C-Sections And Where I Stand

You ever had "major surgery"?  Well, if you're one of the millions of women who have had a C-section, the answer is yes.  And chances are, if you did, some women out there (and men too) revile you if you did it and it wasn't an emergency of epic proportions.  My first baby came out via C-section.  I was unprepared for it, but, oddly, not ungrateful.  I know myself well and and I had been nervous and anxious about labor.  I wasn't sure I could do it.  Though I feared the C-section, it was great.  I recovered quickly.  The scar was tiny and well hidden.  I did not feel any pain from it.  I had no infections. 

So, why am I not dismissing a VBAC out of hand then?  I dislike scheduled anxiety.  With a VBAC, the baby could come at any time.  I don't need to spend time worrying about it, who knows when the baby would come and I'd need to deliver.  But, with a return C-section, I've got a certain date.  I will not sleep for approximately two nights prior.  I know myself.  I will think about the IV.  I will think about the spinal.  I will forget the good things about my first C-section (like that delicious delicious blanket of hot air they circulated over me and the fast recovery).  I will pray that this time the catheter gets to go in AFTER the spinal.  I will fret about infections and blood loss and my clotting issues.

And yet, I'll probably go for it and it will most likely be fine.  To psych myself up, here are two different links that are positive.  One is a birth plan for a C-section that seems mostly sane.  The other is a birth story from an individual at NPR who gets blasted in the comments for not hating her C-section.  (Seriously -- some of the comments imply that people who think they're having life saving surgery are just faking it.  "Women have been doing this for millennium without intervention" is a common theme of people who hate C-sections.  People who write that often forget the mortality rate for women in childbirth prior to the twentieth century.)

Also, I read a thread on BabyCenter from women who were just over pregnancy and miserable and at least ten people in the thread were all, "Wasn't getting the spinal and feeling relief from the misery of pregnancy the best thing that ever happened to you?  EVER?" 

It'll be okay, kitten.  We'll make it through a return C-section if that is what we want!

"You Seem Unhappy"

Went to a birthday party for my cousin's daughter today (though, let's be honest, I just call her a niece).  It was nice talking to people who have young children and who are excited for me to have this baby, but a number of them have read this blog and added, "You seem miserable."

It's hard to describe.  You see the worst of me on this blog.  You read what I write at the end of the day when I'm tired, sore, ache-y, and scared.  You're reading updates from when I've spent hours thinking about what goes into a C-section, when I've been experiencing shooting pains up and down various body parts for hours, and when I think eating something will make me sick yet all I can think about is eating. 

For instance, yesterday afternoon, I spent some time with my mom.  She let me sleep for a few hours in the morning.  We went to Gymboree and picked up several cute items for N and the new baby.  I spent several hours cooing over a particularly adorable shirt and bloomer set for the summer.  I held N like he was my darling little baby boy and he snuggled his face into mine and told me he loved me.  However, that's not when I blog. 

Several hours later, I was ready to die.  The baby was pushing and stretching and moving in ways that were uncomfortable.  I had stupidly, stupidly, stupidly put only a single leg up while watching a movie and all the blood had pooled in my other leg leading one leg to be larger than the other and then I had a panic attack about a possible blood clot.  I felt "downward pressure" which made me wonder if I'd even make it to mid-February before delivering.  I had spent ten minutes crying thinking about getting an IV that seems inevitable. 

And that is normally when I blog.  When I'm scared and miserable and uncomfortable. 

I do want you to know that I'm not always like that.  I spend time with my husband and he rubs my back or lets me sit in a bathtub for hours while he watches N and cooks.  That makes me happy.  I visit friends or they visit and we knit or chat or eat a meal together and that makes me happy.  I think of the times when my baby will be wearing the same little clothing that N wore, and I'm happy.  I read a good back and I'm happy.  I get a gigantic impulsive kiss and snuggle from N and I'm happy.  I wash newborn clothing with Dreft and the scent makes me smile.  My mom makes me pizzelles and we eat them over tea while N plays with toys at my mom's house and I feel good. 

And then, at the end of the night, when I'm in pain and I can't breathe and I cough so hard that I think I'm going to cough up one of my lungs, and I can't sleep because this insomnia is killing me, killing me, killing me, I end up writing entries that seem so down. 

At the end of the day, I'm a day closer to the end of this pregnancy and to meeting a new little girl that I'll fall in love with.  I basically chant to myself, "Only x amount of time left."  I'm still horrified by the idea of the C-section, but every night of pain and aches makes it seem a little less horrifying because I know that at the end of the C-section tunnel is the light of being able to go to sleep on my stomach and of not aching thoroughly for months on end and of being able to eat what I damned well want to eat and of breathing without issue and of going for hours without a bathroom break. 

