1 And in the twelfth month of the year of our lord two thousand and six, there was a long journey to a distant land named Washington, District of Columbia.
2 Yea, it was a blessed journey, and husband and wife made merry with their kinfolk, and there was much celebration and eating of rich foods. Blessed was their time with their kinfolk.
3 And it came to pass that another journey was planned for the husband and wife, for the wife looked upon the contents of her wardrobe and decreed that nay, her clothes fit her no more.
4 And so it was that the husband took his wife to a center of great retail, to the large marketplace in the great city.
5 The husband said to his wife, "Woman, you have great endurance, and you shall be rewarded for your faithful fitness crusade and weight sacrifice. Verily, I say unto thee, thy reward shall be great."
6 And the wife rejoiced greatly, and saw the retail laid out before her eyes, and declared that it was good and fit for purchase.
7 And there was much handling of fine clothery, and lo, the woman discovered a pair of worthy pants the color of young doves, and she purchased them.
8 And behold, the pants were pleasing to the eye and very small in size, and the price was low, and the woman looked upon herself in the room of dressing, and she declared that it was good.
9 Many months passed, and the woman wore her dove-colored pants, and there was great joy, yea, for the woman continued to sacrifice her weight and ran with joy.
10 Now there was in the land many temples of great feasting, and the faithful woman was soon tempted and trialed, and she saw the great gluttony of those around her, and she rebuked those who offered such empty riches.
11 But there was in the woman a hunger, yea, a hunger so great that no man could stop its force, and the woman found herself feasting among the gluttons and taking great pleasure.
12 But with her gluttonous sin came a mighty wrath, for behold, it is said that no man shall eat more than his allotted share. The mighty wrath came upon the woman, and the sacrifice of weight ceaseth, and her body expanded and grew corpulent.
13 And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and behold, the woman did rend her garments, for the pants of dove color no longer fit, and a muffin top was evident to all in the land. And the woman was covered with a great sadness, and she covered herself in sackcloth from Target, and she ran no more.
14 And it came to pass that in the twelfth month in the year of our Lord two thousand and seven, the angel of obstetrics descended upon her. The woman was very afraid and feared the stirrups, but the angel said, "Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy."
15 "For you will bear a child in the ninth month; verily, I say unto you, a child will be born unto you, unto thee he shall be birthed, and you shall call him blessed."
16 "How can this be?" crieth the woman. "My husband and I have not known each other for many months, and my body is afflicted, yes, greatly afflicted by the great cellulite."
17 And the angel replied, "Woman, do not be afraid, and consume thy multivitamin once daily, and avoideth alcohol and sushi."
18 And the woman removed her paper gown, and she pondered all these things in her heart.
19 And it came to pass that the woman bore a son, whom she named Aidan, and there was much rejoicing and merriment. And she wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and lo, he crapped on the swaddling, and there was a great wailing.
20 But the woman was very happy, for her heart overfloweth with love, but she was troubled, too, for her ankles and hips overfloweth with water retention.
21 And the woman was filled with great fear and trembling, and she once again rent her garments and gnashed her teeth, for it appeared that even the fat pants would fit no more.
22 But it came to be that a great blessing was bestowed upon the woman as she tended to her son, for the affliction of her spare tire was miraculously removed, and she was healed, even lighter than before she became with child.
23 And the angel of fashion visited the woman, and behold, she was no longer afraid, but very calm from the Valium, and the angel spoke unto her:
24 "Woman, I say to thee, remove thy shapeless maternity wear! Banish thy fat garments, and put on your skinny gray pants."
25 And the woman was filled with doubt, but when she saw the angel's bling and smart clothing ensemble, lo, she was filled with belief, and she fell to her knees in praise of the Lord.
26 And so it came to pass, on the 19th day of the ninth month of the year of our Lord two thousand and eight, the woman wore her skinny dove-colored pants. The woman leapt and danced and ran 2 miles in thanksgiving.
27 And there was much merriment and celebration, and the finest beers were brought to the celebration, and lo, Irish car bombs and imported lagers were raised in celebration.
28 The celebration lasted late into the night; the flute and the lyre were filled with song, and all feasted until they had their fill and grew sleepy.
29 And the morning came, and the sun rose high, yea, the sun was hot and bright, and the woman found that her skinny gray pants still fit.
