The Grand Finale!

Well, turns out, pregnancy doesn't last forever - not even mine. Meet the one and only

Scarlett Rebecca Stucky

This is the long awaited grand finale to our pregnancy tale. Our birth story.

After weeks of having false labor with Scarlett, Spencer and I were both praying for my water to just break already. If it did, at least we’d have a solid reason to be admitted into the hospital - a solid reason to believe that we were definitely going into labor that wouldn’t taper off for the six dozenth time. But I knew that only about 15% of women are “lucky” enough to have their water break prior to the start of labor. So when I started folding that entire weeks worth of laundry Tuesday afternoon, I never expected it to actually happen.

To help prepare for the new arrival, I wanted to have the entire house’s laundry done prior to me leaving for the hospital to have the baby. I washed load after load until there was a good three and a half hampers worth of clean clothes piled onto my bed ready to be folded before Matthew woke up from his nap. I got almost halfway through, when it happened. Just a little gush - but a gush - right into my maternity pants. Wanting to get a better look, I hobbled up the stairs as fast as I could and shut myself in the bathroom. If it was my water breaking, I knew from reading that the baby’s head can “cork” the water from escaping if you’re in a standing position, so lying down will give you a clearer idea of what it is you’re experiencing if you think it may have happened. So I laid down in the dry tub to wait for more of a gush… and quickly got one. Unfortunately, Matthew noticed me shutting myself in the bathroom - something that doesn’t happen unless there’s company in the house - so he followed right behind me. And when he couldn’t get into the bathroom because the door was locked, he panicked. He started pulling frantically on the doorknob and crying for me to let him in with me. Not wanting to scare him any more, I had no choice but to get my pants back on and share the bathroom.

I called my mom, then Spencer, then the doctor and was told to admit myself into the maternity ward. When I hung up the phone for the last time, my very attentive two-year-old told me “It’s okay your water got broke Mommy. Daddy will come home and fix it for you, right?” For the next few hours, while I waited for Spencer to get home from work, for my parents to come pick up the kids, and for myself to finish tying up all the loose ends around the house/packing for the hospital stay, my water continued to leak. Sometimes kind of a lot, but nothing that a maxi pad couldn’t handle.

When we got to the hospital and had the exam, I was told that my water had definitely started to break. Unfortunately, one of the three tests done for amniotic fluid came back inconclusive - and since the doctors need proof from all three tests in order to admit me, I’d have to walk around for about an hour and half in hopes of producing a little more “leakage” for a second test. The nurse suggested stopping in at the cafeteria to grab something to eat while I’m at it, reminding me that it’ll be the last opportunity I’ll have to do so until after the baby’s born.

So after walking around the outside of the building for about twenty minutes, Spencer and I realized that we didn’t want to waste valuable walking time eating in the cafeteria… So Spencer suggested hiking to the nearby WaWa for a small hoagie and some light snacks. The weather was absolutely beautiful for a long walk and it definitely beat cafeteria food so I agreed. It was definitely a hike, and we had to kind of hustle to make it back in time, but it was perfect for “shifting things around” in there like the nurse had wanted us to do. After walking up and down hills, through little trenches and across the Bank of America lawn, we made it to the shopping center just as the sun had gone down. Spencer was starting to feel doubtful that anything was going to happen and started saying something along the lines of “Well, I kind of think that if your water really broke we wouldn’t have to --”

But he didn’t have a chance to finish. Midway through his sentence, it happened. My water broke entirely right in the WaWa parking lot! Luckily the nurse equipped me with one of those special pads which was able to absorb it all for the test, sparing me any humiliation while we grabbed our pre-game snacks. We loaded up on ice cream and sandwiches and rambled on excitedly to the cashier about this being our last meal before the birth of our daughter. On the way back it was completely dark. This time when we crossed the Bank of America lawn on the way back to the hospital we weren’t able to see that it was soaked and swampy. Our flip-flopped feet were drenched halfway across. I was trying my best to eat while we walked, but I couldn’t stop laughing. And whenever I can’t stop laughing, neither can Spencer. I remember saying to him as we reached the Maternity ward that this’ll make a really good story for her someday.

By the time we got readmitted and examined again, I didn’t need to time my contractions to know that they were on a regular pattern. They started out less than five minutes apart and for ONCE, never slowed down. At about nine-thirty we were taken to the labor room where my contractions were timed in at being only two minutes apart. Since I was laboring well on my own the doctor decided to give me until morning before seeing if I needed Pitocin. All night long, from nine in the evening to four in the morning, I contracted every two minutes, dilating only a single centimeter in the process (making me a 4). I did my best to sleep but needless to say it wasn’t a restful time. At the fateful hour of four a.m. the nurse started the Pitocin… and that’s when things started to happen.

I was off to a very confident start. I’d already spent seven hours contracting aggressively every two minutes. To put things into perspective, I remembered that contractions that close together during labor with Matthew brought me to my knees in pain, so I was proud of how well I was able to handle myself so far. I was strapped to the bed with all the trimmings of I.V. tubes and fetal monitors running off of me, and I was told that unfortunately it wasn’t advisable for me to be up walking around anyway. Apparently, when there’s a break in your water so early on it puts you at a higher risk for … I don’t remember - something like placental abrasion or cord prolapse. In fact, the nurse on duty told me that the next nurse coming in may even want to stop me from walking to the bathroom on my own! I wanted to be aggravated and part of me even wanted to argue with her, but I guess I was too preoccupied to really dwell on it that much. I knew that this would make a natural delivery that much more difficult, but safety had to come first. I was fine to just roll with the punches.

Slowly, the Pitocin took effect to make the contractions stronger and to last just a little bit longer, leaving me with less than a minute to gather myself between them for most of the time. With each half hour that passed there was a noticeable difference in the way that I had to breathe through the pain. I’d heard that changing positions was an important part of managing the discomfort, but I didn’t want to stray too far from what was already working well - especially because I had so little time between contractions to readjust myself back into my original position if need be (which was sitting up with my legs folded Indian style, holding onto my knees when I needed leverage). And getting caught in a contraction halfway through switching positions brought about some of the most extreme pain I’d ever felt in my life, even pretty early on when the contractions were otherwise fairly easy to manage. Preparing myself physically and mentally at the very start of each contraction was crucial to getting me through them once the Pitocin dosage was elevated a few times.

After one of the times the nurse up’ed the dosage, I noticed right away that my preparation time during the building of each contraction was wiped away almost entirely. Suddenly the contractions stopped building and just hit like a stab in the gut. It felt like being sucker punched every time. By the time I felt it coming on, breathing put too much of a strain directly on the places the pain was most concentrated, so I had to find a new strategy - and fast. I had no choice but to freeze and exert every ounce of concentration and energy in me toward relaxing the necessary parts of my body… Not an easy task to accomplish when you’re already in the peek of the contraction. It felt like working backwards.

Obviously, it only gets worse before it gets any better. And this is where it gets really bad. With about two hours of Pitocin in my system, I finally called for Spencer to wake up and come to my side -- To which my loving husband gently responded, “Oh, you don’t need me. Come on, let me sleep. You got this.” Of course he was joking and of course, I didn’t think it was funny. The contractions were overwhelming, coming one right on top of the other now with virtually no breaks between some of them. There were times I felt like I was drowning, being barely able to sufficiently catch my breath. When the contractions came now, they were paralyzing. It helped tremendously to just have Spencer’s hand there for me to hold now, but only emotionally. Physically NOTHING helped. The only thing that didn’t make it any worse was completely shutting down at each contraction. When one would hit, my body would involuntarily tense, I’d freeze, concentrating every effort into visualizing the muscles in my body relaxing, meanwhile very, very gently taking in air as slowly as I could, so as not to put any unnecessary strain on my abdomen. If I breathed too hard or too quickly, the pain was enough to make me fall apart.

