Trisomymommy

Birth of Miss J

B stole my E. I was showing her some pictures on my computer and she reached out, grabbed the E key, and ripped it right off.  While I’m proud of her stunning fine motor skills, I do wish she had chosen the Q, or maybe F6.  I can still type by pressing on the metal plate where the key used to be, but it messes with my rhythm.

So, yeah, the birth.  For the record, here’s how it went:  For the last few appointments before that Monday (12/17), my doc had been offering to check my cervix.  I soon learned that by “check” she meant “rip it open manually.”  Although I almost kicked her in the teeth, I allowed this in hopes that it would help my body get ready for labor.  It did seem to be working and by Friday I was 3cm dilated.  Not bad for someone still 2 ½ weeks before her due date.  I was hoping labor might start naturally and that the pitocin would be unnecessary.  But then nothing happened over the weekend, so I showed up at my 6am appointment on Monday, ready to roll.

After I got settled in and hooked up to the monitors, my doc came in and declared me still just 3 cm. At 8:30, the pitocin began.  I had very mild contractions for several hours.  I knitted. T read the paper and annoyed me by eating his lunch (I was forbidden to eat).  It was dull.  By 12:30, I was having some stronger contractions and thought I must be making good progress, but the next check showed that I was barely up to 4 cm.  At some point after that, they broke my water and within an hour things started picking up.  By 2:30, the contractions were really strong.  I sat in a rocking chair for awhile and leaned over onto the side of the bed while T put counter pressure on my back. I breathed. I groaned.  It hurt.  By about 4pm, I was in serious pain and not feeling well equipped to handle it.  With B’s birth, I had been very prepared for natural childbirth and got through labor by walking and doing all sorts of moves I’d learned in my prenatal yoga class.  This time, I just felt weary and confined, being all tethered to the monitoring equipment and IV.  I started shaking, which had happened during transition with B, so I figured that I must be pretty far along, but then the next check showed that I was only 5 cm.  Realizing that this could be a very long day, I requested an epidural. 

When that epidural kicked in, I went from writhing in pain and dread to being totally relaxed and happy.  I actually felt more comfortable than I’d felt in months, and I was high from the relief.  A friend of mine compares epidurals to that moment in the Wizard of Oz when everything turns color, and now I know what she means.  I couldn’t stop staring at the monitors, which showed enormous contractions going by in waves while I felt nothing at all.  I felt totally disembodied, in the best possible way.  I even suggested to T that we might see if Monday night football was on, which probably made him wonder if I could get an epidural installed permanently.  So we sat there, watching the pre-game hype and joking around and calculating whether he had enough time to go out and get some beer (he did not). Aside:  Don’t you love how NFL announcers always say the most obvious things, but they say them with such drama that they sound profound?  Things like, “The only way for this team to win, is for them to move the football.  Down. The. Field.”  End of aside.  Meanwhile, my uterus did all of the work without any worry or supervision from me.  At some point, I felt a little bit of pressure down below, and sure enough, it was time to push. We turned off the TV (because we’re classy that way) and I pushed for, I don’t know, maybe 40 minutes, without feeling any pain at all.  And then there was a wriggling, screaming baby on my chest.  It was all so easy.

We’re now adjusting to life as a family of four.  It was very hard that B was sick that first week that I was home, but she’s better now and it makes a big difference.  Having recovered more or less from the birth, I’m now religiously following my two rules for post partum life:  1) Shower everyday, and 2) Leave the house everyday. At this stage, a successful day is one in which I’ve accomplished both of those goals.  Next week, I’ll take on some additional challenges, like writing a thank you note.

Newbie

Miss J was born on Monday night after about 14 hours of pitocin and a heavenly epidural.  There were no complications and we're both doing well.  It has been total chaos around here as Miss B promptly came down with the worst-timed an ear infection ever.  Last night, both girls cried almost all night long.  I can barely type from the exhaustion, but wanted to announce the news.  More details later...

Update: 22 months

If all goes well, Miss B is now facing her last weekend as an only child.  People ask me all the time if she knows what’s coming, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world to explain.  She has no idea.

In small ways, we’ve tried to prepare her.  She has a baby doll and I sometimes play with the doll by making baby crying sounds, giving it a bottle and then burping it, all the while talking to Miss B about babies.  Now B will sometimes pick up the doll by her hair, smash the bottle into her eye, and then hit her on the back while looking to me for approval.  This bit of pretend play lasts about a minute before she gets bored and throws the doll or crawls over it to get to something more interesting.  I think it’s going to be a little while before we can expect her to help out with childcare.

