I had a heart attack

My heart stopped. My stomach wrenched. I ran. I RAN to Tucker's room.

My worst nightmare, was it coming true?

Well, no, it wasn't. But for a few seconds I thought it might be and in the few seconds it took me to gasp and run to Tucker's room I made Brian feel the exact same way.

So what happened? Again, nothing, nothing happened. Except ...

Tucker has learned to roll over and sleep on his stomach. After three nights of this routine I am easing into accepting it. Belly sleeping seems to have become his preferred modus operandi. I know, I know, "babies used to always sleep on their stomachs", but not these days and not my baby.

Monday morning was the first such incident. I was going about my normal getting ready for work routine which happens to include checking the video monitor to see if my little one is stirring. This Monday morning there was no stir. Tucker was face down in his crib. Here is when I panicked and RAN to him. Still dark this early fall morning I flipped on his bedroom light and dashed to his crib side where he lay still. With my heart no longer beating, I called on my lungs... "TUCKER!"

That is when panic turned to relief and then to... oops. Not quite understanding the fuss, in an instant Tucker was dazed, yet up and in full-arm-extension-upward-dog-position. "I'm up! I'm up!", he seemed to be saying as he anxiously looked around for the fire or oncoming train.

As much as we take pride in all of his milestones (which he seems to be reaching at a feverish rate) they mean both independence and choice, at least in regards to which way he sleeps. We can spend all night flipping him back on his back or we can accept that he found a position that might help him sleep longer through the night.

We already spend all night now watching him on the his monitor to make sure when he does flip over that he does know to turn his head to the side and continues to do so through the night. From the angle of the baby monitor, he undoubtedly looks as though he is face-planted-deathly-still in his crib. In reality he is comfortable slumbering away. A lesson to take away when using a baby monitor or trying to get some sleep...

the baby nanny drama, part ii

The Nanny #3 Story - The Drunk Nanny
Round three of of finding a nanny actually brought an overall more qualified set of candidates. Two had education in early child development, one had day care experience, and one was a mother (the best experience you can get). We actually felt good about four different candidates, but each had their flaws. Candidate 1 had little flexibility in her schedule. So babysitting or overtime was out of the question. Candidate 2 seemed out of our price point. Candidate 3 wanted to bring her own child, and Candidate 4 seemed a bit immature. In the end it was the immature Candidate 4 that was our Nanny #3 choice.

Like I said, Nanny #3 seemed a bit immature showing up with a big blue piece of bubble gum, which would by the end of the interview have turned her entire mouth blue. Despite her immaturity, she had a year of experience with a baby younger than Tucker (when she started) and according to her references she was always on time, worked wonders with an autistic child, and even taught the baby how to fall asleep on his own. We loved what she had to say about the positive demeanor she tries to take with the child, exactly the philosophy I prescribe to. Like the idea that when a child takes a tumble, if you act like nothing happened, the child thinks nothing of it. However, if you gasp and ask, "are you okay?!", tears are immediately shed.

We had initially decided to bring two candidates out for trial days. As luck would have it one of them took another position. Since we had already scheduled Candidate #4 to come out on Wednesday, we kept the date with the intention of hiring her that evening.

At 12:06 AM on Wednesday, a mere nine hours before Nanny #3 was to start we received this:

"Hey I'm sorry it's so late, I need to actually do some errends tommarrow. I deffinitly want to come and start thus procces right away. Would it be too much to ask if Thursday is better? Thanks again : ) can't wait to see that adorable little Tucker again"

Sigh...


The Nanny #4 Story - The Nanny?
Another round of interviews followed. With little success in contacting the other two candidates from the previous round, we interviewed only three more candidates. We tried to interview four, but one simply kept rescheduling regardless of how valid her reasons were or were not. While we loved the energy one young grandmother and thought she would be a wonderful influence, we went with a young mother with both relevant nanny and life experience. She seems reliable, kind, and completely qualified. I hate to get too overly excited about her, but this one does seem to be both a wonderful caretaker for Tucker and it seems as though she might stick. She's only been out here twice and won't start for another week, but for now she is a breath of fresh air.

