Failing

So I have failed miserably lately for creating time for myself. Well, unless its sneaking in games of solitaire on Facebook, but that's usually so I can sit and think about nothing for a few minutes. Since I haven't blogged in months, you were probably already aware of this, though. There are pages and pages of things I want to do, and could probably make time for, IF I had the energy to do so. I am not handling the lack of - or more appropriately, the disrupted sleep - that I have been getting for the last 9.5 months. I really feel like I should be able to get more done, but all I want to do is sleep. (Even as I try to write this, twice I have had to comfort Charlie because he has bumped his head trying to stand on the chair I am sitting in - because OMG! MOM IS ON THE COMPUTER, I MUST STOP THIS!) When I think about the things I want or need to get done, it just makes me MORE tired. In fact, its depressing just to write about it.

I did manage to complete a digital scrapbook of my hospital pictures of Charlie's birth over the last week. Just need Jim to get some info & journal a little if he wants. Now, don't be too impressed. It really only took me about 6 hours total to do the 20 pages. I do miss playing with paper on a traditional scrapbook, but its much more work to get out all the tools I need for that than it is to do on my computer.

Maybe I will leave Jim to parent this afternoon and run some errands. Not really "me" time, but it won't be "mommy" time anyway.

Anyway, just wanted to say a quick HI! And apologize for not having better figured out how to manage my time yet.

Made time

I have been wanting to blog for over a month now, but I have sucked at making the time. So today I tried to "make time" during a nap, but the Geekling had other plans. Blogging aborted. Tried tonight to make time. I got the blue screen of death twice. Called the Geek Squad (ie husband). It seems there is a problem with an optional update and IE 9 (which I only use for blogging - something about gmail and the 4 gmail accounts I have) that causes the Blue Screen of death. Viola! Jeeves (husband) finds this problem and fixes it. 30 minutes after I try to start blogging, I can actually start typing!

I am making time everywhere people!

I was chatting with a friend the other week. She and her partner had their baby just a day before Charlie, so we were catching up about our little time drainers. She also wanted to make sure that I was doing ok. Some of my internet posts had her a little worried that I might not be doing ok, that I might not be enjoying parenting. I laughed and reassured her, but also thanked her for checking up on me.

For as much as I might share (ok, overly share) how little sleep I get, when I am not a stumbling zombie, I find that I am greatly enjoying parenting more than I thought I would. I still GREATLY miss sleeping for more than 3 hours in a row, and I would give my best nursing bra to sleep for 5 hours in a row. But most of the time, I would still do it again. (Although that would require actually having energy to have sex, which is still eluding me. Poor Jeeves.) But the good news is that I am too tired to worry about the fact that I am probably messing Charlie up! A routine? What's that? Nap schedule? I put him to sleep when he is sleepy! 15 minutes of reading to him every day? Sure, most of the time, but I have to work hard just to remember to brush my teeth daily! Don't let your baby watch tv? Hey, a girl has to get dressed and if the Price is Right distracts him enough so I can, then 10 minutes of the Price is Right it is!

(Now where was I? My "made time" is during laundry and I had to run another rinse cycle on the diapers.)

Oh yes - I did have one new mom meltdown. But surprisingly it wasn't about me worrying that I was doing something wrong with the Geekling. It was about all the things in life that WEREN'T baby related that I was struggling to get done. I had locked my keys in the car at the grocery store (when I had the Geekling with me), I had forgotten a card for my nephew's birthday, my house was a mess, and just a whole lot of other little life things that piled up and overwhelmed me. I felt like the only thing that I COULD do was parent the Geekling. Luckily the breakdown didn't last long, and my nephew was not permanently scarred. My loved ones cared enough to ask what was wrong, and knew enough to wait until I was able to talk about it. But basically it boiled down to parenting the Geekling was taking up more time than I anticipated and I was struggling find any life balance. (Still struggling! But managing better. Mostly just ignoring the cat hair tumbleweeds that have invaded my house.)

Well its 10pm already and little Geekling will be up between 7 and 8 (and 1 & 3, and 4 & 6) so I better go to sleep. Night all!

Team Sleep

TWO MONTHS?! I haven't blogged in two months? What the ... Well - just feel lucky that I have at least showered a few times in those two months. :: sniff, sniff :: Well not TODAY, but most days.

I feel so cliche - Charlie is 3 & a half months old now. He seems GIANT. Time goes by so fast. All those things you hear people say are true. (which is probably why they say them) I can say that I already miss the "little" baby days. I go to a weekly breastfeeding support group and when there are babies younger than Charlie there, I ALREADY think - he was never that small! Sigh. I already became that person.

