I am here

This motherhood thing

I feel like I've been avoiding writing a blog post lately because I'm afraid of boring everyone by waxing poetic about the joys of motherhood. Like the smell of a baby's hair right after her bath. Or those first smiles when she's actually looking at me and not sleeping. Or being able to calm her fussy cries with a few magic movies (God Bless Harvey Karp, the man is genius). And yes, her rear end is really as soft as the rumors about baby butts would leave you to believe. Once I get started, sometimes I can't stop.

But of course, there are those other things, too. Like when I feel like a rock in the bed and she's woken me with flailing arms and legs and pathetic whimpers that turn into ear-numbing screams, demanding a diaper change and a feeding when all I want in the world is for her to change her mind and go back to sleep. There's the times when she's not hungry or wet and the magic moves aren't helping. Worst of all, there are those occasions when I have to stand by and try to comfort her when medical people are doing things that are hurting her (things involving needles of one type or another), all for the sake of helping her. Those are the times when the two of us usually end up crying together quite a bit.

But if the question is "how do you like being a mom?" then my honest answer is that this whole package is, without a doubt, the best thing that's ever happened to me. She is amazing. I like toting her along with me, almost everywhere I go. (Although it definitely takes me two to three times longer to do things sometimes. Nadine and I got to spend an awesome 25 minutes in my car tonight in the Crossroads while I fed her, changed her, fed her again...) In any case, she's my best little buddy.

Babykins and I have successfully made two forays into the great, wide world all by ourselves this week. I felt pretty intimidated the first time, especially when I'd only made it as far as the car before she started squalling and flailing and turning red in the face, pissed off beyond compare that she was locked up in carseat jail yet again. It took some persuasion, but I finally convinced her that she really did want her pacifier and the carseat was of no consequence, and then she was off to la-la land for the next four hours. Aunt Bethany and I did our best to wake her up, even, with gentle rocking and kisses and talking so Bethany could coo over more than a baby lump on a blanket, but the child steadfastly refused to open her eyes.

Traveling with a sleeping baby turns out to be a lot easier than I'd imagined.

We've gotten into a strange baby schedule routine around here that involves staying awake until around 2am and then sleeping in until noon or later. This is actually just a default "time off work" schedule for both of us, but it coincided pretty well with Evie's demands early on. She has since shifted her schedule and sleeps more in the late evening/nighttime hours, so it's at 9am that I'm waking up to feed her and thinking I'm going to flip out if I don't get more sleep. Derrr. Time to go to sleep earlier, and hope that this isn't an evil baby trick and she doesn't change her mind on appropriate sleeping hours as soon as I accomodate her.

Last night was a surprise birthday party for Heather. Evie slept through most of it (shocker) and I did pretty well with a public nursing scenario. The trick is that I'm a total cheater and went into another room to get started nursing and covered up, and then came back out when we were good to go. I'm still not sure how to handle being discreet from start to finish. Boobs plus bras plus babies plus blankets are tricky, tricky things to maneuver without flashing a little something in someone's face. I call for a nationwide acceptance of boobs in public! C'mon already.

We've decided that Tina Fey as Sarah Palin is more professional, more qualified, and ultimately better looking than Sarah Palin as Sarah Palin.

Of course, Tina Fey would never be suitable for higher office--she's such an elitist.

My new love

 This is Evie (yes, we named her after the name I always would have picked for myself).

This is us on the second day in the hospital. She was giving me a "lady, are you sure I shouldn't be eating right now?" look, in between yawns. Her eyes weren't open very often the first few days, so this is a rare shot.

She was born on September 22nd, the first day of fall, at 10:36am. 8 pounds, 14 1/2 ounces and 21 inches tall (she'll be tall like me!) I had a pretty awesome labor, due mostly to the fact that I was in huge amounts of denial that it was real labor and not this false labor business for at least 80% of it. I still wasn't entirely sure we needed needed to go to the hospital at 7am, but I felt like better safe than sorry was a good policy. Good, because she was born just over three hours after we checked in. I ain't saying it was easy, I'm just saying that it wasn't the impossible feat that I'd chalked it up to being. I got through the last bits the same way I got through both karate black belt tests: by promising myself over and over that I'd never have to do it again, and then five minutes after it's done feeling indefeatable and exclaiming I could do it again tomorrow if I had to. (Endorphins are amazing.)