We have also been trying to teach B the names of parts of her body, which involves a lot of discussion of the tummy.  B likes to pull up my shirt and pat my enormous tummy gently, and then not so gently grab my newly protruding navel.  Sometimes as we’re doing this, she’ll suddenly grab the hem of my shirt and pull it back down emphatically, as if she finds mom’s immodesty embarrassing.  It’ll be interesting to see how she reacts to my attempts to nurse the new baby.  I hope she doesn’t go to day care and try to pull off her teachers’ shirts to grab their boobs

Not too long ago, I questioned whether developments in one skill area inhibit those in another, and here is some more evidence that maybe they do.  In the past month, I’ve seen few linguistic developments.  Now when we read our Noisy Farm book, she can tell us what the billy goat says.  Also, sometimes she’ll yank on my hair and say, “Ow!”  In contrast, she’s been making good progress on walking.  Unable to wait until Christmas, a couple of months ago I splurged and bought her this very nice radio flyer walker-wagon.  At first she would try to push it and it would go too fast for her and she would fall down, which was hardly the point of the exercise.  I considered weighting it down to give her more resistance, but I was concerned that this would reinforce her tendency to use too much forward force rather than keeping her weight over her feet.  Then one day, she just figured it out and now she can walk upright quite well while holding onto the wagon.  She cannot steer it yet, so she doesn’t get too far before hitting furniture or a wall, at which point she just climbs inside of the wagon and waits for T to give her a ride around the house.  And climbing?  This kid can climb.  She climbs into any available empty box.  She climbs up the play structure at the park and goes down the slide.  She climbs up onto the coffee table.  When other people are over and B climbs on top of the coffee table, they seem to expect me to do something about this behavior, but I just let her be.  I know that I will need to teach her that coffee tables are not for climbing, but first I want her to figure out how to climb down.

The other day, she climbed up onto the sofa, lay down on her left side, and pulled a blanket up over her shoulder and just stayed there.  It took me a few minutes to realize that she was imitating mom on bed rest.

New Year's Resolution #1: Check

The IV fluids worked and they sent me home on strict bed rest.  They've also decided to take me out to almost 38 weeks rather than 37, so I get to "enjoy" my immobility for about 10 more days.

Here's some news that has nothing to do with reproduction:  Remember all that job stuff?  How I had to put together that portfolio detailing everything that I've accomplished in six years and then have it reviewed by tons of people who would decide whether to fire me or give me total job security for life?  I just got the word that the second round reviewers, like the first round, decided on the job-for-life option.  There are several more rounds to come, but it's all rubber stamping after this one.  I'm set.

Back in December 1989, during finals week of my first quarter of college, it hit me that this was what I wanted to do for a living.  I was 19 years old.  Although I've considered many alternatives along the way, and toyed with many different versions of this career, whenever a decision had to be made, I always chose the option that kept me moving in this direction.  And now here I am.  I can't quite get my head around it. 

I deserve a glass (or two, or five) of champagne and a party, damn it!

 

Let's just get this over with, shall we?

The worst thing about being in the hospital (except, of course, for having to deal with whatever problem put you there) is the forced passivity.  Rather than just get up and do stuff, you have to press the little button and try to communicate your needs to someone who is as intelligible as Charlie Brown’s mother.  A nurse is said to be on her way, but she may or may not come quickly and she may or may not be friendly.  Although your need for some ice water is surely the least important of all the patients’ needs, when nobody heeds your call, the need expands to fill your whole world and before long, you are feeling parched and irritable and semi-violent.  And what the hell does it take to get a decent latte around here?  And I can see that you hospital people have a wireless network, but you don’t like to share with the rest of us, do you?  Noooo… leave us to use dialup.

So yeah, my amniotic fluid levels had dropped very slightly on Tuesday and then dropped further on Friday, at which time they admitted me to the hospital for a fun weekend of IV fluids and bed rest.  I had been doing a modified bed rest at home before this, but I’m afraid I wasn’t very good at it.  If they had put me on strict bed rest, we would have brought in some help and maybe I could have complied, but this modified version left too much room for interpretation.  Lifting a toddler just this once surely won’t make a difference, will it?  Nah.  And while T has been terrific through all of this, when he is in the shower or out walking the dog, or transferring the laundry, it falls to me to lunge off of the couch to try to retrieve some random small object (Oh look, a screw! Where did that come from?) out of B’s mouth.   Anyway, I really did cut my activity way down, but I could have cut more and so I feel somewhat responsible for the predicament I’m now in.  But even if I’d tried harder to be immobile, it may not have been enough.  Even now, T brings B in to visit and plops her on the hospital bed with me to snuggle and I realize that even such cuddling is somewhat strenuous as I have to keep her from pulling out my IV, pressing the nurse call button, or diving off of the bed.  I miss her, but being with her requires more activity than I had realized, so maybe this little forced separation isn’t such a bad idea. But still, yesterday when they came to visit, B was grumpy (having refused her nap), and she didn’t seem happy to see me.  I feel like she’s becoming less attached to me and it makes me sad.  I won’t get a chance to repair that before the next one comes along.

This morning there will be another fluid check.  It is likely that the levels will be up, thanks to this weekend intervention.  If that happens, they’ll send me home on strict bed rest for about 8 more days, at which point I’ll hit 37 weeks and they’ll induce.  If the levels are not up, they’ll either keep me in the hospital or just get this baby born early.  Although I had wanted to keep her in longer and had hoped to do this as naturally as possible, I am now ready to get this whole thing over with and get on with being a mother to B and to the newbie. I’ll have this baby today if they’ll let me.