We've been waiting for it for two weeks. Today, while Doombot was tickling Orion's tummy to buy me time to pump a couple of extra ounces for our still hungry squirrel, Orion smiled. Boy, when people tell you that other shit is gas and that you'll know a real smile when you see it they're right. His eyes lit up and his little gummy grin just brought both of us to tears. He did it again a few minutes later. Both times he was looking straight into his Daddy's eyes.
I'm thrilled, obviously. But it stings a little too. Who is the one who has lived the last year in exclusive service of this baby? Who is the one who had a giant hole hacked in my thorax to make sure he made it into the world safely? Who has fed him with milk from my own body? Who has gotten up in the night a zillion times, forgoing the pain medication I could have been taking to deal with the pain of that surgery so I could be clear headed for him?
I've realized that its only been since I've been a mohter myself that I've realy even started to appreciate the sacrifices that my own mother made along the way to take care of me. But, man, was I a shithead to her for years...way longer than I had any right to. Now this smile thing is making me wonder. Is this how it always is? Are mothers always underappreciated, sometimes even resented, while dads are the fun ones? Don't get me wrong, I want Orion and Doombot to have a really special relationship. But damn ya'll. Where's my gummy grin?
The line we're telling each other is that Doombot is getting the smiles because he's got black facial hair that mimics that high contrast black and white infant development crap. Hopefully I'll be able to buy that story long enough to get a smile of my own.
The last six weeks have been a blur. It turned out that Orion is a gas factory, due mostly to the fact that he takes great big gulps of air when he eats. It doesn't matter if we use the cheap bottles with the old school vinyl nipples or the swanky BPA Free ones with a zillion parts. (Side note...why would anyone with a new baby accept a feeding system that requires each bottle to come with its own teeny bottle brush). I've come to understand that pretty much every bottle on the market right now is great for keeping air bubbles out of the milk, but with only two shapes of nipples out there nothing can keep my kid from swallowing great gluggling gulps of air every time he comes up to breathe.
It turns out that a bunch of air in a baby's tummy tends to create reflux. We learned all of this last Saturday night when we ended up at the ER at 1am begging for someone to fix our screaming baby. We'd gotten very little sleep for a week and his problem was getting progressively worse. An ultrasound and an x-ray showed huge pockets of air in Orion's intestines, which was a relief in some ways. First, we were vindicated in that, duh, you'd scream too with a belly ache that bad. Second, we got to make everyone in the ER to look at the screen so they would believe us that no, he's not screaming because we abuse him thankyouverymuch.
We dragged ass home with a prescription for Zantac and instructions to double the amount of Mylicon Orion gets. After a week of the new routine (and a switch to stage 2 nipples) things finally seem to be getting better. I did screw up the routine a few days ago by trying to introduce some formula. Within 24 hours we figured out that was a bad idea and went back to our regular "all breast milk, all the time" programming.
Orion still wakes up every three hours at night, which sucks. However now he's waking up mostly happy. He's passing his gas (even though there is still straining involved) and pooping regularly again. I hope this new, happier baby is the one we get to keep because Beelzebabe wasn't making a lot of friends at 3am.
I'm sure anyone who has lived through the first three weeks of life with their brand new baby will forgive me for not updating. I've been simply undone by some elements of newborn parenthood that I just did not anticipate. First, I never have any idea what day it is. Well, I sort of know. It's just a different week than it used to be. The Orion calendar looks something like this:
What I really don't know is how one day relates to another. Twice in the last two weeks I've had converastions with people where we arranged for them to come over "the day after tomorrow" and by the time the day came around I had completely forgotten when we had made the arrangements, and therefore, which day the plans were for. I end up having to make lots of calls like, "Hi mom! Which day were you going to come over?" only to have the answer be, "Uh...today. I'm on my way now." Which would be fine, if I still bathed every day.
It's been a mixed bag on the baby front. I'm happy to announce that Orion is no longer yellow. The process dragged out way longer than it should, but eventually resolved. His eyeballs were the last pockets of yellow to give up the fight. He has clogged tear ducts that cause goopy eyes all the time, a full face of baby zits, and epic hiccups that leave him miserable as his little body spasms with each one. He had a week of colic that turned us into zombies, but with the help of The Happiest Baby on the Block we've learned how to deal with that.
Getting him fed has been a complete enigma to me. Initially my inconveniently placed nipples and oversupply of milk made traditional breastfeeding more trouble than it was worth and led me to pump exclusively. A couple of experiments with formula convinced us that the constipattion wasn't worth it, so I pumped and pumped and pumped. Eventually I began to view the pump as my own personal anchor and decided to switch to formula anyway. I changed my mind 24 hours later (that was a week ago) but I'm still struggling to get my milk supply back to where it needs to be to get Orion fed sufficiently. No matter what he's eating, I still can't figure out how much is enough and how much is too much or too often.
Looking at it from a purely academic perspective, it would be tempting to think I have regrets. The easy conclusion would be that I resent the baby for not being physically perfect, for not eating the way I want him to, for tying me to the house, to the pump, and keeping me from sleeping. But somehow, one look at his little face transcends all of that.
