Why Didn't Anybody Tell Me?

Warning: If you are of the male gender, are squeamish, or just uninterested in vivid pregnancy and post partum information and details please click away from this site and come back another day.

I’m going to alternately title this post: Everything I Wish Someone Had Told Me about Pregnancy, Labor, Delivery, and Beyond….

Let me begin by saying, during my pregnancy and beyond I experienced many things that shocked the hell out of me. Despite the fact that I have a SISTER, FRIENDS, COUSINS, and in fact a MOTHER who had all gone through this before, there were many things that no one bothered to warn me about. I guess they figured I would figure it all out on my own – the way they had. Here’s the thing, though. I like to be prepared. And I totally wasn’t.

Lessons in Pregnancy:

• It often takes a lot longer than you expect for people to start noticing that you are pregnant. In fact, I was a good 7 months pregnant before the first stranger ventured to ask about my pregnancy. I was 9 months pregnant and OVERDUE before everyone and their mother started commenting on the fact that I was pregnant and asking about when I was due.

• You’re either going to get stretch marks or you’re not going to get stretch marks. Go ahead and apply copious amounts of lotion to your belly. It will help the itchy feeling of your skin stretching, but it will not keep you from getting stretch marks. It’s all genetics. If your mom got them, you probably will too. I thought I was home free until mine appeared the last 2 weeks of my pregnancy – this was especially annoying because Sawyer was 10 days late and had he just been a bit early…. *sigh.

• Your belly button may or may not become an outtie during pregnancy. Mine didn’t, but it did stretch in an ungodly kind of way.

• No matter how much you just WANT THAT BABY OUT OF YOU – it really IS best to try to give the baby a chance to come on his or her own terms. There was no convincing me of this during my pregnancy, but in retrospect, I am glad that Sawyer got to come out in his own way and time.

Labor:

• You will know that it’s time to go to the hospital when your contractions hurt so bad you can barely stand it. You won’t WANT to talk or walk around during one of these painful contractions, but you will be physically able to if you must. When I got sent home from the hospital the first time, I was told not to come back until I couldn’t walk or talk through my contractions. This advice was faulty.

• I was really pissed off that I got sent home from the hospital when I first went (which apparently happens! If you aren’t like crazy dilated when you get there and if you don’t make significant labor progress after being there for one hour!), but I didn’t go back for another 12 hours or so, and I really am glad I got to spend those 12 hours in the comfort of my own home.

• The needle for the epidural does not hurt. You needn’t worry about this if you are considering the epidural. Getting the epidural was only a tiny blip in my memory and cannot possibly compare to any of the other pain I experienced while in labor/during delivery/post partum

• After I received the epidural I pretty much felt like I was on a luxury vacation. All that was missing was the fruit flavored daiquiri….

Delivery:

• …. Until it was time to push. At that point I suddenly felt all the pain again. Note: the epidural does not necessarily take away the pain of pushing a baby out. I did not know this. I thought epidural meant completely pain free. I was sooooooooooo wrong.

• Most of delivery is a gigantic blur.

• I was surprised that every muscle in my body ached the day after delivering Sawyer. It is quite the workout. I imagine it is not quite as taxing on the body if you push for, say, 20 minutes instead of 2 hours.

Beyond:

• There’s a pretty good chance that you will often crave whatever you first eat after giving birth. My dad brought me a strawberry milkshake, and I cannot get enough of those bad boys these days. Delish!

• You’re going to be pretty uncomfortable for a while. Expect lots of blood (this goes for during delivery, too!)

• You get absolutely no peace during your hospital stay. This goes for all hours of the day and night. If the nurse isn’t coming in to check on the baby, the nurse is coming to check on you, the pediatrician is there to see the baby, your OB is there to check on you, the cafeteria lady is there to take your breakfast order, or someone is there to take your blood… it is never ending.

• After you give birth you have a surge of adrenaline running through you like none other. Despite the fact that I had been awake for over 30 hours and gave birth in the middle of the night, when all the craziness settled down, Mike passed out in his cot and I lay in my hospital bed wide-eyed and acutely aware of every sound my precious new baby was making.

• When you are discharged from the hospital they might put something on your release form like: use stool softeners as needed. Take it from me: shuck out the millions of dollars that crap costs and use it. Trust me, this is not a lesson you want to learn the hard way. (no pun intended) ;)

• Lansinoh is the best friend of a breast feeding mother.

