December 29th - Fiiiiiive Gooooldennnn Riiiiings (Ba-dum, dum dum)

Yep, Christmas was good. Fast, little stressful, but good.

Saturday we cleaned the house like mad, juggling a baby back and forth (not literally, you can't launch them in the air till they're 4 months or so).

Sunday (Christmas Eve) we refused to do any more work (except laundry) and actually baked cookies and decorated them, got everybody bathed, dressed all cute, and out the door for the family service. Yes, I took my 5-week old daughter to church on Christmas Eve. You can send the hatemail to my home address, or email me. She was AWESOME. She woke up only once, when she realized she was still strapped peacefully into her carrier/carseat thingy, and of course this meant war. I bolted out of there, left the seat in the hallway, and brought her in, fast asleep. She screamed in the car on the way to the Christmas party, and we realized that we didn't buy a gift to take to the Christmas party, so while I ran into the only business that was blessedly open at 7:30 on X-mas Eve, Bob fed Maddie in the backseat of the car. Thank you, Rite Aid of Washington Township. Party was fun, great food. Nice cosmos. Bob and I exchanged gifts when we got home, and he got me some LOVELY things - Yay for new slippers that don't have dog drool on them (yet).

Christmas - we went over to Bob's folks early (and by the way, I was on baby duty, and it SUCKED and I had major insomnia anyway. Probably got about 3 hours...yes, non-consecutive). We exchanged, it was fun, Maddie got some cute things from the Grandparents, Aunt, and Uncle. :-) The day was very nice - fabulous appetizers, lots of people, yummy dinner, Maddie got ooh'ed and aaah'ed over and passed around... we got a neat DVD recorder from Nick, so we can put all our home movies, classic 80's TV video tapes, etc. on DVD. Laura got us tickets to a comedian we love in A. C. in February. Lots of cool stuff, yummy food, fun.
the 26th we exchanged gifts w/ Mom & Cait, hung around and left later.

The 27th Dad and Heidi flew in. We made Bocca burgers (attempting to be healthy for the California peeps) and exchanged gifts. Dad's enthralled with Maddie. Of course, she's a bit more of a challenge now, at the peak of colic-time for babies, but a lot more alert and fun too.

The 28th I had my 6-week post-partum appointment. Passed w/ flying colors. Feelin' fine. Dad & Heidi & Cait left for PA. We lent them the better of our two cars. What are we going to need with two cars during break anyway? Wha ha ha...We had a quiet evening at home. Well, we had an evening at home. Maddie made sure it was anything but quiet. My poor baby's been having screaming fests pretty much nightly. At first we thought it was gas, and we'd actually put her on soy formula at the direction of the doctor - which stinks and stains, by the way - and it doesn't seem to be helping. If anything she's screaming more, but that's to be expected as we get closer to the aprox. 6-week-old peak of the wonderful world of colic (Colic is NOT gas pain. Not really. Colic is usually defined by the 'rule of 3's', in babies: Unexplained crying for 3 hours or more a day, 3 or more days a week, for at least 3 weeks, beginning usually around 3 weeks old, and usually ending by 3 months old...right around the time when the parents figure out what's going on and develop a method of dealing with it.) She's also constipated - sorry, didn't need to know that? Ha. You've never lived till you've till you've watched another (albeit, damn cute) human being poop, and were rooting for them all the way.

The 29th was SUPPOSED to be my shopping day. 4 gift cards to burn through, clothing inventory taken, list made, no bulky diaper bag, no stroller to push, no baby on the verge of wailing to wake the dead if the wind blows the wrong way...just me & my purse, like the Macy's commercial said. Or was that Sears? I get all set, Bob's got the kiddo, and of COURSE the car won't start. Turns over, won't actually do that whole CAR thing that cars do. And yes, that's right, our other car is in Pennsylvania. Thrilling. Bob's father thinks it's the fuel pump. I think it sucks. Not a major crisis, but it definitely complicates life a bit. Well, what would life be if it wasn't complicated? Boring.

Now it's midnight, Maddie is asleep - we're working on A) getting her to bed earlier and earlier because Mommy isn't into this whole 4 hours of sleep a night thing and B) putting herself to sleep - so we put her down to sleep drowsy, but not asleep, and somehow (I really have to read up on this) she's going to learn to put herself to sleep at night, and if she wakes up in the middle of the night. Cause Mommy and Daddy love sleep. They love sleep very much.

Which is what I have to do right now. I'm squandering my non-baby-duty night! Oh no!

It sucks, there's so much I want to write about this new-baby time, for her, for myself, for posterity, and cause I love writing...and the only time I have to type anything is when I'm exchanging sleep time for writing time. Which doesn't serve me well.

PS - sad cause I have to stop wearing my engagement ring because I keep grazing Maddie's little legs with the diamond setting when I'm changing her, and we can't have that, can we? The child-welfare people probably already know where I live. ;-)

December 22nd - Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

Ah, Christmas break. The lights are gorgeous on our street. The presents are all bought. The house finally looks Christmasy. I love Christmas break.

What's that, you say? I'm not presently in the 'workforce', how can I have a Christmas break?

NOT IN THE WORKFORCE? (I smack you now!) ;-)

Tell that to my back and my feet. I think I felt less tired and sore at the end of double shifts at Applebee's in the summer of '02.

I get a Christmas break because BOBBY'S HOME FOR 10 STRAIGHT DAYS!!!

...of course, there's many many things to do and relatives swarming all over my house and a BABY to take care of (who apparently is being tortured by major gas bubbles, poor girlie)...but Bob's home. :-) I get more sleep, I get help w/ Maddie, the house gets more attention, he gets to bond w/ her and see her during the late morning hours when she's actually quite happy and pleasant (as opposed to afternoon when she's virtually comatose or evening when she's gassy and fussy or night when she appears to have taken No-Doze pills).

We're going to make cookies and get the house ready for visitors and make sure we're all ready for Christmas (a few presents to wrap, nothing serious. I'm prepared this year). And then we'll have a very nice Christmas - a very nice Baby's First Christmas (which is apparently a big deal, we've gotten like 10 cards stating the 'special' importance of it...although it's not like she's going to remember it or even be awake for most of it.)

And we're even going out to dinner ALONE on New Year's Eve - Dad already told us he's babysitting while he's here. Sweet.

...and then on January 2nd we'll both be needed a little Zoloft, I think. ;-)

I just starting to maybe possibly be getting into a routine that may one day be comfortable with Maddie now, and by 2nd she'll be 6 weeks old, and hopefully even more established in her comings and goings and SLEEPINGS and FEEDINGS and POOPINGS. But MAN will I miss Bob and MAN will I hate having that empty-house feeling again and MAN will I miss teaching and talking to lots of people and getting out and about and feeling purposeful every day.
And Bob will be majorly bummed about heading back to that joke of a school he works for and putting in another 6 months at least there before the gloriousness that is summer.

Me, I'll have to make sure I get out and do stuff, go to Mom's Club events, Mommy & Me mornings (and perhaps a visit to the dreaded TLC New Mom's group, for safe keeping - see a pattern here?). I officially go back to work March 28th. :-) That doesn't sound that far away. (And how much do I deserve to go straight to Hell for counting down the weeks till I stop staying home and go back to work?)
Bob - well, Bob will have to make the best of a ridiculous situation and start scanning the career pages of the Courier. We'll get by. Sleep-deprivation and all.

But for now, for the next shiny week and a half, it's Christmas, and by God we're going to enjoy it. We finally have the house decorated, we finally got the tree up and trimmed (Tuesday! Shameful, I know, but we'll keep it up past Epiphany if it'll last), and we're going to 'do' Christmas and enjoy Christmas the way we have in the past. One of us will just be swaddling, side/stomach-holding, 'ssshhh-ing', swinging, and letting baby get some good paci sucking in while we Christmas it up. Viva la "5 S's" by the way. Happiest Baby on the Block will be my standard shower present from now on.

So MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL (if I don't get to post again for a while). Happy New Year. I hope you all enjoy the holidays as much as I'm going to enjoy tonight - my first night of gloriously un-interrupted sleep in a while (thanks to a fabulous husband, formula-feeding, ear-plugs, and Tylenol PM).

My kid is on YouTube!

December 17th - Trans-Siberean Shmorchestra

To update my post from yesterday - yes, I have time to post twice in one weekend, can you tell we're starting to get our acts together here? - I ALSO am the proud owner of the following Christmas Specials (on video tape, sadly):

• "Fraggle Rock Festival of the Bells"
• "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" ( cartoon version from 1985)
• "Berenstien Bears' Christmas Tree

Yesterday we went to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert at the Wachovia Center. Embarrassingly enough, I knew sad little about this group. I knew that they had a Christmas song or two on the radio, they used synthesizers and guitars and traditional orchestral instruments. I figured, with the word "Orchestra" in the name of the group it would be, I don't know...quieter? We had an extra ticket (well, Bob's parents did. They were going with friends who bowed out and they didn't really want to go anymore so they gave the 3 tickets to us) so we called my friend Cathy, another music teacher in my district, who happens to be 8 1/2 months pregnant w/ her 2nd girl.