30 For I say unto thee, the power of the Lord is great, and miracles are still performed to this day.
31 Verily, I say unto thee, go out and tell this story to your peoples, and spread the Good News to all nations.
32 Amen.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
thanks, but no thanks
The following post was not written by me, but by the wonderful Janet Wallace, author of the pink-a-licious blog Slice of Pink. (You can already see the blog's appeal to me just by the mention of the word pink.) I'm normally not one to talk politics - I usually avoid it at all costs - but this post struck a chord in my heart, and I wanted to share it with you, regardless of whose name you'll mark on your ballot this fall.
Oh, and also regardless of your party affiliation, or what you think of McCain, Obama, Palin, or Biden - MAKE SURE YOU VOTE. There's still time to register to vote. Do it.
Without further ado, here is the article:
I want to tell you a story.
A friend of mine recently retired from a job she had for 19 years. It was a good job, a job she enjoyed. Her work ethic was strong and her peers respected her. On the day my friend retired she received an anonymous note in her locker.
That unsigned note told her something unbelievable. It told her that she had received less pay than her male counterparts. Less pay by a lot. My friend was being paid $3,727 a month. Her male counterparts were paid between $4,286 and $5,236 per month, even though they had less seniority. Even though she was doing the exact same job.
My friend filed a lawsuit and you know? On her pay discrimination claim, she won. The jury looked at the evidence and they agreed that my friend had been discriminated against based on her gender.
But a jury's decision is not final. Even though she had won on the facts--won on the very merits of her case--there was a long road ahead.
The company appealed the judgement and the lawsuit went all they way to the United States Supreme Court. And when it got there, the Supreme Court looked at the facts and they had a vote. The four liberal justices agreed that my friend deserved her equal pay. But the five conservative justices said "close, but no cigar." My friend got nothing from the company that discriminated against her for nearly two decades. Nothing.
You see, there is this tricky thing in the law called the statute of limitations. It sets forth the maximum number of days after an event occurs that a person can initiate a lawsuit.
My friend only had 180 to call out her company on their shameless pay discrimination. Not 180 days from the day she found out--but 180 days from the time the pay decision was made, way back when she had no idea that she was being discriminated against. The clock started ticking--and, in fact, ran out--years before she even knew that she was worth less to her company because she was a woman.
This is a true story. I've never met Lilly Ledbetter, the woman who was discriminated against by Goodyear Tire Company, but her story speaks to me and I hope it speaks to you, too.
Her story spoke to Congress and they attempted, this year, to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The act would not only protect women, but also people of color, older, and disabled workers from wage discrimination.
In 2008, John McCain said "thanks, but no thanks" to fair pay for women.
Sarah Palin agreed. If she had a vote in a Congress, she, too, would have said "thanks, but no thanks" to equal pay.
They both say that they support fair pay, but how can that be? I suspect they support it in theory, but not in fact, as the facts, in fact, indicate. Who needs facts, anyway, when you can just speak in cliché?
John McCain sets forth two reasons for opposing this bill. First, he says that women need more training and education. And, second, he says that it would open the door to too many lawsuits.
More training? More education? Remember we are talking about women doing equal work "which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which [is] performed under similar working conditions." (That there would be some actual text from the law.)
And too many lawsuits? In America, you can sue because your coffee is too hot or because your dry cleaner lost your pants. I can sue you if you take this story and post it on your blog (which I would not do, so post away). But, our conservative Supreme Court Justices, in a narrow vote, have made it so that you cannot sue if your employer secretly paid you less than your male counterparts for years. Except, well, for 180 days worth of pay--if you find out soon enough.
I must ask--whose interests do McCain and Palin have at heart? Not yours, not mine. It is blatantly clear, that the McPalin tickets supports corporations at the expense of hardworking women across America. It is blatantly clear because we have actually seen what happens when corporations are not held accountable for their discriminatory practices. Nothing. Lilly Ledbetter got nothing. Goodyear got away with 19 years of paying Lilly a discriminatory wage.
And McCain and Palin are okay with that.
To John McCain and Sarah Palin, I say, "thanks, but no thanks."
Oh, and also regardless of your party affiliation, or what you think of McCain, Obama, Palin, or Biden - MAKE SURE YOU VOTE. There's still time to register to vote. Do it.
Without further ado, here is the article:
I want to tell you a story.
A friend of mine recently retired from a job she had for 19 years. It was a good job, a job she enjoyed. Her work ethic was strong and her peers respected her. On the day my friend retired she received an anonymous note in her locker.
That unsigned note told her something unbelievable. It told her that she had received less pay than her male counterparts. Less pay by a lot. My friend was being paid $3,727 a month. Her male counterparts were paid between $4,286 and $5,236 per month, even though they had less seniority. Even though she was doing the exact same job.
