She Just Walks Around With It

Are You Kidding Me WIth This?

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:53:00 +0000

I get it now.

I had a pretty easy pregnancy. My body, for whatever reasons, adapted to it quite well. I eased into it and never got that sudden kind of "what on EARTH is happening to my body???" feeling that so many women do, especially when they're spending the first three months puking their brains out.

Ah, but.

Here I am after. And now I'm feeling the effects. Now I'm going through some slow, torturous hormonal adjustment period that I'm not entirely sure will ever end.

I was THRILLED when, 10 weeks after giving birth I was feeling (reasonably) rested and energized and could not WAIT to get into the gym. ME! Excited about the gym! And I started eating better and even lost my taste for bad foods (the kinds that were absolutely required in my third trimester).

Apparently that was a phase, too. One I'm trying to reclaim, yes, but still.

I can't even begin to describe the hormonal imbalances I'm feeling now. Way worse than wondering why I'm crying at the sad mop in the commercial. No. I FEEL my moods shift. One day I am happy to eat a balanced meal, the next day I am so ravenously hungry that I become a bottomless pit and want to eat for days and days. My hair has started that awesome stage of postpartum fall-out (sexy!). One week my skin will look as blemished as it's looked since I was a teenager, the next week it's as clean and smooth and fresh-looking as it's ever looked ever in my life. I am gung-ho about the gym one day, and the next it's all I can do to get dressed. I'm not depressed (there is no sadness, no dread)...it's just...my moods, energy levels, appetite, concentration are alllllll over the map.

Four months after giving birth. WAHOO.

I know I need to just rein it in. I need to take control, keep my diet balanced now more than ever (yay, protein!) and force myself to go to the gym.

Hey, at least I forced Ish to take all the leftover Halloween candy in to work with him.

A Good Day

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:22:00 +0000

Today was absolutely gorgeous here in wine country. It was chilly and sunny and very fall-like. No, Napa doesn't have foliage the way New England does, but the vineyards do indeed change colors. Which is pretty spectacular, if not particularly Pilgrim-like.

Ish and I took a leisurely drive with Eve to Sebastopol to pick up some wine that Ish had ordered several months ago from a small, fantastic winery called Radio-Coteau. They weren't having a harvest party or anything, we just basically drove up to a warehouse and tasted some wines in a room that felt like a garage. It was totally unglamorous but that's how things are around here mostly. You don't generally wear your finery to visit a vineyard, you wear a fleece jacket and shoes you don't mind muddying.

On our way home, we decided to stop at a couple wineries near our home that we'd never been to before, just because we could. In fact, since moving here 8 months ago, we'd never spent a Saturday wine tasting and I'd say it was well overdue.

Cuvaison has a new tasting room and it's all open-air and windowed and Earth-friendly and provides quite a lovely glimpse of Napa.

Eve was mostly oblivious, sure, but she seemed to have a fine afternoon regardless. She's gotten very good at blowing spit-bubbles and sticking her tongue out and drooling like a fiend, and just today she's been testing out new sounds she can make which I can't really replicated in type but that sound hilarious. And totally inappropriate at a winery, but what can you do?

I have a feeling the weekends are going to be crazy from now through the end of the holidays, so I'm glad the three of us got to spend a quiet day driving around and enjoying our view.

OOH! AND!? I finally figured out that my phone's camera quality isn't COMPLETE crap, it's that when I use blogger to upload them, BLOGGER messes with the image quality. So I'm back to using Photobucket to host my images, and now they don't suck quite as much!

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The Sammis Family, Circa 1978

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:38:00 +0000

I spent all day today writing my holiday gift guide for guys (for BlogHer) which I can't even link to yet because it's not live. It took me forever and at the end of the day, I'm not sure there's anything there that will help anyone.

I bring this up because after a full day of writing, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to blog here. And normally I wouldn't -- I'd wait until I was coherent in the morning. But that's not how this "blog every day" thing works.

So I did what I said I'd do last night. I went perusing my iPhoto files and chose this photo to post and say a few words about:

This is, perhaps quite obviously, a photo of me and my sister, my dad, and our dog, Cronopio (Crony for short).

We're sitting on the front step of our humble abode in non-humble Darien, Connecticut.

I love this picture because it's silly and happy and funny. We were a mess, even back then. A big, happy, hairy mess.

I love that my dad has preppy patchwork pants and a hairstyle to match the dog's. I love that he has absolutely no idea how to hold the baby and doesn't even know it. I love that my smile is so complete and real that my eyes are slits and my cheeks expand to chipmunk status. I love that my t-shirt says "happiness."

We all got older, and I don't think that's what made us sadder.

I think a lot of bad things happened that made us all sadder.

What am I trying to say?

I think I've spent much of my life trying to reclaim moments like these, moments that feel as good as when we were together and messy and hairy and happy. It's not impossible. It's there, at my core. Optimism. Fearlessness.

I was so lucky to have such a good start on and at life. But then a lot of really bad things happened to my family, and everyone's smiles became strained for a long, long time. It wasn't just because we lost the innocence of youth.

This photo was from the "before."

And that is my single greatest fear in raising Eve. I don't want her life to have a "before" and "after." I want her whole life to be lived from one chipmunk-cheeked moment to the next. Of course, there can be bumps and heartache and sadness and bad things. Of course she will experience the un-good parts of life.

But I hope I have the strength and ability to shield against her having a life of "after."

I was lucky that my family's good times were so good that they will always outweigh the bad, even in hindsight, even decades later. It was enough for my always. But I don't want Eve to have to think back to that time that her family was happy together. I want that kind of intrinsic happy and belief in good to be her now, always.

Well, That Solved That Problem

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:28:00 +0000

Every single word of this is true.

I was lying (laying? God, I will never know) in bed, contemplating the aspects of this season's Project Runway that make it so much less interesting than any previous season, when it occurred to me that I hadn't blogged yet today.

Crap! What am I going to blog about at this late hour? I wondered as I stared at HGTV's Property Virgins and their out-of-control Canadian accents.

I decided I'd just search my iPhoto library (migrated successfully earlier today, thankyouverymuch) and pick out some crazy photo and tell you about its circumstances.

Ish was not in bed yet, he was in the bathroom, so I got up to tell him I had to go blog.

I started to say, "I forgot I have to--" when I rounded the corner to see this:

and I was immediately relieved.

(Well, surprised, too. I mean, I've never seen my husband standing on my bathroom counter before. And even though it was for a good reason -- replacing a lightbulb all on his own, no prompting from me -- I just didn't expect to stumble upon this scene.)

But I was relieved because I knew immediately what photo I was going to blog about. Ha!

Ish sort of asked me what I was saying as I left and reentered the bathroom, this time with my phone/camera. "Oh, I just forgot that I have to go blog. I'll be back up in a few minutes," I said. I snapped a picture of him and came down to blog this.

I'm 99% sure he has no idea that I took the picture or that it's going live tonight. But what am I supposed to do? It's now 11:43 and I can't very well just start over with a totally new blog post.

No, this is it.

Perhaps one of the most meaningless posts in my history of posts, starring a picture of my husband changing a lightbulb until such time as he discovers this is here and gets mad at me and asks me to take it down.

So I guess if you ask: How many cute, bald, MBAs-who-moonlight-as-stand-up-comedians does it take to screw in a lightbulb while standing on a bathroom counter? The answer is: One. But his insane wife will have to blog about it if it happens after 11 p.m. on a night during NaBloPoMo.

I'll "Known Issue" YOU

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:55:00 +0000

My new MacBook arrived today and I was pee-my-pants excited to open it and get it going. My ex El_Gallo is (among other things) a SysAdmin and a Mac/Linux guy, and he told me that migrating from my old machine to my new one would be a snap. For this reason, I decided I would have no problem setting up my new Mac with a teething 4-month old.

Have I never met me?

It's now 8 p.m. and I feel like I've been through war and am about to fall over exhausted. Here is what happened, probably unedited. (STUPID NABLOPOMO.)

Open box. SO PRETTY. Set up computers side-by-side in dining room on large table. Move swing into dining room beside me. Move cat off chair. Bring baby into dining room. Turn new machine on. Be dazzled by welcome screen movie. (Seriously.) Click "yes" to migrating from an old Mac to new one. Select "via wireless network." Follow instructions on new machine. Follow instructions on old machine. Take crying baby out of swing and bounce her on knee. Wait while both machines whir.

Get first error message. Try again. Get same error message. Put baby back in swing. Make bottle. Feed baby in swing with one hand while hitting "Go Back" with other hand. Wireless connection not working. "Network Connection Failed" message repeating itself. Do I have a firewire cable?

Spend the next 30 minutes running through house looking for firewire cable while entertaining a drooling, increasingly fussy baby.

Get back to computers and realize new computer does not have a firewire port. Duh. It's asking for an Ethernet cable connection. Do I have an Ethernet cable?

Burp baby. Provide entertainment for baby. Move bouncer into dining room and set baby in that. Run to "box of cables" and find Ethernet cable. Connect computers. Prepare to be dazzled.

Get same error message.

Call El_Gallo and explain. "Yes....No...No...Uh-huh." Find out I need to call Apple Care. Baby back in lap. Call Apple Care while balancing baby, phone, and two computers in need of something I seem unable to provide. WTF? As I walk through the steps with Mr. Apple Care, baby gets pissed and starts screaming. Have to call Apple Care back.

Take baby upstairs. Calm her, feed her, soothe her, swaddle her, put her down in her crib.

Return to hateful scene at dining room table. Call new Apple Care person. Do all possible easy fixes. Nothing's working. Apparently this is a "known issue." Am not humored by the fact that "known issue" does not come with "known solution."

Finish "System Update" on both computers while Apple Care person gets me off the phone saying she's emailed me the other possible solutions and good luck.

Just as System Update completes, baby wakes up.

Back to bouncing. Did System Update fix the problem? No. DAMN IT. Open email from Apple Care saying the next best thing to a simple migration will be copying my hard drive to a USB external hard drive. SIGH. Happen to have one, but it's upstairs.

Run and get hard drive while singing to drooly baby. Back at dining room table, make sure external drive has enough space for my old computer's hard drive. OF COURSE IT DOESN'T. It's too full by 4 GB. (Out of 100.) Call Ish OUT OF A MEETING. "Hi, um, I know you're busy today, but just tell me: Which of these comedy videos can I delete?"

Wrestle with the "MOVE TO TRASH" function because somehow moving movies to trash isn't freeing up disk space. Figure it out eventually.

Change baby's diaper. Change baby's onesie.

Read further instructions. Discover that in order to copy my old hard drive to the external drive, I need to boot the old computer up from the install disk. HAHAHAHAHA! I moved 7 months ago and had a baby. Do I know where my three-and-a-half year old install disk is?

Grab baby and begin scavenger hunt. Eventually find install disks (YEAH, BITCHES), do a dance of happiness, realize I need to change MY clothes from the last spit-up incident.

Spend 45 minutes doing anything I can think of to soothe teething infant, finally realize baby Tylenol is in order. Everyone calms down a little.

Get back to the dining room, call El_Gallo. "What does it MEAN, launch from install disk? Hold down 'C' when the computer restarts? How am I supposed to KNOW that? That was not in Ms. Apple Care's god damned email!"

Poke around after launching via "hold the 'C' down" method and finally start copying HD onto external drive. WE ARE ALMOST THERE! Oh, except looks like copying entire computer over will take longer than a few minutes.

Tend to drooling, gum-biting, baby. More feeding, changing, holding, rocking, cuddling, and winding down upstairs. Eventually put her to sleep, warm and swaddled.

