Someone buy our damn house.

It's lovely. We adored it. I don't know why nobody wants to buy it, but I desperately wish someone would.

Damn, today has been a long day

• The clinic claims they mailed my form on the 15th, so I don't know what's up with that situation. I'll be stopping by tomorrow to pick up a copy, then I'll be chatting up our HR department. I'm apparently intimidating; who knew?
• I adore spending all the time in the world with my husband and our son. I really do.
• I cannot refuse a cheeseburger at the In-n-Out, even when we just stop for "a drink."
• Jake the wundercat is jumping into my lap every chance he gets.
• Our friends are coming this week to visit, yay yay yay and boy howdy do we need to clean.
• You know you're still crazy with hormones when you tear up over your darling baby boy's insurance card coming in the mail.

Stupid Freaking Morons

You know all the hubbub that went on with my pregnancy disability claim previously blogged? I go to the clinic, then the birth center, then the clinic again.

The clinic never filed my paperwork.

I call the state to confirm that there's no claim for me in and the state says, "Well, a doctor does have to sign the form and no nurse-practioner can." Now I'm trying to get someone at the clinic while to figure out whether or not I they submitted the form (and who signed it) or whether it's just malingering in my file.

The best part is that I was tipped off to this situation by the HR person from work who wants to talk to me instead of writing things down in an email like I asked her to because "there's lots of details." I called her back and asked her to write down all the details in an email. Grumble grumble.

To sleep or not to sleep

It's lucky Young Master A is so damned cute. This week, we had a really bad sleep night, followed by a really good sleep night (with five hours of sleep, boy howdy), followed by another bad sleep night (because we went to our birth class for Show-and-Tell and Master A slept through the entire class right before bedtime), followed by a relatively good one last night. We pointedly kept Master A awake (or at least, not deeply sleeping) for the evening so he would sleep and that seems to have worked.

Mister C let me sleep in this morning for as long as A was content without eating, for which I am profoundly grateful. Sleeping by myself alone in a bed seems like the most luxurious thing in the universe right now.

The nursing seems to have let up in frequency, so that's a break for me. We managed a trip to Trader Joe's and Ralph's without me cutting things short for pain or exhaustion, which is a first for our group outings. One of these days we'll take a purely recreational trip. The recovery is slow but it is happening.

I'm so behind on thank you notes and correspondance that I'm honestly horrified. They'll all be coming soon, I swear.

Non-baby related rant

Here's the damn email correspondance of this morning. I'm probably not good for emails right now. I have only edited it to remove the names of the ridiculously stupid and to not give the candidate any press. Stupid freaking people.

-----Original Message-----
From: Bimbo Brains
Subject: You have been invited by Politico........

Please join us.............

People I don't know

Invite you to meet and visit with
Political Candidate in CO
Wednesday, August 30th5:30 - 7:30 PM
At the home of CO Politico
Ft. Collins, CO

Suggested Contribution: $75 For more information or to RSVP please contact Bimbo Brains. If unable to attend, please consider contributing online at link.

Bimbo Brains
Deputy Finance Director, Campaign
Contribute Online link
----- My First Reply-----

Please remove me from your list. I know I've never signed up for your emails.

Legally, you must include an unsubscribe link in all emails. Any future solicitations will be reported to the FCC's unsolicited spam site.

-----Bimbo's Response-----

This is not a mail group. A host wanted to invite you and did not have your mailing address. They asked that I send you an electronic invitation. My computer for some reason sent the email three times. There is nothing to unsubscribe from because this is not a mailing list. I will kindly let the host know that you are uninterested in their invitation.

Sorry to put you out and no harshness was intended.
Bimbo

-----My Final Response Before Adding Bimbo To Junk Senders List-----
Bimbo,
Invitations don't generally involve suggested donations to political candidates and are usually sent by hosts, not by finance directors of political campaigns.

Anyone who I would accept an invitation from:

• already has my mailing address,
• is aware that I've just had major surgery,
• knows I am 1500+ miles from Fort Collins, and
• knows that I am no longer a registered voter in Colorado.

Sorry to put you out. Maybe you should let the hosts know that your "invitations" look like political solicitations sent to a purchased list of email addresses, since that was apparently nowhere near their intentions.

Feeding/Weight Update

Still sleep deprived here, but we weighed Master A today and he's just under 9 pounds, length 22 and change inches. So he's getting plenty of nutrition, which makes me feel so much better.