We had no trouble getting there, no trouble parking, GREAT seats, and we settled in for a nice concert. WOW the Wachovia Center is huge, first of all. I was a bit shocked to see like 8 orchestral instrumentalists come out and sit in this little part of the stage...and a bunch of long-haired guys in tuxes come out with electric guitars.

*I should digress for a second here: I have a slight prejudice against long-haired guys with electric guitars. After playing 2nd fiddle to an electric guitar for 3 1/2 years while with my boyfriend from high school, I'm not ashamed to say that I got a tad sick of the sound, and a tad bitter/annoyed.*

Before the concert started, they played the 2 songs that you hear on the radio...not live, though, just recordings. Nice. Then the concert started. HOLY CRAP, LOUD. I must be getting old. I am, I know. I will be the first to admit that I'm not a 'cool' person, music-taste-wise, at all. I haven't been to a genuine rock concert since my mom took me to see Tiffany when I was 9. (Damn good show, btw. I've been to about a million crappy-ass 'battle-of-the-bands' type things, mind you. But loud concerts like the usual Wachovia Center things are not my bag. I have old lady eardrums.)

The concert was in the form a narrated Christmas story (very similar to the Mannheim Steamroller "Christmas Angel" one), with a very good narrator guy and a very loud rock song that used laser show lights (very cool) every 2 minutes...which, except for having used a DIFFERENT Christmas carol's main motif over and over, was the same as the LAST very loud rock song we heard 2 minutes earlier. The story was hard to follow, too...something about a guy in a bar telling a story about an angel coming to earth to check out man kind and going all over the world and seeing man's cruelty to man and then seeing some bartender give a little girl cab fair to get home to her father who missed her on Christmas eve...and then it turned out the the guy in the bar telling the story was the Angel...yeah, the stuff that dreams are made of, for sure.

And the lack of coffee, aspirin, and sleep I was experiencing coupled with the ridiculously loud (although very well-performed) repetitive music all came together to create one doozy of a headache. By the time they finished the story I was like, "NEED. COFFEE. ASPIRIN. NOW." And "this show is over now, right?" Nope, they weren't giving us an intermission, and now they were going to play all their non-Christmas stuff. They have non-Christmas stuff??? Dear God.

And Cathy didn't look so good. It occurred to me half-way through that really loud music can be a torture device to a woman in her 3rd trimester...and baby Ashley was kicking the snot out of Cathy. We were both ready to leave. I made one desperate attempt to find coffee and painkillers...hey, the no sleep thing creates certain dependencies. I'll wean myself when she's sleeping through the night, thankyouverymuch. I asked Bob if we could leave, and he graciously agreed. He wasn't all that interested in their non-Christmas stuff. And he was tired, too, having been on baby-duty the night before. I still say I have the best husband ever. So we left, shaking our heads at the fact that none of us thought to bring earplugs. Well, to be fair, I thought it was more "orchestral" than that, and earplugs don't go with "orchestra".

I was so grateful to Bob for being cool with leaving the concert half-way through that I did baby duty last night. Wasn't hard, though. Got her to sleep around 12:30 ish, and she slept till 5:00!!! (4 1/2 hours! This is big, for a newborn. Big. Of course, she wolfed down bottles before bed last night, so she was good and full, so that helped. But it gives me a strategy for tonight!)

Today and tomorrow, I want to:

Do laundry
Hang M-A-D-E-L-I-N-E letters in the nursery
Make baby foot & hand casting w/ the kit we got at the shower
Write thank-you to Cathy (gave us a baby gift)
Put Christmas boxes in attic
Sweep/Mom floors
Use the hot glue gun to finally fix the arms on Joseph and the one shepherd

HOLD MY BABY!

...that was my other problem last night. I really missed my baby. Some moms get that 'instant love at first sight' thing w/ their babies. I loved her, of course, very very much. But I get more attached to her every day. I actually miss her in the morning after Bob does baby duty, crazy as it sounds. So I'm going to hold my baby now, now that she's awake.

December 16th - Need a little Christmas (Special)

My kid is a non-stop eating machine. Buy stock in formula now, trust me.

It's finally starting to feel like Christmas. We're hanging out downstairs, Bob's got Maddie and is giving her her second bottle in an hour and a half (I said, I have an eating machine), I have my 2nd cup of coffee - the first one I elbowed and dumped on the empty, thank you God bouncy seat and carpet, and we've got one of my treasured Christmas tapes on the TV. "Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas" Good stuff. Jim Henson = Christmas for me, basically.

My collection includes:

• "Emmet Otter"
• "Frost the Snowman" w/ Jimmy Durante
• "A Muppet Family Christmas"
• "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"
• "Merry Christmas Charlie Brown"
• "The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas"
• "Ziggy's Christmas"
• "Christmas Eve on Sesame Street"
• "Santa Claus The Movie"
• "A Disney Chanel Christmas"
• "Mickey's Christmas Carol"
• "Rudolph's Shiny New Year"
• "Twas the Night Before Christmas"
• "Frosty's Winter Wonderland"
• "The Life and Times of Santa Claus"
• "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"
• "Tis the Season to be Smurfy"
• "Alf's Christmas Special"
• "A Nutcracker Fantasy"
• "A Cabbage Patch Christmas"
  

I think I'm going to attempt to invest in a VCR/DVD recorder combo in the coming year(s), so I can transfer these and all the home movies and stuff to DVD. I'm so afraid of losing these, how sad is that?

We've finally gotten the Christmas decorations out, although we swear we have more somewhere - where's the Advent calendar, anyway? And people have their lights out - we drive around and critique people's lights, we're terrible - and the street is so pretty...*sigh* I love this time of year.

Went to a Toy & Cookie exchange yesterday, which was pretty fun. Plus I now have a plate full of cookies, although Bob won't eat any of them, they're 'weird'. And we're going to the Tran-Siberian Orchestra concert tonight! Bob's parents were going with friends who ended up not being able to go, and Bob's dad said he's prefer to send us and spend the evening babysitting than go without the other couple (and since we know Nana would rather babysit than do anything, pretty much), so we get to go! Wow! A night out! At a concert! At the Wachovia Center - a REAL concert! Nice...

But nothing's better than hearing "When the River Meets the Sea" sung by a furry brown otter puppet.

Plus I got like 8 hours of sleep last night. Glorious.

December 13th - Things to do

Monday - Mom came to give me a break. I love when Mom comes to give me a break. It's working, I think, because I don't feel the need to entertain and be a good hostess. She holds the baby, lets me get housework done, lets me get a NAP or two, and best of all - this week she did baby-duty ALL NIGHT on Monday night. We slept from 11:30 till 6:30. I haven't slept that long, that well, in literally MONTHS. (because even pre-baby, I was uncomfortable and constantly up to go to the bathroom-your body's way of prepping you for having a newborn at night, I think.) Mom likes it because she gets baby time, bonding time, and gets to feel needed and have somewhere to go. (I finally sympathize with someone who lives alone. I'm alone for 9 hours a day and it's NOT fun.) Monday night Bob had bells. I miss going to bells. Monday night mom stayed over, best-sleep-ever, etc.

Tuesday - Mom slept in (because she did baby duty all night and that's no way to sleep). I went to a "Walk & Talk" at the mall with Mom's Club. Well, first I negotiated a shower in between Maddie's cries, dressed us both, tried to get her to take a bottle - nope, not having it. So I packed everything up and put her in the car and pulled out the garage and BOOM! Screamfest. Well I knew what this was, this was her being really hungry. So we unpacked everything, we came back in, and we had our bottle. Then I called and told the moms I'd be late - 'don't worry, you're not the latest one' and off to the mall we went, half an hour late. There were about 7 moms there, 10 kids or so, a parade of strollers. Very noisy, and pretty fun. I'm a bit of an exciting addition to the group, I can tell. New member, brand new baby, etc. They all oooh and ahh over Maddie, it's so nice. We walked, we talked, and despite the fact that I knew none of them and they were almost all in their 30's and we don't have much in common, it wasn't that weird. I didn't run out of stuff to talk about - always a plus. We even grabbed lunch at Chick-Fil-A (sp?), and that was pretty cool. Came home, a lady from church dropped off knitted baby gifts for Maddie and talked to Mom and I. Then Mom let me take a nap again (bless my mother) and I puttered around till Bob came home. Mom left, and we headed over to Bob's parents' house for Laura's family birthday dinner. Fajitas! Ole! (And Champagne! And strawberry margaritas! And I can actually consume alcohol as I wish for the first time in almost a year.) We ate, we caked, we gifted, we looked at Nick's new car, we passed Maddie around, and we actually sang Christmas carols while Nick played piano. Bob laughed himself silly a few times, and considering how worried about work he's been lately, it was good to see him have some fun.

