new baby's name was, and about five minutes after  Kevin and Kaylee left, they took down the drape and wheeled me into recovery.

As soon as I was in there, I asked my nurse for water. She said I had to wait a few minutes, and I tried really hard not too be cranky with her about that. Finally, she let me have some water, and it was the most glorious water I've ever had in my entire life.

After what seemed like ages but was probably only 15-20 minutes (during which time I focused on trying to move my toes, which were getting the feeling back in them, and tried not to make myself sick guzzling water), they brought Kaylee and Kevin in with the lactation consultant so I could nurse. The LC had to stay with the baby because she was the one who'd brought her in, which was a little annoying because I didn't really need anything from her (I knew what I was doing and Kaylee figured it out pretty quickly, so I didn't need any assistance) and I'd rather not have had to make small talk with her, but it wasn't that big a deal. Then they took Kaylee back to get her bath, and I was taken to my room. Which ended up being the exact same room I was in after Lorelai's birth. Go figure.

My postpartum nurse, Andrea, was amazing. She brought me extra heated blankets, helped me change into a nursing nightgown I'd brought so that I wouldn't have to wear that awful hospital gown when Lorelai came to visit, and told me she doesn't believe in liquid diets after C-sections and brought me graham crackers and peanut butter and a big cup of ice.

Kevin's parents had Lorelai while we were in the hospital, and they brought her to visit that evening. I'd been very firm in my desire to have a few minutes with just Lorelai and Kevin and Kaylee and me before any other visitors came in, so they hug out in the waiting room for a bit while Lorelai came in to meet her baby sister.

She was not at all cranky about having her picture taken, as you can see.

 

I was afraid the hospital bed and IV would freak her out, but in true Lorelai fashion, she was unfazed. She pointed to my arm and said, "Mama gots a boo-boo and a Band-Aid," then went to the corner where her present from Kaylee was sitting in a giant glittery pink Disney Princess bag. (We got her a Baby Rapunzel doll for the baby to give her. She was interested in it for about four seconds and hasn't touched it since we've been home.)

 

I was so glad to see Lorelai. I'm sure it was partly the hormones, but I'd been desperate to see her and once I had I felt like I could finally relax completely and let go of all the stress and anxiety.

"You guys, I'm HAPPY. I'd forgotten what this feels like," I tweeted that evening. Which is a really sad thing, really, but I'd been so sad and anxious and freaked out for so long, I'd forgotten what it felt like to be happy without any of those other feelings hovering in the background. (I realized later that part of the reason I felt so just-plain-happy was that the happy drugs they'd given me during surgery had probably finally fully kicked in. But whatever. I don't care why I felt so happy, I was just relieved to finally feel that way again.)

The rest of the story isn't all that interesting. They let me get up and move around my room that night, I got to shower the next morning, and I never had to be on a full liquid diet, which was awesome. We got them to release us a day early, because we were bored and the stupid bed kept buzzing and inflating in random places (supposedly this is a bedsore prevention feature, but it was really annoying) so I couldn't sleep at all. I had to talk to someone from the mental health department because the "Are you at risk for postpartum depression?" test they gave me said that yes, I was a high risk. (In my defense, all the questions started with "In the past 7 days, have you felt..." and since the previous few days had basically been the most stressful and tear-filled days of my life, I'd had to answer that yes, I'd cried, I'd felt overwhelmed, I'd had no appetite. I explained this to the nurse and to the social worker lady, and said I have been seeing a therapist and will continue seeing her if I feel like I'm struggling, so they signed off on my leaving.)

The day we left, Andrea The Amazing Nurse was in the nursery instead of on postpartum duty, but she came to say goodbye and thank me for being such an easy patient. It was all I could do not to burst into tears and spill the entire story of the past few months when I thanked her for being awesome. Seriously, I want to buy that woman a unicorn. She was that awesome.

 

The next few days were a little rougher -- I hadn't needed any pain meds other than Motrin in the hospital, but when I got home I did end up having to take Vicodin at night. We got home on Sunday, and on Monday I felt awful. I'd overdone it on Saturday because the pain meds from the surgery were still in my system, so I walked around a lot ore than I probably should have, and then coming home Sunday meant getting in and out of the car and doing stairs. Kevin's parents were kind enough to keep Lorelai until Tuesday afternoon, so we were able to go to Kaylee's newborn appointment at the pediatrician and back to the hospital to have my staples removed without having to worry about her being bored or cranky, and Torg was with our trainer until Friday so we had a nice long break from his ridiculousness and multiple-walks-a-day requirements. (It was really weird not having him in the house though. We've gotten used to having him underfoot and it was weird to sit on the sofa without anyone jumping on us.)

I still have a lot of Feelings about Kaylee's birth (and the fact that any future children will also be C-section babies) that I'm processing. I have an appointment with my therapist next week to talk about it, because while I do feel much better about this experience than I felt about Lorelai's birth (and a lot better about it than I'd thought I would if you'd asked me beforehand), and I don't feel nearly as anxious and stressed as I did in the early postpartum days of last time, I do want to keep an eye on myself because even though I make light of my at-risk-ness for PPD because of the way the questions were phrased, I know I am at a higher risk then a lot of women, given my history after Lorelai's birth and during this pregnancy. I don't ever want to feel the way I did at the end of this pregnancy ever again, and if avoiding that means continuing in therapy, then continue I shall.

But overall, the whole experience was much better than I'd anticipated, and in the end, I got this baby. Scary and awful as a lot of things about it were, you know I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat for her.

 

So there it is.  Kaylee's birth. In a semi-timely fashion. I may not have gotten a single thing written in the baby book yet, but at least I got her birth story written before she turned 12.

Kaylee's Birth Story: Part 2

Part 1 here. There are no pictures from my time in triage because when Kevin pulled out the camera "to document the day for posterity", I gave him a look that said if he took the lens cap off, I would shove the whole thing up his butt. I did not want the triage portion of the day caught on camera, and even now I stand by this decision. Any pictures taken during that time would have shown me either sobbing, on the verge of a panic attack, or both. They would not have been pretty, and I don't want to have them to look back at later. To be honest, I don't really even want to have this blog post to look back at later, because that whole time in triage was not fun for me and I don't really want to think about it ever again. I'm only putting it here because I feel I owe it to Kaylee to document her birth fully. It's not going to be very well-written because this is the really difficult part -- a lot of waiting and a lot of emotional upset -- so I'm just going to rip off the Band-Aid and we'll get to the good part with the baby pictures soon. Promise.

The terrible nurse was not gone in five minutes as she'd promised, but she did leave after she finished taking my medical history information, and while the new nurse wasn't anything to write home about she was at least pleasantly detached. She blew out a vein in my right arm trying to get my IV started (almost three weeks later, I still have a bruise), but managed to get it going in my left wrist, so at least I was getting hydrated. My mouth still felt like it was full of cotton balls because I was so thirsty, but the fluids in the IV did help my body not feel so awful.

At some point, the surgeon came in. Because my midwives can't perform C-sections, they can only assist on them, one of the hospital's OBs was doing the actual surgery. He was really nice, had a good sense of humor, and didn't make me feel like I was being ridiculous for being so upset. Unfortunately, he told us, we've been bumped back another hour. So at this point my 11:30 surgery would be happening closer to 1:30. I was ... not pleased. I could tell Kevin wasn't either, but there really wasn't anything we could do about it, and at that point we didn't want to rock the boat because everyone was being very nice and we didn't want to push the buttons of anyone who would be involved in slicing me open.

Paula, the midwife, came in at that point and I asked her to check my cervix one more time just to make sure nothing had changed since Tuesday. She said there was some progress with dilation, but I wasn't even a centimeter and a half, and still wasn't effaced at all, and Kaylee was still too high for her to be able to feel her head at all. "Even if you decided you wanted to give it till your originally scheduled time on Monday, you wouldn't go into labor on your own," she said. "I'm really sorry, I know that's not what you wanted to hear."

