clean slate

ok I'll admit it: my house is almost always cluttered and messy. I have always been a messy person, not filthy or squalor riddled but cluttered and in need of a good dusting.
A few weeks ago I got a wild hair to clean and organize the apartment. I'm not sure what triggered it, perhaps it was the lovely fall weather (that promptly disappeared after a day or two), perhaps it was all the lovely pictures of creative spaces on Pinterest, perhaps it was that fact that in an 800 sq. ft. apartment you really have to keep all spaces free of clutter because otherwise you will kill each other because you can't think straight.
Whatever the case I turned to the internet for inspiration and found it in the form of FlyLady.net. The site is coincidentally a bit cluttered but her basic approach to cleaning appealed and so I started the program.
I don't follow it to a t, I do try and get dressed every morning (the boys too!), and I do different chores on different days...most interestingly I keep my sink clean and empty. This is one of those things that I never felt capable of doing for whatever reason. I felt like keeping my kitchen that clean was the provenance of the A personality, adults, whatever. I always felt like I was still 16 inside and that I'd rather play with my kids than have a clean sink...But I do it. I clean my sink...And I like it! And now that I have I've discovered that I have more time to play with the boys and I am not distracted by a cluttered messy house. Its marvelous.

from mess to magical

Old McDonald

This time of year is perfect for living in AZ, well, it's still pretty hot but everything is growing and it's finally cool-ish at night. Fake fall, I love you.
I just got back from a trip to SF to visit my lovely very much missed sister with Z and my cousin in tow. And like every time I go on a trip I left a mostly empty fridge.
Tomorrow is Farmer's Market day by us, and there is an embarrassment of produce riches at the market: pears, lettuce, honeydew, apples, leeks, onions, heirloom tomatoes...all perfect and tasty. I've also found a marvelous ranch that has affordable, locally sourced, grass fed beef and goat (crock pot birria here I come), the farmer is hopefully going to hook me up with a small quantity of raw milk to feed to Colin for allergy prevention! Woot.
Pictures from the trip and whatnot coming up soon...also, the new plan. ;)

All Good and Perfect Gifts...Part 3

Part 1
Part 2

Nothing was happening. And I mean nothing.
Baby still wasn't moving, his heart rate kept decreasing with contractions (not alarmingly like Colin had but enough for concern) I hadn't gone past a 4 in 5 hours of strong regular contractions.
My lovely OB came in. "I know what you want, I am with you, but just in case let me see when the OR is open, I want to be ready just in case."
Surprisingly, this didn't make me defensive, or angry or panicked. I just said "all right. Let us know."
Luke looked at me with surprise. I had fought tooth and nail for a VBAC and now I was rolling over and accepting the possibility for a c-section. Dr. D left the room and I turned to my husband, I held his hand, he stroked my cheek. He kissed my head.
Dr. D came back in, we all looked at one another. "Well there is an open OR in 15 minutes or there is one available at 3 this afternoon. I can go back and reserve the room at 3 so we can do this the way you want!" She sort of trailed off and looked at me. I looked at Luke.
"No, let's go in 15 minutes, this is not going to happen the way I wanted."
It was like I wasn't even talking, I felt totally peaceful, totally at ease with giving up my dream scenario.
Dr. D let out a wooshing breath "oh thank goodness, I wanted to go in now, I just have a feeling we are going to need to be there."
Luke squeezed my hand "me too, lets do this."
Somehow without saying anything to one another we all had agreed that a c-section was our best option.
I called my mom and let her know to head down to the hospital. (It was her birthday!) She would get there in time for me to be out of surgery.
Going into the OR was a totally different experience this time.
I joked with the orderlies and nurses as they got me ready. Dr. D and the nurses and doctors talked about the Superbowl party she had that last weekend, with Luke asking about the food. My anesthesiologist went out of his way to make me comfortable, explaining to me why it was so bloody cold in there, and giving me focusing techniques for when they started.
"Let's start the clock!" Dr. D said brightly.
On the wall a digital clock started a countdown.
I felt nothing as she began the incisions, I was a little anxious but Luke was whispering to me and making me smile.
And all of a sudden, we were the only two people talking.

"Oh my God, her uterus ruptured." there was real fear in my doctor's voice. Flat out bone chilling fear. My heart stopped.

Everything began to move at an incredibly rapid pace.
I knew the score, if my uterus had ruptured the wrong way I could be bleeding out right now, depending on when it had happened the baby could have breached the uterine wall and could be dead.
I was trying to keep it together, I didn't want to be put under like last time but I was crying as the incredible pressure of getting the baby out descended on my abdomen. I could barely breathe.
Luke and the anesthesiologist were talking softly to me, trying to keep me calm and focused. Luke kept rubbing my temples, I could barely hear him but I am almost certain he was praying. The anesthesiologist made me keep telling him how i was feeling, what I needed, he would tell me the time periodically.

