Josie Journal

I have decided to start journaling again. No, not on the blog, but in a real live journal with real pen and ink and paper. I actually decided to do this about a month ago, but I have had trouble getting started. I am hoping that by posting here, I might actually follow through and start! This journal would actually be for Josie, and perhaps any future children I may have. So there won't be a ton of bitching in the journal. However, it is for the adult version of my children, whatever that may be, so I don't want to sugar-coat life either. There are a couple of inspirations for this long-term journal project.
The post Motherly Love by Elizabeth Anne Designs was the first inspiration. I loved that her mom captured all of the cute sayings of her daughter, and all of the crazy emotions a new first-time mother goes through. I thought the gift was so sweet...

The next inspiration was the article "Parentless Parents: How to be a Parent Without Your Own" by Allison Gilbert on the Huffington Post blog. This article was shared in Reader by a dear friend of mine who is a parentless parent. (You know who you are - I love you & think you're amazing!) I started thinking about how I would do if I had gone through this pregnancy, birth & the past 3 months without being able to pick up the phone and find out how my birth was, or how old I was when I cut my first tooth. I started thinking about the fact that it is possible I will not be on this earth when Josie has her own children (Although I really would like to be - please Lord?). If that were to be the case, I would want her to have a reference. I would want her to be able to pick up a journal (or a series of journals) and hear my voice and read about her own infancy and childhood. I would want her to know that her mother, along with mother's around the world struggled with the same things she may struggle with.

Anyway, wish me luck. I'm not sure what the first page should say or where to start, but I guess I better do it soon.

It's Official!

As of 5:00pm Friday, I will have the job I've always wanted! My new title is SAHM (Stay at Home Mommy)!!!!!!

The Birth Story

I had been feeling crummy all day on Friday. Sitting at work, feeling crampy and sore. I emailed Kara and asked her how labor felt, she called me right back and confirmed that she had felt crappy the whole day before she went into labor with Claire. That night, I had Nick stop at the liquor store and buy a bottle of red wine. (The midwives had told me to have a glass of wine and lay down if I started having contractions. That way, if it was a false start, they would subside.) I knew something was coming.

Saturday was cold and kept threatening to drizzle. I layed around and napped most of the day. We had a crab feast to go to at 2pm at my next-door neighbors' house. I had to drag myself to get dressed and squeezed into a pair of jeans and threw on a black hoody. I actually had a really good time once we were next door. I had never picked my own crabs, but quickly caught on and ate 4 of them! I had yummy orange lemonade and corn on the cob, too. The ladies at my table kept joking and warning me to be careful - that crabs and Old Bay would induce labor! Around 4pm the skies finally opened leaked thier cold drizzle down onto our little feast. We hung out inside for a little while longer (while I ate two peices of cheesecake) and then headed home. The cold and wet was getting to me, so Nick and I started a fire in the fireplace and snuggled up to watch a movie. I can't remember which movie it was now... I decided to go to bed, since I was still feeling icky.

I was all snuggled in, reading my breastfeeding book, when the crampy-icky feeling started to be more of a poopy-gassy feeling. :(  I got up and went to the bathroom, while sitting there doubled over, I hoped labor wouldn't feel like diarrhea pain. Yuck. After all that, I felt much better and got snuggled back into bed. A few minutes passed, and I didn't feel so good again... I went back to the bathroom. This time I had a little bit of bloody show (eww). I went back and forth between bed and the bathroom a few more times with the pain coming and going. Nick is still thinking I just have gas and that the crabs aren't sitting well... (The midwives had said you don't need to call for just bloody show, that can happen without actually going into labor) I say to Nick, "It might be time for that glass of wine." I down the wine, I'm laying on my left side, and the pain is NOT getting any better or less frequent.The next thing I know, U2 is playing on SNL, and I'm writhing on the bed. I'm like, "Hmm... Maybe we should start timing these?" (I saw a rerun of that SNL the other day and just then realized I must have been REALLY uncomfortable, because I didn't make fun of their clothes or Bono's dancing at all!)

