I spend a lot of time these days sitting on the couch or the glider in the nursery or on one of the beds just staring into space or out the window or down at the sweet little bundle in my arms, be she squawling at the top of her lungs during the witching hour or if I'm lucky as she has her blue peepers open but her mouth shut as she checks out the new world. Bottom line, she requires a lot of holding, that's where she's happiest - in my arms. Sometimes that's a little frustrating when I really need both hands free to do something like make dinner or comfort my crying son who has just crashed his little ride-on motorcycle on the kitchen floor and really needs momma to hold him and make it better. Most of the time, however, I do really try to just enjoy it...her warmth, the fact that she's this tiny little package I can hold in my arms so effortlessly, enjoy kissing her soft, delicious head and cheeks, watching the corners of her mouth twitch and then pull up into a smile as she thinks of whatever a 5 week old human thinks of - waterfalls of milk? boobs? being back in the womb? After all, it's highly unlikely I'll have another baby again. It's quite absurd but I'm actually in a way mourning the loss of each moment while at the same time cherishing it. It was different with Tyler, I was a new first time mom, I was busy worrying if he was ok, if he was still breathing, if he was going to develop some medical condition, if I was doing everything right or if he loved me. I remember saying "I can't wait until he smiles at me" or "...can sit on his own" or "...can talk" and Tony would say "you need to enjoy him today." So I'm trying to just embrace every bit of who Teagan is TODAY. I know she's ok, I know I'm doing things right and I know she loves me. I just stare at her, admire her tiny fingers and toes. She's my little living doll. I cradle her in my arms but someday she will be too big for that and won't have the time for me until she's an adult and then maybe I can hold her in my arms again, her head against my bosom. Hehehe.
My bosom, that brings up a few interesting tidbits. First that Tyler is still very interested in my mammarys and likes to come watch Teagan "having some milk" or "having a boob." In the beginning he asked if he could have some milk too but I wasn't about to go there, that would be way too weird. Now as I'm putting my jugs away he'll ask to see them again so I oblige him by letting down the flap on my nursing bra to show him one last time and that feels weird. What's worse is when he sees my nipple and says "ding dong!" and tries to reach out with his finger to, I dunno, ring my nipple?? Just once Tony said "ding dong" as I was finishing breastfeeding Teagan and it stuck with Tyler. Lovely. So I say "no ding dong!" and he just giggles.
The other tater tidbit is that Teagan and I visited the lactation center at Kaiser this week since we were having a few issues. I love Kaiser and this is a free service they provide so hell yes I'm going to take advantage. Teagan hasn't been quite the expert latcher that Tyler was so she takes in a lot of air and doesn't get the proper milk stimulation action going so I've been less of a producer this go 'round. I fed Tyler and pumped each day, usually storing at least 8 oz of milk in the freezer at a pop. Now I'm lucky if I get 4 oz to store in exchange for some wine or beer or margaritas! I've been feeling totally inadequate, almost like a man who can't get it up! Yeah, I know, kinda extreme but there it is. I don't look down on my fellow mommies who couldn't or wouldn't, for whatever reason, breastfeed their babies for a year like I did with Tyler, but it's just very important to me to be able to feed my babies. Well, we had a great appointment, I was given some great tips to help Teagan latch better and position to feed her so I was relaxed and not getting back aches and neck cramps like I was. I also found out that I AM making enough milk for her, even if I can't stock pile the freezer, and that she is growing perfectly. My little bird now weighs 8lbs 4oz! Yay! That horrible affliction that plagued me the entire year I breastfed Tyler and started up with Teagan is even dissipating now. I had such a negative reaction to the hormonal rush that comes during that initial minute of the baby latching on and my milk letting down that I would feel a tidal wave of depression bordering on suicidal thoughts, nausea and the desire to just go get fucked up drunk and stoned or whatever and just party, but in a numbing-up kinda way, not in a happy way. Then the feeling would pass, as I clung to any shred of positive feelings I could muster up, and finally I could relax and just admire the baby at my breast.
So things are going well there.
Back to my blank stares and quiet time holding "lil geel" (how Tyler has taken to pronouncing 'little girl' even though he's perfectly capable of saying it correctly) I've been pondering my life, what else?! I was recently described as "normal" by someone who knows me somewhat well, or knew me somewhat well and who said they never thought they would call call me that. Well think again and don't call me that! I was mortified! Who on earth is ever mortified by being called "normal"?? ME! What's normal and why is it bad?? I dunno, normal seems boring, predictable, safe, conventional, forgettable, etc. That's the last thing I want to be. It's like in the movie American Beauty where Mena Suvari's character talks about never wanting to be ordinary (I think that was the term she used) and that she felt that was the worst thing in the world ever to be. That's pretty much how I feel and yet I guess I'm living a pretty ordinary life these days so I'm feeling the need to stir things up, have some unordinary adventures and thoughts! Hahaha! There's not a whole lot you can do when you have a little baby so I've excused myself. This whole stupid "normal" thing was the bulk of my therapy session today and at the end of it my therapist said to me "Tiffany, you are NOT normal" and then she totally busted up laughing saying that was the first time she'd ever said that to a patient and have it be a good thing! Good times.
Ever since having Teagan in the front seat of our BMW X3 (which is NOT a normal thing) I've had this feeling of everything looking different. It's almost as though all the furniture in my house was rearranged or even that I've just moved into a new home where everything is new. When we brought Tyler home from the hospital it happened as well but not nearly to this extent. After you give birth and have this new life that you created with your partner in your arms that depends on you for everything and who you want to protect with your life, the world somehow just looks different. Things that were once important seem very trivial and you worry less about a lot while simultaneously worrying about a lot more! Like "screw the homeless issue in SF" to "oh my god I hope my son never becomes homeless!" So after having Teagan, in the car, and especially after my first therapy session afterwards where I bawled and released and processed the whole thing, I just feel like a I'm a new person. It's not about a new chapter in my life, it's about a whole new book. As I started going through the boxes of my pre-pregnancy clothes, packing up all the maternity to sell/donate because now that I'm no longer pregnant I refuse to wear maternity even if I don't fit into my regular clothes yet, I quickly realized I wanted nothing to do with very little that I had. I went through it all and got rid of 75% of it! I actually spent the better part of yesterday walking around in my "in between" jeans and bra but no top because I have so little left to wear and a big pile of laundry to do. It's not about going on some shopping spree because I'm not so interested in that (don't have the money anyway) but just that I could not keep or wear most of what I used to. It's not about my body either, I'm probably 10-15 lbs away from my pre-pregnancy weight but I'm not concerned about losing the rest because I will. I did after Tyler and I will again. Nope, it's just about all those clothes being a different Tiffany, a different time, a different outlook, different priorities and desires. I'd stare at a pair of pants and memories would flash in my mind and they weren't bad memories but they were old Tiffany memories. It feels so good to have it all gone, letting it all live on in my memories and in photos but not in my closet. My head feels less claustrophobic. Next I will go through my shoes, although I might not be ready to get rid of as much in that department. I actually did try to go out and buy myself some new things but two things happened: #1-it was not a great idea to be trying on clothes just one month after delivering a baby. All forgiveness aside, my body needs some work and it was not uplifting to stand in front of a changing room mirror in my granny-panties (bikini actually) and leaked milk stained nursing bra trying to fit into sizes semi close to my old size. #2-Nothing spoke to me. I forced myself not to grab things that would feel safe and tried to look at things I felt like I wouldn't have looked at before, and even tried some on, but none of it felt right. This all threw me into a temporary funk, feeling all dumpy body and lost in the world without an image. Who was I? Who did I want to be? Oh fuck all that in-depth psycho bullshit, I'll just keep it simple for now and see how it all evolves. Hopefully I won't be regretful of suddenly truly having nothing to wear!