My friend filed a lawsuit and you know? On her pay discrimination claim, she won. The jury looked at the evidence and they agreed that my friend had been discriminated against based on her gender.
But a jury's decision is not final. Even though she had won on the facts--won on the very merits of her case--there was a long road ahead.
The company appealed the judgement and the lawsuit went all they way to the United States Supreme Court. And when it got there, the Supreme Court looked at the facts and they had a vote. The four liberal justices agreed that my friend deserved her equal pay. But the five conservative justices said "close, but no cigar." My friend got nothing from the company that discriminated against her for nearly two decades. Nothing.
You see, there is this tricky thing in the law called the statute of limitations. It sets forth the maximum number of days after an event occurs that a person can initiate a lawsuit.
My friend only had 180 to call out her company on their shameless pay discrimination. Not 180 days from the day she found out--but 180 days from the time the pay decision was made, way back when she had no idea that she was being discriminated against. The clock started ticking--and, in fact, ran out--years before she even knew that she was worth less to her company because she was a woman.
This is a true story. I've never met Lilly Ledbetter, the woman who was discriminated against by Goodyear Tire Company, but her story speaks to me and I hope it speaks to you, too.
Her story spoke to Congress and they attempted, this year, to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The act would not only protect women, but also people of color, older, and disabled workers from wage discrimination.
In 2008, John McCain said "thanks, but no thanks" to fair pay for women.
Sarah Palin agreed. If she had a vote in a Congress, she, too, would have said "thanks, but no thanks" to equal pay.
They both say that they support fair pay, but how can that be? I suspect they support it in theory, but not in fact, as the facts, in fact, indicate. Who needs facts, anyway, when you can just speak in cliché?
John McCain sets forth two reasons for opposing this bill. First, he says that women need more training and education. And, second, he says that it would open the door to too many lawsuits.
More training? More education? Remember we are talking about women doing equal work "which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which [is] performed under similar working conditions." (That there would be some actual text from the law.)
"I've got plenty of training," Ledbetter said. "What I don't have is the right to fight for what I deserve."
And too many lawsuits? In America, you can sue because your coffee is too hot or because your dry cleaner lost your pants. I can sue you if you take this story and post it on your blog (which I would not do, so post away). But, our conservative Supreme Court Justices, in a narrow vote, have made it so that you cannot sue if your employer secretly paid you less than your male counterparts for years. Except, well, for 180 days worth of pay--if you find out soon enough.
I must ask--whose interests do McCain and Palin have at heart? Not yours, not mine. It is blatantly clear, that the McPalin tickets supports corporations at the expense of hardworking women across America. It is blatantly clear because we have actually seen what happens when corporations are not held accountable for their discriminatory practices. Nothing. Lilly Ledbetter got nothing. Goodyear got away with 19 years of paying Lilly a discriminatory wage.
And McCain and Palin are okay with that.
To John McCain and Sarah Palin, I say, "thanks, but no thanks."
Saturday, September 13, 2008
random updates, volume... uh, whatever
I watch a lot of TNT during the day while I'm with Aidan. I like all the reruns of ER and Law and Order. I keep seeing ads for their new legal drama, Raising the Bar, and been consistently disturbed by Mark-Paul Gosselaar and his nappy 'do. Thankfully, it appears the good folks at TNT have provided me the solution to my annoyance.
This week, Aidan learned to focus his eyes on mine when I'm feeding him. I'm thinking this means I'd better fix myself up a little more before his eyes drift from my eyes to my hair...
I will be tempted buy almost anything if you color it pink. Also, I have been wanting a Dyson vacuum cleaner, even though they are crazy expensive and way out of our budget. But at Target this week, I spotted a pink Dyson vacuum, and I was all like, I cannot be held responsible for my actions any more.
I have to give a shout-out to one of my favorite new bloggy finds, Sue. I can't remember the path I took to stumble onto her blog, but I think she's absolutely hilarious and the kind of person I'd want to be stuck on a desert island with. Well, I don't really want to be stranded on a desert island - sunburns suck, yo - but if I had to be, I'd take her with me. Except she probably doesn't want to be stranded either. Okay, I'll settle for "I'd love to go to Starbucks with her."
I started exercising this week. Nothing major, just a half-hour walk around my neighborhood to get the heart rate up. I listen to an odd mix of music when I walk: worship artists like Brooke Fraser alongside Justin Timberlake and 50 Cent. I know, it makes no sense. It's an even weirder sight when you see a woman power-walking down your street, raising her hands in praise, eyes closed and tripping over branches, and seeing her later coming in the opposite direction, trying to do a white woman's booty shake and randomly shouting "UH!"