Return to dining room, awaiting Ish's arrival home. It is 7.5 hours after I began "simple" migration. Old HD has been copied to external HD. I am ready to migrate, again.

And then I realize that the external hard drive is connected via firewire. The external hard drive doesn't have a USB port. In my fury to make a workaround happen, I didn't even NOTICE the firewire-only thing.

I sit, staring at the cable that absolutely will not connect to my new computer.

Ish arrives home.

"Is she asleep?" he asks tenderly.

"This is a FIREWIRE cable," I reply.

"It...yes...it is...?"

"I can't connect this to my new computer!"

"Why not?" he asks.

"Because there is no firewire port. They don't use them anymore I guess. I don't know, the Apple Care woman was as surprised as you were."

"So...martini?"

"Yes, please."

M2

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:12:00 +0000

From a fantastic collection of photos of Eve and our house
which you can see here (no login required).

Last week we had an influx of grandparents.

Ish's parents have some business doings in Sonoma and Tahoe, so they have been coming to visit us Eve about once a month. Which is really great and I totally eat it up. I mean, it should go without saying that I miss my parents as much as (if not more than) ever, now that I have a child. I fall apart when I think about how Eve will never get to meet my mom or dad -- it just...ugh, it just weighs on my heart all the time. So yeah, I love having grandparents around not just for Eve's sake, but for mine. No one can take the place of my parents, of course, but simply being around grandmas is reassuring in a very basic, subconscious, soul-affirming way.

Not only were Ish's parents around last week, though, but my BFF's MOM came! All the way from New York! With her husband, Steven! (Who took the lovely candid photo above!)

This was exceedingly meaningful.

I promise to tell you the story of how I met said BFF, Emily, on the rooftop of a Manhattan building when I was 9 months old. And how I've known Emily and her mom, my "second mother" or "M2" ever since. For now, I will just say that having my M2 here was the closest thing I'll ever experience to having my own mom visit. It was special.

M2 essentially walked in the door, scooped up my daughter and neither one of them ever looked back. (As it should be.) Eve loved her, showed her delight and comfort in being with her G2 as much as a near-4-month-old can. Eve's just starting to get the notion of outstretching her arms to be picked up (she does outstretch her arms, but without any control, in a broad and flailing way) and this originated with M2/G2. I could hardly believe my eyes when, just two days after meeting her for the first time, Eve squirmed with delight in G2's presence, smiled her gummy, coy smile and then stiffened her arms.

"I...I think she wants you to pick her up...?"

And based on Eve's reaction when returned to G2's arms, I'd say yes, that's exactly what she wanted.

My M2 has always been like a Pied Piper to me -- happy, fun, comforting, smiling. She's that rare kind of person who makes those around her feel special; anyone would be lucky to be the recipient of her warmth.

I love that my daughter already knows she's one of the lucky ones.

I Can Always Write About Swim Class. Also, I Need Suggestions...

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:32:00 +0000

This is utterly bizarre, the concept of posting every day just to post every day. It's 10:30 at night and there's no humanly way I can be coherent now, but I also can't fail at NaBloPoMo on day two.

(Well, I mean, I COULD. But I would feel a terrible sense of disgrace. Sort of like that semi-diet thing I started when I started going to the gym 3 days a week. Because while I've kept up with the gym (except for last week, shush) there was also a little matter of Halloween and all its amazing candy that I would never otherwise have in the house.)

* * * * * * * *

Hey, are you guys playing Farmville? Can someone explain to me why I am playing Farmville? I found myself trying to explain about my newly acquired farming proclivities to my mother-in-law and it didn't go so well. She tried really hard to sound interested and encouraging, but I'm certain that in the back of her mind she was concerned about her granddaughter's primary care giver spending great chunks of time planting cartoon pumpkins for fake money.

* * * * * * * *

There's a woman in my swim class who speaks Catalan. She is funny and silly, and I'd put her in her upper 60s. Definitely not elderly by any stretch. She is my favorite woman in the class, not just because she talks to me, but because during my second class when the instructor asked if anyone needed anything, she replied in her thick accent, "a martini."

Today we had a substitute instructor who works us a lot harder than our regular girl. I enjoy the change, but the other members of the class DO NOT LIKE CHANGE. And they don't like working so hard. Halfway through this substitute's workouts, half the class revolts and starts ignoring the workout, which means they then become obstacles I have to swim around as politely as possible.

Anyway.

Today we were doing 30-second intervals of intense cardio bursts, and while I was frantically water jogging, I heard the woman chanting "go, go, go, go" from behind me. I turned to see what she was on about, and realized she was cheering for me, while she casually half-jogged in place. I smiled at her through my heavy breathing. When we slowed down for the next 30 seconds, she swam over to me and said, "Ees good. You are da baby of dee class. You sweem very hard." Then she gave a nod of her head to her friend, "We, eh, we are old. WE COULD DIE."

You have to understand that this was hilarious because there is no way this woman would die from water jogging, she just didn't really feel like doing it.

Maybe you had to be there.

* * * * * * * *

In case you missed it, I DID update the post about Johan the Wonder Swede (to include a photo).

* * * * * * *

I am putting together a gift-giving guide (for guys) for BlogHer, due this Friday. I have many good ideas for it, but wanted your suggestions/advice/feedback, too. Is there an AWESOME gift for guys out there I should know about? (I'm kind of a catalog hound and so I know a lot of what's out there, but...)

Thanks!

NaBloPoMo

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:31:00 +0000

I don't believe I have ever, not even once, acknowledged that such a thing exists. "National Blog Posting Month" was created by a famous blogger who didn't have an infant. Or I don't know, maybe she did and was just better at it than I am. The point is, you're supposed to blog every day for the entire month of November.

Every time I have ever announced I'm going to post more, I fail. So announcing I am going to take part in NaBloPoMo is like raising my own failure bar. But whatever. Let's try anyway.

* * * * * * * *

Very suddenly and without warning, Eve started having problems getting to sleep at night. In the last week or so, possibly because she's teething(?), she's gotten increasingly fussy in the early evening. Sometimes she remains so until her bedtime which has been around 9 p.m. since we brought her home from the hospital.

After asking the internet what to do via Facebook and Twitter (and after ignoring some of the more insulting "suggestions" -- I mean, we HAVE managed to figure out how to get our baby to sleep every night for four months now, we aren't completely inept), it finally occurred to me that maybe the over-tired fussiness that starts early in the evening IS Eve's bedtime. (Okay, so maybe a little inept.)

* * * * * * * * *

I bought enough Halloween candy to totally spoil up to 40 trick-or-treaters. My neighbor said we would get 30-40.

I'd say we got maybe 20.

Also, what the hell is wrong with kids these days? I say, "Go on, you can take a whole handful." In reply, more than one child said, "No, thank you."

So now I have a ton of leftover candy and I don't think you can blame weight gain on the "holidays" before Thanksgiving.

* * * * * * * * *

I'm trying desperately to create a "routine" in my weekdays, but it's not happening. EXCEPT for what I put on the television. Oh, I still pop on a DVR'd episode of SVU here and there, but mostly I have the Hallmark channel on in the background. I am pretty sure this makes me a hundred years old.

In case you're wondering, since there's no way YOU watch the Hallmark channel all day, it goes: 3 hours of Golden Girls, Touched by an Angel (that stays on mute), 2 hours of Murder, She Wrote, 2 hours of Little House on the Prairie. Again, I'm not actively watching most of these things, I just like having them there.

But then I realized something the other day that I guess I'll share with you because it's the kind of thought I shouldn't articulate in real life:

The Golden Girls and Glee have a lot in common(!), in that every other episode is about how someone is going to leave (oh no! what will we do without them? things just won't be the same without this person!) and then they don't (yay! now we're a family again!). And honestly, there's almost as much singing and dancing on Golden Girls as there is on Glee.

This is why I don't blog every day.

I also want to just say that I don't feel like I watch a lot of television (having it on in the background is not the same as actively watching), but when it rains, it pours. It's like I've won the talented reality-tv show lottery with So You Think You Can Dance, Top Chef AND Project Runway all on right now. Plus new episodes of The Office, 30 Rock and Mad Men?

* * * * * * * *

I'm trying very hard not to eat a month's worth of calories in 24 hours. I've therefore offset my candy-imbibing with a goodly amount of "roughage."

Microwave popcorn and toasted pumpkin seeds are roughage, yes?

* * * * * * *
Eve was a super cute (and super drooly) banana for Halloween. Forgive the photo quality.

A Cappella (And Nordic Dance-Offs) Revisited: UPDATED

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:03:00 +0000

:::This post has been updated! See below:::

I know this is a bit of a cop-out, but I've been more sleep-deprived lately than ever before. (Although Eve slept for 10 hours STRAIGHT last night for the first time ever, glory glory.)

My sleep-deprivation has been creeping into my daily life in sneaky ways. Not just the overt, "gosh, I'm really tired" ways. But in ways that tell me my brain is NOT firing on all cylinders.

The other night at rehearsal, for example, I was numbering measures. And I'm not exaggerating even slightly when I say I numbered them as thus: 54, 55, 56, 3.

!!!

But anyway. I have been doing a lot of work with/on my a cappella group lately, and realized I haven't blogged much about us since my Johan The Wonder Swede post, and thought, You know? That post made ME laugh out loud, even if it didn't translate that well.

So I'm going to post it again for your (read: my) enjoyment.

Johan The Wonder Swede!

* * * * * * * * * *

Update:

Sandra and Johan went out on a date and, sadly, there was not enough chemistry. Apparently being from the same country is not enough to force a love connection.

FAIL!

Razzmatazz was never mentioned again except in passing, and yet I have no idea why this is. Susan updated her FB page just yesterday and I saw that Razz had commented, and that's when I was reminded of this whole rehearsal, blog post, and ALLEGED dance-off (which, sadly, did not come to fruition). (And if I'm being totally honest, I'd have loved to see it because I tend to be attracted to Angry "SEXY BEEFY" types, Danish or not.) (What? Shutup.)

Haha, also? Rasmus was probably a bit confused when I commented "RAZZMATAZZ!" just below his comment with zero explanation.

But there is silver lining yet.

Sandra has been dating a very lovely Irishman, so things turned out well for her and her international-men proclivities, even if her Swedish is getting stale.

AND, Johan The Wonder Swede DID show up to Lisa's birthday, WILLING to enter a dance-off should the need arise. That makes us love Johan all the more. (We're sure there's a lovely geek-loving Swede out there who IS right for you, JtWS!)

Lisa is shocked and awed that Johan has come to her party after all.
I just look drunk and long-nosed. Whatever.

DON'T YOU DIE ON ME, MISTER BANANA HAMMOCK

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:46:00 +0000

I'm sure this isn't something the spin class ladies have to worry about.

So a couple weeks ago, I meant to update you on the state of Old Mr. Banana Hammock.

Let me remind you that I currently take a water aerobics ("hydro fit") class three days a week. The class is great and it works me pretty hard (as long as I'm willing to push myself), I just have to deal with being the youngest in the pool, aka "old people soup," by a good 25-30 years.

By the way, Doris was singing her heart out the other day -- head back, EYES CLOSED, belting out "Celebrate." Ceeeeelebrate goood times come on!

Anyway. I had forgotten to mention to you that the old man who swims laps while class is going on NOT ONLY wears a tiny see-through Speedo, but when he manages to lift himself out of the pool (a painstaking process, to be sure), he grabs his cane and his bag of I-don't-know-what before he scuttles his way back to the men's locker room. He is also always wearing a swim cap and goggles.

