Tomorrow we get to ring in the new year with a wedding. One of my cousins is tying the knot with the most lovely lady and we’re so excited for the both of them.
With all the excitement that has gone on this past year, I’m curious as to what we’ll be in for next year. I’m sure it’ll be great, though. Full of mistakes to learn from and moments to cherish.
Have a safe new year with those you love! I know I will be. =)
Guess what I got for Christmas?
Yeah, that’s right. My very own reindeer. Be jealous. A reindeer with jazz hands!
It was a dark night. The kind that finds you cuddled in your computer chair watching television shows online. The sounds of NCIS filled the office, drowning out the munching and crunching of oyster crackers and the crackle of a mini marshmellow bag being dived into repeatedly. All was calm, or as calm as things can get with a pesky three year old repeatedly getting up from bed to join you.
Multiple times I chased her back to bed, wobbling cranky and irritated as pregnant women tend to do. Also, issuing out complaints for the many interruptions.
Before long, the blond toddler wasn’t the only interruption. Pain in the pelvis caused me to take mini hiatus’s from the office as I’d sink into the bathtub, full of nice warm water.
Water. What a pacifying substance. It’s always had that effect on me. Especially nice warm water.
After the pain would dissipate, I’d be back up and wrapped in my towel, soaking the carpet as I toddled back to the office and the comforts of my desk. I’d be back to alternating devouring the marshmellows and the crackers, because the salt balances out the sweet. And because dinner hadn’t been as filling as initially thought.
The only sound to disturb the house was the chattering of the speakers and the rush of wind outside the windows. The usual ruckus caused by Andy’s xbox was occurring at a friends house seeing as how my crankiness during dinner had alienated all people able to drive away.
Fifteen minutes after I’d started my bathtub intermissions I decided to start making calls just in case we needed to venture off to the hospital. I sent a text off to Andy and talked to my doula. She told me to call her once he got back and timed the contractions.
Shortly after I finished making my calls, the pain started getting worse. I didn’t leave the bathtub. Just flailed around until it was finished and then sat there since by the time I’d arranged myself in my chair they would start back up again and I’d need to hurry back to the tub.
At this point Jas quit listening when I asked her to go to her room, when I told her to go to her room, when I demanded, and just stood in the doorway of the bathroom looking concerned.
Once Andy got back, he started getting frantic and handed me his phone to time the contractions while he packed a bag for us for the hospital. He’d yell in asking what clothes he should pack for me and received sharp barbs that nothing fit me anyway, just grab my two jersey dresses and whatever else makes sense. Since he was attempting to pack and always overpacks like a maniac, I dragged myself out of the bathtub and wrapped in my robe so that I could survey the progress.
The hallway carpet was damp from my many journeys back and forth to the bathroom just minutes earlier. I remember it really bothering me. Getting dressed was upsetting as all my maternity pants pressed on my pelvis making things quite uncomfortable. For the past week as soon as I’d get home the pants would be flung to some far corner of the room and I’d sink into a chair, finally comfortable.
Once dressed I spent my time getting through contractions by hugging to death one of my old teddy bears that I’d since given to Jas. It was big and fluffy, perfect for strangling. I’d press my head into the cushions of the couch, trying to ride it out. Thankfully Andy’s preparations were swift and before long we were whirling away toward the hospital.
While at the hospital I attempted to give all my medical history between contractions, which has to be mildly entertaining to anyone listening in or walking by. You know, casual conversation that instantly turns into fierce shouting then drops back down to normal again.
Around this time one of the few nurses stuffed in the small room with us starts insisting that I breathe and that this will help. So help me I wanted to sucker punch her in the face every time she told me to breathe. HELLO I KNOW THAT. Also, it’s not working lady! I never hypnotized myself in Lamaze, I did yoga. But really, every time.
The nurse taking my vitals ended up slipping one of those gas masks over my head and that helped but I think mostly because I was distracted looking at it framing everything. I felt like Bug Lady. A pampered bug lady though, as I had Andy and my doula rubbing my back, which was way more helpful than anything else, especially since the nurses needed me laying on my side for some variety of medical monitoring which was wildly uncomfortable. I was aware of what it was at the time but now I have no idea.
