Pregnant Over 40

After 2 months of trying to get my blog up at ananu.org, I have decided to return to the wordpress mothership.

My new blog address is

http://over40mama.wordpress.com

Please change bookmarks and come on over to say HI!

Well, finally got everything configured at the new domain and won’t be posting here anymore. So please join the post-partum fun over here.

It feels like my heart is going to break from it all.

Days slip past like firebugs on a June evening from a Midwestern porch. I wake, I change a diaper, I eat, I nurse, I rest. I sit on the deck and read. I organize a box to move to the new house. I chat on the phone. People come over and we eat sandwiches or chocolate and drink cardamom tea.

I feel the rhythm of life with the new bean starting to gel. I’m not working, instead, as Jerry Michalski so aptly put it, I am “following my curiosities.” This includes devouring RSS feeds from my parent pals to politics to child development nerds to TED and Maker-type stuff. And pecking out emails one-handed, while breastfeeding.

I LOVE this life.

The concept of a job just seems so completely foreign to me. My schedule is now completely random. I wake at 12, 3 and 4:30 AM. Or at 11, 2 and 5 AM. Or whenever the bean bloody well wants me to. What better driver of my time than this? This and my curiosities, I note. And how fortunate that they overlap so completely.

The roses and Matilija poppies are exploding in the garden. I have time to clean and keep the house from veering into chaos.

I am head over heels in love with her. I love her with the proud passion of, well, her mama. I assume most people feel this way about their kids. I hope so. Everyone should have someone else feel this way about them when they come into this world. And every day after that, I might add.

Okay so I’m not pregnant anymore and so the title of this blog is kinda not so useful. I have a new domain and may move it, but can barely find time to comb my hair let alone set up a new blog. So here we sit for at least a little while longer.

We had two sets of friends stop by today - one with lunch, and another with a whole bunch of wisdom about motherhood, schools, immunizations, family, etc etc. So grateful for our communities.

There is plenty I could do, but the bean didn’t sleep so well last night, so I didn’t either. Thus, I am going to bed.

The bean was born at 12:28 AM on 4/20/08 after 40 hours of labor.

The birth itself was amazing. I can’t say enough good things about the staff at Alta Bates. They were human and caring and clear and professional and patient and funny and connected and just amazing. The collaboration between my midwife and the OB on staff was one of the most respectful, collaborative endeavors between allopathic and more non-traditional medicine I’ve ever seen.

The longer version : I was laboring all Friday pm. At 9:30 AM on Sat, when we got to Alta Bates, I was 3.5 CM. They admitted me and we were off…

After 8 more hours of laboring au natural, they did an exam and found I’d only dilated one additional CM. This really depressed me, as I was really working HARD and I felt for sure like we’d gotten much closer. At that point, the nurses were suggesting Pitocin – to which I didn’t object in theory. However, I’d gotten some great advice from a friend about the wisdom of getting an epidural if you are a) hella tired and b) about to do Pitocin.

My nurse was the one who kept saying “you can do this naturally – you can do it” but when she saw my reaction, she said “okay – well you HAVE mentioned an epidural like 30 times in the past 3 minutes…” Hell, I’d been secretly wondering if I could just go get a c-section and be done.

In retrospect, she was probably right. However, it would have required laboring closely with my friend Jill and my mom. They’re both total healer energy worker body types, and I was able to surrender to the pain when they had their hands on me. Still, though, I was exhausted, and I’ve learned not to overestimate my energy reserves when I’m so tired. Plus, I’d puked 3 times by then, and had no food in me – another factor in my exhaustion quotient. Indeed, I’d told myself that – if the pain ever crossed over into suffering, I’d get an epidural, which is exactly what ended up happening.

And with all that said, I LOVED the epidural. It enabled me to feel the surges w/o the pain. It allowed me to get some sleep. My sense of humor returned. My ability to focus on the beauty of the moment did too. For another bunch of hours, anyway.

Then – after another long while of Pitocin and trying to dilate, there were a couple of additional complications as the baby got closer to transition.

First, she was posterior. Both my midwife and the OB on duty would literally stick their hands up into me and try rotating the baby. Jesus Lord Boy Howdy, epidural or no, this hurt like a bleedin’ mofo.

Another problem was that her heart would slow and eventually nearly stop during each surge. This was terrifying, honestly, to hear the fetal heart monitor go

beat-beat-beat-beat ——–beat ————beat————————————beat

There was a theory that it was the Pitocin….another was that the cord was wrapped around her neck.

Somewhere between 1 and 3000 hours later, the OB and my midwife had a conference with lots of acronyms and the word “surgery.” Suddenly something larger than I was driving the time-table and I could feel the energy in the room change. Whether it was the numbing effect of the epidural or my utter trust of the team, but I was not afraid. As they wheeled me into the O.R. I thought “okay, this is it. I’m getting a C-section after all” After all my yammer about this, I was surprisingly at peace. Heck, millions of people get C-sections and this is better than the alternative. Duh.