Please think about this image. Elderly man, stooped over, shuffling along the poolside with a cane, wearing a swim cap and goggles, carrying a nylon "swim bag"(?), in a tiny, thinning flesh-colored bathing suit. And I don't want to be too graphic here, but that bathing suit makes you see things you don't want to see in both directions.

So but. Last week, I showed up to class and there was whispering and murmurs coming from my fellow swimmers, and I hear that someone has DIED. "You know, the old guy who comes to the pool every day and swims laps? He had a hard time walking?"

I assumed I knew exactly who they were talking about, but I couldn't exactly clarify. I mean, is it not the height of impropriety to ask about a dead man's junk?

I stated earlier that I thought Mr. Banana Hammock was about 88. And then I saw that there was an "In Loving Memory" poster up at the other end of the pool, for the man who swam 19 laps EVERY DAY into his 92nd year...

And then I felt very strange. I mean, it's not exactly a horrific tragedy when a 92-year-old man (who was clearly beloved even at his GYM) dies. But it's not really okay to laugh about him, either. And yet there his see-though bathing suit sits, on my blog, for pure comedic effect.

Should I take my posts mentioning a now-dead man's old, accidentally visible butt? WHERE IS EMILY POST WHEN YOU NEED HER?

Let's just say I was rather distracted throughout class. I don't know how one handles blogging the death of a stranger. I certainly have no poignant thoughts to add.

Ex: "I'll really miss trying desperately to avert my gaze from your jiggly, low-hanging fruit as you made your way from the pool to the locker room, sir. May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead."

You're probably thinking I'm heartless now, huh? Well, I'm not. Because the astonishing truth is that Old Mr. Banana Hammock is NOT dead. Apparently the dead man was some OTHER guy who swam into his 92nd year, and our see-through Speedo guy is someone else. Someone very much alive and kicking (literally) AND?

And wearing a new bathing suit! Oh, it's still a tiny little number, but this new one's a nice dark plum tone and totally not see-through. Oh, the joy!

I had to do my best to mask my elation as I discovered in quick succession that this man was neither dead NOR exposing his family jewels to my class anymore!

How could I ever take a spin class when the pool affords such drama?

I Am The Eye Of My Own Storm

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:53:00 +0000

"...You have a much higher threshold for loose order."

So, perhaps I may have mentioned before: I am kind of a mess.

I am also, however, capable of extreme organization and obsession over details.

I have enjoyed event planning because (I believe) to be truly successful, you need both of these abilities. You need to be able to work amid near-constant chaos, to make sense of chaos, to make chaos work. While not forgetting anything.

I'm sure there are some event people who are SO completely anti-chaos that they wrangle every last ounce of chaos into their well-oiled machine. But those kinds of event people are insane and masochistic and scary, and generally their events aren't any fun at all.

The reason I bring this up is because Ish and I just had a discussion about how "organized" I am compared to one of our best friends, and he described it so well I wanted to share. Because I know there are MANY of you out there who can relate. And I like the visual.

So. Our darling friend is organized. She is also neat and clean. She runs a tight ship. She is a project manager and she gets things done. When there is a list with items that need to be checked off, she will kindly, gently, cordially HUNT YOU DOWN until you do your part to get that item checked off her GODDAMNED list. Thank you so much.

All of her a cappella music is in a binder with alphabetized tabs. All of my a cappella music is in three different stacks, thrown into a bag in a very generalized sort of "order." For instance. And I know that technically, this makes her more "organized" than I am. But I just don't feel disorganized.

Still, as I sat staring at my sad, uneven "stacks" of music with their furled, discolored corners it occurred to me that somehow I manage to walk a fine line between "organized" and "hot, hot mess."

And you know? You'd think that line would be big and fat and bold.

So I asked Ish about this. "Lisa's binder is so nice and neat and organized," I said. "And mine, well, you know my bag of music."

"Yeah. You don't work that way." Ish replied.

"I don't work what way?"

"Well, neat isn't really your thing."

Of course it isn't. I know it isn't. And yet I didn't like hearing that. So I pressed him.

"Okay then. Please tell me what my thing is. Because I really don't feel like I'm disorganized."

"It's not that you're disorganized exactly. It's..." he looked into the air like he was trying to figure out a humorous math equation. And after telling me about my tolerance for loose order (quoted above), he added, "it's like you're the eye of your own hurricane."

"What do you mean?"

"It's like you have a sort of hurricane-- no, tornado of stuff all around you, all the time. But whenever you need something, you know exactly where to reach into that tornado to grab it." As he explained this, he made twirling gestures with both his hands around his head.

I looked at him silently.

He continued with the gestures. "Oh, there's Eve," he reached into the phantom tornado. "She needs to eat now, I'll just put her on the boob." Swish swish swish. "Oh? Your sunglasses? Here they are," he reached into the phantom tornado again. Then he made more twirling, swishing gestures.

And you know? He's totally, totally right. Isn't that a great visual? Almost like something out of Harry Potter. And I wanted to share that with you. For all of you out there walking around in the eye of your own organized tornadoes.

AND THEY NEVER HAD SEX AGAIN

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:04:00 +0000

"It would have been better if you'd made at least one more point about how I'm a gentle lover with a beautiful penis."
-Ish

It's kind of a long story, but it kind of isn't. When Ish and Eve and I went to the BlogHer Food conference, I spent a lot of time with BlogHer's amazing designer, Joy, who had a gorgeous baby boy three months before I had Eve. We somehow got on the conversation of post-baby sex, and then Denise (BlogHer's community manager) heard us and next thing you know, we're having a semi-graphic discussion about bizzaro-revirginization and oral sex and oy.

Then Denise asked me to write an honest post about "What Sex Is Like After You Have A Baby."

So I did.

I was a tad graphic (at least, by my "I never write about sex EVER" standards) and REALLY honest and well...

HERE IS MY POST ABOUT SEX AFTER BABY.

So there you have it.

It's a $200 Best Buy Gift Card Giveaway...But You Gotta Work For It!

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:05:00 +0000

This is NOT a compensated review from BlogHer and Samsung Home Appliances. It was going to be, but then I got all long-winded and tangential and next thing you know it's 80 million words later and I haven't mentioned a single thing about my new dishwasher. So I'm breaking this review into two parts.

(So yeah. Part Two is where you can win the gift card. But please read Part One to humor me.)

Part One: A Preamble Sort of About Dishwashers But Kind of More About Love and Stuff and Not Actually a Review

For the record, just because I'm given a product to review doesn't mean that I have to say nice things. I mean, any time I'm given an opportunity to do a review, I double- and triple-check with the people who are letting me because, I mean, mostly I don't use the f-word but hey. Sometimes it slips out. And it's been a long time since I've posted a picture of my naked ass, but if anyone could end up with a naked butt picture relating to a major appliance installation, I can. Also, I talk about my boobs a lot.

"But Jenny, can I talk about my boobs?"

"What would your boobs have to do with a dishwasher?"

"YOU NEVER KNOW."

So, how 'bout that! I got a new dishwasher! And so far nothing has happened with it involving my boobs! But as I was writing NOT about my boobs and thinking about how to write about my dishwasher, I realized -- and I'm being serious, here -- it's amazing how much love and life can be reflected in one's dishwasher status.

Hear me out.

When I was married the first time (sidenote: HAHAHAHAHA), we didn't have a dishwasher in our apartment, but that was okay because we never used the kitchen. Well, there was that one time I used the stove in the dead of winter, but it made our tiny apartment so unbearably hot (because our heat was controlled by management and permanently set to "roast") that we'd had to open our windows. And then we maybe sort of forgot about the open windows and went to sleep and then it snowed and no one takes you seriously when you ask if snow will stain a sofa.
Domestic Goddesses are made, not born.

But see? We were starting out and didn't have a dishwasher and next thing you know, it's snowing in our livingroom.

So when we got a little more settled, a little more established in our relationship and shared life, we got married, moved to a house, and got a dishwasher. Know what happened?

I started to cook, and do things like "sweep" and "run the dishwasher" BUT these chores were mostly unremarkable...and so was our marriage. (Well, and the cooking, but that's neither here nor there.) The point is, our dishwasher was plain looking and boring and barely adequate. AND WE GOT DIVORCED.

[Uh, but not before that one time when I ran out of dishwasher detergent and thought I could use normal dish soap and learned that there is a very good reason they are entirely different products. I "learned" this by walking into my kitchen and discovering my floor had become a bubbly moat -- spewing from my dishwasher.]

Anyway. I hope you see what I'm saying, because this is a giant realization. Earth-shattering, really.
* No dishwasher = precarious relationship

* Plain dishwasher = plain marriage

* Plain dishwasher + bubbly moat = divorce! (Also, Domestic Goddess status withheld indefinitely.)

So okay. Maybe that just seems like coincidence. I hear you. But when I started reviewing the next several years of my life in terms of my dishwasher-status, the evidence mounted.

Behold:

2001: A bad year for the country, generally speaking. Not so great for me, either, as I get divorced and move to San Francisco. Love SF, love my cute little apartment but overall, life in upheaval. Do not have dishwasher.

2002: Move in with my SF boyfriend to a new apartment. Things are looking up, life-coming-together-wise, but still fairly unsettled. Do not have dishwasher.

2003: Move to better place with SF boyfriend because things are going so well. Have cool dishwasher!

2004: Oops. Break up with SF boyfriend. (But good dishwasher = very, very good breakup.) Move out. Start life again again as single in the city. Everything precarious. Of course, no dishwasher.

2004 - 2007: Life is interesting, but a bit rough-and-tumble on the dating front. Meet Ish. Good boyfriend? Yes. But good boyfriend is just a little bit still married to someone else. Why? BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN LIVING WITHOUT A DISHWASHER FOR 3 YEARS.

2008: Wonderful boyfriend and I move in together! Relationship status greatly improved! Get engaged! Get pregnant! HAVE VERY GOOD DISHWASHER.

The facts do not lie. You have a sleek, roomy, pretty dishwasher, things are good and you get married and have babies. I am living proof. I should go on Oprah.

Except but also, here is when things get juuuuuust a little problematic.

Because once we had the very good dishwasher and life got awesome and everything, we moved. And now we live in Napa in a very fine house. The house is new and modern and lovely, but! BUT!

Click here to read Part Two: A Review of My New Samsung Dishwasher (and, Possibly More Importantly, Win a $200 Best Buy Gift Card)

All About Eve: Months One, Two & Three

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:07:00 +0000

As I begin this entry, Eve is beside me. She was nursing on the Boppy, as she does and has since she was born. She eats and then falls asleep against me, often with my breast in her mouth. It's incredibly sweet and I will miss it when she stops breastfeeding, but also it's very hard to be productive -- say, to do the dishes -- with someone's mouth wrapped around your nipple.

In the last week, though, I've discovered that she will stay asleep if I carefully reposition the Boppy to be against my side, and sometimes if I just slide it off to the side altogether, provided she is comfortably smooshed into it.

For those of you who don't know, the Boppy is a donut-shaped pillow, specifically designed for not having your child sleep in it. But whatever. If I'm lucky, Eve will fall asleep with her head supported on one end and her body and feet wedged into the center. (And then I just have to keep a close eye on her to make sure she doesn't fold in on herself.) It doesn't matter anyway. Her daytime naps still don't last particularly long. Still, the freedom I've gained having both of my arms free for just minutes of the day is intoxicating. WAHOO!

But that's not what this post is about.