Friday, July 29, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Rights of Passage
What was it I was saying before about my life being boring/simple/unexciting? Be careful what you wish for...
It was an otherwise ordinary, normal day Thursday morning. Tony's mom was getting ready for her flight home after hanging out with the fam for a week and enjoying the grandkiddies, Tony was bopping around with his bluetooth on which makes me assume he's on a work call but it could just be for decoration ;) I got my "long" shower that morning where I got to wash my hair (yeah, I pretty much only wash it once a week, maybe twice, anymore - no time to dry it properly and if I don't it looks like ASSSS!) so I was running around a la towelhead in the kitchen trying to make my coffee. Tyler was running around outside in the backyard since Tony was actually downstairs in the playroom/office which is just in the door to the garage from the backyard. Hmmm, let me clarify for those who have never been to Casa Baer. Two story house atop the garage, so three levels in a way. Garage spans entire length of house and out the back door is the yard and then stairs leading up to the porch and french doors off the kitchen. The yard is technically small (according to the suburbanites) but decent sized by SF standards, esp. since having a yard at all in SF is a big deal. It's not very kid friendly, which after Thursdays incident we're probably going to change, and is greatly covered in brick with a thick border of plants, weeds and trees...and a nice cement fountain that's all green from not being used (my mom asked about that recently after battling mosquitos at night and wondering if there was standing water in our yard because of the danger of West Nile - ReeReeRee (scary movie sound effect)!!) and a few other eclectic statues, decor that I added to make the yard look more like ME. It's nice and quaint, esp. if you can hold your nose to prevent the lingering stink of doggie poo from burning your nostril hairs! Hahaha, well it's not that bad when it's all cleaned up but boy does Boris poop a lot! We keep threatening to sew up his butthole or trade him in for a dog that doesn't poop but he doesn't listen.
ANYWAYZ...I'm minding my own business when the sound of Tyler crying hits my ears and for half a second I thought "I'm sure he's fine and besides Tony is downstairs and I'm trying to make my coffee" but then survival mom instinct kicks in, as well as the recognition that this cry isn't quite right. Oh my gosh, I'm getting the chills and a quasi panic attack reliving this right now. I rush downstairs in my slippers and towelhead to see my child trying to stand up as he wipes the blood POURING DOWN HIS FACE!!! I pick him up and that's when I see under all the blood a gaping gash on his right temple. I call out to Tony who was on his way over anyway and tell him I need something to stop the bleeding. Tyler is crying rather hysterically, although interestingly he "seems" most concerned with the fact that he dropped one of his cars. So I pick up the car and covering his would with my hand we race upstairs to the bathroom where Tony brings us a towel to use as a compress - after we soaked through several wads of paper towels thinking that would be enough. I'm sitting with Tyler on my lap on the toilet, still crying, as I'm holding the towel against his head and tell Tony he's going to need stitches and we need to go to the hospital asap! I was as calm as I could have been, which was fairly calm, since what I really wanted to do was scream at the top of my lungs for Tony to call 911 because our child was dying in my arms! The shred of rational thinking in my head told me it was just a cut and though it would need stitches he wasn't going to die, his brains weren't oozing out, he hadn't lost consciousness, he wasn't throwing up or convulsing...geez, did I really need to paint those pictures?? I had to be calm for him, my fears were secondary as are most things now that I'm a parent which has taken getting used to. I rocked him and told him in a lighthearted voice that he must have taken a nasty fall to get that yucky cut on his noggin but it was all going to be ok, we were going to take care of it. I figured downplaying it was the best for both of us. Tony called Kaiser who wanted to ask him some questions about Tyler's status and the injury but that didn't go over well with Tony who it seems may have been experiencing some of my same internal panic. Well, no, I don't think he was panicked but I'm sure he was frustrated since he just wanted a quick answer about whether we should take Tyler to the emergency room or if his doctor could see him right away. St. Luke's is just 2 blocks away from our house so we decided just to take him to the ER there. Tony got my shoes & removed the towel from my head, loaded Sophie, her suitcase and Teagan into the car - a small amount of humor in the moment was overhearing Tony in the other room trying to strap Teagan into her car seat and exclaiming "Are you kidding?!" since she's so small & squirmy & seemingly fragile and therefore very difficult to strap in and I think I'm the only one who has done it so far!
Tony dropped Tyler & I at the ER doorstep and raced to get his mom to the airport on time. It was the ER receptionist's birthday as told by all balloons and streamers around her desk which just seemed garish in light of the environment. I tried to imagine (more disassociating myself from the real situation at hand) what it would be like to have her job, let alone work it on my birthday, the things she must see... I had high hopes of this being a quick ER visit but then I guess "quick" and "ER" don't ever really go together. Despite what looked like quiet, empty halls apparently they were slammed due to 5 ambulances arriving just before us! Oh Tyler, why couldn't you have fallen 30 minutes earlier? Well, I would have been in the shower and... whatever. It's not like I had anywhere to be, in fact as crazy as it sounds (and of course I would have traded it for anything else) I enjoyed on some level the next 2 1/2 hours of waiting because I spent it holding & rocking my baby, kissing him and talking sweetly to him, listening to his breathing and feeling his warmth against my chest as he snoozed a little, then playing cars with him on the bed in the first room they put us in, then on the bed in the second room they put us in, then reading books to him on the third and final bed behind a curtain in the big "fast track" room they put us in. It was just me and him, circumstances aside, close mommy & Tyler time. He felt safe and calm with me and I pushed away all my stresses and traumas over the situation to be there for him - knowing full well I had a scheduled therapy appointment the next day and I could freak-out, cry and process my part of it then.
Considering what I was told about the 5 ambulances it was still fairly calm and quiet there, thank gawd! Although I did make sure to keep my eyes on the floor just in front of my feet as I was lead through the halls, peripheral vision telling me there was someone on a gurney to my left and up ahead another on my right. I think they were mostly old people and homeless people, one younger guy I think was coming off some drug related drama though even that wasn't much to see. I just HATE hospitals and especially the ER with all their beeping equipment and sterile smelling halls, knowing people go through such pain there, whether they're the ones on the gurney or their family in the waiting room. I supposed good things must happen there too, but it all has to stem from something bad initially. I honestly just prefer to live in la-la land and not focus on all the ugly that goes on in the world. Hmmm, then explain to me my addiction to the very disturbing and often graphic tv show Criminal Minds! Well, it's the psychology of it that I'm drawn to... Again, I digress.
The physicians assistant on duty was very nice, despite my making a knee-jerk judgement before he even opened his mouth that he was going to be a grumpy creep. He was very good with Tyler, as was the nurse, although that strange intern that was following the nurse around like a puppy dog rubbed me a little wrong.