Around 12:30 the nurse brought in an antacid for me to drink, which I drank as though it was the sweetest ambrosia ever. It actually tasted like liquid Sweet Tarts with a bitter aftertaste, but it was wet so I wouldn't have cared if it had tasted like battery acid. It was the first liquid I'd been allowed since I had brushed my teeth that morning, and it was heavenly. Around this time, the nurse told me that we'd once again been bumped and it would be closer to 2:00 before we got into the OR. I tried to distract myself from all this by texting and tweeting, and my friends are all wonderful and threatened violence on the bitchy nurse from earlier. I also made Kevin play Candy Crush, as I'd been stuck on level 92 for days and thought maybe he would be able to beat it for me. (This ended up being a flawed plan, as not only did he not beat it for me, but he decided to download it himself and it's all he's done since.) (That's a lie. He's also played a lot of Xbox.)

At some point the anesthesiologist came in, and I had thought I would get something in my IV at that point to take the edge off of the panic that was welling up in me (they'd told me I'd get something as soon as the anesthesia team came by), but that didn't happen. The anesthesiologist was really a very nice man with an incredibly calm, soothing voice, and he did put me a bit at ease, but I was still really worked up. Paula mentioned that I'd requested that they not strap my arms down (they didn't when Lorelai was born, because I had begged her not to let them, so I wasn't about to be tied to the table this time), and I said, "I promise I'll be good and I won't move my arms, but the thought of being tied to the table really freaks me out." He sort of cocked his head and said, "You can move your arms. You have to be careful not to break the seal of the drape because the other side of it is a sterile environment, and you'll be under a heated blanket so you'll have to be careful not to catch your IV when you pull your arms out, but you're allowed to move your arms so you can hold your baby."

I just stared at him. "I can touch her?"

"Of course you can touch her. Your husband will bring her over to you and put her on your chest and you'll be able to hold her."

I burst into tears. "Oh God, thank you," I sobbed. "They wouldn't let me touch my daughter last time, I barely got to see her and when I tried to touch her they pulled my arm back down and told me to lie still, and all I wanted was to be able to touch her for a second."

He just looked at me. "No, that's not right. You'll be able to hold your baby. That would be awful, to not let you hold her." He left soon after that, and I tried to compose myself, but I'm pretty sure everyone in the room thought I had lost my damn mind, the way I was carrying on. I honestly hadn't thought I'd be allowed to even touch Kaylee, much less hold her, and at that point I was wound up so tightly that I couldn't hold it together even if I'd wanted to (which I really didn't, because I was done with that room and with waiting and with everything, and I just wanted to get the surgery over with and meet my daughter). Kevin was the only one who didn't seem to think I'd gone off the deep end, and he looked as relieved as I felt to learn that we'd be allowed to have some time together and that I'd be allowed to touch Kaylee before they took her away. He's much better at keeping his emotions in check than I am, but I know it bothered him that I wasn't allowed to touch Lorelai and he was worried for my head space if I wasn't allowed to touch Kaylee either.

At about 2:00, it was time to go to the operating room. I had to leave Kevin in the triage room, where he was given his scrubs to change into, and walking out of that triage room without him almost did me in. They had me walk myself down the hall and through the "Cesarean Birth Suite", which is a fancy way of saying Scariest Medical Place Ever. I was wearing a backless gown, and the nurse draped a sheet over my shoulders cape-style so I wouldn't flash my ass the whole way through the L&D wing, so at least there was that.

If I hadn't had Paula walking beside me with her arm around my shoulder, I don't know if I would have made it. I was shaking so hard I'm honestly not sure how I was staying upright. When we got to the door of the operating room and I looked in and saw the crucifix-shaped table all set up for me to climb up and lie down and let some stranger cut me open, I almost couldn't go through the door. What I wanted to do was turn around and run away; my brain kept saying, "No, no, no, I can't do this, I don't want to do this, don't make me do this", but Paula had my IV bag in her hand and her other arm around me propelling me through the door, so I really didn't have much choice. She helped me up onto the table and the anesthesiologist (not the same one who I'd seen earlier, but a woman -- his assistant, I guess?) finally gave me a push of something that was supposed to calm me down. "Let me know when you start to feel it working," she said as she moved behind me to place the spinal.

I never did really feel it start working. I did feel the needle from the spinal, which I don't remember from last time but that's probably because I was having contractions then and was distracted. I hunched into Paula and cried, telling myself to calm down or they'd knock me out like they did last time, but I just couldn't get myself under control. I managed to avoid the full-body, shaking, choking sobs of Lorelai's birth, but at one point after they'd laid me down on the table and put up the drape, the anesthesiologist came over with a Kleenex and blotted my face, telling me, "I understand. It'll be over soon and you'll have your baby and you'll feel so much better. I promise."

And Lorelai is awake so I must leave off once again. But we're only a few minutes away from Kaylee's birth, so there should only be one more installment in this series. And that one will have squishy baby pictures and a lot less hysteria, so it'll be much better than this one was.

Kaylee's Birth Story: Part 1

This is going to have to go in installments because there's no way I'll have time to type the whole thing out before Lorelai wakes up from her nap and/or Kaylee needs to eat. But I promise I'll try to get Part 2 up in a more timely manner than I got this post up.

At this point, it's really no secret AT ALL that I didn't want another C-section. But I trust my midwife, and looking at the facts, there was no denying that Kaylee was not going to show up on her own:

1. I was a week late, induced, with Lorelai. I wasn't allowed to go past my due date with Kaylee.
2. Kaylee, like Lorelai, was measuring big.
3. Like last time, I had too much amniotic fluid so, like last time, the baby couldn't drop to engage at all.
4. I was only dilated a centimeter and not effaced at all less than a week from my due date.
5. The only reason I made it to 8 centimeters last time is because they were pumping me full of as much Pitocin as they could. This time, they wouldn't be able to give me any Pitocin, so my body would have to go from 1-10 all by itself.
6. For weeks, Kaylee had been positioned with her back to my left side, instead of with her back to the front like she would need to be for delivery. If she hadn't shifted by 39 weeks, it was unlikely she would. And a malpositioned baby would send me to the OR anyway.

Paula told me that if I went into labor on my own, she'd let me try for the VBAC, but that she'd be shocked if I went into labor on my own. "Plus," she said, "with so many of the same factors that led to your last C-section, you're almost certainly looking at a repeat scenario." At which point I looked at Kevin, said, "Well, then, let's bump it up and just get to the part where we have our baby," and burst into tears.

In a way, it was a relief to give up on the VBAC. I had exhausted myself and bored poor Lorelai to death dragging us both to the acupuncturist every day, my boobs hurt from hooking up to the pump three times a day, and I was so frustrated that none of it was doing anything that saying, "Forget it, schedule the surgery" was like having a weight lifted. But at the same time, giving up on the thing I had fought and worked so hard for made me feel so defeated. I was tired from fighting, I was tired from losing, and I just wanted to meet my baby and have the anxiety and depression and fear behind me.

I tried to make my last day with Lorelai as an only child fun. We went to play at the mall, had soft pretzels and milkshakes for lunch, and then after her nap we went to the outdoor mall and rode some of the mechanical rides before meeting up with Kevin for dinner when he got home from work. On our way home, we stopped by the grocery store to get snacks for the hospital (Kevin lived off of vending machine food last time, because the hospital cafeteria has really odd hours, especially over the weekend, and he wanted something besides potato chips this time), and we bought Lorelai a Tinkerbell doll from the toy section there. (Spoiled child was also getting a present from the baby the next day, but we were feeling guilty about sending her to her grandparents' for four and a half days, even though we knew she'd have a blast and wouldn't want to come home.)

Kevin's parents came to pick her up and I did my best to hold it together until they left. I was just so done by that point, everything was making me cry. The thought of Lorelai not being my sole focus anymore, her leaving for a few days, the C-section--it was all just too much for my poor tear ducts and as soon as they pulled out of the driveway, the floodgates opened (like they hadn't been open for weeks anyway) and I was a hot mess for the rest of the night.

