So, I remembered what I was going to write about last night... the adventures of my car. Last week, I was sitting at a stop light, when BAM!, my car gets hit. I thought that I had been rear ended, so I put the car in park and got out to look accusingly at the person behind me.
When I got out to look however, the person behind me was far behind me, no way she'd hit me. I looked around and saw my driver side passenger door and there's an enormous dent in it. On the ground next to my car was a tire. Just a tire. I looked around to find the car that must be pulled over with three tires. There's none to be found. I must have had the dumbest look on my face, cause the woman in the car behind me yells out the window that the tire fell off a truck going the other way.
I got back in the car, after wrestling with whether or not I should take the tire with me, and started towards home. I decided that it must have fallen out of the bed of a truck, cause surely if it was off a moving vehicle, it would have had to stop. Grumbling to myself about insurance deductibles, I stopped at the stoplight in front of my development. That was when I banged a U-turn and went in search of the vehicle with the missing tire. And about two miles up the road there was a truck pulling a horse trailer pulled over, driver and passenger on the side of the road. I pulled up behind him and asked out the window, "Did you lose a tire?" They nodded... yay me! Mystery solved. The horse trailer had "duelie" tires, two tires on the back and one had come off. The driver was on the phone, and I lost my temper a bit when he didn't hang up to talk to me. "You hit me and I have a two week old in the car! You need to deal with me." I told him. This got him moving.
Because it's me this happened to, of course there's a weird twist. The truck and trailer didn't belong to the driver or passenger, turns out they were just driving the horses from Delaware Park for their trainers. And they didn't speak English. And they couldn't find the registration or insurance. I asked the driver for his boss' phone number and he hands me his Iphone with the contact name "Boss" with a number listed. Skeptical, I asked him to call it. Sure enough, a nice lady answered and I explained what happened. She gave me all the information I needed and I went on my merry way, all proud of myself, feeling like Cagney or Lacey (well, I always feel like Lacey I guess) for having discovered the tire's owner.
Again, because it's me and I live in Delaware, there's another weird thing... I was at swim lessons for the girls when I saw another mommy I know. She's a horse trainer too and I told her what had happened. She looked very surprised and pointed at another mom, "That was her trailer." What? The number I'd called was a Florida number, and the insurance company had confirmed the truck was registered in Florida. Turns out, the owners live half the year here, and her kid is in swim lessons at the same time as mine. So I introduced myself and told her that her insurance company was very nice. It was slightly awkward!
So for a couple days, I got to drive a Chrysler Town and Country - ahh... that's how the other half lives. Ellie actually offered to give me her allowance so we could buy it. Keep dreaming honey. We're driving the Blueberry until the wheels fall off.... wait a minute... I know someone that happened too!
Friday, April 23, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Wait, I had a really good idea... no, it's gone
The other day, an old friend stopped by for a bit. She has two kids, aged 7 and 10. I only had Jack and Will with me at the time, the girls were at school. In the hour and a half she was here, I got up and down no fewer than 946 times. Well, I may be exaggerating, but it was probably at least 15 times. I never think about how much up and down and running back and forth I do until I have someone with me that doesn't have to do it.
Since then, I've been doing a little observation and I realized that I don't have any conversation between the hours of 7AM and 8PM that aren't interrupted. I can barely get one complete sentence out, forget a whole conversation. After some unscientific observation, I've realized that none of my friends do either. The average conversation sounds like this:
Me: "Oh, hey I saw something at Kohl's that I... Put that down!"
Friend: "I like Kohl's but I ususally end up at... don't hit him!"
Me: "I was talking to... yes you can have a snack"
Friend: "What was I saying?"
It's shocking that any of us know anything about each other at all. It's even more amazing that, though I seem to never finish a sentence, I feel like I talk all day. Jeff often asks if I'm mad at him cause I don't want to talk after the kids go to bed, but the truth is, I just flat out don't have anything left to say.
Recently some helpful person told me that women lose up to 10% of their brain cells during pregnancy. This means that I've lost 40% of my brain in the last five years. I have hope that it will come back, but I'm not optimistic. Just to prove my point, I opened this blog to write about something and then forgot what it was. So I wrote about forgetting things instead.
Go figure.