Just now, Eve, tucked into her Boppy with the open half nestled against me, woke up. I looked down at her. She opened her eyes and looked at me. I smiled at her. She kept her eyes focused intently on me, heavy-lidded though they were. Then, with her eyes still affixed on mine, her face serene and contented, she burped.

Then she half-smiled, yawned, and fell back asleep.

This post is about what these first three months have been like, and, well, that's as good a summation of what they've been like as any. Sweet, funny, unpredictable -- a little gross -- and all about Eve.

There are two things people say over and over and over again when they meet our little dumpling. The first is: OH MY GOD I LOVE HER HAIR! And seriously, I cannot blame anyone. I love it, too. Her hair continues to grow straight out in every direction, and it's the best thing ever. I adore that it's her calling card. I refuse to put her in hats because it feels like I might as well put a mask over her face. Her crazy hair is part of who she is. And I know I'm going to sound ridiculous, especially if you haven't spent any time with this baby, but somehow, Eve owns it.

The second thing people have noted is that Eve is "really alert." Certainly Eve has done her fair share of newborn sleeping, but when she is awake, she is AWAKE. She has this way of looking at things and (especially) people that makes me and her Aunt Samantha laugh out loud. She gets an expression of awe and delight, of being unsure but totally okay with whatever it is. She's perpetually wide-eyed, but it's not like she's saying, "WOW!" it's more like she's saying, "WE'LL SEE ABOUT THIS."

I'm not doing a good job of explaining it. I take videos to try to capture it.

Like this one. Here, Eve has discovered she can roll herself off of me. Or maybe she doesn't even realize she's doing it, though every time I put her back on my chest, she rolls herself off again.

(Note: To get the Flip camera steady, I balanced it in my teeth.)

I know it looks like she's just falling off me, but I swear, she's doing it with purpose.

In these first three, pivotal, life-changing months, Eve has grown and gotten bigger and more interactive...but not THAT much. It seems like she just came out this way. THAT is what I'm trying to say.

Eve entered this world with her crazy hair, her eyebrow-enhanced expressions, her preference to be awake during the day when "stuff" is happening, and to sleep during the night when things are peaceful and dull. She looks at me like she's really looking at me.

Since she learned to smile, Eve smiles in response to human interaction. (Well, and the occasional bout of gas -- but then, so does her dad). She's paying attention.

Maybe that's it: she's paying attention. Those things you think maybe newborns don't notice because they're just tiny babies and kind of sleepy little (adorable) blobs? Eve does not come across that way. She never came across that way. There wasn't this grand shift from "newborn" to "baby." From the moment she started spending most of her days awake, she also started (seeming?) to notice everything.

That's the cool, interesting, and scary thing.

The cool, interesting and awesome thing is that so far, she seems to like it all. She notices we're somewhere new, and she thinks it's cool. (She just doesn't understand how she's supposed to lay quietly in her car seat while there are new sights to see!)

She awes me, in return. I cannot believe how complete a little person she is already.

So I suppose, if I am to do a proper recap of Eve's life in these last three months, I need to provide some basic day-to-day detail. (And if not for you, at least for me.)

Like, I should say that her little body is still rather small -- just 10.5 lbs now -- but she's incredibly strong. She's been holding her head up for weeks, which just further contributes to her seeming so very alert.

She's discovered her hands and had staring contests with her feet, but she hasn't yet seemed to intentionally reach for something she wants. Her arm and hand movements are still pretty haphazard, and when I don't stay on top of trimming her nails (which I do by biting them -- a very helpful suggestion!), she is prone to scratching herself.

She's begun drooling like a fountain. We were afraid she'd begun teething at 11 weeks, but that turned out just to be a particularly drooly couple days. Uh, we hope.

And...well...I don't know. I'm not good at this "recap your child's life" thing yet. There's so much to be poetic about, but mostly the poetry is in the everyday stuff.

I love that she smiles at me when I poke my head above her bassinet (still next to our bed) in the morning. I love that she smiles when Daddy comes home from work at night. I love how she looks at the cats when they approach her while she's nursing -- like, "You're an interesting looking burp cloth. But I'm busy just now."

I love that she's in a great mood all morning, and has her worst bouts of fussiness in the late afternoon, just like her mommy. I love that her whole face lights up when I sing to her, and that if the song is particularly to her liking, she will kick and kick and kick and coo and drool and blow bubbles. And she will stop whatever she's doing to focus on someone singing on the television (she especially enjoys "Glee.")

I love that there is never anything that upsets her so much she can't be calmed by having a bottle stuck in her mouth. I particularly love that she doesn't care if the bottle is breastmilk or formula, if it's warm or cold. She's just like, "Hey, yeah, awesome. Carry on."

She was a hiccup-er in utero, and for the first couple weeks she'd get the worst bouts of "crib shakers" (as my mom and grandma used to call baby hiccups) almost every time she ate. She hardly ever gets them now.

I point that out because so few things have changed in these three months.

Every time she nurses from my right breast, she takes her right arm and puts it over her head, and grabs a tuft of her hair in her tight little fist. I wonder if she'll keep doing this, or a variation of this, as she grows. I kind of hope so.

Napa enjoyed some truly glorious autumn evenings last week, and Ish and I were inspired to sit outside at dusk for a few moments, just to take it in. To take a breath. Eve came with us, of course, all wrapped up in cozy blankets.

It was very windy. I forget how "wind" is such a foreign concept to babies. The very first time Eve went out in the backyard, my friend Emily was here. She was holding Eve and quickly turned her back to block a sudden breeze. "Babies don't really 'get' wind," she said to me. Of course they don't, what a weird thing it must be to them, right? But I'm not sure it would have occurred to me without Em's saying so.

So last week as we sat outside and I held Eve upright against my shoulder, a huge wind came up and blew all over us both. Her hair split every which way. Eve immediately winced and drew up her shoulders. But before I managed to figure out a way to shield her from the gusts, she started to open her eyes. The expression on her face changed from reflexively startled to something else. She started fighting her closed eyes, blinking, trying to get her eyes to stay open. Trying to see the wind. And then she smiled.

And then she laughed.

Sometimes These Blog Posts Write Themselves

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:41:00 +0000

I just have a brief update about the swim class.

Friday, Mr. Banana Hammock gave a repeat performance of "watch me get out of the pool and walk to the men's locker room." Which is when I QUITE ACCIDENTALLY discovered that not only is his Speedo flesh-toned, but the back is entirely see-through.

Yes. I was "cross-country skiing" toward the back of the pool when ole' saggy bottom decided to emerge from the pool and I could not stop in time, could not turn away, could not do anything but continue skiing toward his may-as-well-be-nekkid buttocks.

I should also add that I overheard this comment from one of the older lady swimmers today: "I think it's time we take Mom to the casino again."

My Own Special Kind of Water Torture

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:26:00 +0000

I don't have enough time to "construct" blog posts these days, I sort of just have to throw posts up and hope that they are coherent. At least my blog posts aren't covered in various baby juices.
Do people say that? "Baby juices"? No, probably not. I am a horrible mother.

So here -- pretend this is a paragraph or 27 where I delicately remind you that I'm the most out-of-shape ever and I really need to do something about that and weight loss is newly important to be because I no longer have:
A) a bowling ball growing inside me, jackhammering my bladder all day long
B) an incapacitating scar from where said bowling ball was removed from my abdomen
C) excuses

Pretend those paragraphs are enlightening, touching and hilarious, while you're at it.

Next, pretend that the faux paragraphs also say something meaningful about how I want to be in better shape so that I will be able to actually PLAY with my child when she's a rambunctious toddler, and not just sit on the sofa while trying to control her with the DVR remote. (PAUSE! PAUSE!!!!)

So now that you've all enjoyed those non-existant paragraphs, let me tell you what I'm getting at: I just added myself to Ish's gym membership. In pretend, I did so for the above reasons. In actuality, I did so IN PART because of those reasons, but also because the gym offers daycare for babies over 2 months old for $5 an hour or $30 a month UNLIMITED. And that makes the gym my new favorite place to go in the whole wide world.

But but. Having failed at attending the gym regularly in my 97 previous attempts, I thought that this time I needed to do something different. Not that the daycare isn't a super motivator, but I thought maybe I'd be more likely to go if I felt obligated to attend an actual class. If I had to be on something of a schedule.

And that is when I decided, after all these years, to take water aerobics. Note: these days, they do not call it "water aerobics" they call it a "hydro-fit" class. Which sounds way more hardcore, even though, well, I'll get to that.

I used to swim a lot when I was a kid. I was on swim teams and loved the water and it is maybe the ONLY form of physical activity I still enjoy. I have long wanted to take some sort of water fitness class.

Except for one thing.

Taking a water class at a gym requires wearing a bathing suit in front of strangers. Right? I mean, need I say any more about this? It's pure nightmare fodder. So, no water classes for me.

Well, until now. But let me explain that there are two, distinct parts to my "hydro-fit" experience. The stuff that happened before my first class, and the punishment that is the class itself.

Part A: The Stuff That Happened BEFORE My First Class

For about a week, I mulled and milled about, determined to go to the stupid class, really wanting to go but fearing the whole thing. I'd decided I'd attend the class that starts at 10:30 in the morning, because anything earlier wouldn't give me enough time to get out of the house. I'd ordered and received a "special" (i.e., plus-size, cover-my-everything) bathing suit. I just had to get over my anxiety.

You know that anxiety. Where do I drop Eve off? Where is the locker room again? How do you work the lockers? What should I pack? Where do I change? What shoes should I wear? Do I bring a change of flip-flops? Do I need my own towel? Do I need a swim cap? Ear plugs? Will the instructor know I'm new? Will she call me out? Will all the women in the locker room feel sorry for me in my "special" bathing suit? Can I blame all my excess weight on my baby? I bet I could...

And then the morning came when I swore I was going to go, and I am not even kidding you. I started getting packed for the gym at about 8:30 a.m. to leave the house at 10. I had to figure out what I was wearing there (it's not easy to change back into clothes after wearing a bathing suit, especially if you're trying to do it quickly behind a curtain with damp skin and you can't let any of your stuff touch the wet floor -- I've tried this before), and what to take with me. Then I had to pack Eve's stuff for her first time at daycare, and I didn't want to just hand over her diaper bag, because it's also my purse.

By the way? Here's the gorgeous bag I purchased from "AnnyandMe" on Etsy to be both diaper bag and purse:

Click on image to see the Etsy store -
there are dozens of patterns available!

And that took forever because I have no idea what I'm doing.

Eventually, we managed to leave the house relatively on-time, which I was kind of bummed about because I would have settled for any old excuse not to go. But we did go.

And I met the ladies at the daycare and they were great. And then I got to the locker room and didn't know how to open the lockers and had to go ask the guy at the desk. But with those hurdles done, I just had to change, rinse off, put on as much emotional armor I've ever worn, and wander out to the pool in time for class.

Part B: The Class Itself

The gym we belong to is gorgeous, and it's part of a hospital. This means that about half the gym's clientele is what you would expect out of a gorgeous suburban gym: lots of personal trainers working with hot housewives and a bunch of Pilates moms coming and going from their spin classes.

What I forgot about, though, was the other half of the gym's clientele. Namely, the people who are there for medical reasons (re: the hospital). 70-year-old men who've had heart attacks, for instance, and folks with severe physical disabilities.

Now, I hadn't really spent much time considering who attends a ~~water aerobics~~ "hydro-fit" class. I mean, my last gym in San Francisco (the Crunch Fitness in Russian Hill) actually teaches that aerobics class for women who want to better wear high-heeled shoes. (Yes, the class actually requires that you wear high-heels during it.) I guess I just assumed that a "hydro-fit" class would be full of Pilates Moms.

