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After being in the hospital bed hooked up to the monitors for 20 minutes, I was allowed to get out of bed. This was my idea of heaven, as lying on my back during contractions, well, sucked, and I had to wear a tight tube top type girdle thing around my huge belly to hold the fetal heart rate monitor in place. It was snug and hot and uncomfortable, which are three things you don’t want to feel while in labor. Unfortunately, hospital policy dictated that the IV (which was administering fluids to keep me hydrated…I think. To be honest, I didn’t ask and didn’t really care except for the fact that it made my arm uncomfortable) remained attached to me.
When I stood up I started experimenting with positions to labor in. During my pregnancy, I had all these notions of laboring on the birthing ball, walking the hallways and practicing my yoga positions.
Instead, the only thing I wanted to do was lean over a chair and sway. So sway I did. With that lovely hospital gown open in the back, exposing my butt to anyone to cared to look. Labor is sexy, y’all.
By this point, my contractions were less than two minutes apart and I was still only 3-centimeters dilated. Each time one started, I would lean over the chair, grab Michael or my mom’s hand and try to focus on anything but the pain. The best way I can describe what mine felt like is this: it felt like my bottom half wanted to rip itself from my top half right through my pelvis. I also had accompanying nausea and had asked for “something to be sick in…just in case” from the nurse. I’m pretty sure she handed Michael a plastic bed pan. Every time I had a contraction I would yell, “Get the bucket!” and he would hold it below my face.
I never did get sick, but I did burp a lot. It tasted like that English muffin with peanut butter.
Gross.
As we approached the 8 o’clock hour, two hours into our hospital stay and three hours from my water breaking, the contractions were less than a minute apart and taking my breath away. I asked to be checked.
5 centimeters.
At this point, realizing that I was only halfway there and finding it hard to manage the non-stop contractions, I let my idea of a drug-free labor go out the window and asked for the epidural.
At first, I was really upset with myself. All through my pregnancy whenever anyone asked if I was going to use drugs, I told them I was going to go natural as long as possible, but not be a hero. If I thought I needed the drugs, I would take them.
Even though this is the story I kept repeating, there was a part of me that always believed I’d be able to have an entirely natural childbirth, no problem. So when I found myself in the position of where I didn’t think I could do it anymore, a little part of me felt like a failure.
And then I had another contraction and knew that for me, for this birth, the epidural was the right choice. I don’t know, maybe if my water hadn’t broken so early the contractions would have been manageable for longer. But in the end, it was the decision I made, and I don’t regret it at all.
So I asked for it. And was told, sure, no problem! We’ll get things set up. But we can’t administer it until the OB is in the building. She should be in at 8 o’clock.
I glanced at the clock and saw I had 20 minutes to go. I could totally do another 20 minutes, I thought.
Omigod, was that a long 20 minutes. During this time I actually had to have a conversation with the anesthesiologist about types of pain relief and I’m pretty sure I signed a form at one point, but for all I know I signed “arrrghhhhhhhhh” on the X instead of my name.
Oh yeah. I also overheard the nurses talking about whether or not my doctor was en route, and I heard one say yes, she had just talked to her, and she was at the local coffee shop and would be in soon.
My brain was screaming something like, “COFFEE????? **&(*^%^^#$)!!!!!!)”, but I think all I managed to say was some type of groan.
Finally, finally, around 8:30 a.m. my doctor came in and I could get some relief. I moved to the bed, leaned over the table as instructed and prepared myself for what I thought would be a very painful needle injection into my spine.
And then I had a contraction. And I announced it to the anesthesiologist as kind of a “hey, heads up. Hold on a sec,” and she informed me very nicely that, oh well. We’re already in the middle of it and you’ll just have to stay still while your butt rips itself away from your torso and runs away down the hall.
Oh, sure. Stay still. OK.
But I did! And yes, the epidural didn’t feel great, but compared to getting the IV it was cake and you know what happened next? Like, instantly next?
I felt warm in the tips of my toes and it quickly spread up my legs and into my pelvis and my butt no longer tried to rip itself away from my torso.
Relief. Sweet, sweet, relief.