We pulled out Lorelai's baby book to look through, and I think we tried to watch some TV, and then we went to bed early. I took a Unisom, set my alarm for 3 am so I could eat something (I wasn't allowed to eat or drink for 8 hours before the scheduled surgery time, and I do NOT do well when my blood sugar drops, so I knew I needed to get something in my system or there was no way I'd make it to 11:30 the next morning). I ate a Luna bar and drank a glass of water and tried to go back to sleep. It sort of worked.

Friday morning, we woke up around 7:30. I showered, did my hair and makeup (the hospital had told me no makeup or contacts, but I ignored them. If they were going to tell me when and how I was having my baby, I was going to look good doing it, dammit), packed the last few things into the hospital bag, and took my final pregnancy picture.

 I know, this looks exactly like my 39-week photo because I'm wearing the same outfit. You try coming up with a variety of wardrobe options when you're that pregnant. But you can tell this is not the same photo because a) it's in the yellow bathroom, not the green one, and b) look at my face. I'm trying really hard to maintain a neutral expression instead of "holy shit a doctor I've never met is about to slice me in half and take a baby out of me in roughly two hours", and I'm failing miserably.

Also, unrelated, I sort of miss my belly. I had a cute belly. Not as cute as my baby, of course, but cute just the same.

At 9:00 we got in the car. Kevin was trying to chat and keep the mood light and my mind off of what was coming up in the next few hours. I think I did an okay job of pretending to engage back, but all morning I was trying (with minimal success) to hold in the tears and to not get hysterical.

Halfway to the hospital, my phone rang. They had a backup in the L&D ward, and my C-section was being bumped to 12:30, so could we come at 10:30 instead?

I managed not to cry during the conversation, but as soon as I got off the phone, Kevin pulled over, took the phone from me, and got out of the car. Standing in the cold drizzle, he called the hospital back and basically said, "I understand that these things happen, but my wife is freaking out enough as it is and I need you to promise me that this won't keep happening all day because she will not be able to handle it." I guess they told him they'd do their best to keep things on track (as though there's anything they can do about the OR being taken over by emergency C-sections or there not being enough postpartum rooms because the new computer system was slowing down the discharge process), and he got back in the car and we decided to just go to the hospital anyway. We were going to be nervously twiddling our thumbs no matter where we were, better to do it where the staff could see us and maybe speed things along a bit.

We sat in the car until 10, and then Kevin went inside while I stayed and played Candy Crush and tried not to think. At 10:30, he finally came back out to get me. He'd been told that the Patient Care Director would be coming to talk to him, but she still hadn't shown up, so he gave up and came to bring me inside, thinking that maybe the sight of a half-hysterical pregnant woman would do more good than a cranky husband would. On our way into the building, the Patient Care Director came out to meet us, having finally been flagged down by someone. She apologized for bumping us and took us into one of the childbirth education classrooms to chat. She did her best to reassure me, and promised to go get a triage room set up for us and get the anesthesiologist in to give me something to take the edge off of my anxiety as soon as she could. We went back out to the lobby, and in a few minutes a nurse came to get us.

She was a bit gruff, not overly pleasant, and informed us that she was taking us back to triage and that another nurse would take over once we were there. We stood up to follow her back, and I started shaking, because once we got into that room shit was gonna get real. Then she said, "So, you're here for a C-section?"

"Yes," I said. Wobbly, but not crying yet.

"Good!" she replied, to which I teared up and said, "Not really. I don't want one. I was supposed to be doing a VBAC."

She looked at me and said, "Well, as long as your baby is healthy, is shouldn't matter how she gets here." I didn't say anything, so she followed with, "Besides, you know there are plenty of women who would give anything to be having a C-section if it meant they were getting a healthy baby."

Which, okay, yes. I know this is true and I know that my reaction to this whole C-section thing was bizarre and over-the-top. I know. But you don't look a crying, scared woman in the face and tell her she should be happy to be going through the thing that has her shaking and in tears. That's not good bedside manner. Or helpful.

If she hadn't already told us she'd be gone soon, I'd have made Kevin go get us a new nurse. But I knew we'd be rid of her soon, so I just shut down and basically refused to speak unless she directly asked me a question.

And now Lorelai is awake and it's time for Kaylee to eat, so I must leave off for now. I'll try to get to Part 2 tomorrow, but it may be a few days. It all depends on my daughters' naps. (And my own ability to stay awake during them.)

Pictures!

I owe this blog a birth story but until I have time to do that (probably in installments, let's be real here) may I bribe you to stick around by showing you the teasers from yesterday's family photo shoot?

Lorelai was a bit uncooperative (Emily was very nice in her write-up on the blog and didn't say that, but it's the truth), and Kaylee required about four diaper changes and two feedings before she finally fell asleep enough to get these pictures, but from what I can see I think we got some good ones in spite of it all!

Kaylee

I updated Twitter and Facebook and just realized I probably ought to do a quick post here too.

Kaylee Aurora, born 4/19 at 2:25pm. 8lbs, 13oz, 19.75" long. She has a full head of dark hair, big chubby cheeks, and smells delicious. (Also, she snores.)

Full birth story to come, but it was overall as good as it could have been and far less scary than I'd anticipated. As I knew it would be, deep down. I'm feeling good--a little sore but honestly the worst parts are the itching from the spinal wearing off and the gas bubble currently lodged in my right shoulder. The incision pain is nothing compared to those.

I plan to do the birth story soon, so I remember it all. But for now, I'm going to go smell my baby's head.

Sleepless nights.

Monday night, I slept about three hours total, split into short increments. Most of the night I spent on the sofa, alternating between doing the ugly cry and just staring at the ceiling. I knew what that ultrasound meant. I knew that even if the midwife agreed to any of my last-ditch requests to get me into labor, I was looking at a similar experience to Lorelai's birth. I'd get halfway, maybe three-quarters of the way to 10 centimeters, then would end up having to go in for a C-section anyway.

Tuesday, I asked if I could take anything to help me sleep the next few days. That night I took a Unisom and slept that drugged sleep where you get many hours but wake up feeling out of it and like you didn't actually sleep at all.

Last night I took the Unisom again. And woke up around 4:30 am from a truly terrifying nightmare about being strapped to an operating table without Kevin or my midwives anywhere around and no one answering me when I asked where they were, then having one of the midwives rush in and say, "Stop! I looked over her chart again and you have the wrong patient, this one is fine to deliver vaginally, I don't agree with Paula's assessment at her last appointment!" And the surgeon pointed at the whiteboard in the corner that said "KING C-SECTION 11:30 AM" and said, "Well, the board says its her and she's already here so let's just do it." And then he started to cut, and I felt it and started screaming and trying to thrash but I was totally paralyzed, and the midwife just shrugged and said, "Okay," and left me there.

I woke up sweating, breathing hard, and in the middle of a wicked contraction that had made my abdomen so hard I couldn't move. Which may have factored into the feeling-the-knife and being-paralyzed aspects of the dream, but if you've never had a dream like that and woken up to find that at least part of it is actually happening, let me just say I don't recommend it. It's really no fun. At all.

I don't think I'd have gone back to sleep anyway after that (especially considering the contractions kept going), but then Lorelai woke up at 5:30 screaming about something and when I tried to go lie down with her and calm her, she just got trashy, so after half an hour of "Twinkle Twinkle" and the ABCs, I got tired of being kicked and wailed at so I let her get up. Which is going to mean a difficult day, but she wasn't going back to sleep so really, my options were limited.

I guess this is the universe's way of preparing me for sleepless nights with a newborn? All I can say is that Kaylee had better be a good sleeper. I've lost more sleep this pregnancy than I ever did during my last one, between the hip pain and anxiety, and I'd like the chance to make it up sometime before Kaylee is 18 months old. Because her sister didn't reliably sleep through the night until then, and let me tell you how much fun that was. I'm not at my pleasantest when I'm exhausted (which may be part of my problem this week) and I feel bad for my family if Kaylee is as lousy a sleeper as Lorelai was. We'll have to buy stock in Starbucks. And Red Bull. And Five-Hour Energy.

In other news, I get to meet my friend's baby who was born last week today, and I'm pretty happy about that. I'm hoping that snuggling that new tiny baby will maybe help me move some of my focus past HOW Kaylee is getting here and direct it to the fact that in a little over 24 hours I'll be snuggling my own new tiny baby.

