Ain't No Holla Back Girl

There is something inescapably now about having an infant. As one who sometimes wishes to avoid the Now...and, say, daydream about the future, analyze the past, or even obsessively construct plans for the future based on strategies I think I understand from my past, I am not always loving this whole in the present moment with the tiny baby thing.



Actually, mostly these days (I can only speak in a very limited time frame) I am feeling okay with it. The first couple weeks with, though, were rough. I found myself, at random moments during the day, gripped by a thought that this is it - this endless cycle of nursing, putting the baby to sleep, trying to assess what the baby wants and then nursing again, etc. all over again. This thought was, of course, accompanied by a terrible feeling of confinement. To be fair, this is a sensation that I've experienced at pretty much every job I've ever had. It's just that this particular job doesn't include legally outlined breaks and mealtimes...no vacation or sick days, really. No ducking out or rashly deciding, after a dull day at work, to say "fuck it!" to going to the gym and "boy howdy" to getting a beer with a friend.

It is natural to feel this massive adjustment, I assume. To balk a little at the radical shift your days take after having a baby. To be honest, I feel pretty lucky. I feel like Ila isn't an extraordinarily demanding baby...and I also feel pretty content going through the repetitive little motions of each day, capable of reminding myself this is a phase and that I should enjoy Ila while she's tiny.

In that vein, I really am trying to notice as much as I can about her now. (In fact, sometimes I feel little pangs of sadness that she's changing - and going to change - so fast that I'll somehow miss some of it. It's weirdly a sensation of missing her when she's right in front of me.) For instance, she is getting more and more opinonated. She has started screeching and hollering when I try to nurse her when she's not hungry - or when she's gotten enough food. She throws her head back, turns red in the face, and yells. I was completely floored by this at first...I thought something was wrong. However, having paid attention, I've decided that sometimes I think she may be hungry when she's not. Instead of a polite refusal - however that would look in infantese - she screams about it. Fortunately, the screaming stops immediately when I just sit her upright or lie her down next to me.

It has taken some getting used to. At first, I was a little hurt - my breasts couldn't help but take it personally. However, now, I am trying to find some amusement in it. I mean, imagine being offered food when you're not hungry and instead of simply refusing it, you curse the person who offered it to you and throw the plate at the wall? It is absurd...but I guess everything is a little crazy when the only real way you have to communicate is screams and shrieks at varying volume levels. I can't wait for more cooing and smiling. These two things have started a little...but the grunting and hollering is still the preferred dialect. Isn't it funny that we all learn to scream and groan long before we learn to smile? It's supposedly for our survival...which, I think, says a lot about our species.

The Second Month Begins

It is officially the start of Ila's second month of life - outside the womb. Perhaps this is admitting that I am incapable of the simple task of counting, but I am not exactly sure how we delineate the whole month thing. It seems that four weeks, in infant land, counts as a month. In adult land, the only month that is actually only four weeks long is that rascal February. So, today being July 1st (Happy Canada Day!), I can, with confidence say that it is, at least, the start of her second calendar month. Whew.

So far, in her first month of life, she has been a calm baby. Now that we're in the second month, I worry that colic will rear its ugly head...and suddenly my baby will be a whole new creature. One that screams and weeps and hollers for hours inconsolably. I may be jinxing us, but I really am amazed at how easy-going she seems. She does cry - but is usually very easily placated. She's hungry or wants to walk around the house or sit on your lap facing out (this is her favorite thing - she really likes to sit upright and gaze out...with her only semi-focusing infant eyes) or she is tired and needs to be helped toward sleep. Babies change so much in the first year, though, so who knows what's going to happen? (Hence my apprehension.)



She is definitely getting more vocal - she will get pissed and holler when something really does not agree with her. One of the most common - and sort of amusing - times that this happens is when she is nursing. She has, of course, no real control of her limbs. They just flail or loll about without much direction from her. She often throws her arm around at the start of a nursing session, sometimes bumping herself off the nipple with her own arm. Then, she screeches furiously and turns tomato red with anger. I quickly put her back on and try to restrain her arm...but I am often using both my hands to arrange and hold her to the breast at the start of a nursing session. So, sometimes she manages to bump herself off the breast a couple times. It is kind of funny - does that make me an insensitive mother? - except at 3 AM when I just want her to clamp on and get down to business.