After what seemed like hours, but was mere moments in reality, I heard the shout. I heard him yell to the heavens, angry to be out. I grinned, I knew that whatever happened next, my son was here and whole and with us. I couldn't see him, I certainly couldn't hold him, but a great wave of love and relief washed over me. I felt nothing but overwhelming gratitude and blazing love for this tiny soul who had sent me a message: "Mama, come and get me, come and get me now"

I endured the wait while they sewed me back together. I barely remember what happened. The medicine they had used to stop contractions made me shake, I was cold. I was alive. Baby was alive. We were together. That's all that mattered.

Slowly we made our way back to the room, I tried to nurse and surprisingly got a latch, though nothing came out, not even colostrum. The toll of a stressful birth is the delay of your milk coming in. So once again, my kids first meal outside my body was formula. His dad got to feed him. And I was just fine with that.

My milk came in finally at the end of my long hospital stay. I had a blood transfusion, it took me a while to come back to myself. But 6 days after we went in, we got ready to leave. Our little family was complete.

Later, on the day Z was born, when my doctor came in to see me, we learned that after Dr. D had gotten through the layers of muscle and fat, Ezekiel's hand and arm were reaching up and out of the reopened scar of my first c-section. He had totally breached the wall of the uterus, the old scar had undergone a catastrophic dehiscence and he was making his escape. We joked about our "teeny Houdini", and tried to keep the mood light, I had lost less blood with a complete uterine rupture than another woman had in a regular c-section down the hall! Then Dr. D looked at me, any trace of joking gone from her face "when i saw his little hand sticking out, that's when I started to pray. I am so glad you're both here and you're both fine."

Writing about the birth of my second, and last, baby was a long process. It took me 6 months to work through my emotions. So much could have gone wrong, so much could have gone horribly wrong and when I thought about it, it made me broke out in a cold sweat. And still I felt guilty about "giving in" to another c-section. The natural birthing community I feel so strongly attached to (despite my "unnatural" births) feels that my c-sections were mistakes, were part of a medical community that views laboring mothers as paychecks that take to long to finish, that given the right conditions, if I had just stood up for myself I could have had the labor and delivery I dreamed of. And yet both c-sections saved my life, saved my babies lives.
I felt very conflicted about this.
And after 6 months of praying, of processing, I came to the conclusion that I shared at the beginning of my story. That we feel so out of control, our only natural impulse is to control everything we can. And yet, and yet, it is only in letting go of everything, in giving up any and all little bits of control, whatever shape that release may take, it is only then that there is enough room for that huge love to take over. To overwhelm us. To set us blazing with love for that new soul just arrived.

I titled this "All good and perfect gifts..." because I know without a doubt that is was God who helped me arrive at the place of peace. That it was God who stretched me bigger than myself and helped me let go of the control. It was God that had His hand in the final outcome and the outcome was so perfect, so good, such a blessing. I thank my God for that incredible gift.

All Good and Perfect Gifts...Part 2

The Birth of Ezekiel Ryan (Part One)...

