girlfiend

When I have more time I’ll update the book blog (I think I’ve finished 4 or 5 books in the past month) and write a bit about breastfeeding (since it’s pretty much all I’m doing these days.) And at some point I’m going to have to write about postpartum recovery before I forget. But not today. Instead I’ve got pictures.

Phyllis in a less than flattering position.

Now that they’re utterly neglected, the cats have turned to each other for support and affection.

Sometimes the Fiendling’s a bit traumatized by diaper changes.

My little gangsta.

This is probably a bad time to start this, since the Fiendling’s due to eat soon, but I feel like if I don’t start now, I never will. I have a free subscription to Philadelphia Magazine. It’s not the best magazine, but it’s local and free, so I enjoy it. The most recent issue had two articles that interested me. The first was about brunch spots and featured Honey’s Sit ‘n Eat, my friends’ restaurant. It had a great picture of the joint, and Jeb looked fantastic. If you’re local, go to Honey’s and eat. They use farm fresh local ingredients. They have vegan and vegetarian options. And they are kid-friendly.

The second article was called The Sex Offender Next Door and reminded me of a story I started a long time ago. The sex offender article is about two men in Cape May county affected by Megan’s Law. One, Priestley, is a pervert, a child molester, a scumbag who had several victims all under the age of 13. The second man, Elwell, is a family man, with a wife and children who had consensual sex with a girl of 16. He was a teacher, she was a student. Both men by law are required to register as sex offenders wherever they live for the rest of their lives. Priestley needs Megan’s law to control his urges. Elwell is fighting Megan’s Law. He doesn’t believe he did anything wrong.

The question is if Elwell is right. Is he the same as Priestley? Should Elwell, a man who had consentual sex with a 16 year-old girl be prohibited from living within 2500 feet of a school? Should he have to introduce himself to his neighbors as a sex offender? Should he be branded a pervert because of an ill-advised affair with a teenager?

My teacher, the man with whom I had an ill-advised affair, went to jail for two years. He spent two years in jail because he, like Elwell, showed no remorse for what was ultimately called “involuntary deviate sexual intercourse”. The sentencing judge could have let him off with probation, but did not because he insisted throughout the proceedings that because we were in love there was nothing wrong with him, a grown man, my teacher, engaging in a sexual relationship with me, a 15 year-old girl. Now his mugshot is on the Megan’s Law website. Because he’s not considered a violent sex offender only his zip code, not his entire address is listed. For the rest of his life he will be called a sex offender.

If you’re up to it, read the article at Phillymag.com. Let me know what you think.

This monstrosity may be the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. You may regret clicking the link. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

While it seems like I’ll be stuck wearing maternity clothes for the rest of my life, there is hope. About a week after the Fiendling’s birth I got my ankles and feet back. I’m still afraid to try on shoes, because I’m convinced my feet are still at least half a size bigger than pre-pregnancy, but they look like feet again. I spent days admiring my ankles when I wasn’t admiring my son.

My belly is almost gone. I’m down to about 3 months pregnant size. All of a sudden I just deflated, which pleases me immensely. Of course my clothes still don’t fit. None of my shirts will button over the newly enormous breasts.

Considering I can’t really exercise for another month, I’m thrilled with how I look. I’ll hold off on weighing myself until my next doctor’s appointment since I’m sure I still have another 20 pounds to lose.

Part I
Part II

At 9:10, 12 hours after I got to the hospital the doctor told me it was time to start pushing. He reminded me of what to do. As I started to feel each contraction I had to inhale, exhale, inhale, push, exhale, inhale, push, exhale, inhale, push. Using his fingers he told me where to push, and said it might take a few tries, but I’d get the hang of it. They broke down the bed, had me put my legs in the stirrups and he told me to pull my legs back as far as I could while I pushed. The nurse stayed down at my leg, pushing one towards my head. Boyfiend stayed back behind me, pushing me forward as I pulled my legs back.

