The 2nd Labour Story Part III: In Which I Bond Very Quickly With A Doughnut. Yes, An Actual Doughnut.

Tags

birth, bonding, doughnuts, gestational diabetes, hospital, new baby, newborn, second baby, tim hortons

A lot of women talk about that magic moment when they see their baby for the first time. I have a theory about it.

You see, I didn’t have that magic fall-in-love feeling when I first saw Owl. I was just like, “hey, look, a baby.”

Some people claim that a heavily medicated birth, such as Owl’s, interferes with natural bonding hormones and prevent that awesome gush of love that some mothers feel on the birth of their child.

But I don’t think that’s it.

You see, I have friends who have felt that rush of love despite an incredibly traumatic/heavy intervention birth, and I know people who didn’t feel it despite a completely natural birth.

Here’s my theory:

It has nothing to do with the kind of birth.

It has to do with the kind of person you are.

I believe that if you are the sort of person who believes in or has experienced love-at-first-sight (in the romantic sense), you will be the kind of person who experiences love-at-first-sight on the birth of their child.

On the other hand, if you are a more practical, slow-to-warm-up kind of person, like me, you’re less likely to fall head over heels in love the moment a squalling newborn is dumped on you.

It’s a shame, because I would love to have that rush of mother love.

Still, when I watch videos about natural birth, people always talk about that rush of endorphins that comes with it, and it made me wonder if maybe that really would help. Maybe my theory is wrong.

So when I was told that I wouldn’t be getting an epidural, the part of my brain that was still ME and separate from my body was actually pleased because this way I might get to experience the big endorphin rush.

Yeah, I didn’t feel any kind of rush when I was giving birth.

I don’t know if I ever have endorphin rushes. Maybe I don’t have endorphins. Maybe there were endorphins but I didn’t notice them. Maybe if there weren’t I would have hurt even more. I don’t know. But I definitely felt no elation, no rush. Just some anxiety because I still hadn’t seen my baby.

Finally they brought her over to me and laid her on my chest.

The 2nd Labour Story Part II: In Which I Display An Embarrassing Lack of Stoicism

Tags

birth, contractions, labor, no epidural for you

We listened to Ben Folds on our drive to the hospital.

We love the piano on Songs For Silverman and I tried to sing along instead of moaning uselessly during contractions.

So we drove to the hospital with me groaning, “I’ve got YOU… to THANK… for THIS…” and hoping that PH didn’t think I was extrapolating the lyrics to suggest that I was blaming him for my current discomfort.

“The problem is,” I told PH, “that the contractions are so overwhelming that for a while I feel like everything in the universe is hurting me. So when the contraction starts it feels like the piano is hurting me and I’m like “DAMN YOU, BEN FOLDS,” and then when the contraction eases I feel like the piano is making it feel better and I’m like “THANK YOU, BEN FOLDS.”

I also noted that when my contractions came closer together they were less intense, but that if the space between them stretched to three or even four minutes then it meant that a real doozy was on the way.

I actually preferred the doozies, because at least I got three or four minutes of relief first, rather than barely time to catch my breath before another one hit. I think that was what made my labour seem so awful last time – the fact that sometimes contractions were coming one on top of another with no real relief.

We pulled into the emergency parking lot of the hospital, expecting that PH might have to drop me off and go find parking, but unusually the parking lot was almost empty. Apparently early morning on a Monday is not the most popular time for emergencies.

It took me three contractions to get into the hospital. I had to finish one before I could get out of the car and then another one came on almost immediately and I had to stop in the middle of the lot. This one squeezed so hard that for a moment I felt a straining sensation, like you get when you have to poop REALLY badly and you’re struggling to hold it in.

That was weird.

The 2nd Labour Story Part I: In Which Castor Oil Is Put To The Test

Tags

baby, birth, castor oil, contractions, labor, labour

Most women I speak to tried something or other to kick start their labour. It seems strange to try to trigger an event which is generally recognized as one of the most painful experiences a woman will endure in her lifetime. But I guess we do it for the same reason that PH always eats the least favourite part of his dinner first – to get it over with.