He still doesn't do much, after all he's only three weeks old today. But the other day he started making eye contact. Yesterday he got a really serene look on his face, made a perfect little circle with his lips and let out a soft, sweet, "whoooooooo" that melted my heart.
I love this little boy. I still don't know what I'm doing with him, but I love him.
Doombot and I spent all day on Sunday the 13th getting the house ready for the baby to come. We did laundry, packed my bags, and got the rest of the gear installed/set up. Even though we were exhausted, we were both sure that there was no way we'd be getting any sleep.
We were scheduled to be at the hospital at 5:30 for my c-section at 8:00. For the first hour or so, there was really nothing going on. I sat there on the monitors waiting for someone to pay attention to me. There was some entertainment though, as the woman in the little cubicle next to me refused to be convinced that she was not in active labor. That was fun enough to keep me relaxed. I guess if I hadn't known for sure that I was done being pregnant before the next time my feet hit the floor it might not have been as funny.
At about 7:00am, everyone in L&D triage seemed to realize that I had to be ready to go in just an hour and the nurses swarmed me. At some points there were as many as four of them working on different body parts. I'd be signing a form while someone else put socks on me and another girl started an IV in my loose hand. It was all pretty overwhelming. At one point, I had my gown pulled up to my belly button with a nurse shaving my pubes when the male anesthesiologist walked in and introduced himself. There I was, shaking hands and learning about what would be involved in my spinal block while some strange girl shaved my crotch. It was pretty much at that point when I realized that this was going to be pretty sureal.
Once all the introductions took place, Doombot changed into his scrubs and we headed across the hall to the OR.
The first order of business was getting my spinal block in. This was the part that scared me the most. I had heard nightmare stories about the insertion being very painful and about having the block work either too well or not well enough. Honestly though, it wasn't bad at all. The Dr. talked me through everything and a felt little more than pinching and a kind of odd "funny bone" sensation in my hip.
Once I laid down and Doombot was able to come in and join me I felt a lot better. Just knowing he was in there was such a comfort. At that point the surgery started quickly, but it seemed to take forever. As I had anticipated, the pulling and whatnot that went on made me pretty sick to my stomach, but the wonderful Anesthesia doc took good care of me by both talking me through it and giving me the right meds at the right time.
Eventually, Orion was born! It seemed like it took forever for him to cry, and when they finally brought him over to me so I could see him for the first time he looked a little blue to me. Afterwards, I realized that it was probably just due to the white cheesy stuff all over him. I thought I heard someone mention that they needed to give him a little bit of oxygen in the OR, but nobody ever mentioned it again. The told me later that his Apgar scores were 8/9, so he must not have needed oxygen after all.
This post has nothing to do with pregnancy, babies, or parenting. But it's the only blog I've got and some shit has got to be said.
We moved to Florida from the suburbs of Atlanta over the summer before I started 10th grade. Without the benefit of school, the friends I made over the first couple of months were limited to the kids around the apartment complex where my family set up shop. One of these friends had a smoking hot older brother named Shawn. Shawn was going to be a senior, and had decided that as soon as his girlfriend returned from vacation he was going to break up with her. While nothing was promised, Shawn and I did a lot of flirting in the last weeks of summer vacation. My understanding was that once he could do the honorable thing and break up with his girlfriend, we would be together. What can I say? He was 17 and male (therefore an asshole) and I was a 15 year old girl (therefore an idiot).
The week before school started, I got a call from his sister (my friend). Girlfriend had returned home and had been dumped, as promised. I poofed up my bangs (hey, it was barely the '90's) and made for Shawn's house. What followed was an absolute disaster. Yeah, there was hooking up. But it was awkward and just kind of wrong. I was not completely inexperienced, so when he said "Uh, this isn't working," I didn't argue. I'd figured the same thing out already. I was bummed, but wrote the whole thing off to poor chemistry and went home. I later found out that he had no intention of dating me anyway. He just thought I'd be an easy piece of tail in between his girlfriend and whatever new adventures awaited him in the land of senior-bigshot-douchebags.
Fast forward a few months. Four? Five? I had settled into my new school and was making friends and meeting new guys. I started dating a guy named Scott. This relationship was way more in line with what you'd expect from a relationship between 15-year-olds. There were movies and milkshakes, some rollerskating, and even a couple of rounds of mini-golf. I wasn't in looooooove with this guy, but he was cute and I was having fun. The problem? He had a twin sister, and they were creepy close. Yeah, "that" kind of creepy close. Whatever. I was never going to be able to nail down the nature of that whole deal, so I decided to just stay out of her way. Trouble was, this twin sister had a a raging crush on a certain smoking hot senior-bigshot-douchebag.
Somehow, the Mean Girl network, headed by Creepy Twin Sister, got ahold of the information that I had, at one point, hooked up with Shawn. In spite of the fact that I had tried to do right by his girlfriend, waited until I'd known him for two months, and recognized a losing proposition when things finally went down, I? Was a whore.