At this point, I can't lay down anymore because it's too uncomfortable during the contractions. I call Meghan, my dear friend who's also a doula. She is talking to me and reads me Blueberry Girl by Neil Gaimen. It was beautiful. (She also gifted it to my little Josie, and it's one of our favorite bedtime books.) I call my mom. I walk around and sway my hips and lean on my dresser. They're 4-6 minutes apart. I call the midwife. David is on call - the ONLY male midwife at Special Beginnings, our birthing center. Crap, I think. I wanted anyone but him. I want a woman. My JHU Birth Companion/doula hasn't called me yet - I'm in labor 11 days before the due date. David calls me back, but he's already attending a birth at the hospital. Joanne is the second back up - HOORAY. I LOVE Joanne and we click well. Joanne calls me and tells me to get a shower and call her back when my contractions get to the "next level" (whatever that means, I think). Nick has finally kicked into gear and is packing the rest of the birth bag and trying to get the carseat in the car - in the pouring rain - at 2 in the morning. (We're procrastinators - shut up)

I'm in the shower, having a couple more contractions, and more bloody show. I head back to the bedroom to get dressed, but instead I find myself on my knees, leaning on the bed with wet hair and in a bathrobe. My mom's on the phone and I accidentally hit Nick in the face with the phone as I sling it away from me and ask for the trashcan in case I throw up. Nick and my mom are both like, you should call the midwife back. Oh! When you can't talk or stand through contractions - that's the "next level." Nice.

Somehow the cats end up fed and I am in the car with a bucket to puke in (just in case), a pillow, a cooler full of food, a carseat in place, a bag full of toiletries, fresh clothes, and baby clothes. My husband rocks. It's 2:30am on a Saturday night (drunk hour) in the pouring rain, and we have no gas in the car. Having contractions in the car while your husband pumps gas - fun times. Actually, having contractions in the car at all pretty much sucked. Especially when they're a minute apart and the car ride is an hour long. It should have only been about 40 minutes, but we had always gone to the birth center straight from work, and Nick missed the exit. Whoops. I think I handled it pretty well all things considered (I didn't yell or curse or anything!)

Joanne met us at the birth center. I got out of the car by myself (No, I don't need any help walking, thankyouverymuch.) I don't think I said hi or anything. I just followed her to our room, stripping along the way. I had NO modesty. When she check me, I was at 0 station and 5 cm dialated. It was 3:30am. I labored on the birth ball for a little while, I knelt on the floor for a little while. Things were starting to feel a little blurry and unbearable. Then I was able to get into the tub. Oh, sweet merciful warm water. I had a couple easier contractions and fell asleep! Nick called his mom. I woke up with a powerful (the most painful one) contraction and finally needed that bucket. Nick poured warm water over my back. A few contractions later, I told Joanne I felt the urge to push. She checked me again and was surprised to find that I was ready to go. She told me to push whenever I felt like I needed to. She called the nurse (Kimber) to come in and started getting everything set up.

Things started getting really busy right around this time. I had read that a lot of women feel relief when they push. This part can even induce orgasms in some women. Yeah. Not so much for me. The pushing was the worst part for me. I felt like I was going to tear in half. I remember Kimber urging me on and telling me that it was normal to feel that way and how great I was doing. Her eyes where beautiful and bright, and a great focus point. Nick was telling me just a few more pushes and my daughter would be in my arms. Joanne was monitoring Josie's heart rate and making sure everything was going okay for her. I was leaning on her fleshy cool arm while she monitored during contractions. She put something in the water to help my skin stretch and help with the hemmorroids (they were already bad :-( ). I took another supplement under my tongue to help relax me. They put a mirror in the water if I wanted to see her crowning. I took one peak and then couldn't look the rest of the time. I kept my eyes closed and just focused on getting that freaking head out. It was such a relief once her head was out - Oh my God. Then I felt the need to continue pushing her out. They made me wait and checked her neck for the cord. Her heartrate had dropped once, but came back. She seemed stuck. Joanne was telling me to push slow and steady. All I could think about was that she was stuck. I became very alert and asked where she needed me. Did I need to be further back, on all fours? Direct me. I leaned back and pushed. I probably should've gone slower, but I couldn't wait. The seconds were ticking by like mollases, but too many where ticking by. Like mother, like daughter, her fist was up by her shoulder. (I was born like The Thinker, and actually caught my elbow inside my mother's pelvic bone.) That fist punched through and gave my perenium a "small laceration" which needed quite a bit of stitching. The rest of her body quickly slithered out like a slippery fish. Nick's eyes were misty and Josie's eyes were wide open as Joanne brought her to the surface at 6:28am on Sunday morning.