For me, the real spur was fear of being medically induced, which I had already experienced and was not anxious to repeat.

I knew that castor oil was my best hope, but I also felt rather pessimistic about it. I suspect that if left to its own devices, my body would carry the baby past the 42nd week mark.

Probably, castor oil would just cause me horrible diarrhea and I’d still have to be induced on Tuesday.

So I started with a small spoonful on Saturday. Most recipes that I saw involved 1-2 tablespoons.

I took a TEASPOON and waited for the diarrhea.

No diarrhea.

No baby, mind you, but no diarrhea.

So with increased boldness, I took two tablespoons on Sunday, mixed in with my yogurt, and waited.

…and waited.

….and waited.

The 2nd Labour Story, The Prequel: In Which I DO NOT WANT AN INDUCTION

Tags

birth, castor oil, feminism, induction, labor, pain control

I was terrified of being induced again.

I didn’t really enjoy the 30 + hours of non-productive painful contractions occurring every 2-3 minutes, or the one-on-top-of-the-other contractions on the pitocin drip. And while I did like the epidural and thought it likely that I would want one again, I didn’t want to be basically forced into it because really, anyone who is on a pitocin drip but refuses an epidural is either a martyr or a Viking.

Women have a love-hate history with pain control during childbirth. During my nesting phase in the last month of my pregnancy I read a bunch of non fiction books on child birth, and I learned some interesting things.

Because “Call the Maternity Admitting Office” Doesn’t Have The Same Cachet

Tags

39 weeks, birth, labour, midwife, ob, pregnancy

In case you’ve been wondering, I’m still thoroughly dissatisfied with my prenatal care situation.

I really, really wanted a midwife.

But I let fear stop me.

Because the wooshing noise was back and I was getting mysterious itchy rashes and I had internists talking to me about brain surgery.

But the itching has gone away and so has the wooshing noise, my optic nerves are back to normal, and it is way too late to find a midwife.

So I’m stuck with the OB who clearly wonders why she’s stuck with me, too. I can tell she is pretty uninterested in my case. She glanced over my history, asked me to make sure with the opthamologist that my intracranial pressure was low enough that it would be safe enough to push, and that was it.

My OB appointments don’t feel… like real prenatal appointments somehow.

Part of that is because the OB shares an office with several other specialists all of whom do completely different things. One is an oncologist, and she’s the only one whose specialty is actually listed on the door, so basically I attend my prenatals in a clinic which advertises ONCOLOGY.

The waiting room is very fancy. It doesn’t have that public-healthcare feel that other doctor offices have. But it’s also very generic so that all the specalists are equally accommodated. It’s the only doctor’s office I have ever been in that has NOTHING MEDICAL hanging on the walls. No informational posters, nothing.

Nor is there anything baby-related. My previous prenatal care clinic had corkboards filled with photos of babies they had delivered. Even my family doctor has black and white photos of Korean babies looking all artsy and charming.

Not this place.

This is what I see when I sit down to wait for my OB appointment:

Does that seem normal to you?

There isn’t even a little corner for children to play at. You know, the obligatory pile of worn out Golden Books and that ubiquitous wooden bead maze that you find in every single doctor’s office EXCEPT THIS ONE.

The only, the ONLY THING in the entire place that suggests “prenatal care” is the key to the bathroom, which has a teething ring hanging off of it.

Even the receptionist is generic. While I sit waiting for my prenatal, she is busy calling patient after patient for one of the other doctors, advising them to get fleet enemas before their appointment the next day. When I called to ask if I should be concerned about my liver hurting or craving cardboard she had no advice for me and told me that if I was concerned I should see my family doctor.

The OB is only actually there two days a week and those days seem to fluctuate wildly.

Clearly there would be no point in calling with questions about contractions, etc.

As for the OB herself, she’s… fine.

She’s young, friendly, and she seems relatively caring. But she doesn’t seem particularly INTERESTED.