I am happy - actually HAPPY - to say that I have easily fallen into a role that I was sure wouldn't fit me. It feels weird, yet very "normal", that I have slid so smoothly into this new identity. My decision to stay home has been very intuitive so far. I can't imagine doing anything else - even though I NEVER thought of myself as someone who would stay home. Yes, my back hurts from having to carry him around when he doesn't want to be set down and I wish I could just SIT sometimes, but it feels so natural. Huh. There are not many things in my life where I have felt "natural" - most of the time I feel awkward and out of place. So this is something new and exciting for me.

I never worried that I wouldn't love Charlie, but I worried I wouldn't love him the right way. But based on my desire to just hold him when he sleeps, or squish him because he is so cute, or the way my heart breaks when I hear sad stories about children - I feel confident that my love is the right way.

The way stories affect me now is something that has taken me by surprise. TV shows, books, movies with story lines that involve injured or dead children make me feel sick to my stomach. Sure, I have always been disturbed by these things, but the physical response I now have is astonishing. Even just a post I read about how a new mom's mother-in-law proudly tells her that when she brought her son home from the hospital, she put him in his bassinet and vacuumed to cover up his cries because he needed to learn that he couldn't "get away with that sort of thing", makes my stomach lurch and my fists ball.

But the Colbert Report is on now, which means I better go to sleep as Charlie will want to eat in 3-4 hours. If I am lucky. Here's hoping for a 5 hour stretch of sleep! Or 4! GOOO SLEEP! (I am Team Sleep)

How I met Charlie

I do apologize for the lack of posts. I feel very cliche, but most days I feel accomplished if I can shower and make my doctor appointments. But before I forget all the details, I wanted to record how I met Charlie. I apologize for the length, but there were so many important parts I wanted to (over) share.

On Monday, October 29th, I packed my bag for the hospital and Jim fit the car seat into the car. And as I was washing baby clothes so Charlie would have something to wear when he would arrive the following week, Moises sprayed on some boxes in Charlie's room while standing right next to me. There I was, 38 weeks pregnant, and dealing with cat pee. Again. I just cried. I knew I couldn't handle a newborn AND cat pee. I put Moises into the office to limit damage - it was a space he had never peed in before - and just sat down and cried. I reached out to my rescue friends and started to line up a place for him to go live for a while - the only option I felt I had. Jim and I had differing views on the matter, and it was a rough, emotional night. Neither of us wanted to let Moises go, but didn't know how to manage one cat (Roxy) living in one room, combined with a newborn and ANOTHER cat locked in a DIFFERENT room.

After much crying, I had crawled into bed around 1:30am. I got up to pee at 1:45 (what else is new), and had just crawled back into bed when my water broke. As soon as it happened, my first thought was - that's not pee! I just peed! - and then I leapt out of bed and ran to the shower, all the while telling Jim - "Clean it up! It stains!" - while Jim says - "its go time?" I then stood in the shower shivering while my water continued to "break" - every time I thought it had stopped, I would move and it would start up again. It was the weirdest damn thing to "pee" without any control over it for over 30 minutes. I showered to warm up while Jim threw his stuff together for the hospital. Even though I didn't feel any contractions, my doctor had wanted me to go the hospital as soon as my water broke because I had excess fluid, so away we went, with me wearing a towels between my legs while sitting on a plastic bag in Jim's car.

We got to the hospital around 2:30am on the 30th. The only thing eventful about the first few hours, were the number of nurses I went through. The duty nurse checked us in and first checked me while we waited for the on call nurse to come in. We had nurse #2 for about an hour, before we got nurse #3 + nursing student for a little over an hour. The nursing student was very nice and finishing up her internship in just a few weeks. My doula arrived around 6 (I think), when I was enjoying the giant bathtub in my room. I think the bath was my favorite part of the laboring process. I think I could have labored in there all day. I only got out because I was turning into a prune. I was only up and about until like 8 am, when I got the weird news that ruined my labor plan.