Since then, I've been doing a little observation and I realized that I don't have any conversation between the hours of 7AM and 8PM that aren't interrupted. I can barely get one complete sentence out, forget a whole conversation. After some unscientific observation, I've realized that none of my friends do either. The average conversation sounds like this:
Me: "Oh, hey I saw something at Kohl's that I... Put that down!"
Friend: "I like Kohl's but I ususally end up at... don't hit him!"
Me: "I was talking to... yes you can have a snack"
Friend: "What was I saying?"
It's shocking that any of us know anything about each other at all. It's even more amazing that, though I seem to never finish a sentence, I feel like I talk all day. Jeff often asks if I'm mad at him cause I don't want to talk after the kids go to bed, but the truth is, I just flat out don't have anything left to say.
Recently some helpful person told me that women lose up to 10% of their brain cells during pregnancy. This means that I've lost 40% of my brain in the last five years. I have hope that it will come back, but I'm not optimistic. Just to prove my point, I opened this blog to write about something and then forgot what it was. So I wrote about forgetting things instead.
Go figure.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Teacher Maggie
So much of parenting is recapturing your own sense of wonder. I think it's easy as adults to forget that our kids are exploring and learning all the time, and that they don't have "places to go and people to see". Every morning, as we try to get everyone ready and out the door, I silently curse the girls "surprise" that I need them to get dressed and fed and combed. We do this everyday girls, I say everyday.
Today, I was hurrying Maggie out the door and she was not paying attention. I started to count, "Maggie, get in the car before I get to 5 or I'll take your toy away... 1, 2" only to be interrupted by her saying in an equally frustrated voice, "I'm getting you a present!" Sure enough, she comes around the car holding a branch from our forsythia bush. It was beautiful and sweet, and I was reminded that sometimes you just got to let your kids be late to school so that they can learn.
Today, I was hurrying Maggie out the door and she was not paying attention. I started to count, "Maggie, get in the car before I get to 5 or I'll take your toy away... 1, 2" only to be interrupted by her saying in an equally frustrated voice, "I'm getting you a present!" Sure enough, she comes around the car holding a branch from our forsythia bush. It was beautiful and sweet, and I was reminded that sometimes you just got to let your kids be late to school so that they can learn.
Friday, April 9, 2010
A night in the life of the Lacey's
5:30 - Jeff gets home
5:45 - Family sits down to eat dinner
6:00 - Jack starts throwing food
6:01 - Erin starts asking if it's Jack's bedtime yet
6:15 - Girls are running around, playing "Catch the Ellie" or something like it
6:23 - Jack throws his sippy cup at Erin's head
6:24 - Jack goes up to bed for his own safety
6:43 - Girls ask if they can have a treat
6:44 - Girls are reminded that being good is it's own reward
7:00 - Girls head to bed, Will has his dinner
7:03 - Girls begin to fight over who is picking the Calvin and Hobbes book
7:04 - Jeff tells girls that it doesn't matter who picked it cause they both get to hear it
7:12 - Jeff finishes books, starts story time
7:13 - Ellie tells Jeff he's telling the story wrong
7:14 - Jeff threatens to leave the room
7:25 - Song time starts
7:30 - Jeff goes to our room to wait for the girls to fall asleep
8:30 - Erin wakes Jeff up
8:45 - Erin and Jeff realize that there's nothing on TV to watch and go back to bed
9:00 - Will poops
9:30 - Baby is back in his cradle, lights off for Jeff and Erin
11:00 - Will wakes up
11:30 - Will is back down
12:30 - Ellie sneaks into our room
12:35 - Erin and Jeff make a "nest" for Ellie on the floor of our room
1:30 - Will is back up
2:00 - Will is back asleep
3:00 - Jack wakes up
3:30 - Jack stops crying, goes back to sleep
4:30 - Maggie wakes up, wants to go downstairs
5:00 - Erin and Jeff talk Maggie into our bed
5:30 - After being kicked for 30 minutes, Erin goes to sleep in the girls' room
6:00 - Jeff gets up with girls, Will wakes up
7:00 - Jack wakes up
7:30 - Erin gets up, Jeff goes to work
So... if I seem out of it, now you know why!!!