She puts me on a scale, takes my blood pressure (it seems weird not to have a nurse doing these things before she comes in, but she doesn’t seem to have a nurse), measures my fundal height, and puts the doppler on me, and then asks if I have any questions.

I have lots of questions but I don’t actually think there’s any point in asking them.

She’s made it clear to me that there’s a good chance she won’t be the one actually delivering the baby. I get whatever OB is on call that day in the hospital. Could be her, could be someone else. But hey, they’ll have access to her notes, so there’s that.

So is there any point in asking questions like, “can we delay cutting of the cord? Will I be allowed to have skin to skin right away when the baby is born? Would it be possible to attempt a breast crawl, because I think that would be really cool to see”?

I was also expecting her to check my cervix at my 38 week appointment, because I’m pretty sure my doctor did when I was pregnant with Owl. But maybe I’m wrong. Anyway, she didn’t. I guess she will this week at my 39 week?

This is all so not what I want.

After Owl’s heavily-interventioned birth, I want to experience something different. I want to go into a natural labour. I want my baby to be delivered by the person who provided my care, so I could have a sort of continuity. I want support during labour, because last time I just kept getting sent home to suffer through contractions with no real help. That being said, I also want to labour at home for as long as possible, because being in the hospital sucks.

Well, I can only have some of these things, if any.

I can still hope for a natural labour, although the OB likes to induce at 41 weeks, so I’m on the clock.

I can try to labour at home for as long as possible, and just kind of help myself through it (I mean, yes, PH and possibly my mother might be there to hold my hand but my mother only ever had one labour and that was in a hospital on a pitocin drip and that is still more labour than PH has ever experienced). I’ve been reading on recognizing signs of true labour, when to go to the hospital etc. My big goal is to only have to go ONCE. No more back-and-forth half hour drives over speed bumps while painfully contracting. NO MORE PLEASE.

That’s about all I can do, really.

I’m trying hard to focus on the positives.

For example, I’ve been having some mentrual-like cramping pains lately. I didn’t get that feeling until after the prostaglandin gel last time, so maybe my body might actually be preparing for a real labour?

I’m also negative for group B strep this time, which means I don’t have to get put on IV for penicillin the moment my waters break.

I’m also less scared of labour this time round. I’ve survived it before, and dangit, I’ll survive it again.

And, of course, most important of all, the baby seems ok. My diabetes is mostly under control, with insulin. She’s now only measuring two weeks too big instead of three, so that’s an improvement. She moves a lot still. All important things.

Cross your fingers for me. I have two weeks to get this thing going on my own, without an induction.

The Labour Story, Part III: In Which A Son Is Born

Tags

birth, bonding, childbirth, epidural, episiotomy, labour, pregnancy, umbilical cord around neck

Sept 8th, 11:45 am

Omar Sharif coached me through a couple of experimental pushes. Reaching his hand indecently high up inside my gooch, he asked if I could feel his hand. I could. He asked me to push against it, holding my breath, which I did, and he praised me. He told me to try again, this time smiling as I did so (because apparently smiling helps pushing? Is this why babies smile when they’re gassy?). I did. Then he left me to it, with the nurses to help urge me on. I couldn’t really tell when my contractions were happening at first, because of the epidural. The monitor on my belly gave the nurses a vague idea, and soon I began to recognize a tightening in my abdomen which seemed to correspond with the monitors. The nurses began to rely on my judgment rather than the monitors, because they said that even with the epidural, I would still be more accurate than technology.

So with each contraction I’d hold my breath and push until my face turned red. I was sure I was bursting blood vessels in my eyeballs. Perfect Husband held my hand and watched with fascination, encouraging me through each push. I guess my efforts began to be visible on the other end, because he began saying “Oh, wow, love, you’re doing amazing, oh WOW…” a lot. He seemed deeply impressed with my achievements. I would push as long as I could, and when I couldn’t hold my breath any more I’d collapse onto the pillows, huffing, and wait for the next contraction. They seemed to be coming every couple of minutes so I just had enough time to try and catch my breath before the next one would hit.