He was very tall, young and had a name that explained to me why English sounded like his second language. The nurse taped a cotton ball soaked with numbing juice on Tyler's temple and we waited 20 minutes for it to do its thing. Then the moment I was dreading was upon us...gather all your strength Tiff, here we go! They decided to papoose Tyler so he wouldn't flail around, although I was pretty sure he wouldn't have given his temperament, but you never know. He didn't like that at all, despite my reassuring him that it would feel warm and cozy and be just like little sister. My poor sweet baby all burrito'd up now had fear in his eyes and my heart was on the floor, but wonderfully at that moment Tony showed up, pushing Teagan in the stroller and I was relieved of my duty. Not that I didn't want to be by Tyler's side when they stitched him up or that I couldn't handle it and actually I felt a little sad that suddenly Tyler wanted Daddy by his side. Although he was crying out both our names while they stitched him, Tony right by his side and me leaning in from behind holding little sister telling him how brave he was being and that it was almost over. And soon it was, and stickers in hand Tyler was doing fine.
As we strolled slowly home hand-in-hand, my hair now looking like a total fro, Tony pushing the stroller with Teagan on ahead, I mused at the Right of Passage I just went through as a parent. I mean, come on, how many of us actually made it through childhood without getting stitches or broken bones or some other medical drama that had our parents rushing us to the ER? Not me! A big bench swing hit me in the nose when I was little and I had a few stitches between my nostrils, a friend's poodle (angry little creatures!) bit me and tore open my lip requiring several stitches (and an awkward lipstick line as an adult), I hit my head on the coffee table at my babysitter's after I was told to stop spinning around because I would get dizzy and fall and hit my head which interestingly is in the same spot Tyler will have his scar - which I hope is as faint as mine. There was that rather embarrassing accident in my grade school years where I was riding my bicycle in the neighborhood, looked down at my pedals for a moment and then up just in time to put up my hand and avoid a much uglier accident as I rode into a parked truck which resulted in several stitches at the base of my thumb. My mom and I had a good chuckle over that one as we recounted all the stitches I required through childhood after I told her the story of Tyler's first battle wound. But anyway, I guess that's life. Our bodies, and lives, are by far invincible. If you trip and fall and hit your head on a concrete step, as Tyler did, your skin splits and blood comes out. If I'm super lucky this will be the only such incident with Tyler, but somehow I doubt that will be the case. And then there's Teagan, she's surely gonna bash up herself at some point too. Ugh. This parenting thing can be for the birds sometimes. The pain of watching your child go through these things and not being able to do anything about it. Of course there will be psychological pain as well, maybe Teagan won't ever break a bone or need stitches but it's highly likely her little heart will be broken some day by some shitty boy who doesn't even know she's alive and she'll cry and cry in my arms. Dude, this is nuts!
And on that note, I hear my little girl crying now, only this pain will be easy to fix - just stick a boob in her mouth!
It was an otherwise ordinary, normal day Thursday morning. Tony's mom was getting ready for her flight home after hanging out with the fam for a week and enjoying the grandkiddies, Tony was bopping around with his bluetooth on which makes me assume he's on a work call but it could just be for decoration ;) I got my "long" shower that morning where I got to wash my hair (yeah, I pretty much only wash it once a week, maybe twice, anymore - no time to dry it properly and if I don't it looks like ASSSS!) so I was running around a la towelhead in the kitchen trying to make my coffee. Tyler was running around outside in the backyard since Tony was actually downstairs in the playroom/office which is just in the door to the garage from the backyard. Hmmm, let me clarify for those who have never been to Casa Baer. Two story house atop the garage, so three levels in a way. Garage spans entire length of house and out the back door is the yard and then stairs leading up to the porch and french doors off the kitchen. The yard is technically small (according to the suburbanites) but decent sized by SF standards, esp. since having a yard at all in SF is a big deal. It's not very kid friendly, which after Thursdays incident we're probably going to change, and is greatly covered in brick with a thick border of plants, weeds and trees...and a nice cement fountain that's all green from not being used (my mom asked about that recently after battling mosquitos at night and wondering if there was standing water in our yard because of the danger of West Nile - ReeReeRee (scary movie sound effect)!!) and a few other eclectic statues, decor that I added to make the yard look more like ME. It's nice and quaint, esp. if you can hold your nose to prevent the lingering stink of doggie poo from burning your nostril hairs! Hahaha, well it's not that bad when it's all cleaned up but boy does Boris poop a lot! We keep threatening to sew up his butthole or trade him in for a dog that doesn't poop but he doesn't listen.
ANYWAYZ...I'm minding my own business when the sound of Tyler crying hits my ears and for half a second I thought "I'm sure he's fine and besides Tony is downstairs and I'm trying to make my coffee" but then survival mom instinct kicks in, as well as the recognition that this cry isn't quite right. Oh my gosh, I'm getting the chills and a quasi panic attack reliving this right now. I rush downstairs in my slippers and towelhead to see my child trying to stand up as he wipes the blood POURING DOWN HIS FACE!!! I pick him up and that's when I see under all the blood a gaping gash on his right temple. I call out to Tony who was on his way over anyway and tell him I need something to stop the bleeding. Tyler is crying rather hysterically, although interestingly he "seems" most concerned with the fact that he dropped one of his cars. So I pick up the car and covering his would with my hand we race upstairs to the bathroom where Tony brings us a towel to use as a compress - after we soaked through several wads of paper towels thinking that would be enough. I'm sitting with Tyler on my lap on the toilet, still crying, as I'm holding the towel against his head and tell Tony he's going to need stitches and we need to go to the hospital asap! I was as calm as I could have been, which was fairly calm, since what I really wanted to do was scream at the top of my lungs for Tony to call 911 because our child was dying in my arms! The shred of rational thinking in my head told me it was just a cut and though it would need stitches he wasn't going to die, his brains weren't oozing out, he hadn't lost consciousness, he wasn't throwing up or convulsing...geez, did I really need to paint those pictures?? I had to be calm for him, my fears were secondary as are most things now that I'm a parent which has taken getting used to. I rocked him and told him in a lighthearted voice that he must have taken a nasty fall to get that yucky cut on his noggin but it was all going to be ok, we were going to take care of it. I figured downplaying it was the best for both of us. Tony called Kaiser who wanted to ask him some questions about Tyler's status and the injury but that didn't go over well with Tony who it seems may have been experiencing some of my same internal panic. Well, no, I don't think he was panicked but I'm sure he was frustrated since he just wanted a quick answer about whether we should take Tyler to the emergency room or if his doctor could see him right away. St. Luke's is just 2 blocks away from our house so we decided just to take him to the ER there. Tony got my shoes & removed the towel from my head, loaded Sophie, her suitcase and Teagan into the car - a small amount of humor in the moment was overhearing Tony in the other room trying to strap Teagan into her car seat and exclaiming "Are you kidding?!" since she's so small & squirmy & seemingly fragile and therefore very difficult to strap in and I think I'm the only one who has done it so far!
Tony dropped Tyler & I at the ER doorstep and raced to get his mom to the airport on time. It was the ER receptionist's birthday as told by all balloons and streamers around her desk which just seemed garish in light of the environment. I tried to imagine (more disassociating myself from the real situation at hand) what it would be like to have her job, let alone work it on my birthday, the things she must see... I had high hopes of this being a quick ER visit but then I guess "quick" and "ER" don't ever really go together. Despite what looked like quiet, empty halls apparently they were slammed due to 5 ambulances arriving just before us! Oh Tyler, why couldn't you have fallen 30 minutes earlier? Well, I would have been in the shower and... whatever. It's not like I had anywhere to be, in fact as crazy as it sounds (and of course I would have traded it for anything else) I enjoyed on some level the next 2 1/2 hours of waiting because I spent it holding & rocking my baby, kissing him and talking sweetly to him, listening to his breathing and feeling his warmth against my chest as he snoozed a little, then playing cars with him on the bed in the first room they put us in, then on the bed in the second room they put us in, then reading books to him on the third and final bed behind a curtain in the big "fast track" room they put us in. It was just me and him, circumstances aside, close mommy & Tyler time. He felt safe and calm with me and I pushed away all my stresses and traumas over the situation to be there for him - knowing full well I had a scheduled therapy appointment the next day and I could freak-out, cry and process my part of it then.