Feeling better, I got into bed and was able to relax for a while. I could still feel the pressure of my contractions, but the pain was gone. I could still move and feel my legs, so I wasn’t freaked out by the sensation as I thought I might be. The only real downside was they have to insert a catheter to remove urine, since I wouldn’t be able to feel the sensation of having to go to the bathroom. The idea grossed me out, but I never felt or saw it, so in the end, no biggie. I sent out a few texts messages, laughed and joked with my mom and sister and ate an orange Popsicle, which being the only thing I had eaten since 4 a.m. tasted AMAZING. Then we all took a nap.
~
Around 10 a.m., the nurse came in to check on me. In the time since the epidural, I had progressed to 8 centimeters, but was starting to feel the contraction pain again. The anesthesiologist came in to adjust my medicine, saying that some women just need a little more than others to manage the pain.
There’s a button attached to the pain medicine that I could push twice in the span of an hour to get a boost if I felt I needed more pain relief. As we approached noon, I had pushed it more than twice (which is pointless, since it won’t give you any more medicine after you’ve exhausted your two pushes), and called for the nurse.
I still hurt, I told her. I didn’t know what I was supposed to feel with an epidural, but something told me I shouldn’t hurt THAT much. My butt was rebelling against my torso again.
Before taking the route of upping the medicine again, she decided to check my progress.
I hurt so badly because I was 10 centimeters dilated and This Little Baby was in the birth canal and ready to go.
Say what?
Michael had fallen asleep in a chair watching Dirty Jobs, and my mom and sister had curled up on the Dad Bed (a recliner that folded down into a bed) to nap, and suddenly, everyone was up and moving around.
The anesthesiologist was back, and told me that this was usually the time she turned down the epidural so women could feel the sensation of the urge to push, but hey! Your body is already doing it, lucky you!
I wanted to ask her if that was the case, couldn’t she turn the epidural UP instead?
I think the answer would have been no.
Before I knew it, everyone was gathered around me, and the nurses were at my feet.
It was time to push.
Sometimes my house is a mess. There are dishes in the sink and dog hair on the floor. The bed is unmade and the laundry isn’t done.
Sometimes I don’t get to shower, dinner is late and the fridge is short on groceries.
Sometimes there’s poop. Everywhere.
Sometimes calls go unanswered and emails go unread.
Sometimes there’s crying. Sometimes his, sometimes mine.
Sometimes there’s dog hair on the baby’s lips.
Sometimes I’m sure my heart is going to burst and splatter clear across the room when I look at him and realize I love him more than any single thing in this world.
Sometimes motherhood is an amazing joy.
And sometimes, it’s a milk-soaked tee-shirt at 4 a.m. and spit up in your hair.
And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Continued from A Birth Story, Part 1
And then I heard a pop.
I gasped, and then I felt it, at exactly 5:11 a.m. A huge gush of warm water. On my couch. Thank goodness for that blanket!
I had this irrational fear during my pregnancy that my water would break in the produce aisle of the grocery store. I don’t know why, I was just terrified of it. So having it break on the couch was preferable, yet…messier. Because had I been standing, TLB’s head would have acted as sort of a plug, making the gush more of a trickle.
Instead, I was reclined, so the gush was actually like dumping an industrial sized Gatorade cooler onto my yoga pants.
“My water broke!” I exclaimed.
My sister jumped into action.
“What do I do?!”
“Um…get a towel?”
She rushed off to the bathroom and returned with a towel. As I shuffled to the bathroom with it between my legs, she ran upstairs to wake up Michael, who had been sleeping the whole time and didn’t even know my family had arrived. I wish I could have seen his face when she woke him announcing the news.
(Note: I promised you an honest birth story. So from here on out there will be talks of fluids and pain and…aftermath. I really appreciated mothers who were honest with me regarding the ins and outs of birth, which is why I want to be honest here. Just giving you a heads up if you’re not interesting in these kinds of things!)
I actually never really expected my water to break at home, since many women don’t have theirs break until they’re much further into their labors…many even having them membranes manually ruptured later on. So I wasn’t really sure what to expect when it happened. Well…there’s a LOT of fluid. And for a while, it just keeps coming and coming and coming. I sat on the toilet and waited for it to slow down enough so I could get things ready, and noticed that I had also lost my mucus plug. And it looked gross.
Really gross. Yet, that didn’t stop me from announcing it to anyone who was listening outside the door that in fact, I had LOST MY MUCUS PLUG!