Then there was an expression of shock from the nurses.

“Oh, the catheter is out!”

They had put in a urinary catheter when hooking up my epidural, and apparently I had pushed so hard that I had pushed the catheter right out. Now here’s the thing – apparently they keep those catheters in by inflating a little bulb on the inside, to kind of serve as a plug. I had pushed it out, inflated bulb and all. The nurses had never seen that happen before.

To my relief, there was no pain. I could feel everything that was going on down there, and I could feel the slight tightening of the contractions, but absolutely no pain. I was so relieved that I’m sure it added to my ability to push – the freedom from fear.

After about half an hour (I think… I wasn’t really watching the clock, just gasping for breath and then screwing my eyes shut and pushing like hell) Omar Sharif returned.

“She’s a great pusher,” said the nurse in greeting. Then they told him about the catheter, and he was duly impressed. I worried about damage to my urethra, but he said I’d just have to work extra hard at my kegels.

He took her place at my bottom and took over coaching me through the contractions. He demanded two pushes per contraction – when I finally let out my breath, he’d tell me to take another one and push again. Perfect Husband continued to watch and encourage me, and his amazement and praise were really what got me to milk just that extra drip of effort from each push.

The head began to be visible, and Perfect Husband’s encouragement went up several more notches.

“Would you like a mirror?” Omar Sharif asked me, “some women like to be able to see their progress.”

I don’t think I actually said “hell, no.” I think I politely declined. But since I was feeling no pain, I was able to pretend that everything was sunshine and roses Down There, and the last thing I wanted was anything to give me a frightening reality check. Perfect Husband’s intrigued look as he stared at my progress suggested to me that I would not see sunshine or roses in that mirror.

An hour in, the doctor reached behind him and pulled a wheely metal cart with medical supplies closer to him. Then he got out some scissors, and suture material and laid them out neatly.

“I’m going to give you some lidocaine,” he said, approaching me with a syringe.

“What, no! I said no episiotomy!” I said in alarm.

He looked at me steadily in the eyes, and said, “I think that the umbilical cord might be around the baby’s neck. I don’t want to cut you either, but I am going to give you one more push. If you can’t get the baby out, I’m going to have to make the cut.”

Now, I wish I could say that the whole “umbilical cord around his neck” thing frightened me into giving a monster push through a surge of mother love. However, that part barely registered. It was those scissors that gave me my motivation.

So when I felt the tightness of the baby’s head against my vulva, I found that hidden reserve of strength which I had not yet tapped into, and pushed for that extra couple of face-reddening, eye-bursting seconds.

Sept 8th, 12:57 pm

There was a popping feeling, and a slither, and suddenly the doctor dumped a blue, gape-mouthed baby onto my chest.

I put my arms around him feeling the slimy warmth, and stared into two massive eyes that looked almost green against the smurf-like blue skin. His face was open wide, but there wasn’t much sound coming out. I looked at the toothless void and at those eyes and tried to recognize this person as mine. It felt very surreal. His skin was peeling off of his arms, legs and body in rolls. He looked like he had been badly sunburned, except he was blue instead of red.

“Whoa,” said a nurse, “really post due.”

“Make him cry!” the doctor said, “stimulate him!”

So I rubbed his neck and jiggled him a little, “hey, hey…” I kept saying, “welcome to the world… hi… hi… hey…” and I tried to believe that this was MY baby. I had been expecting generic squish-nosed, Winston-Churchill newborn, but this baby had a very distinctive little face, which made him look like a real individual, and it was no one I had ever met before.

He was whimpering a bit but I guess that wasn’t good enough. He was whisked away from me and taken to the other side of the room and placed on the warming table. My husband went with him, and stood in the huddle of people surrounding the baby. I couldn’t see the baby for the people, but I could hear his cries beginning to strengthen, and PH would occasionally look up from the baby to send me a serious but reassuring nod across the room.