I understand where people pitch in the breastfeeding and go for bottles. We're not doing that, but I have more sympathies for not wanting to feel like a human feeding bag.

I have a baby and there are no blog updates

Young Master A is marathon feeding right now, which means he's been feeding at least every two hours. Yesterday, he fed at 12 midnight, 2AM, 4AM, 5AM, 7AM, 8AM, 9AM, 10:30AM, 12 noon, 1:30PM, 3PM, 5PM, 6PM, 7PM, 8PM, 9:30PM, 10:30PM, and 12 midnight again. This has been going on since Sunday.

This wouldn't be quite so bad if the feedings weren't taking 45 minutes on average; none are shorter than 30 minutes. Sometimes I'm only getting a 10 minute break between feedings. If you haven't heard from me or the blog isn't being updated enough for your reading pleasure, this is why.

We're hoping this is a temporary growth spurt, which he should be due for soon. But this is why you haven't heard from me.

Certified Nurse Catfight

Yesterday I had two checkups, one with the clinic associated with the hospital where I had A and one with the birth center.

First up: the clinic. The clinic is filled with flyers about how to apply for WIC benefits and how to appeal for WIC benefits when your application is rejected. This is not my demographic and I felt incredibly out of place. I get shown to an examination room (after an intern takes my vitals, skewing my BP high when I realize she's an intern mid-exam) and am seen by the Certified Nurse Practitioner. She looks at my incision (which looks great), asks me if I've thought about birth control (well, no, since I haven't really thought about sex), and then refuses to sign my pregnancy disability form.

See, my midwife called as we were going out the door to our appointment and told me she can only sign off on six weeks of pregnancy disability. Since I had a C-section, I'm entitled to eight weeks and as such need to get a doctor's signature on the form for that.

Well, the CNP says no. She has very strong opinions and basically says the midwife can sign off on all the things she can sign off on and I should march back to the birth center and make them sign my form for eight weeks' disability. It doesn't take a doctor to certify that I had a C-section.

I say that this puts me in an awkward position and ask if she would call my midwife to discuss it with her.

We go to the birth center and this call has not happened. The midwife has a more thorough exam for postpartum depression, adjusting to breastfeeding (doing spiffily, btw), as well as the birth control discussion. I raise the issue of the form and she goes to call the CNP from the clinic.

Long story short, we truck back to the clinic to get the form signed by the CNP. I don't know what ruckus this will raise with the state, but hopefully HR will now be appeased. My next checkup will be in four weeks.

Boy howdy, does delivering the baby and breastfeeding make you lose weight. I was shocked by how much weight I've lost since leaving the hospital.

One Week Checkup

Mistah C, young Master A and I all toddled off to the pediatrician's yesterday. Our lovely baby boy has passed his birth weight at Day 11, now up to 7 pounds, 13 and 3/4 ounces, which means that we are breastfeeding well. Whew.

Today are my checkups; hopefully I will not have gained any weight since the birth.

The Gory Details: Part 2 (8AM Saturday until 4AM Sunday)

Again, if you don't like gory details of birth stories, this is not the post for you.

The difference between the birth center and the hospital was a shock. Instead of the homey birthing suite with queen-sized bed, we're in this stripped down formica and plastic room about the size of my old cubicle. C, J, and T all barely fit in the room. The nurse feels like it's her job to personally judge me for having gone to a birthing center; she argues with the legitimacy of my records from the birth center because "this says your water broke 1AM Friday and that can't possibly be right." No, you've got four intelligent people here who have all been awake for most of the night and can tell you my water didn't break eight hours ago. Bitch.

I've got an IV in an incredibly painful and movement-restricting point on the inside of my left wrist and I'm tethered to the EFM and the Pit pump. They're throwing forms and disclosures at us left and right to sign; C and I refuse to sign anything until we've read them which seems to annoy the nasty nurse. I balk at giving permission for all "labor and delivery procedures" and the nurse is annoyed when we ask what that covers, exactly, and doesn't answer anything but direct questioning (i.e., "Does this cover a C-section, yes or no?"), can't be bothered to explain. We're both incredibly tired and my contractions slow to 7-9 minutes apart, probably due to the hostility of the nurse and the strangeness of the situation. The nurse insists that we weren't really in labor before the Pitocin, which is not what you want to hear on your second day of labor.