The next phase of contractions were, again, worse still. After hours of experiencing more contractions than there were breaks between them, my body began to tremble, even during the rarity of a break in the pain. I spent so much time in a frozen state of “concentration” that I was completely removed from the reality of being in that room with my husband or any of the nurses. The only noise I could make was “shhhh” to my husband almost any time he even opened his mouth. Or low, deep moans that felt like they helped to relax my muscles. And once in a while, a completely pathetic whimper when I felt like the contraction was really defeating even my best efforts. If it weren’t for my knowing that it would only worsen the pain, I would have definitely cried. I lost complete control of my body at this point. When the contractions came, they were downright volatile. I just shuddered pitifully and squeezed the living hell out of Spencer’s hand, (surprisingly he instinctively knew to squeeze back with the same intensity which was the one thing I remember actually being a real physical comfort). I was gritting my teeth and making noises I don’t even think existed before that day. I had to keep whispering “Just get through this one. Just get through it. Just get through it,” to myself. Spencer tried to help too, but the poor thing kept being shushed back to silence. Then, I guess from all of the trembling, my stomach started to turn, my whole body felt like it was on fire, I started to sweat, and then I realized that I needed to vomit. I was suddenly petrified. I knew that I’d never be able to empty my stomach in the few seconds I was allotted between contractions to move. I could only imagine the kind of pain that would result from me straining my stomach muscles enough to throw up during a contraction. I seriously thought I might pass out from that kind of pain. Sweat was consuming me now. The nurse gave me an ice pack that I’m pretty sure lost it’s coolness the second it touched my skin, but it gave me something inanimate to squeeze or dig my nails into. I don’t know if it helped, but I know I was afraid to let it go once it was given to me.

Finally, tremulous and sick and swimming in my own sweat, I called out for the epidural like I was waving the white flag. I knew that without being able to catch my breath, she was losing oxygen too and that between the suffocating heat and this insatiable need to throw up, my body was taking a beating I just wouldn’t be able to deliver through. Spencer asked the nurses to check me before calling the anesthesiologist, and I was a 5. Whenever Spencer would ask me earlier on if I was sure I didn’t want the epidural, I kept telling him that 5 was our goal. That if I could make it to five centimeters without an epidural, than I wasn’t getting one. I knew that things would progress quicker once I hit that fifth centimeter but I’d already taken hours more than I ever thought I could handle. That Pitocin was kicking my ass and there was no getting around it anymore.

You would think that would be the end of it. But the epidural only took to one side. It took twenty minutes for the contractions to start dulling on my right side - which was when I noticed that the epidural had all the time it was supposed to need to take effect, and I was still in every bit as much agony -- the pain was just concentrated more to the left. The nurse suggested I lie with a pillow propped under my right side, so that the medication could flow to my left. I lied there for about ten minutes, contracting almost violently the whole time -- when all of a sudden, it was time!!

Suddenly, it felt like a bowling ball was making it’s way down my intestinal tract. And not slowly. There was no mistaking that Scarlett was ready to make her debut. It might have been a more celebratory moment, if there had been anyone around other than my husband to tell. I lied there writhing around in the sheets, digging my heels into the edge of the bed, calling out for a nurse, but not being real sure what to say. I moaned and groaned and tired to pant like they tell you to in the books when you’re waiting for help, or you’re not fully dilated. I knew that it could be dangerous to push without knowing for certain that my cervix was fully dilated, so I tried everything in my power to stop myself from bearing down. I wanted to just scream out “HELP!!” but I was gritting my teeth too much to form words so all that came out was noise.

Nurses eventually shuffled in and started yelling at me to pant and blow and not to push… They were agreeing aloud amongst themselves that I was definitely ready and then they told me that we were just waiting on my doctor. (Same exact scenario as my labor with Matthew, except at least then I had an epidural that worked). I wasn’t having it. I yelled that I’m not pushing, and that she’s coming with or without my help! I told them someone needed to get down there now! I heard one nurse repeat what I said to another -- and then I realized that the “other” nurse wasn’t a nurse. She was a wonderful, amazing, Heaven-sent doctor who could deliver my baby right then. She introduced herself quickly and assured me that as soon as her gloves were on, we were having a baby. I could have kissed her.

And before I even gave the first push, Spencer took my right leg and said, “Oh my God, she’s right there, babe! I can already see her head. I’m looking at the top of her head right now!!” I’ve never heard him sound so excited.

Pushing was an experience. I felt every clench of the contractions, every pound of pressure, every tug, every stretch and every pull. I felt everything that the nurse and the baby and my body were doing together. I pushed like the world was ending and life depended on me getting this baby out. Three pushes got her head out, and everyone cheered. Spencer choked up and gave me a play by play of everything he could see. They all told me I was doing beautifully. The nurse told me to give “little baby pushes,” from there but with all of the adrenaline going and me feeling - you know, like I had a human being sticking halfway out of me - the only way I could push was all or nothing. I vaguely remember Spencer telling me to slow down, but it still felt like there was a thousand pounds of pressure forcing the rest of her body out. I wasn’t about to stop pushing until I had a baby out of me. Then, everything slowed down and I remember the doctor smiling up at Spencer, asking if he wanted to cut the cord - which, of course, he did. And with the next push, she flopped out into the nurses hands.

The End.
Our Beginning.

Welcome to the world my beautiful daughter

The Eternally Pregnant Woman

Week 39

*Look, early labor is not always very glamorous, so just to give you a heads up - I will be briefly describing things like bloody show and mucus plugs in this post. Nothing too gory, but you’ve been warned nonetheless. It's all part of the package.



Just for the record, I was okay with pretending that this baby might not come for a while. Even though every part of my body was telling me to keep my bags packed for the hospital, I knew that if I fed into the excitement, even only a few days of impatience would end up eating me alive. Then, the doctor actually confirmed my insanity. On Wednesday he officially deemed this baby ready to be born… and he gave me the green light to go bananas with all of the excitement I’d been bottling up for the past week and a half.

I had my membranes stripped, and as soon as I got home, had my bloody show. A big disgusting glop of bloody snot fell out of me. After gagging a little, I eagerly picked up the What to Expect book that’s been planted next to the toilet for the past nine months and learned that labor should theoretically start within 24-48 hours, although occasionally it can take up to a day or two beyond that. SWEET.

The next morning was uneventful, but I was still in pretty good spirits, knowing that things were on a roll that wasn’t going to stop now. About mid-afternoon I went to the bathroom and in looking down at one great big unmistakable blob of mucus, I got another hands-on lesson in the physiology of early labor that I’d spent so much of my life reading about in all of those pregnancy books. The Mucus plug. A lot of women, the book warns, can pass this without knowing it as they might lose it gradually over a period of time. Not me. This cervix was clearly uncorked in one fowl swoop of the tp. Then, just for good measure and a dose of confirmation, the rest of it came out in my next trip to the potty.

*This meant that the first stage of labor (dilation) had begun on it’s own
*The baby’s head was about as far down as it could possibly be at this point
*My membranes had been stripped - so labor had even been given an extra jump-start of induction
*I was already dilated to a “good” 3 centimeters
*And now, with the presence of my bloody show and the loss of my mucus plug out of the way, dilation and effacement were continuing enough to allow for their passage.

SO BASICALLY every single bullet point in every single pregnancy book that I own (and I own a good few) has been checked off, except for those damned contractions - which brings me to last night.

Needless to say, they started… and they started hard. Seven minutes apart, coming on strong right from the start. I interrupted Spencer’s shower to tell him that it was happening. Yeah - normally I would have waited it out a bit longer, chalking it up to a good probability of false labor, but this time was different. The doctor said that he’d see me in a couple of days, all of the other signs were there. Surely, if contractions started this time, I had all the other bullets on my side to back me up here! My membranes being stripped… All of that nasty crap I keep finding in the toilet… SURELY these factors have some bearing on being able to push me over the edge. I gave Spencer the heads up and warned him that even if he planned to still go into work the next day (which I’d let him do if he really wanted as long as the baby wasn’t crowning) that I’d be waking him up if I needed to. I did my best to fall asleep, planning to be woken up by stronger contractions sometime in another few hours.

Instead I wake up to the 4:00 a.m. alarm. Two contractions before breakfast was done and nothing… not a single cramp to speak of, after that. They say that every woman reaches a point in her pregnancy when she convinces herself that she will be the first woman on earth to never give birth. I’ve pretty much reached that point.

