a year ago this month

a year ago September my toddler got his port put in. He started IVIG infusions to treat his faulty immune system.
Oh port, how I love thee. Oh IVIG how I love thee too.
In the last year he has only been septic once. Only had 2 serious skin infections. Only 6 or 7 ear infections (yes, he already has tubes). Only had 2 lung infections worth noting. Only a couple sinus infections. I suppose that sounds terrible to some of you, now that I wrote it out. But his first year and a half was spent swinging from one catastrophic illness to the next. So this is So Good. The other thing is- most of those were in the first half of the year. This summer was just amazing for us. Amazing. He hasn't been admitted to the hospital in 9 months!! He has spent weeks on end being healthy.
Today is another infusion. His 16th. I am stressed, I am always stressed about them, but I am so thankful for them. My boy-in-a-bubble has been to the zoo! The science center! the library! The park! What scary germ infested places! We used caution, and boatloads of sanitizer, but we WENT. Like real people.

IVIG doesn't "build up". You are super healthy after an infusion, and average a week or so later, and at risk again after a couple of weeks as your body uses up the antibodies you recieved. He was still sick in the early months because your body is more than just antibodies. His organs were taxed, his central nervous system was fried, his vitamin and mineral stores were depleted. He was still recovering. Every cell in his body was so abused in the first year and a half that each one needed to heal. The IVIG did its best to keep infections at bay while he healed up. Every month he got stronger. Every month he got healthier. Every season our lives got closer to normal.

My boy is 2 and a half years old. He is robust, rosy cheeked, delightful. His energy, humor, and charm will melt your heart. He is not just alive, he is LIVELY.

IVIG how I love thee.

10 years ago

I'm late on this, I meant to post this last month.
10 years ago in August I got pregnant with my first child.
I have spent EVERY SINGLE DAY since then pregnant or nursing or both. Happy Decade to me!

The thing about the water

so, you know, we all have quirks right? Its not *just* the in laws. Even *I* have quirks. I'm not afraid to admit it. So I have this *thing* about water. I grew up in a house where "water is for washing" and we just didn't drink it. I was a koolaid kid. I grew up. I discovered the pleasures of icy cold water in a condensation covered glass. I love me some icy cold water now.
But I'm a freak about it. I like tap water (oh the horror) but only from our city. I come home from vacations dehydrated. I drink just enough to sustain life until I get back to my beloved water. I used to drink Diet Coke. But slip me a can made in New York and I'd practically spit it out- made with the wrong water you know. I drink water all day- and all night. I have to pour out the water instead of adding to it every couple of hours. Especially before bed. Because otherwise its going to stale by breakfast time.
Yes, I said my water would go stale. It tastes dusty to me. And old. And its just nasty. Once my sweet husband put a glass of water in the cupboard. And I left mine right there in the fridge door, which is where I like it to be unless I am sitting right beside it (I'll get to that). When at LAST I had been busy long enough for MY water to be room temperature he gleefully brought me a glass of water. They looked the same. But I took a sip and made That Face, you know the one, the one all 4 year olds make when eating liver and brussel sprouts (except me since I LIKED those things even as a 4 year old). I declared it stale. He accused me of seeing the dust-collected cupboard water. He sputters there is NO WAY it tastes different. Whatever- it does to ME, Freak-at-your-service.

Now the other thing is this. If you have small children you may have listened to a few Raffi songs. Perhaps you know "the sharing song"? I tend to alter the words when it comes to my beverages. My version is "Its mine and you can't have some, with you I'll never share it, cause if I share some with you, you'll have it all" I'm not afraid they'll drink it all. I just don't want it back. I will lick my husbands tongue, but I don't want to share water with him. I wipe my childrens butts, but I don't want to drink after them. I took a shower with 3 extra people this morning- so I'll share my soap but not my cup.

When I travel, anywhere, I bring my precious water. Ten minute run to the store? Have water will travel. Sometimes I spend a day with my mom. I start with my glass of water and all is well.... until she reaches over and drinks some. I see her lipstick smudge on my glass and feel the bile rise into my throat. Of course it would be rude to say "you evil wench! you ruined my water!" so instead I say "gee I'm in the mood for a juice" and I buy me a juice, and her a pop. And all is well... until- Ohhh Myyyy Goooood she's drinking my juice! WHY? Why? WWWHHHHYYYYY? and she says "mmm you choose the most interesting flavors" And so then I must say "gosh I think I want a pop. She offers me her coke. I say "ohh I'm in the mood for a sprite" and she says "that sounds delightful! we'll split one!" So I say thats a great idea. And I buy a sprite- and ANYTHING else. Some red pop or omething. I get back in the car and say "oh I saw this and it looked too good to leave behind, but heres your sprite"
And you know damn well she just HAS to try it.

So if this is how I feel about people, relatives, imagine what happens when my cat walks by and sticks his paw in my water and licks it and sticks it back in over and over. The Horror! Soooo unless I am Right There to gaurd my water it must live in the fridge door where it is safe from harm. But other people, instead of sliding it to the ice side while they get their water put it on the counter! And leave it there!! And then............... cat paws.