My pregnancy had been very healthy. I had weekly ultrasounds for the last 8 weeks because I was 35, but other than having excess fluid around the baby, everything looked great. So when the nurse - and nurse #4 was my LEAST favorite, I was VERY happy I didn't have her all day - came in and told us that I had severe preeclampsia and would have to go on immediate bed rest and meds, my first thought was that they had mixed up my blood work with someone else's. My blood pressure throughout my pregnancy had always been great. But nope. My body was freaking out and there was nothing I could do about it. My blood pressure was very high, my liver enzymes were elevated and my platelets were declining - all indicators of HELLP syndrome. I wasn't "full blown" HELLP syndrome yet, so they were able to treat me with magnesium and let me labor. But laboring in bed with only a choice of my left side or my right side, was not what I had hoped for.

Luckily, shortly after I got confined to bed, I got nurse #5 - Andrea - who I had for the rest of the day until my c-section. She was great even though we greeted her by telling her we weren't going to learn her name because she was nurse #5. But she laughed with us, and she instantly gave me a good feeling (compared to nurse #4, who gave me the impression she wasn't confident in herself). Andrea took the time to explain HELLP to me, and generally made the day better. Without my doula and Andrea, I don't know how we would have made it through the day. There were so many things we didn't know and weren't prepared for with the severe preeclampsia and HELLP, and they were amazing.

The day really ran together for me once I was confined to the bed. Because stroke is a possible complication with HELLP, the curtains had been closed and the lights turned down in my room since 8am, so I had no clue what time it was. Jim and my doula were great though. Although, at some point as Jim was trying to comfort me during a contraction, he said something to the effect of, "good girl," and I told him he couldn't say that anymore because all I could think of was that he was talking to a dog. Bless his heart, I think he only said it once more after that and caught himself that time anyway. Jim really was great that day. I really started to question myself as I was so frustrated by not being able to move out of bed. I think its a rule that everyone must tell a laboring woman that she is doing a good job, but I really didn't feel like I was. I just felt really defeated, and I cried on a couple of occasions - which really, just made the contractions worse. But when my doula followed up with me a couple of days later, she said that during those times when I was crying, and my back was to Jim, that he was crying too. And even now, 6 weeks later, picturing that brings tears to my eyes. He really was so supportive of me that day - my heart feels enormously grateful that I have such a great partner.

I was really hoping to try to labor without an epidural, but between my lack of options for movement during labor and the possibility that my platelets would get too low and I might have to have an emergency c-section, I did opt for an epidural - I think it was late afternoon or early evening. Luckily, I got a great anesthesiologist who was willing to do one even though my platelets were in the 80s (they fell into the 60s eventually I think) - if the platelet count is below 100, they don't usually do epidurals.

Actually the anesthesiologist was a riot. Even in my stupor from the meds - the magnesium made it hard to keep my eyes open - I remember telling him I liked him. He was joking and made me feel so at ease, even given the seriousness of the situation. He was teasing my nurse about having seen her naked, and Andrea was laughing and scolding him for the joke, but I loved every minute of it, and it took me away from the pain for the time being. (Andrea had to have some emergency surgery earlier in the year, and he was her anesthesiologist. She said she actually asked for him, that he was the best, which made me feel even better.) He asked me afterward how I was feeling, and I told him it was like I had carpal tunnel in my ass, which made him laugh. "I have never heard that before. I will have to remember that," he said. Having a numb ass is a very ODD sensation, let me tell you.

At some point, I started to have nausea, and Andrea got me a bucket to hold. I named it Bob the Bucket. He stayed with me most of the afternoon/evening. I am not sure I actually needed to use one until the operating room, but it made me feel better to hold it. Although I think my doctor thought I was crazy when I told her I had named it Bob the Bucket.

I never did dilate past 8 cm. (The pitocin tells the muscles to contract, but the magnesium tells them to relax. No wonder my body was all WTF.) And around 8cm, my cervix started to swell - the opposite of what you want to be happening at this time. So around 7:30 in the evening, everything started to turn downward - I wasn't dilating, my BP was still high, my platelets were lower - so it was decided to move forward with an urgent c-section rather than wait and potentially end up with an emergency c-section. (With the urgent, I could be awake and Jim could be in the room, the emergency meant I would be asleep and Jim couldn't be there.) I definitely wanted the urgent and NOT the emergency.

But I was mourning the loss of the opportunity to have my son laid on my chest right after he was born. If you know me, and read this blog, you know that I struggle with depression. While I appreciate my anti-depressants for keeping me stable, it is at the cost of muted feelings. And I was looking forward to that iconic moment of birth with hopes of my hormones overriding my muted feelings. I was hoping it would give me that intense moment of connection I felt I didn't get during pregnancy, and was worried I wouldn't get at birth.