Um, no.

The pool was a scene straight out of Cocoon. I just, I was...I was taken aback.

Or, well, okay. Not everyone was that old. But there was only one other girl in a class of about 15 who was under the age of 60, and I think she might be a little slow.

So then I had to recalibrate. Instead of being self-conscious for being woefully out-of-shape, I suddenly found myself self-conscious for being so young and spry. And comparatively thin.

Well! Of course, it's a LOT easier to get over feeling self-conscious for being the most fit than the other way around. It didn't take me long to feel more confident.

But then that changed, too.

Because after just a few minutes -- the young, petite and spunky instructor did ask my name, and did introduce me to the class -- I was saddled with the ridiculousness of it all.

This is the last-resort class! I realized. This is the class they have for people who can't do anything else! And worst yet, I AM ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE!

It was like my own special hell. This, I thought, is what it's come down to.

"Hell" is, of course, too strong a word. It's not that bad. It's just -- this class is a little sad, and kind of hilarious, because it's totally right for me. It's the only class in the gym where I wouldn't feel bad about myself. It's the only workout routine that interests me. It's the only way to get me to go to the gym, repeatedly, and do a full hour workout that actually pushes me but doesn't hurt my body.

It just happens that "my" class is the class where Betty, Doris, and Phyllis (not kidding with these names, I swear) make lame jokes and discuss their grandkids when they should be "cross-country skiing" across the pool.

It happens that "my" class is where the man who looks like a frog and can't use his hearing aid in the pool just basically dances around for an hour making snide comments to mask the fact that he can't do any of the exercises and can't hear the instructor anyway.

It happens that "my" class is the one that allowed me the privilege of watching the (I'm guessing?) 78-year-old man spend 10 minutes tottering from the pool to the locker room wearing a flesh-colored banana hammock.

It happens that "my" class uses the same cracked-out hyper-speed "dance" music that Curves did, i.e., remastered classics turned into upbeat dance-y songs, as sung by God-knows-who but definitely NOT the original artists.

Oh, you have not lived until you've worked out to a spastic, low-budget rendition of Dancing Queen. And you REALLY have not lived until you've done deep-water jumping jacks with ankle weights on while Doris sings along loudly to said spastic, low-budget rendition of Dancing Queen. Especially because Doris does not actually know the words.

YOUUUUUU CAN AAAAAAAAN
YOUUUUUU CAHHH IIIIIIIII
HAVING THE TIME OF HER LIIIIIIIIFE
OOOOH.....EEE AHHHHHR...
BAH.....EEEEEEE
SHE...DANCING QUEEEEEN!

Yup. That's "my" class.

Money Shot

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:39:00 +0000

We took Eve out to dinner tonight, because that's maybe the best way Ish and I get to have quality time with each other. When we're home, we each fall into our own trying-to-keep-up-with-household-responsibilities routines and don't tend to have real "conversations." You know.

So we get home, and Eve's awake for whatever reasons. I am sitting on the sofa, in a reclined position, wearing a cute, all-black outfit. I didn't exactly "dress up" for dinner, but I wanted to look different than my usual, sweatpants-covered-in-spit-up self.

Yes, well.

I was holding Eve under her arms, straight up over my chest, her feet on my chest as though she were standing on my breastbone. She was cooing happily, her legs extended and knees slightly bent.

But then, quite suddenly, her facial expression changed, and next thing I knew she was shaking. Almost like a tremor or seizure, but not quite that violent. I didn't like it. Of course, by the time I was sure she was shaking, it had passed.

Still, I said aloud, "I don't like you shaking like that. I don't ever want anything to be wrong with you." And then I laid her on my chest and stomach, wrapped my arms around her and said with great affectation while looking at Ish, "YOU STAY RIGHT HERE FOREVER."

It was a sweet moment: me, holding my daughter tightly in my arms saying I wanted to hold and protect her from harm, always.

Except that the moment I uttered the "-ver" part of "FOREVER," she projectile spit-up all over me.

My neck, chest, breastbone/cleavage, and shirt got doused. It was violent. (But at least it explained the shaking.)

Ish rushed to my side to try to clean it up, but didn't quite make it to me before he bent over in fits of laughter. Eventually he was able to stop his laugh-tears long enough to remove Evie from my immediate vicinity, whereupon he started mopping up my chest. When he thought was done, he pushed my boobs aside -- in a parting of the boob sea kind of motion -- as if to kiss me between them. Which is when he noticed that there at the base of my bra was a virtual POOL of spit-up.

It doesn't get sexier than this, folks.

This Post Is A Little Schizophrenic, So I'm Adding Lots Of Pictures!

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:43:00 +0000

This turned into a meandering entry, sort of tying together my post about breastfeeding with general new-mom malaise. I feel happier than this post might suggest, but man -- I suck at being able to blog with a newborn.

I've heard some women say that they gave up breastfeeding because they wanted their bodies back.

Being pregnant means, among many other things, giving up control of your body. Your body just starts doing all kinds of crazy-ass things, and even if you're really good and eat perfectly and exercise, your hormones are still going to go all psycho on you. You just have to waddle along for the ride.

So sure. After nine months of out-of-controlness, I get why women want to reclaim themselves. Breastfeeding is taxing on your body, your psyche, your schedule.

I, on the other hand, haven't managed to have control over my body (weight-wise) in so long, I didn't think being pregnant would bother me much. And it didn't. And now that I'm breastfeeding (i.e., still lending my body to nurture my baby's), I'm still not bothered.

Not by breastfeeding, anyway.

Something happened a few weeks ago that made my digestive system go haywire. I mean, I had problems -- indigestion, acid reflux, cramping, bloating, irritability -- throughout pregnancy, but that's pretty normal. When some of these issues cropped up again a few weeks after giving birth, I figured that, too, was par for the course. But now my problems have gotten far worse, and I'm starting to worry. I haven't (yet) seen a specialist, but my OB examined me, and thought it could very well be pregnancy/post-partum-related. He reminded me that my body's undergone huge hormonal shifts, and is still undergoing them.

Meanwhile...have you heard about how breastfeeding is awesome because it burns so many calories? Have you heard that breastfeeding is a great way to help you shed your pregnancy weight and get your uterus back to the size it was before it enlarged itself x400? Yeah? Because I sure did. I read that over and over again. And then I gave birth and changed my diet slightly (for the better) and started breastfeeding and guess what!

I have gained weight.

OH YES I HAVE. I didn't know this until I asked specifically, but for SOME women, SOME women LIKE ME, breastfeeding can totally fuck with your metabolism for the worse. It can slow it down to a crawl. NOW I hear,"Oh, I didn't lose any of my pregnancy weight until I stopped breastfeeding!" from everyone. BAH! BAH I SAY!

I am not bf'ing for any reasons having to do with weight loss or gain, but come on. I didn't expect this. I look like I'm five months pregnant. My uterus has not, to the best of my ability to tell, re-shrunk. My upper abdomen is taut and my lower "pouch" has grown. AS IF I needed a reason to feel worse about my twice-weekly-showered, boob-leaking, spit-up-stained-top-with-eleventeenth-day-in-a-row-yoga-pants-wearing self.

Ugh.

Eve herself has been a dream baby, don't get me wrong. She is very alert and interested in the world around her, but also totally good natured and chill. She smiles a lot and her fussiness is still fairly easy to address. She still sleeps great at night. She was and is a great traveler.

But that doesn't mean it's easy. Even if she's not screaming all day or all night, she still requires constant attention and tending to. She barely sleeps at all during the day, except in random 10-20 minute bursts.

Meaning I can't just sit down and write a blog post, for example. In fact, the only time I have enough time to put two thoughts together in one post is in the morning before Eve wakes up or at night after she's gone to sleep, but that's only if I'm not also passed out with her. I usually am. (She's been asleep all morning which is very unusual but also why I'm getting to write this now.)

I knew it would be hard. I don't exactly mind the hard. It's just...

Okay. Here.

About a week ago, I put aside a couple cute catalogs I wanted to take a look at. I finally remembered to take them up to bed with me three nights ago. And in three nights and three days, I still haven't been able to look through them. That's what having a new baby is like. I don't need to look at the catalogs, who cares about some stupid catalogs?, but there they sit on my bedside table. Reminders of how I can't manage to do even the easiest, most mundane day-to-day tasks.

But here I am, here we are, closing in on the three-month milestone, and I don't know how to jump "back" into life with a baby.

Personally, I thought I did a helluva good job, gallivanting across the country with a newborn, lah dee dah, no big deal. Except apparently I thought we'd return from the trip and get back to life and I would somehow know what to do next.

But for all its ease, the trip back East was hard, too, and it took more out of me than I expected, and I haven't been feeling well since we returned, and now I'm just here. Home. With a baby.

Again, I understand why women stop breastfeeding, if only to reclaim part of their body. I want to reclaim some semblance of organization, order, control, too. I have no intention of quitting nursing -- it's the only thing I feel like I accomplish all day -- but I wouldn't mind more control over everything else my body does. And hey, while we're at it, more control over my whole day.

OH MY GOD WITH THE BREASTFEEDING

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:07:00 +0000

I think that breastfeeding is a great thing to do for your baby if you can make it work. I also think that there are a lot of reasons one might not be able to make it work, and that those reasons are many and varied and formula is a-okay and let's all just move on.

I am breastfeeding my baby, almost exclusively, and yet I feel defensive about it. I think it's the right choice for me and Eve because I can, because I'm at home with her and because she took to it. Great!

But what if I couldn't?

The information out there -- blogs, books, hospitals, everywhere -- practically criminalizes the use of formula and I just don't understand why.

It seems to me that there are bigger issues in the world than whether or not I regularly stick a boob in my baby's face, but you would not know this from researching anything on the internets, ohmygod.

I guess it's just that I don't know why so many people care sooooo deeply about what I feed my baby. I ask in earnest: What is this all about? Do the strongly vocal "Nursing Nazis" (my nurse's term for herself, by the way, not mine) care equally about what, say, impoverished non-infant children eat? Does the La Leche League take a stand against Lunchables? (I'm pretty sure that Lunchables are far less nutritionally sound than formula.) Maybe it's just my own myopia, but it seems to me like there's some oddly misplaced ferver over encouraging women to breastfeed at any cost that would be better spent on, oh, I dunno, figuring out a way to ensure that all expectant mothers can afford to see a doctor regularly?

I'm not even anti-boob! It's just, well...

Once upon a time, when I knew virtually nothing about breastfeeding, I just kind of casually assumed I would go ahead and breastfeed when I had a baby. I thought breastfeeding was something that would come pretty naturally, and easily, and made sense, and gosh, doesn't everyone do it? Much like having babies in general, breastfeeding is something women have been doing since the dawn of humankind, so what's the big deal?

So.

A few months into my pregnancy I decided, rather haphazardly, to look into formula-feeding versus breastfeeding. I realized I didn't really know anything about either. Oh, I knew it was cause for some debate on mommyblogs, but I assumed that argument was fairly innocuous, like arguing over what color you should paint your baby's room.

HAHAHAHAHA.

Let me illustrate what every website ever developed that has anything whatsoever to do with "breast or bottle feeding?" looks like:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!BREAST IS BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!BRRRREEEEASSSSST IS BEEEESSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!

Forgive my politicization, but I feel like asking the internets what safe and healthy bottle feeding options exist is maybe a little like asking your Catholic priest what safe and healthy abortion options might be.