Night after night I woke up to Exposed Water. So I had a brilliant idea. I am a GENIUS! I solved the problem! I.... boobytrapped my glass!!! I lay my eyeglasses over my water glass and head to bed. If the cat tries to drink my water the glasses will be knocked off and I'll know! YES! I'm saved!

Some times my water tasted funny. I decided it was stale and refilled. No trauma. No drama. UNTIL.

Until yesterday. My baby got me out of bed at 10 to 5 and we wandered into the livingroom, headed for my water. There on the table stood my cat. Right beside my glass! And WHERE do you think his paw was? Thats right. IN MY WATER! And he deftly pulled it up, NOT knocking off my glasses and licked it. And then? He looked me in the eye and dipped that paw again. I swear to you he smiled at me with great smugness while he did it.

Meanwhile I considered amputating my tongue. My cat-germ infested tongue.

summerin'

The kids caught tiny baby toads last week, they are smaller than crickets! We have a really cute tank set up, and soon we’ll release them in my sister’s yard by her pond. The children will make little toad houses to place in the shady spots between the trees where the ferns and things grow.
It’s such a busy summer here. Connor is 9 and his body begs him to keep moving. He rushes from pool to scooter, to rope swing to bike, he races and climbs. Skye turns 8 this month. She has always been “old” preferring to chat with adults while her toys collected dust. Its her nature to be helpful though and she’s very nurturing, so this summer she plays more simply because the little boys want her too. Trew is 4, he thinks he can do everything Connor can. He wants all the attention and babying the littler kids get. He’s caught between little kid and big kid, he’s dramatic about everything. He’s testing his limits- and ours as well, how high can he climb in that tree? How high will we let him go? If he scrapes his knee how loudly can he wail before we nag at him to calm down instead of scoop him up and kiss him? I love to watch him test himself though, at that age the kids kind of find out who they are. Lochlan charges around like a tank. He’s full of purpose and built so, sturdy ;) that you expect that “bull in a china shop” experience, he is surprisingly sure-footed and graceful though. He is testing out the swing we hang from our tree, seeing which swings he can manage and how. He makes tea in the little kitchen, and since the tea pot is real I will brew a little and cool it and put it in his pot and let him pour a little cup of tea. I always think he’ll spill it, but he doesn’t. He loves the pool. He loves the park. He’s always busy doing something. Twenty times a day he cries out “Weed Me! Weed at me!” needing someone to read to him, or “sit dare sit dare cats” for sit there, sit there, catch because he wants to roll a truck or ball to you and have you roll it back. Sweet Nola is changing and growing too. Still the warm, soft, snuggled in of new babies. Still the smell of milk-fed innocence. But wide eyed, grabbing, mouthing everything, drenched in drool. On the floor she rolls to her target and grabs hold. In the bouncy she curls her monkey toes around the hanging toys and talks to them. We laugh at her when she sings us songs. She has grown fat and ticklish, the kids adore her. She laughs at peek-a-boo games, loves the tub (the pool is often to cold for her), and has a habit of holding eye contact for a LONG unblinking time, prompting Connor to say “look Deep into my eyes” in a funny voice.
I love mothering. It makes me feel lucky, every day.

Ellie and the phone

This is what happened several years ago. When my MIL was a drunk, but (supposedly) not senile or demented (not demented, oh thats RICH). When she still had a car, and a JOB as well. When she had a membership to her beloved yacht club (reminder dear reader, she has never owned so much as a dinghy). This was even before her boyfriend drove into the lake! She had a social life.
So she had had a cell phone, but lost it. Again. And now her wall phone was cracked. My husband, sweet optomistic soul that he is, thought a cordless phone was the *perfect* Christmas gift. This was the first in a STRING of gifts-that-make-me-shudder. I want you to listen to the cordless phone tale and then you tell me if it was Good Idea or a Bad Idea to follow it with these gifts at subsequent holidays: a dvd player, a computer, a stereo, a new tv, another phone, a laptop, a cell phone. I'm just saying, if *I* were buying gifts for her I'd stick with fuzzy slippers. But not my Chris, oh no, he IS optimism.
Alrighty then. We (Chris) bought Ellie a cordless phone. A good one, with the built in digital answering machine base. With remote access! Just go to any other phone, call your house, enter the NASA approved 17 digit code, and voila! hear your messages. Easy Peasy right? Chris showed her how. He wrote out instructions. He made 6 copies. He taped them to the table the base rests on, the fridge, put them in her purse, her coat pocket and wherever else.
And he returned to his life. MY life is lived, well, in my living room. Which means all the crazy people know *just* where to find me.
So my phone rang, and my caller ID registered "pay phone" as the caller. I answered it- hey, we all make mistakes. It was Ellie. Calling from outside her work. And the conversation went like this:
me: hello
E: oh uh yes uh hello is my son at home?
me: no, he's at work. are you ok?
E: oh oh I'm fine yes but uh my phone is n. o. t. w. o. r. king
(I interrupt this to remind you Ellie has a hand-held voice box and randomly switches from speaking words to spelling them, sometimes only half of the word)
me: ok, I'll tell Chris when he gets home and he can come over and check it out
E: well I'm not at home. I'm at work.
me: right, but your phone is at home so he'll come over after work-
E: no. it is not at h.o.m.e.i.t.i.s. right here
me: oh um are you returning it then?
E. NO. I'm trying to USE it. I brought it to work but I can't call you. There's no dial tone. I can't get my messa g.e.s. either
me: um, right, well, its not a cell phone you know, so uh, it won't work 20 miles from home. but you can get your messages from there
E: I know. Its a CORDLESS phone, theres no cord. I don't need a cord. But I want to get my messages and I can't get a dial tone.
me: right well, um try calling from the payphone to get your messages and I'll send Chris over later...
E: (sighs like I am dumber than a box of rocks) I need to c.a.l.l.m.y.p.h.o.n.e.
me: (decides if she thinks I'm dumb I might as well ACT like it) oh gosh your phone must be broken. Gee I wonder whats wrong with it. I hope Chris can figure it out for you. That sounds so frustrating. I wonder if its broken.