Also, if she was a little worked up at the start or before nursing, she'll also grumble while she starts to nurse. This is entertaining, too. She is actively sucking and, at the same time, making a little gritching complaint sound in her throat...like she wants me to know she's not quite over it yet. That I need to know she does not approve of how this all went down, and I should work harder to get it right next time.

All of this is only amusing because she really doesn't ever cry for very long - and is very responsive to our attempts to comfort or distract her. We really have found Harvey Karp's five S's - from the ridiculously named The Happiest Baby on the Block - to be helpful. We do the loud shushing in her ear all the time when she starts to fuss. It's sort of amazing - her eyes get wide, and she stops wailing usually immediately so that she can listen intently - like there's some secret message she needs to catch in its entirety. Swaddling also really helps her calm down. She'll often wiggle and wriggle to free an arm, but she is instantly calmer when she gets swaddled.

Again, I feel, in typing all this that I am cursing us, that Ila will throw all this placidity off and shake herself into a roarin' and wailin' baby who is not comforted by anything. I suppose one take home message in all of this is how little control I have...I just have to accept that I have no idea how this little being will change...and how our days will unfold. I feel like I've typed this sentiment about 50 times in this blog...it makes for serious redundancy...but I guess that's the deal with life lessons: there are, like, three and you just learn them over and over. We'll see...

So, that was really, really hard. (A story about labor.)

About a month ago, I had a baby. Labor. Hmmm. What to say? Where to start?

It really fucking hurt.

I guess that's a start. I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting - I mean, I keep telling myself that it would be intense and painful...but I guess that's all pretty abstract and theoretical until you feel it. All I know is that all the classes and the books did not really give me any notion of what to do. I know they help a lot of people, but I felt my labor didn't really progress in a manner that made a lot of it recognizable from the descriptions. I mean, I know everyone's labor is different, but I felt mine didn't conform to anything I'd read or heard. Maybe everyone feels that.

On May 30th, by the middle of the day, I felt like I was sort of having contractions...well, not exactly contractions - my abdomen would get hard (uterus contracting) periodically...and I had crampy feelings in my lower abdomen, but not really coordinating with the contractions; instead they were kind of constant but bearable. The Friday before this, in the middle of the night, I thought my water might have broken. We went in to the birth center and had a ph test to see if I was leaking amniotic fluid. I wasn't - so, I was relieved that we weren't on the clock. (If your water breaks before labor - which is rare despite depictions in TV shows - you have about 12 hours to start labor naturally before they want to induce you.)

Anyway, over the next couple days, I felt mild contracting of my uterus...I had been joking with Kiyomi for days that I wouldn't recognize a contraction when labor really started...and it turns out I wasn't exactly wrong. All of Sunday afternoon, I sort of vaguely tried to notice when a contraction was starting...or how long it was...and they were very amorphous and didn't seem to peak...or have any kind of regularity. Sometimes they didn't even feel like a distinct contraction - just sort of intense cramping for four or five minutes.

Now, we took basically three separate birth education classes...and none of them really prepared me for the indistinct, hard to follow contractions. I mean, we finally decided to go to the birth center at about 10:30 PM because I just felt pretty awful. I still hadn't had any clear, timeable contractions. I thought that might mean that I wasn't really in labor yet. Nope. I was halfway dilated and completely effaced when I got to the birth center. My water then broke and after this, labor picked up. From about 11:30 to 2:30 AM, I had LONG (90 second to 2 minute) contractions very close together. After these three hours, it eased up a bit...and I thought, foolishly, that maybe it was the end of the first stage and I would be pushing out the baby soon (second stage of labor).

HA! I had another 3 excruciating hours of long contractions that were often only a minute apart. I lived up to all the cliches - I screamed some, I moaned that I couldn't go on, that I didn't want to go on, I asked about medication. Finally, the midwife checked my cervix and, encouragingly told me that I was at 9 centimeters (10 is when the second stage is going to start). I, very grumpily, told her that that last centimeter could take another hour. I wanted to tell her to fuck off...but I didn't.