Speaking of worship, if you go to my church (and you should, because it rocks), do not miss this Sunday. More importantly, if you call yourself my friend, you will be there just a little early, because the very beginning of the service is going to be SO FREAKIN' COOL. I promise. Don't miss it!
This week, Aidan learned to focus his eyes on mine when I'm feeding him. I'm thinking this means I'd better fix myself up a little more before his eyes drift from my eyes to my hair...
I will be tempted buy almost anything if you color it pink. Also, I have been wanting a Dyson vacuum cleaner, even though they are crazy expensive and way out of our budget. But at Target this week, I spotted a pink Dyson vacuum, and I was all like, I cannot be held responsible for my actions any more.
I have to give a shout-out to one of my favorite new bloggy finds, Sue. I can't remember the path I took to stumble onto her blog, but I think she's absolutely hilarious and the kind of person I'd want to be stuck on a desert island with. Well, I don't really want to be stranded on a desert island - sunburns suck, yo - but if I had to be, I'd take her with me. Except she probably doesn't want to be stranded either. Okay, I'll settle for "I'd love to go to Starbucks with her."
I started exercising this week. Nothing major, just a half-hour walk around my neighborhood to get the heart rate up. I listen to an odd mix of music when I walk: worship artists like Brooke Fraser alongside Justin Timberlake and 50 Cent. I know, it makes no sense. It's an even weirder sight when you see a woman power-walking down your street, raising her hands in praise, eyes closed and tripping over branches, and seeing her later coming in the opposite direction, trying to do a white woman's booty shake and randomly shouting "UH!"
Speaking of worship, if you go to my church (and you should, because it rocks), do not miss this Sunday. More importantly, if you call yourself my friend, you will be there just a little early, because the very beginning of the service is going to be SO FREAKIN' COOL. I promise. Don't miss it!
Monday, September 8, 2008
one month
Happy first month of life, my angel. I love you with all my heart.
Love,
Mama
(PS - All photos by Garrick Boyd Photography here in Orlando. When he gets his website up and running again, I will provide lots of link love for him so you, too, can have awesome photos of your little ones like I have.)
Love,
Mama
(PS - All photos by Garrick Boyd Photography here in Orlando. When he gets his website up and running again, I will provide lots of link love for him so you, too, can have awesome photos of your little ones like I have.)
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
a labor story
As promised, here is the story of the events leading up to Aidan's birth. I'll warn you now: labor stories are not for the squeamish, faint of heart, or anyone who does not like reading long stories. I might mention words like POOP, PAIN, and DOWN THERE, although maybe not all in the same reference. And this is a loooong story, but one with a wonderful ending. So if you don't like hearing about bodily anything, just know that Aidan and I made it through happy and healthy. For the rest of you - the curious, the pregnant ones, and the unsqueamish - here's the tale:
The entire week or so leading up to Aidan's birthday, I'd had a bad cold. The kind that makes you hack continuously and marvel at the color of what you cough up (see? Told you it might get gross.) It had reached that stage where I was actually getting better, but coughing more - my throat was irritated, which made me cough more, which made my throat MORE irritated, etc. Early Thursday morning around 5am, on the 7th, I had a huge coughing fit (after having been up all night coughing), threw up, and then had a contraction. I'd been having those painless Braxton-Hicks contractions for weeks, the strange tightening sensation in my abdomen, but this wasn't painless - this hurt. Not bad enough to make me say "ow", but bad enough that I thought, hey, a contraction! Maybe I'll go into labor soon! I had about three more like that over the course of a couple of hours, and I woke Jason up to tell him hey! I'm having contractions! They kind of hurt! I was giddy, he was excited. Whee! Contractions!
The rest of the day, they continued. Never regular, never horrible enough to do anything about it. I played video games all day, and I figured that it would be "real" labor if the contractions got bad enough that I couldn't concentrate on the video game any more.
I scored a record high score on that video game that day, but by 4pm, I was exhausted from the lack of sleep, very uncomfortable, and not feeling like going to worship practice that night. I didn't think it was labor... but it wasn't a day at the circus, either. I called Jason and told him I didn't feel up for rehearsal. I ended up agreeing to meet him at Moe's for some burritos, thinking Tex-Mex would make me feel better and get me through the night's rehearsal. I ate a burrito. I got more and more uncomfortable, and my back was really starting to bother me. It felt like I had to take a really, really big poo... but I couldn't.