and we wind up and she hangs up and that should be that.

But then, 30 minutes later, she's AT MY HOUSE. With her phone. Her not-a-cell cordless phone. She's SO mad.
"See? SEE? no dial tone! Nothing!" she shouts at me (um well she doesn't really shout you know. Her little voice box thingy doesn't have a "shout" setting. So it all sounds the same- but she quakes with rage so you can imagine the volume increase)
She proceeds to explain to me, and show me, over and over and over again how her (cordless) phone won't work (from a mile away from its base) to call her answering machine (the same phone she is TRYING TO USE) to get her messages

I don't know where to start. Do I start with the difference between "cordless" and "cell"? With the logistics of using your own phone to call your own phone and how you'll just get a busy signal?

I spend 20 minutes on cordless vs cell and the end result is that is TOTALLY freaked out that her brilliant and perfect son could marry such a dullard.

Chris explained and explained. But every week or 2 we had to start over. After a few months Chris told her the phone was broken and he was going to get her a new one. He said that model was out of stock. And all they had was this one. This answering machine with a "play" button and no remote access. This wall-mounted phone seperate from the answering machine.

A brain almost on drugs

we all know the hazards of brains on drugs. A few of them get together and you atart looking for toast and orange toast. In high school it was common knowledge that both acid and shrooms worked better if you downed mass quantities of orange juice during your trip. Seeing a friend with pupils the size of a dinner plate and a gallon oj OJ in one hand always brought the fried-egg brain-on-drugs image to mind. Add in the fact that people on drugs will often say "dude I'm toasted" and you get "drugs: breakfast of champions"
But that has nothing to do with this post. At all. Sorry to waste your time there. This post is about MY family, not the inlaws.
My mother is crazy in her own twisted way. I like that about my family- they never rinse and repeat an old crazy, each person does Crazy in her own way. Keeps it interesting. Makes you think. My little sister is crazy in many ways. She is 29 years old and has never lived alone. She cannot speak to a man without flirting. She's been married twice. She has 3 daughters, but only one lives with her. The first was taken away at 2 years (well a few times before that too but her parental rights were terminated then) and the second one she abandoned at age 3 and then the father was given full custody and she was denied even visiting privileges. Takes a special kind of parenting to get those 2 rulings eh?
My little sister Val is also crazy in the way that made the government find her permanently and totally disabled and eligible for SSI. She is bipolar, and has Borderline Personality Disordr, she is ADHD and has a range of mood disorders and attachment issues. She has trouble with "fact vs. fiction" and tends to believe her own lies.
She likes Bad Boys and every single one of her boyfriends has been in jail or prison (well the first few were in juvenile hall) most repeatedly. In fact when one boyfriend was being released and would need to come "home" she called and got the current boyfriend arrested on a parole violation. She has done this several times. It keeps her from getting bored I guess.
Is it any wonder then that she might wander into circles where they use drugs? I don't mean happy drugs, like a little bit of pot. I don't mean hippy drugs like shrooms. I mean crack, I mean heroin, I mean real drugs, skid-row drugs.
So. Last summer Val pawned her window a/c units and said they were stolen. My mom bought her new ones. A few weeks later they were, um, stolen again. So Val, and her current parolee, and her baby, and her dog started "crashing" at my moms "pad" One day my mom found pieces of her grill upstairs and other things she didn't understand. When confronted Val CONFESSED they had been freebasing in my moms bedroom. But she promised it would never happen again.
A month later my mom found grill parts in her backseat. Val said they were going to take the parts to the store and get new ones so there wouldn't be any drug residue on my moms hamburgers. My mom believed her, and thought that was "sweet"
Time went on and my mom got fired from her teaching job (at Detroit Public Schools) for "endagering her students" (can you imagine????)and so she sold her house and moved into the trailer she had bought for Val.
She bought more a/c units and nice new grill. We don't know what's wrong with Weber but their grill and parts are CRAP. We know this because the poor parolees keep having to take the grill apart to "fix it"
My mom believes them. Don't you? And she's not even ON drugs... just almost.