But before you jump down my throat about that comparison, don't get me wrong. The "BREAST IS BEST" movement is like this crazy omnipolitical rallying point, where people on the far end of the conservative and liberal spectra unite. Those ultra-conservative Christian moms who blog about serving the Lord and their husbands? They LOVE the breastfeeding. Those crazy wacko granola socialist commune dwellers (and their urban SF counterparts I'm so fond of)? They ALSO LOVE the breastfeeding! And the wealthy stay-at-home moms? You betcha! And the power-lunching Type-A corporate types? Yep! And everyone in between! (Well, everyone except moms who have to go back to work and aren't given time or opportunity to pump. But that's a whole separate issue.)

The point is, it took me about four minutes of internetting before I felt like a complete asshole for even considering formula. GEEZ, I guess I should breastfeed, I thought. And left the topic completely.

A few weeks later, however, I happened upon the (aforementioned) Atlantic article called "The Case Against Breastfeeding." The article isn't actually against breastfeeding, it's just the author's take on how breastfeeding isn't the only option, and that research has only proven that the breast is maybe somewhat better possibly than formula even though you'd never know it from all the current pro-breast hype.

I appreciated the article, because it helped put into perspective what I'd already started to feel: guilt. I hadn't even had a child, hadn't even really considered not breastfeeding, and yet I was already feeling guilty about considering using formula.

Well. As my due date drew closer, it occurred to me that "Geez, I guess I should breastfeed" doesn't actually count as being informed about it. So I started gathering information about the details of nursing. I had zero idea about any of it. What tools would I need? Do I buy bottles? Do I need a poncho? How often do you do it? Do I need a pump? When do you start? When do you stop?

And THAT is when I stumbled onto a very popular blog and a very popular blog entry that had something like 200 comments all about the travails of breastfeeding. The author and the commenters were all pro-breastfeeding, but the post was about how it had been so difficult for the blogger that she eventually had to go to formula...and felt miserable about it. I spent hours poring over every comment posted in co-misery.

I'd had no idea it could be so hard. Know why? Because the "BREAST IS BEST" articles do not like to talk about how hard it can be. They like to say things like, "If you have any trouble, there are tons of resources available to help you 24-7," and "There's no need to give up!"

Give up? I wondered. Why would you give up? What don't I get about this breastfeeding thing?

And then I read and learned. I learned two things in particular:

1) Breastfeeding is HARD. At least, it can be. I mean, holy hell. Women who were dead-set on breastfeeding were sharing their stories of how they tried for days, weeks, MONTHS (like, months and MONTHS) of painful, stressful, sad, humiliating experiences before it either "clicked in" or they had to give up entirely.

Until that point, I'd believed that women who didn't breastfeed chose not to because they didn't want to be inconvenienced. (Which, by the way, I think they have a right to feel.) But I did not know that breastfeeding is this life-altering thing, rife with potential difficulties and physical challenges.

2) The ultra-pro-breastfeeding folks can sometimes feel like a cult. To this VERY VOCAL group, it's not enough to want to breastfeed. You must want to breastfeed exclusively. You should breastfeed for a minimum of a year, preferably two. You need to beware all nipples that aren't sticking out of your own breasts (no pacifiers, no bottles, not even bottles with breastmilk in them). "Supplementing" with formula is a baaad idea. Your body produces everything it needs to nurture your baby, period, end of story.

And I got mad all over again.

Here's what it boils down to for me:

I wish the "conversation" about breastfeeding could be a lot more honest.

Don't bombard me with all the reasons that breastfeeding might, possibly, potentially help my baby. Just say, "Hey, it's totally natural and clearly good for your baby." And if we engage in this conversation, maybe "...And here are some of the benefits that have been linked to breastfeeding."
I don't mind if we all start out saying BREAST IS BEST, but let's not also say, in the same breath, that FORMULA SHOULD ONLY BE USED AS A LAST RESORT. There are benefits to formula feeding. Let's not completely ignore them.
Let's not paint a false picture about how awesome breastfeeding is. Can it be awesome? Absolutely! Is it totally cool when it works and everything is in synch? Ohmygod YES! But it's not all nipple-sucking unicorns. There's engorgement and blocked ducts and mastitis and leaking boobs and nursing pads and pumping and trying to plan your day around on-demand feedings. And none of that is any fun. No, not every woman has problems, but many do. Let's TALK about how sucky those things can be (no pun) instead of pretending that they don't exist or that they're just minor inconveniences that women should just work through, la la la.
And while we're talking about how challenging breastfeeding can be, let's also discuss how breastfeeding is not the same for every boob size. Women with large breasts can't use the same positions or carriers or methods of "discreetly" feeding that other women can.
Let us be honest and sympathetic to women who can't breastfeed. I know several women who were physically unable to, and who were wracked with guilt because of it. Why make them feel worse by telling them -- at every juncture -- that they should really consider breastfeeding! And if they haven't tried it, breastfeeding is really the best way to go! And have you thought about breastfeeding?!

Side note: It's my personal belief that Eve and I have bonded because I am the one who feeds her whenever she gets hungry, not because the food comes out of my boob. I sincerely believe that bonding happens when the baby recognizes you as provider/nourisher, regardless of where that nourishment comes from. I also feel strongly bonded to Eve when she falls asleep in a sling, skin-to-skin. Which, you know, any mom or dad can do.
Let's tone the conversation down just a bit. Some women will breastfeed and some won't and let's remember that one woman's decision doesn't have ANY IMPACT WHATSOEVER on YOUR decision. There isn't just one right way to do things. We're all trying to do the best that we can.

I'd talk more about my personal experience with it so far, but this post is long enough already and I haven't started packing yet and we're getting on a plane first thing in the morning, hoo boy. But I'm looking forward to sharing because I know some of you reading this are pregnant and worrying about what to expect and would probably love to have someone tell you that breastfeeding is no big deal and can be totally easy. Which is what I'm going to say.

Things I Haven't Blogged About

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:07:00 +0000

Yesterday I got my hair done. Because I decided I wanted to stop making a fashion statement that said, "WEREN'T THE 90s AWESOME?"

(I don't think I look like Heather Locklear, God bless 'er.
I am using her to illustrated tired color, frayed ends, and dark roots.
This was a fashion "in" for about 11 seconds circa 1995.)

So I got to leave Eve alone with her father for a couple hours and it was totally, totally worth it. Not because I got time to myself, although, hi, hallelujah. But it was so worth it because of the look on Ish's face once we were reunited. He was happy, and relieved, and his eyes had a bit of giddy-cum-desperate-ness to them that, I'm not gonna lie, I relished.

In the two hours I was gone, he wasn't able to clean or work or get pretty much anything done other than baby-tending. "I-- I-- I couldn't even type two sentences!" he exclaimed, looking alarmingly at his open, untouched laptop, the Twitter screen aglow.

Oh, how I know the glowing Twitter-screen taunt.

My point is that I have been dying to blog. Dying to write, to be creative, to get to any of the dozens of little projects I've promised myself I'd get to. But mostly it's still all I can do to shower more than once a week.

It's getting easier. It's getting better. But it's still hard. Case in point: I started this sad little blog entry at 11:45 a.m. It is now 5:30 p.m. Who knows what time it will be when I finish this. (Ed note: 8:14 p.m.)

But in case you're wondering, here's some stuff maybe someday I'll write about:

- We have been trying very hard to make sure Eve gets out into the world (and also to make sure that Mommy gets out of the house). Before Eve was two weeks old, she went to her first winery. Here is a picture of me feeding her while taking a sip of something delicious and red:

Mother of the year.

- We've taken Eve to dinner a handful of times. We took her to Tahoe. We took her to an outdoor concert. We took her to the movies. And next weekend, we're taking her to Maine for my cousins' wedding. (At some other point, I'll have to explain why that apostrophe is where it is, and why that doesn't make it illegal.)

- I have only taken Eve out by myself a couple times, but that's because I was given strict orders not to until my 6-week check-up post-surgery. The first time I went to the gym for a post-natal workout class(!) and the second time I took her to a Napa mom's group event that I didn't hate(!!!). Don't these things seem notable and blog-worthy!?

- I have SO MUCH to say on the breastfeeding subject. For now, I will offer that it's going fine. And in fact, I am looking forward to sharing my experience because it has been so darn fine. Despite the mass hysteria I created when I Tweeted the word "formula," it hasn't seemed to ruin my child's appetite for breastmilk OR my ability to create it. But I will tell you. Sometimes I feed her every 30 minutes, sometimes every couple of hours. Sometimes not for 4, 5, or 6 hours. And sometimes? When I haven't pumped enough "extra" boob juice but want an extra martini? I'll give her formula. AND SOMEHOW WE ALL SURVIVE.

- Oh, but also? HAHAHAHAHAHA. You know what's hilarious? People who can nurse standing up. All the baby carriers use the "and it's a great way to nurse discreetly!" line as a selling point. Um, no. There is no "discreet" nursing when your boob is larger than your baby's head. Not in a sling, not in a wrap, not in a carrier, not in a million years. Diagrams to come.

- In other news, for those of you who empathized with my hatred of Vicodin, thank you. I have been off it for 4 weeks now. Eve continues to sleep for 6 hour stretches at night anyway. (Not all the time, but hey, we'll take what we can get.)

However. I read that women who are breastfeeding do not get REM sleep, and that that's nature's way of keeping new moms alert. So in the end, 2, 4, and 6 hour stretches basically all feel the same. And explain the drool on my shirt.

- I stand by the declaration that Eve is an easy baby. I'm certain I will pay for this in horrifying toddler years or something.

- Um. I dunno. There's more to come. In the meantime, here are some pictures:

The birth announcement photo.

Focusing on the dangly-toy playmat.

Look how happy she is in her Boppy Bouncer chair!
Is this not a look of baby bliss?

Taken this morning, to get a shot of her hair.
That fauxhawk is all natural, yo.

Because I Can't Not Say ANYTHING

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:10:00 +0000

The insanity surrounding the current healthcare "debate" makes me, in my new-mom, blurry-eyed, sleep-deprived, drooly state a little bit nutty. I mean, yes, it would make me nutty were I not already in a new-mom, blurry-eyed, sleep-deprived, drooly state, but now it's just so much worse.

I stare at the television, looking as disheveled as it is possible to look, and just go, "HUH?" And then in a sweet, sing-song voice, tell Eve how much we love Rachel Maddow.

Sigh. I can't bring myself to get into the political debate here. I've just written and deleted about nine paragraphs, realizing that I have too much to say but I'll either just be preaching to the choir or my words will fall on deaf ears. My blog is not the place to change minds.

But it is the place for me to spout off. And so my top thoughts on the current state of the healthcare "debate" and Town Halls and astroturfing are thus:

Whoa, there, crazypants. No one is coming to take your guns away. On my planet, giving all citizens access to healthcare doesn't have anything to do with your interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. So while you're busy defending yourself against lower insurance premiums, please keep in mind that your right to bear arms does not supersede my right to peaceful assembly.
Obama cannot be a Fascist and a Nazi AND a Socialist and a Communist. While also being a secret Muslim.
Oh, and speaking of secrets? Obama is not talking about a nationalized healthcare option because he is secretly a citizen of Kenya. No, really.
You want your America back? From whom? Where did it go? I swear, it was here just a second ago. Oops! See, it's still here, right where you left it.
Ohmigod Obama's mother-in-law does not practice witchcraft ohmigod.
I would LOVE to hear your ideas on how to keep the government away from your Medicare.
Can Barney Frank be my uncle? Please?

