my mommy voice

Its amusing to me to think about the difference between my definition of "a good day" these days, especially compared to what I might have called it only a few short months ago. Previous to the H-bomb's arrival a good day would have consisted of the various planets aligning, a work project coming together smoothly or an exceptional interaction with another. These days, the criteria are much different, and might appear to be easier to achieve - but that's hardly the case. Please allow me to list:

A good day consists of at least 3 items on this list:

1. Gummy smiles in the morning, followed by minimal morning fussiness.

2. Easy napping. Morning and afternoon naps are achieved any time mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Cat naps do not fulfill this requirement.

3. Happy tummy time. Tummy time has really yet to be enjoyed for more than 30 seconds before baby meltdown crying commences.

4. An uninterrupted hot, hot shower that allows the use of soap, shampoo AND a razor. (I don't think I've achieved this trifecta all in one shower since Henry's birth.)

5. The dogs sleeping all day and not waking Henry from a nap with their deafening, startling, terribly annoying barks.

6. Not starving - finding the time to actually eat. Bonus points if its nutritious.

7. And finally - more than 4 consecutive hours of sleeping myself. I should mention that when the day comes again that I can sleep six hours in a row (insert the sound of angels singing), I won't know what to do with myself.

Per doctor's orders we were scheduled for our 8:15 am induction. I remember it being all very civilized (as my Aunt Ronnie said, I was able to walk into the hospital "like a lady.") My husband and I woke up at the crack of dawn, took care of the pups and attempted to get on the road by 7am. Of course, despite my efforts to keep gas in the car all week we need to stop to fill up. We hit traffic but remain calm by saying, "the show really can't start without us." Despite the back up, we arrive exactly at 8:15.

Mom who left Boston at 4:45am has been at the hospital for over an hour already by the time we arrive. We find her near the admitting desk where I check in by saying, "I'm here to have a baby" and off we go.

We get to the fourth floor for labor and delivery and find the desk to check in. Immediately upon stepping up to the desk I start to hear a woman screaming. When I say screaming, I mean bloody murder, horror film screaming. My eyes widen as I try to ignore her and tell the woman, "I'm scheduled for an induction today." She asks my last name but then says hold on a minute, her nurse call button is ringing. She hits speakerphone and its the screaming woman, amplifying her shrillness into the speakerphone. Her voice is EVERYWHERE and its deafening. I couldn't do anything but laugh. I honestly thought for a moment it was some sort of sick joke they play on the induction patients - but oh, no - it was for real. Way too real.

Fortunately, my amazing nurse Rhonda approaches me takes me by the hand and whisks me to my room which is on the other side of the wing. She assures that labors like that really "rarely happen" as in "once in a blue moon." She gives me my johnnies and I change up. My room is a very large, lovely corner suite with the a view of the treetops of the surrounding city. As I come out of the bathroom I look at my husband who is still shell shocked from the screaming lady and we both burst out laughing in sheer disbelief.

Moments later Rhonda is back and inserts my IV. She is excellent at it and explains that she strangely loves doing them. I'm put on the Pitocin slowly but immediately. Its not even 9am yet.

Time passes but within a couple hours I start to feel the contractions. Dr. F comes in to check on me, he performs a quick internal and asks me if I have any questions. He breaks my water, there isn't much (which isn't surprising since we knew my fluid was low from the day before's non-stress test.) The fluid looks clear which, of course, is good. At some point I request my Sour Apple Blow Pop that someone wisely suggested we throw in our hospital bag. I enjoy my sucker and Jim laughs at me because it turns my entire tongue green.

Shortly there after due to the fluids they are pumping into me I need to go to the bathroom which feels like a huge ordeal due to all the monitors and cords attached to me (which by the way was one of my least favorite parts of the whole experience - the feeling of being so corded and wired up.) I'm successful in the bathroom and upon coming out I say I would really like to try sitting in the rocker after being in bed all morning. Almost instantly Henry's heart rate drops. 5 - 8 people rush into the room, including the resident on call, Dr. C. Suddenly there is a lot of commotion and Dr. C performs a quick internal. The nurses have me moving into all sorts of different positions (on my left, on my back, on my right, etc) It seems to help, his heart rate settles, but the resident put a heart rate monitor on Henry's head (which I'm still confused how they actually get it to stay) to get the most accurate read.

They take me off the Pitocin as a result of the incident for maybe an hour. My contractions space out, so as expected they put me back on the Pitocin very, very slowly. The drug does its job, the contractions start up again, and are much faster, and closer together.

Due to the discomfort of the contractions I really want to get out of bed again. I want to try the rocker one more time. Rhonda is able to help me into the chair, she watches me for a few minutes to make sure Henry can handle it. I'm able to sit there for 20-30 minutes and breathe through the contractions. I feel pretty good despite being in active labor.