Here is to hoping, again...

the baby nanny drama

With a face like Tucker's you might wonder why it could possibly be hard to find a nanny. Well, I can't say for sure why, but I can testify to the near impossibility of finding a nanny. I'm guessing the trouble has something to do with unreliable, unmotivated, and in-compassionate people. That is just a guess.

The Nanny #1 Story - The Super Nanny
We hired Tucker's first nanny to start three weeks ago. Despite being in her early twenties, Nanny #1 had a resume and references that read something like you might expect of Super Nanny. She even had the knowledge and know how to convince that she was legit. She actually taught us a thing or two during her interview. So, we hired her.

So, what happened to Super Nanny #1? She came, she saw, she quit. She lasted 4 days. Actually, I think she quit on the second day, but was nice enough to help out for the remaining days. I confess that she definitely had a legitimate reason to quit. The trusting person in me believes her story wholeheartedly, but I wonder if that is a little (or a lot) naive. Apparently, her aunt died in her sleep, leaving behind a now single husband and four kids, one of which is six weeks old. The reliable person Nanny #1 is, she jumped to their aid, as she certainly should. Her story break my heart. A six week old baby lost without its mother, searching for her warmth but finding only an unfamiliar bottle, and refusing it. So, one week into my return to work and we were without a nanny.

The Nanny #2 Story - The Super Expensive Nanny
As luck would have it, the day I returned from work I learned of a great blessing which had been handed to me. The unpaid leave of absence I had decided to take at the end of my maternity leave resulted in a "change of status" thereby granting me the right to change my company benefits enrollment. What does this really mean? It means I could enroll in the Dependent Care Spending Account (DCSA). $5,000 I could allocate to untaxed dollars to pay for Tucker's nanny. The result? We were now able to afford our Nanny #1, #1 Pick that I didn't mention earlier.

During our first round of nanny interviews we fell in love with one candidate (that was problem #1). We were very excited to extend her an offer, but she turned us down on grounds of not enough money. Consequently, we went with the equally qualified, but not quite as happy Nanny #1 that we could afford. However, with the extra tax free savings from the DCSA we were now able to afford our #1 Pick. Almost seems as if our bad luck with the first nanny was a blessing, especially when on her last day with us Brian found her watching soaps with Tucker professing they "help keep him quiet". Wonderful. The weekend after Nanny #1 quit, we hired Nanny #2, to start the following Friday. With an accepted job offer and excitement all around, Brian and I settled back into our routine until Thursday's landslide.

Thursday morning, the day before Nanny #2 was to start, I was able to work from home to help Brian juggle Tucker and work (no easy feat, especially when you distaste ignoring your child for one moment). I was quietly sipping my morning coffee when the bomb dropped. Not a phone call, but an e-mail...

"I regret to tell you that I am not going to accept the position as nanny for your son. I do apologize and hope I have not inconvienced you. My current place of employment has offered me more money and more hours to stay. However if you are ever in need of a babysitter on the weekends I would love to help you out. I hope you can understand this difficult decision I've had to make.

Thank you,"
Nanny #2

Ouch. To be continued ...

the baby bidet, aka "the butt bath"

...and how to wash your baby's bum


My own mother will love this post. She has a general feeling that most of the baby handling tactics she employed as a mother are either outdated or atrocious. I'm here to tell her differently and soothe that slightly uncomfortable feeling she suppresses each time she Tucker sits. This particular tactic, which we like to call the "butt bath" (love the alliteration, or is that assonance?), was passed down from her own mother as well.

There comes a time in every mother's life where the inevitable sets in. Yes, I mean diaper rash. The red, swollen, puffy, rash that attacks the teeniest of the bums. Ointments help, but they only go so far. Conquering diaper rash begins with stopping the culprit...

We bring our delicate little babies home from the hospital and think diaper wipes (yes, butt wipes) are the key to a clean tushy. While they do help in the cleanliness arena and boy are they convenient, they one of several sure fire ways to all but give your babe "the rash" (in addition to just plain not changing your poor babies diaper or having a diaper that doesn't whisk away the soil well).