Finally, I started pushing. This, according to books and many people's stories, is a relief...and that it is an "overwhelming, inescapable urge" and that "your body takes over." I wish. I felt that it was intensely difficult work that I had to FORCE my body to do. It took about an hour and a half to two hours...the last 40 minutes of which, everyone else could see Ila's head (just a little sliver of it at first). They were all saying, encouragingly, "She's so close." It took all my will to not tell them all to go fuck themselves because I knew she was not really THAT close and that I had a LOT of pushing to go. I wanted to shriek, "Tell me when her goddamn head actually comes out!" Every contraction, I kept thinking, "Is this it? Will her head come out now??? How many more contractions???" Of course no one can tell you that...but, god, I wanted to know so badly.

Finally, her head did come out - and thanks to the midwife's direction and my pausing during crowning - I only had a very small tear. Yay! The one small victory of my labor! After another contraction or so, the rest of her body was born and I had her on my chest. That was amazing. I loved her intensely immediately...I don't even really remember looking at her, I just held her against my skin...and it felt completely and wonderfully right.



Unfortunately, the third stage, delivery of the placenta, which is supposed to be sort of barely noticeable, was complicated. It wouldn't come out and I kept bleeding. I lost probably between 1 and 2 liters of blood while they tried to get the placenta to birth...and then prepared me for the ambulance ride to the hospital. At the hospital, I got an epidural - as anesthesia before going to the OR to have my placenta removed manually. Ouch. About three people had already been rooting around in my cervix for the preceding hour (which is horrifyingly excruciating, in case you were wondering), so I was ready for some relief.

The irony of receiving an epidural AFTER labor did not escape me...nor did the lovely numbing sensation of the epidural itself. I found myself thinking, "Why didn't I want one of these during birth? What's wrong with a medicated birth?" (My friend Jenny commented, when I told her these thoughts, that she'd had the thought, "Why didn't I want a c-section? Why can't they just take the baby out?" after her natural vaginal labor.)

In the OR, they were able to remove the placenta pretty easily - and eventually I received a blood transfusion...it was draining (ha ha) and intense, but everything went smoothly after the whole loss of vast quantities of blood debacle. I was very...sort of drunk with love for all the nurses and doctors in the OR. I told the anesthesiologist that the epidural made me react like I did when I drink - I felt so much love and appreciation for all of them for helping me. He was amused...and I think kind of charmed because he kept making jokes with me while Dr. Mead dug around in my uterus.

I couldn't really think about the labor without shuddering for about 2 or 3 days. I felt like a failure...because I really wasn't able to use any of my breathing work or any of the strategies I'd practiced for labor. I just never got ahead of the contractions...they were fast, hard, and so vaguely shaped compared to everything I'd read...I just wasn't ready at all. A few people from my birthing classes have commented that their births were "smooth" and their partners have said these women were "calm and focused." I just felt like I was barely hanging on, to be perfectly honest. And, although it was the scariest part, the whole placenta thing and loss of blood did not frighten me at all compared to my memories of the pain and how incapable I felt at handling it. I know it's very harsh and critical of myself to say this, but I think I felt embarrassed at how "badly" I handled the pain. I just was completely floored by it. They say that the second time is easier...but I am going to have to get a LOT further away from it before I would consider doing it again. And by "further away" I mean, I will possibly consider labor again after a bout of amnesia!

I am so grateful that Ila and I are both well...and, obviously, it was worth it to have this little sweet pea in my life...but I am still finding it sort of challenging to integrate that experience into my memory...I didn't think I had a clear set of expectations for birth. I didn't have some specific scenario in my mind; I even thought that was sort of foolish because you have so little control. Maybe that made me feel superior? Well, I discovered that I obviously had SOME expectations...even if it was as simple as, "I will be able to tell when contractions are starting. I will be able to relax at all during labor." I am curious to see how I reckon with all these thoughts and feelings as I move away from them...and I am curious to see if I actually ever want to try it again...

Relaxing, sort of.