'ello (greetings from Britain)

Everyone needs an Ellie. Or an Elly.
My Mother In Law is named Ellie. Or she was. Until a few years ago when she up and changed her name to Elly. For no good reason. But my InLaws are prone to such absurdities.
Speaking of absurdities, lets talk about Elly and her speech absurdities a moment.
I already told you she talks through a 25 year old external voice box. Its gold, and looks like my first walk-man. I WANTED one that played tapes, but got the lousy AM/FM one instead.Its cord is hopelessly tangled and mangled. It has a "straw" yellowed with age and permanently stained with lipstick that she talks into. It doesn't work very well. So she often whacks the straw onto nearby objects. Spittle flies out of the end of it and she tries again. It can take her several minutes to say "hello. I love you dear"
She can be hard to understand, with her mechanical voice. She knows this, so she helps out her listeners by randomly switching from normal speech to SPELLING. So it goes something like this: "hell(buzz buzz whack buzz) hell (buzz) hello dea (buzz buzz whackity buzz) dear I (buzz) L (buzz) O (whack whack whack buzz) O V E you"
Last year her cancer came back, landing in her tongue. So they took half of her tongue. I really DO have a snake-tongued mother in law! Really though she has a wispy tongue now making it even harder to understand her.
I have also hinted at Ellie's favorite beverage. As you might imagine, adding a drunken slur to this might make it even MORE difficult to comprehend.
And just for shits and giggles, when Elly drinks she becomes.... British. We don't know how, or why. She's never left North America. But halfway through a box-o-wine she's all "ello guvner" like that guy in the Kellogs commercial.
Just TRY to talk to her. I dare you. Try to converse with a senile drunk with half a tongue who is using a slurred british accent through a dysfunctional voice box who spells half her words. I don't answer the phone. At least the answering machine can be played over and over while we try to decipher the message (something like "I collected 6 doggie bags from strangers at the bar today and left them baking in the sun on your porch for you")
I'm having a dinner party folks, you're all invited!

Lochlans Port

the port is completely under the skin. See it in his chest?

Here it is accessed. The black thing is the "grip" on his Huber needle which pokes through the skin into the port

the tube comes from the bottom of the port and is threaded up the chest (inside) to the neck where it goes into the jugular and down into his heart

It stays until it gets clogged or infected or is no longer needed. It must be surgically removed. They sewed a "pocket" in his chest that holds it, made of skin and muscle.

Leftovers from a Woman Who Cannot Chew

I said I'd share more about my Mother In Law, and here I am, at last, doing just that.
This is the Food Issues post. I think every family has its own food issue posts, its own MIL posts as well. Here's mine.
My MIL had throat cancer a billion years ago (she's 9 billion years old give-or-take)and so she has no voice box and a hole in her throat. She has an external voice box with a little "straw" she talks into and the box is her "speaker". She coughs and the nastiness comes out of the hole in her neck. I cannot explain how disgusting this is. She will reach up to her neck grab a glob of bloody sputum and puuuuuuuuuuuuull it out in stringy gloppiness through the neck-hole and then flick it casually to the ground (and then want to touch you!).
In recent years her throat has been closing up and she has to have it dilated every 4-6 weeks. She needed to have a feeding tube placed in her gut since she can barely swallow. She can't eat. She undergoes the dilations because "at least being able to drink tea with friends makes life seem normal" You should know she doesn't drink tea. At all. You should know her bar tab was over $800 one month. I'll let you decide what she wants to drink with her friends ok? You should also know that its less socially acceptable to pour your box-o-wine straight into your belly tube. It is POSSIBLE though.
Ok got the idea?
Back in the days when she had a car and a license to drive my MIL was a member of the yacht club (not that she EVER owned a boat- just that she ENJOYS the company of the pretentious drunken boat people). Her monthly bar tab was higher than her apartment rent. But she was happy.
Sadly, her precious son married a lazy, no-good woman who doesn't cook (that'd be me). Now, for the record, her son has gained weight consistently each year of his marriage, and he wasn't stick-thin to begin with. No matter. MIL fears her dear son will wither away. It pains her to see him suffer. So she hung out at her club, and when her friends had their plates cleared (remember MIL subsists on a liquid diet) she had their food bagged. She would come by, drunk, bearing gifts. Bringing the leftovers from 6-10 drunken STRANGERS to my home. A gift to her poor neglected, abused, starving son and her poor grandchildren.
see the starving grandchild?


and her poor starving son?



yes, clearly what we need here is food. We are in fact so desperate that we want half eaten bar food.