She was placed on my chest, with her body still under the warm water and a blanket over top of us. She screamed the second her face hit the cold air and was a healthy shade of pink. Something didn't feel right. I could feel her cord tight against me. I told Joanne that it was tight, and she said just not to pull her any higher. That didn't satisfy me. I lifted the blanket to see what was going on and saw that the cord was wrapped around her left ankle. I quickly alerted Joanne and she was able to unwrap it in an instant. We could tell it had been that way for a while because it had grown in a weird kinked shape. That was why her heartrate had dropped once. I wonder if that's why she came a little earlier. Nick cut the cord.

(I know I already posted this pic, but it obviously fits with this post)

I got out of the tub and into the bed for the 3rd stage of labor. Joanne rubbed my belly and the placenta came right out. Sweet relief. It was over and I was emptied. Jocelyn Pearl was on my chest the entire time I got stitched up. Josie had her first merconium movement all over me. Joanne and Kimber cleaned us both up and Nick, Josie and I all ate some breakfast and took a nap. I got up and took a shower. Josie got her weight and length measured. I got my discharge instructions, took a picture or two and off we went.

We pulled up outside our house at 3pm on Sunday. It was finally warm and sunny and all of the neighbors were outside to greet Miss Jocelyn and welcome her home.

Upheaval of the self

So true. So eloquent. So much of want I want to be able to express, but haven't, is in this post "on becoming mother" (seriously, click over and read it if you're bored). Someday soon I will post more pictures of Josie and actually touch on how the past few months have been without bitching about the past few days. :)

Cate also references her pregnancy "identity crisis" in this post.  I remember going to an art opening party while pregnant and I remember the tear-filled fight I had with Nick on the way home. Hipsters just didn't look at me the same anymore. All of a sudden, I had nothing to offer, nothing to say. I couldn't talk about the artwork, because I was...(shudder...gasp) pregnant! I was no longer valid or a feminist or anything. I think that's the night I had my pregnancy identity crisis...

I thought this quote (which I yanked from Cate's post) from Naomi Wolf's 'In Misconceptions: Truth, Lies and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood' was beautiful.

The tension was this: I was mourning, protesting a point of departure in the road that I could never retrace. An 'I' would go forward, swept irrevocably on by the tide of the natural order, and that 'I' would sit on the sofa hour after hour and be someone's Lithium, someone's Lethe, someone's Popsicle - someone who would come to be the love of my life, but whom I did not yet know. And the 'I' would reconfigure eventually around that need, and take joy in it, and spin a new identity. But it would never again be the 'I' it had been before.

So many older women kept advising me that the other-self to come would be a better self. I found this less than reassuring. This ostensibly transformed person of the near future might indeed be kinder and more patient than my pre-maternal self, whom I was at least familiar with, shortcomings and all. But that maternal 'I' did not exist yet. I did not yet know if I could successfully transform my current self into her - let alone, given how fatuous descriptions of motherly qualities sounds, if I would even like her.

 

Meanwhile, the maiden 'I' sometimes had to weep with the sure, coming death of the maiden self, the self that could 'arise and go now' at will; the self that is not food for others, but eats and drinks of the world.

A huge part of why some of my more recent ranting posts have been so negative, and so juvenille ("this sucks?") has been because a large part of me is rebelling. What I fundamentally NEED to do and what society and my bills think I need to do are so completely seperate. I have always wanted this role, and yet now I feel like I'm doing it part-time like a weekend parent. I did so much research while I was pregnant about natural birthing, breast-feeding & attachment parenting. I have always wanted to baby-wear, and I did for 3 months. But how can I be the kind of baby-wearing, breast-feeding mama I want to be while I'm here?

Confessions of a Wanna-Be Foodie

I LOVE food. Seriously. You just wouldn't know it to look at my fridge/pantry/lack of a lunch. I love going to new resturants using local cuisine and trying new blends of flavors and texture. I love perusing my local farmer's market. I love cooking shows and movies based around cooking. I love reading about food. I have TONS of food magazines and cookbooks. I collect vintage cookbooks. I read recipes on Martha Stewart, Smitten Kitchen & Orangette (to name a few), and I buy all the ingredients to make these wonderful dishes. I love the IDEA of being a foodie. I love pretending to love cooking food. Meaning: I cook really hard wonderful stuff on special occasions, because I really just want people to think I cook amazingly well. I love the "oohs & ahhs" and the "oh my God, you made that from scratch?!?" I love the idea of making my own pie crusts, and a fresh loaf of bread daily (and reaping/eating the reward!)
BUT, to be honest... I'm just too damn lazy to actually cook for myself. The food rots in my fridge or expires in my pantry.That is where I need your help. I am SO bored with our usual spaghetti, tacos or baked potato weeknight meals. We don't have very much time now with working and a baby, but I need to eat better now more than ever. Do you have any meals you make for your family that are easy and quick, don't require a ton of weird ingredients, and pack lots of yummy goodness & nutrients?