Wednesday - well, I suck at sleeping. SHE went to bed at 10:30, seriously. For the first time in I don't know how long (well less than 3 weeks, obviously) she went to bed early. And I couldn't sleep. Maybe it was because I took a nap this afternoon. (Although God knows my sleep deficit wasn't exactly filled by one tiny nap) Maybe it was because after that nap I had a cup of coffee. Maybe it was the 2 drinks I had at Bob's parents. Maybe it was the fact that at any moment I would hear the baby cry and I'd have to get up (I think that's it!). I just lay there for hours. I think I got 3 1/2 hours or so, maybe. *Sigh* What sucks is that I could have had QUITE a nice long night's sleep. I do believe I shall be hitting the Tylenol PM tonight... Hey! Don't judge me! I'm a desperate woman here!
Tonight it's concert time! HA! I definitely would be more stressed TODAY if I were teaching instead of stay-at-home-ing. 2:00 would be melt-down time. "What do you MEAN none of you have your music? NONE of you????" So I get to go as a private citizen and see how this lady does with my kids. (Probably going to kick my Chorus-Hating Ass.) It also means a nice evening out for Bob and me - our first, sans baby. She'll be in good hands at the in-laws. Is it bad that I'm looking forward to being out without the baby?
I now have to finish eating lunch, pack baby up, crate dog, and run to as many Targets as it takes to find all the wide Dr. Brown bottles we need, then run to Babies-R-Us and return the Playtex Ventaires I bought (BRU is SO expensive, btw!) and I have to get the cookie stuff to make cookies tomorrow, to bring to the Toy & Cookie Exchange on Friday.

...how dull all this must be to read...well, I like it. Learn from me, oh ye with more exciting lives. ;-)

Thursday - Yes, I'm actually going. There's a group that meets Thursday mornings at the Virtua ed. center where we had our childbirth classes for new moms dealing with 'baby blues' and other challenges of, well, new-motherhood. Honestly, I'm nowhere near as bluesy as I was a week ago, WAAAAY better than two weeks ago. But I want to go once, to say I went, to make sure I'm doing all this right. It'll probably make me feel tremendously better about my situation, when I see women who REALLY need help. (No support, no money, majorly depressed all the time, etc. Me? I'm just a suburban whiner.)
Then Thursday night the in-laws are watching Maddie again, and it's Bob's turn, concert-wise. I'm sure it'll go really well, and I'm sure he'll feel much better when it's over. And it's another night out. Yay for nights out!

Friday - I'm going to a Toy & Cookie exchange at Kristi's house (Mom's Club. Shut up, I'm having a social life one way or another, damn it. ) It's cool, you RSVP and the hostess tells you how many people are coming, and you make cookie baggies for that many people and exchange them around so everybody gets one bag from each person (mmm cookies!). You also bring in toys that your kid doesn't play with anymore, and they put them in a room and let each kid go in and pick one new toy, and the rest go to Goodwill. Nice, huh? Good entertainment for the price of a batch of cookies.
That afternoon I'm taking Bob's mom to a medical procedure she's not allowed to drive to. Little nervous about having a newborn in a waiting room for a long time...hope they have a changing table in the bathroom.

Well, off to Target shortly. And baby's getting fussy. Good timing, kid.

To sum up:

Monday - Mom came.
Tuesday - Mom's here, Mall Walk & Talk, Church Lady, Laura's party
Wednesday - Target(s), BRU, my concert
Thursday - New Mom's group, Bob's concert
Friday - Toy & Cookie exchange, Bob's mom's procedure, oh, and grocery shopping
Saturday - Possibly getting Christmas Tree

See, this is how I do things. Got a weekly calendar of events and everything.

December 9th - Yo Quiero E. Coli

Ha!

Ok, so Wednesday night we have a pediatrician appointment. I have to pick Bob up from school because I had to drive him TO school because I lent my sister my car for 2 weeks because she had a car accident while visiting here after Maddie was born. (I am the queen of the run-on sentence.) We figure out on the way home (around 5) that there's no way we're going to be able to get home, make and eat dinner, feed Maddie, get her ready to go, and be at the pediatrician's by 6:30. Not going to happen.

So we decide to stop and grab dinner on the way and go straight there. Not in the mood for burgers. What's close by? Taco Bell. Ok. We go to the Taco Bell and it's deserted (for 'some reason'...ha ha ha). We order, they screw up our order, we sit down w/ the baby in the carrier, fast asleep, and eat. We got out to the car, feed her (a perk of bottle feeding, you don't have to whip a boob out in public!) and I brought her back into the restaurant restroom to change her. My first public restroom changing, and it didn't go half badly! As I'm bringing Maddie back outside and putting her back in the carseat, the manager of the Taco Bell comes out and says, "I'm sorry, folks, we're closing now." Um...it's 6PM? That was ok, we already ate, we're leaving. The manager seemed a tad stressed...hm...

So we left, went to the Dr.'s, had a nice appointment, and all was well.

Next morning, on the news, we hear that all Taco Bells in ours and neighboring counties had emergency closings at 6:00 PM! And they had to THROW OUT ALL THE FOOD and disinfect the whole restaurants. Greeeeaaaat.. E. Coli poisoning occurred at several of the restaurants, so they all had to close. Something about green onions (which we had none of, they didn't have them, for now-obvious reasons.)

So yeah, we took our 2 1/2 week old daughter into a restaurant, ate there, and 15 minutes later, they closed for fear of E. Coli poisoning. Not like she was eating the green onions herself, but it certainly doesn't qualify us for "parents of the year". :-)

It just gets better and better, I tell ya.

December 7th - My 'busy' days

Ok, we've switched from the stupid pink pacifier to the little one with less of a nipple (hey, that should work!) so let's see how long we keep it in our mouth this time.

She let me get 5 1/2 hours of non-consecutive sleep last night. I know, shut up, I should be grateful. Tell that to my headache.

We're experimenting with the bouncy seat today, too. Haven't had much success, but we're going on 35 relatively happy minutes - punctuated by the wails resulting from a wandering paci every 3 minutes. But I'll take it. I tried for a nap - didn't happen. Grandmom & Pappy are visiting today, around 1:30. Hopefully after oohing and ahhing over their awesome little great-granddaughter they'll feel bad for me and volunteer to take keep an eye on her for an hour, and maybe I can get some shut-eye. Sleeping from 11:30 to 3 and then 'sort of' from 4 to 5:30 is great for a 2-week old baby. It's not so hot for her mommy. Me. Want. Sleep.

Ok, enough of my whining. I knew what I was getting into when I, well, got into this.

Mom came to 'rescue' me on Tuesday. I laid it on the line for her before she came: "I don't need you to clean my gutters or scour my toilet. I need you to take care of the baby so I can do what I think needs done. Oh, and a nap might be nice." And she came, and she did!

Ah, we went a whole paragraph without spitting out the paci and then freaking because "Oh my GAWD, where's my PACI?" Lovin' it. We're seeing improvements here, people!

I got to NAP, I got to clean, I got to cook dinner w/o interruption, and it was beautiful. Good stuff. That was Tuesday.

Wednesday, yesterday, was BUSY, and baby, did I like it that way. It felt like the first 'normal' day in a long time, strangly enough.

We figured out at 6AM that I'd have to drive Bob to school, w/ Maddie, because I had my Mom's Club meeting and although I COULD take my mom's car, I couldn't take Maddie in it - no carseat base installed. And we could have left her at home w/ Mom, but she graciously stayed up with her after I did her first late-night feeding at 1:00. So I got to sleep from 1:30 to 6!!! Yes, folks, there is a God, I got 5 1/2 hours of straight, beautiful sleep. It's like frickin' heroin. So Bob and I rushed around and got us and Maddie packed into the car, and Bob and I actually had a nice time talking and driving to school, like we used to do. It felt so normal! I realized I hadn't driven with him on that route in over a month, and we used to do it every day, and talk the whole time. Reconnection. A good thing. We got to show off baby from her carseat to a few teacher friends who passed by, and I drove home.