Bump Day Hump Day: 39 Weeks

I'm having a baby on Friday.

Earlier this week, the midwives sent me for an ultrasound to check Kaylee's size. If she was a normal size, they were going to fight to get me a few extra days to go into labor on my own.

Unfortunately, we learned that she, like her sister, is measuring abnormally large (macrosomia) and once again, I'm producing too much amniotic fluid (polyhydramnios). Which means that, once again, there is a snowflake's chance in hell of my going into labor on my own or successfully getting her out vaginally.

At my appointment yesterday, I asked about stripping my membranes, a Foley bulb, and breaking my water. All last-ditch efforts to get my body to do what it's suppose to do, and my hopes weren't high that they were even viable options, but I had to ask.

Apparently Foley bulbs are not recommended for VBACs (not what I'd been told, as the friend who told me about them had learned about them from her OB, who said they'd try one for her VBAC if she dilated enough to get it in place, which she didn't; but I wasn't going to argue with the midwife if she said she couldn't do it). She said if the baby was at all engaged she'd be willing to strip my membranes and possibly break my water, but as of yesterday Kaylee was still too high for either of those to do anything. I guess she's floating in too much fluid and isn't positioned properly (she's head-down, but turned wrong), and it's unlikely she'd get into the proper position or that, based on my previous labor, I'd be able to get string enough contractions going without Pitocin to be able to labor effectively even if she was positioned properly.

Based on all of this, she said the likelihood of my being able to VBAC is virtually nonexistent. If I go into labor on my own she'll let me try, but she won't do anything to help me get into labor because it would likely just fast-track me I to an emergency C-section like last time.

At which point I burst into tears and begged her to just bump the scheduled C-section up, then, so I can get that part over with and get to the good part.

The earliest they can get me in is Friday at 11:30. I was hoping for today. Hell, if she'd told me to go straight across the street to the hospital right then, I'd have done it. I'm miserable playing this waiting game, having constant contractions that I know aren't doing anything, having to sit here and think about the upcoming major surgery and the fact that while my body makes awesome chubby babies, it doesn't seem to have gotten the memo that it also has to get them out at some point.

I'm angry. I'm frustrated. And I'm really, really sad.

I had hung so much hope on being able to do this VBAC. I worked so hard, did everything I could, to make it work. And to find out that it was all pointless from the beginning, that once again I have to lie down on a table and let some doctor cut my baby out of me instead of doing the work myself, hurts. The fact that I will never have that moment of feeling like a total superhero for having accomplished the major physical feat of birthing a baby hurts. The fact that I won't be able to pick up or comfortably hold Lorelai for weeks hurts. A lot. As does the fact that I won't get to hold Kaylee when she is minutes old.

(And, if I'm being totally honest, the fact that I'm going to have to be postpartum-sweaty, unshowered, starving, and hooked up to those stupid damned compression boots for over 24 hours pisses me off to no end. I was really looking forward to being able to get up, take a shower, and have a milkshake while snuggling my newborn.)

I've been a complete emotional mess all week. I realize that I have no real right, given what people up in Boston are going through right now, but I can't help that. Someone told me in Monday that "just because other people have it harder doesn't mean you're not allowed to be upset about what you're dealing with", and I'm clinging to that. Because it's true. And even though I know it doesn't sound like it, I *do* have perspective. I have friends who are struggling with infertility and would give anything to be in my shoes. I have friends who have lost babies and would kill to be on an operating table having those babes cut out of them, healthy and wailing. People lost lives and limbs on Monday in the Boston explosions. I get it. I do. I have no right to be this upset over not getting the birth experience I want.

But it doesn't change the fact that I *am* this upset, that right now I need to feel my feelings regardless of what other people are feeling, and I'm not going to feel guilty about it. I'm allowed. I'm allowed to be devastated, I'm allowed to feel defeated, I'm allowed to have absolutely no control over my tear ducts. I'm allowed. Because this isn't someone else's experience, it's mine, and it's not how it was supposed to be. I need to feel my feelings now so that I can get over it and stop crying in front of my oldest child. I need to be able to go into my baby's birth without dread. This is one of the most important events of my life, and it was ruined for me last time so I need I be able to make the best of it this time, and in order to do that I need to feel my feelings now even if it makes me look selfish and petty.

I've accepted that I've lost the experience that I worked so hard for. I've accepted that I'll never know what it's like to bring my baby into the world on my own. But I'm still angry and hurting over it. And I know I will be for a long time. I just really hope that I don't feel like that forever. I hope that at some point I can look back on my daughters' births without anger, without hurt, with nothing but fondness and love and joy.

Friday morning, I will rally. I will have to, because it will be my baby's birth day and I don't want to miss anything like I did before. I want to get past the hurt and anger and find the joy in a not-ideal experience. I want to not ruin the experience for my husband. I want to be able, this time, to focus on my new daughter and not on my feelings about how she's arriving.

But for now, I am angry, and I am hurting, and I am allowed to be. Because I worked really hard--both to avoid the surgery and to overcome my fears and anxiety about this event--and it really sucks that it was all in vain. It sucks to lose the battle I've been fighting for months. It just...sucks.

Bump Day Hump Day: 38 Weeks

I don't look that big, right? Hmm, wonder what happens if I pull the dress tight under the belly...



Oh. Let's maybe not do that again.

Oh, I am done. I've hit the uncomfortable-more-often-than-not, hormone-crashing, I-hate-everything-about-everything stage of pregnancy. It didn't hit till about 39.5 weeks last time, but last time I wasn't staring down the barrel of a forced C-section. (Are you sick of hearing me talk about the C-section yet? Yeah, me too. AND YET. It seems to be the only thing I'm capable of talking or thinking about these past few days.)

I feel bad for everyone around me these days. I'm like Jekyll & Hyde--one minute I'm totally fine and the next I'm so bing hysterically and want to punch everything in the face. I know it's the hormones, it's happened many times before and after a few days it'll go away. But man, it's exhausting. It's physically draining to be this hormonal let spastic, but my brain (and my bladder) is keeping me up at night so even when I manage to sleep, I have weird dreams so I wake up not feeling very rested. (Like the other night when I dreamed about my cheating ex and the ho-bag he cheated with asking me to help them get an abortion. I'm sorry, brain, but what the holy hell? Not only is that a bizarre and unsettling dream, but it's been like eight years; can we please just remove those two from my subconscious' casting couch?)

So, basically, I'm tired and uncomfortable and complainy and getting very, very panicked as each day goes by, taking me closer to that surgery, with no indication that this baby is ever coming out any other way. My Braxton-Hicks contractions have all but stopped. Dr. Twitter says this is sometimes an indicator that my body is taking a break to gear up for the real thing, and that if they're wrong I can sue them for engendering false hope and they will pay me in cookies.

I'm beginning to think all the acupuncture I've been doing is a waste of time and money, but I'm afraid to stop in case I'm wrong. The very first appointment gave me a few for-real contractions, but since then all uterine activity has been slowly tapering off. (Except the foot jabbing me in the side, and the rock-hard baby butt coming up under my diaphragm. My uterus isn't doing anything these days but Kaylee sure is. Which is good. At least one of us is behaving normally.)

I probably need to step away from the Internet when I'm having these cranky hormone days, because it just turns into a whinefest and no one including me cares to read it. But it's Wednesday, and Bump Day Hump Day is the only series of posts I've ever actually stuck with, so I'm not about to give up this late in the game just because I'm in a bad mood. You guys are all adults, you can click away any time! I won't be offended! I know I'm annoying right now!

At least my kid is cute.



(She went to Home Depot dressed like this with Kevin. I love having a girl.)

Books I (Tried To) Read In March.

I totally failed at reading last month. I really did try to read, but I just could NOT get into the books I was trying. I wasted most of the month fighting my way through the first one, which didn't leave much time for any others.

So I managed to not actually finish a single book all month. But because I am determined that even if I fail at reading I'm not going to fail at documenting that failure, so here we go.

