The Morning After

So one of the big reasons we chose to go with a hospital birth instead of a home birth was one we didn't make public until, well... now.

At this particular juncture I can think of about a dozen tangents I could totally go off on regarding subjects of discussion surrounding this particular choice, but I'll spare you all the gory and analytical details and just tell the story:

The morning after Evelyn was born, or rather, the same morning but about 7 hours later, my nurse came and prepped me for surgery. I walked down the hall, into a cold O.R. and climbed up on the narrow little table.

"Dangle your feet down on the sides and hunch your back over.", they said. At this point I was trying not to be annoyed by ANOTHER needle in my back since the nurse had mistakenly removed my epidural catheter immediately after Evelyn was born, rather than leave it in place to use for this surgery as planned.

The needle in the spine thing went quickly and soon I was lying flat with my arms strapped to boards. I began to get a little nervous as I watched them scrub and prep my belly.

Um, I REALLY don't want to watch this!, I kept thinking until finally one side of a blue screen went up and then the other. Whew!!

My nurse stood beside me, the anesthesiologist at my head, doctor at my waist. All was ready.

"YEOOWWCH!!", I yelled out.

The doctor leaned her head over the blue wall.

"You felt that?!", she asked.

No. No, I just screamed that out randomly to make you jump. Like it's April Fools' Day or something. Good grief.

"YES! Yes, I DID feel that, and it HURT!", I said in the most matter-of-fact voice I could muster.

So they added more drugs to the catheter in my spine and waited a few more minutes.

Following that was a series of pokes and prods to determine what parts of me still had feeling and what didn't.

My belly button DID. Instantly the operating table tilted backward and the blood rushed to my head.

My left leg DID. My right leg, however, was dead as a doornail. Whizzz! Went the operating table machinery again as it tipped my head further down and to the left. Good thing I'm strapped in, I thought as I looked up askew at my nurse.

She had a worried look on her face. This did NOT help my state of mind.

"Can you feel this?", the doctor asked me again for the umpteenth time.

I'd had it. So help me I was going to get off this table and back to my room and...

Oh wait. My legs were not cooperating and my arms were strapped to boards.

Right.

I looked up at my nurse.

"I can still feel it a LITTLE BIT," I said with a wobbly voice as tears escaped from the corners of my eyes. "and I don't WANT to feel it AT ALL."

Suddenly there was a deep voice in my ear saying, "Just breathe through your nose..." as a mask went over my face.

I Don't Want to breathe through my nose I want you to tell them all to forget it and take me back to my room and ....



Aaahhhh....

Nitrous oxide.

Wonderful stuff.

Next thing I knew I was in a bed with my nurse watching over me and there I stayed for another hour while I slept it off. When I went back to my room where my sweet little baby girl waited in the arms of her daddy, I was hoping to be able to take care of myself pretty well since he needed to get back to the other kidlets.

Instead, I spent the next 6 hours with my right leg completely numb and useless. I couldn't get up to use the bathroom or even scootch over on my bed to get my cup of water off the table next to it. Well, maybe it was better that I couldn't quite reach my water.

The next morning my hubby came back and the kids all said hello to their new baby sister.

And we went home.

The six of us.

Complete.

Pride, Paralysis, and Fear

I thought all my body would need to get kicked into high gear was to have my water broken. I mean, really. A week late, lots of prodromal labor, fourth time mom, desire to be up and active. I'd have gone straight for the pitocin, but then they make you stay strapped to these monitors and machines and I was NOT thrilled about that.

So my midwife broke my water and we waited for things to really start happening. Turns out, I got a nurse who thought I needed to be strapped to the monitors for 40 min. out of every hour anyway, so there went my big plans to be ACTIVE.

I'll help you all out here by shortening this up considerably. Here's how it went:

At the midwife's office the day before: 2 cm
Upon breaking my water: 3 cm
6 Hours later: 4 cm
*started pictocin*
6 Hours after starting the pitocin: 5 cm

Yes, that's right. 12 hours after beginning the induction, I'd progressed only 2 cm.

Six HOURS of pitocin induced contractions and only 1 cm of progression, even though the dosage was increased at half hour increments.

At that point, if I hadn't already had my water broken, I'd have stood up, ripped all the crap outta my arm and off of my belly and WENT HOME. But I couldn't, really. I was on the clock, half of my go time was gone. I had 12 more hours before they started pushing for a c-section and at the rate I was going I was going to need a few more days to get the job done.

The worst part of it was that I *thought* I was really close to transition.

Nope.

Contractions every 2-3 min. lasting 60-90 seconds, controlling my breathing, concentrating on relaxing every muscle, focusing, and still nowhere near transition.