How To Sum Up The First Month

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:22:00 +0000

I will get back to telling the rest of the labor story, specifically what happened before we left the hospital, the first few days at home, and OH MY GOD WITH THE BREASTFEEDING. (Which, by the way, has gone just fine.) But first, this snippet. I believe it illustrates the insanity that is being a crazy first-time parent:

Sometime around week three, I noticed something in Eve's left eye. It looked like a tiny little hair. I didn't know what to do about it. I tried the internet, but got nothing but the usual hodgepodge of shrill, non-medical information. No good.

I thought long and hard about what to do. (We're talking hours of contemplation.)

Do I use my finger to try to get it out? That can't be a good idea, right? What if, no matter how much I wash my hand, it's still dirty? Like, with microscopic germs or dirt or oil? The kind that only adults can have on their fingertips that infants can't tolerate? What if I accidentally scratch her, even though I have already cut all my fingernails down to the stub? What if I cause some kind of damage that her little body won't ever be able to repair? WHAT IF I BLIND MY CHILD???

Clearly I should not put my finger in her eye.

I next considered washing her eye out with the syringe, but also thought there might be no way to clean the syringe enough to guarantee that I wouldn't irritate her eye more. What if there's some weird residue on the syringe? What if the water itself isn't clean enough? And certainly Eve is not going to like getting water squirted in her eye.

No. The syringe isn't a good idea either.

The book says to clean around baby's eye with a cotton ball. Except what if the hair in her eye came from the cotton ball in the first place? What if more cotton just made the whole thing worse? What if she got several more hairs in her eye?

It went on like this.

I finally decided to leave the hair there. Eve didn't seem to notice or care at all. And if I've learned anything about how to be a good parent According To The Internet, it's to believe that natural is better in every way. I didn't want to scar my child for life! Natural! Her eye will flush out the hair itself.

Hours of terrified contemplation, I tell you.

The next morning, Eve woke up and I was ready to be handcuffed and carted away by child services. Because, you see, the inside corner of her left eye was slightly red, there was a little bit of yellow goo, and her eye was tearing. Yes, her eye was flushing itself out, but! But it looked kind of gross! Which means bad! And "bad" could mean blind! WHAT IF SHE DIDN'T RECOVER? HAD I BLINDED MY BABY???

Ish and I were sick with worry. We called the doctor's office and left a message for someone to get back to us asap.

When the pediatric nurse called me back, I tried hard not to sound like a crazy-lunatic-first-time mother even though that's exactly what I was. Which became evident to me as I heard myself telling the story to the nurse on the phone.

It went something like...

"I noticed a little hair in my daughter's eye yesterday. This morning, her eye seems irritated, like it's being flushed out. But I'm concerned because her eye is red and tearing up."

"You noticed a hair in her eye yesterday?"

"Yes."

"Did you get it out?"

Um.

"No? I was afraid...I didn't think...No."

"I see. So the hair stayed there and now it looks like the eye is irritated?"

"Yeah."

See how stupid this is sounding?

"It's probably just cleaning itself out. If you want to help it along, put a warm compress on it or dampen cotton balls..."

The nurse went on to basically describe all the ways in which you can try and clean a baby's eye out. And to say that I didn't need to have it looked at unless it got worse or didn't clear up in another day. And when I asked, she very kindly told me that no, it was unlikely that any permanent damage had been done.

And before I even hung up, I realized that I'd fallen into a trap of my own making. I mean, sure, let's take general health precautions and try to do what's best for the baby, but not at the expense of all common sense.

So I thought about it, and felt dumb, and eventually made a promise with myself. The next time a "dilemma" like this one presented itself (other examples include: "Oh my god, the baby COUGHED!" and "The baby scratched herself!!!"), I would ask, "What would a mom with FIVE kids do in this situation?" Certainly she wouldn't spend hours trying to figure out what to do about, well, anything. She'd just go with her gut and get on with her day. Mom with five kids? Queen of common sense.

Common sense: you see something in your baby's eye, you get it out. No hours of contemplation or referencing manuals or calling doctors required. It requires nothing but washing your hands. Or maybe even just sucking on your finger.

My Labor Story: Part Five

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:20:00 +0000

The Part Where There's A Baby

Within five minutes of saying, "Okay, I guess we should do the c-section today," I was on a wheelie bed going down to surgery.

I honestly knew nothing about what all was involved in c-sections, and I was really glad. Because if I had known all the things that could go wrong, they would all have begun flashing before my eyes. Instead, I was blissfully ignorant.

And speaking of blissful: my Pitocin drip had been shut off and I was on my way to get a spinal ("spinal" is somehow different from "epidural" but I don't know why/how). Soon I would be pain-free! And then I'd have a child! Things were looking UP!

I was in such good, weird, loopy, tired-but-wired spirits that I -- yes -- took my phone with me.

Those are my feet in the bed.

Here we are, waiting for the elevator.

We got to the hallway just outside the operating room, where one of my doctors was waiting for us. She told Ish he had to wait there "a few minutes" while I got situated on the table. They gave him his scrubs-jumper and told him to put them on. She said she'd come get him when we were ready.

I was wheeled into the OR and then everything became bright, organized chaos. Immediately they apologized for it being so cold. I said I didn't care because I had been hot and sweaty and uncomfortable for the last 24 hours (but also, truth be told, for the last 9 months) and it was a welcomed change. Besides, who could think of temperature at a time like that?

There seemed to be tons of people in the room and they were all smiles (from what I could tell by their eyes since they were all in masks). The smiling made me feel more comfortable, and reminded me that this is a procedure they do every day. Everyone introduced themselves and told me why they were there but I don't remember a single name. All I know is that I kept making jokes. Not, as you might suspect, to cut the tension. I was telling jokes because I was ecstatic. I was going to have a baby! Now! FINALLY!

Except.

(Because there's always an except.)

Except there was one more hurdle, and it turned out to be the worst hurdle of the entire labor. Getting the spinal sucked. Sucked. Suck-suckity-suck-suck-sucked.

Of course, I didn't know it was going to suck. It started out seeming pretty normal. They asked me to sit on the verrrrrry edge of the very cold table. This is not so awesome in a hospital gown, but I figured it wouldn't take too long. The nurse from upstairs was still with me, holding my hand. They asked me to tuck my chin against my chest and lean forward as much as I could, to extend and stretch and bend my spine as much as possible.

Apparently, bending and stretching one's back spreads out the spine, making it easier for the anesthesiologist to do her thing.

And while I'm not in any way afraid of needles, I chose not to look at the one she'd be using.

They said that I would first feel a slight-but-sharp prick from the needle, then it would pinch (as the drug awesomeness was first released into my numb-making places), then it would feel all better.

But here's the catch: You're not supposed to move. Because if you move, or flinch, or jump, the needle could end up who-knows-where and, in the very worst case, paralyze you. (Which basically never happens, but still: having a giant needle inserted into your spine is reason enough to stop moving.)

But but but. It's hard enough to stay still when you're in an awkward position on a cold table and stretching your spine while having a needle jab at you. It's another thing entirely to have to stay still under those conditions WHILE YOU'RE STILL HAVING CONTRACTIONS.

And, because I am not skinny, it's harder for the anesthesiologist to get in the right spot.

It took forever. The longest forever, ever. I was sitting on the table, cold, immobile, contracting, being pricked in the back, being THIS CLOSE to having my baby...and not being able to. I'd feel the pain of the jab, and I'd wait to feel something, and I wouldn't, and no one would say anything to me, and the clock was ticking, and where was my husband? and holy crap, here comes another contraction...don't move!...did it work? No?

Eight tries. It took eight tries and calling in a specialist in order to get the job done. (A doctor ran out to let Ish know what was taking so long. The poor guy was just standing in the hallway, wondering what on earth was going on.)

Finally, I rather suddenly felt like I had wet myself from the inside. There was a rush of what seemed like warm liquid trickling down the inside of my legs.

And then the chaos resumed. Everything was whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

I was lying down. Whoosh! They were prepping things. A big curtain went up so I couldn't see myself below my waist. Whoosh!

Can I feel my legs? Yes! Can I move them? Whoa! No! Weird! Whoosh!

And then they said all they had to do was test to see that I was numb, then they would start, and I would feel some pulling but no pain, and that it would only take 5 minutes (Whoosh!) before the baby was out. (It would take 20-30 minutes to put everything back together.)

I made some stupid joke about if they could do lipo while they were down there.

And then Ish was with me. Whoosh! And with almost no sense of "pulling" at all, the next thing I knew, they were asking if Ish wanted to stand up so he could see the baby coming out. Whoo--

Actually, no. Not "whoosh." This time there was a pause. He paused. He blanched. He wasn't sure. Ish has no tolerance whatsoever for gore, especially not of the medical kind. He was afraid that he would stand up, see something super-gross, look horrified, and then scare the crap out of me. But after a few beats, he decided he did want to see.

And he stood. My eyes were fixated on his face. And the very moment he stood, he said, "HEY! You guys weren't lying! There's actually a baby in there!" He was completely stunned.

Moments later, I heard her crying. Then I saw them carry her over to a station behind my head to clean and weigh her, while Ish looked on. The doctor proclaimed 5:57 p.m. Then they finally brought her over to me to show me.

And I cried. Not a lot, just an "I'm so overwhelmed I don't know what to do" cry.

My first thought as I saw her was was "Whoa" and my second thought was, "She's perfect, and exactly what I hoped for, " and my third thought was, "Huh?"

I was completely taken by surprise that she didn't look familiar. I thought I would recognize her.

They said that Ish should go upstairs with the baby while they performed the standard tests, and I would meet him up there as soon as we were finished. Which, 20 or 30 minutes later(?) seemed like three seconds. Whoosh!

And then I was in the room, and everything slowed down. I was tired, foggy, drugged, euphoric, giddy, terrified, and without any sense of reality. Nurses were buzzing in and out, the TV was on, hospital visitors were roaming the hallway. The staff had to move me from the wheelie bed to my regular bed, which had changed to be less frilly and more utilitarian.

But soon I was in my bed, and I don't know what happened in any sort of order after that. Once my husband handed my daughter to me, that's all there was.

My Labor Story: Part Four

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:14:00 +0000

We're Crossing That Bridge

"We've asked the doctor to come in for a consultation when he has a moment," the non-stabby day nurse told us.

When we'd met with the medical staff earlier in the morning (what time? who knows? 6? 7? 8?), I didn't pay much attention. They said something about no more pain meds until my labor re-intensified, and I pretty much ignored all else.

But after going all morning into afternoon without any progress, without any medication, without anything but hours of the same la-la-la-I'm-in-labor-la-la-OW-la-la, it became evident to Ish and me that we'd be going to Plan B, whatever that was.

So when the doctor came to visit around 2 in the afternoon, he laid it out for us. We were going to be given Pitocin and he'd come back around 6 or so to see how far we'd progressed. The notion of c-section had finally been put on the table, officially. Till now, the c-section possibility had loomed far off in the distance (along with, apparently, my friggin' epidural).

For any of you who don't know, Pitocin is sort of THE labor-inducing drug. It's administered to make your cervix do its thing. It also kicks your contractions into high gear. It's my understanding that part of what makes Pitocin-induced contractions worse than normal contractions is that you stop having complete relief between them -- you're just kind of always in varying degrees of uncomfortability.

I guess now's as good a point as any to say that Ish and I had never once discussed what we'd do if a c-section were recommended. I never read about c-sections, I didn't study up on all that could wrong during them, and in labor-prep class when they showed the LIVE C-SECTION VIDEO I chose to use Twitter instead of watch. This was not because I was so convinced I would have a vaginal birth, but simply because I didn't want to freak out entirely if we had to go the c-section route.