So, I haven't been working for the last week and half. Basically, I made it through the 14th. All these women I work with kept saying that they worked up until the due date, when I said I was taking off the last two weeks of my pregnancy. It's weird. Should I feel like a weakling? No, I'm just better at resting! It's a skill - a talent, really.

Actually, last week I ended up doing a lot. A lot of little errands and things...but I could punctuate all these tasks with naps, so it was pretty nice. Now, in my second week off, I am finding that my motivation has waned. I really just want to lie down...sort of all day. I guess I should lap this up because I'm about to have my hands full.

In my lounging hours, I have been watching some very questionable TV. So, I go through long periods where I don't really watch much TV...and then when I tune back in, I am always fascinated by what I find. For instance, A&E seems to have become the network of severe psychological disorders in the last year or so. I mean, there's the show on hoarders, the one on OCD and the show Intervention about addicts. What I love is that there are marathons of these shows back to back. Isn't it too intense to watch 7 straight hours of people who are severely broken? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm as fascinated as the next voyeur, but, on paper, it seems weird to be like, "Let's show 24 hours of people who are profoundly and deeply struggling with simply being alive day to day."

I have been steering clear of the shows about babies and birth. I sort of want to watch, but I just feel all...antsy about when it's actually going to happen for me. I've started to realize I kind of don't even think it IS going to happen. It all seems so theoretical. Also, I am not sure I'll recognize early labor signs at all. I mean, I feel so many weird little pains and contractions now...I think I'll be in the thick of it before it clicks that it's all started.

I had quite an awful dream last week. I dreamed that I woke up to find that I had had the baby in my sleep. Now, those of you nervous about the pain of labor may think this was a good thing, but the dream was hideous. I woke up and the baby was all blue and cold - I realized that it could have been born hours before and was just alone and freezing to death. It was terrifying. Well, I hopped up and made Kiyomi fill the bathtub with warm water. I got in with the baby and she was okay...but I woke from this dream very unhappy.

In fact, in the last week, I've been having more thoughts that something will go wrong with the birth and the baby will not survive...or will be severely injured. It's so crazy because the baby is so close - only inches away from me - and yet it has quite a long journey to make it safely to the outside. Sometimes, I also think something might happen to me - like I'll have to have an emergency hysterectomy and will never be able to have another child...if we want one.

I'm finding that I remember all the stories and movies I've seen where something terrible like this happens. I saw this movie Everything Put Together with Radha Mitchell like ten years ago. The woman's baby dies...and it's a pretty psychologically intense depiction of this woman's break down. For years, I don't think this film crossed my mind...now, I keep seeing snippets of it in my head. Jesus. I can't believe how much I can remember. Crazy.

I guess this is normal. Apparently a lot of women have fleeting, anxious thoughts about what may go wrong. I've just had very few so far, so it's intense to have them now. I feel like...I don't know...the gods may not want me to be as happy as I am. I feel so lucky to be healthy, to have had a healthy pregnancy, to have a baby on the way, to have such a loving partner, and such wonderful, generous, kind friends and family. (I especially feel this after watching an episode or two of Hoarders or Intervention!) I mean...doesn't it anger the gods to see mortals happy?

And, what does this say about me that I think the powers of the universe want humans to be miserable? Hmmm.

I guess I should just enjoy it. Whatever "it" is...this week of calm...this time to relax...these blessed circumstances I've been born into...

Mother's Day

(Me at the computer!)

The other day Kiyomi was visiting with her colleague and friend Pam. (And by "visiting," I mean making Pam get all weepy talking about the baby coming). Anyway, after the last tears were shed, Kiyomi was leaving her office when Pam shouted down the hall to Kiyomi, "Let me know when Margaret starts labor." Two other women (strangers) were near Kiyomi and smiled and asked if Kiyomi was expecting. She replied that her partner was expecting. Then, one of them said, "So, you're going to be a.........parent," finally finishing. The moment was a bit awkward, but they both then congratulated Kiyomi after she said, "Yes, I'm going to be a mother." Amusing.