This was news by me, and I guess the Mean Girls decided it would take a special kind of event to thoroughly convince me of just what kind of trash I really was. So, my "friend", Shawn's sister came over and "invited" me to Scott (and CTS's) house. Something smelled fishy, so I brought a couple of guy friends for back up. What followed looked almost exactly like this:
I don't want to take anything away from poor Victoria Lindsay. I walked away in much better shape than she did. I was scratched and bruised. I'd had chunks of hair pulled out, so there were some bloody places on my scalp. My shirt was torn off. When I'd finally made a break for it I had to claw my way out of the fray using a brick mailbox housing, so I'd torn some fingernails off in that process. I didn't need the hospital, but I was pretty messed up. The thing that haunts me watching this video is that I remember exactly how helpless I felt in the middle of this crowd of girls. Watching this, did you think that Victoria should have made more of an effort to get out that door? I can tell you, the way the social structure of high school is set up, she...I...didn't even think it was an option. These Queen Bees say, "No, you can't leave." It doesn't even occur to you that you have the option to leave. I stayed and was terrorized for almost two hours before I finally ran out the back door of that house. I even did some of Crazy Twin Sister's chores. It was when I ran that they really attacked.
But the powerlessness! How does a smart, pretty, talented teenager learn that she is so much less worthy than these "popular" girls that she will stay and get beaten rather than go against them? I left with other questions from that day too. Why didn't one of the adults that drove past as I was being beaten on the front lawn stop the car and help me? Why did my parents honor my wishes for them to not react to the situation? Who had let these girls think they could do this to another human being? Why didn't I think I was worth better treatment?
The interesting thing about how closely this situation mirrors my experience is that this new incident took place in my new home town, although so far all of my exposure to it has been through national media. No matter where I see the coverage, and for obvious reasons I can't seem to get enough, everyone keeps wanting to blame social networking websites. I guess they think that because the the trash talking happened on MySpace and attack was video taped for the purpose of putting it on the internet, these adults want to assume that the attack wouldn't have happened without the lure of celebrity and the anonimity of the internet.
People, wake up! Could Victoria and I be the only girls this has ever happened to? Of course not! Girls bullying each other is nothing new. Sure, like everything else, there are newer shinier toys to use to terrorize one another. But focusing on that leads to ignoring the real problem of just how evil girls can be to each other. Don't you remember being that age? We were horrible to each other! I think the internet just shines a light on it. Why can't girls value and respect each other? Why the competition?
I have come to the conclusion that babies eat brains.
With my own entrance to the motherhood club looming large, I've started scouting out Mommy Blogs. I only read them if they're cool and snarky. And only if they have cuss words. I'm picky that way. Anyhoo. In the grand tradition of the internet, all of my favorite Mommy Bloggers have posted humorous fake entries today. Check them out! (I'll update as more come online)
What shocks me is not that these girls were creative enough to come up with these cute ideas. What shocks me is that the commentors don't get the joke. Are mommies, collectively, this easily fooled? Do the nights of sleep deprivation and days of Baby Einstein really leave us unable to recognize a simple joke?
Problem #1: I'm a little bit of a hypochondriac. I'm the type of person who comes down with any disease I read about on WebMD. I watch WAY too much discovery health, and I'd be more likely to recognize the symptoms of primordial dwarfism in my soon to be hatched offspring than I would be to recognize the common cold. If you want to find something on the Internet or TV to be scared shitless of during pregnancy, that something is pre-eclampsia followed by HELLP, possibly with a premature delivery and extended NICU stay thrown in for good measure.
Problem #2: I'm terrified to use the telephone. I don't even like to call my family and friends. Text messaging, IM, and email have been miracles to me because they allow me to be connected to the world without having to pick up the phone. I've often joked that if you gave me $20 and a telephone I would starve to death before I ordered a pizza.
These problems have combined to create one large problem that really has me kind of bummed out. I have all of the symptoms of pre-eclampsia at about 75% the severity of what would be required for my doctor to take action. My blood pressure is high, but not too high. I have protein in my urine, but not too much or consistently enough. My hands swell up, but then the swelling goes down. I have headaches non stop, but it's really pollen-y around here lately. Oh, and did I mention that I have a blood pressure cuff and my own protein pee strips that I can use to keep myself thoroughly freaked out? Yeah, I'm not a doctor but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.
The first phase of me being freaked the hell out was the "I'm too scared to call at all" phase. Doombot talked me out of that and I've been in a couple of times for various combinations of symptoms (with some pre-term contractions and lack of fetal movement thrown in to keep things interesting). Just when I started feeling all empowered to pick up the phone, I started to realize something. All of this stuff that seemed like a big deal to me? Not turning out to alarm the doctors one single bit. So I started to feel like a dumbass whiner for bothering them with it.
So I don't know what to do now that every one of the above symptoms has gotten even worse. The solution I've found so far isn't really working. That "solution" has been to dig in my heels in, refuse to call the doctor and to then bitch about it non-stop. Poor Doombot.
Ah, what the hell. Now I've started contracting again. I'll probably be in labor before the pre-e can kill me anyway.