Tiny Dancer

Weeks 38-39

At 36 weeks I made a post about my “first” experience in false labor, purposefully using the word “first” because I knew that if it was my misfortune to have it once, I was likely to have it at least a few more times before the real thing, especially so early on.

And I did. I went into my 38 week appointment with that being the first (mildly spiteful) comment out of my mouth.
Dr.: Hey, there! How are we doing this time around?
Me: Well, if I weren’t planning on laboring mostly at home, I would have headed into the hospital twice this week.
And to my complete surprise, this actually took him a little off-guard. I expected the routine, oh that’s normal. Nothing to get excited about line that OB doctors always seem to have on hand to crush your dreams. But this time, when he checked me I got an enthusiastic, “Oh, Yeah. Look at that. You’re ready to go.”
He stripped my membranes and told me that I’d lose my bloody show as soon as I got home. Honestly I wasn’t even expecting to get an exam this time around. He said that her head was “right there… way, way down there,” and that I was a good 3 centimeters dilated. When he took out my chart to record my progress he commented that we’ve had “big changes since last week,” and better yet, that he’ll be seeing me in the hospital to have this baby before I make it to my next appointment. SCORE!

At my previous appointment I made sure to ask how likely it was that I’d go past my due date a second time around, since I went into overtime with Matthew and wasn’t looking forward to a repeat experience. And damn it all if I didn’t get a very UN-reassuring answer about how because of hormones in the mother that trigger the onslaught of labor, a mother who has an overdue baby once usually keeps that trend with succeeding pregnancies too. So when I came out of this appointment bearing good news, I could have danced out of that office.

Speaking of dancing, I think what probably helped was throwing my friend’s bachelorette party over the weekend. We ended the night with drinks and dancing at the Chesapeake Inn and even though I couldn’t drink and even though I was enormously round (and accordingly off-balance and uncoordinated), I didn’t let that stop me from making just as much of a fool of myself as everyone else! Most of it was just for the fun, but part of it was also a conscious effort to stimulate some kind of labor progress, too. Needless to say Baby Scarlett got a lot of attention on the dance floor -- (except for the one time Linda had to shoo some guy away from dancing up behind me because he couldn’t see that I was pregnant from behind… By far Spencer’s favorite part to hear about the next day!) The next afternoon I had the hardest contractions yet, beginning at regular 7 minute intervals and lasting clear into the early morning hours of the following Monday before finally tapering off.

So, like the doctor promised, I lost my bloody show as soon as I got home - which, as you can imagine was equally disgusting and exciting - and after sharing the good news with my mom, was surprised that night with a brand new car seat from my parents to replace Matthew’s old hand-me-down. The doctor left me with instructions to stay active so I plan to keep the music nice and loud today while me and Matthew keep ourselves on the move, and maybe I’ll even throw in an extra work-out or two. Wish me luck!

My Children

Week 37

Daddy would always wrap him up so tight in that receiving blanket you almost couldn’t believe there was the rest of a real body in there. A beating heart and breathing lungs. Fragile as his newborn body felt in your stare, there was an unassuming, mind-bending power behind that beating heart and growing brain and working organs when you held them in the palm of your hands. The blankets were all still new on the job, crisp and bright out of their packaging. I thought so many times before he was born that I couldn’t wait to use them, but when he was wrapped up I felt robbed of the real thing. I couldn’t get enough of his tender, feeble body in all of it’s living, breathing, being, beauty. Holding him changed me.

When I read to him back then, he had no reaction. His eyes stared in their normal direction and if his brain registered any fascination with the geometry of the illustrations or the rhythmic sound of my voice on the words, nothing gave it away. Sometimes his eyes would get heavy in the middle of the third or fourth story from that night’s feeding and I’d let the words fall over him like a blanket until his breathing told me he was under as far as he could go. It was finally safe to lie him down in his crib and sneak back to bed myself, but sometimes I’d read for just a little longer. I liked to think that I was soothing him to sleep, but I had no way of knowing.

The dies on Scarlett’s blankets could give you paper cuts they’re so crisp and untouched, wrapped up in their white ribbons, still hanging from the clear plastic hangers they hung on in the store. Spencer laughs that I keep leaving the door to her nursery open, teasing that it’s because I can’t stop walking in there, neurotically making sure that everything’s in as perfect, pristine order as it was the last time that I walked in there to check, and to drink it in… the smell of the baby powder, the sound of the wind chime outside of her window, and the kaleidoscope of sunlight dancing into her crib through the beautiful entanglement of tree leaves just beyond her blinds. I love the silks of the ribbons on her crib, and the cotton of her sweaters and the stitching on the noses of her tiny animal toys. And I caught myself thinking just last night that I couldn’t wait to Christen it all with the gentle company of our tiny newborn daughter. I can’t wait to unfold these blankets and tear off these price tags and get down and dirty with being a new parents all over again.

And that’s when it was bedtime for Matthew. Back to reality; Spencer’s shower hisses to a start down the hall and that’s my cue to meet Matthew in his bedroom for story time. Without a hiccup in the schedule, Matthew peeled himself out of the day’s clothes and climbed into bed so that I could put his Pull-Up on under his jams. As I tossed the clothes into his hamper and reached over for his favorite book, he pulled out the orange tin from the cubby of his headboard and fished inside for one of his Binkies. He plugged it into his mouth, nuzzled his waist under the quilt, and folded his arms behind his head, lying in wait for the first page to turn. When I read to him now, he listens to the words like he’s devouring a meal. He reacts with every muscle in his face to every predictable situation I read aloud. The first sentence crosses my lips and it’s hard to reach the next punctuation mark without his interrupting to point and exclaim and repeat what just happened. It’s as if his understanding of what just went down is so much deeper than mine, and he doesn’t want me to fall behind in the plot. His eyebrows catapult from his forehead, his binky bobs to and fro under his button nose, and his fingers point harum-scarum from one corner of an illustration to the next, as he tells each piece of the story back to me before the turning of the page.

Kissing on the wing of an airplane

In the hustle and bustle of raising a toddler, it’s easy to loose sight of how these milestones were reached. When Matthew’s scooping a pile of mashed potatoes into his mouth without getting more of it on his cheeks than on his taste buds, I don’t always take time to remember the many stages of breast milk and cereal concoctions at the highchair that got him there. I just enjoy our more civilized dinner. And when I’m reading to him at bedtime, and he explodes with enthusiasm over every recognizable event he’s had read to him a hundred and forty-two thousand times, I don’t always take time to appreciate how far we’ve come together to make story-time such a magical part of our ordinary everyday. I just enjoy that it is.

In such a very short time I’ll have a newborn nestled into my arm again, taking from my breast and taking from my heart and taking from my stories. We will start from the beginning, where hysterics of expression and laughter don’t give back to every shared experience. We will start from a place where she is just she, delicate and powerful and completely unaware; just trusting and growing quietly in the blanket of my words on her thirsty ears. It’ll be a place sometimes that I won’t be used to, but a place that I can’t wait to rediscover. A place that I can’t wait to let change me all over again.

Psyche!

My experience in false labor
Week 36

Come on, little one.
4:48 a.m.
4:59
5:15
5:27
5:39
5:51
6:02
6:10

This list was not documented for the sake of making a blog entry out of. This list is evidence of my surviving one of the absolute most maddening experiences known to mankind… THIS is my first experience in false labor.

Yeah. I never went through this with Matthew. When I was nine months pregnant with my first child, a contraction, followed by another contraction, followed by another contraction meant that I was in labor. In my expert experience, it meant that in another maybe day and a half I’d be rocking out a baby. And what perfect timing! Spencer wouldn’t even need to take a day off from work to be with me. Man, my luck rocks with this baby, I thought. Let’s do this!

I didn’t feel like I was jumping the gun, either. In fact, I made every effort under the sun NOT to jump the stupid gun. I avidly and mindfully avoided making any kind of movements whatsoever around any kind of firearms at all. But fate has no compassion.