I had to stop fighting the pain, somehow.

I sat there in the rocking chair, bawling for a few seconds in between contractions, internally swearing like a sailor, when I finally pushed the call button for the nurse.

"Can I have... (gulp)... an epidural?" I squeaked out the question not really sure if I was more scared to get one or to NOT get one yet. I mean, this was ME we were talking about. It's not like I hadn't gone through this all before (well, minus the pitocin) for Waaay longer with Joshua. And there was going to be this needle.

In. My. Spine.

Who DOES that?!

"You sure can, sweetie!"

My nurse lit up like a Christmas tree. Before I could begin to second guess myself she'd called the troops in and they began to set up. Twenty minutes after I asked for it, I was beginning to feel some relief. Thanks to being short, the process itself took a bit longer than usual, but after hearing many stories of women waiting HOURS for their epi, I was really glad it happened so fast.

My blood pressure was already low to begin with and I'd set off the alarms more than once earlier in the day, but within minutes of the epi it dropped and set off the alarms again. The nurse gave me something in my IV to stabilize it, but it fell several more times over the next hour.

After that, things grew quieter, calmer, the nurses came and went, leaving the lights down so we could rest. I actually slept in between contractions, which spaced out to 8-10 minutes apart. I was discouraged. I felt like everything was out of my control now, instead of just the timing of labor coming on.

Colby went to sleep.

My mind felt numb.

I wanted to pray, but there were no words.

A few more hours drifted by.

Then the shaking began. Uncontrollable, knee-jerking spasms. I thought I was going to throw myself off the bed! I mean, usually I just puke a few times and I'm done with it, but this transition was totally different. And a lot longer than 20 minutes.

I was checked. 8 cm.

An hour later I was checked again. Still only at 8. Which, by the way, seemed to me to feel pretty much the same with our without an epidural. From transition forward I felt immense pain during contractions and pushing was every bit as painful as every other time I've done it.

Somewhere along the line I began to feel as if I were standing at the edge of a cliff. I had to jump to the other side but it seemed like a long way across. I had to cross; there was no way around it. But I didn't feel like I could.

I began to feel the pull of that irresistible current. I was drifting out to sea. The riptide had its hold on my body. I fought off the need to push, telling myself at first that I fought it because I was not fully dilated. But twenty minutes later when I was still hyperventilating and fighting it off harder than ever, my midwife began to realize something wasn't right.

I never looked at her. I couldn't break my focus away from my husband's eyes. All I could hear was his voice, trying to keep me calm, trying to help me through this fight going on inside of me.

Somewhere in my soul I watched a reel that played three scenes over and over: my little boy laying in a hospital bed with tubes and wires everywhere and a big red line down his little chest where his broken heart had been fixed; my midwife telling me I'd lost the baby and the look on my husband's face as I spoke those words to him; and pictures of our friends' precious baby lost at full term.

Bad things really do happen. I'm not immune. My children are not immune.

I was afraid.

"Lisa, you're at 10 now, you can push!", my midwife said, hoping I just needed that little bit of info to move on.

"I don't WANT to PUSH!" I huffed out in between hyperventilating breaths.

There was a flurry of activity and some unspoken communication between Colby and the midwife. Next thing I knew his hands were on each side of my face, his nose inches from mine as he said, "Hon, you need to push NOW or I'm going to have to push FOR YOU."

I stood on the cliff and jumped, not knowing where I was going to land. Not believing it was really going to turn out okay.

It only took two pushes till she was up on my chest, looking up at me with big blue eyes.



She was here. She'd made it.

We'd made it.

"Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.", was all I could think to say.

I didn't know fear could cause such paralysis. I'd never been afraid of giving birth or the pain. I'd always trusted both in my body and the outcome.

If I were to admit it, I'd even have to say I'd had a hard time understanding those women who WERE afraid of birth and pain and complications.

This time the innocence was gone.

Every birth, I think, is a spiritual journey. For me, this one took me down a new path, one that taught me not to judge, not to make assumptions, and not to take pride in something that is truly God's and His alone: giving life.

Bad Timing

"Now THIS is bad timing.", I muttered to myself as I walked out of my midwifes office at forty-ONE weeks pregnant.

Epic bad timing.

Earlier that morning my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and nephew had packed up their stuff and headed back to Indiana after staying for a week. To help with the new baby.

Except there WAS no new baby.

I mean, for most of my pregnancy I'd been in this limbo-like state of wondering if I were REALLY going to have another baby. It seemed a bit like a dream in some respects, so maybe it was all... In My Head.