Once they decide to do the c-section, it moves fast. Jim and my doula were gowned up before I knew it, and I was being wheeled to surgery. I was so tired at this point, and the meds making me so loopy, that it all runs together. I remember falling backward onto the table as the block took effect, and feeling like the table wasn't wide enough. (I also remember vomiting repeatedly. Not cool.) I remember someone asking if a nursing student could watch the procedure, and them telling Jim he could watch too if he wanted. (He declined.) My doula did watch the procedure, and told me later how careful my doctor was and how impressed she was by her. I remember someone telling me that I was going to feel someone pressing on me to get the baby out, and I remember looking to my left as Charlie was screaming his little head off and waving his arms and legs around as the nurse looked him over at the baby station, but I don't remember the time between those events. I remember tiredly thinking, "Oh, look. A baby," and barely being able to keep my eyes open. When they brought Charlie over to me, I remember smelling him and thinking, "He smells good. That's weird. He was just inside me. How does he smell good?" And kissing his cheek.

(I love that in the first picture I actually look coherent. The rest of the pictures of me I look completely out of it. This picture reassures me that the birth of my child did break through my muted emotions, even if all the meds I was on made me barely conscious.)

I somehow ended up in the recovery room, and sadly, we were stuck in this room for several hours. Mostly this sucked for Jim as there was only one chair with no arms and he had to hold Charlie almost the whole time. (We were there from around 9:30 to 2am - they didn't have enough staff to move me to my post-partum room. And by this point, we had been awake for over 24 hours.) My arms were shaking from the meds/hormones, and when they stopped shaking, my arm was numb from my carpal tunnel and I was afraid to hold Charlie. I was able to at one point lay him on my chest, and I was still amazed that he smelled good. It wasn't until around 2:30 that I was finally able to feed him, and then shortly thereafter, he fell asleep and we sent him to the nursery to sleep - sleep for both him and us. But first, I made Jim lay in bed with me for a few minutes and we chatted softly about the day. I don't remember what we talked about, but I appreciated the opportunity for it be "us" for a few minutes.

(The next day or so Jim ran into Nurse Andrea in the hallway, and she expressed to him that she was so worried about me and that she really wanted to stay with us past her shift to see us through and she asked about Charlie. Jim invited her to my room and I got to show off Charlie. She was very excited to meet him and to see that I was better. I was grateful to be able to express how awesome she was for us.)

My poor husband

Poor Jim. I mean, he had to have known how crazy I was when he married me (although I think my boobs distracted him until it was too late), but now I am crazy AND growing his child. I am sure he is torn between wanting to lock me in a room to contain my crazy and wanting to make sure I continue to grow said baby.

Usually, I am able to keep going (just keep swimming ...) and stay busy enough until I fall asleep to distract myself from my immense feelings of inadequacy and the mourning of my loss of self. But yesterday I was too worn down to do anything but give in. And poor Jim. Crazy pregnant lady cannot express herself well, and in trying to express how I was feeling, mostly ended up hurting Jim's feelings. While I am crazy, hurting other's is not usually my goal. (Unless it involves someone standing in front of me in line unsure of what they want to order when they get to the cashier or when they feel the need to take 5 minutes to count out exact change.) So then crazy pregnant lady realizes that she isn't expressing herself well and is hurting her very supportive partner, which only adds to her feelings of "oh god, I shouldn't have a child", and viola, more crying as crazy pregnant lady realizes the child is doomed by her craziness. Poor Jim.

In short, Jim is now accepting donations of beer (for himself) and a padded room (for me).

Apparently its OCTOBER

So apparently I still have 6 more weeks of being pregnant. I gotta say, it feels like I have been pregnant forever. In my defense, I have known since like March 5th that I am pregnant, so it has been most of the year. But as I come up to the end of the pregnancy, I get to have panic attacks about the fact that they GIVE YOU A BABY TO TAKE HOME at the end. I mean seriously, did you know that?! THERE IS AN ACTUAL BABY IN THERE & YOU HAVE TO TAKE IT WITH YOU. This was a little close to home today as one of my employee's had her baby today, and I got to go visit them in the hospital to squish the baby and say hi. There was this little human who like 12 hours prior was still INSIDE HER MOM'S BELLY.

That is just BIZARRE.

Logically, I am very intelligent and I understand how mammals have babies, but still. WEIRD. Although, none of you are probably shocked that I feel that way. Obviously, you know me.