The contractions started like the Braxton Hicks ones always do. My tummy tightened and contorted, shifting Scarlett’s rear end into some kind of position I was pretty sure wasn’t anymore comfortable for her than it was for me. I adjusted myself accordingly in my chair at lunch time while Matthew and I shared some peanut butter and orange slices, licking our fingers and getting our elbows sticky on the table. I waited out the discomfort and realized after about a minute that the contractions today were really starting to get some length to them now. I thought back on the day a little more and realized that I’d had an awful lot of them, too. Still, there was a very noticeable difference between these painless, sort of empty contractions and the ones that gradually sent me to my knees, writhing in pain the day that I went into true labor with Matthew. I didn’t think twice about paying them any mind. But when the next one came on stronger and the next one, just a little bit stronger than that, it became easier to notice that they were coming in pretty regular intervals. I also felt an alarming kind of sensation at the next few contractions… The distinct feeling of (what I’m guessing is probably a baby) pressing down pretty aggressively on some of my lowermost regions. So much so that Matthew took notice of a reactive grimace on my face and asked if I was Okay. At the onslaught on the next one, which sent the first familiar tinge of a dropping kind of pain down the insides of my pelvis, I thought… wait, this might be worth looking into. And just for fun - I told myself - I peeked over at the clock.

And to my surprise, over the next hour and a half, I realized that these contractions which were no longer entirely different from the ones that kicked off my labor the last time, were Honest to God, 20 minutes apart. Every one. No “more or less” about it. So I kept at it… and damned if they didn’t pick up the pace to only 15 minutes apart over the next half hour. Two hours now of regular contractions that are actually getting closer together. Hm. So as nap time settled into clean-up time, and clean-up time turned into laundry time and laundry time wrapped up into early afternoon and a phone call to my mom for confirmation that I’m hopefully not crazy - the contractions kept coming and the time in between them kept shortening.

By the time Spencer came home from work, they were ten minutes apart. I decided not to pounce on him the moment he got in the door with shrieks of our impending parenthood. I decided to take this slowly, knowing that at any moment and without any warning at all, they could just stop and it would all be chalked up to false labor. I waited until dinner time to casually slip him something about how I’ve had regular contractions for most of the day… but that it was still early, so it may not be anything to get excited about. He didn’t. So I didn’t. We finished up dinner and spent a good part of the afternoon leaning over the neighbor’s gate, watching Matthew run around the yard with their dog, while our beagle howled at the commotion from our side of the fence. We talked to the neighbor and laughed at our son, who kept loosing the struggle to keep his pants around his waist while he ran, and I wondered with every contraction how close together they were coming now. When Spencer and I got inside and started working on cleaning up from dinner, I dropped a mixing spoon in the sink and looked at him with a this-is-for-real kind of smile.
“That one was only eight minutes.”

I went to bed, telling him that there was no reason not to go into work the next day… That even though they’d been regular for almost an entire day now, they still weren’t painful yet. It’ll probably take all night for them to really increase in intensity. I’ll probably even be able to sleep most of the night. And even once they get really painful, we might still have another whole day to go. By the time you get home from work tomorrow, things should be rolling along nicely!

And - I AM NOT SHITTING YOU - I woke up in the middle of the night, with unmistakably strong contractions. The exact kind of contractions that I had the morning I woke up in labor with Matthew. I peeked at the clock every 10 minutes with the pain of a new contraction winding my insides from the belly-button down. I woke up the that morning waiting for the next contraction to happen so that I could start making the plans. And when it did four minutes later, I sent a text to my mom.

Still coming. 10 - 14 mins apart. Getting stronger, still pretty mild though.

Today, tomorrow, three weeks from now...

Yeah, it's all the same.

At this point, they weren’t all as strong as the ones I’d had the night before. Some were pretty intense while others weren’t. But I could say that these intense ones were at least double the intensity of the ones I’d considered pretty strong the night before. And you can’t ignore that timeline!

I got up and made arrangements for the kids for that night. I sent Spencer off to work with the promise that I’d let him know how things progressed throughout the day until he got home. He left for work at 4:30, and that is when I started jotting down the times of my contractions in a word document, above. I put Mary to work on a few chores after breakfast and I called a friend over to help me tie up some loose ends around the house. I made a list on the dry erase board of every preparation that would need to be made in the case that today was the last of my days at home without a newborn.

It was a lot of hub-bub for nothing. They died down somewhere around noon that day, gradually getting softer and farther apart until it was hard to notice them at all. I lied down and noticed that they would start to get stronger only to taper off again. Then I’d get up and notice that that triggered a few, too. I could have massaged my stomach, I could have had Spencer bring me home a can of pinapple juice and some spicy Mexican food but I didn’t see the need. She just wasn’t ready. It just wasn’t time. So I reluctantly let it go.

Today it’s hard not to draw too much awareness to my abdomen every time a bit of tension builds up within the walls of my uterus. But I know that if false labor has been my misfortune once, it’s more than likely to happen a time or two again before the real thing. So I’m preparing to hunker down for the long haul with this one, too.

Nesting

(some of us more willingly than others :-P)

He's so handsome when I'm putting him to work...

My nesting has gotten almost out of control. In the past month I must have washed our bed sheets sixteen times. I hate washing bed sheets. I don’t know why I keep doing it.

And it isn’t just washing things. It isn’t that I’ve taken apart every piece of baby equipment and run every piece of fabric the kid should come in contact with through the two-hour sanitizing deep clean cycle of the wash and it’s not that I’ve actually hand washed things for the first time in my life, and it’s not even that I’ve taken the batteries out of toys and disinfected the crevices of their battery packs with Green Works and cotton swabs. No, it’s not only that I spent SIX HOURS yesterday alone spraying and wiping and folding and reassembling and lint-rolling and Fabreezing. Cleaning is the easiest of it.

It’s that I’m actually losing sleep over not being prepared for this baby. I wake up in the night because of dreams that we’re discharged from the hospital without an infant seat. Or that suddenly I realize we accidentally bought a new van without enough seating space to fit another car seat. Oh my God, I wake up thinking, we don’t have room in our cabinets to store the baby’s bottles and breast milk storage containers. I’ll have to get up early to reorganize the kitchen cabinets in the morning. Let’s see, how many do I need to make room for? Did I even buy enough storage containers? Ugh! I still need breast pads! No I don’t. I got a huge container of disposable ones… Didn’t I? Or did I just consider buying them. I better get up and check now.

I have re-checked and re-counted everything that I own for this child at least two-dozen times. And every time I do, I remember something else that I really, really need. A Boppy pillow. A car seat. A nursing glider. More diapers. A hamper! An musical lullaby toy to attach to her crib! Toys in general. She has no toys! More blankets. She doesn’t even have a real comforter yet. When am I going to find the time to buy all of this stuff, let alone sew her a comforter to match that bumper?? And the bumper still has a tear in it. I’ll never remember to mend that before she comes. I could go into labor next week! I’ll be full term in less than ten days! What am I doing??

To make my anxiety even worse, there are too many other expenses to focus on. For instance, we’ve been waiting on the chance to buy a new vacuum for years and now that it’s finally made it’s way to the top of the priority list with all of the new carpet in the house, it kills me to think that two-hundred and sixty some dollars of potential baby supplies will have to go un-purchased for yet another week.

And even better?? The transmission on my van is gone. Entirely. Until Spencer orders a two hundred dollar part, some kind of control center thingy for the transmission is sitting in our garage, rendering our transportation un-transportable. So before the baby comes, we need to buy a new van, entirely.

But more than anything, I’m getting nervous about labor. I’m getting nervous that Spencer not being there for a good portion of it is a real possibility. I’m getting nervous that we won’t find someone to take the dog for his morning walks while I’m in the hospital. I’m getting nervous that I won’t know how to make it through the pain because I waited too long to take a Lamaze class and I can’t justify spending fifty-some dollars ordering an instructional DVD.

So today I am making a list of things I have to buy within the next two weeks; a list that will probably make my husband want to divorce me. Kind of like the list he laughed at me for making of questions for my doctor -- except worse, because this one involves money and an entire array of things he can physically point to and say “how can we possibly NEED this thing when I don’t even know what it is.”

