Everything happens for a reason...

Corny as it sounds, I really do believe everything happens for a reason. I've claimed to believe it for quite some time, but the birth of our son really hit it home for me.

Lucas James was born February 4th at 5:35 PM, weighing a healthy 7lbs 8 ounces and measuring 19.5" long. The fact that he's here at all, as safe and healthy as he is, I think is quite a miracle in and of itself. We spent so much of this pregnancy in fear for his safety and here he is, sleeping soundly just two feet from me. The sense of joy and relief has been overwhelming...

The pregnancy itself was a long tough road, from he relentless morning sickness (morning my ass... more like 24/7 of complete misery for 5 months), to the scare we had from the genetic testing and complications from the CVS test, followed of course by the pre-term labor and months of bed rest. So why would I have expected the birth itself to be any less complicated? Silly me!

I SWORE I would not be induced this time. That was mistake #1, thinking any part of this would be under my control. It was supposed to be a routine check up, but my blood pressure was apparently bad enough for my doctor to admit me for pre-eclampsia and induce that night. It was Tuesday, February 2nd, yes, 2 days before he was actually born!

We had spent months trying to keep him in and now here we were trying to kick him out... Unfortunately for me, he had apparently changed his mind and decided he'd like to stay right where he was.

Right from the start, there were problems. Just trying to put the IV in was an ordeal. Apparently the blood pressure issues were wreaking havoc with my veins and they kept "blowing out" when the nurse tried to set up the IV. After FOUR, yes FOUR attempts on my left arm, they gave up and tried the right, which was apparently more successful... but ouch. Then, because I wanted to donate the cord blood, they had to stick me AGAIN to draw an insane amount of blood for testing. Good times. I was sore and cranky, but trying to stay positive that Lucas would be here soon...

However, Wednesday morning rolled around and I was still just 1 cm dilated... that afternoon, still no change. WTH?... By early evening they decided to turn off the Pitocin and let me eat, which let me tell you, I was incredibly happy about because I was STARVING. Ice chips for 24 hours just wasn't cutting it... go figure. The plan was to start the process over again in a few hours after giving my body a break... I was just ready for the whole long ordeal to be over and to finally hold my baby boy.

After another long and restless night, I was finally making progress... by 9am Thursday morning I was 4 cm dilated, woohoo!... Time to break my water... FINALLY. I was both elated because I knew it meant we were getting closer, but also terrified because I knew the excruciating pain wasn't far behind. Better prep that epidural!... Wait, what?... Why is the nurse now telling me I may not get one? WTF? That's right. Apparently they had to check my blood (AGAIN) to make sure I could have one because I was admitted for pre-eclampsia. Apparently that meant it could be risky to give me one? I don't really know since no one really explained it to me.

OK, so at this point they've been pumping obscene amounts of Pitocin in me, broken my water, taken like 1/2 my blood and oh yeah, the contractions are beyond painful... I WANT MY EPIDURAL. I started ringing for the nurse to say, WTH, can I have one??? Finally she comes in with the good news, yes, the anesthesiologist is on his way. Yippee!!

Slowly the relief began to set in... Much more slowly it seemed than when I had it the first time. Relief with Zoe seemed pretty damn immediate, but whatever, I told myself it had been a couple of years and that's probably just my memory messing with me. It would kick in... ha!... Boy, it kicked in alright. Next thing I know, my UPPER body started feeling numb. I asked the anesthesiologist and he said not to worry, but to let him know if I started to feel any tingling or numbness in my hands or arms. Sure enough, 10 minutes later my hands were tingling. I mentioned it to the nurse who looked at me like I was nuts, but said she'd mention it to him. By the time he came back, I could barely lift my arms and I was having a hard time breathing... possibly cause my freaking chest was numb! I wanted relief but this was ridiculous. The nurse put me on oxygen to make it easier for me to, you know, BREATHE...

I was really freaking out at this point. The last thing I wanted was a full body epidural. I couldn't move, I couldn't push, I could glare at the anesthesiologist and believe me I did. Then came the solution... They had to turn it off. After all that, they had to turn the epidural off and hope it would start reversing out so that I could start pushing, because of course NOW I was fully dilated. Great timing kiddo.