5:45 - Family sits down to eat dinner
6:00 - Jack starts throwing food
6:01 - Erin starts asking if it's Jack's bedtime yet
6:15 - Girls are running around, playing "Catch the Ellie" or something like it
6:23 - Jack throws his sippy cup at Erin's head
6:24 - Jack goes up to bed for his own safety
6:43 - Girls ask if they can have a treat
6:44 - Girls are reminded that being good is it's own reward
7:00 - Girls head to bed, Will has his dinner
7:03 - Girls begin to fight over who is picking the Calvin and Hobbes book
7:04 - Jeff tells girls that it doesn't matter who picked it cause they both get to hear it
7:12 - Jeff finishes books, starts story time
7:13 - Ellie tells Jeff he's telling the story wrong
7:14 - Jeff threatens to leave the room
7:25 - Song time starts
7:30 - Jeff goes to our room to wait for the girls to fall asleep
8:30 - Erin wakes Jeff up
8:45 - Erin and Jeff realize that there's nothing on TV to watch and go back to bed
9:00 - Will poops
9:30 - Baby is back in his cradle, lights off for Jeff and Erin
11:00 - Will wakes up
11:30 - Will is back down
12:30 - Ellie sneaks into our room
12:35 - Erin and Jeff make a "nest" for Ellie on the floor of our room
1:30 - Will is back up
2:00 - Will is back asleep
3:00 - Jack wakes up
3:30 - Jack stops crying, goes back to sleep
4:30 - Maggie wakes up, wants to go downstairs
5:00 - Erin and Jeff talk Maggie into our bed
5:30 - After being kicked for 30 minutes, Erin goes to sleep in the girls' room
6:00 - Jeff gets up with girls, Will wakes up
7:00 - Jack wakes up
7:30 - Erin gets up, Jeff goes to work
So... if I seem out of it, now you know why!!!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
The trauma of childhood
So last summer, Dale, Jeff's dad, bought an enormous wooden playset for our kids. The Trading Post it's called. It's huge. If anything catastrphic happens to our house, we could, all six of us, live in it. It's a thing of beauty. However, we already had a Little Tykes playset that our friends had given us several years before. the night before the Trading Post was to be installed, Jeff had begun to disassemble the Little Tykes set. Ellie freaked out. Melted into a total puddle of toddler. So the Little Tykes set stayed.
Almost a whole year later, there were still two playsets in my backyard. In my spazzing out during my last week of pregnancy, when I started pretty much throwing everything out that wasn't nailed down and one of the casulties was the playset. Friday was the day it was scheduled to go to a new family.
I'll go on the record here and say that Jeff was against this project, cause he knew that Ellie would freak out. My response, being the hard hearted mommy I am is that into every life some tears must fall and we simply don't need two playsets. Also, we plan on using the proceeds from the sale of the set to build an enormous sandbox, so don't cry for Ellie, Argentina.
Anyway, Friday came, and I took the kids to Johna's so they wouldn't have to witness the dismembering of the playset. Saturday, we went to Mom and Dad's house for Easter weekend, and no one noticed the missing playset before we left. The girls spent a couple days in Salisbury and they came home today. The girls wouldn't nap, so in a fit of frustration, I sent them outside by themselves. I sat down at the computer to do some important Facebooking, and that's when I heard the realization hit.... "Where's my PLAYSET????"
I went outside to see Ellie in tears, trying to get Maggie to be upset with her. "Maggie, it's gone! It's gone! Where did it go?" I grabbed Ellie up onto my lap and gently explained that the Easter Bunny had taken the playset to another family. I said "you know how you got a new Zhu Zhu pet from the Easter Bunny?" She nodded and I continued, "well, you got a new toy, so we had to give another away." Zhu Zhu pet for a playset? C'mon Mom, even a 5 year old knows that's a shitty trade.
Ellie is normally my mild mannered child, but when she melts down, it's a full on Silkwood. She was on my lap explaining to me how much the playset meant to her when she pulled out, "It was on my list of things to do this summer." I had to literally bite the inside of my lip to keep from laughing. "You have a list?" I asked. "Yes! I was going to swing, roller skate, pick flowers, play ball, slide on the colored playset, ice skate, and pick more flowers." Kid's been making plans without me apparently.
Finally, I was able to convince her that her entire summer wouldn't be ruined, and I told her that she could pick the spot for the sand box. The combo of many hugs and kisses and some control seemed to do the trick and she was fine for the rest of the evening.
Lesson learned? You can't pull as much over on a 5 year old as you can a 3 year old!