(I did make these awesome marshmallows for Christmas. I highly recommend them - but make sure to buy pastuerized eggs!)

Cloud9 Fabric Giveaway

Check out this awesome Cloud 9 fabric giveaway at Natural Kids. Leave a comment on their site by Jan. 10th to win!

My complaints continue...

Everyone here in the office is sick. There is coughing and sniffling and wheezing all around me. I am convinced I'm going to pick something up and bring it home to Josie. I change my clothes and wash my hands everytime I come home before I'll even pick her up. She doesn't seem to mind the delay. In fact, she doesn't seem to mind that I'm gone all day. She'll smile and start smacking her lips when I pick her up. "Oh, the milk machine's home!" I thought when I left, her whole world would come crashing down. I thought she'd cry and freak out. Instead, she's hanging out with her daddy and learning new things everyday. I have only been working for 3.5 days now, and I feel like I'm missing everything. I am missing my baby going from an infant to a cute, happy, interactive baby. She'll be sitting and crawling before I know it. This doesn't seem natural. Women weren't meant to work full time up until giving birth, and then just a few short months later. I totally support women who choose to go back to work, but I am hating it. I've been an hour late to work everyday this week. Is that bad?

It does give me some comfort that Nick isn't doing better than I did. He's great with Josie, but just like me, he can't find the time to cook, clean or launder.

This photo is crappy quality (it's from our antiquated cell phone), but this is Josie eating from the bottle on my first day back at work. See, the world is definitely not crashing down.

Day three - Warning this is a negative rant

This sucks. 
Nick is home and he calls me and I hear my baby in the background. It doesn't matter if she's screaming her head off or cooing and laughing and "talking" - it breaks me down everytime. People say it will get better, but I think it's getting worse everyday. Today's Wednesday - the 3rd day. I can't even believe that I have 2 more days of this until the weekend. I don't even want to acknowledge next week. People also say that I should tell Nick not to call me - that is makes it worse. But to be honest, I call him just to hear my baby girl. The photos plastered to my cube wall don't do her justice.
I sit in the handicapped shower stall downstairs in the walk-in refigerator bathroom and pump. I think pumping may be one of my most personally humiliating experiences. I feel like a little kid hiding...
I wasn't a very good SAHM while I was on maternity leave. The house is a mess, the laundry piled up, and Nick had to cook dinner when he got home from work. I did manage to get Christmas cards made and sent. I wanted to do so much more. I wanted to can and sew and organize. Instead, I watched Ellen and played Farmville (while nursing). I sucked at that. I suck at this. I see a theme developing...

Oh, my readers, you are lucky. I have to cut my rant short to go and do some Excel work. Woohoo.

May Flowers

So way back in May, the in-laws came for a visit. It was nice and warm. (Ah - remember those days of sunshine and not bitter freezing temps?) We went to the Druid Hill Park Conservatory. I was impressed. It's free (although they do have a place for small $1 or $2 donations) and a really fun way to spend a morning or afternoon. If the weather's nice, you could even picnic in the park. I can't believe I've lived in Baltimore for 10 years and it has taken me this long to visit the conservatory. The old Victorian architecture and plants are so worth it. Of course, my camera battery died less than halfway in, so I don't have any shots of the rose garden outside or the mediterranean or desert rooms. However, I have lots of palm, orchid & tropical plant pictures!

And here is our awesome arbor with climbing roses that Nick built.

At the end of 12 weeks...

I'm sitting in a cubicle and my heart is breaking.

Random Fun from 2009 (pre-Josie)

Yes, the cat box was that bad.

Our first tomato from the garden!

Making pizza dough!

We went to West Virginia to meet up with Nick's family at a craft show. His grandfather makes jewelry and windchimes from antique silverware. On the way home, we stopped by to see Jessica Adam & Chase in H-town!

Plumbing problems

Poison Ivy - YUCK! (and a homemade oatmeal compress)

Our side porch with HOPS!

Hanging out at Hamden-fest with Silvia & the Allens.

Yummy!

Bathroom portraiture

Stupid cat barf. I had to throw my poor little brown shoes away.

Weird pregnancy cravings = turkey sausage & sweet potato. Nick had some fun with the plate.