Planning a Natural Childbirth

35 Weeks Today

Nine Months and Counting...

About mid-way through my first trimester I started making a mental checklist of things I’d like to do differently with this second pregnancy than I did with my first. I’d eat healthier, I thought. I’d resist the urge to buy anything until we knew the sex, I’d keep a more organized journal of this pregnancy, I wouldn’t drag Spencer to every single doctor’s appointment, I’d take way, way more pictures, we’d gradually buy the first 6-8 month supply of diapers and wipes before the end of the pregnancy… The list got pretty long, pretty quick.

With this being a second pregnancy I had a lot of anxiety in the first few months over this experience not turning out to be as meaningful as my pregnancy with Matthew was. I couldn’t shake the compulsion to compare every upcoming aspect of these special times to my first experience with them, and I couldn’t help concluding every time that this poor child was doomed to be overshadowed by her older brother before she was even born. To make matters worse, Spencer had the same anxieties that I had and not many of my close friends have a single child - much less reassuring advice to give about succeeding ones. So being able to use my previous experience as a jumping point toward making this pregnancy even better helped me to see the fact that I’ve done this all once before in a new light.

And so it came that I eventually starting thinking about delivery and made the decision that I was going to commit to having Scarlett naturally. I brought it up to Spencer (kind of expecting him to laugh at me), and was surprised when he actually loved the idea. A few months later, he even offered to take some birthing classes with me if I wanted.

My thoughts on having Matthew three years ago were that birth plans were fucking retarded. The books and articles all preach about how important it is to write up a birthing plan to give to your doctor, detailing the way that you want each step of your delivery process to go down. They say that it’s important partially because this is such a special day for you, and after all - you don’t want to be disappointed. Well, first of all, I was well aware that I had no idea what delivering a child was all about and I felt much safer in the hands of doctors and nurses whose lives have been dedicated to safely delivering children for years before I ever got pregnant. I also knew that natural processes like that of having a child are just unpredictable… who the hell am I to write up a list of wishes and expectations for my doctor and then to tell him “Now, this is how I envision my perfect birthing experience -- Let’s stick to the script here. After all, this is an important day for me.” He was there to deliver me a healthy child, not plan me a party.

So before you mistake me for one of those hippy moms, I want to clear the air. It’s really not about me needing to be in control or about me distrusting modern medicine. I don’t even have any regrets about the way that Matthew was born, epidural and all… In fact, if I had to describe my laboring process with him in a single word, it would probably be “fun.” I was able to go from falling to my knees in unimaginable pain to resting peacefully all night long while my body did work I was blissfully unaware of. Minutes before I started pushing I was laughing with my husband like it was any other day.

I will admit though, that being able to kind of “shape” my pregnancy this time around in a way that I wasn’t able to do with Matthew because he was my first and I had no idea what I was doing - has been nice. I’ve also really relished all of the differences that this pregnancy has brought to my repertoire of experiences. It hasn’t felt at all like just a repeat of something special that’s already run it’s course. Every different experience has been like a first of it’s own and that’s helped me to feel a special bond with this child instead of just thinking of it as “another” child of mine -- which has been my biggest fear all along.

Even though I’ve never been big on needing to control things, I realized after I had Matthew that every time I think back on it, my favorite part of the whole experience was being able to feel myself needing to push. Even more than I liked being able to cruise through otherwise mindfuckingly excruciating contractions. I liked that Spencer always kind of gives me kudos for coming out of my shell enough to argue with the nurse about needing to push before she mistakenly thought I was ready. My epidural had worn off just enough to allow me to feel the urge myself without having to be told by a monitor. I liked the feeling of being involved as apposed to just being instructed through the process like I was only a middle-man.

And, of course, there’s the ever-present reminder that this is my last chance to experience it, and to have a real story to tell. To have my husband coach me through til the triumphant end, instead of just ‘til the medication kicks in and I don’t really need him anymore. There are also some other factors that, as my mom puts it, makes me a perfect candidate for a good natural childbirth experience (taking into consideration, of course, that you can never 100% know what to expect): Like the fact that this is my second perfectly healthy pregnancy and second births tend to already be shorter and usually significantly less painful. And the fact that Matthew was already a very easy baby to deliver; I already knew how to push so effectively that even my first child was out in only a handful of pushes - after the nurse had warned me that first timers can expect to bear down repeatedly for around an hour and a half before seeing their babies.

The unfortunate part of this whole decision is that I am already at week THIRTY-FIVE (!!!!!) and haven’t been able to find any classes on natural childbirth for Spencer and I to take. I’ve tried looking for other methods of education on preparing myself for it, but haven’t had any luck. My mom (who’s lived through it twice before) and Spencer (whose opinion really doesn’t count for much) both tell me that I don’t need all that. But I know that I’m the kind of person who a placebo effect can really work on. Even if you give me a bunch of mumbo jumbo about “visualizing the baby peacefully descending painlessly down the birth canal” while my insides are ripping open like those airy doulas do on TLC, I’ll eat it up and swear it worked. But with there only being a few weeks left until D day and Spencer and I both working a lot before I start maternity leave, I’m kind of accepting that I might be on my own a little here.

I’m doing what I can to prepare my body the best that I can. I’m trying to read up as much as possible so that I at least know what to expect, and even though I feel stupid doing it - I’m writing up a list of questions to take to my doctor today for what will be the first of my now weekly appointments. (He already knows that I’m planning a natural delivery and he’s given me a little bit of information of what to expect will be different, but I still have some questions about how long to labor at home and how much free roam I’ll have in the hospital once I am admitted…stuff like that.) I’ve also finally picked up the pregnancy workout DVD that my friend gave to me in my first trimester, and I’ve kept at it every single day. I’ve read in a number of places that being physically fit especially in the last months of pregnancy can supposedly help your body to work more effectively through the birthing process so that both your body’s contractions and the effort you put into your pushes accomplish more in less time.

I don’t know… I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes. Feel free to wish me A LOT of luck.

What Brought Her Here

34 Weeks Along

Having a newborn around the house should be a breeze. I figure the hardest part of that is the whole waking up every two and a half hours through the night -- and unfortunately I already have that schedule down.
Effing Leg cramps. And back cramps. And practice contractions that feel like stomach cramps.
Like clockwork, every two hours. Sometimes I just have to lift or stretch my leg until it snaps then turn over and try to fall back to sleep on the other side. And sometimes I actually have to get up and stand flatfooted on the floor beside the bed to relieve a Charlie Horse. By the time I wake up in the morning, I’m popping my joints in and out of place like they’re bubble gum. Not one of the more enjoyable aspects of being pregnant, let me tell you.

I don’t want to say that this trimester has been miserable, because that couldn’t be farther from the truth. In fact, if anything - as much as I can’t wait to have her here - I’m still hanging on to these last few weeks with a slightly heavy heart. The idea of never being pregnant again, even though I don’t want to have anymore children, can still be a hard one to swallow some days. But just because I’m not dreading every second of my third-trimester symptoms doesn’t mean that they can’t be a REAL pain in the ass.

Matthew wasn’t so tough to carry. I’m thinking that maybe some of that can be attributed to it being a winter pregnancy, but I guess there’s no real way to know. In my last trimester with Matthew, I didn’t feel much, if at all, different from the way I felt in my second. My hands and feet weren’t swollen or itchy, my back wasn’t tight, and bending down to gather a pile off the floor with the dustpan didn’t involve gasping for air on the way back up like I’d just been kicked in the gut. If I had Braxton hicks contractions I never felt them and getting winded just didn’t happen unless I did something that justified feeling at least a little strained under normal conditions.

These days? These days I can’t drive to work without wanting to collapse in a heap on the doormat and fall asleep at the door. Bending down is a task that I dread like end of days. And every muscle under my skin is prone to some kind of cramp. I waddle when I walk (usually because I’m toting around - among other things - an everlasting gallon and a half of urine) and I can’t seem to maneuver sitting down without looking like Al Bundy. This baby established early on just how much space she requires to stretch out comfortably. Any attempt on my part to sit up straight - much less lean forward a little, usually results in a punctured lung and loss of oxygen. I’m exhausted beyond comprehension and, believe me, my patience is NOT what it used to be. I haven’t slept for more than three hours at a stretch in over two months, and it’s impossible to get comfortable even at my most relaxed.