Considering what I was told about the 5 ambulances it was still fairly calm and quiet there, thank gawd! Although I did make sure to keep my eyes on the floor just in front of my feet as I was lead through the halls, peripheral vision telling me there was someone on a gurney to my left and up ahead another on my right. I think they were mostly old people and homeless people, one younger guy I think was coming off some drug related drama though even that wasn't much to see. I just HATE hospitals and especially the ER with all their beeping equipment and sterile smelling halls, knowing people go through such pain there, whether they're the ones on the gurney or their family in the waiting room. I supposed good things must happen there too, but it all has to stem from something bad initially.
The physicians assistant on duty was very nice, despite my making a knee-jerk judgement before he even opened his mouth that he was going to be a grumpy creep. He was very good with Tyler, as was the nurse, although that strange intern that was following the nurse around like a puppy dog rubbed me a little wrong.
He was very tall, young and had a name that explained to me why English sounded like his second language. The nurse taped a cotton ball soaked with numbing juice on Tyler's temple and we waited 20 minutes for it to do its thing. Then the moment I was dreading was upon us...gather all your strength Tiff, here we go! They decided to papoose Tyler so he wouldn't flail around, although I was pretty sure he wouldn't have given his temperament, but you never know. He didn't like that at all, despite my reassuring him that it would feel warm and cozy and be just like little sister. My poor sweet baby all burrito'd up now had fear in his eyes and my heart was on the floor, but wonderfully at that moment Tony showed up, pushing Teagan in the stroller and I was relieved of my duty. Not that I didn't want to be by Tyler's side when they stitched him up or that I couldn't handle it and actually I felt a little sad that suddenly Tyler wanted Daddy by his side. Although he was crying out both our names while they stitched him, Tony right by his side and me leaning in from behind holding little sister telling him how brave he was being and that it was almost over. And soon it was, and stickers in hand Tyler was doing fine.
As we strolled slowly home hand-in-hand, my hair now looking like a total fro, Tony pushing the stroller with Teagan on ahead, I mused at the Right of Passage I just went through as a parent. I mean, come on, how many of us actually made it through childhood without getting stitches or broken bones or some other medical drama that had our parents rushing us to the ER? Not me! A big bench swing hit me in the nose when I was little and I had a few stitches between my nostrils, a friend's poodle (angry little creatures!) bit me and tore open my lip requiring several stitches (and an awkward lipstick line as an adult), I hit my head on the coffee table at my babysitter's after I was told to stop spinning around because I would get dizzy and fall and hit my head which interestingly is in the same spot Tyler will have his scar - which I hope is as faint as mine. There was that rather embarrassing accident in my grade school years where I was riding my bicycle in the neighborhood, looked down at my pedals for a moment and then up just in time to put up my hand and avoid a much uglier accident as I rode into a parked truck which resulted in several stitches at the base of my thumb. My mom and I had a good chuckle over that one as we recounted all the stitches I required through childhood after I told her the story of Tyler's first battle wound. But anyway, I guess that's life. Our bodies, and lives, are by far invincible. If you trip and fall and hit your head on a concrete step, as Tyler did, your skin splits and blood comes out. If I'm super lucky this will be the only such incident with Tyler, but somehow I doubt that will be the case. And then there's Teagan, she's surely gonna bash up herself at some point too. Ugh. This parenting thing can be for the birds sometimes. The pain of watching your child go through these things and not being able to do anything about it. Of course there will be psychological pain as well, maybe Teagan won't ever break a bone or need stitches but it's highly likely her little heart will be broken some day by some shitty boy who doesn't even know she's alive and she'll cry and cry in my arms. Dude, this is nuts!
And on that note, I hear my little girl crying now, only this pain will be easy to fix - just stick a boob in her mouth!
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Spare Time
Hahahaha, what a joke! Spare time?! Two kids?! I crack myself up. Actually though there is a little here and there. It really gets my goat to think about what other people accomplish in their days/lives when I realize we all have the same 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week etc. and what have I got to show for it? Yes, I'm being too hard on myself, that's what I do best! I'm working on giving myself a break, patting myself on the back when I deserve it, giving kudos to all accomplishments, big or small, like getting a load of laundry done, watering the plants, baking some banana bread or just keeping the kids alive another day! Those were all recent daily successes of mine - what will today's bring? Hmmmm...
Nope, not too terribly exciting - my life these days that is. But who has a life full of constant excitement? Lady Gaga? Probably not even her. And if it was constantly exciting wouldn't that get tiresome or even boring after a while? All my life I seem to have chased this idea that "my life" should be...exciting, fulfilling, happy, etc. Of course all those things are good to strive for in balance but I just realize it can't always be UP. At least not for me. My husband is another story. I married the mayor of Candyland :) It never ceases to amaze me how up and happy he always is. There's gotta be something wrong there...
But I digress. I was chatting about my "boring" life with my best friend over brunch Sunday, as I was able to get out of the house with just Teagan and take a nice walk to Hayes Valley on such a beautiful day in the city, and when he wrinkled his nose at the label I'd given my life I decided to choose a different description: Simple. After all, I was talking about how I've come to accept and even embrace what my life is all about these days, so giving it a negative connotation definitely wasn't jiving with the attitude I was trying to present. Did I sell him? Have I sold me? I think so. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my life now and it's not like it was all constant excitement before. I adore being a mother, it feels like I found my true calling...or so I flapped my gums about before having two!! And I'm sure I will again...after the adjustment period - how long does that last anyway? 4 weeks? 4 months? 18 years?! Anyway I had to adjust my attitude, it's way too easy for me to slip into a state of depression and negativity, to beat myself up for things not done or done less than stellar, that's where I'm most comfortable. But is that really working for me anymore? Not so much. Of course when do I even have the time to be depressed anymore?!
And here I try once again to circle back to my original thought: time, spare or otherwise.
Making the time to write this blog is something important I'm trying to do for myself these days. It's really just for me even though I'm putting it out there for the world to see. I love to write but so far it's just been in my journal (I once told someone I was an avid journalist and got an incredulous, impressed look in response before I realized the error of my verbage! Hahaha!) or my ever notorious long emails to friends. I'm hoping it will be a sort of stress releaser for me - oh yeah, and the yoga I keep meaning to get back into. Sigh...yep, about those 24 hours?! So far I'm learning to do many things at once, since being in two places at the same time or growing 4 more arms aren't tricks I've mastered yet. For example, right now I've got a snoozing 3 1/2 wk old on the boppy on my lap and the toddler taking his nap upstairs. Recently I found myself holding the breast pump to one boob while Teagan fed off the other as I deflected Tyler's repeated attempts to crawl up into my lap and join the party! I put on mascara while bouncing a squawling newborn one morning and the other day I reheated my coffee like ten times as I was distracted time and again on little things while my hands were free - which prompted me to vow to just sit at the dining table in the morning and enjoy my HOT coffee before starting anything else. Gotta fit some Tiffany time in there every chance I get!