My sister returned with a fresh pair of yoga pants and a pair of the big old throw away underwear I had bought for the occasion. I put on a pad (for the first time since middle school, I think) and started packing up my toiletries.
My original plan had been to labor at home as long as possible, going to the hospital when I felt I was close enough to warrant being there. Generally, doctors prefer for you to deliver within 24 hours of your water breaking to prevent infection, so I knew I had a lot of time. But on the advice of my mom, I decided to call the maternity ward and let them know I would be in at some point. I talked to the nurse and she suggested I take a little time to get things together, but head in within the hour.
I was skeptical. I had hours and hours! But OK, I’ll get things together and see how it goes.
And then, like a freight train, the contractions started coming.
Hard.
And close together.
I found my best coping method was leaning against a wall or the counter and swaying from side to side until the contraction passed. In between, I packed up the final stuff for the bag, straightened some last minute things around the house…and made Michael put the air conditioner in the guest room for my family.
Yes, really. It’s weird the way your brain works during labor. Suddenly, that seemed really important to me.
So, he did! And afterwards he said he wanted to move the cars around in the driveway, which seemed perfectly reasonable to me until about five minutes later.
“Michael,” I said quietly.
“Yes?”
“I think we need to go. Now.”
~
We live very close to the hospital, so I luckily did not have to labor long in the car. We pulled up in front of the hospital just after 6 a.m. I climbed out of the car to wait while Michael parked it, and noticed that my pants were soaked through completely. As I gripped the railing outside the door and swayed through a contraction, I complained to my sister about my pants. I’m pretty sure she told me not to worry about it.
You would have to ask my family if this is really true or not, but I don’t think I ever became too mean or bitchy during my labor. However, I do remember thinking my sister was walking way. too. slow. into the hospital, and shoved her into the elevator.
Shoved her.
Oops.
We arrived at the Women’s Wing and were greeted by a nurse who would escort us to our room and be with us all day. Now, before we could get to that room, Michael remembered to ask a very important question.
See, when we took our childbirth class it was taught by one of the Labor and Delivery nurses, who told us that we should absolutely ask if one of the corner rooms was available when we arrived. The corner rooms were the big rooms and well, why not ask?
So he did. He asked the nurse if a corner room was available and she looked at us like we were nuts. What did we think this was, the Ritz? The corner room? Really?
Well, there was a corner room, she said, but it wasn’t set up. They’d have to do that first. You know, make the bed, bring in equipment and monitors.
“I’ll wait!” I cried out, and proceeded to have a contraction hanging onto the hallway wall.
I don’t know what she thought of us in that moment, but she left us to set up the room. And you know what? I’m so glad he asked! The big room was awesome.
~
When the room was ready, I was handed a gown and told to take off everything I was wearing and put it on. Know how fun it is to get undressed while having a contraction and leaking amniotic fluid everywhere? Not so fun. Not so fun at all. And those gowns? Do NOT cover your butt. Not even a little. Here’s a fact about birth: EVERYONE will see your butt.
Everyone.
There is no such thing as modesty anymore and there will come a point when you just don’t care.
In that moment, I still cared. So I shuffled to the bed the best I could while holding the back of the gown closed.
Ha.
It’s hospital procedure that you get in bed and are hooked up to a fetal heart monitor, blood pressure cuff and an IV for 20 minutes when you first arrive to see how things are going. I hated this part and could not wait to get out of the bed. I was also terrified of the IV. Not labor, but the IV! I had never had one before and the thought made me nauseous.
Having the IV was my least favorite part about having a baby. I’m serious.
The nurse checked to see how far along I was, and I was disappointed to find I was still only three centimeters dilated, the same I had been earlier in the week. At this point, the contractions were less than three minutes apart and they HURT. And I still had to get to 10?
I did my best to turn inward and use my prenatal yoga skills to focus and breathe.
They still hurt. Oh man, did they hurt.
Today’s post comes from my friend Sara, a mother to a 7-month old boy who has the best smile I’ve ever seen. She’s the friend that can always make me laugh, offers a shoulder to cry on, and gave me mommy support throughout my pregnancy and early weeks of motherhood. I adore her.