The baby bible, WhatToExpect, recommends using cotton balls and water. Yeah right, I thought, there was no way that water and a little cotton ball would sufficient clean off my baby's tushy (yes, I have high cleanliness standards). Surprisingly, I have become a cotton ball convert, yet there are times when no amount of cotton balls nor wipes are sufficient. I mean poo up the back or even worse, poo up the front. Gooey poo stuck in the baby fat folds and crevices where poo should not go. By the way, I'm not sure how this phenomenon happens, at times I think Tucker's pee and poo channels are switched. Nevertheless, this is when you must have a good enough heart to full on bath your baby and rinse the misfit poo away. Even better, or in a time crunch, give him the butt bath.


The pictures tell the story. Warm the water to the desired temperature and go. Initially, finding the correct hold may be tricky. Getting from the changing table to the sink without getting poopy on yourself or the changing table is key. The recommended approach is as follows:

1. Undress the bottom half.
   (use a wipe or cloth to protect the changing table if necessary)
   
2. Tuck the top half or onesie (if still clean) under the armpits.
3. Carry your baby to the sink with two hands while holding up the shirt under under each armpit.
4. As you approach the sink, roll the baby onto the inside of your forearm for support, such that you can hold the baby with one arm and use the other for washing.
5. For added support, rest the arm holding the baby on the sink basin.
6. Wash that baby bum!
   

You will need firm, precise one hand holding of the baby to master this technique. The butt bath works best if you can manipulate your kid directly under the water stream. Otherwise, some degree of water diversion and rubbing is in order. In a poo up the front situation or just to freshen up a bit, a front bath may be in order as well.


The result is a clean, happy baby, with zero wipe-detergent, cotton, pee or poo residue and you are on your way to preventing diaper rash or nipping in the, well, butt. Just make sure you have a good handle on your baby, the right water temperature, and a handy towel when attempting. Then just follow the sure fire techniques for air-drying (or hair-drying) you baby's bum.

As a baby testament, Tucker is all smiles after a good morning, or afternoon, poo and his subsequent butt bath. He enjoys the attention to detail on his bottom half, the closeness to mom, and that fresh out of the womb feeling. Butt bath time for Tucker is like a relaxing game, so relaxing that from time to time you will find him standing up during his front bath and casually relieving himself in the warm shower stream.

day 43 - onesies revisited

For the past week we've been transitioning to move from your grandparents' into our own house. I have had so much fun finally putting together your nursery (pictures soon!) after a long delay. We have much more room for your belongings; a dedicated closet AND dresser as well as ample floor space in the new house. I've been busy washing the clothes and blankets and all the items we thought we had to have for you, pulling out outfits I didn't even remember you had.

It appears you have an abundance of onesies as I completely thought that is all babies wore before I knew better. If you recall my earlier entry, I'm a bit partial to plain white t-shirts, primarily for their ease of removal and putting on.

I have had a slight change of heart the past week. While the plain white tees are the epitome of easy and practicality, the prints and patterns on the onesies are a thousand times cuter and lets face it, the onesies do have the added benefit of not riding up (your back that is, what they do in your diaper area is another story). Of course, the white tees compliment your skin tone the best, but I thought we might spruce up your daily fashion a bit, leave to white for your photo shoots.

Brian and I learned how to put on a onesie this week. Some are easier than others depending on material and fit and it turns out short sleeves are much easier than long sleeves. I may have just stated the obvious. Putting them on is a bit of a struggle. Its not that you fight having them put on, its just a lot to pull over a big ole baby head. I'm not sure of the best way to slip them on, whether to start at the back of your head or the first, but now that we are not so afraid of breaking or suffocating you during a routine changing, we are quite capable of dressing you in this common baby gear.

All was going well with the onesies experiment, when the ultimate onesies problem presented itself. With his paternity leave over, Brian was down in the basement working, slaving away to earn his keep. You and I had promised to have limited interruptions, but I couldn't help not calling him in for this dilemma: The Diaper Blowout. Now, you poo a lot, A LOT, but this was the first time you have managed to send to poo out of your diaper and up your back. I hear it is a common baby trick, but it was still your first time. The result? Poo seeping through the back of your no longer fresh onesie. And so the ultimate onesie question presented itself in real life, how do you remove a soiled onesies without soiling baby any further?