There is a bar within walking distance of her new apartment. To get there she must walk past my house (but she usually goes around the block so we don't see her). This new bar of hers is a DIVE.

I had somehow forgotten the years of nasty leftovers. Leftovers which often sat in her car for DAYS before she brought them to us. What could be better than that?
But last week she walked over with a stack of leftovers from the bar.
Oh I am SO lucky to have a MIL who cares.

A pretty good reason to sleep with your kids

I explained nursing, how it brought me into my own as a mother. Now I’ll explain co-sleeping.

With Connor I had the crib, the expensive bedding, 2 mobiles, the works. I had the crib in my room at least. My sweet boy however had a rotten latch, so he nursed every 90 minutes for 45 minutes at a time. All I DID was nurse him! I’d set him in the crib and he would wake up right away. I was having trouble recovering from my c-section, so every time Connor needed me Chris had to get him. So we used the crib for a couple hours, but I didn’t want to wake Chris to put the baby back or get him out again. I managed to struggle into a position to nurse him on my own. When he finished I just slid him onto the mattress and went back to sleep. So began our co-sleeping adventure. It was nice, easy, convenient. But not a major *impact* on us. Just a thing we did. Skye came along and we added her to our bed. It was nice, but again I think it helped us to be closer etc but I don’t think it changed our family in any tangible way.
Then we had Trew. We had sold the crib by then, and knew exactly how he would fit into our family. He had his own ideas and spent his first 5 days in Special Care just to prove he wouldn’t be told what to do. I was able to nurse him though (he was on IV’s initially but they let me nurse), and he did come home with me, though I had to stay the maximum c/section allowance to swing it. He had some breathing issues in the Special Care and was on O2. When we got him home he was often stuffy/wheezy. He snored from day 1. He didn’t grow as well as my other kids. He had pneumonia FOUR times his first year. They tested him for cystic fibrosis, but he was fine.
Meanwhile Chris had surgery to relieve his sleep apnea. I swore Trew had sleep apnea, but nobody would listen. At one of Chris’s ENT appts I scheduled a consult for Trew. I described the snoring/stopping/etc Trew had and the ENT agreed it sounded like apnea. Still, Trew was SO young (1.5) and so LITTLE (still not 20lbs), and *I* was terrified of surgery to fix it. So we did a sleep study. I drove him 45 minutes away to spend the night hooked to wires in a strange bed. I was pregnant with Lochlan. I told the Dr Trew slept with me and he kind of hinted I couldn’t. But the technician was SO sweet and said of COURSE I could. They watch with video cameras and there are a gazillion little wires. He hated the wires. It was hard to get him to sleep only because he wanted to rip off the wires. But finally I laid down and nursed him to sleep.
Fifteen minutes in he had an apnea episode. During the night he had hundreds of apneas. His oxygen levels consistently dipped into the 60’s (in special care at NINETY-SIX they would start freaking out… 60 is BAD news). Sometimes the O2 dropped and his heart rate would freak out too. When I was sort of awake I would WANT to reach over and touch him when he stopped breathing- as I had done every single night of his life. But I didn’t want to mess up their study. But I was pg, exhausted in that bone-deep tired pregnant women know so well. So sometimes I was too damn tired to think first and instinctively I’d pull him closer, tuck him in against me.
The technician in the morning spoke with me. “That was beautiful, that was the most amazing sleep study I’ve ever done” she said, eyes brimming with tears “it was like a ballet” she continued “a dance, a beautiful dance” I could tell she was moved… but all we did was sleep. I was baffled. “Your son has apnea” she told me “its severe, I’m not supposed to say this to you, but the Dr’s report will confirm it all. Your son is in danger. But when his vitals were terrible and I was ready to come in and save him, you would pull him to you and he would stabilize” She was crying now. When ever he was in danger you disrupted the apnea. When he slept against you his rhythms would stabilize, but to an ADULT rhythm, not a pediatric one. You weren’t wired, but I know that if you were we’d find that his breathing and heart had matched yours. I could zoom in and see you synchronized. Thank you so much for letting me see this. Don’t let that little boy out of your bed until his surgery. His life depends on you”

So co-sleeping, yeah, co-sleeping has had an impact. A dramatic impact on my family. Without it, we could have lost Trew.