Suddenly I get super hot. I feel the need to get up out of the chair and as I do I feel faint, but Jim is helping me and holding me. My next thought is that I want to try and sit on the edge of the bed but I remember feeling like I just could not get comfortable. Out of the blue the door busts open and 20 people rush into the room because everyone on the floor can see what my monitors are doing from anywhere on the wing. The nurses tell me, again, to try a few different positions but ultimately I have to get on all fours on the bed. People are yelling and its total chaos, there are so many people there. I get a shot of something in my leg to raise Henry's heart rate. Everyone is yelling, "Where is her doctor?!" referring to Dr. F who is actually in surgery at that moment. The resident on call, Dr. C takes over and another doctor from my practice, Dr. S is paged at my practice's local office. She races to the hospital being updated on me as she drives.

Henry's heart rate is still not coming up so they literally run me down the hall while I'm still on all fours on the bed. Every inch of the perimeter of the bed is taken up by a person including the resident who was on the bed with me, attempting to perform an internal while we go (which is very painful from this position.) The very nervous 1st year resident, whom I met earlier in the day, Dr. L, is right next to my head trying to talk to me to tell me all the risks associated with a C-section in order to get me to sign the consent. I hardly want to listen to him and just want him to give me the paper to sign. He finally finishes his spiel and I scribble my name while STILL on all fours. I'm wheeled into the operating room and Dr. S is there (how she made it there so fast from the local office is completely mind boggling to me) Now it seems there are even MORE people in the room including the anesthesiologist team. Despite the sheer terror of the moment, there is a bit of comedy. The anesthesiologists ask me to pick up my head and stick out my tongue which totally confuses me. I ask "Is it GREEN?!! I just had a sour apple lolly pop!" I was fearful that they would see my tongue and think I had some exotic condition and give me the wrong meds. But the anesthesiologist smiles and tells me they just need to check my airway. So imagine me in the sterile environment of the O.R., on all fours, head up, sticking out my tongue in its varying shades of green. I still laugh remembering that.

Upon arriving in the O.R. Henry's heart rate stabilizes and the pace of the room suddenly slows to a controlled chaos. I'm told we are just going to wait a moment and see what he does. I'm 5 centimeters dilated at this moment.

Henry's heart rate continues to stabilize and my husband is finally brought into the room sporting his all white scrubs which is a relief since I had been asking for him. I look at him and say he looks white as a ghost and one of the nurses asks him if he wants to sit down (they thought he might faint.) He holds it together like he's done this a million times before. We continue to wait a few minutes to watch Henry's heart rate. His heart rate is still stable after several minutes so Dr. S says to me, "This is a conversation now it won't be next time. We can do the C-section right now or we can try one more time for a vaginal." I say I really want to try for the vaginal and I kind of sense the room's disappointment as they wanted to do the C-section. Dr. S tells me that's fine, but the one thing I don't have a choice on is the epidural because if it should escalate again and they go in for the C-section they will want to put the spinal block on me right away so she wants the line in place now. I'm totally okay with getting the epidural. Sign me up.

Shockingly through the whole order I didn't panic. I knew the staff there would take care of me and I just focused on my breathing. I won't lie though, it felt good to hear several of the doctors and nurses comment on how calm and collected I stayed.

I get wheeled back to the room, my lovely corner suite. I wish I could have photographed the look on Mom's face. Relief doesn't even begin to describe it. Apparently the whole time I was in there she was reprimanded by the charge nurse who quarantined her to my room. Somehow she managed to get the nervous 1st year resident to run information back and forth to her so that she was moderately informed the whole time. This doesn't surprise me at all, of course Mom would manage something like that.

They give me a break off the Pitocin again. But in time, they do start me back on the lowest dose possible. I'm on essentially vapors. I'm growing very scared of this drug and from that point on I am afraid to move off my right side because every time I do it affects Henry's heart rate which my husband, mom and I are now watching like hawks on the monitor. For the next couple of hours I mentally prepare myself for the C-section because it really looks like that's the path I'm on.

I will say the epidural was heaven, with the only bad side effect being that it made me shake uncontrollably. I'm quite sure the shaking was harder for my husband to watch than it was for me to endure because he kept asking me if I was cold or if he could do anything. Despite that, I'm contracting and not feeling a thing, which is amazing. Dr. F gets out of surgery and comes to see me. We have a few jokes over what a handful this kid is already. He checks me and I'm 7-8 cm, he is pleased with my progress.

More time passes and I still don't feel the contractions but the pressure is increasing (to be somewhat graphic, it feels like I have to pee really badly.)