This must be what all the fuss is about
I was never one of those people who dreamed about being pregnant or having a baby. Sure, I knew that some day I wanted children, but that desire was always sort of abstract in my mind. When I found out I was pregnant I was excited but to be totally honest I was scared. While my teenage peers honed their mothering skills babysitting for pudgy toddlers, I worked on my tan as a lifeguard. I always bought my nieces and nephews gifts that I later discovered were choking hazards and I am one of those people who can not correlate a child’s age with their grade level so I perpetually have my 5 yr old niece in first grade and my 10 yr old nephew in second. I don’t think this makes me a bad person, but I worried it might make me a bad mother.
This fear did not improve with pregnancy. I took a prenatal yoga class but mostly because it gave me a chance to nap during silent mediation. My husband and I went to the birthing classes but ended up being that couple in the back that giggles to themselves and stops paying attention when the instructor talks about things that do not interest them. Like anyone else who has had children, my birth story is at the very same time, totally unique and just like any other that you hear. It was hard, it was unexpected and it was exhausting. When I finally saw my son for the first time, I let society down and did not cry. I smiled at him and introduced myself, “Hi” I said, “I’m you mama”. He cried enough for both of us.
When they finally put my insides back together (4.5 hours a pushing followed by an emergency c-section that I was totally unprepared for). They brought me back to my room and put my son on my chest so I could nurse him. I took his little body in my arms and held him close. I smelled his new born smell and breathed in his little breath. “This must be what all the fuss is about” I thought to myself. I was in love.
Weeks later I was talking to a girl friend of mine. “You don’t really love him more than your husband?” she asked. I did not hesitate for a moment. “I do”, I replied. “I love him more than the sun and the moon; I love him more than myself. He is my everything.” Twelve short weeks later I returned to work. I cried and cried. “Help me understand” a good friend said to me. “It’s like the first time a boy broke your heart” I replied, “You know in your head that someday you will stop hurting, but in the moment, breathing in and out brings tears to your eyes.”
Months have gone by and with each passing day I love him more and more. Every time he laughs it is as if I am hearing sound for the first time, a symphony of joy. I have been able to transition to a part time position at work and each day that we are together I feel blessed to be the one to put him to bed and the one he reaches his arms out to in the morning. I am grateful for every bath, every story and every tear.
Has becoming a mother changed me? I once heard a story about a famous violin player who trained himself to fight human instinct and pull his arms behind him if he fell forward. His face would take the brunt of the fall but his hands, his livelihood, would be protected. This morning while holding my son in my arms, I fell down a flight of stairs. In the instant it took my body to recognize what was happening I became that violin player. My left arm pulled my son in closer to my chest and right arm came across his body, my hand protecting his head. We tumbled together. I took the brunt of the fall. When we reached the bottom my husband came running over. “How is he?” I franticly asked, fighting back tears. “He is not even crying” my husband replied as he took him from my arms. “How are you?” he asked concerned. We assessed the damage.
How am I? I’m bumped, I’m bruised, I’m sore. I may not sit for a week. How is my son? He is fine. He is perfect. He is my everything.
On Thursday, June 24th I went in for my 39-week OB appointment. My doctor did the usual exam and told me that she was actually surprised I hadn’t gone into labor yet. I had been 3 centimeters dilated for a week, and little boy had been head down and pressing on my sciatic nerve for twice that long. I really, really wanted my OB to be the one to deliver my baby, and she told me she was working that night, and on Saturday. She also mentioned that Saturday was a full moon, and the maternity ward often gets hopping on those nights.
I laughed, put my pants back on and headed home knowing This Little Baby was staying put for another week.
The next day was just like the day before. I was feeling a lot of pressure in my pelvis, but nothing really different from any other day that week. I emailed with a friend periodically and told her nothing was happening, baby wasn’t coming today. I posted my 39-week Belly Friday post, 100% convinced I’d be posting week 40 the following Friday.
That evening, probably around 7 p.m., I felt the overwhelming desire to clean my house. My house — which I had cleaned top to bottom earlier in the week — suddenly seemed filthy to me. As Michael watched me quietly from the couch, I scrubbed the bathroom, cleaned counters, vacuumed and folded laundry. Occasionally, he’d mention as nicely as possible that all those things had just been done and I was essentially just redoing the chores, but I couldn’t stop. Nest. Nest, nest, nest, nest, nest.