(January and February's books. Numbers continued from February.)

10. The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton. This is the second book by this author that I have failed to get into. I tried to read The Forgotten Garden a while back and just couldn't get into it either. And the thing is, she's a good writer. The stories are compelling. I'm not really sure what it is. I tried to read The Forgotten Garden at the same time that I got a bunch of other library books, and abandoned it in favor of 11/22/63, which was more my speed at the time. With The Secret Keeper, I wanted to find out how it all wrapped up, but not enough to keep reading through all the time changes. It jumps back and forth between the present, when the main character Laurel is in her 60s, and World War II, when her mother was in her 20s. And I have a hard time with books that don't stay focused. (I never made it through the first book int he Game of Thrones series for that reason. Every chapter is from a different point of view! As soon as you get invested in one character, you have to read about another one! Drove me crazy.) So after three weeks, when I had to return this to the library or pay the late fees to finish it (someone else had requested it so I couldn't renew), I gave up and moved on.

(Incidentally, I am still interested to know how it all wrapped up, so if anyone has read it and wants to send me an email telling me why Dorothy killed the guy, please do.) (That's not a spoiler, it happens in the first chapter.)

11. Here I Go Again by Jen Lancaster. I thought this was going to be a little more In Her Shoes than Seventeen Again, but no. It's about a woman who was a total mean girl in high school and has a chance to literally go back in time and redo that time. (I assume. Maybe she was dreaming it or maybe it was a bad drug trip; I didn't finish it so I don't know for sure.) In theory, I'm fine with this, but everything about Lissy Ryder was too much for me. She was annoying, she was whiny, the way she talked wasn't remotely realistic to me, and I just couldn't do it. It should have been the type of book that takes two days to finish; when I was only a third of the way through after a week, I had to call it.

I ended the February post with "Let's hope March's books are better". Clearly that didn't happen. I have high hopes for April, though. I may only read one book, but it's a good one, and I'm enjoying it even if it's taking me a while to read. I have a lot of Candy Crush Saga to play, okay? And I'm sure that once Kaylee is here my brain cells will be reallocated from reading to Netflix. But hey, one fully-read book is better than a string of abandoned ones, right?

Bump Day Hump Day: 37 Weeks

Full term full term full term!!!

This is, on the one hand, exciting because it means we can officially begin Operation Baby Get Out. It's also terrifying because it means the Countdown to C-Section has officially begun.

It would be ideal if she showed up sometime next week. But as I'm not dilated at all, despite having pretty frequent, if inconsistent, contractions, and she is still very high, despite the fact that she's dropped enough to be pushing my underwear as any below-the-belly pants down so they are barely staying on, it's probably unlikely she will be here next week.

On the upside, I didn't have to call the midwives after hours on Friday, so at least no one has dropped a piano on my head. Yet.

I did score a quick ultrasound today because apparently little miss has such a firm butt that the midwife was only 90% sure she's head down (she is, thank God). I hadn't seen her since the 20 week anatomy scan, and while the ultrasound was done by the midwife and not the ultrasound tech, so it was really quick and basic ("here is her head, it's down; there's her heart beating and her spine, okay all done!"), but it was still nice to see her again. It's crazy to think that the next time I see her will be in person. I can't wait. Hurry up and get that firm butt out, Baby Kaylee! We want to meet you!

(An aside: I had my first get-her-out acupuncture appointment on Monday, and pulling into the parking lot was hit by my first for-real contraction. Did you know that Pitocin contractions and natural contractions feel totally different? I never had anything but Braxton-Hicks with Lorelai before they induced me, so all I felt were Pitocin contractions, which felt more like a charlie horse-type cramp through my whole belly. The one on Monday--and the other ones I've had since--felt like period cramps starting low in my belly, wrapping around to my lower back, and then right as the cramp got really intense my whole belly tightened.

Maybe it's not different like that for everyone. Surprised me, though, such that at first I wasn't sure if I was actually having a contraction, because I was expecting the charlie horse feeling.)

Bump Day Hump Day: 36 Weeks

In less than a month, I'm gonna have two kids. Two DAUGHTERS. I may be reeling a bit here. I just can't believe how close we are. This pregnancy has gone so much faster than I remember my last one going.

Speaking of, lets take a look at what I looked like at this point then, shall we?


Lorelai on the left. Geez, even my elbows looked puffy with her.

This will be our last comparison picture until I take my "headed to the hospital" photo. In which I will hopefully be in labor, and not scared out of my gourd and about to undergo surgery.

At my appointment on Monday, I had my GBS test, and asked her if, while she was down there, we could see if all the contractions I've been having have been doing anything. They haven't, really, but she said things feel exactly how she's expect them to at 36 weeks and it doesn't mean I won't start to dilate soon.

On the upside, baby Kaylee is back to measuring right on track. So there is still hope for a not-enormous baby. (Not that it will matter if I have to have a C-section. But still. It would be nice to get some use out of some of those adorable newborn clothes that Lorelai never got to wear.)

I've reached that stage where not entirely ready to be done being pregnant, because I'm one of those apparently rare women who genuinely enjoys it, but I'm ready to meet my daughter. Pregnancy limbo! It's all the rage!

(It's not at all the rage. All of my twitter friends who are about this pregnant are so beyond ready to be done. I think I'm the only one who is okay with being pregnant a bit longer.)

(I mean, you know, not too much longer. Because, C-section looming. But a little longer. I won't really start to panic unless I hit 39 weeks and it doesn't look like anything's going to happen on its own.)

I had a clever way to wrap this up but now I don't remember what it was, so here--have a picture of Lorelai! Pretend I was witty! (I haven't had coffee yet!)


(She insisted on wearing her backpack to the midwives' office the other day. That thing was one of the best dollars I've ever spent at a consignment sale.)

Fridays hurt.

I've decided I'm not going to make it to my due date, because this baby is going to be born on a Friday. Fridays have been rather uncomfortably eventful around here lately, so if the trend continues, it looks like I'll avoid that due-date C-section after all.

Last Friday, you'll recall, I put in a call to the midwives because I'd been having BH contractions 8 minutes apart for an hour and a half, and even though they stopped, throughout the night I kept waking up with irregular-but-painful contractions. This past Friday, I called them yet again because I fell on my ass. Hard. (I'm fine, and so is Kaylee. My butt just hurts. A lot.)

Those who have been reading since I was pregnant with Lorelai will recall that I earned myself a one-way ticket to an induction when I tripped on the curb and face-planted. This wasn't anything like that, thank goodness, but it hurt a lot more.

Kevin had taken Lorelai to meet some friends so that I could do some work for my part-time-on-call-from-home editing job that sent me about a billion pages of formatting to do, and he suggested that I'd have an easier time working if I first took Torg the Destroyer to the dog park for a bit to run out some energy.

I've resisted being the one to take the dog to the park recently because dogs are not great about looking where they're going when they chase each other, and I've been run into before. My balance is not as good as it is when I'm not 9 months pregnant, so I figure I'll make Kevin take him instead because its not as big a deal if he gets knocked over, as he is not currently a Vessel of Life.

You see where this is going, yes?

In Torg's defense, it was an accident. Granted, it's an accident that wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been acting like a jerk, but it really was just an accident.

He's recently started getting all in-your-face with any new dog who comes into the park, standing right at the gate and barking and generally being hyper. He's not being aggressive, but especially when the new dog is smaller, it can appear that he is, so we've taken to holding him back when we see someone new coming in so that they can actually get through the gate before he rushes them. A small dog was coming in, so I went to grab Torg's collar and hold him back, because the poor new pup wasn't even through the initial gate yet (there are two, so no one gets out to terrorize the neighborhood or get hit by a car) and he was already acting like a fool tying to say an overly-exuberant hello.

Well, in doing so, I managed to step on his foot. Which, understandably, made him jerk to the side, pulling me off balance as I was already holding his collar. (And, of course, there was a swarm of other dogs around us, too, so I was trying to catch my balance and also not step on anyone else.) I started to go down, grabbed for Torg to catch me, which scared him and made him jerk backward, so after I landed hard on my butt, I went over onto my back.