I should pause here and tell you that I assumed I would be sent home this night. I called my mother in law because we had to drop off Colin, I called my doula but told her to stay home unless I called and told her we were admitted and I called my mom because when you're in back labor and it hurts like a sonofabitch you want your mama a little bit. But I was certain, despite the regular contractions, that I would peter out to nothing like the 2 other times this had happened and I would be sent home. I was SURE of it. Sort of. I thought this crazy pain just might be doing something.
We arrived at the hospital and are taken to a triage room. At this point I am having insane back labor and my contractions have been 3 minutes apart for almost an hour. I have been contracting regularly for at least 2 hours. Nothing much in the grand scheme of things but with a previous c-section doctors prefer to monitor strong contractions, even low intervention doctors like my dreamy OB, the risk of rupture is enough that they like you to go in when the contractions get regular and strong so they can monitor you. I was not thrilled about getting hooked up to monitors but the nurse said it sounded like I was laboring pretty good and wanted to do an internal exam to see how far I had progressed.
Now if you have been a woman in labor you know that the internal exam WHILE you are contracting is the worst pain. It is ALWAYS awkward, it ALWAYS takes to long, and it ALWAYS ALWAYS makes the next contractions 3 times worse. I was at an 9 on the pain scale. The lovely, excited for me nurse does the exam, I fully expect her to tell me 3 centimeters...her face falls a little, she recovers and makes her features impassive. "Weeellll, you're at almost 1 centimeter."
My mouth drops open.
And promptly slams shut because I was hit with a massive wall of pain.
I hadn't progressed. At all.
Zero progression.
-I'm sure most veteran mom's would say "oh honey only 3 hours of labor (we waited a while)? oh that's nothing" But my fabulous marvelous doula had said to me a few weeks earlier: "Meg, your pain is yours. This isn't a competition. If your pain is a 10 on the scale, then treat it like a 10 and stop thinking 'A stronger person, a better person would only call this an 8' because that's some crap." And so I say to those veteran mom's: suck it. -
I bit my lip to keep from wailing as the tears streamed down my face. The nurse politely excused herself to call my doctor. No progression? They were going to send me home. I was in this crushing pain and all I could do was go home and fill up my tub and wait for something to happen. I wept. I cursed. I told Luke he better fight for them to do something, ANYTHING. I didn't know what but he needed to FIX IT. (I was at a 9 on the pain scale, coherent thought was not topping my list of priorities.)
There was a knock at the door and I pulled myself together. I pride myself on keeping it together-ish in front of strangers, even as I have back labor and am contracting 3 minutes apart. "Do you want an epidural?" The nurse asked brightly.
"Excuse me?"
"Dr. Deka is admitting you so we can keep an eye on you, your contractions are strong and regular and you were a previous C-section so... did you want an epidural? because we have to push fluids for a while if you do."
My mouth dropped open again. Bless that woman. "yes. please." (yes, I got the drugs. I have no problem with the drugs, and my 4 year old seems to be just fine, dandy and attached to me despite my insistence on the drugs during his birth)
"okey doke! Let's get you over to your room, it'll be just a minute."
Time ceases to flow naturally. I am still contracting, I am still at 1 centimeter, but none of that matters because I am getting admitted! That means I will totally have a baby in the next day or so! (I am always a realist, I know labor takes a BUTTLOAD of time) In this in between time, I call my doula, my mom, and my mother in law. I tell my mom and mom in law to stay home, nothing would be happening for a while, I tell my doula to come on down even though I am having the epidural.
We are arranged in a birthing suite. It is roomy and quiet. Dim, we realize we forgot our music at home.
The anesthesiologist arrives and starts my drip, easiest needle to the spine I ever got. My doula arrives mere seconds after that and reminds me to stay on top off the pain, she reminds me once again to rest, to gather my strength. So I do, fitfully, hearing the buzz and bipp of machines, the shwowwowwow of baby's heart, Tammy and Luke chatted quietly, nurses checked in every now and then.
Time passed. Nothing much at all happened. It was peaceful.
To peaceful.
My main nurse came in with a little buzzing wand. "Baby is not moving much and we just want to see if we can get him to move around and get things going"
She pushed the buzzy wand to my abdomen around the same time as a contraction. Baby's heart rate jumped and then plummeted.
"hmmm" she tried again. Again the jump and the dramatic drop.
I'd seen this with Colin, I started to get a little agitated.
"Don't worry, let's check you and see if relaxing with the epidural helped move things along any"
I can't for the life of me remember where I was, 3? 4? I had progressed but the contractions were still incredibly strong and baby still wasn't moving and his heart rate kept dropping.
My OB walked in. "Hi! I think if we rupture the bag of waters things will really start to get going! I also want to put you on an internal monitor. You're doing great but baby is being dramatic, I want to keep a close eye on him!"
I smiled, I looked at my doula "I think it's a great option, but remember that once the bag is ruptured they are going to put you on a timeline. With the drop in heart rate the internal monitor will let them keep a closer watch on Ziggy (Z's nickname in utero) and you're dealing with wires already. It's fairly invasive but I trust Dr. Deka."
"Let's do it" After some sleep I was feeling good, feeling confident.
A guy came in to use the crochet hook on me, I couldn't tell you who he was I was just excited to be experiencing feeling my water break! (An emergency c-section after a week in active labor with no progression doesn't allow for water breaking) Laboring like a real girl! WOOO!
This next bit probably took all of a couple of minutes but it felt like an hour:
They ask me to move my butt down a little and spread em.
With the epidural this is difficult but do-able
As the doctor ruptures the bag, I have a huge contraction and feel the water go everywhere.
The baby's heartrate bottoms out.
My heart stops for a second.
Baby's heartbeat stays low.
They insert an internal monitor, everyone is calm, telling me that he probably just shifted.
Baby's heartbeat stays low.
I am starting to freak out.
The nurse asks me to get on my hands and knees "to try and move baby out of the distress position"
And so with strength borne of panic for my son I haul my half numbed ass up and over on to all fours.
bippbippbipp went the machine, showowwowwow went the heart.
Baby's heart beat goes back to normal.
I stay on all fours for a little while, it feels surreal, like I am resting on someone else's knees but I am willing to endure the insanity of it to hear those wooshy beats.
A nurse comes in and helps me get back into a more comfortable position, baby has stabilized and everything seems to be going back to normal.
Contractions still strong. I am on a timeline now but still not progressing. Stalled at 4. Baby's heart keeps periodically dipping low, something is wrong but not wrong enough to make alarms go off like last time. I am not panicking but I am praying for guidance, and it keeps coming to me that I am going to have another c-section. Somehow, in my mind I feel peaceful about this. From somewhere comes the message that I am not meant to have my babies like everyone else, and that's okay.
It's 7 am.