When I write to you then, if you've just joined me, you'll probably wonder who the hell the cheerful lady writing this blog is.  It's me, but just the better side of me that you can't currently see.

Why My Poor Husband Should Just Ignore Me

The scene was a random lunch on a weekend recently.  My husband had let me sleep in to a ridiculous degree because he suspects when I get more sleep, I'm less sick and less grumpy and less hateful.  This is all true.  I smile at him and told him I had a dream that he left me again.  I'm sure he's used to this by now, but he looks annoyed regardless.  To be fair to him, since I've started to date him, I've dreamt that he's left me about fifteen billion times.

In the early days, I used to freak out, but over the course of our marriage, I've learned to wake up, look around and realize that we're married and he has not left me and that we have a child together.  So my telling of these dreams has moved from anger at him over leaving me in these dreams to laughter at myself for still having these dreams.  However, this last dream was a doozy.

In the dream, he tells me he's going to leave me and he's taking N.  And N will have a new mommy.  Oddly enough, for one of the first times in my dreams, I don't freak out.  I calmly tell him, "You have two choices, stay with me or I murder you."

I relate this dream to my husband and he looks at me dead-eyed because he's tired of dreams where he's the bad guy.  Sympathetically, I add, "I think it was really kind of me in my dream to offer you that option.  I didn't just murder you.  I gave you that chance to come back to me." 

Consider that this poor man has been doing the majority of care for our son when we're both around, a ton of the cleaning, all of the holiday decorating and break down, and all of the cooking.  Don't you think he deserves better?

Happy New Year, Almost Done

Oh man, oh man.  Can you feel it?  It's a new year, with new possibilities and new dreams and new hopes and new beginnings and, more importantly, the end of pregnancy.  I'm ready for it. 

December was my roughest month in years.  I think the last month I've had like it was January of 2010, which I hatefully recall as the month of hospital stays for my son's inability to breathe normally.  In this December, we had stomach bugs, pink eye, sinus infections, colds, and the inability to sleep due to coughing.  Please note, I experienced all of the previous as did N, and my darling husband even got the cold.  (My husband grew up the fourth child out of six.  Most germs just don't even look at him as they pass him by.  They wilt under his discerning germ eye.  I grew up an only child and passing breezes that contain germs infect me.)  We had long work trips for my husband.  We had a Christmas vacation in which I spent as much time possible attempting to sleep off a cold, only to have that plan fail.  It was hideous.

But, February beckons like the light at the end of a particularly long and gruesome tunnel.  I try not to think about it too much because when I start to think about the IV and the spinal I start to get sick and want to die, but I keep reminding myself that in a year from now, it'll all be water under the bridge.  And if N is any indication, water I can't even remember that clearly.  Last time, the IV and catheter were momentary bitches, and I didn't feel the spinal and that was the end of the pain.  Why am I so worked up now?  Who knows?  I think my body just likes a certain level of anxiety.

So, why am I so excited about a new year considering my anxiety level?  As my husband often notes, I'm a creature of the seasons.  I am most excited about whatever holiday/season lays before me and I find that I fall into their beliefs and patterns very easily.  I'm hopeful and full of strength at the start of a new year, and still snuggly under the idea of winter. 

I hope you all had a nice new year's day and we can all wish 2011 a big ass kicking goodbye. 

Oh, btw, if you live near me, yes, I was the lady in Gymboree weeping today because they didn't have the light blue embroidered with unicorns corduroy dress in a newborn or 0-3 months size.  That was going to be my daughter's going home outfit, Gymboree! 

Three Hundred Posts And All I Get Is One Boy And One Girl

So, my husband and I pulled off a surprise intended for us!  As you might recall, we wrapped a surprise onesie (with the help of a harried Babies'R'Us service desk individual) letting us know the gender of our still gestating little one.

On Christmas night, when the majority of our family was over, and after my mom nearly cried during the morning opening of presents when we told her that we were waiting to open the onesie until the evening, we opened our package and inside was a...  bright pink little sister onesie!  I hope to get a video up eventually, but my face was all shock and happiness from what I was told and my in-laws video. 

I'll tell the truth, I was so happy initially when I saw the pink onesie, but now I feel a kind of worry and guilt.  N really really wanted a brother and I feel like I failed my little boy.  Afterwards, I told him that the baby in the belly was a girl and he said to me with an unhappy face, "But I wanted a boy."  I know that he'll eventually not care, but still...  My sole reason for wanting a boy was to make N happy.