I was only dilated to a five when we got to the hospital and my doctor determined that while my baby was facing down, he was unfortunately in the posterior position. Or backwards, really. This means that labor and contractions will be much more painful (they really, really were much worse than with Jas and I was dilated to 8 with her). It also meant that considering my medical history with a previous cesarean that I had a much higher risk of my uterus ripping open and spilling out baby while laboring.
I’m no fool. I wanted my VBAC more than I could tell you, but I also am really fond of living. Of breathing. Of being able to sit in a chair and write up stories about how I kept getting interrupted when I just wanted to watch my tv show. Also, I wanted to meet this baby. When you spend nine months with someone (and four months getting weekly shots so that they’ll show up on time), you want a special meeting. For me, that meant we both had to be healthy.
The doctor got a swift approval from me and promised to see me in a half hour and get this show on the road. Time went quickly as I signed papers, strangled the teddy bear, and was rolled off to the anesthesiologist’s (bonus points to me for spelling that right the first time =D) for a spinal block.
Oh my word. Oh. my. word. Now, it’s no secret that I’ve been stabbed by needles multiple times throughout this pregnancy. So the trauma wasn’t so much that I was getting a major shot, but that it was going into my spine and I was not to move when I was having contractions that felt like they were about to rip my torso from my legs. Also, Andy was getting his scrubs on and wasn’t with me. And in all that pain, that was really all I wanted. Him to be there with me. I ended up crying around this point, having held it off for so long.
I mean, it was just a lot to have happen. I had final exams in two weeks, the baby was in distress, my uterus might rupture, if I move I could become paralyzed, my grandma had mistakenly taken the teddy bear when she took Jas out to the lobby so I had no beast to strangle, I was supposed to work the next day, I still didn’t know the ending of my show, and I was going to have to recover from another c section. Son of a bitch. It’s enough to make any person cry.
The nurses were very soothing though and patted my leg telling me I was doing great. Right. JUST HURRY UP.
Before long I was lying on my back and they were drawing the curtains up around my belly. Poking my torso in different places and asking if I felt it. My doctor came in and before I even knew it I heard the squall of a baby, full of righteous indignation. That’s how I knew it was my baby. He had my furious nature. I may seem to be a timid creature, but once I’m angry you’d better watch out.
I was distracted from my thoughts of Oh Baby is yelling! by the sensation of my organs being moved around. That about made me vomit. The nurse standing at my head took pity on me since she saw that I could totally feel what was going on. There wasn’t pain but if you’ve ever had people sticking their hands in your body and moving organs then you know that it is one of the most unpleasant sensations ever. Just thinking about it is making me squeamish.
She told me repeatedly that they’re almost done and started telling me what my little boy looked like. A head full of hair. Dark hair. And kicking his legs like a champion. That made me smile.
Thankfully the nurse wasn’t feeding me lies and shortly therafter I was swept off to the recovery room where I was given ice to munch on. The nurse who had been by my head during the surgery came with me and told me that I was really lucky things had gone my way. She was an elderly nurse and when she held my hands, her fingers were soft and wrinkly.
After she told me about how things actually went down (my uterus was stretched very, very thin and the baby quite distressed), I asked her to pray with me. A smile lit up on her face and she looked so pleased to share a prayer with me. I think that is one of the nicest things, sharing a prayer with someone who is such a strong believer in their religion and wants to share it with you. She was such a sweet nurse. She had to head off to help another lady right after, so I stayed chatting with another nurse.
Ten minutes later yet another nurse (there were herds of them about) brought in the baby so I could try to feed him. There are few words for how blissfully happy it made me that he latched right on without any trouble. I kind of expected it given how the rest of the night had gone. It was like a little victory, a piece of the pregnancy puzzle that I got exactly how I wanted. Very special.
I could go on about the rest of the night, but I’ll wrap this up with some pictures. Because we all came for the pictures. Most of these were taken right after the baby picture people had come in and given their spiel trying to sell me $50 packages of pictures. Heh, no. It was a major rip off.
Anyway, I needed to change Cody and while doing so he ninja peed on me. Twice. So I was all, fine, you are going to have another photo shoot session after I get you cleaned up. And that’s exactly what I did.
SPARTA!! I plan on photoshopping a sword into his hand later.
A case of the Mondays…
Modest supermodel pose.