Almost a whole year later, there were still two playsets in my backyard. In my spazzing out during my last week of pregnancy, when I started pretty much throwing everything out that wasn't nailed down and one of the casulties was the playset. Friday was the day it was scheduled to go to a new family.
I'll go on the record here and say that Jeff was against this project, cause he knew that Ellie would freak out. My response, being the hard hearted mommy I am is that into every life some tears must fall and we simply don't need two playsets. Also, we plan on using the proceeds from the sale of the set to build an enormous sandbox, so don't cry for Ellie, Argentina.
Anyway, Friday came, and I took the kids to Johna's so they wouldn't have to witness the dismembering of the playset. Saturday, we went to Mom and Dad's house for Easter weekend, and no one noticed the missing playset before we left. The girls spent a couple days in Salisbury and they came home today. The girls wouldn't nap, so in a fit of frustration, I sent them outside by themselves. I sat down at the computer to do some important Facebooking, and that's when I heard the realization hit.... "Where's my PLAYSET????"
I went outside to see Ellie in tears, trying to get Maggie to be upset with her. "Maggie, it's gone! It's gone! Where did it go?" I grabbed Ellie up onto my lap and gently explained that the Easter Bunny had taken the playset to another family. I said "you know how you got a new Zhu Zhu pet from the Easter Bunny?" She nodded and I continued, "well, you got a new toy, so we had to give another away." Zhu Zhu pet for a playset? C'mon Mom, even a 5 year old knows that's a shitty trade.
Ellie is normally my mild mannered child, but when she melts down, it's a full on Silkwood. She was on my lap explaining to me how much the playset meant to her when she pulled out, "It was on my list of things to do this summer." I had to literally bite the inside of my lip to keep from laughing. "You have a list?" I asked. "Yes! I was going to swing, roller skate, pick flowers, play ball, slide on the colored playset, ice skate, and pick more flowers." Kid's been making plans without me apparently.
Finally, I was able to convince her that her entire summer wouldn't be ruined, and I told her that she could pick the spot for the sand box. The combo of many hugs and kisses and some control seemed to do the trick and she was fine for the rest of the evening.
Lesson learned? You can't pull as much over on a 5 year old as you can a 3 year old!
New Sideshow Freak - the eternally pregnant woman!
Believe it or not, I started a blog in February about how well I was coping with being pregnant. I thought I was doing really well with holding it together. Then... the waiting began. You see, though I always go a week late, I had (once again) convinced myself that I would have this baby early. I talked a good game about how I didn't expect to have the baby before March 15, but in my heart of hearts, I thought I'd have a late Feb/early March baby. Boy, was I wrong.
Mom, in true best Mom on the planet style, basically moved in with us in the month of February to help me (read keep me from killing the kids). I told her that someday, the girls would know how grateful they should be to her for being here, cause the amount of beating they would have received was greatly reduced. After a week or so of being here, Mom gently suggested that we put the girls back in pre-school and I quickly realized that she was right. My ability to do anything creative or fun had really been sucked entirely out of my body. So we signed them back up and after a couple gigantic snow storms, they started in March.
March 9, my due date, rolled up on the calendar and now my dad joined the party. He was pretty convinced I would have the baby quickly, and wanted to be here to help at a moments notice. (here's where I'll tell people that don't know, my parents live about 2 hours away and we all thought this baby would pretty much fall out of me, this is why being close was important) No baby on March 9. No baby on March 10. Do you see a pattern? I had an ultrasound at 40 weeks to check on Bullseye - they predicted the baby weighed 11 pounds 3 ounces. We all laughed. This baby wouldn't be anywhere close to that, those late ultrasounds are so inaccurate. This baby would be 10 pounds probably, but no more...
By March 15, I started to lose my sense of humor. People started telling me that we'd HAVE to name the baby Patrick or Patricia if it was born on St. Patrick's Day. My response? Would I name the baby Jesus if it was born on Christmas? NO.
Advice on how to go into labor poured in. Seriously? I thought, I've had 3 babies, don't you think I've tried all this crap? But try it again I did. Indian food, raspberry leaf tea, castor oil, chinese food, coffee ice cream... nada. Walk, walk, walk! People said. Like it's my fault that I'm not in labor cause I'm lazy and obviously not doing enough to go into labor. March 17 went by, I wanted to have a ceremonial burning of the "Baby's First St. Patrick's Day" outfits. March 18, 19, 20.... In my more morose moments I felt like I was disappointing everyone by not having the baby. My parents had basically put their lives on hold and were living in my house. My poor dad is hobbling around on a bad knee, but hadn't scheduled an MRI cause he was at my house helping me out. And in the background, the voices started... there's something wrong... there's a reason this baby isn't being born. I'm going to have to have a c-section, the baby's got a problem, something's not right...