By 9 p.m. I was finished and tried, so I took a relaxing shower and climbed into the recliner to watch some TV. A little while later I felt a pain. Sort of like a menstrual cramp, sort of like a diarrhea cramp. Not too bad, and brief enough to make me think it was probably gas. There had been a lot of gas up to this point, so it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to have more.
And then, I felt it again.
So…I tired to fart. Well, wouldn’t you? I mean, I thought it was gas.
The fart was unsuccessful.
I rotated a bit in the chair, got comfortable…and felt another one.
I started thinking to myself, “Could this be it? Is this what it feels like?”
Michael had worked very early that day and was almost asleep on the couch next to me. I didn’t want to set anything in motion until I was sure something was happening, so I quietly got a piece of paper and started writing down whenever I felt a cramp.
I didn’t feel them at regular intervals, but they were usually between 12 and 8 minutes apart. They lasted anywhere from 25 seconds to a minute long, and after about an hour I figured something was up.
“Michael, I think I’m having contractions.”
“Really?!” he answered, perking up instantly. “What do we do?”
I laughed. “Nothing,” I replied. “He’s not coming tonight. But, you might want to get some sleep.”
By midnight I knew that this was early labor. The contractions were strong, but manageable. They made me a little nauseous, but nothing that I couldn’t handle. I called my family and after the inital excitement, they jumped into action. Being three and a half hours away, my mom and sister decided to jump in the car and hit the road immediately. My dad planned on coming up a few hours later, which meant he was the only one who got to sleep!
Michael decided to take a shower just in case there wasn’t time in the morning, and we headed to bed to get some sleep. I know I was vaguely aware of the contractions during the night, but I was able to sleep through them pretty well. Until 4 a.m. when I woke up starving. I decided to get up and eat something, because I knew that if I went to the hospital soon, I wouldn’t be allowed to eat. I got up to make an English muffin with peanut butter and when I stood up, the contractions were gone.
Frustrated, I walked around the house trying to get them moving again. Nothing! I had read that you can be pretty sure you’re experiencing “false labor” when changing positions or walking around stops the contractions. As I chewed my breakfast, I wondered if I had cried wolf and set into motion a lot of fuss for nothing.
I called my mom to tell her what I thought. They were about a half hour away at this point, so there was no turning back for them. She assured me that this is what happens in early labor, and that I wasn’t wrong. It was just going to be awhile, that’s all.
To pass the time until their arrival, I flipped through various infomercials on TV, drank some water and walked around some more. Eventually I felt another contractions, but it was fairly mild. By 4:40 a.m. my family arrived, and after hugs and excitement all around, my mom decided to take a nap while she still had the time. My sister and I stayed up, talking in the living room and timing the mild contractions that were finally coming back.
I put a blanket on our leather couch because it was chilly from the AC, and lay down to get comfortable. After a particularly strong contraction, I mentioned to my sister that OW! That one kind of hurt!
And then I heard a pop.
Today’s post comes from Jenna of That Wife fame. I’ve followed her for awhile and developed a lovely internet friendship with her as we were married, then started a family very close together. She’s also a great photographer, and a trip to her blog is well worth it!
Growing up in my family, it was known that kissing on the lips was something mommies and daddies did. Not mommy and Jenna, not daddy and Jenna. This of course, led me to believe that I would want to follow the same policy when I had my own children. Kissing my babies on the lips would be rather icky after all.
Then I birthed a son in April, and he has lips that look like this.
Photo credit: Kelli Nicole Photography. Click the link if you’d like to see more pictures of my little one as a newborn. 🙂
I don’t know what it is, but those lips look like candy to me. I am Eve and those lips are the forbidden fruit. Sometimes he turns his cheek right as I’m about to go in for a cheek kiss and our lips meet and I find myself loving these little mother —> baby son kisses we are sharing. So juicy and sweet and innocent, and I’m thinking that I might be the mother who kisses her kids on the lips after all. My younger childless sister is rolling her eyes as I type this I’m sure.