"Psychosomatic. I'm sure of it. I'm never going to have this baby and I'm going to be pregnant FOREVER!", I said through clenched teeth as I wriggled myself into the much too small space between the seat and the steering wheel.

Since the day I stared down at the digital pregnancy test wondering whether it could possibly be telling the truth or not, I'd counted, calculated, and recounted the calendar days till D-Day. I'd known EXACTLY what calendar date the counting should begin, factored the average gestation of each of my previous children, took into account the varying cycle lengths, and used every online due date calendar available.

Not one of my previous children had varied from my calculations for more than a day.

Until now.

Now I was standing there at 41 weeks pregnant, relatives fleeing like june bugs from a duck, and my mom not scheduled to fly in for another week. (Really, I'm not blaming any of them, I'm so thankful for the help each one of them provided for the time they were here!)

All I could picture was the weekend flying by just like every other day of the last 3 weeks: with constant, timeable contractions that did nothing. Then I'd finally go into labor late Sunday night, have the baby in the wee hours, then have my husband go home, get the kids, and drop them off on his way to work.

With me.

AT THE HOSPITAL.

I had to figure out something, and quick.

So early Saturday morning we dropped the kids off with Grandpa J. and headed in to the hospital for a non-stress test, which is standard operating procedure for anyone a week or more past due. But we brought the hospital bag anyway, knowing the recommendation would be to stay and be induced.

My fluids were low. My midwife was on call. The hospital bed stood at the ready, with the big spa tub waiting.

I mean, it's not like I was terribly miserable. Not like with Emmy. I knew this wasn't a 9 lb. baby, though my midwife was worried anyway about having a previous 9 pounder at 40 weeks. I wasn't all 'PLEASE LORD let me DIE before going another day PREGNANT!!!' like that.

I could have gone another week.

But still. It was getting tedious.

Mostly the comments and questions were getting tedious.

How many more days would I have to hear things like:

* "How are you feeling today?" PREGNANT.

* "Aren't you having ANY contractions?" YES. Yes, I am. CONSTANTLY. But they just don't seem to want to intensify and get down to 3 min. apart so I can go to the HOSPITAL.

* "Can't you produce?" WELL, Obviously I CAN. Just not on cue, apparently.

* "Are you a horse?" Um, WHAT?!

Took me a while to figure that one out. Like, two days later when I realized that there had been a full moon on the night of that particular question... But yeah, at the time, I FELT like a whale and being CALLED a horse didn't help my state of mind.

So yeah, back at the hospital.

I stood there looking at my midwife and I made a decision I never thought I'd be faced with making: I chose to be induced.

Timing Is Everything

Q: What do a gash on an ankle, a baby with her hand stepped on, a turned over bucket of bark dust and a confiscated pair of screwdrivers all have in common?

A: They all shared the same 30 seconds of chaos in our living room.

Some families just have a fantastic sense of timing like that.

Have you ever noticed that while driving in the car with a bunch of little kids that it is nearly impossible to listen to the radio? I can't tell you how many times this scenario has played out in my car:

~silence~
~reach for knob to turn on radio~
"Mom, how do you spell 'road'?"
~for the next 10 minutes I have flashbacks of grade school spelling bees~
~silence~
~reach for knob to turn on radio~
"Mom, I want to tell you a story"
~for the next 10 minutes I listen to each child tell their story~
~silence~
~reach for knob to turn on radio~
"Mom, why is there a tractor on the road?" "Why?" "Why?" "Why?"
~for the next 10 minutes I try to answer all of the "Why?" questions that my three year old comes up with.

And so the vicious cycle goes. Perfect timing. Just reach for the knob and wait for the questions to start. I can feel my neck muscles start to tense up just THINKING about turning on the radio. Sometimes I try to sneak my hand over there all stealthy-like. Or dart my hand over there in a flash. It never works. It's like there's an invisible force field around the radio that the children are directly connected to by invisible tethers. They can feel my hand enter into the force field and they must intercept the interference like little superheros.

Or something.

Ah yes, timing. It's all about the timing.

For instance, there was this one day when I was 9 months pregnant this summer and just HAD to get out of the house. So I packed up all the kids, drove over to town and pulled into the parking lot of my favorite children's resale store. I can always find a good bargain there. At least I can when I'm not distracted by the voice of the old biddy telling my kids what to do and what not to touch.

In we all trooped: my big waddly self and my three little ducklings in a row.

Out we all shuffled: my big waddly self carrying a wet three year old and my two little squawking ducklings trailing behind.

We were there exactly long enough for my three year old to find a cool toy, get distracted by it, forget she needed to use the potty and PEE on the floor of the store.