Once in the OR, it took me a few minutes to realize that they didn’t intend on giving me a c-section right away – but rather we were going to try a superindustrial dose of Pitocin and pushing FIRST, with the knowledge that we’d be all set up to meet the knife if they deemed it necessary.

This (along with the harsh OR lighting) inspired such deep resolve in me, and I began pushing with every atom in my body. After an hour of pushing, the abstract bean was a reality –and a little wiggly vernix-covered babe with a mop of brown hair landed on my chest.

We’re still getting acclimated. I am moody as all hell and tired of all of the effluvia that comes with new motherhood. Sleep is still random, though she seems to be sleeping for longer stints at a time.

I am completely impressed by the staff at Alta Bates, who chose NOT to do the easy route and instead gave us time to give birth without the c-section. Thanks from the bottom of my heart to Hsui-Li Cheng, Dr Mara Greenberg, Sonia, Betty, Jill, my doula Darlene, my husband C, my wonderful mum, and all the wonderful docs and nurses that helped shepherd this little bean into humanhood. Blessings to all!

Delivered a baby girl on Sunday.  It’s now Friday.  Insane how my life is completely upsidedown from what it was a week ago.

I have a beautiful, inquisitive little girl. She’s healthy and strong and - after 40 hours of labor and a couple of potentially terrible complications - we averted a c-section.

Sleep is crazy - as in - impossible.

My mom has been here for the week and has taken such good care of me.  She’s leaving tomorrow and I positively dread it. I dread the cold reality of my own exhaustion…my inability to figure out what to eat for lunch or how to give the bean a bath.

I have been insanely emotional. I know sleep is a valuable part of getting through the post-partum thing without being too depressed.

Anyway - yeah - have the kid. Done.

Woke up to cramps - contractions - “surges” - about 2 hours ago.

(Note: For the purposes of this blog, we will use the word “surges” - self-consciously, to be sure, because it does feel somewhat forced. Still, as I sit here dealing with this shit in the pre-dawn hours, I like the connotation of a “surge” more than a “contraction,” so there ya go.)

Not sure whether this is “it” or not. Suddenly I can’t tell if they’re real. I stayed in bed for a while, trying to breathe through each surge, and found myself getting bored and restless and sick of being so uncomfortable (LOL! Yah okay).

So I got up and cleaned off the guest bed in the baby’s room with the intention of knitting for a while. Haven’t had a surge since. (can we turn them off by getting up? Or does that just mean they weren’t real to begin with?)

Got some blood going on this morning too. Not sure if that’s water breaking or “show” or what. It never occurred to me that I might not be able to tell the difference.

Went in for antepartum testing today - my twice/weekly test for Old Mamas - and the nurse told me I was having a contraction right there! Cool huh? I thought that was just the bean doing another triple toe loop in my gut.

Also went to my midwife, who says she thinks the baby will be here the week of 4/28 for a total cooking time of 41 weeks. She bases this on the fact that I’m still not dialated but have effaced some.

Doula agrees - but hers is less on physical info and more on an intuition.

Midwife says if I go into labor today, it’ll be at least a full day of early labor to get things moving.

Of course if my “water breaks” (not to be confused with the Led Zepp tune “When the Levee Breaks,” tho that might be a good track for the throes of contractions), labor will be upon me whether I’m ready or not.

My mom canceled her plane ticket, which was going to be tomorrow. The plan now is to call her as soon as I get into labor, and use frequent flier miles to get her on the next plane out of Minneapolis.

So here we wait, I guess. Meanwhile, I creep through my to-do list and enjoy these beautiful spring days in the bay area.

It’s all I can do to sit vertically in a chair rather than lie down in bed.  I find walking, running simple errands feels good.  But really, I am starting to let shit slide. I have a long lits of OMG GOTTA DO THIS and you know what? I don’t give a rat’s ass about it.

My friend PajamaMama came over today with a box full of fabulous clothes that her 4-year-old M had outgrown and we sat and chatted for a while.  She asked the good questions (eg “have you packed yet? have you installed your car seat?” “Uh, no and no.”) and generally gave me a great download of new mama info. I don’t know what I would do without other mamas who have done this before.

And of course it got me thinking: What do I have left to do?

• Pack for hospital
• Get car seat installed (this is actually a humungous pain in the ass)
• Drop boxes off at Goodwill
• Mix ass-shakin house music for labor accompaniment
• Assemble co-sleeping bed thingie
• Get crib from DM
• Finish writing thank you cards for our bean welcoming ceremony
• Go to rocking chair store and get rocking chair (yes there is a rocking chair store!)
• Sleep, sleep and sleep

Speaking of sleep, I am going to nap now.