Something tells me that this won’t be the only time I break my parent’s family rules. Now that I’m a parent myself I’m breaking new ground, the same ground my parents broke back when I was a wee one, but finding that the terrain is spread out before me looking entirely different than what my parents must have seen. Same goes for the household rules that my husband grew up. I’m coming to different conclusions, making different mistakes (and some of the same ones), and if I’m smart I’ll quickly figure out which rules were meant to be broken, and which ones our parents were wise to set. As a teenage girl I would have given almost anything to start wearing makeup before reaching the age of 12, but now that I’m older and wiser I know if we have any girls we’ll have the same policy in our home. Turns out my parents were a whole lot smarter than I gave them credit for after all. I still might kiss my kids on the lips though.
What “family rules” will you be keeping or ditching with your own children?
Today’s post comes for Kaley at Cheap Therapy. She always makes me laugh, and I think you’ll enjoy her too. For the record, I attempted to start Mr. O’s birth story tonight, but then he wanted to nurse and before I knew it he was asleep on my chest and I got lost in the sweet baby scent of his head. I’ll try it again tomorrow!
The Tie That Binds
Once a woman gives birth to her child – who is, undoubtedly, the most adorable baby that’s ever lived – she is automatically initiated into the most exclusive sorority of all: Motherhood.
Though I was never involved with or part of a sorority in college, I had some friends that were. One particularly close friend disclosed to me one night over mixed berry wine coolers exactly what kind of embarrassing initiation rituals the girls had to go through in order to finally become a member of the sorority; things involving spontaneous karaoke performances, body image critiques, and 2 a.m. ice cream runs for current members who happened to have the late night, post-party munchies.
Yes, those things all sound horrible to me, but then again I’m an antisocial dumdum who would rather staple my cheeks to the carpet than get up in front of a bunch of catty, intimidating girls to sing my personal rendition of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and then have my love handles circled with a Sharpie marker as an area to “work on.”
But however horrible as that may sound, it doesn’t come close to comparing to the kind of initiation we go through to bring a child into the world and become a member of the Motherhood.
Unlike college sorority sisters, mothers must actually put on weight and get fat. We must endure nine months of rapidly outgrowing every single article of clothing in our closet and watching the numbers on the scale creep higher and higher to scary, unknown territory, and then learn how to waddle with at least some semblance of grace.
We are forced to share our bodies with someone we haven’t even met yet and allow them to go all World Cup on us, kicking us and headbutting our ribs at all hours of the day, and most often, night.
We have to push a HUMAN out of our VAGINA. So, there’s that.
We must wear maxi pads in our bra to protect ourselves from leaking out the most precious of all liquids. Even still, we will wake up in the middle of the night to find that those pads have become useless and that we’re laying in a milky puddle. However, we’ll be too tired to get up and change our pajamas and sheets, let alone to give a shit.
We must put ourselves second to our child. While our baby will receive daily baths, we will not. While the baby will eat whenever he’s hungry, we will not. And although the baby can sleep whenever he wants, it won’t ever be when we also want to sleep.
Once we become a member of the Motherhood we are smacked upside the head with the challenges that being a mom brings, and no one will ever really see just how difficult it is until she herself is one of us. No one can look in from the outside and understand why we sometimes want to slump into an exhausted heap on the floor and cry along with our baby or why we look so disheveled and haggard for the first few months of our new baby’s life. Not everyone will understand why being a mother is the hardest job we will ever have.
But no one on the outside will ever understand the immense love that we mothers feel for our children, either.
It’s a love that is limitless, wide, and deep. It’s a love that we feel before we ever see our baby’s face and one that will last forever and ever. It’s what keeps us going when we’re tired of life, tired of all the crying, and tired of poopy diapers, one right after the other.
But ironically enough, it’s a gift, the greatest gift that we could ever be given, being initiated into the exclusive Motherhood.
I cannot believe the first week has flown by so quickly. Being a mom is everything — and nothing — like I thought it would be. It’s overwhelming, exhausting…and absolutely amazing.
I was naive to think I would have time to do much more than care for him during these early moments, so I hope you’ve been enjoying the guest posts by the wonderful women who wrote them. There are more to come during the week!
I have fallen completely in love with Owen, the wiggly, fussy little boy who came out screaming and wants me to remember exactly what that sounds like multiple times a day. We’re learing together, he and I. How to eat, how to sleep, how to be a single unit.
But this family thing? We got that down pat. Mommy, daddy and baby. (And Kodiak, too.)