Which reminds me of a funny morning last week...I was sitting at the dining table having my coffee and flipping through the July issue of Elle magazine as Tyler finished up his breakfast and Tony sat across from my on his laptop working. I was having a piece of toast with almond butter and when Tyler finished his breakfast he began asking me for bites of my toast. It went a little something like this: Tyler "bite?" Me "How do you ask?" Tyler "please?" Me "May I please have a bite momma?" Tyler "bite please momma?" Me "ok." And then repeat. Like 10 times. Around 5 Tony looked up and said "is that really necessary?" to which I replied "well, he's gotta learn eventually how to ask!" So much for my Tiffany time enjoying my coffee and reading the magazine...I sighed as I gazed at the beautiful people wearing georgeous clothes gracing the pages before me - what good was any of that to me anymore? Where do I go that I need to look that good? I admit I drifted off for a minute and imagined my life full of georgeous clothes, amazing shoes, lots of money, a rewarding career and no kids. Then Tyler peeps up "more?" Back to reality...which isn't so bad. Save the whiney Weimey under the table waiting for Tyler to drop some crumbs - I threaten him with a time-out (up to his kennel) but he's not fazed by that and continues so I stop listening to him. Then I see an ad for the Chevy Malibu proclaiming "Fancytastic" as "Class and elegance without snobbery" - hmmm, I wonder to myself, what's wrong with snobbery?!
Nope, not too terribly exciting - my life these days that is. But who has a life full of constant excitement? Lady Gaga? Probably not even her. And if it was constantly exciting wouldn't that get tiresome or even boring after a while? All my life I seem to have chased this idea that "my life" should be...exciting, fulfilling, happy, etc. Of course all those things are good to strive for in balance but I just realize it can't always be UP. At least not for me. My husband is another story. I married the mayor of Candyland :) It never ceases to amaze me how up and happy he always is. There's gotta be something wrong there...
But I digress. I was chatting about my "boring" life with my best friend over brunch Sunday, as I was able to get out of the house with just Teagan and take a nice walk to Hayes Valley on such a beautiful day in the city, and when he wrinkled his nose at the label I'd given my life I decided to choose a different description: Simple. After all, I was talking about how I've come to accept and even embrace what my life is all about these days, so giving it a negative connotation definitely wasn't jiving with the attitude I was trying to present. Did I sell him? Have I sold me? I think so. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my life now and it's not like it was all constant excitement before. I adore being a mother, it feels like I found my true calling...or so I flapped my gums about before having two!! And I'm sure I will again...after the adjustment period - how long does that last anyway? 4 weeks? 4 months? 18 years?! Anyway I had to adjust my attitude, it's way too easy for me to slip into a state of depression and negativity, to beat myself up for things not done or done less than stellar, that's where I'm most comfortable. But is that really working for me anymore? Not so much. Of course when do I even have the time to be depressed anymore?!
And here I try once again to circle back to my original thought: time, spare or otherwise.
Making the time to write this blog is something important I'm trying to do for myself these days. It's really just for me even though I'm putting it out there for the world to see. I love to write but so far it's just been in my journal (I once told someone I was an avid journalist and got an incredulous, impressed look in response before I realized the error of my verbage! Hahaha!) or my ever notorious long emails to friends. I'm hoping it will be a sort of stress releaser for me - oh yeah, and the yoga I keep meaning to get back into. Sigh...yep, about those 24 hours?! So far I'm learning to do many things at once, since being in two places at the same time or growing 4 more arms aren't tricks I've mastered yet. For example, right now I've got a snoozing 3 1/2 wk old on the boppy on my lap and the toddler taking his nap upstairs. Recently I found myself holding the breast pump to one boob while Teagan fed off the other as I deflected Tyler's repeated attempts to crawl up into my lap and join the party! I put on mascara while bouncing a squawling newborn one morning and the other day I reheated my coffee like ten times as I was distracted time and again on little things while my hands were free - which prompted me to vow to just sit at the dining table in the morning and enjoy my HOT coffee before starting anything else. Gotta fit some Tiffany time in there every chance I get!
Which reminds me of a funny morning last week...I was sitting at the dining table having my coffee and flipping through the July issue of Elle magazine as Tyler finished up his breakfast and Tony sat across from my on his laptop working. I was having a piece of toast with almond butter and when Tyler finished his breakfast he began asking me for bites of my toast. It went a little something like this: Tyler "bite?" Me "How do you ask?" Tyler "please?" Me "May I please have a bite momma?" Tyler "bite please momma?" Me "ok." And then repeat. Like 10 times. Around 5 Tony looked up and said "is that really necessary?" to which I replied "well, he's gotta learn eventually how to ask!" So much for my Tiffany time enjoying my coffee and reading the magazine...I sighed as I gazed at the beautiful people wearing georgeous clothes gracing the pages before me - what good was any of that to me anymore? Where do I go that I need to look that good? I admit I drifted off for a minute and imagined my life full of georgeous clothes, amazing shoes, lots of money, a rewarding career and no kids. Then Tyler peeps up "more?" Back to reality...which isn't so bad. Save the whiney Weimey under the table waiting for Tyler to drop some crumbs - I threaten him with a time-out (up to his kennel) but he's not fazed by that and continues so I stop listening to him. Then I see an ad for the Chevy Malibu proclaiming "Fancytastic" as "Class and elegance without snobbery" - hmmm, I wonder to myself, what's wrong with snobbery?!
Sunday, July 17, 2011
the birth of Teagan Ava
It's big news when you have a baby, but it's even bigger news when you give birth in the car on the way to the hospital. Generally just women, pregnant or already mothers, are the ones that want to hear about your labor and delivery but this time everyone is asking - WTF Happened?!
So first things first, my sweet angel baby Teagan Ava was not born on my birthday...she was kind (and smart) enough not to do that to me. Instead she came the day before my birthday on June 24th. I was 38 wks and 1 day pregnant, having just two days before worked my last day as a nanny in San Jose and just the day before been bopping around downtown SF pushing Tyler in the stroller, running errands & having lunch with my cousin. It may be worth mentioning that by the time I was waddling slowly home from Muni that day I was holding the bottom of my belly because of the pressure.
Anyone who talked to me about this pregnancy knew I was really holding out for a July baby...she was due July 7th so that seemed perfectly doable, but I was slightly worried about her coming on my birthday and I really just wanted her to have the ruby birthstone. I know, a chick thing. No, a Tiffany thing ;) So regardless of my totallly irrational fears of going into labor "any minute now" throughout my 3rd trimester, simply because I just feared it could happen not that I was having any physical issues, I really was in denial when I woke up June 24th at 4 a.m. with contractions. I actually thought it surely must just be gas. It felt totally different then when I went into labor with Tyler and I was just 38 wks, I wasn't ready yet! I managed to sleep off & on through the contractions until 630 when I woke up and freaked out about where I'd parked the car, thinking we were going to get a street cleaning ticket, so I started getting dressed. As I'm pulling on my yoga pants and then stopping to breathe through another contraction Tony asked me where I was going. I told him to move the car, oh and by the way, not to worry but I *might* be in labor! Well Tony put the kabash on my moving the car, said he'd go himself and suggested I call the hospital. At this point I decided it would be a good idea to time some "contractions" (ok, I was starting to believe they were real now) because surely Labor & Delivery would ask me how far apart they were & how long they were lasting. With Tyler laying in bed with me (where he'd spent the night since he'd woken at midnight barking like a seal and wheezing like some dying old codger, prompting us to call the nighttime advice nurse & who almost had us come into the ER with him but then he seemed to get better and Tony & I were happy to just stay in bed with him) I began timing...approx 4 minutes apart for 45-60 sec. Was this close? You'd think I never had a baby or read everything under the sun about labor suddenly. I called Kaiser and they said "C'mon in!" I then called my mom & told her it was show-time and she should get her bootay up to the city to watch Tyler. My next move was a FB post in disbelief of my current status and then a text to my best friend who was supposed to be in the delivery room with us to be a part of it all as well as to document the whole new life emerging & first minutes in photographs - which he did for Tyler's birth as well. Dan's response? "Put a cork in it, my commuter bus is just passing the airport heading south away from the city, I can be there this evening!" Considering how long my labor was with Tyler (32 hrs including 2 1/2 of pushing before the vaccum was finally used) he probably thought, as did I for that matter, that it was possible he would make it.