Last bit coming tomorrow!

Good and Perfect Gifts...6 months later, The Birth of Ezekiel Ryan

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights..." James 1:17

So much of my labor and delivery this time around was different. And not just because, clearly, it was my second go at it, not just because because I felt more confident, more educated, more sure of myself. So much was different because I finally learned what I was supposed to from the experience: we make our labor and delivery so much about us, we mothers. We focus on what I want, what I need, how I feel, what I do...and who can blame us? In a situation so entirely out of our control, so ripe with uncertainty and risk, making a plan for how to have a baby is something we can be sure of, something we can cling to and when it doesn't go our way it gives us something to blame, something tangible to be angry and disappointed about. The lesson I learned from the birth of my second baby: there is no controlling life. There is no "the way I want to do this" when that new soul comes screaming from your womb...and like it or not, we can't make it all about mama, cause baby needs us to think only of him. With every breath, with every heartbeat, baby has only us, mama, to give every little thing he needs...and to give it joyfully and without reservation, even if it means giving up our "perfect birth".

I was 4 days late. Like his elder brother, Z was clinging to the walls of my uterus with tenacity. Wretched.
Rewind a few months: Because I was a previous C-section trying for a VBAC my dreamy OB said: no induction. no way. Pitocin causes contractions to become to dangerous. Again and again we cited the "tiny miniscule" percentage of people who have uterine ruptures while attempting a VBAC. My doctor didn't want anything to cause unnecessary risk, she was on board with having a natural vaginal birth. Ooooh Boy was I thrilled. I would be monitored in the hospital because of my previous complications (again that previa last time around was completely missed) but everyone agreed to respect that I wanted a low intervention birth, I had a fabulous doula who had my back and was ready to fight fiercely for me...
So fastforward back to where we started, rotten kiddo was hanging in, and hanging in good. I was super miserable, baby was posterior and somehow causing pelvic pain so severe I couldn't walk without the aid of pain medication. WHAT A TREAT!
THe Birdie slept at his Nana's house Saturday night, my mom and stepdad love having him overnight and since Sunday was the first day of Luke's paternity leave (did I MENTION I was 4 days past due?) we thought it would be a good chance to try "kickstarting things" (if you know what I mean? wink wink). It didn't work because Sunday morning found me on my way to church.
Yes I was supposed to have a baby any moment, but since my husband works for our church I almost never get to sit with him so I wasn't about to squander the chance to worship with him! It was also a baptism Sunday, and at our church that's a fun day. Everyone gathers between services in the amphitheater where our baptismal pool is and we cheer everytime someone comes up from the water gasping and grinning. It was a nice distraction from my ceaseless pain and exhaustion.
Luke and I enjoyed the service, though I couldn't tell you what we studied. My doula was there and whispered to the baby through my belly. "Come out little one! We can't wait to meet you!" She reminded me again that she had her cell phone, to be patient, to rest and enjoy Colin. She's an amazing doula.
We climbed in the car and drove to downtown Phoenix to have a delicious breakfast at lovely little restaurant called Local Breeze.I ate a perfect omelet and hash browns, i remember this because it was the last real meal I ate that day. It was divine. We packed up our leftovers, kissed my mom and stepdad and went home for a nap.
The rest of my day was a blur of a lot of the same. Watched a movie, napped, smooched on Colin. I got antsy around 7:30 or 8 and put out a call on Facebook for walking partners. My darling friend Amy (who is training to be a midwife!) came to Target to pick up a few last minute snacky things and books for the hospital bag, we filled the gas tank, did some laps around the big box store, she applied counterpressure to my back and swayed with me when I had a couple of big contractions in the home goods aisle.
I went home disappointed that my water hadn't broken, that the laps hadn't inspired more regular contractions. It was around 9:30 and I had another big strong stop me in my tracks contraction before I wearily climbed into bed next to my already snoozing kiddo and sleepy husband.
I slept.
I dreamt of the color red and the sound of lightening. It was a clear night.
3 hours go by.
I woke up with my back arching against the pain of a contraction.
It faded in that throbbing way contractions have.
5 minutes. Deep boiling pain in my lower back and pelvis. I bit my lips.
5 minutes. Arching against the pain didn't help, hunching with it didn't help.
5 minutes. Child's pose and deep breathing with the pain this time. Takes the edge off but it continues.
5 minutes. I cry out this time. My kid and my husband don't even stir.
5 minutes. Child's pose has ceased to take the edge off, my breathing is shallowing out. I am moaning now. I need Luke to help me focus.
"Babe. Babe. Luke. LUKE!"
5 minutes. Luke groggily shakes himself awake.
He times me. I snap that I've been at it for a half hour. Deep strong pain, my back feels like someone is trying to wrench apart my spine with dull pliers.
5 minutes. 5 minutes. 5 minutes. 5 minutes. 5 minutes. An hour has passed since the wretched gnome with the dull pliers climbed into my lower back and decided to clumsily dismantle it. We make the executive decision to pack up, call my mother in law (who lives 5 minutes from the hospital) and head in.
Every 5 minutes, and then 3 minutes I have to stop, moan loudly, pray loudly, breathe deeply, cry out.
Colin sleeps through it all, even through the transfer to his car seat. Amazing.
I call my mother and between shouts I tell her we are on our way in. I call my doula and tell we're headed in. I call my mother in law and tell her we are headed to her house.
3 minutes apart.