The Early Days of Motherhood... my breastfeeding beginnings

Nursing. I started the whole adventure after a screwed up childhood. I took childcare classes in high school and worked at a childcare. I babysat. I was a nanny. Not to be smug but I did totally ROCK at those jobs. I loved them too. Then I got pregnant (on purpose) and started to read everything I could get my hands on. Which is all the stuff from the OBGYN office. As mainstream career oriented as possible. I *needed* to be a “good mom” and all the books said I “had” to nurse for 3 months. So that was that. I didn’t know ANYONE who breastfed. ANYONE. But damn I was going to do this RIGHT! I even got a $50 pump so I could go back to work at exactly 6 weeks post-partum. Connor had a lousy latch. I was clueless. It was HARD. I had cracked, bleeding, blistered nipples. I CRIED every single feeding. And all he did was feed! He was 3 days old and we met our ped (assigned by the health ins. Co) and in the office Connor pooped and there was blood in it. The Dr said I couldn’t breastfeed because my nipples were bleeding and drinking blood is very dangerous for babies. He took my naked, screaming, new baby down the hall and came back with a bottle propped in his mouth. I could barely walk, I was post c/section. I was overwhelmed. I looked at my new baby (still naked and sad) drooling out formula and wanted to throw up. I was failing ALREADY! The abuse-survivor stats were RIGHT, I was going to SUCK as a mom! I was doomed. Connor was doomed. I should never have had kids. But I asked Chris to PLEASE take me back to the hospital to talk to the lactation consultant. The lactation consultant sat me down and helped me latch him on *right* (it still took 4 months for Connor and I to get it right) and said I did NOT need to wean and gave me a list of Peds who took my insurance.
So nursing was my first real act of motherhood. Then at 5 weeks and 6 days PP I bawled my eyes out and Chris laughed at me and said “I never expected you to go back to work while my son still needed you” and so I became a SAHM. Then we reached 3 months and I was *just* past crying in pain every feeding- I was NOT going to wean the minute it got easier! So I kept nursing. Another real act of motherhood, something from *me* not the *book* Nursing Connor taught me everything about him. I held him all the time. I knew every single thing about him. He was my world.
We had a crib, a really really nice bedding set for it. Monitors. All the gear. Connor wanted *me* and I LIKED it that way. So he stayed in my bed and we were happy. My books didn’t say anything about that either.
I think what I like about the AP things I do is that they FEEL right. When I am “being AP” I feel settled. I feel like *me* I feel good about me. Nursing and cosleeping allowed me to grow into MY version of motherhood, not the “book mom” I originally aspired to be. The mom I really am. I’m not perfect. I don’t mother the way I nanny’d either. I do ok though. And I LOVE motherhood. I love milk smiles. I love warm baby bellies to rub in bed. I love little brains lighting up in my home (I am SO glad to homeschool… SO glad *I* get to see the lights come on as they learn new things). I love soft cute cloth diapers. I love slings and mei tais. I love little people laughing and loving here with me.

A tale of four surgeries

when I thought I had no choice, that I needed a fifth section. I said I wanted to be knocked out then (granted I was depressed and overwhelmed). A good friend asked why, and here is the story of my first 4 Birth Days:

Ø Why do you want to be completely under for your section?

For this we need to back up and run through my birth histories. Please keep in mind that my family and coworkers and EVERY single person I knew was very very mainstream. I lived in a world split between nanny-raised kids and day-care babies. The parents I knew looked hard for daycares that took babies younger than 6 weeks, most were back to work at 2 weeks. NOBODY I knew ever tried to breastfeed. So I started my journey into motherhood differently from most on this list. I had NO idea there were still midwives- maybe in California but it was probably illegal even there. I DID read everything I could get my hands on- but that was OB waiting room magazines, What to Expect, and other similar items. If only I’d known then. But maybe it wouldn’t have changed a thing.