My panic moments don't last long, more passing than anything - although I do try to deflect focusing on the panic too much. But besides my feeling uncomfortable in my own physical body because of pregnancy, I am having this other feeling of being uncomfortable in my own being lately. Hard to explain, but something I am paying attention to and noting, nonetheless.

Escapism has always been a theme in my depression, so I shouldn't be surprised that its cropping up in my worry about the Geekling and me. I warned Jim when he wanted to have a child that there was always the possibility that after the baby that I might leave him with the baby and run away. (worst mother ever) When I am really struggling with depression, I often have escapism fantasies about being able to run away and be someone else. (They don't usually last too long as my intelligent brain starts pointing out all the faults in the plan. Stupid brain.) So I am assuming this uncomfortable-in-my-own-being state is related to this.

In other news, did you know its OCTOBER?! WTF. Its Jim and my 9th wedding anniversary this month and his birthday as well. Normally, I am the planner in the relationship and have my gifts planned well in advance. This year? Yeah, not so much. Think he wants some socks? Maybe with a Star Wars theme? Mostly I just want a nap. And to not have to pee during said nap.

Non-Optional Social Convention

I apologize for not blogging for a month. I have spent most of the last month overwhelmed & undermotivated. And possibly huddled in a corner, rocking & crying. Surprisingly the crying (or really, desire to) is work-related and NOT pregnancy related. Well most of it.

First - I have survived the Geekling's celebratory luncheon. As most of you know, I HATE with a passion showers of any kind. I attend them to support friends & family, but really would rather go to the dentist. Or take my cat to the vet. Or look at pictures of spiders. (shudder) But I also understand that they tend to be a non-optional social convention that family and friends like to attend for major life events. So I had the "brilliant" idea to just have one big shower instead of having 3 - one for each side of the family & one for friends - but apparently, friends and family LIKE to go to these things and I had like 70 people show up. Seriously. What the hell is wrong with you people. Although based on the amount of talking going on while I opened presents, it was just a great place to catch up, and people paid much less attention to me, which I appreciated. Sure, I loved getting to see people that I don't normally get to see, and people that I do get to normally see. I just really struggle with the people I don't know at all, and who don't know (or understand) me. And its all about this pregnancy - which if you don't understand me, makes for VERY awkward conversations. For example: relative I haven't seen in almost 9 years: "OH! You must be so excited!" Me: smiling uncomfortably, "Sure."

Or a relative reading a poem at my shower - which was sprung on me at the last minute - that was pretty much the EPITOME of everything I don't want my parenting experience to be. I fought off an anxiety attack just sitting there smiling politely while a room of 70+ people stared at me while the poem was read, which I shit you not included the line, "The very walls will be silenced too, where once the laughter broke," BECAUSE APPARENTLY HAVING A CHILD MEANS YOU DON'T LAUGH ANYMORE.

I do hope that my guests had fun - even without any games. I mean, seriously. Who came up with the idea of melted chocolates in diapers?! I want to stab them in the face. So we didn't have any games. I just gave away some prizes cuz I like prizes. And my prizes included wine and beer. Cuz I am amazeballs.

Second - I attended our first baby related class - breastfeeding. I plan to breastfeed, barring some sort of inability to do so. The class was nice, but not much I didn't already know or couldn't have googled (how long can you freeze breastmilk?). But I think Jim learned a lot. Mainly that he got to watch videos of BOOBIES. But as I was standing, waiting for the bathroom - really? a 2 stall bathroom nearest the classroom for all the pregnant ladies? really? - I could hear the ladies from my class chatting inside. "Is it your first?" "Us too! Aren't you SOO excited?!" and I immediately felt like a fraud, immediately outside the group. Like all the times in school when I just wished I could blend into the wall, but now my stomach would stick out too far. So it would have to be a bumpy wall.

And then as I sat through the rest of the class and they focused on all the things that can go wrong, and the Geekling decided that recreating the Alien movie in my stomach was a good idea, I started to make plans for which corner I wanted to huddle in until the anxiety passed. (I decided any of them would do.) When I am not being bombarded with all the OH SHIT things that can go wrong, I can remember that apparently women have babies all the time, and have been doing so for something like eleventy billion years. Or twelve. Either or. But the information overload just did me in. And even today, 24 hours later, I find myself diverting my brain when it strays too close to the dangerous territory of remembering that in 8 weeks, I am supposed to have a baby. In fact, just typing that sentence, was too much.

I think I will go to bed now. With some Tylenol PM. And yoga breathing. And wishing for some alcohol.