My best attempt at looking even remotely femenine

while sitting down at the neighborhood park.

A heaping pile of complaints, I know. But it’s got nothing on how much I still love being pregnant. Even with all of the aches and pains and sleepless, uncomfortable nights strung together by irritable, uncomfortable days, I still fall apart every time she squirms around in there. I still love that if I must be uncomfortable, that it’s for her that I’m enduring it. I still love saying her name and wondering what beautiful meaning she’ll put to it someday. There’s just no way to look at a child the way that I look at my Matthew and hate any part of what brought them here.

Always my baby.

27 Weeks Along - An Unforgettable Summer with Scarlett

I have so many vivid memories of being pregnant with Matthew.
I never forgot the way it felt to have him squirm around inside of me throughout those last couple of months, when my skin felt like the rubber of an over-inflated balloon and his knees and elbows could be seen from the outside fighting for space. I remember being thrilled at every new sensation, wondering if this or that or the thing I felt yesterday might be some beginning sign of labor. I remember walking almost everywhere with my hands cradled dotingly underneath of my belly-button; affectionately handling both my belly itself and the baby inside of it in almost equal parts. I remember having to stop in front of every mirror I passed when a glimpse of a pregnant profile would catch itself in my peripherals. I remember loving everything unfamiliar to me about my pregnant body. Looking back now, it’s a good thing I have these memories, because memories were all that I had once he was born.

I got my first camera about a week before Matthew was due in preparation for his birth. Consequently though, there’s almost nothing to show from all the time that he and I shared that miraculous pregnant body. I can’t get that time back - but this time, I vowed from the beginning, would be different. I didn’t let a week go by before I snapped the first shot of my mid drift in those long lost American Eagle jeans.

As the months have passed, the pictures have become better and better reflections of the great time I have taking them. I didn’t just want a chronicle of inches added to my waist, I wanted a story to tell with each picture taken. I wanted as much permanence as I could possibly squeeze out of this cluster of trimesters. But Most of all, I wanted my daughter and I have to have something real to cling to from this time - something more than a picture of me standing against a wall recording weight and inches with every two weeks.
I want to be able to read these snapshots to her like a favorite childhood story, something we can both share and return to, and share again when she’s just a little bit older.





Last night Spencer grilled up steaks in the backyard while I mashed potatoes in the kitchen. Matthew and the dog pitter-pattered together in and out of the screen door between us until dinner was ready. While we waited for dinner to cool, Spencer actually asked me if I wanted to take a few pictures before the sun went down. He set up the tripod. He told me how pretty I was between every couple of clicks, and he helped get Matthew into some of the pictures by telling him that these were for his baby Scarlett.

After we ate dinner outside and caught fireflies with Matthew at the end of Riley’s walk, Spencer and I came in to look over some of the pictures. He said, “you know, there was this picture of my mom pushing me on a swing when I was a kid. And even though there wasn’t anything too special about that picture or about that day, I always looked at it and thought about how much my mom must have loved me to take the time out of her day to just do that with me… Then I think about my dad being the one taking the picture, and I think, ‘hm, he must have really loved me too.”


Lord knows, these children should never have to wonder.







And neither will I.

With Regard to Breastfeeding

Part 2: Magic. MAGIC!


As my pregnancy teeters on the cusp of it’s last trimester, I find myself thinking more and more on the preparation of breastfeeding Scarlett. Growing up, it felt like sixty percent of my childhood tales relayed to me through my mom were of breastfeeding. My mom was apparently one of those “breastfeeding rock stars,” and was able to feed me that way even until AFTER my brother was born. There were literally times that she breastfed both of us at the same time! (And lived to tell about it!!) It wasn’t just something I’d heard about here and there, it was something that my mom still looks back on nostalgically. Something she still brags about to everyone in my life that she’s ever been introduced to (there are a lot of people walking the planet right now with the incriminating knowledge that I breastfed until I was, like, 13 and a half). When she talks about our breastfeeding relationship, she gushes. Still. And I’m 24. I never completely understood it, until of course, I became a breastfeeding mother myself and have since heard dozens and dozens of accounts of women who breastfeed their babies almost addictively… who take pictures of themselves regularly with their babies to their breast and who can dedicate half a purchased website toward the miraculous and emotional journey of breastfeeding their infants (and yes, even toddlers). Turns out, my mom was not the only breast-feeding weirdo out there.

I get breastfeeding being popular, and I’m well-schooled on all of the reasons why. If I was a rock star at it – which at first, I felt like I was – I’d probably be all about talking that shit up, too. That part has never shocked me. What intrigues me so much more is the widespread use of the word magic (MAGIC) to describe the experince of giving a child a breast. Really. MAGIC. Not “horrifically-uncomfortable-and-at-times-even-unmanageably-painful-but-because-it’s-whats-best-for-my-child-on-a-higher-level-I-can-discipline-myself-and-toil-through-the-distress.” No.
Magic.



Part 3: Okay, my turn.

When it came time for my son’s first feeding, I remember feeling distinctly proud that we caught on to it so quickly. True to what the books had all promised: he rooted, I guided, he latched, and we were off. I breastfed him exclusively for four and a half months. The fifth month was where the frustrations really rooted themselves into our routine and basically fucked it all up. I won’t go into every blasé detail of what ended our breastfeeding relationship, because it isn’t too terribly different from all of the rest, (scarred, chaffed nipples; insufficient production; hours upon hours of fruitless pumping) but I will say that it was in the fifth month that we shook up that first formidable bottle of poison -- I MEAN powder and fed it to our son. He guzzled it like nothing I’d ever seen before. After a good straight month of battling to overcome the unshakable fear that my son wasn’t getting enough to satiate himself at any of his GAZILLION feedings, I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t feel both soothing and rewarding to watch him suckle down that first bottle in the middle of the night while his father and I both nestled him to sleep between us in a way that we had never able to while he was at my breast.

Our time spent breastfeeding was beautiful for sure, but it’d be kind of stretch to use a word like “magical” to describe it. I remember spending entire days on end traipsing through the house without a shirt on my back because I was always on call for a feeding - which happened more than hourly because he wasn’t getting his fill at any one of them. And what time wasn’t spent feeding him was spent with sticky medicinal cream on my nipples which went on like molasses, dried like superglue and needed to be aired out between feedings. Instead of feeling like MORE of a woman by breastfeeding, I felt like an empty shell of one. What was for a few good months a beautiful and fulfilling exchange between mother and child, just no longer was. We phased out breastfeeding without even trying to -- my body just naturally seemed ready to be done. And shortly thereafter, that was that.

Since then, I’ve become more aware of just how normal it is to struggle at times through breastfeeding. I’ve met women who have endured far, FAR worse than I have for the betterment of their breastfeeding relationships and have still succeeded in sustaining a long and much more easygoing twelve month run. I've learned how perfectly normal it is to cry and to want to give up about fourteen times. Now, I knew this about childbirth. HAD I KNOWN THIS ABOUT BREASTFEEDING IT MAY HAVE HELPED KIND OF A LOT. It seems to be one of those undertakings that has to get worse before it can start to get better.
But once it does, it’s apparently magic. And you know what. I beleive it.

Knowing that there is at least the chance of a light at the end of that nipple-blistered tunnel, (if not even a little bit of pixie dust) I will definitely try harder to see where my efforts can take me with Scarlett. Maybe my MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE breast development will be an indication of easier things to come and I’ll be luckier this time around. Maybe I’ll get to see where a little more persistence could have taken me with Matthew had I stuck it out more stubbornly. Or maybe I’ll get validation that sometimes, it’s just out of our hands. In any scenario, my plan is to breastfeed Scarlett; to give it my very, very best; to aim for around nine months of it, and to be proud - regardless of how far we get - of wherever our breastfeeding relationship takes us.