Also like karate, there was lots of yelling involved. I don't think I swore a lot, exactly, but I remember making statements like "this is gay balls" repeatedly in between contractions, and then yelling "fuck" loudly and apologizing to my very sweet, older delivery nurse who I felt shouldn't be exposed to profanity (I'm sure she's heard worse though). I apologized afterwards for the screaming, and one of the nursery nurses just raised her eyebrow and said I'd made less noise than some moms on epidurals and told me not to feel bad. I managed to miss out on the joys of the epidural which have been described to me as "the single greatest moment of my life" by several moms, but I really wanted one towards the end and even asked for one about two minutes before she was born because it was getting crazy intense. I think I was making a joke when I asked for one, but I can't be sure now. Because I've done it once with no epidural, I could do it again--but at the same time, now that I've done it once, I feel like I can check it off my list of life-goals accomplished and maybe I could use the meds next time around.

Post-delivery was weird. I was sobbing hysterically because I was so happy the delivery was done while they cleaned and bundled her up, then I was crying because I was getting stitches and getting poked a million times by hands and needles, then I was back to crying because I was holding my baby at last and she was adorable and perfect and the pain was (mostly) behind us. Apparently I bled out three times more than you're supposed to, so I got more icky abdomen-pokings than I would have liked and some extra medicine for the next 2 days, but that was about the worst of it. Also, I passed out in the shower the first time the nurses tried to help me go to the bathroom.

Me: I think I'd do better if I could just stand in the shower.

Nurse: Try sitting in the shower.

Me: It hurts down there. I want to stand.

Nurse: Are you about to pass out?

Me: Yes.

Nurse: look at me! Keep your eyes open!

Me: *Passes out.*

Nurse: *sprays me down with shower water anyway, so I can be clean even if I'm unconscious*

Me: *comes to a little* You guys. You guys. I just had the most crazy-ass hallucinations ever. Can I just sit here a while longer?

Nurses: No, there are two of us propping you up right now.

Me: *opens eyes* oh. Right. Okay, I'll get out. **gets wheelchaired three feet back to the bed**

Every nurse I had after that was a little wary when they let me out of bed. Passing out is kind of fun, except for the part where it's embarassing and several grown people have to hold you up. I passed out at the beginning of the year when they drew my blood for my first pre-natal workup...I'm getting to be a pro at this.

I dressed the snuggle bunny up in this dress I made for her to make a video for my mom's birthday. I started making baby things a few months ago when I was fretting and worried about this whole baby business, and keeping my hands busy with adorable tiny things helped. It looks pretty cute on her if I say so myself.

Snuggle! Snug snuggly snug! I love footie PJ's.

I called Bethany a bit after the delivery to gloat that I'd won the baby-off, only to find out that she was at her hospital in labor too. Just past midnight, tiny Noah was born. I'm sad that the babes don't have the same birthday, but at the same time the 23rd is his daddy's birthday, so that's probably more cool for him in the long run than sharing his birthday with some chick.

Aww, babies in socially-constructed-gender-appropriate clothing! I'm being won over by the pink side. Shh, it's a secret.

Good things about not being pregnant: I have ankles again. They look so skinny attached to my feet that I must not have seen my true non-puffy feet & ankles since sometime in mid-June when they puffed up on our epic, 3,000 mile road trip. I can roll over in bed without squeeling and nearly crying (or actually crying) from pelvic pain. I don't smack my abdomen into sharp corners on things because I forget how gigantic I am. I have a baby to snuggle and kiss who just smacks me in the face with her crazy, flailing limbs, instead of kicking me in the ribs and hiccupping on my bladder.