• There will be a short time where your entire life will be centered around feeding your baby. It’s been this many hours since I fed my baby. I can sleep for this long before I feed my baby again. I can be at the store for exactly this amount of time before my baby needs to eat again. I can visit with my friends for this long before I will have to excuse myself to go feed my baby… A newborn baby also takes a veerrrry long time to eat. This will pass. The feedings will get shorter as the baby gets older. Your life will not always be entirely consumed with feeding your baby.

• Don’t be disheartened when you look in the mirror. The pregnancy weight will come off. You simply have to give it time.

• Your life will change… in all the very best ways possible. Your baby will bring joy to your life that you did not even know existed.

* As crazy, painful, and difficult as it all is... it really IS worth it.

(Ok, so maybe people did tell me those last two. It's just that I didn't really understand what they meant until I had the opportunity to experience it for myself.)

reaction

At the end of my sophomore year of college, one of my hometown friends committed suicide. It had been many years since the two of us had been close, but he was part of my girl/guy group from about junior high until 11th grade. I'm pretty sure we stopped being friends when I got my eyebrow pierced and he and his friends disapproved. Strange. Yes. Both that I got my eyebrow pierced and that people stopped being friends with me because of it. It was kind of a big deal at the time.

He and those friends started getting into drugs soon thereafter and that officially ended whatever remnants of friendship that remained between us. I went to his funeral, though... at the end of my sophomore year of college. Because I grew up in a really small town, and even though it had been a while since we had been close, we HAD been close. To say it was sad is a bit of an understatement. What I remember most about that funeral was looking at his family - specifically his brother. My friend was the oldest of four. He had two brothers and a baby sister. I just couldn't stop staring at the next oldest brother. He looked as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders, but he was standing so straight and tall.. so grown up. so ready and willing to take on all of the responsibility that had just been dumped on him. My heart went out to him.

His mom spoke at the funeral and explained that he had just gotten so deep into drugs that he didn't see a way out. He felt hopeless. He shot himself with his father's shotgun.

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When I was teaching, the year that I had an 8th grade class of 20 boys, 2 of them approached me at separate times during the year and told me that they were seriously contemplating suicide. I was so sad to know that these young teens felt so much pain that they would consider such a thing. They both ended up going to professional counseling and I am in touch with them to this day and am pleased that in all appearances, they seem to be happy, well-adjusted high school sophomores.

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One Thanksgiving dinner with Mike's family, my brother-in-law who is a law enforcement officer for the national parks system, turned to me and began telling me how one of his friends had confided his feelings of hopelessness and despair to him. My brother-in-law had given him some kind words of advice and hadn't thought about it again. The next time he saw his friend, he was pulling his dead body out of his truck.

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Just recently, the son of my mother-in-law's best friend committed suicide.

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This week, one of my facebook friends started posting some strange status updates. The first one that caught my eye stated something along the lines of: "It's hard to have hope when you lose everything you care about in the span of a week"

Then: "I give up"

and yesterday: "Goodbye"

It was the goodbye that really bugged me. How cryptic and strange after such strong assertions of sadness and loss of hope.

He is one of those facebook friends that you have but don't really know too well. Again, he was a good friend of mine during the junior high/early high school years. I don't have his phone number. I'm not in touch with any of his friends. So I sent him a private facebook message saying that his statuses were making me nervous and asking if everything was OK.

A few hours went by and he did not respond.
I grew increasingly anxious about this.
Mike came home early that day - strangely - and I told him about it. He said, "Well, doesn't your mom know his mom?" (this question is based on the notion that my mom knows everyone in the small town where I grew up). Yes, my mom does in fact know his mom. He urged me to call my mom. I wasn't sure - I certainly didn't want to overreact if it was nothing.

Then I thought about all of the examples I presented to you above...
I certainly didn't want to underreact either.

I called my mom. She called her friend who is really the one who is good friends with his mom. Her friend called his mom and said, "Maybe you should check on him?"

An hour or so later he finally wrote back. "I'm ok. Thank u"

I don't know what was going on with him that day. I have no idea if I overreacted. All I know is that I reacted, and that according to his assertion, he is ok. That's good enough for me.

Excuses Excuses

My grandmother used to say, "It's a piss poor mother who can't come up with a good excuse for her child."

For the past week or maybe more, Sawyer has been grumpy. I don't mean grumpy for a few moments here and there. I mean that I was jumping through hoops to try to keep that baby from complaining and crying All. Day. Long.