Luckily, there were a lot of other people there who were able to get the other dogs away and get me upright before I got trampled, but sadly, no one was close enough to catch me before I hit the ground.

We headed home, I called the midwives, they said if I wasn't bleeding and my water hadn't broken and Kaylee was still moving normally, then there wasn't a reason to come in, but to call back if anything changed. I was told to take Tylenol and try to find a way to ice my tailbone, and to basically sit down and do nothing for the rest of the night.

I did not sleep well, because you know what's easy is getting comfortable when your coccyx feels like it's been crushed to a fine powder. (I've also been having some really intense neck pain the past few weeks from having to sleep at weird angles to accommodate the belly and the fact that I have never been a good side-sleeper. So that also made it hard to get comfortable.)

The next morning, I could barely move. Sitting hurt, standing hurt, bending over hurt. My tailbone is literally bruised black. I can't sit without an ice pack under me unless I'm sitting fully upright and leaning slightly forward. It's better today than it was yesterday, but it's still not comfortable.

So, do we want to take bets on what I have to call the midwives for this Friday? Maybe I'll burn my belly on the oven door! Or fall down the stairs! Or maybe someone will drop a piano on me out a third-floor window like in a cartoon!

(Actually, my money is on Lorelai launching herself at my belly so hard my water breaks. I'm honestly surprised that hasn't happened already, because that kid does not understand personal space and "Holy crap ow that hurts don't do that!")

At any rate, I installed the infant carseat in the van yesterday just in case. Which probably means she's going to stay put till the 22nd. But if I didn't install it, I'd have a five-minute labor and a baby born in the cereal aisle at Harris Teeter. I know how these things work.

Just in case, I should probably go toss some of Lorelai's clothes in a bag to go to her grandparents' house at a moment's notice. You never known when that piano may fall.

I think my dog has his period.

I'm not actually joking about that title.

Over the almost-year that we've had Torg, we've realized he goes through a cyclical extra-destructive/whiny/needy phase about once a month. We keep joking we need to start tracking it so we can prepare ahead of time once we learn the pattern, but this week has been bad, and I'm actually printing out calendar pages for the rest of the year (because that's free and actual calendars are not, and also require going to a store or waiting two days for Amazon to mail them) so we can start keeping track of when this dog has his monthly bout of supreme idiocy.

This week, for those who aren't great at reading between the lines, is that week for him.

Kaylee has very few things that are not hand-me-downs. A friend gave her a stuffed animal this weekend and within less than 24 hours the dog had gotten hold of it, eaten its tail and one of its ears, and ripped a hole in its back. It's still serviceable, I can cut off the ear and tail stumps and stitch up the hole, but seriously, dog. Less than 24 hours. One of her three brand-new toys. And all because I had the audacity to run an errand while Kevin had the audacity to be in the basement (which Torg is allowed in! So I don't know what the problem is!) instead of the living room.

All week he's been waking us up to go out at 12:40. Kevin usually takes him because he's able to go back to sleep, but somehow last night I ended up awake for three hours, taking the dog outside multiple times only to have him just stand there and stare at me. (I finally put him in his crate because I couldn't deal with it anymore.)

It wasn't until he started moaning in his crate and booked it upstairs to jump on the bed when I let him out to take him outside again that I finally figured out what it is: he didn't have to go to the bathroom, he was being a dick because I'm not letting him sleep in the bed.

Kevin likes having him in the bed, but I don't like to be touched when I sleep, and two adults plus a fetus plus 70 pounds of long-legged dog in a queen-sized bed means that I'm not getting any sleep because someone is always touching-slash-draped-on me. So I told Kevin that Torg is banished to his chair. (He has a giant comfy chaise in the corner that is all his. No one else ever even uses it. Maybe I should start sleeping there and letting kevin and the dog caboodle to their hearts' content.)

And usually when we banish the dog to his chair, he has one night where he tries to get back in the bed, and then he takes the hint. But apparently, during moody-needy-whiny week, he is either dumber or more tenacious and won't take the hint.

Which means I spent three hours wide awake in the middle of the night last night.

(Kevin took Lorelai to his parents' this morning in hopes I could sleep in. What actually happened is that I woke up at my normal 7:00, saw that he'd closed the door, got up to open it so I could hear her when she woke up, and saw that he'd left a note that se was at his parents'. Then I called to tell at him that "I told you not to do that, I'd be fine!" because I'm an ungrateful bitch who hates to accept help even when I am exhausted.)

(I did apologize for yelling. I know he was trying to help. I just have a really hard time letting people help me if there's no real reason for it. I have a doctor's appointment? Sure, watch my kid for me. But if I'm just tired? No no, I must play the martyr and suffer through even though I know everyone will be happier if I shit up and let someone else watch her for a few hours so I can drink an entire cup of coffee before it gets cold.)

I haven't been able to bring myself to go downstairs yet because I know Torg will be giving me pathetic puppy eyes from his crate. (Kevin took him out this morning but put him back so he wouldn't wake me or destroy anything.) And I just don't want to see the puppy eyes because then I'll start to feel bad for being mad at him even though I have every right to be. I'm nine months pregnant and he kept me up for three hours in the middle of the night.

I think what this all boils down to is that I am not patient enough to tolerate this dog that I begged and begged to be allowed to get. I really put my foot in it on this. I had thought that getting a dog would bring a new level of warmth and love into the house, but all it seems to have brought me is more stress and less sleep.

At least when he's on his period. Hand to God, if our cycles ever sync up, Kein and Lorelai are going to need a bunker.

Bump Day Hump Day: 35 Weeks

Yep. Still growing.

Friday night I had to make my first "Something weird is happening" call to my midwives. Around 9 pm, sitting on the sofa drinking a bottle of water, I started having Braxton Hicks contractions. After about half an hour, I realized they were pretty frequent and so I started timing them. For an hour and a half, they were coming at about right minutes apart.

And I know BH contractions aren't real, and don't really mean anything. But I'd been told if I was having six or more an hour, and sitting down and drinking water wasn't helping, to call. Plus, it was the Ides of March, and Kevin's parents were out of town. Not only would Kevin's parents be very upset if Kaylee showed up while they were halfway across the country, it would really throw off our whole getting-to-the-hospital plan, as the plan is that Lorelai will be with them while I'm having the baby. Plus, some of my girlfriends were throwing me a mini-shower the next day, so it would have been very poor timing (never mind that she'd be five weeks early). But, Ides of March. And we'd just bought a minivan. And Paula, the midwife who had delivered Lorelai, was on call. Lots of things adding up strangely.

So at 10:30 I called the answering service. Paula must have been in a delivery, because it was half an hour before she got back to me and by then the contractions had stopped. She said if they started up again to try taking a warm bath, and if that didn't work, to call back.

Well, they didn't really come back. I had maybe four for-real contractions throughout the night--strong enough to wake me up--and I've continued having both BH and regular contractions since Friday, but not at regular intervals or with much frequency.

But it definitely has me second-guessing every twinge now.

I'm not really ready for her to show up just yet, because for her sake she needs to stay put a bit longer. But with the exception of setting up the video monitor, we've got everything ready for her, and it's no secret I want her to come a little early. So I'm finding myself a tad disappointed that the contractions haven't really turned into anything yet.

The waiting game is the hardest part of pregnancy for me. Kevin and I both tend to prep for things way early (I've had my hospital bag packed for a good two weeks already), which is good because it means we're ready if she comes early. But it also means we spend a lot of time sitting around waiting for something to happen. Which is boring. And a little frustrating.

But she's not allowed to get here just yet. Another week and a half, and she can show up whenever she wants. We're getting into the home stretch--in less than five weeks, I'm going to have two kids! Two little girls! I can't wait!

God, car shopping sucks. Especially when you're dealing with my anti-minivan neuroses.

(Somehow this posted when it was only half-done and had a different title, so if it shows up twice in your reader, I apologize.)

So. This happened.

Yep. I drive a minivan now. I'm officially a suburban stay-at-home mom.