To Be Continued!

after the hiatus...

(image taken from my car, on the HUGE storm that rolled through last summer and trashed everything)

Tonight I sat on the steps leading up to our little apartment (did I mention we've moved? It added to the length of the break methinks) and watched the rain pour down and the wind whip the trees and lightning flash purpley grey...it was a perfect Arizona monsoon. And I decided to end my long bloggy silence.
Not just because a good solid rainshower washed the cobwebs out of my brain.
Or because we just returned from our annual vacation up to the cool north of our lovely state.
Or because my beloved poppa in law mentioned he was thirsty for news and pictures of us, being so far away in Michigan and I can't deny him anything because I adore him so.
It was all of those things.
So there is a snippet of my day: I sat in the evening and enjoyed the rumble and patter of a summer rainstorm.

messages

I have not progressed very much, and my whole little family is battling seasonal allergy aches and pains (especially my tough little guy, he has a terrible cough), we are not quite ready for a kiddo to join us but I am to achey and exhausted to nest properly. I was feeling overwhelmed and crazy yesterday. Just ready to go into my doc and say: "get it over with, let's re-schedule the c-section for tomorrow".
I was driving and flipping around the radio and happened upon this song...and just like that I felt energized, I felt comforted, I was reminded that:
This is the stuff that drives me crazy
This is the stuff that's getting to me lately
In the middle of my little mess, I forget how big I'm blessed
This is the stuff that gets under my skin
But I've gotta trust You know exactly what You're doin'
It might not be what I would choose, but this is the stuff You use.

Song and Dance

inspired by the lovely news that I am 1 cm dilated and that my OB thinks I may in fact deliver a little early (in the next week!) I have been hard at work compiling my labor and delivery playlists

One of the myriad odd things I did to earn money in college (build sets for an opera, work the morning shift at a bakery, wrote grants for small non-profits) was sound design and sound engineering for local theatres. Now this is not at all what it sounds like, I was really a glorified DJ most times but it was usually good for a couple hundred bucks (less than Stage Managing, something else I did, but less time commitment). I pulled together music (generally royalty free blahblah) and put it order, showed up for dress rehearsal week and was a button monkey in the booth for a couple weeks or however long the run lasted.
(As an aside, my husband is an ACTUAL sound engineer (who does it for a living), as is our friend Phil (who mixes for headliner bands that you have heard of), and they do a whole lot more than press play on a CD player and push a slider up to make it louder or quieter in a 100 seat theatre. They have to actually mix the instruments and performers and what have you and get paid WAY more money than I ever made...and thank God because they are damned good at what they do)
Anyway, one of the fun things I have done to prepare for Babylove's arrival is to make myself some mix CD's to listen to while laboring. Some mixes have songs I can sing along to (does anyone else sing when they are in pain? No? Just me?), some have only instrumental songs. I asked Facebook for good suggestions and was delighted with all the good songs people came up with.
I added in some songs that make me smile, among them Sam and Dave's Hold On, I'm Comin' and Elizabeth Mitchell's Little Wing. And of course, since Babylove's first concert (in utero still counts!) was Jack Johnson, Better Together.
So now I'm curious: what are your top 5 labor and delivery songs? Songs that you could blast to make you feel strong and joyful and ready to have that baby!

before

“Do you know a cure for me?”
“Why yes,” he said, “I know a cure for everything. Salt water.”
“Salt water?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he said, “in one way or the other. Sweat, or tears, or the sea.”