I'm also worried that I could never love any other little child as much as I love N, but I'm assured by the internet that this is a common worry that does not often come true. 

One boy and one girl.  Looks like I will have it all. 

How A 30 Week Pregnant Woman Goes To Sleep

Man, oh, man.  These weeks.  I'm trying to keep a chin up, I am, but N's school is the school of germs and destruction.  I've been sicker in December than ever and it is hard.  I love Christmas and this is just the worst.  I thought I'd write you all with a quick blog post, however, of how I fall asleep nowadays.  Read it and weep.

1.  Decide it is finally time to sleep.  This can occur any time between eleven PM and four AM.  I know some of you are horrified, but my insomnia has hit me especially hard this pregnancy.

2.  Brush my teeth.  Check on N to see how his breathing is.  His asthma is kicking up in this dry weather.  Forget I've brushed my teeth and brush them again.  Use the bathroom.

3.  Get to bed where I need to rearrange my nest of pillows.  This takes about five minutes.

4.  Lay down.  Cough.  Nearly throw up.  This happens every single night.  I try not to clear my throat by coughing but then I am miserable.

5.  Spend another ten minutes in the bathroom trying to keep the food I did not eat down.

6.  Get back into bed and think about the nest of pillows and the heartburn. 

7.  Turn from side to side trying to find a position where my lower spine doesn't feel like it's falling apart.

8.  Think about the c-section.

9.  Vow to try a natural birth.

10.  Laugh at myself and then weep.

11.  Have to get up and use the bathroom again!

12.  Re-arrange pillows and finally find sleeping spot that is vaguely comfortable.

13.  Drowse.  P who is soundly sleeping turns over.  This is like a small earthquake in our bed.  Can't believe I never noticed pre-pregnancy that he basically throws himself around when he turns over.  It wakes me up.  Bathroom time again.

14.  Come back.  Settle down.  Drowse.

15.  Spend next hour or two trying to sleep/drowse.  Finally, six or seven in the morning, fall dead asleep.

16.  Seven thirty AM, N walks into the bedroom and screams, "WAKE UP!"

For serious, folks.  If they offer me pain or sleeping drugs after that c-section, I'm going to take them like there is no tomorrow.  And I'm going to sleep.  I just want them to bring me a baby to feed and change for a few days while I sleep and sleep and eat ice.

Hormones, A Blessing And A Curse

Photo by seyed mostafa zamani

I've been bitching so much about pregnancy and labor recently that I told P and Helen I was afraid that I'd dislike or hate this child at birth. Both reminded me that I felt the same way about my pregnancy with N.

This is true, by the way. I spent seven months terrified I would not love my baby enough the first time around. I was convinced that I'd love my cats more and my baby would know it. I was convinced that I would always love my husband best and mostest and brightest.

I had a blood clot, a hospital stay, twice daily needles, pills, and I hated pregnancy back then almost as much as I do now. (Difference is that back then, if I decided that the only thing I wanted to do all day long is work in a chair, and then come home and take a three hour bath, this was a completely valid lifestyle option for me.)

And I remember being angry at N for needing to be delivered and for the C-section and for everything. Evolution is clearly protecting me by trying to tell me that I'm lousy at having children and I should not do it. It's weird knowing that simply a hundred or two hundred years ago, I'd be part of the statistics of women who died before or during childbirth. I was one of the 33% of women who'd not make it. My body is trying to protect me by making me miserable during pregnancy.

Luckily, evolution and my body also work for my children, I suspect. The second I heard N cry after he was delivered, all I felt was a rush of love. When they showed him to me and allowed me to kiss him after the C-section, waves upon waves of love and adoration poured through me. There are hormones that basically make you feel joy when you see your baby for the first time and those suckers kicked in like nobody's business with N.

I remember sitting in the hospital room, holding him for the first time, and thinking to myself, "He is the most splendid thing that has ever existed and will ever exist and I can't believe it is possible to love this much." My love for my husband skyrocketed simply for being involved with making N exist. I'd probably mark those days as the happiest in my life, rivaled only the by the first time P told me he loved me, my honeymoon, and the first time N told me he loved me.

So, even though I still fear quite a bit that I will be angry about pregnancy for the next three months, I remind myself daily of that feeling I had after I heard N for the first time.  It's going to be okay, new baby, I'm going to forgive you everything the moment I hold you that first time.   But, I'll probably never let you forget it when you get older.  HA!