I don't remember much of rehearsal that night, except that I kept running to the bathroom, thinking I had to poo, and walking around the sanctuary in large circles while our worship leader and my husband both smiled nervously at me.
By the time we got home that night around 9pm, we started timing the contractions. And for an hour, they were about 45 seconds long and four minutes apart. Four minutes apart! Maybe this really WAS labor! Whee! Ow! Whee!
10pm: contractions went away. What? Jason and I had just been debating whether to head to the hospital after only an hour of regular contractions when a good 12 minutes went by without one. And the one that ended the 12 minutes? Minor. I was bummed, still uncomfortable, and totally exhausted. I imagined weeks more of this false alarm business, and I wanted to cry. But I had a scheduled OB appointment at the hospital in the morning, and Jason and I decided to bring our packed bags, just in case. After all, the week before, I'd been 3 centimeters dilated - maybe the doctor would give us some encouraging news of progress in the morning to make up for the night's false alarm disappointment. We went to bed.
I didn't sleep a wink. Those contractions, still irregular, became worse and worse in intensity. I didn't even try to do anything else except wander around the house in a daze all night, randomly picking up the cat and putting her back down again, watching bad infomercials, rubbing my belly.
In the morning, I was cranky, even more exhausted, and determined that I was not coming back to the house that day. We arrived at the OB's office at 9am, and I begged him to please not send me home. I burst into tears. I moaned softly with each contraction. He said he'd check my progress, and he found me 100% effaced and 4 centimeters. "Well," he said, "let's help things along." And then he did something that made me squirm in pain, which I later found out was "stripping my membranes" (about as comfortable as it sounds, yes). He sent me next door to triage with an order to directly admit me to Labor and Delivery and wished us luck.
Unfortunately, we spent the next four hours in triage, where my contractions quickly went from "ow" to "please put a bullet in my head and end my misery". Turns out that Labor and Delivery was a bit, um, full, because apparently every woman wanted to give birth on such a lucky and prosperous date (8-8-08). I moaned, cried, leaned on Jason, tried to remember my Lamaze breathing but ended up just sort of clenching my body and grinding my teeth. Pretty sure they didn't teach that part in the childbirth class, but there I was. I'm normally sickeningly polite to medical staff, even under duress, but I was starting to break down, get cranky, and think some vastly unpleasant thoughts about my overly-chipper nurse who kept promising me, "soon, soon, I'm sure they'll admit you soon".
Finally, around 1:30pm, we got our room in Labor and Delivery. Hallelujah! I was wheeled up, still exhausted, still moaning intermittently, but I had visions of epidurals dancing in my head. As I was wheeled upstairs in my wheelchair, I thought that maybe if I asked sweetly enough, I might be able to get TWO epidurals. Ooh. Yes. That would be divine.
We arrive at our room, I have another whopping contraction, I get settled into bed, the super-cool L&D nurse begins her admission assessment, I have another whopping contraction, we commiserate over the futility of the new online charting system (since I am a fellow employee), and when another contraction hit, I asked, as nicely as I could muster, if I could please have my epidural now. Please. Oh dear Lord. PLEASE. And my super-cool L&D nurse checks me - I'm only about 5 centimeters, so no, not too late for an epidural. Yay! And she checks all my orders... and there's a groan, and she tells me that before I can have my epidural, she has to first send off bloodwork to make sure I won't bleed into my spine when I actually have the epidural, bloodwork that was supposed to have been done by my overly-chipper triage nurse but wasn't. I started to cry, another horrible contraction hit, and I threw up into the trash can. She got the blood quickly and sent it with a "stat" request, and about 20 minutes later, I got the all clear for an epidural.
The two CRNAs who came to do my epidural were nice women, both about my age, chatty and relaxed. I, unfortunately, could not relax - all the pain had made my body very, very tense, which I found out makes putting in the needle for an epidural rather difficult (and rather uncomfortable for me, though NOTHING like a contraction). Finally, I hear one of them say, "I think I got it", I felt a zing down my right leg, and it was in. I asked them how long it would take the medicine to kick in. They said about 15 minutes. Five minutes later, one of them asked me if I was feeling a contraction. Well, no, actually, I wasn't. Had they stopped? They laughed as they looked at me and then to the monitor, saying, "Well, you're having one off the charts right now." You mean I can't feel the pain anymore? PRAISE JESUS.
I'm not of that persuasion, and I do love my husband, but I swear, I was totally ready to make out with either of those CRNAs, right then and there. When the full fifteen minutes had passed, not only was I not feeling any pain, but I felt better than I had in about 10 months. I turned into some fun hybrid of the Seven Dwarfs: I was sleepy, happy, dopey, everything but grumpy. Oh, blessed epidural, gift from heaven.