If I went two weeks overdue, I would automatically be transferred from the Birth Center to Dr. Cookse's care at Christiana and I'd be induced. Mom superstitiously believed that I was waiting for Dorinda to be on call before I'd have the baby and would ask if she was on after each visit. Sunday, the 21st, I got the stomach bug that had already struck down most of the house. I woke up and was immediately ill. After having a boo hoo in the shower, I called Jeff upstairs and told him that he needed to make everyone leave the house for the day. I basically wanted to sit on the couch and feel sorry for myself all day, without anyone observing the puddle of depressed pregnant woman I was going to become.
Monday the 22 was it, the deadline. At 9AM, I had an appointment to have my water broken, a non-pharmaceutical induction method. We showed up only to be told the baby was still too high to break my water. (If you break your water and the baby is high, the umbilical cord can come out first and that's a big problem) After a little discussion, Dorinda suggested that I try castor oil again. Okay, sure, why not. So she goes and gets the biggest dose of castor oil I have ever seen in my life. It was a dixie cup FULL. In case that doesn't sound like much, go get a dixie cup, fill it with Wesson Oil and drink it. I made if halfway through the dose, gagged, but rallied to finish it. I tried to imagine it was Jagermeister. After a chaser of cranberry juice and a spoonful of peanut butter to kill the taste, we were sent to go eat some breakfast and walk for a couple hours, with orders to return around 1. The last thing Dorinda told me on the way out the door was that if I wasn't having contractions by then, or the baby hadn't moved down at all, I would be going to the hospital that night to be induced.
To Cosmo's Diner we went, where Jeff's mom joined us. After breakfast, we went to Babies R Us, cause seriously, where else can a woman that pregnant go without drawing alot of attention to herself? I started feeling some crampiness, but chalked it up to the castor oil. We bought some binkies for Jack and headed back to the Birth Center, where I was now completely certain I would find out what time my induction was scheduled. On the way, I told Jeff that I had gotten right with the idea of going to the hospital. Jeff asked me what I wanted at the hospital - drugs or no drugs? I said DRUGS. Absolutely. If I was going to the hospital to get a pitocin drip, I was getting the full court press. Drugs, a couple days in the hospital, the whole works.
We got back to the Birth Center and I had just gotten the words, "I'm feeling a little something" out of my mouth when a contraction like a freight train hit me. Suddenly, I was in full "labor song". My mom burst into tears. That morning, I was 2-3 cm. When they checked me now, I was 5. Hooray castor oil. The old wives know of what they speak. Sarah, the midwife, began filling the water birth tub and now contractions were coming every three minutes or so and they were getting more intense. I kept looking at the level of the water in the tub, thinking when can I get in? Everyone had told me that the water would really help ease the pain and relax me, and I was ready to be eased and relaxed. Finally it was ready and things started really rocking and rolling. Kristen arrived to be my photojournalist and Johna came in for moral support.
The whole time I was in the tub, I was trying to concentrate on the things that my friend Michelle Uy had told me about hypnobirthing - each contraction is one closer to the baby, my body is doing the things it needs to do, etc. It was now around 2 and we all took bets on when the baby would make it's arrival - 3PM was the general consensus. Great, I can do this for an hour, I thought, I can do anything for an hour. I was fully dialated except for a "lip" of cervix by 2:45 and was definitely feeling the urge to push. Sarah did some midwife magic and we thought we got the lip out of the way. Out of the tub I came and onto the bed, which hurt like a son of a bitch. So we tried the birth stool, which is basically a chair with the middle cut out. Strangely enough, contractions on the birth stool were not particularly painful, but they also weren't effective. I was pushing and pushing and pushing, and nothing was happening. Now the crazy voices in my head began to take over. Every person who had told me a c-section story had a moment in my head. It was 3:30 and I said to Sarah, "This isn't right. I don't push for hours." I only pushed for 8 minutes with Jack for crying out loud. Sarah kept assuring me that things were fine, but I wasn't believing her. I totally lost my head and at one point told Jeff that he needed to do something cause no one was listening to me. Sarah went to go get Dorinda for a consultation.