Oh yes. She did.

I suppose I could have just bought her a new pair of pants there and continued on with my plans for the day, but seriously, I was so embarrassed I couldn't get out of there fast enough. In the car I stripped her down, took off her sweatshirt, wrapped it around her legs, buckled her in and we drove straight home. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. That was our entire outing for the day.

Mostly, though, we have issues in the timing of our children themselves.

First, there was the great timing of getting pregnant just in time to be at the fat stage of pregnancy (15 weeks) while standing up in my best friend's wedding. At least the bridal shop let me exchange my dress for a bigger one. *sigh*

Then there was getting pregnant with our third when the second was only 8 months old. While taking more than one precaution. *sigh*

But the best one was our fourth. Whatever you do, don't have this conversation with your spouse:

"Honey, let's take a break from trying so I am not pregnant all summer or having a baby right when the kids are starting school. I think it would be best not to have an August or September baby."

What's the old saying?

If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans.

Mommy School

Well, you'd think after this many years some of these lessons would have been learned long ago. I don't know, maybe they were and I just can't remember!

Things I Have Learned Recently:

1. Adding to the list of prime times for baby blowouts: 6:55 AM. As in, RIGHT when we are piling into the car to get to school on time. I thought church was the main target for blowout time, but now we have a DAILY prime time. Fun.

2. Being new-mommy tired makes a girl loopy. I don't need alcohol embarrass myself. I'm quite capable of doing it all on my own while sleep-deprived. Just ask the poor couple Colby and I went on a double-date with this weekend. Not only did I talk baby talk, call my husband "Daddy" in public, and have to stop for a nursing break in the wal-mart parking lot, I actually fell asleep in the car on the way home. I was SO not going to be that mom.

3. All of those great, wonderful, healthy things I craved while pregnant? Completely replaced by cravings that include chocolate, chocolate, and, um.... chocolate. Oh, and more chocolate. So. Replacing that bag of hubby's peanut M&M's that disappeared has been... somewhat of a challenge. I'm quite sure I replaced them... twice...And I don't even LIKE peanut M&M's! I may have to rescind that statement now. Still not really sure if I like them. Might just be the hormones, you know.

4. Diaper bags not only have to be restocked, they have to be UN-stocked. Because if you don't, the whole car will, in fact, start to smell funny.

5. What do you do when you've left the diaper bag in the car overnight and the wipes have frozen solid AND you haven't had a shower in 3 days? Shove one frozen wipe under each arm and VOILA! you've killed two birds with one stone. Defrosted wipes AND smelling fresh as a daisy. Everybody wins. Except maybe the mom in the perfectly clean car next to you with perfect hair and perfect kids wondering why on earth there are very high-pitched squeals coming from the front seat of the car next to her.

6. If you've ever wondered what to do if you find yourself in the mall bathroom with a half-naked baby because you, once again, FORGOT to stock the diaper bag and have no new diaper to put on her - just peel and slap a sanitary pad onto a burp cloth, snap it into the onesie and off you go - this is of course, a VERY short term solution.

7. NEVER say never. There is always more to learn as a mom, whether it's your first time or your fourth!

Four-Spider Days and Whack-A-Mole Weeks

** warning ** some of this might frankly be TMI for some of you. Read at your own risk.

Life is a bowl of cherries! I wake up every morning refreshed and full of energy! I never leave the house without my hair perfectly blown out and with my makeup perfectly done and my kids perfectly dressed, clean, and hair done in cute, perfectly done braids! My house is always clean! AND I cook wonderful, healthy, 5-course meals every day for my family!!!



Let's be real here. Life is hardly perfect or simple when you're a mom of 4. Otherwise I wouldn't have pictures of me that look like THIS:



EVER.

Or have stories to tell like these:

You know it's going to be a questionable day when you kill two spiders in the kitchen and two in the bathroom before 7 am. And I'm not talking little-bitty, barely-know-they're-there kind of spiders. I'm talking big, brown, hairy-legged wolf spiders with bodies the size of dimes that watch you try to kill them and hustle out of the way Looong before your foot comes down on them like those big 'ole spiders in Brazil did.

At least this year we seem to just be dodging the small-to-medium sized wolf spiders. I can handle dime sized bodies with hairy legs.

Barely.

But I CAN handle them.

The ones we had a few years ago, though, with bodies the size of quarters and legs that resembled fingers... not so much. Those things will keep you up at night with the lights on so you can see them coming and grab the shotgun if they approach your bed. And give you nightmares if you ever do manage to fall asleep.

But back to my current story.