I had to quick feed Maddie, convince her to be sweet while I changed her into a Christmasy outfit that she wasn't particularly swimming in (we're still too small for most of the 0-3 month stuff) and pack Her Royal Pissiness into her carseat yet again -and the carseat is our enemy! Then we went to Mom's Club. Never been before, didn't know anybody, but I've done that situation before. It was nice. I actually struck up conversations with several mommies, and sicne it was their Christmas party, Santa was there for pictures. VERY cute photo op. Every mom there was so taken with Maddie...and hopefully not cursing me too loudly under her breath for bringing a newborn out into the cold and to a party. Nobody held her/touched her but me and Santa, relax. I signed up to go to two activities this month, and I'm supposedly going to be put into a playgroup that meets once a week. Granted, my kid doesn't 'play' much, but whatever. Social interaction is key, people. Meggie needs to resist turning into a Unibomber here.

Then we came home and my mom took care of baby for a while, and I got to CLEAN and do a half-decent job of putting up Christmas decorations. It's not where it should be - I can't find my garland, damn it! And getting the tree (this weekend???) will make it much nicer. But we're getting there. Saturday is Bob's day to watch the kiddo, and my day to spruce up the joint, Christmas tunes blaring. 'Tis the season for hurried decorating.

At 3:45 we had to leave to pick Daddy (Bobby!) up from school. And at 3:40 we had a diaper blow-out, on my mom's lap. Nice. So we slapped her in whatever clothes we could find, thinking that she'd only be in the car the whole time, and finally got on the road at 4. Picked up Daddy (met another teacher friend after yearbook club) and realized that there was no way we were going to make it to the pediatrician appointment at 6:30 if we were in Medford Lakes at 5:00 and the chicken wasn't even defrosted at home. LOVELY. Hello, Taco Bell. Changed my baby in a fast-food restroom for the first time, and I gotta say that it wasn't that hard. Bob fed her the bottle that I'd miraculously remembered to prepare and bring along while we were parked, and away we went to the Dr.'s...wearing a stupid outfit and no onsie (baby underwear). Greeaaat. DYFS is coming to get me now.

Her appointment went well; she hasn't gained much weight, but she's above her birth weight, which is what they want you to be at this point. We talked about the great breastfeeding crash of '06 and the doctor seemed pleased with what we were feeding her and how she was growing.

We came home at 7:15, and had a relatively nice evening until Maddie decided that NO, she was NOT going to bed at 10:00. Or 10:30. Or 11:00. At 11:30 she let out two major burps that sounded like they came out of somebody who would punctuate them with "Da Bears" and as swig of beer - and then she passed out till 3:30. Pretty decent.

No nap for the weary this morning, but as I said, Grandmom & Pappy might have mercy on me and let me nap. But there's only one more night until FRIDAY night, when I get to be off-duty and stay in bed the whole night. Bring it, baby.

And I'm thinking of suggesting that this thing where my mom comes and stays overnight one night and basically takes the baby whenever I need her to become a weekly thing.

And I'm getting the feeling that Bob's folks want to see Maddie more than every Sunday night - hmmm....

Ok. For my next post, I'm going to attempt to talk about something other than the baby.

Like Bob's evil boss putting in her 60 days. Or trying to find Bob a new position next year. Or the fact that I'd vote for Hillary, but I'd be the only one, and I'd really rather see a non-republican idiot in the white house. Edwards looks ok, although I was hoping not to have to listen to another W-like accent for 4 more years. Or about the fact that Bob's concert is next week - yay, he'll be done! Or that I'm going to my school's concert next week too, and I'm a little apprehensive about the kids suddenly having been turned into, well, a GOOD choir.

My Maddie is still awake and quiet. This is such a NEW and PLEASANT look for her. Awake, with no tears. Amazing. Well, we're growing and changing more each day.

Dude, Julie Andrews movie on lifetime. I could listen to her read the phone book.

Maddie's Story - Part 4 - Staying Home

And we're changed, dressed, fed, burped, and propped up on our Boppy in an semi-upright and secure position (to avoid spit-ups). Let's see how long it stays that way. My mom is coming today to give me a hand. I really feel like I can either take care of her and manage to possibly shower...or run the house and get stuff done so that poor Bob doesn't have to do it all AND work. So Mom's coming to be on baby duty while I either nap or clean/put up Christmas decorations/do the Christmas cards. I have a few minutes here to post. Or not...

Ok, the carrier didn't work but the pacifier is buying us some rest. She slept VERY little last night, she needs to nap! There we go... eyes closing. Cuteness!!! God they're cute when they're asleep.
Or "asleep" and threatening to wake up. If anybody's wondering how I have time to post and care for her, it's a combo of one-handed typing and writing in 3-minute spurts in between holding and changing and burping oh-my!

So I'm now *gulp* a stay-at-home mom.

Hang on, I have to pick myself up off the floor. I am NOT the stay-at-home type. Mom, yes, I can do that. But the first few days of staying home all day with Maddie were pretty blue for me. She's wonderful - although every mom worries that she doesn't love/dote on/pay attention to her kid enough. I'm just one of those people who likes to go out and do something every day. People to talk to, things to do, accomplishments, socialization...

Tuesday, my first day in my new role, I stayed at home, in the house-all day-alone till Bob got home. And I felt like shit. I was also VERY sad that Dad had gone back to California that morning. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I've always gotten along well with my father, and he was such a steady, helpful presence in my house for the 4 days he was here. I missed him instantly. And Bob went back to work after being off for days, home with me & baby & family. As I said, my house went from being a bit too full for my taste to being empty and lonely.

I remember standing over her crib a week ago and crying, "I don't think I want to do this!" Meaning, stay at home with a baby for 4 more months and not work. Oh, yeah, that's right. I'm only saying home till April. I felt so pleased that we'd negotiated that lengthy a maternity leave, and that we can (supposedly) afford to live on one paycheck for that long (we can't, we've been saving up extra $ for my maternity leave since I got pregnant). Last Tuesday (and Wednesday and Thursday) I suddenly felt trapped and alone. I had wanted to ADD a baby to my life, not rip everything else out of it. There was nobody- nothing to do (except house work) nowhere to go (because I couldn't take her out and my sister had my car and I wasn't supposed to drive for 2 weeks after the birth anyway). And for somebody who actually looks forward to going to work, that was a tough reality

I love my job, I love my school, my students, and my friends there. I may only be teaching elementary general music, but I take it seriously and I do a good job. I also have a fabulous time doing it, for the most part. (It's the adults I work with that give me issues.) And I was really starting to feel like I had a good handle on the ins and outs of it all, too. I love my job. I love the fact that in April,when everybody else has had just about enough of school and will be counting the days till June 21st, I'll feel fresh and eager to hop back on board. (Yes, I realize I'll also die of guilt and not want to leave my adorable 4-month old daughter with Shannon then, too, but I'll still have a happy feeling about going back, I know it. Once I get in the car on the road to DeMasi I'll feel pretty good.) Yeah, I love my job. I love my Maddie more, though.

Ha! My baby is snoring. OH she is her father's child 100%. This kid is all Bob so far. Which pleases me more than I can say. :-)

I can't believe there's a baby sitting next to me on the couch, sleeping, and I CAN'T believe that she's mine.

The care & maintenance of Maddie isn't that bad, honestly. What we do with her, we knew we'd have to do. There's no horrible surprises (yet). Both of us were 'screamers', so to speak, as babies. From day 1, my mom said I never stopped (I was hungry, though. My grandmother put the ridiculous notion into my head that a newborn - a holdable fetus, basically, should be on a strict 4-hour eat/sleep schedule. Ha. Tell that to the fetus that's had a 24-hour diner at her disposal for 9 months.)

She's a newborn, she does sleep a good part of the day. Except she USUALLY doesn't sleep for long stretches. Yesterday was a major exception, and I paid for all those hours she slept consecutively when I was still trying to put her to sleep for the first time that evening at midnight after trying for more than 2 hours, her wailing. I figured out that she hadn't eaten nearly as often as she usually did, since she'd slept all day, and she was probably quite hungry. 2 oz. bottle solved that problem, and out she went, till 5 AM. Of course that meant I fell asleep around 1AM and was up at 5AM. But this is what having a baby is like, and you really do stop caring about the sleep after a few days. You'll function as best you can, and if not you'll call a Grandmother who will ride to the rescue.

Her catnaps are nice, long enough to maybe shower or get the dishwasher unloaded and reloaded. Not long enough to catch up on the sleep that I'm missing while rocking her royal fussiness to something that resembles sleep - until you put her in her cradle. Then it resembles bitch-fest. She's so indignant when she wakes from her half-sleep to find herself somewhere other than on your shoulder. Her nights are a bit rough. Days, they can be interesting, too.