I mulled a few possible "excuses" over in my head. Possibly it's the tooth that I'm pretty sure is trying to find freedom from inside his gums. OR. Maybe he's just at an awkward stage of life. He's curious. Everything that you put in front of him he wants to Touch and Grab and Put In His Mouth. He wants to sit up, lean forward, stand, look around at EVERY SINGLE THING. He wants to be on the move. He does not want to be on his stomach. ever. He does get frustrated with most things after only a few minutes. (Do I smell short temper in his future? watch out world.) Basically, the final excuse that I settled on is that his brain is developing faster than his physical abilities. He wants to do so many things, but he can only do a few of them. I imagine that would be very frustrating.

But it's been exhausting for me.

This morning when he woke up and played in his bouncy seat without complaint while I ate my breakfast, I sighed with great relief and enjoyed my breakfast without stress. When he laid on the floor contently playing with his feet for quite some time, I began to feel some hope. And when he went peacefully down for all three of his naps, I took a breath of fresh air.

Yes. Ok. I can do this. Looks like my baby is not going to be forever grumpy. So he had a couple of rough days. Haven't we all?

.......................................................

You should know. The very day after I wrote that last post about Sawyer rolling over, guess what he did? He rolled over. Only once. But he did it. Again. Finally. He hasn't done it since, but I'm not going to worry about it this time. I think he was letting me know, "Yeah, Mom, I can still do it. When I'm ready and want to, I'll amaze you by rolling over all the time. For now, let me do things my way, on my own schedule."

Sure thing, baby boy. Thanks for teaching me an important lesson.

A worrier by my very nature, there's hundreds of things to worry about when a baby enters the mix.

For example, a few weeks ago? Sawyer started rolling over. He did it a few times one day and then two days later he did it approximately 10 times. Every time I put him on his tummy, he rolled to his back. Since then, though? Nothing. He doesn't do it any more. Do you think maybe I've worried about this?

Now when I put him on his belly he complains. and complains. and complains. and COMPLAINS. Mike says he's just not interested in rolling anymore - been there, done that. Mike doesn't worry about these things. If Mike's worried, it probably means the world is collapsing at our feet, so I have a hard time accepting Mike's explanations for things... I have learned that he can be correct at times, though. (This is something I have trouble admitting, so *shhhh, our little secret!)

When Sawyer gets on his tummy now, he scooches up his butt and tries to move. I imagine that he's thinking to himself, "Rolling over is for babies. I want to get MOVING!" Though he works so very hard at this new scoot maneuver he has developed, he complains the entire time. I usually let him stay there until the complaining shows signs of turning to actual tears, because if I picked him up after the first complaint he would spend absolutely no time on his tummy. Then when I do pick him up? He looks shocked. He leans forward as if he wants to get back at it, as if to say, "How rude of you to interrupt my hard work, Mom!"

I've decided that I have a very determined, but very easily frustrated little man on my hands. Like his mommy, if he doesn't perfect a new skill immediately, he has no patience for it. He doesn't give up like his mommy would, though. He keeps trying. He groans and grunts the entire time, but he does not give up.

Sawyer has the ability and the skills to roll over, he proved that to me a few weeks ago. He just isn't doing it.

What he DOES, though? He reaches for everything in his path. If you're sitting at a table with him in your lap, be careful of what is within his reach because he will go for it. I didn't think I'd have to worry about that for another couple of months, but I was wrong. Also? He loves nothing more than to stand AND His face lights up in the most magnificent smiles All The Time. Did you know? The other day, I was in the bathroom getting ready, and I had him in his bouncy seat playing with a toy. I turned away for a moment, and when I looked back at him, I noticed he had dropped his toy and was leaning almost out of the entire seat, reaching to pick the toy up again. How did my baby get so big to be able to do that? I guess the bouncy seat is for supervised play time only, now. He also kicks his legs up in the air, grabs onto his feet, and examines them with great intensity. Oh. One more thing. He's trying to master the art of taking his pacifier out of his mouth and putting it back in. It's quite the challenge, but he is determined.

Maybe this is one of those times when Mike is correct. Maybe the point isn't that Sawyer doesn't roll over anymore. Maybe the point is that Sawyer does this, and this, and ohmygosh he just started doing THAT. He's so curious, and he's developing new and interesting skills every single minute. Maybe I should stop lying awake at night worrying about what he's NOT doing, and start lying peacefully at night rejoicing in all that he IS doing.