~Isak Dinesen


The Birth of Colin Jacob Taylor, April 15th 2007
SO
I spent the second week of April miserable because I am in fake labor. I have regular contractions, am 4 cm dilated and 95% effaced and yet? STALLED. Full stop, no progress after that. I want to kill everyone, I weigh 200 pounds and have heartburn all the time.
On April 12th or so, after being stalled for a week, my doctor says: "no baby by Sunday? We'll induce ya!"
Not thrilled about this but really want the baby out.
Say okay.
On April 14th (Saturday - after my sister has come up and gone back down to Tucson twice and the day before my sister and brother in law leave for Texas until their wedding in November basically) the phone rings at 5 pm: "Hi! come to the hospital! Get an IV! Have a baby!"
It's a bit anticlimactic.
SO we do so.
At least the first two.
I labor.
I watch the beginning of "Young Frankenstein".
I say some funny things that Luke records.
The initial IV of penicilin (I am a Strep B positive kind of girl) pokes through my vein and I get a crazy bolus of water under my skin. They flush it.
The second IV burns like a mother. I'm told that's normal.
I forget to use my video camera.
The Pitocin kicks in.
ow ow ow.
Contractions, while less painful than I anticipated, still hurt. Like woah.
I ask for my epidural. Because God created drugs for a reason.
In the midst of my contractions they make me walk.
Yes walk.
to my L&D room.
I hobble down the corridor.
I curse Scottsdale Shea.
I sit on the bed.
The lovely epidural man comes in. I love him. Way more than Luke at this moment.
He stabs me in the back and I barely feel it...one contraction later...I feel nothing. BLISS!
The nurse hands me an oxygen mask because the baby's heart rate keeps dropping when I contract.
This makes me nervous but not a huge amount.
The same nurse checks my progress - I have not progressed.
Then she looks mildly alarmed.
She asks me about placenta previa.
I know I do not have this but being asked is not a calming thing.
I notice a rather large amount of blood on her glove.
They call my OB.
The Doctor comes in.
(I'm sure I spoke to my mom and my dad and sister and my in-laws but I have no recolelction of that - my mother has told me that they were in the hallway after the internal exam and the nurses were freaking out about the amount of blood and were rushing to call my OB)
She lays it out for me:
Baby in distress, lots of blood from me = C-Section.
I am not pleased.
Doctor reminds me that we could do it my way but if I don't progress and things continue that we'll be rushing down the hall with more of an emergency than we already have.
I say okay.
I cry.
I get little scrubs as does Luke.
I love him again. He is quite the rock at this point.

After this it gets hazy:
The OR was freezing.
I had a bad reaction to the drugs.
The baby's cord was wrapped around his throat, and I could feel them cauterizing my veins as they worked.
Unpleasant.
Right after they took Colin out they knocked me out because I was having a panic attack like woah.
I couldn't breathe, my heart was racing I was shaking uncontrollably.

Luke took pictures bless him.
He captured the 8 pounds 8 ounces on the scale.
We birthed a tiny tax refund at 3 in the morning April 15th.
They took us back to the room (which was massively huge) and tried to get me to breastfeed, as I am drugged out my skull this was not easy.
We give up.
I cry again.
I feel like a failure.
Then I fall asleep because failure or no I had just been working for quite a while also, major surgery.
Luke got to feed Colin his first meal outside of my body.
It was formula.
I assume he liked it.

The next 5 days were clearer.
And not as eventful (until our last night when Little Tiny decided to rip out his umbilical stump on the only night I was alone as I had sent Luke home to sleep on something comfortable. THANKS SON!) and finally we brought home our wee linebacker.

I have been told by several nurses after recounting my birth story that it sounds like I had undiagnosed previa. This was sort of confirmed this time around when I was sent back for another ultrasound because my placenta was lying a little low at 20 weeks. And when my current OB told me she would not use pit on me because I am high risk. FUN!
I left my old OB for a myriad reasons, not the least of which was the chaos of my first birth. This time around I have a doctor who listens to me and respects me. I also have a doula coming with me who is a dear friend who knows the medical lingo and will fight for what I want. Despite being high risk my OB considers me a very good candidate for a VBAC and I am looking forward to going into labor naturally and experiencing the delivery on my own terms.
That being said, I have no birth plan other than: Meet my healthy, strong child. This time around I have learned that more than anything else, everything is in God's control and so I have had an easier time preparing for labor and delivery. I know that everything that comes together is done for my good and that He will be with me no matter what. It's a comfort and strength. 2 weeks to go!