The first few tries weren’t easy. I wasn’t really sure if I was pushing right, and I guess I wasn’t because the doctor told me to push harder and pull my legs back further. I could feel the contractions, but the contraction monitor wasn’t working very well so the nurse didn’t know when to tell me to push. (The Fiendling was in such a position that my uterus was tilted, so the nurses were having trouble getting readings. Earlier they’d moved it around and around as I told them when I was actually contracting.) My nurse called in another nurse to help her figure out the monitor. Nurse 2 showed her how to feel my uterus to see when I was contracting. Since I knew when I was contracting I started to tell them, rather than wait for a cue.

The epidural wasn’t working as effectively as it had been earlier. I could feel the Fiendling’s head. It didn’t hurt, but the pressure was uncomfortable. Very, very uncomfortable. Like way up there on a scale of 1 to 10 uncomfortable. The doctor left, and Boyfiend and the nurse coached me through the next round of contractions. After a while I could tell that I was getting better at it by the sound of Boyfiend’s voice. I’d had trouble gripping my swollen, waterlogged legs, so the nurse put up the bed’s handles for me, which made it much easier. I pushed and pushed and pushed, but it felt like nothing was happening.

Some of the residents I’d met earlier came in and out and stared at my vagina. They didn’t have much to say. The urge to push kept growing stronger. After the third push of each contraction I wanted to push again as it seemed like I’d just built up momentum. At the same time, I was pushing so hard that by the third push I felt light-headed. The doctor came back in. They could see a sliver of the baby’s head. I asked what that meant. apparently it didn’t mean a whole lot at that point. He told me to keep pushing and left.

Since the baby’s head was in sight I became a bit more determined to get it out of me. I pushed so hard I pulled the IV right out of my hand. The nurse got someone else to put it back in. I had to stop pushing for a while and the pressure was almost unbearable. They had trouble finding a vein that worked. They stuck me several times before they were able to find a spot where the IV port would stay. The contractions and the urge to push was so intense that I pushed while the nurse put the IV in and taped it.

More than an hour had passed. While it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be, I was exhausted. I was starting to worry that I wouldn’t be able to push anymore. I hadn’t eaten for more than 24 hours and I’d only had a few hours of sleep. The baby’s head was in sight, but it didn’t seem to be moving much. They kept telling me to push harder. I pushed harder. Boyfiend encouraged me. When he’d start to sound excited I’d push as hard as I could. The doctor came back in and said the baby was almost out, but he was going to use a vaccuum to help. Earlier in the pregnancy I was completely against the idea of a vaccum. At that point I just nodded and pushed.

The doctor could see more of the head. Boyfiend could see the head. The nurse could see the head. Push, push, push. PUSH. The head was out. Boyfiend was emotional. They suctioned the baby’s nose and mouth. One more push and the whole baby was out. 10.56 p.m. The doctor told us it was a boy. They put him on my chest and I cried and I held him as they wiped him off. Boyfiend cut the cord. They took my baby boy to the other side of the room to put him under the lamp and do his apgar scores. Boyfiend went with the baby and took pictures. I cried some more.

The doctor told me to push again. The placenta came out next. I didn’t want to look. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of my baby across the room. I needed stitches. I didn’t care. They footprinted my baby. His little footprints were the cutest things I’d ever seen. The stitches hurt like a motherfucker. The doctor gave me a local anaesthetic. I could still feel every stitch. But my baby weighed 6 lbs 8 oz. He was 19 inches long. He scored an 8 on his first Apgar and a 9 on the second. He was wearing a cute little striped cap and I cried because he was beautiful and we made him. It seemed like forever until the doctor was done stitching me. I asked how many stitches it was and he told me they didn’t count, but that the tear was natural and would heal easily.