Well, we're not quite in time for this Mother's Day - which is fine, baby, stay in there! - but today I am officially full term! That's 37 weeks for those folks who haven't been reading What to Expect when You're Expecting closely for the last year or so. So, now were are free and clear to deliver at the Birth Center should I go into labor. That's a relief...though, I still believe she will come a little late. I hope to make it at least through the 19th - my last day of work!!! But, these things aren't really up to me!

I am a bit tired of being pregnant. It's just an occasional thought - sort of creeping up on me. I'll think, "Oh soon I won't have to pee 4 times at night..." or "I won't have this stuffed and suffocated feeling after I eat shortly!" Really, I haven't been miserable, but some days are hard. I don't feel huge when I look down at my stomach, but, gods, moving is harder! And my pubic symphysis is in full revolt at this point. When I turn from side to side in bed, I'm forced to grunt and moan as a claw my way over because my whole pelvic region is behaving as if it has just seceded from the union and no longer really needs to heed the direction of my northern half. And, once I've yowled my way over to the opposite side, I usually have to pee. Getting out of bed is also a grunting and creaky affair...so, I find myself longing for a catheter...or even a bed pan at these moments. For some reason, I am much more sore at night - maybe it's all the lying still? But, fortunately, I really am still feeling pretty alright most of the time!

Despite feeling okay, it's so hard to get much done...and, the reality is, I will be able to do even less in a few weeks with a little constantly eating, and pooping infant. So, I'm trying to just let the house get filthy and learn to live with it. I mean, I can barely clean now...and I won't be cleaning much soon...so, my recent thought has been just to immerse myself in clutter and untidiness as a preparation. We'll see how that goes! In fact, right now, I should clean the bathroom and finish the laundry...but I might just go have a nap!

Self-Timed Pictures at the Botanical Garden

What not to say to a pregnant woman...

So, my plan was to write once a week now that I'm so close to the due date...but, I guess that was foolish. What was a I thinking? Things seem to get more and more busy the closer we get! I'm four weeks out! How DID that happen? (Also, I only have 13 days of work left...not that I'm counting the days, nay hours until I'm done with this particular group of little 8th grade miscreants. Actually, they're totally fine...but I guess I am just DONE.)

I've entered what I feel is the red-zone...basically, it's starting to feel like I could go at any moment. Not that I think I'm going to be early - I predict that I will be at least a couple days past my due date. However, now that I'm close, it's occurred to me (maybe I'm a little slow?) that lots of women go into labor in their 38th or 39th week. Who's to say I won't be one of them? I've been so sure I'll be late (most people are with their first) that it's sort of a shock to think I really am term NEXT WEEK and could deliver at any point after that.

Shit. That's my first thought about that. We need to pack the bag for the birth center...I need to put my guided relaxation stuff on my ipod...and...other things? Maybe clean up this house...and keep it perfectly in order until the delivery? That's a bit far-fetched, I suppose. Still, there is work to be done!

I think this is seeping into my dreams a bit. I haven't really had many pregnancy, childbirth or baby related dreams. However, last night I had a dream in which I went in for a check up. At the last real, non-dream check up I had, the midwife guesstimated that the baby was about 5 1/2 pounds. Well, I told this to the midwife in my dream right before she felt my stomach to do a guess. She told me the baby was 10 pounds! Oh my god. I then had to have these other procedures done because I could tell they wanted to get that baby out. 10 pounds?

10 Pounds! That better not happen. Well, I guess I'd be sort of okay with it if it was a 10 pound baby with a still small-enough head. And shoulders. Okay, never mind. I'm not okay with it. Let's have a more reasonable-sized baby.

The more disturbing thing happened after I woke up. I got a call from the birth center - on a Saturday morning that can't be good. I did my fun fun group beta strep test on Wednesday. (I call it the orifice test because you have to stick a long q-tip just a little way into your va-jay then your bung hole. Awesome! FYI, it is NOT easy to to do this yourself when you are almost full term. Especially the reach around and insertion into the back. I almost went and got Kiyomi mid test because it was proving quite difficult. I should have just brought her in from the start...I guess I hadn't really pictured how challenging it might be.) At any rate, when the midwife from the birth center called this morning, I thought they'd discovered something really frightening from my test. Not only was I GBS positive but that I had some disturbing infection or they could tell something was wrong with the baby...from my vagina/asshole test? It doesn't really make sense, but why else could they be calling?