The four-spider day just happened to be a Sabbath morning when my fourth kiddo was almost 3 weeks old and we were attempting to go to church. The spiders were just the beginning of the fun.

In between the circus accompanying the dressing, grooming, cleaning, feeding, and disciplining of the big kids there was the blowout. Even after 3 previous babies which have all proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Sabbath mornings and picture days are inevitably christened by blowouts, I still found myself unprepared. Or maybe there just IS no "preparation" for a blowout?

I'm not sure there is a mother out there who doesn't look at the yellow streak up the backside of her little one and think, "Uh... how do I get these clothes OFF, exactly?". Or more specifically, "How do I get these clothes off without getting this goop all over this kid... and myself?!"

Sometimes these things can actually be managed with half a package of baby wipes and sometimes it requires a bath for baby and a shower for mommy. Maybe that shower doesn't actually happen for another two days, but hey, when you're a new mommy you count yourself lucky to get a shower more than once a week.

Just don't count on that once-a-week shower happening on Sabbath morning, though. While I was busy wondering how I could mask the spit-up smell in my hair without half a bottle of perfume, I actually SAW myself in the mirror and realized it had been a little bit too long since the last time I used a pair of tweezers. I didn't even WANT to look at my legs or count up the days (ahem...weeks) since I'd used a razor.

The real fun started, though, once we'd finally made it to church. The kids actually caught the last 15 min. of Sabbath School (yay!) thanks to the help of Grandma! I'm not sure we would have made it at all without her. Exactly 10 minutes after arrival I realized that while I had appropriately stocked the diaper bag with all the necessary items for BABY, I had NOT stocked it at all for Mommy.

What does Mommy need, you ask? Well, for starters, disposable nursing pads (hereafter to be known as DNP so I don't slip up and say "breast pad" or worse, just refer to them as pads). Again, you would think that somewhere along the way with THREE previous babies I would have realized how important this is. Or how important it is to replace the DNPs after EVERY time you feed the baby. Because there was a very uncomfortable moment while standing in the foyer when I realized I had ONE DNP in place, not TWO. While my baby began to fuss...

Let me follow that little PSA by another PSA: Whatever you do, when you find yourself in that sort of situation, do NOT use toilet paper as a substitute for a DNP. Unless you like having TP mush in your bra and have some sort of plan for how to clean it OFF before the next feeding. Really, if I'm ever in that sort of situation again (which, I hopefully won't be thanks to a now fully-stocked-for-Mommy diaper bag) I will go for the full-size sanitary pad DNP-substitute and pretend I have always had a very lopsided chest.

The other thing that I learned MUST be stocked up on? Oh yes, that's right - pads and pantyliners. Because why stop at just one embarrassing leak? No, no, let's go for the full-body betrayal here. And might I just stop right here to say THANK YOU to the lady who made sure there were extra supplies stocked up under the sink in the ladies' room?

*sigh*

I mean, I KNOW I've learned these important lessons already, but I seem to have a VERY hard time remembering them!

Apparently I have a hard time remembering a lot of things.

Later that day when we were at home, my mom had a headache so I went to the kitchen to get her some ibuprofen. I grabbed the bottle, shook out a dose, and then went to the sink to get a drink of water for her. But then I remembered she already had a bottle of water with her in the living room, so I got myself a drink, turned around, and walked into the living room. Once there I stood in the middle of the rug looking around, confused. I was SURE I had just had some ibuprofen in my hand. Where did it go? I looked down at my two empty hands and KNEW I had just lost my mind. Maybe I was dreaming? Sleep-walking? Something was wrong, here. I retraced my steps, even squatted down and looked on the floor... and then I burst out laughing. Well, I didn't have a headache to begin with, but after that I was SURE I wasn't going to GET one, either!

Now that's some scary memory loss. And that's not all of it.

This is my second full week of packing up all 4 kids and getting two of them off to school on time without the help of grandma. It has been busy, but we have not been late once! I have, however, had at least one of these thoughts go through my head on almost every single morning:

"Did I brush my hair?"
"Did I brush my TEETH?!"
"Am I wearing exactly the same jeans and hoodie I wore yesterday?"
"Will I ever find the time to put some makeup on again?!"

Yikes.

Maybe my memory will come back right about the time my night sweats let up and my hair starts to fall out. Gotta love those hormones. Or lack thereof.

At least I know I'm not alone, here. Yesterday morning I saw places on the road where there was distinct evidence that at least two people were going to arrive at work and wonder what on earth they'd done with their coffee... until they got out and saw the coffee stains on the trunk. And it wasn't even Monday.

Ah, there is bit of companionship in shared amnesia!