I was 23 and over the moon to be starting my family. I was socked with hyperemesis and tossed in the hospital twice in the first trimester. I had some bleeding. I was on bedrest most of the pregnancy. Still, I was pregnant and having a son and couldn’t be happier. I took the hospital birth class like a good patient, and so did Chris. I set up my crib in the 7th month. I began to dilate at 30 weeks. I was given steroid shots and preemie handouts to read. But the boy hung in there. 2 weeks before his due date I suspected I was leaking fluid. They tested w/ litmus and said I wasn’t. Several days later I complained again. I stole their litmus paper. They said I was fine. I had read on Stork Site that for a slow leak you should be tested by laying down for an hour then placing the paper and sitting up. I did that at home and it showed I was in fact leaking. I called the OB and was brought in AGAIN and tested wrong AGAIN and sent home AGAIN. 2 days later was my due date. My OB decided to do a quick ultrasound to prove that I wasn’t leaking fluid. What he found was only one SMALL pocket of fluid left. He immediately ruptured my (already leaking) amniotic sack. He had me call my husband. He folded up a big white tissue sheet- the one you wrap up in- and said to put it in my underwear and drive to the hospital and they’d induce NOW. I looked down to a pool of blood. I didn’t know you bled when they ruptured your sack? I have never gotten an answer for that. I went to St Joes. They started pitocin. He was posterior and I had back labor. They started an epidural. I made it to pushing, and I tried- but I had NO feeling and I doubt I was a good pusher. His heartrate dipped and they put a wire in his head L His heartrate still dipped and the rushed us for a c/s. He was born 6 minutes after we entered the OR. The OB sliced his head with the scalpel. He was 7lbs 14oz and perfect though. After 2 sad hours in recovery wanting my baby DESPERATELY we were both taken to a room and he stayed with me. I had severe tearing because the Dr tried to spin him and stuck both arms in me up to his elbows. I remember the nurses were FURIOUS that I didn’t get stitched up from the tears. I had those ice packs etc. The OB gave me only Tylenol for pain. The nurses forgot to check my incision sometimes because the perenium looked so bad. The next days OB may not have read my chart at all? He discharged me w/o any exam. I was home when my son was 26 hours old. It was almost 2 months before I could walk normally or climb stairs.
16 weeks after that ordeal I was pregnant again. It was absolutely intentional. And its amazing it happened. Connor nursed nearly nonstop including 8 or 80 times a night. I never got a period, just got pregnant.
I knew these things: labor HURRRRRRRRRRRRRRTS. Surgery is scary. Recovery HURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTS. I was afraid of a VBAC. I was afraid of another c/s. I read that VBAC was best, and I like to do whats best, so VBAC it would be. I suffered hyperemesis again, but wouldn’t leave Connor to go to the hospital. I slept in the bathroom so I could lift my head and vomit easily.I had some bleeding, as I always do. Other than that it was a typical pregnancy. I said I was due 7/4, they said 7/29. Skye came 7/16 weighing 8lbs 9oz and was deemed a 42 weeker. Labor started. I went to St Joes. I had had false labor for weeks and this was my third trip to L&D. I didn’t really think I was having a baby. The OB ordered pit- but the nurse didn’t start it (YAY). I dilated to 10 in 2-3 hours. She was also posterior. There was slight meconium staining in the fluids. They started a saline flush. I was pushing. I had good visualization. I felt strong and capable. Then they took away my isolette! I was SO MAD. I needed that. The nurse said I was going to the OR. For the meconium, and for failure to progress- but in 3-4 hours? How can that BE? (note: it was Friday and the OB had tickets to the hockey game) But that’s what happened. The epidural didn’t work. They clamped my belly to check and I yelped. They ignored it and began to cut. I screamed and screamed. I was in agony. My guts, hot, wet, sticky piled onto my chest. Screaming. I heard the screaming but was sort of unaware that it was me. Later I would find bruises on my wrists from the restraints- I was trying to leap off the table. I wanted to DIE. Chris had to watch and NOT PUNCH ANYBODY poor guy. When they cut the cord they finally gassed me. My baby was born and I didn’t even CARE. I just wanted it to end. I needed it to stop. They gassed me as they cut the cord. I didn’t have a single thought to spare for my new baby and I still have acute guilt for that. In recovery I remember asking over and over and over if she was ok, her weight, Apgars, etc. But I couldn’t remember their answers so I asked again and again. Four hours later Skye and I were brought together in our room. We had just bought our house and needed to go sign the papers. So she was 23 hours old when I took her home. 5 days later I had an OB appt. I had been feeling AWFUL. On the way down the hall at the office I fainted. I had a severe uterine infection. I was put in the hospital on several IV abx. They kept talking about a hysterectomy it was just so bad. I recovered though and came home, with all my parts.

Skye was 2, Connor 3, and I was pregnant with my 3rd. I bled and bled. They scheduled a D&C- but his heart was beating. I should come back in 2 days. Over and over. I bled and bled and they were sorry…. But there he was, still alive. He’d never make it. But I couldn’t do a D&C as long as the heart flickered on the screen. They scheduled me 3 times- but he clung to life. My hyperemesis was worse than ever. Connor was in a lot of therapies for his autism. He was 3 and a handful. I COULDN’T leave him to go the hospital. Skye was still nursing. So I agreed to take Zofran. On Zofran I only puked 8 or 12 times a day. I puked EVERY DAY of that pregnancy. I was with a different OB group this time. The only one I could find with a midwife on staff. But they wouldn’t consider a VBAC for me. So I scheduled my c/s. 2 weeks before the c/s date I had contractions. Its quite possible it was my “usual false labor” but I was big and miserable, he was 37 weeks, he was going to be a section anyway. The OB on call said “I’m here now. I’ll just do it now so I don’t have to come back later”. And so came Trew. Now we had set things up for him. He was going to nurse right away, we’d delay eye goo for 45 min (as long as they’d allow) they “needed” to take him to nursery but would do that while I was stitched so I could hold him and nurse him in recovery. Chris would stay with him. It was going to be ok. My nurse was AWESOME. But Trew had breathing trouble. And heart rate issues. My nurse took me from the OR to the SCN (special care nursery) to see him. Not to recovery, to my son. I love that nurse. She always brought me morphine at his side. But when I spoke to him, and especially when I touched him, his heart rate would plummet as would his oxygen. They had to “come save him” every time I touched him. So I couldn’t touch him. Or talk to him. Just look. It was AWFUL. But 4 days later we were together, he nursed, and we were released.
Then came Lochlan. I was sick, but it went away! I bled- but not so much. It was a good pregnancy. Same OB, same plan, but this time I would hold him while they stitched me. I had ctx’s early again. He was 36w3d and they drugged me to stop the ctx. I slept then, but contracted all night. I did not dilate at all. But they came at 6AM to section me. The surgery was fine, as far as surgeries go I guess. He had a big lump on his neck. They were concerned. But the ob nurse heard my other c/s stories and gave me my child. I held him and loved him and wept. And he was grunting and grayish. I knew he was headed to the special care. I held him as long as I could though. Then I had to hand him over. He spent a day in special care, but was getting worse. They transferred him to the other hospital to the NICU. He was GONE and I was trapped at Bon Secours. I cried in my room and a nurse peeked in and said “hmm little bit of baby blues huh?” and I wanted to punch her. Those were hard days. I pumped and pumped. He was IV fed for 3 days and then tube fed. He didn’t suck. He had trouble breathing, and heart rate issues, and thermoregulation issues, and the cystic hygroma, and they just didn’t know what was wrong really. He had pneumonia, seemed to have sepsis, he was sick. He eventually came home, but it took us a long time to get settled and get him taking his milk “from the tap” but he nurses well now.