Half an hour after I got my epidural, the baby's heart rate dropped. It dropped lower than mine, into the 60's, but when it first happened, I was so relaxed and happy, I didn't notice until my super-cool nurse yelled out into the hallway for help, and suddenly the room was filled with people. I was told to turn on my left side - didn't help. I was told to turn on my right side - nothing. And then as the team of doctors and residents came in, I was told to get on all fours. I kept hearing words like "fetal distress" and "this isn't good" as my bare ass was exposed to a dozen strangers (and the window, I might add). I got a shot of something in my hip that made my heart race, but the baby's heart rate came up again. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, left the room, and I got to cover up my butt again and lie down. I was put on an oxygen mask, and I fell asleep.
A few hours later, same situation. Same turning from side to side, with the eventual butt-in-the-air being the final position. No shot this time, but a concerned-looking doctor warned me that if it happened a third time, we might need to do a C-section. I must say that if you're about to tell your patient that they might need to have major abdominal surgery emergently, it's probably a good idea to have a significant amount of narcotics in said patient's system, because when I was told all of this, I think I just sort of shrugged my shoulders and said, "Okay, whatever you think is best."
Around 8pm, I was 8 centimeters dilated - I was on my way! And maybe just a little freaked out about the idea of pushing this baby out, you know, DOWN THERE, but ready to meet my little man. And just as I thought I was ready to do this, well, there went his heart rate again. I moved around. I put my butt in the air. No change. A large group of doctors, residents, and nurses were once again surrounding me, and even though I wasn't fully dilated, they had me do a "test" push to see if I could get the baby out now. I found out just how hard it is to push when you can't feel yourself pushing - was I pushing? I tried. I grunted - did that count? Maybe. At any rate, my doctor said, "Nope, didn't work. Let's go to the OR." I was going to have an emergency C-section.
I was actually a bit relieved - in just a few minutes, I was going to meet my baby boy, and I wouldn't have to worry about tearing or episiotomies or exhausting myself from hours of pushing. Plus, I didn't like how worried everyone was about his dropping heart rate - I think the narcotics dulled me a bit, because I knew I should be worried, too, but I was strangely unaffected until I got into the OR. Maybe it was something about the bright lights, or the chill of the room, or whatever, but it suddenly hit me that I was about to have major surgery, that Something was Wrong, and that everything was happening too fast, and I started to shake. And cry. And shake a whole lot more, which I found out later was due to the anesthesia, but man alive, I thought I was going to shake right off that table. It was also the first time all day that I didn't have Jason right by my side - he needed to gown up first - and that made me cry even more. The doctor kept poking me with needles to see if the anesthesia was working. I kept shaking. Everyone was rushing around me. Jason finally showed up, wiped my tears away, and held my hand.
Next thing I knew, I heard one of the doctors say, "Okay, lots of pressure, lots of pulling", and sure enough, there was pressure and pulling. It didn't hurt at all, but it was a weird, strange feeling, this tug-of-war between medical professionals and your internal organs. I couldn't see any of it, even though the nurse in me was highly curious and wanted to see what my open belly looked like (I know, I'm strange). More pulling and pressure... and then I heard him cry, a healthy, full-lunged wail. He was okay! It took me a few minutes to realize that this was MY baby crying, not someone else's, but soon I was crying, too, and Jason was calling out from over the curtain to me, "He's beautiful!"
And so it was that Aidan Michael Vermeulen came into this world, on August 8, 2008 at 9:35pm, slightly bruised from all the time he spent up against my pelvic bones, but healthy and beautiful and ours.
It was love at first sight.
The entire week or so leading up to Aidan's birthday, I'd had a bad cold. The kind that makes you hack continuously and marvel at the color of what you cough up (see? Told you it might get gross.) It had reached that stage where I was actually getting better, but coughing more - my throat was irritated, which made me cough more, which made my throat MORE irritated, etc. Early Thursday morning around 5am, on the 7th, I had a huge coughing fit (after having been up all night coughing), threw up, and then had a contraction. I'd been having those painless Braxton-Hicks contractions for weeks, the strange tightening sensation in my abdomen, but this wasn't painless - this hurt. Not bad enough to make me say "ow", but bad enough that I thought, hey, a contraction! Maybe I'll go into labor soon! I had about three more like that over the course of a couple of hours, and I woke Jason up to tell him hey! I'm having contractions! They kind of hurt! I was giddy, he was excited. Whee! Contractions!