The Pitocin kicks in around 9AM and I have really strong, vicious contractions. At first, I'm bound and determined to not have any pain meds. But I am just not able to move; even the slightest movement on my part disconnects the EFM and shows up as "baby in distress" at the nurses' station. If I keep disconnecting it, I am told by nasty nurse, they will have to assume the baby's in distress. (Note: for the entire labor, the baby's heartrate never dropped below 135 and was in the 140s most of the time. That is peachy perfect.) The nurse keeps scolding me to keep my eyes open and focus on one thing and breathe. I have been relaxing lovely well for the last 24 hours and don't feel like being scolded.

I get an epidural about 12:30, but I first talk to the nice doctor and tell him I want an epidural for the purpose of still delivering vaginally by getting some sleep and rest before I have to push, that I want the lowest dose possible to minimize effects on the baby, and that I want to be able to turn it off before pushing so I can feel my contractions. He was kind and gracious and at that point, I was re-energized by being treated like a human being instead of an irrational, irresponsible, crazy birth-in-the-bushes wacko. He even tolerates the questions of all four of us and calls questions the sign of intelligence. I take a nap and C gets something to eat, for which I am profoundly grateful for J and T being there since he wouldn't have left me without T staying behind. There's meuconium in the amniotic waters now, so we're going to have to have a pediatric team there when he's born. I am elated because that means the kid has an anus and it works.

I'm fully dialated at a little before 6. We turn off the epidural. I push until a little after 9PM. (I did turn the epidural back on at 8PM - pain was still most vicious in my back). T stepped out. J and C helped me push and the nasty nurse was relegated to someone else's labor, thank God. I got a wonderful L&D nurse (two with a shift change, actually) who was encouraging and sweet. It really makes the world of difference to have people around you who say, "Yes, you can do this." At the end of three hours of pushing with contractions about 2 to 3 minutes apart, the kid has not moved significantly, although we are getting glimpses of the head, which thrill J and C.

At 9PM, the doctor says the kid is most probably stuck; we can opt for a trial vacuum extraction which may not work (and may require an episiotomy) or the C-section. C and I discuss it and opt for the C-section. I'm exhausted and the prospect of an episotomy and a C-section is more than I can think of bearing at this point.

C-sections get the kid out fast; it was like there was a C-section pit crew. Epidural gets bumped up, catheter goes in, some surgical prep, and boom, down the hall we go to the OR. It was the fastest procedure we had done the whole time. Happily, the nice nurse asked what kinds of things we wanted to happen at the birth and all of them were adhered to: C to hold baby ASAP, baby not to leave at least one of our sights, breastfeeding as soon as possible with no bottles or pacifiers; rooming in and C to stay in hospital with me as much as possible.

Our beautiful boy was born at 10:07PM; the nice L&D nurse actually had to push him back up to extract him. We were worried the epidurals would have made him groggy, but he was beautifully bright-eyed and alert. Apgar scores were 9 and 9; I'm hoping to find out what the point off was for this week at our checkup. C told me the gender since we didn't know ahead of time - I was glad since I had forgotten to tell the doctor not to announce it, that I wanted C to tell me. The pediatric team worked fast - no problems at all - and C was holding our son within five minutes. I shook violently and was freezing throughout. A gripped my finger with his little hand and I fell asleep on the OR table not long after that. It took about 45 minutes to put me back together again.

I got wheeled into the recovery room around 11PM. A was still quietly alert and breastfed like a champ. His head was unevenly lopsided on top, so it looked to me like he really had been stuck. Then he had to go to the nursery for the routine drill and a bath; C went with him. I can't say enough about our friends at this point; J stayed with me and T went back and forth between the two groups spreading information. I was released to the Family Birth Unit at midnight and dozed there off and on with J and T until C came back with the baby.

A spent four hours under the warmers in the nursery so his body temperature could register 98.6 so they could bathe him; C sat by his side the whole time. We were utterly exhausted at the end of it. I feel bad for J and T since they just stuck with us for two days even when it would have been easy to say, "Yep, kid's out; time for us to go." They didn't leave us until C, A, and I were all back together in one room again.

We were in the hospital until Wednesday afternoon. The nurses were all super and I can't say enough about the kindnesses they showed us. We were put in a double room so we could have a bed for C and they didn't put anyone in the room with us the whole time, even when they had a record 22 women there. I'm told they try to do that for C-section patients, but I think it was also due to the dedication C showed the whole time - it's hard not to notice a big guy sitting by a warmer with a tiny baby in the nursery for four hours straight from midnight until 4AM.

So now we're home. Life revolves around little A-man here; he eats, poops, sleeps, and then the whole cycle starts again. The entire labor seems pretty surreal now, but I keep thinking, oh yes, that did happen. I've got the best evidence in the world to say so.