Yeah...uhm...no.
Now I dashed around (ok I wasn't exactly dashing since I was halted dead in my tracks and even brought to my knees a few times when contractions hit as I tried to breathe through the pain) trying to pack my hospital bag. No, it wasn't packed, I wasn't ready at all for this, not now anyway! My birthday was the next day and a brunch was planned, I hadn't gotten a much needed pedicure yet (was saving that for a special thing on my birthday), I still had action items on my to-do-before-baby list not crossed off! I was not ready!! But that baby was comin' anyway. I probably packed my bag even slower than if I weren't in labor because I just couldn't think straight, what did I need? 5 pair of underwear? Ok sure, that sounds right. Tony was getting Tyler ready and packing his own sorta hospital bag and then went to get the car, which didn't need to be moved after all! Parked out front as Tony buckled Tyler into his carseat another contraction hit me, paralyzing me halfway in/out of the car, door wide open, groaning into the passenger seat and clutching my labor necklace in my left hand - a gift of strength from my baby shower guests. I wonder if a passerby would have even thought anything was wrong with the scene. I climbed in but couldn't figure out in my breathless state how to recline my seat or move it back or anything and I had a hairbrained idea about crawling down onto the floorboard but upon attempting that maneuver realized I was way too big to fit in that space. Not sure what I thought that would do for me anyway. Did I think curling into a tiny ball was going to make the pain go away? Maybe. Tony got in the driver's seat and suddenly couldn't find the car keys and said he was going back inside. WHAT?! He's lucky another contraction hit and I didn't have the spare energy to tear his head off! In fact, somewhere in my sane mind I thought "it will do me no good to scream at him right now, I have to save & focus my efforts on getting through this ungodly pain!" Back in the car Tony finally had us off to the hospital.
It was probably 8:30 a.m. now. Oh and interestingly enough, just down the street from our house is St. Luke's hospital...but we still had no idea we didn't have the time to get to our own hospital 20 minutes away. All I could think was "Fuck trying to be superwoman and doing this without drugs, THIS HURTS!!" So as I repeated to Tony "you have to get us there, you have to get us there" to which I'm sure he was thinking "and what else did you think I was trying to do?" my only thought was wondering how many more of these contractions & blinding pain could I endure between now and arriving at the hospital so I could get an epidural? Surely I was going to die before we arrived, I was really starting to think that. Several minutes, blocks and contractions later I was up on my knees on the seat, leaning over the center console, clawing at Tony & the gear shift & the emergency break, shoving my face into his jacket hanging off him and trying to remember everything I read about getting through this pain as I screamed, groaned, made animal noises and did quick hoo-hoo-hoo breathing. Looking up I saw a veritable disaster in the making, a long line of cars at a stop-sign being held up by back-to-back Muni trains turning in front of said stop as a Friday morning commuter Muni traffic jam was in progress. I think I screamed Nooooo! and ducked my head back down, praying Tony would find a way around the snarl. I don't know what happened or how long it took, I think not long and we were on our way again.
Now I started demanding Tony run lights and stop signs, again repeating "you have to get us there, you have to get us there!" Tony had called the hospital alerting them of our impending arrival and they told him to call 911. I couldn't figure out what that was going to do for us since under no circumstances did i want him to stop the car. But he called 911 and right about that time during my next contraction I think I crapped my pants, literally, because suddenly there was this insane pressure and feeling that I was pushing (or taking a giant crap) and there was a sinking feeling inside me as I told Tony "oh no, I'm pushing, tell them I'm pushing and I can't help it" and panic started to set in. Then more pressure and a pop that seemed audible but probably wasn't as a sensation of warmth flowed down my legs and I said "oh my god, my water just broke." What a strange experience that was, it almost felt like my entire being was inside that burst which of course sounds absurd and random but there's no other way to describe it. In hindsight I guess this was the transition phase I was going through and unless it's just my memory muddying or all the adrenaline, pain & fear I was in but it was like I ceased feeling human, feeling my body or having any logical relation to anything happening. It was like the opposite of the out-of-body experience I had giving birth to Tyler. I was so IN my body that I became just a mass of energy. As if so many of our bodily functions aren't involuntary, it was like my body was suddenly taken over, every cell a control center and all systems GO! I guess the 911 operator finally told Tony "Sir, you need to pull over, the fire trucks can't just follow you through the city!" So through the next intersection he took an open spot at the curb, parked it and ran around the side of the car as I'm now screaming "SHE'S COMING OUT! SHE'S COMING OUT! WE'RE GOING TO HAVE THE BABY IN THE CAR!!" and indeed she was coming out. I felt the "ring of fire" (ladies who've had babies, you know what this is, ladies who haven't & men - just think about it) and knew the head was crowning. Tony opened the passenger door and pulled down my yoga pants, assuming the position - hands outstretched palms facing up - as I screamed "OH MY GAWD"...or so I think I did! The next thing I knew there was this huge pressure and release and our baby pushed right out of me and into her daddy's waiting hands. It was not unlike taking a huge dump. The pain was over and I turned around to get my first view of our little girl, all red, white & slimey all curled up in daddy's arms. Tony was still on the phone with 911, his cellphone pinned between his ear and shoulder, and they were instructing him to make sure her airway was cleared, that she was breathing and that the cord wasn't tangled around her. She was fine, she was breathing, she was beautiful. I grabbed my furry (my security blanket that is basically a piece of furry fabric my mom bought off the bolt at a fabric store and had on my crib mattress when i came home from the hospital and yes I still sleep with it and was therefore of course was bringing it to the hospital) and we wrapped her in it for warmth and I held her in disbelief, still kneeling in the front passenger seat, as Tony went to flag down the firetrucks that were approaching. A very nice firewoman came up and took the baby from me to check her out, although not far since we were still attached by the umbilical cord. She told me the baby looked great and was beautiful and that it was her birthday too that day! At this point I noticed a crew of firemen around the car...HOT firemen...and realizing my ass was still bare for the world to see, legs covered in blood and a cord hanging out my cooch, I was struck by modesty and decided to keep my head down and hair hanging in my face. It was at this time actually, as I was hiding but also allowing myself to crumble a bit, my strength & bravery no longer required, that I relaxed onto the center console and looked into the backseat where Tyler sat, quiet as a church mouse, book in hand, gazing out the window at all the hub-bub. I began to sob. It all hit me at once and I went with it.