Maybe this so called “magic” everyone talks about will help me keep my pregnant boobs…
(I’m just saying).

With Regard to Breastfeeding

Part 1: Pregnant Boobs Are All Sorts of Awesome.




Man, how I wouldn’t have killed for a symptom like THIS in my younger days -- then again I’m not complaining. I guess, if you’re going to have your boobs abruptly catch up on all of the growing they‘ve neglected to do since puberty let you down so many years ago, it’s probably best that it gets to happen while you’re married, and can, you know, show it off shamelessly. Which, let me tell you, I’ve gotten pretty comfortable doing lately. So much so in fact, that I’ve actually become a little wistful at the thought of this pregnancy being over in just a short couple of months. There are so many things that I’ll miss about being pregnant, not the least of which will be my remarkable pregnant boobs.

Yeah, pregnant boobs are all sorts of awesome. For those of us who have never been particularly privileged with regard to that portion of our bodies, pregnancy can be sort of a haven. Now last time, I ended up with kind of a raw deal. I remember being eighteen thousand pounds of pregnant and still having to squint into the mirror with my shirt off wondering… Is that the change I’m supposed to notice? I mean, I think I see it. Kind of. Maybe. Then about two days after Matthew came home from the hospital with us, my milk came in and literally all at once I woke up with breasts swollen to the size of watermelons, so painfully full they even rivaled the rock solid texture of one. This is not just a cute exaggeration - it nearly frightened me to tears. My most conservative bras barely covered my nipples. And when the fear didn’t make me cry, the pain that followed soon afterward did. I still remember the double take Spencer did that morning. In fact, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. A double take that made his jaw drop… and my stitches hurt! The mere idea of him being turned on two days after returning from the hospital would have been laughable if I weren’t so busy crying.

This time around, my body has made it up to me. From about ten minutes after I learned that I was pregnant, the ladies have gradually come in full and voluptuous and at a pace I can keep up with. At six months along now, all I have to do is pull up my jeans and one or both of them is likely to bounce right up out of my bra. IT’S AWESOME. I’m loving those jaw-dropping double takes a lot more now that they’re happening at a time when my boobs aren’t leaking baby-milk all through the night and my vagina isn’t - you know, wrapped up in stitches.

I realize that the second time around, most every change that the body is supposed to undergo throughout pregnancy just comes much more agreeably. My boobs are the best proof of this. Yup, I agree with these boobs.

But in another light, I can’t help but respect that the changes in my breasts are beautiful for more than just the way that they make me feel like Jessica Rabbit. When I look at them and I realize with a nostalgic tilt of my head in the mirror that they won’t last forever, I also feel good knowing that the reason they won’t last forever is because they have a higher purpose. My breasts are preparing before my eyes to nourish my child – this child that already exists -- and that is exciting. Watching the womanly figure evolve so dramatically for the sake of her child is astounding, even from an outsider’s perspective. There is absolutely nothing in the world that trumps surrendering your own body to the process of creating life. Watching your body - hair, skin, belly, breasts, posture – blossom from that of a woman into that of a mother is equal parts humbling and empowering. It is, more than anything, something to cherish on a superior level.

In a word: Awesome.

Twenty-Four Weeks

~May 22nd, 2010~

twenty-two weeks along

Well, baby Scarlett, we are already more than half-way through our pregnancy together.

This is us hanging out by a river, watching daddy fish with Matthew - looking beautiful together as Daddy always says we do.

The picture at the top was taken a couple of weekends ago beside the garage - and believe me, we’ve grown just since then. My belly has taken on about the rough diameter of a small basketball now. With Baby Scarlett being just over a foot long and her first full pound, I can not only feel her kick about three dozen times a day - I can actually watch her do it. I’m not so crowded in the abdomen yet that my lungs are battling for space to breathe, but my growing stomach has definitely begun to stake claim in some areas of my life. It’s big enough now that I have to wear all new clothes. It’s big enough now that after a large meal, it can actually begin to feel like somewhat of an extra extremity to carry around; and it’s not so much because of the extra weight as it is because the weight literally feels like it’s out in front of me rather than resting somewhere above my hip bones, where it used to be more in line with my equilibrium. The laundry basket doesn’t rest as easily above my right hip as it used to when I carried it up and down the stairs. And the barrier between Spencer and I when we kiss has indignantly established itself. He can still hold me pretty close at this early stage, but not without pressing his daughter at least a little into my last digested meal. It won’t be long before we have to reach over the bulge again, like we’re kissing over a table.

So all of that being said, we’ve covered a lot of ground in my prenatal state. Our baby finally has her own, established gender, a definite first name, the healthy beginnings of a first-year’s wardrobe, and a paint color for her room.

When we first decided that we would have another baby, we discussed at length that we had a lot of changes to take care of first. Of course, when it comes to baby-making Spencer and I have never been the patient kind. So instead of taking care of these changes before the baby was conceived, we knew from the beginning that these were projects we’d have no intention of starting until after I had probably already started to show. And that is exactly what happened. Maybe it’s the motivation that a growing belly drives home, or maybe we’re just the kind of team that works better under the pressure of a strict deadline. Whatever it is, Spencer and I always seem to do our best work whilst growing little ones on the other side of my belly button.

The first, and by far largest of our major projects was transforming our half-finished basement into a suitable master bedroom. And I’ll be damned if we didn’t pull it off with zest. Spencer sawed wood and plastered drywall and pulled up ancient shag, poison-green carpeting; he installed all brand new lighting and wired new outlets in all of the best places and (finishing right on schedule) we were able to spend the very first night in our beautiful new master bedroom just days after finding out the sex of the baby.

Finishing the largest part of the preparation projects before we found out the sex of the baby was important to me. I knew that I wouldn’t want to buy things for the baby (usually the largest part of preparing that there is for a new baby) until we knew the sex. That gave us roughly twenty weeks to focus all of our labor and finances into working on projects that weren’t directly related to the baby, but that needed to be done before we could begin with her little section of the house anyway. Once the bedroom was out of the way, we were able to start taking care of more baby-focused business. I went through all of the boxes and boxes and boxes of all of Matthew’s old clothes that we’d been collecting in case of another son, and boxed them all up to be donated. That same day we dedicated a few hours to shopping, and came home with the beginnings of Scarlett’s first wardrobe (probably close to fifty articles of clothing; maybe 25 complete outfits). Next, we took out both the kids and let them help pick out paint colors for their new rooms. We narrowed down the paint samples to the chosen three and have put in the order with Spencer’s dad who’ll either be able to get them for us for free or at least at his company’s discount.

With our old room being unoccupied now, it’s the first to be worked on. It’s the one Mary will be upgrading to - which gives her about an extra foot lengthwise and more than double the closet space. Spencer painted the ceiling, trim and doors, then pulled up the carpeting. We’re fortunate to have good hardwood floors underneath of the carpeting throughout the upstairs of our house, but because not all of it in the bedrooms is as pristine as the rest of the house, our next step is to find out which ones can be left uncarpeted and which ones can’t. Hers can’t, so she’ll be getting new carpet along with Matthew. Once we pull up the carpet in the baby’s room this weekend, our next step will be to paint all three of the bedrooms, install new ceiling lights in all of them, order the carpet, buy Matthew’s new bedroom furniture, and then put Matthew and Mary into their new rooms, and lastly start girly-ing up the nursery with all of the bedroom stuff that I don’t want to buy until we have a room ready for them to be set up in.

You might remember that before the baby was conceived, while she was still just a thought floating about in our heads, I made a list of all of the things I wanted to have done before we had our next baby. I’ve since deleted the list, but so far we’ve accomplished almost everything that was on it -- from getting Matthew potty trained to Spencer getting his new job. We’ve figured out our new childcare situation, we’ve gotten the perfect family dog, and I’ve ever started my family scrapbook. Things are looking good!