The good news was, shortly after they stopped the drip, the effects DID start to wear off. It got easier to breathe and I was able to start pushing... Hurray!

The bad news, they wouldn't be able to reposition it, which meant the epidural drip would have to stay off. The anesthesiologist said maybe I'd get lucky and he'd be born before it completely wore off... What do you think? Does any part of this pregnancy or birth sound like I was going to get lucky? Of course not!... The epidural had completely worn off and STILL no baby. Unless you count me screaming and crying like a baby about the amount of pain I was in. Does that count?

Their solution to the pain management? I could have a small amount of a pain reliever injected into the epidural block... It was a different medicine that would apparently "dull" the pain or as they put it "take the edge off" but wouldn't get to the baby using that method. I was just happy for ANY relief at that point. It did help, but not much and it wore off REALLY fast. I knew the only way the pain would end would be to get that baby out and damn it, I was gonna push with everything I had to make it stop!!...

I do have to say that without the epidural, I could feel when I was pushing "the right way" and what they say IS true, my pushing WAS more effective without 1/2 my body being numb (we won't even go there with the whole body being numb part)... The whole labor process may have been much longer than it was with Zoe, but once I was able to push effectively, that part was actually MUCH faster...

So, back to the pushing... I pushed and pushed with all my might. I knew we were getting close by the fury of activity and the look of complete joy and amazement on Robb's face. He was almost here. One more push and suddenly the pain was gone, I was so happy!... But where was the cry? He wasn't crying!... I looked at Robb and he looked completely freaked out. Then my brain finally processed what the doctor had said, the cord had been wrapped around his neck... They took him away and it seemed like forever before we FINALLY heard his cry. Robb, thank goodness, stayed with him while they got him breathing and then came right back to me to reassure me that everything was OK... My baby was here and he was OK.

I realized at that point that everything really does happen for a reason. As pissed off as I was about the epidural, if I hadn't had that complication, they never would have turned it off and it would have taken me a lot longer to push him out. I don't even want to think about what could have happened if we didn't get him out when we did...

He really is our little miracle.

A Swift Kick in the Gut

I've certainly been feeling a lot of those lately, and in the same spot, which let me tell you is getting quite uncomfortable. I think the poor little guy has run out of room and is preparing his exit strategy. In fact, we had a bit of a scare last weekend when we really thought he was coming. Contractions were 7 minutes apart for over an hour and there we sat looking at "his room" which resembled a storage shed more than a nursery... Yikes!

No joke, it looked like this:


Nothing like a swift kick to jump start you, huh?... Don't get me wrong. I've been feeling pretty anxious for a while about the lack of progress on his room. It's just that with everything going on with me being, well, completely useless other than as a gestating machine, it's been hard for Robb to find the time to get it done. I completely understood, but that didn't keep me from freaking out none-the-less. Only now we were BOTH freaking out because the reality really set in that this baby CAN come anytime now, so no more dilly-dallying.

And so in a day, his room went from this:


to this!:

HUGE difference!... I couldn't believe how much he did in just one day! We still have stuff to do in there, but it's all relatively small decorating stuff to do, like finish the mural, put up the new blinds, put the new futon cover on (purple just wont do anymore), put the little monkey rug down, etc... Nothing that will prevent him from USING the room like not having a crib would have, ya know?... I'll be sure to post more pics of the nursury once it's completely done! :)

... And based on my last check up (yesterday) it sounds like it's a good thing we got moving!... We've already dilated to 1 CM and the doc thinks we're likely to blow in the next week or two (if that long!)... Wholly crap! We're still not due for another month!... But I'm incredibly grateful we've made it this far considering we didn't know if he'd make it al all...

Hard to believe we'll be meeting him soon. I can hardly wait!

Food Issues

I am having some serious food issues today... Being nearly 9 months pregnant now, I am ALL about the food these days. Thoughts of it probably occupy a good 75% of my waking hours and at least 40% of my non-waking hours... It's also become quite obvious that my son is all about the food too. He practically does barrel rolls every time I eat, which let me tell you, as he gets bigger is getting quite painful, so stop that, you hear?!