They finally brought my boy back to me and asked if I planned on nursing. I said yes, unsnapped my gown and the little peanut opened his mouth and latched right on. He was a natural. He ate and ate and ate, surprising me, Boyfiend and the nurse. Even though he was supposed to go to the nursery for a bath and eye drops she left him with me because he was still eating. Another nurse came in and said our families were desperate for news. It was almost midnight. Boyfiend started out to the waiting room. I told him to put on a sweatshirt to hide the bloodstains on his shirt.

Another nurse told me my parents were outside the room waiting. I didn’t want them to come in. The delivery room looked like a slaughterhouse. It was unbelievable. I knew it’d be messy, but I had no idea of just how messy it would be. How do people deliver at home? Christ, I can’t imagine. The nurse told my mother to go away and meet me in the recovery room, but she tried to bust in anyway, I yelled for her to leave and she did. My poor father did not need to see the condition of the room.

The nurse gave me a pair of gauze underwear and an icepack and helped me into a wheelchair. I held my IV and she wheeled me down the hall to the recovery room where she helped me into bed and introduced me to the new nurses. The new nurses were nice and went to find me a sandwich and some juice. My mom came in and asked if I was wearing makeup. Puzzled I told her no. She told me I looked beautiful. I guess all the pushing gave me some color. Boyfiend’s parents and sister came in. They told me the baby was beautiful. I sleepily agreed. Everyone left but Boyfiend. The nurses brought me food and paperwork. Boyfiend got food in the cafeteria. At 2 am they finally, after what seemed like forever, brought me my baby. He was hungry. I still can’t get over how beautiful he is.

Tomorrow’s my birthday.

Happy birthday to me.

Since our weigh-in last Monday, the Fiendling has gone from 5 lbs, 14 oz, to 7 lbs 5 oz. He now has multiple chins and I couldn’t be happier.

Part I is here

It was 9 a.m. and I was in a hospital gown strapped to several monitors. I was 3 centimeters dilated and 90% effaced. When the doctor completed her internal exam I screamed fuck, as the pain was incredible. She pretended to be shocked, but I’m sure she’s heard much worse. The nurse asked if I wanted an epidural. Hell yeah, I wanted an epidural, but the anesthesiologist was with another patient and it was going to be a while. The contractions were close together and intense. I had paperwork to sign and all I wanted were drugs to make the pain go away. A resident showed up and introduced herself. I hated her immediately. Another resident with a hairy chest and gold Star of David introduced himself. I liked him, but only because he was a big hairy Jew.

Boyfiend tried to get me to focus on my breathing. I was breathing through my contractions just fine, thank you, but they still really hurt. He brought out a blue plastic turtle-shaped back massager that we’d bought for the occasion. I know I glared at him, and may even have cursed at him when he told me to use it as a focal point. He put it away.

The anesthesiologist finally showed up and asked me to rate my pain on a scale of 1 to 10. How on earth does one rate their pain? It was indescribable, yet I’ve never had my arm caught in a tractor or experienced third degree burns, so who am I to rate my pain? I think I rated it somewhere around 7 or 8 as I didn’t want to seem like a pussy. He had me sit on the edge of the bed holding a pillow. All I could feel were the contractions as he inserted what I’m sure was an enormous needle into my back. In a few minutes the pain lessened. I could still feel the contractions, but after a half hour I didn’t feel any pain at all.

Around 11 a.m. medical staff suddenly swarmed around the room. Something was wrong, but the epidural had kicked in and I was too exhausted to really register what was going on. All I knew that the baby’s heartbeat had slowed to an alarming rate. The heartrate monitor wasn’t working so they had to attach something to his head by screwing it in. I knew that that probably wasn’t a good sign, but the hairy Jew seemed rather calm as he attached it. He had to break my water to get to the baby’s head. I was 4 centimeters dilated and 100% effaced. The baby’s heartrate returned to normal. Someone told me that the slowed heartbeat was the result of the epidural- sometimes the drugs cause the baby’s heartbeat to slow, but it returns to normal rather quickly. Everyone left the room.