Next time Dr. F checks me I'm fully dilated but have a little bit of cervix left. It will be very soon, but he explains the longer I can wait the easier time I will have pushing.

Not too much more time passes and sure enough I'm really feeling the pressure and the urge to start pushing. I call my new nurse Mary (I've labored over two shifts at this point) and we start. She notices a little bit of merconium in my fluid so tells me that the pediatric team will be in the room when he's delivered and they will take him right away to check him. We push for about an hour with just the nurse, Jim and I. Mom is hovering nearby wiping my brow when I need it. Dr. F comes into the room and proceeds to kick my ass. He really ramps everything up and I want to die. But in hindsight he motivated me exactly as I needed. It was as if he knew precisely what I would respond to. I specifically remember in my head really wishing I had chosen the C-section earlier in the day because goddamn this hurts. I will also admit to dropping the eff-bomb once (but only once!) in the heat of it. Mary tells me we are close and I ask how many more pushes? 3-5? She says more like 10. Somehow I get through it and after 90 minutes of pushing Henry is born at 7:48pm. On the last push Mary tells me to open my eyes and I see him being born. I am so glad I did because that image in burned into my brain, never to be forgotten. However another comedic moment is that my first words were not in adoration of my new son, or how happy I was to be a mother but stating that next time I want the C-section, to everyone's amusement.

Henry is born with the cord around his neck which was probably the cause for the entire day of drama. Due to him being over due there wasn't too much fluid in there (which, again, we knew from the day's before's non-stress test) and the cord easily wrapped around him. Poor Jim did not get to cut the cord, Dr. F did it in an instant and Henry pinked up right away. As a result of the merconium, the peds Dr. took him right over to the warming table to look at him. I tell Jim to go see him. Mom is taking a million photos. I get a couple of stitches. Henry is crying out the merconium, sounds a little raspy but he's fine. I get to hold him for the first time, while still shaking from the moment and the epidural. He latches on within the first hour and has been trying to latch on every minute he can ever since.

The epilogue is that since he was born we have been calling his birth "The Perfect Storm." In some ways nearly everything that could have gone wrong did, but in the end I wouldn't have done it any other way. As for the C-section, I'm already glad I didn't have it. The day after his birth I saw a girl in the breastfeeding class on the recovery floor who had the surgery and she seriously looked like death warmed over. I think ultimately the only reason I ever wanted it was because at one point I was given a choice and in the throws of the worst part of the labor it seemed like a solution to the pain.

Lastly, about the pain and what they say about mother's forgetting immediately after the birth - well, that's not true for me. But I will say its been the most incredible week since we've met him and I would do it all again in an instant. 90 minutes of misery is completely worth a lifetime of joy.

Let's not dance around the fact the target audience for this lens is women, so if there are any men out there reading --well, you are going to have deal with the fact the following post will be of little use to you.

As women readers you know the importance of a good bra. Its right up there with world peace and environmental issues in my book. As I approached the end of my pregnancy I realized my needs in the bra department were about to change. Not only was my size going to be an issue (and as a woman who is already pretty well endowed, this was particularly troubling) but also the new challenge of nursing had to come into play.

I shopped around and tried a few different brands and styles but on a friend's recommendation I tried Bravado Original Nursing Bra and I have to say, this one is a winner. Before Henry I was an "underwire only" lady but was concerned to read that underwire can adversely affect your milk supply (any breastfeeding woman's worst nightmare.) This bra gives all the support I need without the wire and proves to be an easy contraption to operate with breastfeeding. I have two of them and plan to buy at least one more.

Another recommendation I have is for Medela sleep nursing bra. This bra was my best friend in those first few weeks home. It was pretty impossible for me to go to sleep without some sort of bra on because of the dire need of nursing pads (Let's just say sleeping with nursing pads in the beginning prevented the 40 year flood in my house.) The sleep bra gave me just barely the support I needed, and just believe me bra support 24/7 is a good thing AND it gave me a spot to tuck the all important nursing pads.

So all in all, I give these two bras two boobs up. My highest rating.

Last night as I was nursing Henry I was thinking about the things we use every day, without fail. The SwaddleMe® is so much a part of our day-to-day living I equate them with diapers, you just need them on hand.

Often I'll hear of moms who say their child just didn't like to be swaddled. I'm willing to bet if I had my hands on that child I could get him/her to love it. After watching Dr. Karp's The Happiest Baby on the Block (DVD) (Another product recommendation, especially for those very first few weeks) I came to understand swaddles are supposed to be TIGHT. Tighter than you, as a new parent might feel comfortable with, but believe me it was tight in that old uterus of yours and the swaddle is like a return to the familiar for your babe.

So wrap him or her up like an overstuffed bean burrito and know it does a baby good.