Birth story to come hopefully soon. It’s a good one!
Happy 4th, everyone!
Today’s guest post is from Laura over at Navigating the Mothership. She is fab.
Hello, These Little Moments readers! First of all, HUGE congrats to Molly and family on their new addition. I am happy and honored to provide a guest post so that Molly can spend all of her free time with Owen. While I have never met Molly in real life, I feel connected to her in that funny bloggy way. I have been loving her posts about the bizarre world that is pregnancy and can’t wait to hear more about life with Owen. She really is a blogging superstar, but you already know that.
A bit about myself. My name is Laura and I grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. Yes! That’s right. People actually live there amid the tundra. Or at least grow up there. We all leave, though. Can’t imagine why. These days I’m living in Minneapolis, Minnesota with my husband, named, uh…Husband (this is possibly a pseudonym) and our one-year-old daughter, Bella.
I’m currently a stay-at-home mom (and loving it), and prior to that I worked as a dietitian. Before you start asking me for nutrition advice, I should tell you that I have a little dessert problem and eat a decadent dessert every.single.day. Sometimes twice a day. Or maybe three times. Well…we’ll just say once a day. Moderation-slash-there-are-some-things-you-shouldn’t-admit-to and all that. I guess I would describe myself as one of those yuppie-hippy types when it comes to being a mama. You know, the classic unmedicated-birth, cloth-diapering, and make-my-own-organic-baby-food trifecta that’s all the rage these days. Of course, I’m just doing it to be trendy.
But I’m not hear to bore you about my adventures of being a yuppie-hippy. Today I want to tell you about the time Husband thought I pooped my pants when I was 40 weeks pregnant. A story like this is best told with dramatic flair. I shall now exit stage left.
Scene from a Movie Theater
An Enormously-Pregnant Woman (EPW) and her husband head to the local cheapie theater to take in a flick on her due date. The husband is taking her out in an attempt to distract her from the fact that she is probably going to be pregnant forever and TLC will be forced to make a frightening documentary about it. The couple arrive at the theater and EPW tries not to see how scared all the other patrons are of her ginormous belly. Once the couple is settled into their seats, EPW is still not able to take her mind off her pregnancy as she simply cannot find a comfortable position in her seat. She keeps shifting in an attempt to get comfy, but her trickster baby then shifts herself in utero, causing further chair shifting in the woman. It’s a real shift-a-palooza. EPW gives up on getting comfortable and settles for not-in-total-pain, but this requires endless fidgeting in her chair. A half hour of the movie passes and we now find EPW slouched very low in her seat and feeling sorry for herself…
Enormously Pregnant Woman (leans over to Husband and whispers): I need a bigger uterus.
Husband (distracted as he is watching the movie and can only focus on one thing at a time): Yes.
[The woman gets a sudden baby foot sticking out of her side and she slides up quickly to try to dislodge it. In the process of sliding up, however, her yoga pants and underwear stick to the seat and she is now in a preggy pickle of having major plumber’s butt. It is not easy to swiftly and inconspicuously remedy such a situation at 10 months pregnant.]
EPW (leaning over to Husband and whispering a tad frantically): I pulled down my pants!
Husband (EXTREMELY alarmed, but aware that his pregnant wife is in a rather delicate state of mind, not to mention not exactly in full control of bodily processes these days, says in a hushed and panicked whisper): YOU POOPED YOUR PANTS?!
Woman explodes in laughter and then suffers from emotional incontinence in the form of giggling for the rest of the movie, which only serves to draw more attention to her enormously-pregnant state. On the plus side, she is finally distracted from her pregnancy. Husband’s heart slowly returns to a normal pace, but he cannot get the horrifying image of trying to help EPW and her poopy pants out of the movie theater. All other movie-goers glance nervously at the slightly hysterical EPW for the remainder of the movie, certain that a baby is about to fall out onto the floor at any moment.
[END SCENE]
Pregnancy is such a time of beauty, isn’t it? If you are in the market for more stories like this in addition to regular posts about boobs, awkward moments, and figuring out this parenting gig, then you can find me at Navigating the Mothership. If you are interested in reading the generally embarrassing play-by-play of my first pregnancy, it’s all documented at Preggy Blonde. Thank you to Molly for letting me guest blog!
These Little Moments 