Now, let me tell you about Dorinda. Jeff and I joke that when she's not delivering babies, she's busy changing the seasons, cause she's actually Mother Nature. Dorinda Dove is EXACTLY what you think a midwife is going to be like. She's capable, confident, and caring without being schmaltzy. She delivered both Maggie and Jack, and in both cases, she came in at the end of my labors to do it. She swept in the room this time and the whole energy of the room changed. Up to then, it had been very quiet, except for the beepclick of Kristen's camera. Sarah is an excellent midwife, but the quiet confidence of Dorinda seemed to open up all my support people. I know that my mom was relieved to see her, it made it feel like if something was wrong, Dorinda would fix it, or know when to call it.
Dorinda checked me and found the cervix was still there. She pushed it out of the way, and then moved to let Sarah take back over. She didn't leave though, she stayed with us, and for that I will always be grateful. She sat by my head and told me what to do. If she had told me I could push for five more hours, I probably would have believed her. The other thing that changed was Kristen and Johna began to cheer me on. Because they could now see the progress I was making, and because they're good enough friends that I know they would bullshit me, I knew if they were excited, I really was making progress. I can still hear Kristen's excited voice telling me I was doing it. They probably don't realize how much that really helped me. People think it's weird that I have a lot of people at my births, but it works for me. I thrive on that kind of energy.
Finally, the baby made it's way into the world.... and it's a BOY! William Jeffrey Lacey. He was completely grayish blue though and didn't cry when they put him on my chest. After a couple scary seconds, with oxygen and much rubbing by the midwife and nurse, he began to cry and pink up. Everyone was immediately taken with how BIG this child was. My first thought was, Thank GOD That's over!, but my second was "Holy crap, look at his cheeks!" Turns out that he was "sunny side up" or upside down in the birth canal. What this means is that A) his head didn't put equal pressure on my cervix which is probably why I didn't go into labor earlier and B) that I had to push the widest part of his ENORMOUS head out. Babies' heads are like little transformers and when they're born the right way, the head compresses to be born. Not my boys, cause Jack was the same way. Stinkers.
Normally, the staff of the Birth Center is in no hurry to take your baby away from you to measure him, but this time, you could tell they wanted a weight on this kid. So when I was getting myself taken care of, Colleen, the nurse, weighed the monster baby... 11 pounds 3 ounces... just like the damned ultrasound said.
In the end, we have a beautiful baby boy to complete our family. Three boys and three girls, including Jeff and me. Joey is the deciding vote, but he's neutered so he can go either way. We couldn't feel more blessed and I now feel like our family is complete. Each girl has a little brother to bother her, each brother has a sister to introduce him to cute girls. Life at the Lacey's is good.
People keep asking me how I feel, am I having baby blues, etc. I think I got all my baby blues out in the last two weeks of pregnancy and now I'm just so happy to not be the endlessly pregnant woman that I can't imagine being anything but all smiles.
Thank you again to everyone who supported me during this journey... from the beginning to the LONG awaited end. Every joke, every FB post, every phone call or babysitting duty, they were all appreciated. I have to especially thank Jeff, my patient and wonderful husband, who dealt with all the ups and downs of this pregnancy. I joke all the time that I got a deluxe model husband, but it's times like this when a man's quality really shows! Stay tuned, I'm sure there will be more craziness to come, just not pregnant crazy!
Mom, in true best Mom on the planet style, basically moved in with us in the month of February to help me (read keep me from killing the kids). I told her that someday, the girls would know how grateful they should be to her for being here, cause the amount of beating they would have received was greatly reduced. After a week or so of being here, Mom gently suggested that we put the girls back in pre-school and I quickly realized that she was right. My ability to do anything creative or fun had really been sucked entirely out of my body. So we signed them back up and after a couple gigantic snow storms, they started in March.
March 9, my due date, rolled up on the calendar and now my dad joined the party. He was pretty convinced I would have the baby quickly, and wanted to be here to help at a moments notice. (here's where I'll tell people that don't know, my parents live about 2 hours away and we all thought this baby would pretty much fall out of me, this is why being close was important) No baby on March 9. No baby on March 10. Do you see a pattern? I had an ultrasound at 40 weeks to check on Bullseye - they predicted the baby weighed 11 pounds 3 ounces. We all laughed. This baby wouldn't be anywhere close to that, those late ultrasounds are so inaccurate. This baby would be 10 pounds probably, but no more...