The Gory Details: Part 1 (1AM Friday-8AM Saturday)

If you don't want to know the birth story, then don't read this post. If you want the gory details, this post and the next one are for you. This is Part 1, the birth center experience.

Friday the 28th at 1AM, my water broke. We were joking about how punctual the kid was, right on the due date. After talking to the midwife on duty, I ended up going back to sleep until 7 or so and waiting until the contractions got stronger. We went to the birth center at about 11AM. They check me (1 cm dilation) and say contractions aren't beastly strong, so I might as well go home until they're strong enough that I can't talk through them. The midwife strips my membranes, breaks a forebag of waters still present, then tells me to take 2 oz. of castor oil when I get home and another 2 oz. two hours later. (You've got to be in active labor within 24 hours of your water breaking or they transfer you to a hospital, so speeding up things by any means necessary seemed like a good idea.) I take the castor oil like a drunken sailor - straight up and fast. All this brought on pretty strong contractions, all in my back. Since we knew the kid was OP, it wasn't that much of a surprise but it hurt.

The one thing I regret about this whole thing: taking the second dose of castor oil at 3PM. Seriously. I only got half of it down maybe before I knew I was going to throw up. Mistah C, our resident vomit expert, called it "firehose vomit," and that's what it was. If I hadn't taken that dose, I might have been better nourished for what happened in the next two days.

We labored at home until 6PM, then went back to the birth center with my friend J. (Her husband T came later but I don't know when because I wasn't watching the clock - I was in labor, people.) Progress is really slow but the contractions are steady at 3-5 minutes apart. Because progress is so slow, we think the kid is definitely OP and might be having issues, so we are trying all sorts of positions and postures to move the kid - in bed, out of bed, in the tub, birthing ball, lunges, everything.

I'm doing well handling the contractions, although I think there's a lot of muttering of "oh, it hurts, it hurts," going on during the contractions. I am breathing through the contractions and look so relaxed I keep having to tell people when I'm having a contraction.

My midwife can't deliver babies at the birth center due to her agreement with her new employer, so around 1 or 2AM (I really don't know since I was pointedly not watching the clock), another midwife I've never met named Brooke shows up. Brooke is super cool and has a whole other bag of tricks to try, including suspending me from a rebozo and shaking me like a bowl of jelly. The kid makes no downward progress between 4AM and 8AM and I am only at 6cm. The baby's basically slightly turned off-axis and as such may not be able to come out normally. We had known that the kid was OP (sunny side up), but we didn't realize he was also turned.

At 8AM Saturday, we've come to the end of what they can do at the birth center. Because the baby's turned, he's not making contact with my cervix and as such isn't invoking more productive contractions. They're recommending that we go to a hospital for Pitocin to see if that will induce harder contractions which will turn the kid to allow me to deliver vaginally. C and I are crushed because a hospital birth is so not what we wanted. We've been laboring for about 21 hours at this point. The midwives call the two potential hospitals to determine which they'll transfer me to depending on who the attending doctor is that day. This is to give me a better chance at still delivering vaginally. I ask what my odds are of avoiding a C-section and they say 50/50. We drive ourselves over there.

The birth center was wonderful and I can't say enough nice things about it. The kid was just not lined up right and they exhausted all the methods at their disposal. I believe they say they have a 9-10% transfer rate. More than that, C and I participated in the discussion about transferring. If either of us had thought that a longer labor at the birth center would have changed something, I'm pretty sure the midwives might have let us go at it longer. But it just wasn't happening.

We're Home

It feels like we just got here, but we're going out again for the baby's first office visit. I've taken drugs to brace myself. Walking is difficult.

I am so tired but thrilled with the babe. I haven't been coherent long enough to add up all the time in labor and remember it, but we started labor Friday morning and ended up delivering him (it's a boy!) via C-section Saturday night. It's something like 36-44 hours of labor. The birth story will be coming in gory detail as soon as I get the attention span required to recall it all.

There's so much to do and the kid's cluster feeding in two to three hours spans of time, which means I'm pretty well occupied. Breast feeding is going well so far. The cats are not quite sure what the hell this thing is we brought home.

Mistah C is fabulous. Fabulous husband, fabulous daddy material, just fabulous all around. I have a hard time imagining a better man. Several nurses in the birth unit commented on what an amazingly supportive husband and father he is. They thought we should have another one soon since he's so super. At this point, I just want to handle this one.