I first made the mistake of rolling up the poopy back side, only to realize rolling the wrong way has an adverse effect; it just keeps spreading the poo. Solution? Roll the onesie up with the folds facing inwards. It was a bit counter intuitive at first, but solved the poo problem by tucking away the evidence and allowing a clear removal over Tucker's head!

Lesson Learned or Product Review:
Now, I still recommend plain white tee's for those first weeks and for lounging around the house, especially on warmer days. With two big onesies' dilemnas solved in the past week though, I have to say the experiment has permanently added them back into your official wardrobe.

day 40 - the results are in!

The hot oil treatment seemed to do you well. Most of the scabs are gone with just a few dry patches left. The overall health of your scalp looks much improved. The oil treatment is recommended. And no, I did not really warm up the oil. Straight from the bottle of Johnsons.

day 24 - diaper success leads to crib success!

With the miracle of the hair drier and heating pad serendipitously found to pacify you during a changing (you now love love love having a good ole diaper change), we realized the same solution may be applied to help you sleep.

Up until today you were a good sleeper, until the moment you hit the crib. The confinement of the sleeping cell makes you wake like nothing else. We realized today that it may just be that your crib gets cold in the absence of your warm body. Solution? Pre heat the crib with the heating pad. Result? Warm crib and sleeping baby.

day 10 - the hot air effect

You hate having your diaper changed. It is one of the few times you cry, but oh do your little baby lungs perform. We were guessing its the cold air, maybe the cold changing pad, or just the overall inexperience of going, um, potty. Maybe its the diaper rash you've developed from our rushed, end-the-crying diaper changes.

Only time will fix the inexperience part, so we tackled the heat factor, or lack thereof and slapped some butt paste on your rear side. And for the heat factor we added in the most efficient heat AND white noise producing diaper changing agent there is, the hair drier.

The hair drier truly is the miracle tool. You instantly calm down from the noise and it works perfectly to expedite the recommended air drying of babies bottom. Nappy rash and crying solved in one fell swoop! Success!

Lesson Learned:
Hair driers do much more than dry hair! Word of caution: We use the cool setting (which is really more like a warm setting) on the hair drier most of the time. We will interject a few seconds of warmer air and constantly have a hand where the air is blowing - to make sure the temperature is okay.

Alternative Lesson Learned:
Pre-heating your changing pad with a heating pad (remove heating pad before changing baby) also seemed to make the diaper change more enjoyable. While it helped with the crying though, the pre-heat time is a bit frustrating and it does assist in tush drying.

day 8 - forget neiman marcus, I heart the plain white tee's

Our first product review with a lesson learned thrown in for good measure!

Prelude to a Lesson Learned: The fall of 2008 watched the stock market crash and department store prices plummet. Christmas 2008 sales were too good to pass up. With your grandparents in tow, we stocked up on baby clothes!

Before you were born we all were convinced you could not be more than 5 or 6 pounds at birth. Your father may remember his birth weight incorrectly, but I know I only weighed 4 pounds and your aunt Maggie topped the weight charts for my family at 6 pounds. So, on we marched to Neiman Marcus, Lord and Taylor, and Macy's raking in all the oh-so-cute and oh-so-inexpensive clothes for newborns. Despite advice we had been given, we didn't buy all our clothes on the bigger side. Pre-parenting failure #1, you've outgrown a good majority of your clothes already.

Lesson Learned: Buy most of your baby clothes things big! Exceptions to this rule: socks (I think these are one size anyways and probably unnecessary in most cases) and swaddle-me's (more on this in a later post).

Here is Your Product Review
Just weeks into your life you've outgrown my favorites outfits, but there is good reason for me to be okay with this. What we bought is not what works for us! In our pre-baby shopping we were stocked up on onesies and jumpers (this is what we were told babies wear). Now, just over a week into your life, all we want is a cute diaper and a plain white tee. You're still wearing the one we took home from the hospital (it's kinda tight now - more half shirt like) and your dad has made a run to Target for more.