By March 15, I started to lose my sense of humor. People started telling me that we'd HAVE to name the baby Patrick or Patricia if it was born on St. Patrick's Day. My response? Would I name the baby Jesus if it was born on Christmas? NO.
Advice on how to go into labor poured in. Seriously? I thought, I've had 3 babies, don't you think I've tried all this crap? But try it again I did. Indian food, raspberry leaf tea, castor oil, chinese food, coffee ice cream... nada. Walk, walk, walk! People said. Like it's my fault that I'm not in labor cause I'm lazy and obviously not doing enough to go into labor. March 17 went by, I wanted to have a ceremonial burning of the "Baby's First St. Patrick's Day" outfits. March 18, 19, 20.... In my more morose moments I felt like I was disappointing everyone by not having the baby. My parents had basically put their lives on hold and were living in my house. My poor dad is hobbling around on a bad knee, but hadn't scheduled an MRI cause he was at my house helping me out. And in the background, the voices started... there's something wrong... there's a reason this baby isn't being born. I'm going to have to have a c-section, the baby's got a problem, something's not right...
If I went two weeks overdue, I would automatically be transferred from the Birth Center to Dr. Cookse's care at Christiana and I'd be induced. Mom superstitiously believed that I was waiting for Dorinda to be on call before I'd have the baby and would ask if she was on after each visit. Sunday, the 21st, I got the stomach bug that had already struck down most of the house. I woke up and was immediately ill. After having a boo hoo in the shower, I called Jeff upstairs and told him that he needed to make everyone leave the house for the day. I basically wanted to sit on the couch and feel sorry for myself all day, without anyone observing the puddle of depressed pregnant woman I was going to become.
Monday the 22 was it, the deadline. At 9AM, I had an appointment to have my water broken, a non-pharmaceutical induction method. We showed up only to be told the baby was still too high to break my water. (If you break your water and the baby is high, the umbilical cord can come out first and that's a big problem) After a little discussion, Dorinda suggested that I try castor oil again. Okay, sure, why not. So she goes and gets the biggest dose of castor oil I have ever seen in my life. It was a dixie cup FULL. In case that doesn't sound like much, go get a dixie cup, fill it with Wesson Oil and drink it. I made if halfway through the dose, gagged, but rallied to finish it. I tried to imagine it was Jagermeister. After a chaser of cranberry juice and a spoonful of peanut butter to kill the taste, we were sent to go eat some breakfast and walk for a couple hours, with orders to return around 1. The last thing Dorinda told me on the way out the door was that if I wasn't having contractions by then, or the baby hadn't moved down at all, I would be going to the hospital that night to be induced.
To Cosmo's Diner we went, where Jeff's mom joined us. After breakfast, we went to Babies R Us, cause seriously, where else can a woman that pregnant go without drawing alot of attention to herself? I started feeling some crampiness, but chalked it up to the castor oil. We bought some binkies for Jack and headed back to the Birth Center, where I was now completely certain I would find out what time my induction was scheduled. On the way, I told Jeff that I had gotten right with the idea of going to the hospital. Jeff asked me what I wanted at the hospital - drugs or no drugs? I said DRUGS. Absolutely. If I was going to the hospital to get a pitocin drip, I was getting the full court press. Drugs, a couple days in the hospital, the whole works.
We got back to the Birth Center and I had just gotten the words, "I'm feeling a little something" out of my mouth when a contraction like a freight train hit me. Suddenly, I was in full "labor song". My mom burst into tears. That morning, I was 2-3 cm. When they checked me now, I was 5. Hooray castor oil. The old wives know of what they speak. Sarah, the midwife, began filling the water birth tub and now contractions were coming every three minutes or so and they were getting more intense. I kept looking at the level of the water in the tub, thinking when can I get in? Everyone had told me that the water would really help ease the pain and relax me, and I was ready to be eased and relaxed. Finally it was ready and things started really rocking and rolling. Kristen arrived to be my photojournalist and Johna came in for moral support.