I spent (spend) the majority of the day on the couch, still, though. Holding her, rocking her, feeding her, burping her, watching her sleep, and then hitting the laptop for email, news, and a good blog session. (This, by the way, is therapeutic beyond measure. I want to print it out and save it for next time, so I remember for the next kid what it was like. Except it won't be the same way again anyway...) I also attempt to take naps, usually on the couch, but I've never been successful beyond a half an hour or so. Except for last night, she her sleep patterns aren't that horrible. If I could change one thing, it would be that we could get her to sleep around 9 and keep her that way till a nice midnight feeding, after I've been asleep for 2 1/2 hours myself, I'd be a little happier. Well, maybe in a few weeks we'll get into a routine. Not a schedule, just a routine. I'd like to be able to count on her napping around such and such a time, etc. But I can't complain much. Now. A week ago, BOY could I.

The problem I was having a week ago with this lifestyle was that I didn't know my place in it yet. The adjustment wasn't made. I started feeling depressed beyond belief around the time that Bob got home - maybe because I finally had somebody to talk to about how I felt. The Baby Blues were still hitting me hard. I didn't feel like eating, didn't enjoy Maddie as much as I should have, just during those few hours a day. (The rest of the day I had to remind myself to eat, period, but at least I was hungry. And I'd sometimes find myself just looking at her and getting teary-eyed, so happy with my little kiddo.) But Bob, he's a stay-at-homer. He's always been content to be a homebody, take care of the house, etc. He has no need for large circles of friends, places to go, people to see, etc. He's much better adjusted to this lifestyle and he's not the one living it - and he doesn't like his job. So how could I sit there and whine that I was lonely and felt I had nothing to look forward to beyond seeing what was in the next diaper? I'm just not that kind of mom. We should be reversed! I'd have the strength to go back to work by this week, I think, and he'd be the happiest daddy on earth. So I'd try to keep all those stay-at-home blues pent up, so as not to lay more on Bob's shoulders. I'd try, I wouldn't succeed.

This went on for the week, and during that time I decided it was time to do something about it. Well, what could I do? Go out! I got enough moms to tell me that they brought their babies out in the cold in the Christmas shopping season at even younger than my baby's age, so I gave myself permission to take her out to stores...when I got my car back. Which hasn't happened yet, but that's no big deal. The possibility is there.

And then I started in on the social interaction. I looked up all the baby/mommy groups I find, too. I'm going to start going to "Mommy & Me Morning" on Fridays at the hospital. It's a group of 50 moms or so, and they always have a lecturer, a pediatrician and a lactation consultant, plus refreshments and you get to meet other moms and maybe *gasp* make friends. I'm also joining Moms Club of South Jersey, which happens to meet at our church on Wednesdays once a month for business meetings, has several monthly outings, and sets you up with a weekly playgroup with babies your child's age. Bring it. Then there's the "TLC New Moms" group. I found out after calling to ask about it that it's actually a post-partum depression support group. Not really dealing with PPD, it's a bit early anyway, and I'm feeling way better this week anyway, just knowing that I'm setting up all these new things in my life. But the woman I spoke to was so nice, agreed that I was just fine, but asked about the breastfeeding mess, the stay-at-home adjustment, and how Maddie was doing. She said it might make me feel better just to come and meet some other new moms, if only once. So that's Thursday, this or next, depending on when Grandmom & Pappy are showing up. I also signed up online to be contacted about the Moms MeetUp Club in the area. And I'll just keep going to things...I'm not going to be shy about making friends and getting into this scene, either. Hell, I'm only in this world for 4 months, what do I have to lose? If I come off as a desperate mommy-geek, well then...um, yeah, I'm pretty much a desperate mommy-geek. I embrace it now.

And now I have things to do on several days during the week. You wouldn't believe how relieved that makes me feel. (Pathetic, aren't I? This is stay-at-home mom life.)

I'm probably done with the whole Baby-Blues related stay-at-home woes. The colic and ever-erratic sleep schedule may still get me from time to time. But again, that comes with the territory, and THAT I accepted before she was born. I knew I'd be walking the floors all night, holding her till my arms ache. I never ever imagined what my days would feel like.

Well that was more of an endlessly rambling inner monologue than a "Maddie's Story" installment. Whatever. I'm going on 4 hours of sleep and a bowl of shredded wheat here, please take what you get.

Maddie's Story Part 3 - Coming Home

She's asleep again, and she's been that way for an hour and a half, so Lord knows it'll take me a day or two to finish this post. :-) Because we know where this is heading...

So, where were we?

On Wednesday we got to come home. I was lucky, I had her very close to midnight on the 20th, so I actually got an 'extra' day in the hospital (although how lucky it was I don't know, wasn't fond of the hospital). I got to "sleep" Monday night (morning, whatever) and then have Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday till whenever. I was ready to get out of there... little did I know (wha hahahahaha!)

Before I blog all this I should explain about hormones. No, not the cute kind that make you crave chocolate and cry at Hallmark commercials around that time of the month, and not the kind that give you whiteheads and drop boy's voices. I am talking WHOREmones. Wreck you, smack you, beat you over the head hormones. After being pregnant for 9 months, your body isn't your own anymore, and the hormones need to come into a new balance again, suitable for your non-pregnant being to function like, well, a human being. This takes weeks. But it's QUITE a wild ride the first week or so out of the hospital.

So I we came home and miraculously, our house was empty. No relatives, no visitors. It was raining, and the trip out of the hospital had been a bit stressful because we discovered that Maddie periodically decides she hates her carseat. We weren't used to hearing her scream like that. We came home to find a very cool stork sign announcing her arrival, name, weight, etc. on the front lawn. That was cool. (My in-laws did it. We didn't even think of it.) We introduced her to Max, who just wanted to sniff her like the dickens, and all was well.

Then they started to flow in. My mother and sister were staying at our house, and had to each have their own rooms, so that meant Bob's office was taken up, in addition to our guest room. We had Bob's family over. Tons of people, it felt like, even though it was only 6. That night I remember standing there, watching Maddie get passed from person to person, smiling, talking, laughing, and feeling like I barely had a reign on the tears, internally. Crazy, I know. There's no sense when it comes to Baby Blues.

Thanksgiving was at our house, so we wouldn't have to travel, which was nice. But my mom had to compete with Bob's mom (who is super Nana, God love her), and there was that turmoil, plus my mother making loud jokes about overdosing on sleeping pills (which I wish was more of a joke), plus Bob's grandparents came over, and that was stressful because the dog apparently likes to eat old people. Taste like chicken. Plus we were exhausted. And yes, I had NOTHING to do, I did no work, no prep, no cleanup. I could retire to my bedroom whenever I wanted and nap, and there was always a willing set of arms happy to take the baby. I even got to take a nap with Bob. But it was unbelievably stressful to me. Very unlike me, I love a house full of people, loud talking, music, and food. Not that day. I wanted them all there, very much, to share our happy first full day home and to hug and love our beautiful daughter. But I wanted them all gone, damn it. Out of my house. Too. Many. People. It wasn't me, but then, baby blues aren't.

Earlier in the day, when just my family was there, we'd had the last major attempt at nursing, and it had gone hellishly. For an hour Bob and I tried desperately to get Maddie to breastfeed - I won't go into details, only tell you that it HURT, and it killed me to be torturing my hungry baby like that. She howled. She wailed. I cried. Bob cried. I finally, after an hour of this, gave up and gave her the stupid syringe, which couldn't possibly be feeding her enough at this point, and cried some more. (See how I have no problem telling the world that I sobbed like a wuss? This is what having a baby does to you. No pride anymore. None.) Bob called his mom, and we talked to my mom, and eventually we caved and gave her a bottle of pumped breastmilk. Supposedly bottle-feeding a baby you're attempting to breastfeed is the beginning of the end for that hope, and we started off on that trail, feeling tremendously defeated, figuring we were dooming her forever by caving like that. Our moms told us we were nuts and to ignore all that pro-breastfeeding Nazi propaganda, and feed our daughter.

Oh my GOD when she grabbed that bottle she looked at me like she saw me for the first time. She suddenly seemed to SEE me and thought, "you DO give me food. you DO love me!"

So from that moment on I felt relieved that at least my baby was getting food. I still had to retreat to the nursery to pump every 2 hours, and that bothered me, and I still tried to get her latched on, to no avail - and more screaming. But at least afterwards she'd get a bottle from me or Bob and be happy and full, as a baby should be.

Thanksgiving progressed on and my relatives - some of them who shall remain nameless - drove me nuts. They wouldn't have, except that I was, again, a flowing fountain of hormones. I'd have to go to my bedroom and "nap", which was really an excuse to get some quiet time. Bob would come back and comfort me, which was nice. But I wasn't myself, end of story.