Especially because I could not help but notice that c-sections are kind of the new devil. (After non-drug-free births and bottle feeding, that is.) Nowadays, hospitals are conducting c-sections at alarming rates, in some cases because they are more convenient and faster than traditional births. There is, therefore, backlash about c-sections, and many women are refusing to get them unless they are absolutely medically necessary. Which makes sense. Except I'm not sure there's a shared view of what "absolutely medically necessary" means. I suspect some people mean they don't want a c-section until the baby or mom's safety is compromised in any way, and some people mean they don't want a c-section unless it's a life-or-death situation.

It's a lot to think about, and kind of hard to plan for. So I didn't. Instead, I took a "Let's cross that bridge when we come to it" kind of attitude.

And lo, that bridge was coming into view.

When they hooked me up to the Pitocin drip, I asked how it works, how much they administer, if they increase the dosage at a certain point, etc. The nurse rather blithely said, "Oh, well, [the machine] is set to increase the dose every 15 minutes."

As you might imagine, the next couple hours were painful. The contractions were different than they'd been. They weren't exactly worse, they were just...different. If I had to describe it (and I realize I don't, but whatever) I'd say pre-Pitocin, my contractions were sporadic and felt more localized to the under-the-belt region. On Pitocin, the contractions just felt like they were constant, but the highs and lows weren't any better or worse. Except the sense of "localized" went away and it felt like my entire under-the-neck region was contracting.

I was given some more pain meds around 4.

Miraculously, the doctor reappeared at 4:30 p.m. instead of 6. He came in to see how we were doing. I got "checked" again, and, in two-and-a-half hours of some heavy-duty dosing of Pitocin, my cervix had responded NOT AT ALL.

It was time to make a decision.

Not wanting to rush us into a decision, the doctor said we could continue on our current course of action for the remainder of the day and night, and schedule a c-section for the next morning just in case. Or, he happened to have enough time that they could just do a c-section right then and there.

I think the doctor thought I was opposed to c-sections in general, since I had been so willing to put off inducing labor. He was wrong. I wasn't opposed, I just really thought our little peanut would get with the program if we gave her enough time. And since I wasn't completely miserable even at 42 weeks pregnant (anxious? yes. ready? yes. miserable? no.), I thought we could wait it out.

So looking at another 15-20 hours of labor that might well end in a c-section anyway, or just having the baby already, guess which I wanted to do.

I couldn't tell you how that "conversation" went with Ish, but it probably involved a lot of head nodding and grunting while I pointed to the bag of Pitocin and whined "another full DAY OF THIS?" We also asked the doctor for a recommendation, and he said that he didn't expect to see much change in my cervix by tomorrow (or, from the sound of it, EVER). He also mentioned that he could feel wehre the baby was trying to fit her head through my tiny little 2 cm and wasn't getting anywhere.

Well, that did it. At 4:40 (I looked at the clock) we said, yes, c-section now, please.

I grabbed my phone to Tweet that I would be having a c-section.

It is only because I love you that I would ever, ever share this photo with you.

And then a LOT of things happened very, very quickly.

My Labor Story: Part Three

noreply@blogger.com (kristy) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:39:00 +0000

Starting At About 10:30 p.m., Things Start To Get Blurry. And Stabby.

You hear stories about how women are in labor for 12, 18, 24, 36 hours and, if you're like me and haven't ever given birth, you go, "Huh?" Like, how is that even possible? Are you in agony the whole time? How does it take THREE DAYS? And what the hell do you DO for so many hours?

I don't know what everyone's answer is, but I will say that once the contractions really kicked in, time just sort of went away. And not in a happy, "Oh, my my! Where did the time go?" kind of way.

No. I lived from contraction to contraction, which I guess is what happens. And occasionally I'd look at the clock and wonder how it was so many hours later. Sort of like losing track of time because you're so engrossed in a project. Except in this case, the project is a little like removing your fingernails.

I did learn that sitting or lying down was wholly unpleasant, and the only position I could tolerate during a contraction was that of "bent over." So for the next four hours I was standing, chatting, occasionally tweeting, and then bending over my bed humming.

Yes, humming. Making a long, low humming sound brought me relief.

I remember thinking that was interesting. I just found myself humming. Not because I read it or saw it or was taught it, but because that's what I wanted to do. And I remember also thinking YOU KNOW? If childbirth is supposed to be so friggin' natural, why do they even bother trying to teach us what to do...? Bending over the bed humming was not something I expected, and yet there I was. It just sort of "happened."

WHEREAS. There was one point when my pain was getting worse and my "humming" had escalated to "mooing" that the nurse suggested I try the "birthing ball." This was something they'd taught us about in class. So against my better judgment but willing to try anything that might make the contractions more bearable, I agreed. Why not?

So she got the stupid ball and it was a complete and total disaster. (Do I need to remind you of the BALLS OF DEATH?) I can barely manage not to roll off a yoga ball when I'm NOT pregnant and writhing in pain. This ball was rather small to begin with, and not particularly well inflated. When you then add me and my million pounds, the ball sags to within inches of the floor. Um? Sitting was unbearably uncomfortable. Why did I think hunching and squatting on some plastic ball would make everything better? It was the worst position yet, and also had the pleasant side-effect of making me feel like a whale. A beached, mooing whale.

We got rid of the ball. I thought I showed tremendous restraint in not throwing it at my nurse. (This was the same nurse who sorely bruised me while trying to get my arm IV in, and who kept doing silly voices and making light of the situation and insisted that my contractions had barely begun and that my water had not broken. I think I will now refer to her as Nurse Stabby.)

At another point, just after a doozy of a contraction, I stood up and realized that I was completely entangled around my IV pole. Between the bending over and walking in circles in the room and being hooked up to the IV and to the fetal monitor (still), I'd wound myself around the pole and was stuck. Like a dog that's wound its leash around a tree.

Nurse Stabby did a mental eye-roll. "Oh, honey, just stand there." And as she proceeded to try and unwind me, she couldn't help but mutter, "I have no idea how you did this."

Meanwhile, poor Ish was doing his best to by my coach, given my volatile and inconsistent state. And by inconsistent I mean: I wanted no physical contact unless suddenly I did(!), whereupon I'd then grab hold of whatever part of Ish's body was closest. My dislike for Nurse Stabby was palpable, but I certainly wasn't going to show any of that in her presence. I was incredibly testy during contractions and yet (I'd say) rather pleasant between them. Well, and then there's the part where I was mooing.

Ish did a very good job of being my partner and catering to my needs and getting ice water and going with the flow of my crazy. Despite his near-perfect behavior, however, I managed to find fault with him on one count. In the throes of a contraction, I decided he wasn't being creative enough in his use of language. Somewhere around his 150th "You're doing a great job, sweetie!" I glared at him and barked, "STOP SAYING THAT! YOU HAVE TO FIND ANOTHER WAY TO SAY THAT! HOW HARD CAN IT BE TO SAY THINGS?!?!"

Which basically meant, "Your job here is to find new and interesting ways to compliment me while I moo!" Note: Also not something they cover in labor prep class.

Now. At this point, you might be wondering about pain medication, huh? Like, you might be thinking, "Hey, wasn't she supposedly all gung-ho about pain medication? I wonder why she hasn't taken any yet!" And you would be asking very good questions.

One of the first things I did when I got into the hospital bed at 4 in the afternoon was proclaim to any medical professional within earshot: I do not want to miss the Epidural Window. Make sure I do not miss the Epidual Window! I did this because every labor horror story anywhere begins with how the pregnant woman missed the window for getting the epidural, either because her labor progressed too quickly or because she thought she could handle the pain and later determined otherwise. I did not fall into either category, but just wanted to be crystal clear about my preferences in case. The nurses thought this was hilarious. I did not.

Anyway. It turns out, they don't administer pain meds of any kind until you're dilated to at least 2 cm. (They won't even discuss the epidural.) If you'd told me that two weeks before, I would have said, "Oh, that sounds reasonable." But after my water had broken and my contractions were clearly not funny anymore (not that I ever thought they were), Nurse Stabby finally agreed to check me at about 2:30 a.m.

[Aside: "Check." That is what they call it when they put the glove on and reach all up in your business to see what's going on. And I don't want to begrudge medial professionals or anything, but it seems to me there should maybe me a more scientific way to gauge dilation than by a stabby nurse with a glove. Plus also, no matter who's doing it, it hurts. I mean, it's uncomfortable too, in the way that any formal assessment of your hoo-ha is uncomfortable, but it also hurts.]

I was only at 1. 1! Grrr! I didn't find this alarming so much as annoying. Obviously I was ready for labor, right? With the slightest prompting, my body had started its process and labor seemed imminent. Just as soon as my cervix got with the program, we'd be ready to go. The nurses were preparing for our morning to be very active and our baby's arrival to be late morning-early afternoon. And I'd heard plenty of stories of the cervix leaping in dilation and effacement just like magic.

So, I thought basically I was going to have a swift, good, normal labor. And since I was going to have a swift, good, normal labor, that 2 cm rule seemed kind of stupid. But what can you do.

Another hour of mind-numbing, moo-inducing contractions later, I think Nurse Stabby took pity on me. Or maybe she just wanted me to shut up. She'd taken up permanent residence in our room to help guide Ish and I through the increasingly challenging process, and I wouldn't have wanted to listen to several more hours of me, either.

All joking aside, though, what was the point (I wondered) of saying Yes! to pain meds if I was still going to go through hours of pain? I guess just to get to know the joys of labor. Or something.

At 3:30, Nurse Stabby looked at me and said, "You know, if you're really feeling ready for some kind of pain medication, I can help move things along. But it won't feel good." She made a kind of gesture with her hand when she said "move things along" that I won't describe, but she got her point across.

I agreed. At 3:30 a.m. I got my first dose of something glorious that helped take the edge off. I want to say for the record, however, that taking the edge off of a real contraction is a little like taking the edge off of a bullet wound. Comparatively, the rest of my body was a little more relaxed, and I was able to at least sit on the bed without wanting to claw my face off.

At this point, Nurse Stabby suggested we try to sleep. We needed our energy to be ready to go in the morning.

I don't know what kind of "sleep" one is supposed to get while still contracting every 3 to 5 minutes, but let's just say it's not exactly restful.

The next several hours passed with both Ish and I trying to doze. I will admit, he was more successful than I, though he tried really hard to stay awake with me. We had the blinds closed, the door closed, the lights off. I was on the bed, contorting my body into any position I could think of that might make the contractions better. Ish was beside me on the 300 year old recliner.

Everytime I'd move enough to make a lot of noise, Ish would stir. Without getting up or even opening his eyes, he'd say, "You're doing a great job, sweetie."

He really did mean well.

Sigh.

By the time the sun was up and Nurse Stabby had gone home and it was time for us to be transitioning into the next phase of labor, something unexpected happened: nothing.

We'd started the morning by meeting with the nurses and doctor and everyone agreed we should just wait it out. No more inducing meds, no more pain meds, just let labor progress naturally. If we needed to reassess later in the day, we would.

After which point my contractions stopped getting worse and kind of stalled out. They were back to being very uncomfortable but not debilitating. By 11:30 a.m. I discovered I'd actually fallen asleep and woken up and felt momentarily refreshed...until I realized my labor seemed to be going backwards.

"What's going on with you?" one of the new day nurses asked, in good humor. "We expected you to be delivered by now!"

Yes, well. Ha, ha. SO DID I.