Various and Sundry Presents from the kitchen

you can ignore this or place your order!

Spiced Hot Cocoa Mix

Apple Cranberry Sparkler hand pies

Tart Cherry or Blueberry Scones

Brown Sugar Shortbreads

Gingerbread Ladies

Tea Cookies

Caramel Sea Salt Brownies

Girl Trap Chocolate Peanut Butter kisses

Dulce De Leche

Peasant Bread

Cheese Crisps

Also I figure meal vouchers with a little sample menu attached wouldn't go awry...

The Pie Distraction

photo via Flick User Cobalt123
I forgot to post yesterday. I have been a bit stalled out creatively and since the weather has been nice (ok, yesterday it was nice) I haven't wanted to be sitting in front of the computer. sigh.
Let me make it up to you with a story:
About a week ago I applied on a whim to make pies for a local restaurant/vintage shop. I did this because I quite like making pies (and quiche and whatnot) and assumed I would never hear from them because I am not at all a professional pastry chef. Not by anyone's stretched imagination.
Imagine my surprise when they called me Thursday night and asked me to come down to interview for the position! I gathered up some recipes and wore comfortable clothes and prepared to tell them that yes I was 6 months pregnant but luckily baking is something I can do (and do often at home!) up to and after I have the baby! Woo!
I drove to the most awesome converted warehouse space just south of the big ballpark in downtown Phoenix. Inside I found a very harried building manager and heaps of gorgeous vintage clothes, an old school gym, a soda fountain, and an Airstream trailer that housed a full kitchen...amongst other awesomeness.
I spoke very briefly to the building manager who has been making the desserts. As it turns out she needs someone to take that job from her so she can do her 1,000,000 other duties. I spoke to the kitchen manager who was a lovely man who really thought I could do the job and liked my style and showed me the whole space.
As it turns out they are just a bunch of people who have a passion for this and are trying to make it work. None of them are professional chefs, have ever run a restaurant, let alone an indie mini-mall (it will eventually house a local flower shop, a record store and another clothing section...and of course a pie shop!) and they are looking for someone with just as little experience and just as much passion as them to do it too!
The kitchen manager told me I was at the top of the list for the letter I sent along with my resume (which is WOEFULLY short on food service experience). That they would love to have me come in and try to do the job...once they nail down what the job is. But they want my help with that too.
So I am going back to The Duce, hopefully the next week, to talk with the owners of the building and the building manager again. To try and figure out what they would pay me, when I would work there, and how I can help them become a force to be reckoned with in the downtown scene.
And truthfully? If it doesn't work out, I will totally patronize them anyway, they have awesome stuff and their food is to die for! If you're in downtown Phoenix anytime, go check them out, try the lemonade (holy delicious), pick up some vintage clothes or have a burger and check out the sign for "The Pie Whole" on your way out, it's next to the coffee shop...maybe that will be my space! :)

Stalled.

516 words in and my 5th attempt at NaNoWriMo is stalled out. bah.
Maybe if the shortest external member of our family would take a nap and let me work in peace I'd have a chance. Here is what he does instead of quiet time. PLease excuse the state of my home.

Trivia

this is the first midterm election I have failed to vote in since I have been able to vote. I almost cried when I realized I wasn't getting to the polls today. We vote in the PRIMARIES at our house, that's how crazy we are about doing our civic duty.

sigh.

This means I don't get to complain about the government for 2 years. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with myself.


I hope you were not like me and made time in your day to get to your polling place and vote. My polling place offers free candy as an incentive. I personally vote because I have control issues and would like to see government run exactly the way I imagine it should. :)

thinking

Myself, Ohio, July 2006

Some days I put the people in their places at the table,
bend their legs at the knees,
if they come with that feature,
and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs.

All afternoon they face one another,
the man in the brown suit,
the woman in the blue dress,
perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved.

But other days, I am the one
who is lifted up by the ribs,
then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse
to sit with the others at the long table.

Very funny,
but how would you like it
if you never knew from one day to the next
if you were going to spend it

striding around like a vivid god,
your shoulders in the clouds,
or sitting down there amidst the wallpaper,
staring straight ahead with your little plastic face?