The blonde resident I didn’t like returned and told me my mother was waiting outside and wanted to come in. The hospital has a policy that only birth coaches are allowed in the room. Boyfiend and I made it clear that she was most certainly not a birth coach. I think my mother must have annoyed the shit out of the hospital staff. She came into the room to visit. She was surprisingly well behaved. The doctor told me she was leaving since she’d been there for 24 hours and that her partner would actually be delivering the baby. Since he was the reason I chose that particular practice (he was on vacation when I switched OBs at 24 weeks)I didn’t mind at all. She asked why I couldn’t have gone into labor a day earlier.

Epidurals are incredible. I was still contracting regularly and I could pretty much feel when they were happening, but they didn’t hurt at all. I could still feel my legs, but I was pretty numb from my belly to the middle of my thighs. When nurses would change the pads beneath me I was able to lift myself so they could get to them, but I couldn’t feel hot or cold or pain, I could just feel (if that makes any sense.) Around 1.30 I took a nap. Boyfiend rubbed my forehead until I fell asleep. My mother tried on my sneakers while I fitfully slept. Boyfiend wanted her to leave. I would have, but the drugs kept me pretty mellow.

At 2 my cervix was checked again. I was between 4 and 5 centimeters dilated, which according to my doctor wasn’t enough. Because of the epidural my contractions had slowed to 4 to 5 minutes apart. My doctor, who hadn’t left yet, put me on a pitocin drip to speed up the contractions again.

My dad showed up and they somehow let him in, even though he wasn’t a birth coach either. He flirted with the nurse and the resident I didn’t like. He told the resident he was a proctologist. She believed him. The second doctor came in to say hello. He said that I’d probably deliver around dinner time. Boyfiend’s parents showed up in the waiting room. He went to say hi. I watched Oprah with my dad. Boyfiend came back and my parents went out to eat. I was incredibly hungry and thirsty since I’d had nothing to eat or drink since around 9 the previous night. The new nurse on duty brought me a popsicle. Orange. It was delicious.

Around 5 p.m. I was between 7 and 8 centimeters dilated, 100% effaced, and the baby had moved down. It seemed like things were moving along. I could really feel contractions and the baby in my pelvis and it was starting to get uncomfortable again. So uncomfortable that I was squirming and kicking my legs. It wasn’t quite painful, but I didn’t know if I could take another couple of hours of it. Another anesthesiologist came in to increase the epidural. I had to rate my pain on a scale of 1 to 10. I told him it wasn’t pain, it was just uncomfortable. He asked me to rate my discomfort on a scale of 1 to 10. I wasn’t very good at it. Boyfiend said it looked like I was pretty uncomfortable. I think I rated it a 6. Again, I didn’t want to seem like a pussy.

The new epidural slowed things down again. I was comfortable but growing impatient. Residents and nurses kept coming in and looking at the monitors. They kept saying that my baby was very happy and very comfortable. They upped my pitocin and my contractions started to come closer together again. I could feel them, but they didn’t hurt. I was really hungry, thirsty and tired and I hadn’t even started pushing. I wasn’t even fully dilated yet. My ice chips melted so I got to drink water. It was delicious. We watched Jeopardy. A resident came in to check on me. I answered a question in the middle of her sentence. Boyfiend said it looked like I was feeling better. A third nurse was assigned to me. We watched American Idol. The doctor was in the middle of an emergency next door. A woman’s baby had died and she was still pushing. My cervix hadn’t been checked in an awfully long time and I could really feel the baby down low. It felt like I had to poop, but I knew it was just the baby’s head.

Finally, at 9 the doctor was finished with his other patient. He came in, checked my cervix and told me it was time to push.

Part III

Mix, my bestest friend, picked up my laptop for me. So now we have pictures! And since Morty was obviously not the best pseudonym for such a darling baby we can thank Kamran for his new alias, the Fiendling.

I cannot remember if this was taken before or after my due date, but either way, I was huge.

Our first family portrait.

Here’s the Fiendling. Isn’t he an angel?

In the car on the way home from the hospital. Such a sweet face.