The next few days were nicer. Dad flew in very early Friday morning, and Bob picked him up at the airport. He was completely enthralled by Maddie. He held her for hours. It was hard, having both my dad and my mom in the house. Weird, and stressful. But mom was scheduled to leave that day. Then Cait (sis) got into a car accident while out shopping, and the whole stressful mess began. Honestly, Bob and tried to tune it out as much as possible and just take care of Maddie & the house. It sucked, though not something she had control over, and Mom was suddenly staying till Sunday so she could drive Cait back to college. But I couldn't drive, so why should my car sit in the garage? So I gave Cait my car, and mom made dinner for us, and left.

My in-laws popped over every day, which I didn't mind a bit, really. But it contributed to my 'too many people in my house' feeling. Again, hormones, not me. I love a full house. (Not the show. Stupid Michelle.)

Dad was a huge help. He just said, "tell me what to do". He made sure the dishwasher was run and emptied, the trash was out, and he and Cait got the Christmas decorations down from the attic and while I sat and rested on the couch, they let me tell them what room they went in. A week later I still have bins of decorations in each room, as they left them, but whatever, at least we're that far. Bob had time to get the lights up outside, and it looked lovely. Dad made two casseroles and left them for us.

He had to take a taxi to the airport on Tuesday morning at 4 AM to make his flight. I felt so bad, not being able to drive him (Bob had to work Tuesday, I couldn't drive yet). Tuesday Bob went back to work, and Cait had left on Sunday. Suddenly my house went from "dear God who are all these people and when are they leaving?" to "where is everybody? I'm so lonely!"

And that's where the Baby Blues really hits ya. Life goes back to "normal". Or it goes to where it'll be from now on. And that's a major adjustment.

Well, my kid hasn't been up for 2 hours, and I really should check to make sure that she hasn't tunneled out of her crib.

I should probably say thank-you to anybody who's read these crazy posts the whole way through. THANK YOU!

Maddie's Story - Part 2: The hosptial

Ah, the hospital days. Such fun...

Well, I probably slept about 7 hours total, the entire 3 nights I was there. Maybe.

I understand why things are the way they are in the hospital after you have a baby. I mean, there's a LOT to take care of. But GOOD LORD could they give you a break for 10 minutes?

Let's start with the care & maintenance of you. Going to the bathroom takes forever, because getting out of BED takes forever. Just because I had an 'easy' birth doesn't mean I felt 'painless' down there. Every muscle was sore. My legs felt very similar to the way they used to the day after we ran the mile in 6th grade (cause I'm out of shape, yes, but also because I was apparently pushing with EVERY muscle, not just the important ones). There's this whole lovely routine you have to go through of cleansing and padding and ointment and tucks pads - oh, yes, my dears, you try giving birth without ending up needing those the next day.

And they want you to order meals during these hour and a half periods during the day. Never got a straight answer the whole time I was there about my diet - if I was on the low-carb thing still or not - so I eventually stopped worrying and ordered what I liked. It was decent. But I didn't have time to eat, really.

Doctors, nurses, visitors, housekeeping, hospital manager, pediatrician, Obstetrician, diabetes specialist, baby photographer, more doctors, lots more nurses, all day long. And all night long. The diabetes specialist came to my room at 11 PM the day I delivered (the day I slept for an hour and a half, too) and I still have little to no memory of our conversation. Except that he acted annoyed that I was planning to breastfeed, since it meant I couldn't take Glyburide anymore and would have to be taught to give myself insulin shots if I ended up being diabetic still and needing meds. "The girls always want to breastfeed!" or something like that. Jerk.

And, oh, yeah, from 9 AM to 10PM, there's a baby in the room with you. Now, you can call a nurse to help you, but guess what? She's all yours. And you have to keep a strict record of when she eats and what's in her diaper when. And you have to nurse her, and feed her whenever she appears hungry (what, she was going to wear a sign that said "feed me"? I had no idea!). And feeding her, back then, meant whipping out a boob, which you really can't do when the housekeeping guy is sweeping the floor. At least not do that and feel comfortable. But it didn't matter, she wasn't feeding anyway.

So then I would call the lactation nurse, a special lady who was only there for certain hours and had very cold hands and pointy nails. And she and possibly another nurse would take my woefully ill-equipped breasts and shove them in my poor hungry baby's mouth and my poor hungry baby would wolf and them and latch onto nothing and cry in desperation...it was Hell. And often I'd have a visitor when this was all happening, and I'd have to pretend that I didn't mind my mother and mother in-law looking on (and later doing some of the groping themselves) while I sat back helplessly and had my boobs manhandled and my baby cry. I felt like I was doing everything wrong, my baby was starving, and it was all the fault of me and my stupid-shaped anatomy. (Hormones, stress, and lack of sleep also played a part, but whatever, I was pretty down, and very worried.) Eventually they had me try to get her to stay latched on for 10 minutes and then feed her 15 ml of formula with a wide syringe afterwards. Boy wasn't that magical. Then one night the nurse who came and picked her up from me practically yelled at me for ONLY giving her that much, because "that's not a feeding!" ...and wheeled her away so I could feel like shit in peace.

Then there was the nipple shield. It's a thin piece of floppy plastic that's supposedly shaped like a nipple (if you have these nipples, you must have fun wearing a bathing suit) and that was supposed to help my daughter latch on. Except it created more work for her, and since she was "lazy" and "impatient", according to the baby nurse, this just caused more crying on both sides of the boob. It also hurt like Hell, and because I don't have Victoria's Secret model boobs, it would never stay on. I felt like I needed 5 hands to feed her. I might have succeeded in breastfeeding her if I did, come to think of it. In fact, my problem when I left the hospital was that, aside from one amazing time, the only success I'd had feeding her I'd had when at last one other person was manipulating her and my boob at the same time. If anybody is still wondering why I have no sense of decency or modesty left, please go back and re-read from the top again.

I had a parade of guests, all family, and it was lovely to see them all, and lovely for them to meet Maddie. But to have maybe been successful with breastfeeding what I needed was a few days of just her and me and Bob and a nurse on call who would teach me, not do it for me. And the endless stream of healthcare professionals who wanted my time and my ear and my blood didn't help. I probably sound like I'm whining and making excuses for the whole breastfeeding thing going down the tubes - and yes, folks, it's down for good - but I gotta be honest: the hospital was no place to rest, recover, or learn to feed her.

I can't say I'd do it any differently again, except for getting upset about the breastfeeding thing. I mean, I can't tell relatives and friends that they can't come see the baby. It just doesn't work that way. You don't have that option as a new mom. They come. It's their baby too. People did wait in the hallway if I was in the middle of an unsuccessful something, but then I had the added stress of knowing that they were out there, waiting, and that's not good for business either.

By the end of the stay I was more tired than I'd been in years, sore, and very scared about what was going to happen when we went home, since I hadn't been able to feed my kid more than once that whole 3 days without the use of a syringe and formula bottle.

Now, the hospital time wasn't entirely craptacular. Maddie & I did have some nice quiet moments sitting in our gigantic bed. We talked (I talked), we slept (she slept), and I told her all about everything.

See, was coming home to a house full of people and she'd need to be prepared.

More on that later.

Maddie's Story - Part 1 - Birth

Right now my kiddo is asleep in her crib with the white noise CD her Daddy made playing. Pray God it stays that way, this is her witching hour.
It's time for the recollection of her birth. Well, here we go. And I apolagize ahead of itme to anybody who's sensitive about baby stuff or bodily funcitons (namely birth, no bathroom humor).
It's all part of the wonderful circle of life (cue Lion King music). Besides, I know several women my own age who read my blog from time to time - I consider it a public service to speak the truth about childbirth, especially natural childbirth, in all its glory. Gives you a new respect for your mom, too.

Saturday (11/18) we walked all over the South Philly Ikea looking for a new coffee table and other tables for our livning room. Very successful, had lots of energy, only had to sit down once. Felt a little crampy Saturday night, but crampy is a way of life to a pregnant woman.

Sunday I felt pretty craptacular - like the worst period I ever had, times two. (Hey, I warned you about bodily stuff.) Cramps, and dear-God-what-is-going-on-down-there discharge (Again, I warned you. I'm trying to be honest here.) It got worse and worse as the day wore on, and by mid to late afternoon I found myself on the couch in the one position that didn't make me want to end it all with Astronaut pill. Worst of all, had a major need to visit the bathroom frequently, and got nothing accomplished there. Plus sitting up like that was excrushiating. Bob found me several times that day crying helplessly on the toilet (and if you thought that was too personal to share, just stop reading now and pretend you were hatched out of a egg instead). Not good. BUT: I was not in labor, or so I thought. Labor was pulling, tugging cramps that start in back and come around front. Labor was waves of pain. Labor was back aches that reach around to your tummy rhythmically and in regular intervals, growing closer together and more intense until you could time them at 5 minutes apart and you called the doctor, went to the hosptial, and magically popped out a baby.