Here are my calculated benefits of the plain white tee's:

• How easy is it to change a diaper when you have no pants and no snaps to undo?!
  
• The shirts sit nicely above your diaper and don't rub on your umbilical cord.
  
• They are SO easy to change, no need to wrestle with you as we do sliding the onesies over your head (this is important when you spit up all over yourself or worse, if you poopy your onesie).
  
• White matches everything, right?!
  
• If you need pants, we slide some pants on.
  
• If you need something warmer for outside, we put that over your diaper and over your t-shirt.
• If we need something warmer for inside, we wrap you up in blankets or your swaddle-me.
  
• DON'T MISS THIS: Tee shirts with the foldover hand mitten things can be very beneficial to any breastfeeding mother whose child has wandering hands. Believe the scratch marks on my chest, sometimes we need to cover those puppies! Forget them scratching themselves, save yourself!

Their only downfall seems to be their tendency to ride up, especially when they are to small. This hasn't really been an issue for us. We just pull the shirt back down when necessary.

Please, moms out there, buy the plain white tees. You will thank me for it. Make sure not to get them too small, they still fit great when they are a bit too big. It's critical you buy the ones that snap in the front too. Carters and Gerber (at Target) both make good ones. If you buy the non-snap on versions that you have to pull over the head it voids most of the pros I've written here.

In conclusion, the plain white tees are a must have! Here is some even better advice, get them both a see what works better for you. As a first time parent, wanting something easier to put on (small fear of you suffocating during those 10 seconds when I am trying to get some onesies over you head).

Tucker, you spend most of your days and nights in these tees.

day 3 - a word about circumcision care

Day 3 of life outside the womb. Day 1 home from the hospital. Dad and I are exhausted. We spent most of the day holed up in the bedroom / nursery at your grandparents house. I'm still very light headed and sore from the delivery. Your dad is hanging in there like a champ, pulling full diaper duty.

A note to prospective parents: We made an conscientious decision to have our son circumcised. I am not recommending either for or against circumcision, just please be informed on the pros and cons and seriously think about whether or not this is right for your child.

We read up on our discharge papers on how to care for you circumcision. Directions: "if the bandage has not fallen off within 24 hours, soak the bandage in water and remove". As new parents, these directions are terrifying. Can't we just leave the bandage on your swollen, ouchy private? Shouldn't something like this be left to a professional?

Dad went to work unwrapping the bandage. I assisted with the warm water to "soak" the bandage. We were good up to the last tug, which stuck, then bled, then bled some more. You soaked up several gauze pads and on the advice of your to be pediatrician we headed back to the hospital. Home for a little more than 24 hours and we've already broken you.

I never imagined how much I could worry about something or someone. The responsibility is enormous and overwhelming. The stress of it all is crazy. The love we have for you is truly evident and stronger than I could have hoped.

The ER staff at Edward's hospital fixed you up again. We were reassured your blood loss was not as great as it seemed. We headed home more tired, but relieved. You will live to bleed another day!

So, crisis was managed and a lesson was learned - DO NOT TRUST THAT YOUR DISCHARGE PAPERS ARE CORRECT. After we made the mistake of removing your bandage, the remaining doctors assured us that you are NOT to remove the circumcision bandage, it should fall off on its own. When in doubt, call your pediatrician!

P.S. We're sorry!

day 2 - TDaP or is it Dtap?

A word of warning to first time mom's out there. If you are not current on your TDaP vaccine, you'll be asked if you want it during your hospital stay. I was unprepared to answer, but declined. I just didn't see how I could care for my baby with my current state plus the side effects of the vaccine. I was so broken down I honestly did not know if my immune system could handle it. So, yes I declined, but I intend to have it at my 6 week check up.

Of course, whether or not to get the vaccine is a personal choice. I have not found any compelling reason not to have it. I just was not prepared when presented with the choice. Do your research before you go to the hospital!

day 0 - the labor story (unsensored and long winded)

I woke up at 11:30 PM on April 21, 2009 with a sharp contraction. I'd been asleep for all of 15 minutes. Having wrestled with sleep the entire night before I should have gone to bed earlier, but I didn't. I had stayed up watching an episode of "I didn't know I was pregnant" about, imagine this, women who went an entire 9 months and didn't know they were pregnant. The absurdity of it would make you stay awake to watch too...