It also seems like, today especially, what I want to eat I don't have and what I do have, I don't want to eat.... It's getting quite frustrating, damn it. Especially living here in the midwest when I'm used to living in NY and having whatever I want delivered in 20 minutes or less just by picking up the phone. Ice cream sundae at 2am, not a problem... Waffles with scrambled eggs and bacon at 8pm, not a problem. Can't get it delivered (ha!) or don't want to wait, I could throw a rock and hit a store that probably had what I wanted.... Ugggh, I miss that!!

I just finished lunch and have to say it was quite unsatisfying... during my first trimester, when I was lucky to keep ANYTHING down, I practically lived on this microwaveable Thai Ginger soup. That was about the only thing I could eat... Then suddenly, one day the thought of it alone was enough to make me toss it... Apparently one got left in my office and I thought I'd give it a go since it's been months..... Not so much. Let's just say when you're craving scrambled eggs and cheese with bacon on a kaiser... microwavable Thai Ginger soup is not a good substitute.

We are going to get Pizza 51 for dinner tonight, which has me all giddy... I've been craving it a lot lately and it's the closest thing to NY style pizza I've been able to find out here (you hear that Da Bronx?!)... but damn it, I want bacon and I want it now.

Clearly We Have Failed as Parents

Like most toddlers I suspect, Zoe has been having a BLAST playing with the ornaments on our Christmas tree. Needless to say (although I'm obviously saying it) we've made sure to put the most 'child friendly' ornaments near the bottom for her to play with. Although her reach clearly exceeds what we were willing to believe and some of the "indestructible" ones aren't nearly as indestructible as one may think... So let's just say there have been some casualties and I see a lot of gluing in Robb's future.

Now, Robb being the Simpsons fan he is, he's acquired a couple of Homer Simpson ornaments over the years and we designated them as "Zoe friendly"... Cause let's face it, every parent looks forward to the moment when they yell out to their child, "Zoe, stop eating Homer!"

Now behold exhibit A, the Homer Simpson ornament in question...


Being the dutiful parents we like to think we are, we of course refer to the ornament as "Homer" since that is, in fact, who it is a representation of... and being the dutiful toddler learning to speak, Zoe refers to him as such. In fact, she's somewhat obsessed with Homer. Perhaps because of the bright colors, or the incredibly annoying sound file it plays when she hits the button, I don't know... but she adores it none-the-less...

So here is where I believe we have failed as parents (no, oddly enough the failure does not begin with us introducing our 2 year old to Homer Simpson)... Let me set the scene... It's Christmas day. Family is gathered around the child to adore her (of course) and fawn over her every move. My mother is engaging her in a game of "name that picture", which Zoe proudly does as she shouts out every answer in her Klingonesque way... and then it happens. My mother holds up a picture of Santa Claus and says "Zoe, who is that?" to which my daughter proudly exclaims... "Homer!"... The room of course errupts in laughter and all I can think is, "ooops".... Clearly we have failed ;)

Christmas 'Ham'

Our Christmas tradition for many years now has involved the obligatory Christmas ham with usual trimmings... yams, wild rice with dried cranberries, brussel sprouts in a hollandaise sauce, etc... Festive, yummy and relatively simple to prepare (which is one of the things I like best about it, besides the yumminess of course). However, thanks to our darling daughter, there is apparently a new Christmas 'ham' in town... Weighing in at about 28 lbs and 36" no less. Yes, our sweet little girl has proven to be quite the stage ham!

Last week was Zoe's very first Christmas pageant!... I was thrilled at the thought of silly school productions starting already!... After all, she is only two. Now, considering she (and her classmates) are only two, there wasn't a whole lot for them to do other than stand there and look cute, or in many cases, bewildered, scared, hysterical, you know, usual two year old stuff... except of course for our little ham. I think (lord help us) she was born to be on stage!... Her face lit up when she saw all the people there to watch 'her', cause lord knows they were all there to see 'her' and not their own kids, right?... suuuuuuure.

We've never seen anything like it. OK, well, being her first show, we really haven't seen anything like it... but still, it was a riot. There she was all bouncy and happy... gigglefest '09, that's for sure!... She danced and clapped and laughed.. She was, well... a ham... the cutest little ham I ever did see :)

But don't take my word for it.... See for yourself : (Note: Due to compression, it's hard to tell who is who. She's the one in the white top and red Santa hat)

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