What I felt was akin to the pressure I'd been feeling since about month 8, that of a baby head pushing pushing pushing down on my pelvic & pubic bones. It would come and never quite go, but BOY did it know how to get my attention.

Stupidly, I figured this was part of late pregnancy (being 5 days from my due date and scheduled induction and of a family of women who deliver their babies very late and very slowly). We went to Bob's parents house. Bob started timing my 'contractions' using some bizarre graph that I still don't understand and all through the evening, everybody apparently knew I was in labor but me. Bob's Dad even took him aside and said, "Take your wife to the hospital". Well, he's seen a woman go through labor 3 times, he'd know. I wouldn't, clearly. But again, this was not like what I'd ever heard labor described as. For one thing, it never went away. From about 4PM on there was no real break where you could sit back and go, "whew, thank God that's over!" It just very slowly got more tolerable until BAM, I wanted to put my foot through the floor again. I was eventually talked into calling the doctor around 9PM, after going to the bathroom and finding that I'd had my 'bloody show' - incidentally not that bloody and NOT a good show, but a sure sign that labor is iminent if not already on top of you.

The doc didn't sound too concerned, especially since this was my first baby and I couldn't really say that the 'contractions' were regular. She said to take benadryl and a hot shower and try to get some sleep. So we went home (OW all the way) and I tried to do just that. She did tell us to time the contractions and if they got regular or closer together to call again. Laying down in bed was enough to kill me. My body just didn't want to be in that position, and it let me know. We called again at 11. She said to come in and get checked. She didn't sound particularly convinced.

The drive to the hospital was VERY long and VERY horrible. I remember thinking, "Well, even if this isn't labor and we do get sent home, maybe they can give me something for these cramps." By the time we got to the ER, I was pretty conviced it was labor. But I thought there was still a good chance we'd get sent home. I told Bob to just leave the bags in the car (we'd actually thought to take them!) and we got a wheelchair and headed up to Labor & Delivery. The ER attendant asked if my water had broken. I honestly didn't know. I'd felt all day like I'd had a flood down there, and how was I supposed to know what water breaking felt like? In retrospect, I'd probably had a leak all day. The attendant asked a woman in the ER, "She'd know if her water broke, right?" and the woman laughed and said OH yes! Well, apparently not.

We got up there and I'd pretty much shut down, verbally. Bob did all the talking for me. I remember one nurse being impressed that he knew my social security number. I also remember wanting to kill her if she didn't stop wasting time making small talk and get me an Epidural. The doctor of duty in L&D turned out to be the one doctor in my gigantic practice that I hadn't seen yet - the one I was scheduled to see the next day for a cervix check. Well, she checked me right then and there, and I was praying to God that I'd be far enough along that the could keep me there and get me the ever-lovin' Epidural.

Now, a word about my Epidural obsession; I was never one of those natural childbirth girls. I think it's nuts. I STILL think it's nuts. You woudln't have a tooth pulled without novacaine, would you? I made fun of the women on "House of Babies" who scream "oh god it hurts it hurts" - well what did you think, it would feel good to pull a watermelon out of a lemon-sized hole? Epidural. Duh.

The doctor happily announced that I was 5 cm dialated (if you don't know what that means, ask your mom and get ready for a long story). The L&D nurse, who was entirely too damn happy for my taste, congratulated me like crazy as if I'd just won the lottery. Apparently coming into L&D halfway to the 10 cm goal was a dream come true. Other women would kill to be in my shoes. I was going to kill if I didn't get my precious epidrual. There was a plan, and it involved me being happy, calm, and pain free when I gave birth. Ha ha. Well there was a million things to do before I could have any kind of relief - and at this point the 'contractions' had decided that they weren't going to let up at ALL in between (in between what? there was no start and end!) I had to have blood tests, they had to monitor the baby, she wouldn't cooperate so we had to do an internal monitor on her head (so yes, a wire comes out of THERE and it's attached to a machine on one end and her head on the other). At this point the doctor couldn't even tell if my water had broken or not. She asked if I'd felt it break and of course my standard wail of the evevning came out "I DON'T KNOW!" so she attempted to drain whatever was left in there (ew) and that was that. I had to have an I. V., and it wasn't working - damn my small, floppy veins! - and so I got stuck all over and finally told that they had to let an entire bag of mystery water drip into me before I could have the epidural. OH. MY. GOD.

(See how I'm not even trying to pretend that I was in any way calm, relaxed, our displaying any self control at this point?)

I 'breathed through the pain' (fantasized about punching the evil nurse) and stared at this one weird-looking flower on the weird-looking wallpaper and tried to breathe and not tense up - because apparently being 'tense' is bad for you at this point, when your body is feels like it's being ripped to shreds. FINALLY they came back and said we could have the epidural, just a quick cervix check and away we'd go. The whole wait was about 20 minutes their time, 20 hours, mine.

8 centimeters. I'd gone up 3 cm! I'd done in 20 minutes what some women labor all night to do. Actually, my body had, because I myself had nothing to do with it, I assure you. But OH wasn't that nurse pleased with me. She was going to throw me a party, I thought. "Do you know how many women would kill to be that far along? You haven't even been here an hour and you're almost done!" Joy of joys. Epidural please.
Nope, sorry.
Apparently this stage doesn't require pain killers anymore. (I beg to differ still.) You're there. The epidural is to get you to this point. It would just mess up the ability to push after this. I was going to go "natural", whether I liked it or not. And like it I didn't.
I was unconvined, and asked if there wasn't something else they could give me (I'm thinking local, for the actual baby-coming-out part. Cause OUCH.)

"Oh, no, you'll be fine!" Um...have I mentioned there's a baby in there adn it needs to come out? Dear Lord....

Well the nurse told me that if I felt like I had to push, or the urge to mabye have a bowl movement, I should tell her and we'd try to start pushing. I told her I'd felt that way since this morning, let's push already. So they took the bottom of the bed off - it's all very high-tech with the morphing delivery beds - and before I new it, I had my knees up to my chest, Bob holidng one leg and a nurse holding the other (and I had miraculously shaved that day, what are the odds?) and I was 'pushing'.

"Pushing", my friends, is a nice way of saying "trying to take a dump", because that's exactly what you have to do. (Again, you were warned way up there. Deal.) The doctor actually pushed exactly where she wanted me to focus all the pressure on, and guess where that was? Pushing was the worst part, hands down. It was long and horrible work, and I only did it for 40 minutes. Some women push for hours. How, I don't know. They're wonder-women and deserve freakin' medals. 40 minutes was enough for me, thankyouverymuch. You pull your own legs back and 'focus' your pushing to a very specific area - and they keep telling you if you have the right area or not, I have no idea how they knew - and you breathe in really deep and tuck your chin to your chest so you don't push with your face ( ha ha) and then you push like you ate the whole cow. Sometimes they counted, sometimes not. Bob felt SO bad for me at this point, he says. You do this deep-breath, push, let it out thing 3 times and then you fall back on the table exhausted. And oh, yeah, it HURTS. (unless you have an epidural. not that I'm bitter.)

Well we pushed and pushed and I actually considered not telling them when I felt another contraction coming - oh, yeah, by the time you dialate that far you actually do get waves that you can feel, it's actually kind of nice at that point, except for the whole pushing thing. I was so tired I just wanted to fake not feeling one an lie back and rest, but then I remembered that they had me on a monitor and I couldn't exactly lie at that point. Damn.

I didn't feel the doctor cut a 'small' episiotomy. I DID feel the baby's head come out, but I gotta tell you, not near as painful as I thought it would be. More of a shock, because I had no idea how close I was. Actually, the nurse kept saying, "Just a few more. You're so close. Just a little more" and I kept asking "how many more?" I wanted a clear end in sight, I guess. The doctor told me, "Meg, the baby's head is out!" and I distinctly remember feeling this rush of pain and thinking "don't care right now! ow!" (How terrible am I? That was my thought! Oh well, nothing was very 'baby story' that night anyway') I also didn't believe them, because this pain was just going to go on forever and ever, wasn't it?

And all of the sudden, without any more warning, there was a hot little baby body on my chest, on her side, with her arms reaching for me and her eyes wide open. I'd done no more pushing after the moment her head was out - I guess the doctor did the rest - and there she was.

She cired, she was healthy, she was beautiful, Bob cried long before I did - he said it was mainly from a feeling of relief for me, that it was all over. I didn't cry till much later, when I was just holding her, when it was just her and me in our hospital bed.

SO we went into the hospital at midnight and at 1:38 we had our baby. Damn, we're good.