Right Underneath of My Own Beating Heart

I will never forget my mom telling me that she never thought she wanted a daughter, mostly because my mom – like a lot of moms probably – like to tell the important stories over and over (and over and over) again. But my mom’s daughter – like a lot of daughters probably – realized that we never really know how important those stories are until we become mothers, ourselves. My mom didn’t find out that I was a girl until the moment I was born. Not wanting a girl wasn’t just one preference over another for my mom, it was a not-wanting that she always described to me as downright fear. Even though it was for different reasons, I found myself in one of those all-too-familiar scenarios that life tends to deal us daughters; a repeat of our mother’s own fears or mistakes or life lessons. In this case, as if God were playing out some kind of a sequel, I – with new reasons all my own – found myself wanting to avoid the confusion and unfamiliarity that I was sure would come with having a daughter “of my own;” a phrase that I wasn’t even sure was politically correct to use. By the time my mom was finished with her story, it always ended in happy tears, my mom telling me how instantaneously her heart just turned around, my mom telling me how much easier I was to raise compared to my brothers, my mom telling me how proud I’ve made her, and my mom telling me how happy she was to have had me. A few days ago, when I told my mom that I was having a girl, she told me for the first time that I can remember, that her biggest regret is never having one more girl.

My Matthew was an easy foot-in-the-door to parenting. Like little boys have a reputation for being, he was a pleasant baby. I took to being the mom of a son like it was a true privilege and Spencer was definitely no different. We lived and breathed everything about Little Boys. And like many first time mother’s know, after having your first child, it’s hard to imagine wanting anything more than just them. So when we did finally decide that we were ready to open our hearts to another little creation, we found it hard to imagine wanting anything too different from our first experience. We would be honored to be the proud parents of another little boy - so easy to love, so easy to clothe in hand-me-downs! Still, there was an inkling inside of me that was starting to turn. It was this little hiccup of a feeling that started to make me wonder what it would be like to have a daughter of my own. A daughter with my freckles and Spencer’s brown eyes. I wondered how I’d do her hair on special occasions and I started to imagine her running around the park with the fabric of a patchwork dress trailing in the wind behind her, getting runs in her stockings and having too much fun to care. I thought about taking her to guitar lessons at the music store while all the other girls learned to play the recorder at school. I thought about how insanely cool she would be. I thought and I thought and I thought and I thought, until the day of our ultrasound rolled around and I realized I hadn’t put one, one thousandth of the amount of thought into having a boy as I had into having a girl. In fact, we only had one name. And that name was Scarlett.

Matthew made a ruckus in the waiting room. I was too high on anticipation (and too jittery from the full bladder they instruct you to arrive with) to be worked up about his lack of volume control. Spencer and I did our best to focus his attention on the little bag of tricks that his diaper bag has turned into since he turned two. Little baggies of cereal, Hot Wheels cars, pop-up books, an old cell phone without service, and for true emergencies or public potty-training triumphs - fun sized pieces of Easter candy.

Luckily he was pretty well-behaved when we got back to the room. He was curious and fidgety, but happily stealing the heart of the ultrasound technician - which kept him from acting out too much. Instead he kept focused on antics he knew would make the grown-ups laugh, which I would take hands down over a whiny tantrum any day. When a cart wheeled by on the other side of the hospital curtain and the squealing of the wheels whined through the eerily dark-lit room that we were in, Matthew’s eyes popped and he gasped, “Mommy, Daddy - what’s that?” Spencer bent down to his level, and lovingly warned him in that way that always makes Matthew feel like his father is only trying to protect him, that it was a monster who ate baby legs for breakfast, so he’d better sit down in a hurry and try to stay quiet. Matthew scurried off to the corner of the room where he found a stool to sit on; a good place to practice singing the Scooby-Doo song while the rest of us waited to find out what the future had in store for our little boy’s family. After all, so much of what our hopes and dreams were for this baby’s gender hung on what we wanted Matthew and Mary to have.

Since about the time Matthew turned one, Spencer’s been waiting for us to have a little girl. Neither of us were ready to start the whole process over again that soon, but still, every so often he’d walk up behind me, arms wrapped around my waist, and whisper into my ear that he can’t wait for me to give him a little daughter made up of as many “pretty little” pieces of me as God can manage. Anytime we talked about having another, she was a girl. But once the moment of truth arrived, it just wasn’t that easy to hope indefinitely for one sex over the other. At Matthew’s ultrasound, we were solely on the Boy’s team. The only mixed emotions we had were the ones about how to react if we didn’t get the boy that we so badly wanted. This time around, we teetered back and forth from the pros and cons of each gender. We wanted a girl in so many ways, but it tugged at our hearts to see a future for our son without brothers.
Still, it tugged at my heart more than I ever would have imagined to envision a life of motherhood without ever having a daughter of my own.

The ultrasound technician was a dream come true. First of all, she let me pee as soon as she was done getting the measurements she needed me to have a full bladder for so that I could more comfortably enjoy the part of the ultrasound she knew that we’d been patiently waiting for. She got a kick out of Matthew, no matter how much he got into, because she had a three-year-old herself. We also learned that she was twelve weeks pregnant with her second child, too. This ended up being a Godsend for us, because when my worst nightmare came true - and my normally acrobatic unborn child clamped it’s legs together like a bear trap and refused to move - the technician understood how much was hanging on her ability to just get between those legs. She dedicated herself to allowing us to leave with an answer, and that’s when she told us that she was expecting… and eagerly awaiting the chance for an answer herself. When all of the angles and verbal coaxing didn’t make any difference, she turned the ultrasound to 4D! This is a big deal because when I was pregnant with Matthew, Spencer and I had to set up an appointment with a special place called “Innerview,” drive quite a ways away and pay somewhere around $200.00 to have a 4D ultrasound of him. This lady just flipped a switch and hit a couple of buttons.

And there she was.

She was a girl. Our daughter.
My jaw dropped as much as my smile would allow it to. I turned to Spencer, excited to see his immediate reaction. That perfect smile. He looked down at me lying on the hospital bed and I think I punched his arm a little in all the excitement. I looked back at the screen with an unreal emotion, fully aware of just how much I didn’t know about having a daughter of my own. I didn’t have to dwell on it, but it dawned on me that everything I knew about raising Mary - the books that I read, the sleepless nights that I spent agonizing over decisions for her, the hours upon hours of long talks that I had with her; everything from the way that we cut her hair to the principals we instill in her, and every iota of everything in between - is entangled in the truth that she is only so partially mine to mold, to love, to raise into a woman. I have the privilege of being much more to Mary than any step mom I’ve ever known or heard of. Still, I live in the forever shadow of a “real” mom who is such a far stretch from anything I’d ever hope to have my daughter idolize… but she does, if only for two weekends of the month. And I let her, because that’s what it is to be a step mom - more than anything else, it is to respect the almost holy bond between real mother, real daughter. Period. Mary may get from me all of the guidance, all of the encouragement, all of the discipline, all of the witnessing of my own mistakes, all of the stories and structure and virtues, and all of the everything else that a daughter needs from a mom - but at the end of the day, a girl just needs her mom if for no other reason than to just be a part of her; to feel like she still belongs in the one place she should. And I learned a long time ago that no overdosage of step mom can fill that shoe.

So as I watched that little girl, in an upward fetal position, her eyes closed, head down and her knees bent in front of her, as if she could have been sitting in the grass somewhere just pondering on life, picking dandelions and daydreaming, my heart turned over and I saw a side of myself I never knew was there. She wasn’t sitting in the grass somewhere, she was sitting right under my own beating heart. I, even if only for right now, am her world in it’s complete entirety. I thought of Matthew, I thought of Mary, and there was nothing to compare her to. As we left with my heart flying off somewhere into my throat, like a helium balloon turned loose in all of the excitement, I ran off at the mouth to Spencer all the way down the hospital corridors, down the sidewalk outside of the building, through the grassy areas, over the concrete parking lot bumps, and as I lifted Matthew into his booster seat about just how exciting and different and new it will be to have a little girl. A whole new experience for us. A novel adventure for our beautiful family. He let me talk, and talk, and talk until I had to take a breath.
He smiled at me, and he looked down at my belly-button. “That’s our little girl in there,” he said. I thought about him, and I loved her even more.