Meeting of the siblings.
And pardon the overwhelming boobage. Those jersey maxi dresses are so hazardously designed. For shame, Target, for shame. But yay, we were getting ready to leave the hospital and go home! I was so excited to be going home. Staying a hospital for a few days is enough to drive anyone batty. =)
He’s growing so well. I’m so very proud.
But let’s end this with baby toes. =D
I just got in a letter from the county requesting my darling presence for jury duty. I’m psyched. Seriously! Come January, I get to maybe maybe not participate in justice. Exciting! =D
I bet it’s nothing like on tv.
But I still hope its fun. Or interesting. Or vaguely entertaining.
If I get picked it’d warrant a trip to the store to buy red tights and mary jane shoes. I always thought that if I were to go in a courtroom, that’s what I’d wear. Even back when I was little and daydreaming of being a prosecutor. A prosecutor with flair. A juror with flair works too.
I think this means I need to break out my makeup and figure out how to apply it again. Court proceedings require eyeliner.
Oh my goodness, December has been such a whirlwind. I’ve so many little anecdotes and stories to share and hardly any time to do so. We just got back from a week vacation in St Louis and now Christmas is right around the corner! I’ve still got ornaments to put together, gifts to finish and ship, and cards to make. Yikes! Our tree is still cuddled up in its battered box in the attic.
It’s funny how even though I knew this month would be frantic with plans, it has still managed to be wonderfully fun and relaxing. Granted, we’ve had several moments of WTF and RAGE but they are nowhere near as plentiful as I was expecting. Not that I was expecting a bunch of rage or anything but Andy and I have varying viewpoints on Christmas and we tend to spar over them. This year I just haven’t had the time to devote to the argument so he bought the gifts for our illinois relatives and I spent my time on the couch rolling my eyes at his choices and taking in the view of The Zen Master.
Little Cody really is the most calm baby I’ve ever handled. Jas was a great baby too, but he amazes me with his peaceful nature. I’m starting to think that all the yoga I was taking throughout the pregnancy rubbed off on him. That’s my theory.
But while he’s very chill, I love how expressive his eyes are. And how he glares at people just like I do. And has my hair color – even if only temporarily (hopefully permanent, this household needs more brunette).
Our trip was the first one as a family of four and as such was very eventful. First, we got to all go to the lovely city of St Louis and wander around their many museums. I seriously love that all their major museums have no admission price and you only pay a fee for the rotating exhibits. If you can get to the St Louis Art Museum, they have a fabulous exhibit on several centuries of Japanese screens. They were so beautiful and inspiring to see, definitely worth the $8!
The best museum visit by far was to the St Louis Science Museum. Why, you ask? Because for the past few weeks Jas has been borderline obsessed with dinosaurs. And they just happened to have a huge exhibit featuring life size, animated dinosaurs. Cool, right? Yeah, that’s what Andy thought. I was thinking, wow, Jas is going to flip her lid. Not in a good way. Take a minute to decide who you think was most accurate.
Initially Andy was right, she thought it was awesome. And then she walked in front of a sensor and the dinosaur started moving and making noise. I’ve never seen her crawl up Andy’s leg so fast, even after ice cream. Freaked her right out. She spent the rest of the time in the exhibit whining and whimpering whenever Andy got too close to a dinosaur which was the whole time because he was determined to show her that they were fake.
It was a traumatic experience and she left the exhibit having learned that dinosaurs are fake because that was the only way Andy could get her to calm down. And for some reason, my crooked little heart was totally warmed and amused by the entire situation. Although I’m sure a big part of it was because I was rather uncomfortable around the dinosaurs too, even though I know that the ones on display were totally fake.
Another slightly traumatic visit was to the St Louis Zoo. We made two visits to the zoo because we showed up an hour before they were going to close on the first day. We did a tour of the amphibian exhibit and then a short walk around in the zoo before leaving out of an exit.
The thing about the zoo is that they have two exits, a north and a south. And the way that the zoo is set up, it only takes about ten minutes to talk from one to the other with a few small exhibits and shops in between. All the big regions with animals are on the east and west sides in wings. So it’s set up a bit like a bow tie, if you will.