I'll try.

Today Sawyer and I braved the 45 minute trek to my former place of employment. I was almost a nervous wreck about this whole excursion because we went for The Stations of the Cross that was put on by the 8th graders and there was a certain time we had to be there and certain people who were coming just to see Sawyer. It's hard for me to do things within certain time contraints now that I have a 4 month old around whose schedule I generally try to plan my life.

I needn't have worried, though.

True, last night Sawyer woke up constantly and therefore we both slept in until 9:15 am throwing his normal feeding and napping schedule out the window (the one I had been banking on to get through this day successfully). [My fault, really, the lack of sleep last night thing. He's been sleeping in a pack and play in our room at night and in a bit of a manic moment yesterday I decided that the "bassinnet" part was going to crash to the ground in the middle of the night and give him a massive head injury or something equally as bad. So I took the bassinnet part out and he's sleeping on the very low to the ground part. I think the change of scenery threw him off quite a bit. It was a rough night and we haven't had one of those in who knows how long.]

Basically, thanks to an abnormally wakeful night last night, Sawyer ate earlier than I had planned and did NOT take a nap before we hit the road. I knew that a nap in the car, in the church, or surrounded by new faces was pretty much a FAT chance so was slightly panicked as I threw everything into the car in a desperate attempt to at least get us there on time.

Sawyer was a dream, though. If I had to guesstimate how many strange people invaded his personal space with big goofy smiles and baby talk I'd be in the range of 50, easy. He took it all in like a champ, though. He loved being in the church and looking around. Every time a new person would walk by or a new sound came from a different direction, he would whip his head around to see where it came from. He looked with curious eyes upon every new face and listened intently to every new voice. He is seriously amazing.

I've been thinking lately that Sawyer is my perfect baby. Because he so enjoys new faces and new scenery, it helps me to be a bit less of a homebody and get my little man out exploring this world. He proves to me time and time again that he is a wonderful companion for adventures, and I believe God is challenging me by giving me a baby with this personality. If my baby was a disaster out in public, I would have no problem sitting around at home and enjoying a quiet little life. I know, though, that my baby demands more stimulation, and thus I am forced to oblige. Generally nervous with new situations, Sawyer helps me to step out of my comfort zone with him. I love that.

When I was there, one of the teachers asked me how I felt being back. I said I felt natural, like I'm meant to be there. true. true. true. I don't miss the stress, but I miss those kids. I feel so at home with them. I am sad not to have them as a major presence in my life, anymore. But, I am so pleased to be able to give so much of myself to my own little baby.

In the end, even though Sawyer was well overdue for a nap, and slightly overdue for a feeding by the time we left, he realy enjoyed each and every new face and was very interested. He didn't make a single fuss. No one who saw me believed that he was, in fact, exhausted. I told the last person I spoke with that Sawyer was ready for a nap, and she responded, "with those big wide eyes he's not going to nap anytime soon". I just smiled kindly. Sure enough, not 5 minutes later, tucked safely away in his carseat and headed back home, he was out.

I love my little guy.

Baby and Dogs

Every time I see a picture like the one above I feel a bit wistful.

This is not my dog or my baby. Unfortunately, we have discovered our dogs are not very kid friendly. This might have something to do with the fact that they lived the first 5 and 6 years of their lives without any regular contact with little people. This could be because both of our dogs are incredibly neurotic. Possibly it's poor training on our part. Whatever the reason, I would be shocked if I were ever to find either of my dogs in such a pose with our baby boy, and I don't think I'd be too comfortable with it either.

I'm kind of surprised that my 5-year-old nephew is still clinging onto his love for dogs after all that he has been through with mine. While the dogs and I were on the East Coast for a few months this spring/winter they had a lot of time to bond with Lucas and it was pretty much a disaster. Lucas wanted nothing more than to cuddle with our normally very friendly border collie, but he wanted nothing to do with Lucas. Unless Lucas was throwing the ball to him, or running around the house in which case Ramsey enjoyed nothing more than chasing Lucas and giving him a few nips to the heels as if Lucas were a sheep.

fail.