The ambulance arrived next (all of this which seemed to last forever in reality went so quickly) and soon the umbilical cord was being clamped off and Tony cutting it, severing the tie between my daughter & I. Just before I was helped onto a gurney I felt a cramping and then another gush as I filled the seat with blood and whatnot. My first ride in an ambulance...I held my daughter to my chest, skin to skin, oxygen flowing through tubes in my nose, my jaw chattering uncontrollably and tears pouring from my eyes. I delivered the placenta in our 3 block ride to the hospital - yes, we were that close. I heard one of the paramedics say to the other "Bob..." or whatever his name was "...we're gonna need to save that" referring to the placenta and then I saw "bob" clad in rubber gloves putting it into a hazmat bag just like they'd done with my bloody yoga pants back at the car. I was wheeled in through Emergency, slowly & casually, the announcement preceeding my gurney one of "it's all ok, mom & baby are fine, we're just taking her up to labor & delivery." Which is exactly where we went and there was a sense of calm, peace & ease as the nurses checked me out (no tears or anything!) and the baby (perfecto except for being a little chilled to which they fixed with the warming lights) and soon Tony & Tyler were walking through the door of my room and we were all together, our little family.
It was such a drasticly different experience from Tyler's delivery that Tony & I found ourselves sitting there in the quiet calm wondering aloud what the fuck just happened?! It was done? Over? She was here? We'd delivered her in the car?! Tony made the observation that it was quite anti-climactic to which I replied agast, "THAT was ANTI-climactic?!" But in a way I knew what he meant. There was no 32 hour lead-up, no 2 1/2 hours of pushing, no room buzzing with doctors, nurses, anaesthesiologists, pediatricians, etc. No threat of a c-section if the vacuum didn't work. No one else with us, just our little family. We were, naturally, still riding the adrenaline high, which wasn't to crash until later that day. My mom arrived before too long, all giddy & excited to meet the new grandbaby and hear all the details about the drama delivery, which she'd already boasted in as much detail as she knew to several people over the phone. I was moved to my private room where courtesy champagne flutes & a bottle of sparkling apple cider welcomed us...announcing in blue script "It's a Boy!" to which we sheepishly requested be exchanged with "It's a Girl!" flutes. Now we have both sets at home which is perfect since we didn't get that fun gift when Tyler was born. My dad visited and reveled in the tiny human he held in his arms. I felt great, as if my body (and mind) hadn't gone through such a significant ordeal and I wondered if that wasn't the way to do it. Ok, not ideal esp. in the case of birth complications, but really it was just nature the way it used to be, the way it was intended to be? No drugs, no stirrups, no doctors, no fetal heart monitors, no white walls and open rear gowns. Would I do it that way again? It's a joke now that if we were to have a 3rd child I should spend my final month at the hospital...or just plan for a home birth. Well I can't do it over and as insane as it was, it was perfect. I replayed the whole thing over and over and over and over and over again that night as I lay in my hospital bed, cradling my baby girl, my prize, listening to ambient new age music & watching the accompanying nature scenes on the tv, tears flowing down my cheeks. I've recovered by now...and yet I don't think I ever truly will.
So first things first, my sweet angel baby Teagan Ava was not born on my birthday...she was kind (and smart) enough not to do that to me. Instead she came the day before my birthday on June 24th. I was 38 wks and 1 day pregnant, having just two days before worked my last day as a nanny in San Jose and just the day before been bopping around downtown SF pushing Tyler in the stroller, running errands & having lunch with my cousin. It may be worth mentioning that by the time I was waddling slowly home from Muni that day I was holding the bottom of my belly because of the pressure.
Anyone who talked to me about this pregnancy knew I was really holding out for a July baby...she was due July 7th so that seemed perfectly doable, but I was slightly worried about her coming on my birthday and I really just wanted her to have the ruby birthstone. I know, a chick thing. No, a Tiffany thing ;) So regardless of my totallly irrational fears of going into labor "any minute now" throughout my 3rd trimester, simply because I just feared it could happen not that I was having any physical issues, I really was in denial when I woke up June 24th at 4 a.m. with contractions. I actually thought it surely must just be gas. It felt totally different then when I went into labor with Tyler and I was just 38 wks, I wasn't ready yet! I managed to sleep off & on through the contractions until 630 when I woke up and freaked out about where I'd parked the car, thinking we were going to get a street cleaning ticket, so I started getting dressed. As I'm pulling on my yoga pants and then stopping to breathe through another contraction Tony asked me where I was going. I told him to move the car, oh and by the way, not to worry but I *might* be in labor! Well Tony put the kabash on my moving the car, said he'd go himself and suggested I call the hospital. At this point I decided it would be a good idea to time some "contractions" (ok, I was starting to believe they were real now) because surely Labor & Delivery would ask me how far apart they were & how long they were lasting. With Tyler laying in bed with me (where he'd spent the night since he'd woken at midnight barking like a seal and wheezing like some dying old codger, prompting us to call the nighttime advice nurse & who almost had us come into the ER with him but then he seemed to get better and Tony & I were happy to just stay in bed with him) I began timing...approx 4 minutes apart for 45-60 sec. Was this close? You'd think I never had a baby or read everything under the sun about labor suddenly. I called Kaiser and they said "C'mon in!" I then called my mom & told her it was show-time and she should get her bootay up to the city to watch Tyler. My next move was a FB post in disbelief of my current status and then a text to my best friend who was supposed to be in the delivery room with us to be a part of it all as well as to document the whole new life emerging & first minutes in photographs - which he did for Tyler's birth as well. Dan's response? "Put a cork in it, my commuter bus is just passing the airport heading south away from the city, I can be there this evening!" Considering how long my labor was with Tyler (32 hrs including 2 1/2 of pushing before the vaccum was finally used) he probably thought, as did I for that matter, that it was possible he would make it.
Yeah...uhm...no.
Now I dashed around (ok I wasn't exactly dashing since I was halted dead in my tracks and even brought to my knees a few times when contractions hit as I tried to breathe through the pain) trying to pack my hospital bag. No, it wasn't packed, I wasn't ready at all for this, not now anyway! My birthday was the next day and a brunch was planned, I hadn't gotten a much needed pedicure yet (was saving that for a special thing on my birthday), I still had action items on my to-do-before-baby list not crossed off! I was not ready!! But that baby was comin' anyway. I probably packed my bag even slower than if I weren't in labor because I just couldn't think straight, what did I need? 5 pair of underwear? Ok sure, that sounds right. Tony was getting Tyler ready and packing his own sorta hospital bag and then went to get the car, which didn't need to be moved after all! Parked out front as Tony buckled Tyler into his carseat another contraction hit me, paralyzing me halfway in/out of the car, door wide open, groaning into the passenger seat and clutching my labor necklace in my left hand - a gift of strength from my baby shower guests. I wonder if a passerby would have even thought anything was wrong with the scene. I climbed in but couldn't figure out in my breathless state how to recline my seat or move it back or anything and I had a hairbrained idea about crawling down onto the floorboard but upon attempting that maneuver realized I was way too big to fit in that space. Not sure what I thought that would do for me anyway. Did I think curling into a tiny ball was going to make the pain go away? Maybe. Tony got in the driver's seat and suddenly couldn't find the car keys and said he was going back inside. WHAT?! He's lucky another contraction hit and I didn't have the spare energy to tear his head off! In fact, somewhere in my sane mind I thought "it will do me no good to scream at him right now, I have to save & focus my efforts on getting through this ungodly pain!" Back in the car Tony finally had us off to the hospital.