And then I started looking into things. Found a VBAC was possible. Got pg. Worked really hard to get a VBAC cleared etc. And now am headed back into surgery. To slicing, dicing butchering. I’ll be at St Johns this time, Chris prefers it for the NICU and I frankly no longer care. They will NOT give me the baby in the OR or recovery. So I’d rather just be gassed. Gassing works. Gassing helps you forget parts of the experience. IV sedation is fine as well. I don’t want any part of another operation. They are physically and emotionally painful to me. I haven’t had any great benefits from being awake.
I really just don’t want any part of it. At all.

The Ugly (more on c/sections and birth choices)

I was pregnant with Nola and Chris and I had very different ideas about what this birth was going to look like. Because he loves me he was angry. When I am stressed I sometimes type. Typing without thought. Just pouring out the raw things. I'm going to share some of those middle-of the ramblings here. I need to preface this though. As awful as I felt I was never, not for a moment suicidal. I swear I wasn't, though I WAS at my own rock-bottom. I put these here because other women feel this way, but don't know how to say it. Or can't admit it and need to know they are not the only one. There are other women who didn't/don't/won't feel like this. I'm happy for them. This post is not for them, its here for those who need it.

here we go

First, everyone is fine.
I am the saddest I have ever been. I am falling apart in ways I didn’t know were possible. And nobody I know can BEGIN to comprehend so I have nowhere to take this pain. I have been crying for days and I’m not a crybaby kind of girl. In order to keep my family I am forced to have another c/s. It got so ugly. I cant express how badly the whole thing hurts. How deeply it cuts. How VERY afraid I am that I’ll die in the surgery and leave my children motherless. I truly feel like I have just signed my life away. I am tempted to put the kids in school now “just in case” I can’t do that emotionally though b/c I feel a deep need to be with them MORE also “just in case”
I want to be gassed for the c/s. I don’t want to “be there” for the operation. I don’t like epis and its not a “birth” Ive done this 4 times and its NOT a birth. Its an operation. They will take the baby away anyway- might as well sleep through it. I will get my tubes tied since I don’t have another c/s in me. I don’t have THIS c/s in me. Had I known I would have gotten them tied LAST c/s. I think I’d rather they take the whole thing. I’m finished with the womb- why keep bleeding?
Chris can name the baby. This one is his.
I am so irrationally sad. I am at the edge of sanity and have never stood right here before. It’s a scary ass place. I am SO raw. I really didn’t know it was possible to feel this lousy. This inside-out.

(and this from another night, a day or 2 later)

I’m so tired. I want to curl up in bed for a year. But I can’t. Because when I start to relax all I can do is cry. I try not to, but its all I can do not to walk around the house sobbing. I nurse my boy and cry fat tears. I cuddle a child and I cry, I ache. I find I can’t picture holding the new baby anymore. The image has gone up in a puff of smoke. How can this BE? How is possible to feel THIS badly about something so small. In the grand scheme of things this is so much nothing. I am, in my dark place, tempted to run away when the time comes, to just do this quietly and alone. I can’t though. I have it in me physically, but I can’t. Even if it resulted in a beautiful birth and perfect baby. Even if I came home with a wonderful infant and a glow of success. Even if Chris forgave me for doing it. Because it would still BE a betrayal. I trust Chris. Trust hasn’t always come easily to me. My first 2 decades were survived ONLY because I didn’t trust anyone. But I do trust Chris. And I will NEVER shatter that.
So there it is. He cannot cope with a home birth. I need him. And so I cry.
I hope I get to the part where I feel numb soon.

I don’t mean for him to sound like the bad guy. He’s not. He loves me and his kids and feels very strongly that the baby and I are in grave danger in a homebirth. I feel the exact opposite. But I say “I’d die for you Chris” and I guess that means I need to really offer that. I am more likely to die in a repeat c/s. But he doesn’t believe the statistics. He believes the lawyers. He is genuinely sorry that I find this painful.

I just feel like puking.