Boyfiend is generally incapable of taking a flattering picture of me, so just focus on the child.

Don’t his feet look enormous in those booties?

A gratuitous naked baby picture with a glimpse of the still unfinished nursery in the background.

Since this is a long one and I may never get around to finishing it, I’ll post in parts.

Tired, cranky and 3 days overdue, I decided that Tuesday would be a good day to take my cats to the vet for shots. My vet, a walk-in clinic, is located on the border of North Philly so I figured where else, but in a crowded ghetto waiting room, responisible for the transportation of 35 pounds of cats, would I go into labor. Two hours and $98 dollars later I shlepped the cats home.

Later in the afternoon I went for lunch with two friends. Half a reuben and a cup of sweet potato and corn chowder and I still hadn’t gone into labor.

When Boyfiend got home from work we decided to go to the Flower Show. Rather than drive and deal with parking, we took Septa, figuring that perhaps the bumpy bus ride would shake the baby loose. The flower show was lovely. We walked around admiring the exhibits and took a few pictures. Then we went to the Down Home Diner for dinner, where we were treated by a friend. I had the fried chicken and mac and cheese. Boyfiend had the turkey dinner. I added some tabasco in the hopes that spicy food would bring on labor. It didn’t. We took the bus home and went to bed.

Around 11.45 I got up to pee. An hour later I had to pee again. At 1.45 I woke up to pee yet again, only this time I felt somewhat constipated. At 2 a.m, then again at 2. 20 I went to the bathroom still feeling like I had constipation and gas pains. I did not poop. But I did pee twice more. I went back to bed feeling gassy and gross, and curled up on my knees, with my belly on a pillow I went back to sleep until 4.45. When I got up Boyfiend said, “you’re getting up again?” So I put on my sweatshirt and went to the bathroom again. This time I was able to poop, but still I felt gassy and constipated. I regretted eating the fried chicken. I went back to the bedroom but another gas pain came on so I went back out to the parlor. When the pain passed I checked my email. Another pain came on so I tried to go to the bathroom again.

At this point it occurred to me that I might actually be in labor. But the pains felt nothing like the contractions I’d had on Sunday. I was supposed to feel a tightening, and this just felt like the fried chicken had made me incredibly gassy. I alternated between pacing and doubling over in pain for the next hour until Boyfiend got up. I told him I was in pain and he asked if I was in labor. I told him no and he got into the shower. The pains got increasingly worse, causing me to cry out in pain. I was scheduled to see my doctor at 9, so I figured if it was labor I could wait a few hours. I didn’t want to be an alarmist and I certainly didn’t want to be sent home from labor and delivery if it was just gas.

It occurred to me as I kneeled, bent over the arm of the sofa that if the gas was this bad now, I may not be able to drive myself to the doctor. I thought about asking Boyfiend to take the morning off to drive me to the appointment and back home. Then I decided I was being an alarmist and didn’t. When he got out of the shower he seemed really concerned about the amount of pain I was in. I believe I was sobbing. He asked if he should take off. I told him yes. At 7.30, gasping in pain I called the doctor’s office and asked for a call back. When my doctor called back a few minutes later I told her I was having really bad gas pains. She told me to time them and call back in 20 minutes.

I was in too much pain to time anything. Boyfiend ran around frantically packing a hospital bag and writing down the times that I cried out in pain or cursed. He called the office back and told the answering service that my gas pains were 4 to 5 minutes apart. They told him to bring me straight to labor and delivery.

After a trafficky miserable ride to the hospital I was admitted. I undressed and they attached a contraction monitor, a fetal heartbeat monitor and a blood pressure monitor. I filled out paperwork and they told me my contractions were 2 to 3 minutes apart and I was definitely in labor. My doctor who met me in the hallway came in to check my cervix. I was 3 centimeters dilated. The nurse told Boyfiend that it would be a good time to get the bags out of the car as I wasn’t going home.

Part II is here

Part III is here