The rest of the day, they continued. Never regular, never horrible enough to do anything about it. I played video games all day, and I figured that it would be "real" labor if the contractions got bad enough that I couldn't concentrate on the video game any more.
I scored a record high score on that video game that day, but by 4pm, I was exhausted from the lack of sleep, very uncomfortable, and not feeling like going to worship practice that night. I didn't think it was labor... but it wasn't a day at the circus, either. I called Jason and told him I didn't feel up for rehearsal. I ended up agreeing to meet him at Moe's for some burritos, thinking Tex-Mex would make me feel better and get me through the night's rehearsal. I ate a burrito. I got more and more uncomfortable, and my back was really starting to bother me. It felt like I had to take a really, really big poo... but I couldn't.
I don't remember much of rehearsal that night, except that I kept running to the bathroom, thinking I had to poo, and walking around the sanctuary in large circles while our worship leader and my husband both smiled nervously at me.
By the time we got home that night around 9pm, we started timing the contractions. And for an hour, they were about 45 seconds long and four minutes apart. Four minutes apart! Maybe this really WAS labor! Whee! Ow! Whee!
10pm: contractions went away. What? Jason and I had just been debating whether to head to the hospital after only an hour of regular contractions when a good 12 minutes went by without one. And the one that ended the 12 minutes? Minor. I was bummed, still uncomfortable, and totally exhausted. I imagined weeks more of this false alarm business, and I wanted to cry. But I had a scheduled OB appointment at the hospital in the morning, and Jason and I decided to bring our packed bags, just in case. After all, the week before, I'd been 3 centimeters dilated - maybe the doctor would give us some encouraging news of progress in the morning to make up for the night's false alarm disappointment. We went to bed.
I didn't sleep a wink. Those contractions, still irregular, became worse and worse in intensity. I didn't even try to do anything else except wander around the house in a daze all night, randomly picking up the cat and putting her back down again, watching bad infomercials, rubbing my belly.
In the morning, I was cranky, even more exhausted, and determined that I was not coming back to the house that day. We arrived at the OB's office at 9am, and I begged him to please not send me home. I burst into tears. I moaned softly with each contraction. He said he'd check my progress, and he found me 100% effaced and 4 centimeters. "Well," he said, "let's help things along." And then he did something that made me squirm in pain, which I later found out was "stripping my membranes" (about as comfortable as it sounds, yes). He sent me next door to triage with an order to directly admit me to Labor and Delivery and wished us luck.
Unfortunately, we spent the next four hours in triage, where my contractions quickly went from "ow" to "please put a bullet in my head and end my misery". Turns out that Labor and Delivery was a bit, um, full, because apparently every woman wanted to give birth on such a lucky and prosperous date (8-8-08). I moaned, cried, leaned on Jason, tried to remember my Lamaze breathing but ended up just sort of clenching my body and grinding my teeth. Pretty sure they didn't teach that part in the childbirth class, but there I was. I'm normally sickeningly polite to medical staff, even under duress, but I was starting to break down, get cranky, and think some vastly unpleasant thoughts about my overly-chipper nurse who kept promising me, "soon, soon, I'm sure they'll admit you soon".
Finally, around 1:30pm, we got our room in Labor and Delivery. Hallelujah! I was wheeled up, still exhausted, still moaning intermittently, but I had visions of epidurals dancing in my head. As I was wheeled upstairs in my wheelchair, I thought that maybe if I asked sweetly enough, I might be able to get TWO epidurals. Ooh. Yes. That would be divine.
We arrive at our room, I have another whopping contraction, I get settled into bed, the super-cool L&D nurse begins her admission assessment, I have another whopping contraction, we commiserate over the futility of the new online charting system (since I am a fellow employee), and when another contraction hit, I asked, as nicely as I could muster, if I could please have my epidural now. Please. Oh dear Lord. PLEASE. And my super-cool L&D nurse checks me - I'm only about 5 centimeters, so no, not too late for an epidural. Yay! And she checks all my orders... and there's a groan, and she tells me that before I can have my epidural, she has to first send off bloodwork to make sure I won't bleed into my spine when I actually have the epidural, bloodwork that was supposed to have been done by my overly-chipper triage nurse but wasn't. I started to cry, another horrible contraction hit, and I threw up into the trash can. She got the blood quickly and sent it with a "stat" request, and about 20 minutes later, I got the all clear for an epidural.