It wasn’t until later that I would understand how serious the situation had been. The monitors had been pointed away from me, which I had thought inconsiderate but now realize was probably purposeful, so as not to worry the labouring mother. So Perfect Husband, the nurses and doctor saw what I didn’t know – that his heart rate had been dropping frighteningly. Apparently there had been worried whispers among the nurses, and that was when the doctor reached for the scissors. My husband told me that until that point, he had been working hard to protect my perineum, keeping pressure on it during my pushes. But I guess the drop in heart rate scared him into reaching for the scissors.

So I avoided the episiotomy, but of course I tore anyway. While the nurses continued to stimulate Babby and weigh him (3.8 kg, 8 lb 6 oz), Dr. Sharif came over and removed my placenta, then explained to me that there was “a little tear” which he was going to sew up now. He proceeded to camp down there with his needle and thread for half a frigging hour, stitching me back together.

Meanwhile, the nurse brought Babby (looking much pinker) back to me and laid him in my arms, skin-to-skin against my belly and draped a towel over both of us to keep him warm. She placed his head near my nipple in case he wanted to latch by himself, and after a while she showed me how to position him for breastfeeding and how to get him to latch. We tried a couple of times, but he didn’t get a good latch and didn’t seem particularly interested in getting one, either. He clearly had no idea what a breast was or why I kept shoving one into his face when he had just has such a rough day. So after that I just held him, and I looked at his face and tried to recognize him while Perfect Husband sat by my side and stared at his son.

He told me that the umbilical cord HAD been around Babby’s neck, but he got overwhelmed describing it and shook his head, not wanting to continue thinking about it. Suddenly nervous, realizing fully for the first time that there actually HAD been a problem, I asked for his Apgar score and was given a reassuring 8. The 52 hour marathon was telling on me, and I was feeling exhausted and a little confused. The adrenalin of giving birth was wearing off, and my memories for this time period are hazy at best. Thankfully, we have some videos. I look tired – near asleep – but Perfect Husband looks exhausted, but radiant. You could tell, looking at him, that he had gotten the hormone dose that seemed to have missed me.

“Does he feel like yours?” I asked him as he bent over the two of us, and he nodded mistily.

“How are you feeling?” he asked gently. I think he could see that I wasn’t in quite the same state.

“He doesn’t feel like mine,” I confessed, touching the tiny stranger.

“That’s okay, he will.” Perfect Husband squeezed my hand.

“Yes. I know.”

And I did know. I was disappointed that I wasn’t feeling that big gush of mother love. I would have liked to experience that. But I trusted that it would come.

In the meantime, I just held the baby and we looked at each other and I tried to get to know him… without falling asleep.

Read Part IV: The Aftermath

The Labour Story, Part II: In Which Mohammed Ali and Omar Sharif Make An Appearance

Tags

birth, childbirth, induction, labour, mucous plug, oxytocin, pregnancy, prostaglandin gel, water breaking

Sept 7th, 5:00 pm

When we got home, PH and my mother put me to bed and I slept -fitfully- for several hours. I had vomited once in the car and once when we arrived home, but did not end up needing the bowl next to my bed. I woke up for a contraction shortly before 5:00 pm, and thought “Oh good, it’s almost 5, we can call the hospital and ask if they have a room ready for me yet.”

I felt a warm wetness between my legs, almost as if I was leaking urine…

Painfully, I rolled myself out of bed and looked at the drips trickling down my legs. I hobbled to the door and opened it. I could hear the shower running, and the TV on downstairs.

“Mum…? Perfect Husband?” I called, like a little girl who has woken up from a nightmare.

“What is it, Love?” My husband called up the stairs.

“I… think my water is breaking.”

There was a couple of thumps on the stairs and Perfect Husband appeared in the doorway within seconds. I had shuffled over to his bedside, and was mopping at my legs with kleenex.

“See? I don’t THINK I’ve wet myself…” I said, showing him the wet kleenex. As I spoke, there was a moist, slithering feeling between my legs, and then something went SPLAT on the ground.