Nothing was as it was planned, of course; I was supposed to have an induction; everybody was supposed to have been waiting at the hospital to meet her, including Dad; I was supposed to have some kind of 'labor' time, when Bob and I would sit and wait and talk and play cards and keep distracted' I was supposed to have had that epidural; we were supposed to have called our families to tell them that we were at the hospital, then that we were ready to push, and THEN that we had the baby; we were supposed to have had the camera ready! Nope, you don't get what you plan with kids, ever, I'm learning.

All I'm going to say about the third stage of labor (Stage 1 being the contraction part and Stage 2 being the baby coming out) was that it actually felt kind of, well, nice, when they delivered the placenta (ok, stop whining, wuss. Life is gross.) It was warm and smaller than a baby, kind of a relief, kind of soothing. How many of you just decided to adopt?

Afterwards they had a horrible time 'fixing' me because I'd been so tense from pushing that I really felt no control over my legs and couldn't really open them to let the doc do her stuff. She kept threatening to send me to the operating room to get stiched up there. She finally called in a resident to help her. I was a mss - but hey, it was painful! I was in shock! Who could relax?

And THEN we called people. And Bob got the camera and we got some good shots of baby, and Bob's parents came to see her (2;30 in the morning at this point).

And I found out that NOT having had any pain meds had its advantages. They let me get off the delivery bed and walk to the bathroom and although I ruined a new pair of socks that I'd left on during the birth, (don't think about how, just remember that birth=blood, even though they don't show it on TV) it was lovely just to be able to walk around a bit. I got to go into the nursery with Bob and the baby while the weighed and measured her, too. And I got to get into my own bed in my own (private!) room myself. They showed me all the lovely procedures you have to go through to go to the bathroom (10 minutes, minimum, to pee!). And then we got to hold the baby some more, said goodnight to Bob's parents, and Bob and I eventually acknowledged that both of us were too exhausted to think anymore, and he went home and I (sort of) went to bed. I slept from 6:30 till 8:00, when they called me to tell me to order my breakfast from the room service menu.

And the demands that that hospital placed on me never stopped. This doctor, that nurse, here's the baby, we're taking the baby for this or that test, make sure you use the Stiz bath (there's another mystery I'll leave you), order your next meal, here to check your vitals, here to check your sugar, I'm the pediatrician let's talk, breastfeeing consultation, housekeeping, would you like to order a baby photo, etc. I think I slept maybe 7 hours the 3 nights I was there.

We had lots of visitors, lots of guests, and it was fun. When everybody went home I could never settle down, still running on too much adrenaline. The whole thing left me so high I could have flown for days on no rest at all. But that's probably nature's design. :-)

SO that's her birith story. Maddie's Story, Part 1.

I still want to talk (vent, whatever) about all the other stuff since - Thanksgiving, breastfeeding, family staying at our house, baby care, staying home with her, etc. But that will have to wait for another night because poor Bob's had her royal fusiness for quite a while now. It's beddy time.

*Night*

Oh Brave New World

What, it only took me like 2 weeks to post, that's not too bad, considering.

And of course I don't have time to do the whole thing justice right now, seeing as Bob's going to call soon, there's dishes in the sink and laundry to be folded and OH, YEAH, a BABY in a swing who's definitely going to wake up soon because I've already had an hour of 'free' time, so let's be realistic here...

We had our wonderful baby on November 20th, 2006, at 1:38 AM.
She was 8 lbs. 1 oz. 20 1/2 inches long, dark blue eyes, brownish-blonde hair (although it's changing already) and so incredible I look at her and get teary-eyed. Or that could be the plummeting hormones. Either way. Our lives are very different now, it's a whole new world full of pacifiers and blankies and bottles and very very little sleep. But it's the first month, it's bound to be hard, and we learn more and more every day.

I'll post the whole thing someday...when she's 14, I may have time.
Today, so far, I haven't had time for a nap or a shower, but it's been bothering me that I've abandoned my little thought balloon here.

Love to ya'll.

Sleep to me & Bob (God willing).

November 19th - Ikea is cool, and things get complicated (but doable).

Ikea rocks. Seriously. All you furniture-buying people who are moving into dorms, apartments, houses, or like us, just trying to replace the hand-me-down-hideous tables in your life, look no further. We kicked ourselves for having bought an (actually very nice) pine TV amoire at Wal-Mart over a year ago.
We went yesterday to the South Philadelphia Ikea to see if we could replace the dark oak, glass-top, baby-disaster-waiting-to-happen-and-ugly-too coffee & end tables that we got from Bob's grandparents when we moved into this house. Bob's mom came along (ok, brought us along because there was no way those tables were fitting in our car, and we needed their van) to buy two corner cabinets for her dining room. We walked through the whole store, looked, drooled, oohed, and ahhed over everything. I gotta tell ya, the Swedish, they know how to do retail. Everything just makes so much sense there! If you've never been to an Ikea - and I thought everybody had but apparently not! - you walk through the top floor and it's all a showroom, with tons of rooms set up showcasing all their furniture and products, even full furnished apartments, and you just make a note of what products you like. Then you go down to the 'marketplace' and pick up the products you want. The furniture is very sleek and practical, some more modern that I like, but they have tons of stuff that's just gorgeous. If you want any big furniture, you continue into their warehouse, which is huge, clean, and ridiculously well-organized. You can use real people or a touch-screen computer to find your piece of furniture, and you'll find out what row and 'bin' it's stored in. Most of their furniture requires assembly, but nothing very difficult (Bob put together the 5 pieces we bought in less than 2 hours). It was awesome.
We got a new coffee table - higher, all wood, with basket slots underneath. We now have more storage in the coffee table than we need, and it's really cute. We got a cute little pedestal table for the end of the couch ($19.99!) and a 3-table set to put at the top of the stairs. The main table has a cute drawer, and the other two work as a bench and a footstool/child's bench. Love, love, love it. I also saw my dining room table and chairs (next year, perhaps?).
We had lunch at the Ikea's restaurant, which was actually much better than it sounded. I had lured Bob to Ikea with promises of Swedish meatballs, anyway. And I ate a meager salad so I could have APPLE CAKE with vanilla sauce for dessert. Dah-am.
We got home and Bobby assembled all the furniture and we put the old stuff up in storage. And Max shredded all the cardboard all over the living room and ended up getting sick, but he had fun. A good time was had by all. Long live Ikea.
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And here's where it all starts to get complicated:

Mom WAS staying at a hotel. Sis was visiting (hotel) when baby was born. Dad was staying in California, getting a call, a million pictures, and a nice video as soon as possible. Bob's family was getting called to come and meet the kiddo. It was all going to be so simple...

Now, I'm not unhappy about how this is all supposedly going to go down, but it's definitely more complicated now, more stress-inducing, and frankly, do I need that?

Officially (unofficially until that day) getting induced on Friday morning, November 24th. Our hospital report time is 10 AM. That could change depending on the amount of other laboring moms there that morning, plus there's always the 'condition' I'm in. Monday we get out 'internal exam', which I won't go into except to say that it sounds like it makes the dreaded pap smear seem downright impersonal. We'll see how ready we are for labor then, and that might change my report time too; they might need to get me there earlier to get my started.

My mom and sister are now coming for Thanksgiving, which is cool, having them here with Bob's family. They might as well, either way, we'll either have or will be having a baby very near that date. Mom and Cait were originally going to stay at a hotel, to avoid stress on us, but we later asked Mom to stay here so she could take care of Max while we're at the hospital. She and Cait need separate rooms, apparently, so I have to get 2 rooms ready for guests.

And Dad is flying in on Friday morning, which I am unbelievably thrilled about. I feel awful that he'll hardly get to see my kids, I can't believe the good luck of her induction date hitting a school vacation and him being able to get a flight. He'll be here Friday, EARLY, and he'll need a room. Yes, my father is staying here too - my in-laws said he could stay in their guest room, but he said here would be fine, as long as my mom's ok with it. She says it's 'fine'. We'll see. (Parents had a very messy divorce 5 years ago. We'll see how this goes...) So 3 rooms of our house have guests in them this coming weekend. Hello cleaning.
What if I go into labor today and he misses the birth? Well, will he come anyway or not? I have no idea. I HOPE he would, but who knows, he might be able to get his money back on the flight... and I'd feel like I cheated him out of seeing his granddaughter on the day she was born. *sigh*
(I know, stupid, but I would.)

And they all want to go to the hospital with us, right from the get-go. Don't care how long it takes. This didn't stick well with me. Something about my mom, dad, sister, and I guess all of Bob's family waiting and waiting and WAITING for my body to hurry up and do something while they sit uncomfortably in a little waiting room for potentially DAYS...no pressure. Ha. Ha.


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On the other hand, it could all go out the window...getting majorly crampy...OW ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow owow