So, 11:30 PM I woke up with a sharp contraction. I'd had contractions before, so at this point I thought nothing of it. I took my routine trip to the bathroom and returned to bed.

At 12:30 PM I woke up with another sharp contraction. Again, I'd had contractions before, but never any that woke me up. Things were started to come together. I went to bathroom again and there it was, the infamous mucus plug. Now, this isn't a tell tale sign of labor (so we learned after I woke up your dad and we Googled it). Labor could still be days from now... so we tried to stay calm and stay at home until the contractions are regular (511: 5 minutes apart, 1 minute in length, for 1 hour) like they tell you to.

Admittedly, I wasn't sure if I was having contractions or just a stomach ache. It sounds silly, but to be sure I spent much of the next hour in the bathroom. I didn't want to be that girl who shows up claiming she's in labor and is sent home with a diagnosis of gas. No one wants to be that girl. When we did finally leave for the the hospital, I definitely went with a clean system.

At some point in my bathroom frequenting, blood arrived. Naturally, as first time preggeroni and soon to be first time parents, we were worried. With less than 48 hours to our scheduled induction and my doctor out of town, we called the practice doctor on call. She woke from her slumber to worry us further... "there isn't supposed to be blood" and suggested we come in to get checked out. Note that once we arrived at the hospital every other doctor would tell us blood IS expected. Regardless, with much anxiety we packed up the car, said good bye to your grandparents, and rushed off to the hospital.

Our fears of running into traffic on the way to the hospital were dashed. At 2:00 AM on a Wednesday, there was not much interest in heading from the western suburbs into Chicago. Before the true labor had even begun we arrived at the hospital, exhausted, in the wee hours of the morning. My moderate contractions were consistently around 5 minutes apart ... a sign of baby to come.

I wish this was the part way I say they rushed us up to labor and delivery and two hours later you were born, but I don't. The hospital monitors did not lie, my contractions were real and regular, but I was only dilated 1 cm. Delivery was likely still a ways off. Instead of sending us home (which I am glad they didn't), we were prescribed to walk around the labor and delivery floor, for TWO HOURS.

I put my shoes on and the walking began. Back and forth around the floor where everyone else was having their babies. I stopped each lap to use the restroom and paused every two to five minutes to deal with my strengthening contractions. All the labor techniques they taught us in class went to the way side. None seemed natural except one - leaning against the wall with your dad rubbing my back (anything to get Brian to rub my back).

Somewhere between 60 to 90 of minutes of walking I just couldn't do it anymore. The labor wasn't too bad, but we were just so tired. Here labor was just beginning and it seemed like we had already been awake for 48 hours. We accepted our failure and resigned to lay down and get some sleep.

Your father passed out in the chair, while I fought off sleep denying contractions every two minutes. At 6:00 AM another women came in for an induction, 6 centimeters dilated and feeling no pain whatsoever. It was spiteful.

Somewhere around 7:00 AM they decided to admit us to labor and delivery. They had toyed with sending us home despite my pain and near state of delusional exhaustion. Thankfully, we our scheduled induction a little more than 32 hours away, we were allowed to proceed with your arrival.

We reached our labor and delivery room around 8:00 AM, on Wednesday, April 24, 2009 (your birthday!). Having already inquired about my epidural, I eagerly awaited meeting the anesthesiologist. I had intended to hold off on the epidural, my ignorance of what it truly felt like, had made me reluctant to have one at all. The thought of not being able to feel or move my legs, to be bed ridden, was terrifying. After 9 hours of contractions and no sleep, I was ready to be bed ridden. With the number of contraptions I was hooked up to anyways, I didn't see myself getting up much anyways.

Somehow or another the anesthesiologist was tied up. Perhaps he was busy with another patient, sleeping, eating, or just passing time, but he certainly wasn't feeling the urgency of the epidural as I was. Each time the nurse came by I'd bug her again. When that didn't work I relied on my nurse call button to remind her to send him by. My pleading seemed futile, but much, much later he arrived on his own accord.