We looked down and saw a reddish-brown gelatinous blob wobbling on our carpet.

“Huh,” said Perfect Husband. “That’s a mucus plug.”

“Yup,” I said.

There was a jingling of a dog collar and a black and white flash of fur whisked towards us.

“NO… LEAVE IT!” we hollered in unison, diving for the dog.

Just in the nick of time.

I cleaned up the gelatinous blob while my husband called Admitting to tell them my water had broken. Now, don’t get me wrong. Of course my husband would have cleaned it up, rather than leaving it to his water-dripping, contracting, pregnant wife. In fact, he was  going to. But there are some things that I feel a husband should NEVER have to do even in the most dire of circumstances, like watch me on the toilet or sit through a knitting group, and cleaning up my bloody, blobby, gooby mucus plug is one of those things.

So I posted on Facebook and the blog while PH and my mother initiated the phone trees, and then we drove to the hospital. AGAIN. I was in more pain than ever, although the pain seemed more concentrated in my abdomen and less in my back than it had been before.

Turns out the hospital still didn’t have a room for me. They put me back in one of the curtained-off beds, attached the monitor, and left me to continue my vomit-drink juice-vomit cycle. The morphine had worn off so contractions were coming close together, sometimes on top of each other, again. The nurse hooked up nitrous oxide for me, which did NOT make me laugh or even really seem to do anything at all. When a doctor finally got around to checking me (2 cm, maybe, nothing else to report), I got another morphine shot which helped space the contractions back out again.

Time passed.

Every 20 minutes PH would make me get up and walk around for 20 minutes before he would let me rest again, in an attempt to get things moving a little. He and my mother brought me juice. I would throw it up and then beg for more, which they would only let me have in small, controlled sips. I would doze a bit when on the bed, between contractions. They continued to hurt.The sounds of women screaming, followed by babies wailing, continued as background noise.

Sept 7th, 11:00 pm

We were beginning to resign ourselves to the fact that our son would not be born today.

It was nearly 11 pm before they finally had a room free for me, and more time after that before a nurse was available to initiate and monitor my oxytocin drip. The room was nice – big, private, with its own bathroom with a shower and stool for labouring in warm water, and a big chair that folded out so my mother and husband could take turns lying down on it.

They hooked up the oxytocin on a low dose, telling me that they would steadily increase it until it had the desired effect. By this time my second morphine shot had worn off, and my contractions were back to being one on top of the other. I believe it was after I had the four and a half minute long contraction, which had at least three peaks, that the tears started to come into my eyes and they offered me the epidural.

I’ve never been good at handling pain, so I always expected to need an epidural in the end. I accepted without hesitation.

Sept 8th, 1:00 am

The epidural guy came in, and introduced himself as Dr. Mohammed Ali. This is not a pseudonym. That was actually the man’s last name. I shook his hand gravely and didn’t mention the name at all, because I’m sure he gets ribbed a lot about it. But after he left there was a lot of joking about how he “knocked me out” and “stung me like a bee, then I floated like a butterfly.”

The epidural didn’t take long and the needle itself didn’t hurt much, but sitting up and leaning forward so that I was pressing into my painful abdomen was almost unbearable. It didn’t take long, though, and soon I was lying on my back in a warm puddle of bliss. The pain was gone. I could feel my legs and move them, although they were heavy and I didn’t have proper control of them. I felt warm and cozy and very comfortable. The only downside was a kind of itchy feeling, which I would scratch idly, but a slight itch was really nothing to complain about, now that I was out of pain.

I remained that way for almost 12 hours.

Finally able to doze for more than a few minutes at a time, I conked out quickly. But it was still not a prolonged and restful sleep because of course the nurse was there monitoring me. Every hour she would run ice down both my sides, asking me to tell her where the cold feeling stopped so she could make sure my epidural was still doing its job. They also kept waking me and getting me to shift positions, because the monitor kept losing the baby’s heart beat, and they weren’t sure whether the problem was the baby’s actual heart beat, or the monitor/my position.