The two CRNAs who came to do my epidural were nice women, both about my age, chatty and relaxed. I, unfortunately, could not relax - all the pain had made my body very, very tense, which I found out makes putting in the needle for an epidural rather difficult (and rather uncomfortable for me, though NOTHING like a contraction). Finally, I hear one of them say, "I think I got it", I felt a zing down my right leg, and it was in. I asked them how long it would take the medicine to kick in. They said about 15 minutes. Five minutes later, one of them asked me if I was feeling a contraction. Well, no, actually, I wasn't. Had they stopped? They laughed as they looked at me and then to the monitor, saying, "Well, you're having one off the charts right now." You mean I can't feel the pain anymore? PRAISE JESUS.
I'm not of that persuasion, and I do love my husband, but I swear, I was totally ready to make out with either of those CRNAs, right then and there. When the full fifteen minutes had passed, not only was I not feeling any pain, but I felt better than I had in about 10 months. I turned into some fun hybrid of the Seven Dwarfs: I was sleepy, happy, dopey, everything but grumpy. Oh, blessed epidural, gift from heaven.
Half an hour after I got my epidural, the baby's heart rate dropped. It dropped lower than mine, into the 60's, but when it first happened, I was so relaxed and happy, I didn't notice until my super-cool nurse yelled out into the hallway for help, and suddenly the room was filled with people. I was told to turn on my left side - didn't help. I was told to turn on my right side - nothing. And then as the team of doctors and residents came in, I was told to get on all fours. I kept hearing words like "fetal distress" and "this isn't good" as my bare ass was exposed to a dozen strangers (and the window, I might add). I got a shot of something in my hip that made my heart race, but the baby's heart rate came up again. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, left the room, and I got to cover up my butt again and lie down. I was put on an oxygen mask, and I fell asleep.
A few hours later, same situation. Same turning from side to side, with the eventual butt-in-the-air being the final position. No shot this time, but a concerned-looking doctor warned me that if it happened a third time, we might need to do a C-section. I must say that if you're about to tell your patient that they might need to have major abdominal surgery emergently, it's probably a good idea to have a significant amount of narcotics in said patient's system, because when I was told all of this, I think I just sort of shrugged my shoulders and said, "Okay, whatever you think is best."
Around 8pm, I was 8 centimeters dilated - I was on my way! And maybe just a little freaked out about the idea of pushing this baby out, you know, DOWN THERE, but ready to meet my little man. And just as I thought I was ready to do this, well, there went his heart rate again. I moved around. I put my butt in the air. No change. A large group of doctors, residents, and nurses were once again surrounding me, and even though I wasn't fully dilated, they had me do a "test" push to see if I could get the baby out now. I found out just how hard it is to push when you can't feel yourself pushing - was I pushing? I tried. I grunted - did that count? Maybe. At any rate, my doctor said, "Nope, didn't work. Let's go to the OR." I was going to have an emergency C-section.
I was actually a bit relieved - in just a few minutes, I was going to meet my baby boy, and I wouldn't have to worry about tearing or episiotomies or exhausting myself from hours of pushing. Plus, I didn't like how worried everyone was about his dropping heart rate - I think the narcotics dulled me a bit, because I knew I should be worried, too, but I was strangely unaffected until I got into the OR. Maybe it was something about the bright lights, or the chill of the room, or whatever, but it suddenly hit me that I was about to have major surgery, that Something was Wrong, and that everything was happening too fast, and I started to shake. And cry. And shake a whole lot more, which I found out later was due to the anesthesia, but man alive, I thought I was going to shake right off that table. It was also the first time all day that I didn't have Jason right by my side - he needed to gown up first - and that made me cry even more. The doctor kept poking me with needles to see if the anesthesia was working. I kept shaking. Everyone was rushing around me. Jason finally showed up, wiped my tears away, and held my hand.
Next thing I knew, I heard one of the doctors say, "Okay, lots of pressure, lots of pulling", and sure enough, there was pressure and pulling. It didn't hurt at all, but it was a weird, strange feeling, this tug-of-war between medical professionals and your internal organs. I couldn't see any of it, even though the nurse in me was highly curious and wanted to see what my open belly looked like (I know, I'm strange). More pulling and pressure... and then I heard him cry, a healthy, full-lunged wail. He was okay! It took me a few minutes to realize that this was MY baby crying, not someone else's, but soon I was crying, too, and Jason was calling out from over the curtain to me, "He's beautiful!"
And so it was that Aidan Michael Vermeulen came into this world, on August 8, 2008 at 9:35pm, slightly bruised from all the time he spent up against my pelvic bones, but healthy and beautiful and ours.
It was love at first sight.
Monday, September 1, 2008
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