In all honesty, though, and contrary to everything I thought before the test drive, I love it. Like, love love love it.

(Who am I?)




This van-buying process was a pain. I mean, car shopping always is, but when the person who is going to be driving the new car is resistant to the concept of the car to begin with, and is also insanely picky about what she requires in order to be willing to buy the car, it's even harder. And when you factor in that said person is almost nine months pregnant and wrangling a two-year-old for all the test drives? Yeah. Not fun.

I hated driving my parents' minivan in high school. It felt like a boat, it was a "mom" car, I just hated it. And I've held onto a lot of that hatred, but the lease was almost up on Kevin' sedan (which he rarely ever drives, so it was basically costing us a lot of money each month to gather dust in the garage) and I didn't want to have to replace that car now and then go minivan shopping again in a few years when we have baby number three on the way.

The Murano I'd been driving, which was Kevin's car before he got the Audi, is paid off, so it seemed to make more sense to make the car that is costing us money be the one that is actually being driven. Probably that doesn't actually make sense because a car payment is a car payment, but whatever.

We started out looking at Dodge Grand Caravans, which is funny because that's the exact car my parents had that I hated driving. But there were two things about it that appealed to me: 1) It's substantially less pricey than the other minivans on the market, and 2) It feels more like an SUV than a minivan when you're sitting in it and driving it. They've made a lot of changes to it since the 90s.

The problem is, I wanted a black one with light gray or tan seats, and that apparently doesn't exist. This year, you can only get black seats. Which made the inside look like a cave, and which Kevin and I both didn't care for. (It appears you can build one online with gray seats and a black-and-gray overall interior, but the picture of the gray seats says "2012 model shown", and after having our dealer call every other dealer that had a black-and-gray-interior van on their lot only to learn that they all have black seats, even if the interior is listed as black-and-gray, we decided that the new ones just don't come in gray.) So we started looking elsewhere. We looked into one-year-used Caravans, but couldn't find any nearby that

We test drove a Honda Odyssey, and I hated it. Hated. It felt exactly like driving my parents' old van. It was so big and wide and long and I had to actually lean and reach to hit the buttons on the console.

Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful car. If you want a minivan that is an actual minivan, it's lovely. But if, like me, you're stubbornly clinging to the feel of an SUV, it's probably going to disappoint you. (It was a shame, too, because it came in a lot of colors I really liked, so the problem we had with the Caravan wouldn't have been a problem.)

(My issue with the colors is that the Caravan is pretty boxy -- which I actually really like, but which makes it look more like my mom's first van, a 1985-ish Plymouth Voyage, which was dark gray. I didn't like the gray Caravan because it looked too much like my mom's car. It's stupid, I know. I also didn't like the other colors it comes in -- red, blue, white, this sort of sandy color -- just because that's my personal preference anyway. So I really wanted the black. It reminded me a little of my old black pickup truck and made me feel a little bit badass, even though I was driving a minivan.)

(I know, I don't get it either. I'm a little surprised I'm still married after this. Kevin is seriously the most patient and forgiving-of-my-crazy man on the planet. And the worst part is, none of this has anything to do with my being pregnant. I'm stupid about stuff like this regardless.)

We considered the Toyota Sienna, which I really like the look of, but which I had a feeling from having sat in one at the DC Auto Show a month or two back was going to have the same minivan feel that the Odyssey has, and test-driving cars with a toddler is such a pain I didn't want to bother.

So we had decided to table it, wait till the lease on the Audi was actually up in the fall, and see if the 2014 model had come out and what that offered.

Then, on Wednesday, Kevin came home and said, "I have a solution for us. The Volkwagen Routan is the Dodge Grand Caravan with a VW logo on it. Apparently it was too expensive for them to build a minivan out of VW parts, so they got licensing from Dodge to put their own exterior and logo on, basically, the Dodge skeleton."

The catch is that VW isn't making the Routan in 2013, so we had no option but to look at a one-year used van. We searched around, and found the perfect car -- black with beige seats, integrated nav system, DVD player, only 4,000 miles on it, at a great price -- everything I wanted except the heated steering wheel that seems to only exist on the new Caravan and which I didn't even know existed at all in the world till our Dodge test drive. (But which, after experiencing it, I decided I couldn't live without.) (I finally had to give up the heated steering wheel. I'm still a little bummed about that. But I will live.)

Unfortunately, the van was in New Jersey.

So I called the pre-owned car manager at our local VW dealer and asked if he could try to get the dealer in New Jersey to send it down here. He couldn't, because pre-owned stock is hard to come by so the New Jersey dealer wouldn't give it up, but he told me that he had a silver-with-gray-seats van on his lot with only 6,000 miles for about $1,500 less than the black van. Kevin and I decided we'd go test-drive it, and if I loved the car but hated the colors then New Jersey isn't that far away and we could take a mini-vacation to buy a car.

Seriously, my husband is a saint. Not many guys would even consider driving from Virginia to New Jersey just because their wives were insistent on a black car.

We asked the girl across the street to babysit Lorelai to make the test drive easier for all involved, and headed to VW to check out a van I was pretty sure I was going to think was ugly.

Spoiler alert: I did not think it was ugly. In fact, if we had brought Kevin's car to trade in, I'm pretty sure we would have bought the car that night. As it was, we went back the next day with the trade-in to make things official.

And now I just want to find excuses to leave the house so that I can drive it. I love it that much. It feels like I'm driving an SUV, the seats are incredibly comfortable, and there really isn't a single thing about this car that I don't love. Lorelai thinks the "magic doors" are the best thing ever. Torg actually stays in the back where he has tons of space instead of trying to climb into my lap while I'm driving. I'm getting used to the many dashboard controls and options.

Kevin has one complaint, and it's that the center console is too basic and cheap-looking and he wants to get a better one. I guess if I'm allowed to be insane about the color, he's allowed his thing too, right? And I sort of see his point -- it's just a cupholder and a well to put my phone or whatever in. It doesn't bother me, but if he cares so deeply about replacing it, who am I to stand in his way? The dealer would charge us $1,200 to replace it (he actually asked) but he's been looking on eBay to see about buying one to install himself.

I told Kevin I want to name the car Beyonce. He says that's a terrible name. Kammah says if The Bloggess can name a giant metal chicken Beyonce, then I can certainly name a car Beyonce. He says that's all the more reason not to do it, because the name is taken. Plus, he says it's a German car, and Beyonce is clearly not a German name.

I wonder what he'd say if I name it Heidi Klum?