As it turns out, the midwife was calling to tell me the labs I'd done and turned in Friday had some slightly problematic results and that I needed to come in for a non-stress test to the hospital. She mentioned uric acid and my amniotic fluid level...but that the pressure was still normal. She was super-calm and nice, which I appreciated but...I was having a hard time understanding how my little orifice probe test would tell me anything about my amniotic fluid levels or pressure. So, I had to interrupt and kindly ask, what labs??? Oh, of course! The blood work and 24 hour urine collection labs...I never did.

Woops. I really like all the midwives at the birth center, but the front desk people are...infuriating. They apparently mis-labeled or mis-filed the labs from this week. The midwife was obviously floored a bit too when I told her I hadn't had blood or urine labs this week. She asked me several times if I was sure I hadn't had any of this done this week. Finally, she said, "Well, let's start here. Are you actually pregnant?"

The weird thing was, once I got off the phone, some part of me was worrying that this COULD somehow be about me, that these could be my labs, and I could need to do a non-stress test. That is perfectly illogical (did I do a urine collection and blood draw in my sleep?)...but to some irrational part of me it made sense. After all, she did call ME and MY name was on the labs. I hope they sort that out! (What a disaster! I guess there was a different phone number on the labs, though. She just looked mine up in the database with my name, I guess. I hope that other phone number was right!)

There certainly is a level of suggestibility when you're pregnant. I don't even feel that susceptible to it - I mean, I haven't really been too worried about much this pregnancy. But I do sort of wish people would be a little more thoughtful in what they say sometimes.

In our hypnobirthing class, we got buttons that say, "Only positive birth stories, please. My baby is listening." And there is some need for this, I suppose. I have had a few people tell me slightly traumatic birth stories...but, actually, not so many. In this vein, though, I have had a number of my friends/acquaintances who haven't ever given birth cringe repeatedly when labor is mentioned. I don't even mean discussed in detail - maybe a slight mention of contractions or dilation or tearing.

I don't really like the cringe response so much. I guess I'm weirdly excited about giving birth...and strangely not that concerned about things like tearing. I just figure, it's going to be hard, intense, and I might tear...but I just figure, I'll do what I can to relax and have a positive birth experience...and the rest is out of my control. Plus, I have this deep, really primal certainty that it will also be amazing. I mean, every time I see that moment in a birth video when the baby is put onto the mom's stomach, I pretty much start sobbing. It's beyond magical. It's fucking amazing.

These reactions - the fear, the cringe - I understand, though. There's a lot of fear around birthing...plus it IS crazy and intense. The inappropriate, unhelpful comments that I've found to be more troubling have come from a couple of my co-workers. For starters, I should say that I'm not that concerned about my weight gain or people saying, "You're huge!" It doesn't really bother me. But, when one of the counselors at our school came up behind me and said, "You should really see yourself from behind." I was...well, horrified. What the fuck does that even mean? And, is that ever an appropriate thing to say to an acquaintance? A couple days later, the school psychologist said, "You've gotten wide." Again, what the fuck does that mean?

I get the "huge" comments. I mean, it's a little insensitive, but these comments (from our counseling and psychology departments no less) are troubling because...there's no socially appropriate response. I basically just said, "Ohhhennnngh." To both of these women. I mean, when someone says something that is blatantly rude...what ARE you supposed to say back? This really brought home the fact that, in a way, it's not even the insensitivity of the comments that makes these situations uncomfortable...it's the fact that you've suddenly found yourself thrust into the universe OUTSIDE normal acceptable social decorum.

Most of my friends that I've related this little story to seem to think I should have said something along the lines of, "Oh, you've gotten wide, too!" with a big smile on my face. I suppose that is the "teach-you-a-lesson" sort of direction. What I discovered about myself, though, is that all I wanted was to get back to the recognizable land of polite and thoughtful small talk. But, when you're working with a conversational partner who is unpredictable, the way is not necessarily clear. Maybe the pregnant belly casts a spell of conversational inhibition on some people. Yikes. I sure hope I haven't made these types of comments in the past!