At one point, the night was shattered by the most ear-piercing shrieks which went on and on. A woman was clearly being vivisected by Jack the Ripper in the next room. Polite conversation between my mother and the nurse ground to an awkward halt. I half sat up in bed. “Did that woman have an epidural?” I asked nervously. Would the birth still hurt that much, even with the pain medication?

When the screams finally died away, a nurse came in to spell-off my oxytocin nurse. She told us that that woman had arrived 10 cm dilated, no time to for her doctor to arrive, definitely no time for an epidural. The nurses ended up catching the baby on their own. That poor woman. If I could have found Dr. Mohammed Ali and hugged him, I think I would have.

Sept 8th, 4:00 am

The problems monitoring the heart rate continued. Sometimes it would drop down low. I couldn’t see the monitor, though my mother and husband could, and I think this was to prevent me worrying. Finally they decided to attach a sensor to his skull so they could monitor him more accurately. They went up my gooch with a little plastic stick and somehow pinned a little monitor onto the baby’s head. They told me I was at 4 cm.

By morning the right side of my epidural had worn off a little, the icy feeling lasting almost to my waist, and I could feel slight aching in that side, which made me nervous. They talked about topping me up if necessary.

Sept 8th, 9:00 am

The Wednesday OB showed up at around 8:30 or 9 in the morning. I had never met this one before, but he seemed nice. He looked like a bearded Omar Sharif in his late thirties or early forties. He pronounced me at 9 cm, and left again. I remained at 9 cm for a very long time. The nurses kept checking me and saying that there was a “rim” still and therefore it wasn’t time to push.

Sept 8th, 11:45 am

Dr. Omar Sharif returned, probably just before starting his lunch break (he was running back and forth between me and the OB clinic, you see). Though the nurses had told me only a little while before that the “rim” was still there, he pronounced me ready to push!

Read Part III: A Son is Born

I’m Back! And so is Babby!

Tags

birth, new baby, newborn, postdue

Hi everyone! I’ve missed you. This isn’t the labour story yet, because I feel that deserves a level of time and attention that I don’t have yet (visitor stream is dying down slowly, but the next one is expected in 10-15 minutes).

Just wanted to let you know that as PH has said, we have a healthy Babby with ten fingers, and ten toes, although two are freakishly webbed, a trait he inherited from me (that blew my mind – HE HAS MY CRAZY TOES). He looks like a cross between Muppet Babby Perfect Husband and a baby sea turtle. We aren’t sure if he’s an angel or devil spawn, because he kept us up two nights in a row with colicky toothless screaming but has been cooperatively eating and dozing for the last 36 hours. We’re not sure what awaits us tonight.

While you’re waiting for the gory details, some pictures! These pics are when he was only a few hours old and heavily over-baked in my oven (it was my first attempt at babby-cooking, okay?), so please excuse post-birth baby cone head, splotchiness, peeling skin etc. Also, PH is still deliberating on whether to let me use his son’s real name. I would happily tell you, since it’s a really generic name, but of course this is a two-parent decision. So a moniker may be in order.

New Babby

The new family

Perfect Husband approves of Babby

Quick (yet important) update with special guest blogger

Tags

babby, birth, delivery, special guest blogger

PH here (and may I say, while I have my two seconds in the driver’s seat, that Carol is completely insane when choosing monikers. But I digress). Carol was hoping to post this update herself, but apparently when the hospital told us that they had wifi, they lied through their teeth. So you get me instead.

The update you’ve all been waiting for – New Babby has finally entered the world as of yesterday afternoon, 20 hours after the water broke and 51 hours from the beginning of the first gel treatment. Health okay, even though there were some hairy moments during the labour and delivery. All body parts there and accounted for.

I will save most of the details for Carol to share with you, since she has the gift of blagging, a talent I sorely lack. We will be in the hospital until at least tomorrow and possibly Saturday, so expect no further updates until then.

Thanks to all for the well-wishes, and regular blogging will resume within the next 48-72 hours, knock wood.