Lucas and our husky got along okay at first. Copper even let Lucas rest his head on him a few times, and I thought to myself... maybe I do have one of those dogs from the pictures. Maybe it's possible? That is... until Lucas tried to cuddle or play with Copper when he wasn't in the mood. This resulted in either a growl or a snap. It happened more than once, I'm sad to say, and in the end despite the fact that Lucas absolutely adores both dogs and proclaims them to be HIS dogs and HIS cousins, we had to separate them. I certainly do not want to be responsible for Lucas getting hurt by one of my dogs which seemed to be the direction we were heading.

Then my baby was born and I knew from the instant he arrived that we were going to have to be very cautious with having the dogs around him. Under no circumstances should dogs and baby be left alone together. Dogs need to learn to respect baby and baby's space. I was nervous and hyper aware that these dogs, despite having failed miserably at interacting with my nephew in an acceptable manner, were going to have to figure out how to be around my son.

On his second day at the house after leaving the hospital, we had just given Sawyer a bath. My mom, Michael, and I were all standing around Sawyer as he lay on the bed.... and Copper walked up very nonchalantly, opened his mouth, and lightly placed it around Sawyer's arm. Michael and I both reacted immediately, and I'm pretty sure that Copper got the idea that Sawyer was off limits. It scared the crap out of us, though. If we had any lingering questions about whether we should trust our dogs with Sawyer, I believe they were answered then.

After that, Copper treated Sawyer like he had the plague. If you walked into a room holding Sawyer, Copper walked out. I didn't want Copper to be afraid of being around Sawyer, but I did appreciate the fact that he was giving him some space.

Recently, Copper has begun to pay some attention to Sawyer. At least once every single day, Copper will walk up to Sawyer, give him some sniffs, and a little lick. Mike thinks it's a great sign. I'm undecided. Sometimes I let Copper do it, sometimes I tell him no. I want Copper to know that I'm in control of the situation, not him.

The other day, Sawyer was having a rough time after getting a few of his vaccines. I was sitting with him on the bed in my room and he was crying. Copper, who was lying on the bed when we went into the room, moved to the end of the bed and positioned himself away from us. Eventually, as Sawyer continued to fuss, Copper turned and looked. Sawyer stopped fussing and focused on watching Copper. As they looked at each other, Copper scooted his body closer. and closer. and closer. Until he was lying right next to us on the bed. He gave Sawyer a little lick and then jumped off the bed and left the room.

It was cute, and it gave me some small hope that maybe Copper is learning and understanding that Sawyer is precious to me and should be treated with care. And maybe, just maybe when Copper is old and tired and Sawyer is a little boy they will be the best of friends.

Do I dare hope?

Attention Deficit Disorder

Now that the Federal Government finally got their crap together and passed a budget, our orders to South Carolina might actually go through which means we're looking at a move across the country in... less than 2 months.

yikes.

I am not sure why, but my sense of urgency about preparing for this move is just not quite there. I mean, I have a to-do list that is quite lengthy written on the marker board on our fridge... we just haven't managed to check off any of those boxes just yet.

This could have a bit to do with the fact that my life has been consumed momentarily with the eradication of these rats that decided to take up residence in our attic. UGH. I don't even really want to go there, just know that said rats caused me to become momentarily insane last weekend when I was left alone with them and my baby. Google is not your friend in these sorts of situations. Neither, I learned, is my aunt who decided to tell me that when she was in college a rat dug through her kitchen floor......... hello, worst nightmare!

(which kind of makes me want to veer from the subject for the moment and vent about how there is always someone who manages to say the absolute worst thing in sensitive situations... the above rat comment being a phenomenal example. Another example from my own personal experience went something like this: Oh, your mom doesn't wear a wig? (while going through chemo for breast cancer) I had a friend with breast cancer who didn't wear wigs and there was something so beautiful about her bald head. She's dead now." yooowza. thanks for that uplifting story!!)

[back to the rats]

The "professionals" are taking care of it, though... and they're doing a crap-tastic job of it in my humble opinion. Better them than me, though. And that's really all I have to say about that.

After reading this post do you now have a slight understanding why it takes me so long to clean my house? It goes something like this:
*putting away dishes
*looks to the right and sees a napkin that needs to be thrown away
*walks over and picks up napkin
*trips over shoe
*picks up shoe and heads to the bedroom, napkin still in hand
*notices that the mail arrived
*heads outside to get mail, shoe and napkin still in hand
*walks back inside and walks in a circle trying to decide what to do first? shoe? napkin? mail?

I am very easily distracted.

The End.