We parked near the north exit. We accidentally exited the south exit. And spent about two hours walking around Forest Park (the park that houses all the different museums) looking for the other exit in below freezing temperatures. That was fun. Luckily both kidlets are remarkably upbeat so we didn’t have that to additionally dampen our spirits. Cody was in his Sleepywrap so he was snug as a bug.
Around the two hour mark we spied a jogger and Andy flagged her down to ask for directions. She sympathized with us but wasn’t familiar with all the roads since she mostly jogged the long route around. Her directions were vague and ultimately unhelpful, but while talking to her one of the zoo administrators exited from a side door so we went to talk to her instead.
This lady was a marvel and invited us into her car and gave us a ride to ours, which we were still very far away from. That was so terribly sweet and helpful of her. I really wish we could have done more than simply say thanks. Even if we did it profusely.
The next day we were determined to see more of the zoo and so we showed up earlier all expectant and chipper, considering how tired we were from all our walking the day before. Jas has been harping over rhinos and lions a lot lately as well, so we went to go visit them first. Except that the intelligent people at the zoo don’t condemn them to suffer outdoors in a Missouri winter, so we got to look at lots of naturalistic African exhibits sans animals.
They are really very strategic when they set up their exhibits in that you can barely tell that the animals are encaged at all and the gulf barriers are hardly visible. Which I’m sure is great during the summer months when you have herds of people tramping through to see all the animals. But when you visit in the winter and there is no one in that section of the park except yourselves? That shit gets mildly creepy fast.
Especially because you get used to looking at empty exhibits and are just walking through the trail to get back to the main section and happen to see an animal move out of the corner of your eye. An animal you definitely thought would be inside. And since you see it out of the corner of your eye, you don’t see any sort of a fence since they decorate theirs with twine and rope. All you see is a hyena and WTF WHERE IS THE FENCE! Talk about frightening.
I think it was made worse because the night before Andy and I had watched Animal Planet’s show ‘I Am Alive’ that featured a mom being attacked by a black bear and the subsequent death of one of her kids and near mauling of the other. Horrifying show. I do not recommend watching Animal Planet after hours unless you want to traumatize yourself.
So when I see this hyena, I point it out to Andy and we start walking faster down the path away from that exhibit. The whole time I’m whining about how there isn’t anyone around to even Youtube this not to mention rescue us and I do NOT want to be some sad sob story on late night Animal Planet my god WHY do they not have bigger fences? Have they not seen Jurassic Park? I am not in the mood to fight off hyenas oh my hyperventilation.
After we’ve passed the hyenas, we discover that the zoo people have left the cheetas out as well. I’m pretty sure these zoo folk have lost their damn minds because I’ve seen videos of desperate animals leaping over the moats and mauling people. Rhino’s wouldn’t worry me, but cold hungry big cats? YES, that worries me. Hyena? Oh my gracious. Heart attack.
Once we were back in the main section of the zoo, I made a bee line for the main building to warm up and hide out. I had no desire to see any more animals thank you very much. Andy and Jas went off to see the primate house and penguins while Cody and I left to go look at artwork at the Art Museum.
Cody and I much preferred the atmosphere of the art museum. It was indoors, warm, filled with colors and ideas and plush leather sofas. No freezing angry beasties coveting our flesh.
Other notable happenings during the trip included being involved in a fender bender with a semi (Prixy is a BEAST and cannot be bested by semi’s, bitch please) and almost burning down our timeshare building while cooking dinner. Like, not even kidding. And they both happened on the same day within eight hours of each other. Crazy. Frightening. Exhausting. Andy is no longer allowed to cook with olive oil.
The rest of the trip was spent relaxing and enjoying each other’s company. It really was a great time all things considered. I think one of my favorite things was access to a shower 24/7. Our house only has a bath tub and seeing as how I’m not allowed to submerge my stitches, I have to sit on one of Jas’s little chairs and take my showers via one of those mini shower heads. Having a nice stand up shower was so blissful. It gave me a chance to actually try to scrub off the muck from all the medical tape residue from my surgery. Hurray! Too bad I still have yet more left on my hips to work on.
Anyway! Best wishes to everyone for Christmas and all the other festive holidays this year. I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to chat depending on weather and such. But hurrah, I’m back at work! And hurrah, we’re all relatively healthy and alive with a roof over our heads! All the rest is icing on the cake.