Some Days by Billy Collins

Title

photo by Luke taken on our 3 year wedding anniversary

It took a pregnancy hormone fueled emotional meltdown to get me to write today. The meltdown was last week, but the takeaway lasted.
So here I sit, eating gummi bears that should be hoarded for potty training rewards and wondering where I begin...
I am not yet 30. My nails are chewed down to the quick, my arms are freckled, my toenail polish is chipping off. My breasts are striped with the marks of 4 pregnancies: 2 failed, 1 in process, and 1 marvelous failure of a successful labor and delivery winning me a gorgeous ball of 3 year old boy. My heart is criss-crossed with the slashing scar of the heartbreak of a divorce before 25, the myriad remnants of a thousand cutting remarks made by a man who was also to young to be marrying anyone, the deeper wounds of a high school relationship fraught with screams and fists and emotional terrorism and yet there too is the soothing balm of marrying my best friend in the world...1 year after I ended my first marriage, the healing over of those old wounds at the hands of a man whom had seen me through the initial injuries, who loved me despite my trauma. My long brown hair has been purple, has been less than an inch long, has been salted with silver since I was 19 and I have permanently marked my body with ink 10 times, I will do it 10 more times before I am finished with that particular obsession. I am legally blind without my glasses, I wear no jewelry except my wedding ring. I have been a million different people in the last 5 years and therein lies the breakdown.
I have been daughter: once
Sister: once
cousin: dozens upon dozens of times over
wife: twice
mother: spoken aloud only to one, but felt 4 times over yet.
I have been Christian and Liberal and Feminist and Friend and Lover and Confidant and Mentor. I have been student and teacher. I have been lost and found, Sane and Mentally ill.
I have worn a million labels, been a million things to a million people and last Friday, on a non-descript hot September day I lost track of who I was to myself.

Does that even make sense?

I have come to believe that the feminine spirit in us is what makes us elastic, capable of survival, of bending and curving and not ripping in two. There are some who have been blessed (cursed?) with it in abundance, some have just enough so that the inevitable changes in life (moving to a new home, meeting new people) don't cause them to go catatonic. I am a fairly stretchy individual.
And that has given me no end of grief in this life of mine of late.
I stretch to be the wife I think my husband wants, needs, longs for. I twist to be the mother my son needs, the mother society wants me to be. The Christian the church wants me to be, who God wants me to be. Dutiful daughter, available friend...
I stretch and bend and change and 5 years after taking an incredible risk to end a toxic way of life, I begin to believe that I am 1/3 the person I once was. That who I was, before my divorce, before my son, before leaving school was this vibrant impassioned individual and who I am now is bland, colorless, simple: mommywifegirl.
I have stretched right out of myself and into a person I don't recognize.
I wrote a letter to a dear friend trying to capture what it was I was feeling:

I read old correspondence and I can picture myself writing the things I wrote to all of you but I can't seem to muster up that energy in the woman who is typing these words to you now. As though in becoming more still, in releasing those vicious whispers that made up my specific brand of crazy, I also became thinner, paler, less like myself. And when I try and bring that old me back to life it feels forced, it feels hollow...like knocking on the door of a room you know is empty. What's more irritating is that I find that after a bit of rumination I am perfectly fine with this "less than" version of myself...and that just pisses me right the hell off.
I try not to compare the two, the woman I was had completely different circumstances than me...And I try and remind myself that the woman I am, is just that: who I am. End of story, somehow it seems less than comforting.

This hollow sound echoing back was what got me weeping the other day. The thought that I really was less than who I was. A shadow of my former self, so to speak.
I began thinking of the titles we give ourselves and how we start to limit ourselves within them and the barriers get tighter and WE're (the real we, the we under all those layers of people) squeezed almost out of existence.
I wept and raged and Luke sat by me and rubbed my back and waited it out...
And eventually I stopped because I realized that I have chosen to be here and that there is benefit to that. There is a big difference between sleeping with a new person every weekend and being so vulnerable with one person you can't imagine sleeping next to anyone but them for the rest of your life. There is a big difference between staying out all night just to see where the adventure takes you and the adventure in watching your kids face light up when they discover something new. It's investment and understanding the arc of one's own narrative. Because who I was has built who I am. That passionate, angry, fuzzy woman I was laid the foundation for the passionate, still, focused person I am. I have earned my sorrow through all the experiences that led me here but I was forgetting about the joy that accompanied it.
There is nothing "less than" about growing a family, nothing less risky or passionate or lovely than choosing the a life for yourself that is made up of good things...even if sometimes the good things seem a little bland. A little everyday.
We have to handle the repetition and monotony as gracefully as we can, and when the pockets of brilliance come, indulge. Because truly that's all anyone can ask for.