The whole time I was in the tub, I was trying to concentrate on the things that my friend Michelle Uy had told me about hypnobirthing - each contraction is one closer to the baby, my body is doing the things it needs to do, etc. It was now around 2 and we all took bets on when the baby would make it's arrival - 3PM was the general consensus. Great, I can do this for an hour, I thought, I can do anything for an hour. I was fully dialated except for a "lip" of cervix by 2:45 and was definitely feeling the urge to push. Sarah did some midwife magic and we thought we got the lip out of the way. Out of the tub I came and onto the bed, which hurt like a son of a bitch. So we tried the birth stool, which is basically a chair with the middle cut out. Strangely enough, contractions on the birth stool were not particularly painful, but they also weren't effective. I was pushing and pushing and pushing, and nothing was happening. Now the crazy voices in my head began to take over. Every person who had told me a c-section story had a moment in my head. It was 3:30 and I said to Sarah, "This isn't right. I don't push for hours." I only pushed for 8 minutes with Jack for crying out loud. Sarah kept assuring me that things were fine, but I wasn't believing her. I totally lost my head and at one point told Jeff that he needed to do something cause no one was listening to me. Sarah went to go get Dorinda for a consultation.
Now, let me tell you about Dorinda. Jeff and I joke that when she's not delivering babies, she's busy changing the seasons, cause she's actually Mother Nature. Dorinda Dove is EXACTLY what you think a midwife is going to be like. She's capable, confident, and caring without being schmaltzy. She delivered both Maggie and Jack, and in both cases, she came in at the end of my labors to do it. She swept in the room this time and the whole energy of the room changed. Up to then, it had been very quiet, except for the beepclick of Kristen's camera. Sarah is an excellent midwife, but the quiet confidence of Dorinda seemed to open up all my support people. I know that my mom was relieved to see her, it made it feel like if something was wrong, Dorinda would fix it, or know when to call it.
Dorinda checked me and found the cervix was still there. She pushed it out of the way, and then moved to let Sarah take back over. She didn't leave though, she stayed with us, and for that I will always be grateful. She sat by my head and told me what to do. If she had told me I could push for five more hours, I probably would have believed her. The other thing that changed was Kristen and Johna began to cheer me on. Because they could now see the progress I was making, and because they're good enough friends that I know they would bullshit me, I knew if they were excited, I really was making progress. I can still hear Kristen's excited voice telling me I was doing it. They probably don't realize how much that really helped me. People think it's weird that I have a lot of people at my births, but it works for me. I thrive on that kind of energy.
Finally, the baby made it's way into the world.... and it's a BOY! William Jeffrey Lacey. He was completely grayish blue though and didn't cry when they put him on my chest. After a couple scary seconds, with oxygen and much rubbing by the midwife and nurse, he began to cry and pink up. Everyone was immediately taken with how BIG this child was. My first thought was, Thank GOD That's over!, but my second was "Holy crap, look at his cheeks!" Turns out that he was "sunny side up" or upside down in the birth canal. What this means is that A) his head didn't put equal pressure on my cervix which is probably why I didn't go into labor earlier and B) that I had to push the widest part of his ENORMOUS head out. Babies' heads are like little transformers and when they're born the right way, the head compresses to be born. Not my boys, cause Jack was the same way. Stinkers.
Normally, the staff of the Birth Center is in no hurry to take your baby away from you to measure him, but this time, you could tell they wanted a weight on this kid. So when I was getting myself taken care of, Colleen, the nurse, weighed the monster baby... 11 pounds 3 ounces... just like the damned ultrasound said.
In the end, we have a beautiful baby boy to complete our family. Three boys and three girls, including Jeff and me. Joey is the deciding vote, but he's neutered so he can go either way. We couldn't feel more blessed and I now feel like our family is complete. Each girl has a little brother to bother her, each brother has a sister to introduce him to cute girls. Life at the Lacey's is good.
People keep asking me how I feel, am I having baby blues, etc. I think I got all my baby blues out in the last two weeks of pregnancy and now I'm just so happy to not be the endlessly pregnant woman that I can't imagine being anything but all smiles.
Thank you again to everyone who supported me during this journey... from the beginning to the LONG awaited end. Every joke, every FB post, every phone call or babysitting duty, they were all appreciated. I have to especially thank Jeff, my patient and wonderful husband, who dealt with all the ups and downs of this pregnancy. I joke all the time that I got a deluxe model husband, but it's times like this when a man's quality really shows! Stay tuned, I'm sure there will be more craziness to come, just not pregnant crazy!
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