Bump Day Hump Day: 34 Weeks

I had a really good appointment this week. Which was a relief, because I feel like my past few appointments have been very stressful with regard to news and discussion about my VBAC. But this one was really good, beginning with the news that I somehow haven't gained any weight in the past two weeks.
I don't know, maybe that's not a good thing at 34 weeks, but the midwife didn't seem concerned and I'm beyond thrilled, after how much weight I gained with Lorelai. She showed me my charts from both pregnancies, and holy cow. I started this pregnancy 10 pounds heavier than I started my first one, but I currently weigh 8 pounds LESS than I did at 28 weeks with Lorelai. And it hasn't exactly been a healthy-eating couple of weeks so I'd been expecting a big jump. (Kaylee is back to measuring a week ahead, so I think maybe the midwife just mis-measured at my last appointment.)
She also sent me to a new chiropractor. I've been seeing my normal chiro for weekly-ish adjustments since the sciatica kicked up around New Year's, but this new guy also does acupuncture and she said she's Ha good success with him getting women into labor. Obviously we don't want that just yet, but I called to find out when I should start coming in and he said it can't hurt now. We just won't get aggressive with it until I'm full-term (on April 1! That soon! Where is this month going?)
Acupuncture is...weird. The needles are teenier even than a hypodermic, about 2 hairs wide, and he threads them through this little plastic tube so all you feel is the plastic tube against your skin and not the needle going in. He did four in my lower back, then clipped an electrode thingy (I'm not 100% sure because I couldn't see it) to one (I think) of them, turned up the current till I could feel it tapping at me but it didn't hurt, and just let me lie there for about 10 minutes, listening to a white noise machine and trying not to fall asleep.
It was, dare I say, pleasant. (I know, four needles in your back doesn't SOUND pleasant, but I didn't feel them and the lying there listening to the waves was awesome!)
And I have no idea if it's related but I've been having contractions once every hour or two, and they're not just the annoying Braxton Hicks ones. They may still be Braxton Hicks, but they're a lot stronger and sometimes downright painful. I'm not concerned, as they're not regular or frequent enough to really be doing anything, but it's definitely interesting that it started up the day after the acupuncture. Gives me hope that maybe once we get closer to crunch time and ramp up the treatment, it'll actually work.
And unrelated to pregnancy, we had Lorelai's birthday party yesterday. It was supposed to have been on her actual birthday but we got too much snow for me to feel right asking people to drive in it. (Of course, yesterday it rained buckets and buckets, because nature hates my daughter's birthday, apparently, but whatever.)
We kept it super-simple: invited a small group of her normal play date friends over for a play date and lunch. You guys, I highly recommend this method of birthday partying for toddlers. The kids had fun, the moms had a good time, and best of all for me, it was low-stress and cleanup was minimal ( mostly just picking up toys).
The only downside was that a lot of Lorelai's friends have two working parents so I wasn't able to include everyone I would have for a weekend party, but that also helped keep it smaller and lower-stress for me. Which in the long run is good, as even just the small party wiped me out. By the time Kevin got home last night, I was fried. (And then we went car-shopping. Ugh. I hate car shopping. Especially when what I want doesn't seem to exist.)
I'm barely functional today, but I think I'm going to have to get used to the fatigue. It's only going to keep up the more pregnant (and then the less pregnant!) I get!

Two.

My baby is two.

 



Who authorized this?

 



Certainly wasn't me.

This kid. I tell you what. I've said many times before that toddlerhood isn't my favorite age because when it's bad, it's bad, but when it's good? It's so, so good. And these days, it's good more often than it's bad. These days, it's almost always good.

Lorelai is just ... Lorelai. She is so smart, so funny, she's into everything and keeps me on my toes and just surprises me every single day with her awesome Lorelai-ness. She cracks jokes, she sings songs, she tells stories. She loves her dog, she adores her parents, she thinks babies are the greatest thing ever and is as excited as a kid her age can be about becoming a big sister, and call me a sap but she just lights up my world. All our worlds. People can't help but smile when she waves at them. She charms even the teenage boys working the cash registers at the grocery store.

She manages to get free ice cream just for being her own adorable self.

She's cheeky, in every sense of the word. (I will cry the days the cheeks disappear.)

She's my little mini-me, and I love her more than I can possibly put into words.

Happy birthday, Princess Yai-yai. I know I'm not always patient and I won't always win the Mother of the Year award ( Like how I, uh, forgot to make sure we had eggs before the snow hit, so you have to wait for your birthday cake. Sorry about that. I hope the chocolate chip muffin I gave you instead was a decent substitute. Even though I made you share it with me. Sorry about that, too.) but I really do try to be who you are, because you are amazing. I love you so much more than you will ever understand.

I can't wait to see what this next year brings. Whatever it is, I know you're going to rock it. Because that's who you are.

You're my little princess ballerina rockstar. You're the most amazing person I've ever met. I'm so, so lucky that I get to be your mom. I know every mom says that about her kid, but the rest of them have no idea what they're missing. I'm the luckiest. I got the best kid.

The very, very best kid.

Bump Day Not-Exactly-Hump-Day: 33 Weeks

Tomorrow is Lorelai's second birthday (!!!) and I don't want her to have to share with BDHD, so this post is going up just a tiny bit early.




(I really love the color of this bathroom. Shame it's in the basement and never gets used.)

This isn't the greatest shot of the belly as I'm wearing a sweatshirt and had to put my hand on top to break up the line between my boobs and my stomach, but whatever. I'm slightly bigger than I was last week, as one would expect.

This baby has been headbutting me in the lady parts all day, to the point that I keep waiting for my water to break because the sac can't possibly withstand what she's doing in there. But it seems to be sturdier than I give it credit for.

I've also been getting heartburn more than I did with Lorelai. With her, it was mild and only if I ate something like cake or cookies right before lying down. This time, water seems to be a major trigger, of all things. Go figure. It's still mild heartburn, nothing to complain about, but it's still annoying and weird that water is the worst trigger.

And finally, I thoroughly cleaned the entire house today in anticipation of a large birthday play date that will probably get cancelled because of the snowstorm (I'm refusing to call it Snowquester, because I just can't. Snowmageddon and Snowpocalypse I could do. But I just can't do Snowquester no matter how much the Washington Post weather guys want me to).

So, yeah, full-on, top-to-bottom cleaning. I didn't really need to do the upstairs because no one will be up there but I figured, I had the vacuum out so why not? And once I vacuumed I figured I should also wipe down the bathroom counters lest the bathrooms and bedrooms not match. Then while I had the cleaning stuff out, why not the toilets?

You would think this was my first rodeo. Oh, you guys, I am BEAT. I could barely handle putting Lorelai to bed before stumbling to my own room to throw on pajamas and curl up in bed. I ache all over, I'm exhausted, I've been having Braxton-Hicks contractions all day because I haven't rested enough and all the water I'm supposed to be drinking is giving me heartburn. Honestly, what am I, new? I know better than this.

And that is this week's update. Prepare for a super-sappy post tomorrow as I process the fact that my baby girl is TWO. (TWO! What the hell, time?)

Books I Read in February

Hey look! It's the beginning of March and I'm posting my February books! (I'll share a secret; it's because it is currently the same day I wrote my January books post, so that it would actually get started. Because otherwise it won't get written until March 30th. I know myself.)

Again, all links go to the Goodreads page; all ratings are 1 (low) - 5 (high), and I make no apologies for my taste. Numbers are continued from January.

7. In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, #1) by Tana French. 3 stars. Okay, so, everyone I know loooooooves this book, and I just ... it was okay. It was really well-written, good characters, compelling mystery, and usually this is exactly the type of book I can't put down, so I don't know what my problem was here. I'm blaming me and not the book because it was really good, and there's no reason I shouldn't give it at least 4 stars, but I just ... can't. I sort of figured out who the killer was, and that kind of bugged me because I wish that the characters had been smart enough to look into that person further, and I wished there had been a resolution to the thing there was no resolution to, and I really wanted to throttle Rob for his treatment of Cassie in the last part of the book. But I plan to read the second book in the series, so obviously the author did something right. (And all my complaining makes it sound like I didn't like it, and I did! Just not as much as I wanted to! But again, I really think that was me and not the book.)

8. My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands by Chelsea Handler. 3 stars. This is basically exactly what the title says it is, and it's just like all of her other books, which is to say it's stupid and crass and a lightning-fast read. Which was exactly what I wanted. I read this the week of my VBAC consult, and I was an emotional mess and needed something that wouldn't require a single brain cell. Chelsea Handler is good for those times.

9. The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman. 2 stars. Oh, you guys. This book. It sounded so good, everyone talked about how it made them cry, I thought surely I'd love it. I did not. It took me three weeks to plow through the first third of the book, because it's all backstory about Tom and his having been in the war and how damaged he was, and I'm sure it was supposed to make us sympathetic to him for what happens later, but all it did was annoy me that nothing was happening. But someone told me to push through because once he and Isabel are married it gets good, so I forged on, and it did get good. For a bit. But then they found out that Lucy's biological mother was still alive and it got sad, and it made me angry. And then more stuff happened and I got angrier, and by the ending I was ready to rip the book in half, I was so mad that I wasted so much time on it. I gave it two stars instead of one because it did make me cry, and the characters were very well-created, but I did not like this book. I wish I'd given up on it back at the beginning when I wanted to.

I realize I am the anomoly here; everyone else I know loved this book. Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood. That happens, it's a real thing and it frequently stops me from loving books I should love (see In the Woods above). But I think even if I'd been in the mood for this one, I wouldn't have loved it. I think the most this stupid angry-making book would have ever gotten from me was three stars.

Let's hope March's books are better, shall we?