It was probably 8:30 a.m. now. Oh and interestingly enough, just down the street from our house is St. Luke's hospital...but we still had no idea we didn't have the time to get to our own hospital 20 minutes away. All I could think was "Fuck trying to be superwoman and doing this without drugs, THIS HURTS!!" So as I repeated to Tony "you have to get us there, you have to get us there" to which I'm sure he was thinking "and what else did you think I was trying to do?" my only thought was wondering how many more of these contractions & blinding pain could I endure between now and arriving at the hospital so I could get an epidural? Surely I was going to die before we arrived, I was really starting to think that. Several minutes, blocks and contractions later I was up on my knees on the seat, leaning over the center console, clawing at Tony & the gear shift & the emergency break, shoving my face into his jacket hanging off him and trying to remember everything I read about getting through this pain as I screamed, groaned, made animal noises and did quick hoo-hoo-hoo breathing. Looking up I saw a veritable disaster in the making, a long line of cars at a stop-sign being held up by back-to-back Muni trains turning in front of said stop as a Friday morning commuter Muni traffic jam was in progress. I think I screamed Nooooo! and ducked my head back down, praying Tony would find a way around the snarl. I don't know what happened or how long it took, I think not long and we were on our way again.
Now I started demanding Tony run lights and stop signs, again repeating "you have to get us there, you have to get us there!" Tony had called the hospital alerting them of our impending arrival and they told him to call 911. I couldn't figure out what that was going to do for us since under no circumstances did i want him to stop the car. But he called 911 and right about that time during my next contraction I think I crapped my pants, literally, because suddenly there was this insane pressure and feeling that I was pushing (or taking a giant crap) and there was a sinking feeling inside me as I told Tony "oh no, I'm pushing, tell them I'm pushing and I can't help it" and panic started to set in. Then more pressure and a pop that seemed audible but probably wasn't as a sensation of warmth flowed down my legs and I said "oh my god, my water just broke." What a strange experience that was, it almost felt like my entire being was inside that burst which of course sounds absurd and random but there's no other way to describe it. In hindsight I guess this was the transition phase I was going through and unless it's just my memory muddying or all the adrenaline, pain & fear I was in but it was like I ceased feeling human, feeling my body or having any logical relation to anything happening. It was like the opposite of the out-of-body experience I had giving birth to Tyler. I was so IN my body that I became just a mass of energy. As if so many of our bodily functions aren't involuntary, it was like my body was suddenly taken over, every cell a control center and all systems GO! I guess the 911 operator finally told Tony "Sir, you need to pull over, the fire trucks can't just follow you through the city!" So through the next intersection he took an open spot at the curb, parked it and ran around the side of the car as I'm now screaming "SHE'S COMING OUT! SHE'S COMING OUT! WE'RE GOING TO HAVE THE BABY IN THE CAR!!" and indeed she was coming out. I felt the "ring of fire" (ladies who've had babies, you know what this is, ladies who haven't & men - just think about it) and knew the head was crowning. Tony opened the passenger door and pulled down my yoga pants, assuming the position - hands outstretched palms facing up - as I screamed "OH MY GAWD"...or so I think I did! The next thing I knew there was this huge pressure and release and our baby pushed right out of me and into her daddy's waiting hands. It was not unlike taking a huge dump. The pain was over and I turned around to get my first view of our little girl, all red, white & slimey all curled up in daddy's arms. Tony was still on the phone with 911, his cellphone pinned between his ear and shoulder, and they were instructing him to make sure her airway was cleared, that she was breathing and that the cord wasn't tangled around her. She was fine, she was breathing, she was beautiful. I grabbed my furry (my security blanket that is basically a piece of furry fabric my mom bought off the bolt at a fabric store and had on my crib mattress when i came home from the hospital and yes I still sleep with it and was therefore of course was bringing it to the hospital) and we wrapped her in it for warmth and I held her in disbelief, still kneeling in the front passenger seat, as Tony went to flag down the firetrucks that were approaching. A very nice firewoman came up and took the baby from me to check her out, although not far since we were still attached by the umbilical cord. She told me the baby looked great and was beautiful and that it was her birthday too that day! At this point I noticed a crew of firemen around the car...HOT firemen...and realizing my ass was still bare for the world to see, legs covered in blood and a cord hanging out my cooch, I was struck by modesty and decided to keep my head down and hair hanging in my face. It was at this time actually, as I was hiding but also allowing myself to crumble a bit, my strength & bravery no longer required, that I relaxed onto the center console and looked into the backseat where Tyler sat, quiet as a church mouse, book in hand, gazing out the window at all the hub-bub. I began to sob. It all hit me at once and I went with it.
The ambulance arrived next (all of this which seemed to last forever in reality went so quickly) and soon the umbilical cord was being clamped off and Tony cutting it, severing the tie between my daughter & I. Just before I was helped onto a gurney I felt a cramping and then another gush as I filled the seat with blood and whatnot. My first ride in an ambulance...I held my daughter to my chest, skin to skin, oxygen flowing through tubes in my nose, my jaw chattering uncontrollably and tears pouring from my eyes. I delivered the placenta in our 3 block ride to the hospital - yes, we were that close. I heard one of the paramedics say to the other "Bob..." or whatever his name was "...we're gonna need to save that" referring to the placenta and then I saw "bob" clad in rubber gloves putting it into a hazmat bag just like they'd done with my bloody yoga pants back at the car. I was wheeled in through Emergency, slowly & casually, the announcement preceeding my gurney one of "it's all ok, mom & baby are fine, we're just taking her up to labor & delivery." Which is exactly where we went and there was a sense of calm, peace & ease as the nurses checked me out (no tears or anything!) and the baby (perfecto except for being a little chilled to which they fixed with the warming lights) and soon Tony & Tyler were walking through the door of my room and we were all together, our little family.
It was such a drasticly different experience from Tyler's delivery that Tony & I found ourselves sitting there in the quiet calm wondering aloud what the fuck just happened?! It was done? Over? She was here? We'd delivered her in the car?! Tony made the observation that it was quite anti-climactic to which I replied agast, "THAT was ANTI-climactic?!" But in a way I knew what he meant. There was no 32 hour lead-up, no 2 1/2 hours of pushing, no room buzzing with doctors, nurses, anaesthesiologists, pediatricians, etc. No threat of a c-section if the vacuum didn't work. No one else with us, just our little family. We were, naturally, still riding the adrenaline high, which wasn't to crash until later that day. My mom arrived before too long, all giddy & excited to meet the new grandbaby and hear all the details about the drama delivery, which she'd already boasted in as much detail as she knew to several people over the phone. I was moved to my private room where courtesy champagne flutes & a bottle of sparkling apple cider welcomed us...announcing in blue script "It's a Boy!" to which we sheepishly requested be exchanged with "It's a Girl!" flutes. Now we have both sets at home which is perfect since we didn't get that fun gift when Tyler was born. My dad visited and reveled in the tiny human he held in his arms. I felt great, as if my body (and mind) hadn't gone through such a significant ordeal and I wondered if that wasn't the way to do it. Ok, not ideal esp. in the case of birth complications, but really it was just nature the way it used to be, the way it was intended to be? No drugs, no stirrups, no doctors, no fetal heart monitors, no white walls and open rear gowns. Would I do it that way again? It's a joke now that if we were to have a 3rd child I should spend my final month at the hospital...or just plan for a home birth. Well I can't do it over and as insane as it was, it was perfect. I replayed the whole thing over and over and over and over and over again that night as I lay in my hospital bed, cradling my baby girl, my prize, listening to ambient new age music & watching the accompanying nature scenes on the tv, tears flowing down my cheeks. I've recovered by now...and yet I don't think I ever truly will.
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