Sometime after 9:00 AM the epidural relief hit me. I suddenly felt relaxed and was finally off to catch up on some lost sleep. Your father rolled out the sleeper chair next to me and we both caught some z's.

My advice to pregnant women: GET THE EPIDURAL. Truth is you can move your legs and, especially in the case of a long labor, it makes everything so much more calm. Here is the calm me, epiduraled up, and taking pictures with my mom's camera.



Your grandparents arrived sometime around noon, despite us still being far from delivery. With a pitocin drip added to speed things up, we were making progress, but still hours away. As the hours slipped by your grandparents were off to have once they are now calling the best pizza they've had (from Renaldi's on Broadway and Diversey) and your dad was off to The Counter for a burger. I ate ice chips ...

By 4 PM we had made little progress. I was still only 3cm dilated. But by 6 PM the attending thought I was dilated to 9 inches. Only to later have the doctor tell me I was closer to 8. Still more waiting...

In the time we were there we made good friends with the anesthesiologist who stopped by several times to laugh at my moaning and provide me more relief. At around 6 or 7 PM though, as you rolled lower in my pelvis and onto my left kidney, the pain became intense again. The epidural did little to comfort me, worrying me that the epidural relief would be non existent by the time you came and the pain would be unbearable (to think I once considered natural child birth). As it didn't seem to be working, I may have overdone it with epidural button... Around 7:45 PM though, we were cleared to start pushing and all pain was forgotten.

They don't really prepare you for delivery in any prenatal books, classes, or movies for that matter. Having seen plenty of baby movies this is what I expected ... the baby is coming, it hurts a lot, I push to help things along, and in a matter of minutes the baby has arrived. Only true in the movies and for really lucky people. We may have prematurely started pushing, but we pushed for TWO HOURS trying to get you out. I'm sure it was a combination of things, the epidural dulling my senses to push, my inexperience with how to push correctly, the exhaustion, or your size that slowed things down.

TWO HOURS. Having been told to stop exercising on my back early in my pregnancy, my abdominal muscles were not up to task for the delivery. Thirty minutes in I was weakening on holding my head and chest up to push you down. That's where your dad really stepped in. Of course he was there all along, but at some point he began lifting my head and back up for me, nearly bending me in half to force you down. The pushing itself was confusing ... I did what I thought was working, but each doctor and nurse would shout different, and conflicting, instructions on how to push.

No one ever told we what labor would feel like, but once you reached the "birth canal", I could actually feel that there was something there I needed the get out. By that point you were becoming tachycardic from the stress. I tried harder. At 9:40 PM, we pushed all 8 pounds 8.9 ounces of you into this world.

This is where your dad and my memories of the labor start to differ. Your dad claims you didn't cry, but from what my tired self remembers, they suctioned your nose and the crying began. Then you pooped (we agree on this part). You were placed on my belly for us to meet and to my surprise you weren't overly red and slimy. Your dad claims the opposite. I think he just hadn't seen enough pictures of how icky newborns can be. He declined the cut the cord, but watched over you as you were whisked away.

There was definitely some heightened concern when you were born over your size. Blood was immediately drawn from your heel for a blood sugar test, indicating diabetes. To our relief you passed this first test and each successive one. You were just a surprisingly big baby (relative to your father and me). We were okay with that.

You scored high on your Apgar as well. 8 initially, and 9 after 5 minutes. We were so proud.

It took some time for them to clean you up and sew me back together. The post delivery tear stitches definitely took some time and possibly hurt worse than the deliver. I believe it to be the case of when you are ready for something to be over - and its not over - makes it hurt that much worse. Perhaps my epidural really was wearing off at this point. I was not prepared for all this post delivery prodding.

Between the stitches and the removal of the blood clots it was another hour before your grandparents were allowed in. They had waited mostly patiently in the waiting room for your arrival. Three hours since they had been kicked out they were finally allowed back in. Grandpa made the obligatory phone calls and grandma admired you up close. Exhausted as the rest of us they headed home shortly thereafter and we transferred to a mom and baby room to find some rest, hopefully.