My Girl

I was re-reading some of my posts and I came across the one where I mentioned how we were hoping for a boy. Let me clear this up right now, I am beyond happy and pleased I have a little girl. She is dreamy and as I thought I couldn't imagine what I'd do with a girl, I now couldn't imagine having a boy. My darling daughter's middle name is "Pearl" same as my Great-Grandmother who raised me and who I love and miss dearly. Beyond happy to have a girl to share this name. Not to mention my friends have all reminded me that I have been talking about "my daughter" since I was in High School. So my words manifested reality. Beautiful.

Abandoned? No just delayed

Being a new mother and a writer(trying to get paid) is no joke. Therefore my thoughts and actions have like a helium balloon disappeared into the clouds instead of being recorded. I have a moment. The child sleeps, my mind is quiet. I shall blog....

What has gone on. In the great words of Shug Avery..."I's married now." The child is 7 months, healthy, beautiful and full of energy. If I partook in the energy drink madness, I would drink a dozen a day to keep up.. She crawls, sits up, bites, smiles and makes her demands known in the loudest and most lovable ways possible. She is a dream and a blessing and pain in the butt all wrapped in to one. So happy to have her.

I called in a few favors to get some child talent agency info....she is a represented baby. We haven't gone out for any auditions yet, but hopefully soon. I'm not trying to go back to "regular" work. I need this "writer" thing to start paying. I can write anywhere and don't have to leave my little dreamie baby girl behind, to do it.

Oooop, she is up. She hops up from her sleep with a vengeance and because she sleeps next to me, if I'm on my computer she leaps for it. Yes, I've created a love monster. She will not sleep unless I'm next to her. I sometimes wish I could fit in her crib so I could get her in it and slide out when she falls asleep, but that's not happening. So I just relax when she relaxes and keep a watchful eye on her when she sleeps.

Hopefully one day, maybe when she's fifteen , she'll sleep alone.
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Okay, must cut this short because this little girl will not be denied.

Few and far between

My Posts. I know. Motherhood tends to take most of my time. I'm in love. My child, this little girl is the light of my life. She is eleven weeks, time flies. I just celebrated my first Mother's day. Life is good. I'm exhausted, breastfeeding, trying to write in between feedings and changings and nice walks in the park and I love it all. I'm still sore and physically exhausted from the birth of this child and I have to say...I'd do it all again. And maybe even again. My whole life has changed. This little baby is growing so fast. In eleven weeks she has become a little girl. She has eyebrows and a personality. Her father is trying to placate her right now, but she wants the "boob" so I have to go.

She has arrived

On February 24, 2010 at 5:04pm I officially joined the club of motherhood.
On February 23, 2010, I had a doctors appointment. The doctor told me I was still 1 cm dilated but my cervix was nice and soft. I could give birth at anytime from that day until a week from that moment. I went home and cried. The doctor told me to come in on thursday to have all my fluids checked and get an ultrasound and discuss inducing labor if this kept on. God bless this child, she decided to come on Wednesday.

My water broke at 3:45am. It was a dramatic gush that continued. My hombre asked "Do you think I should stay home from work today". I told him, yeah I think that would be a good idea. :-) We headed to the hospital an hour later. But not before stopping at Starbucks for a breakfast sandwich. I'm not a pleasant hungry person and I knew once I got to the hospital there would be no more food until the child had entered the world. It was quite tasty.

I remained calm and dedicated to bringing the child into the world, naturally and with as little screaming as possible. I did not scream. I cried. SIlent tears ran down my face as I sat through intense labor pains for four hours. At 8am the real contractions kicked in, shortly after they put me on pitocin to speed up labor. YIKES!!! It intensifies pain that's for sure. By noon I had given up on the whole...natural, without drugs, madness and asked for an epidural. I was having beyond horrible contraction pain and they were coming every 3 to 4 minutes. I had to bear down and sit still for the epidural. Done. And by the way, the epidural is no walk in the park either. If the nurses or doctor could have given me a specific time as to when I'd be ready to deliver I might have been able to hold out up to 2 more hours with the pain, but the window was to wide. Anytime from noon to after midnight is what they told me. I would have lost my mind and had to deliver in the crazy house if I hadn't taken the epidural.

Birth- pushing and such. An amazing and primitive process. A miracle. It was surreal. I'm very happy my friend filmed the delivery, because it was like a dream. My child, my beautiful precious blessing is here. She's bright eyed and alert, healthy and beautiful. Ten fingers, ten toes and everything else in its place. A blessing beyond my comprehension.

I'm sore, aching but recovering. I'm sleep deprived and a little delirious as my baby girl loves to party around midnight to 4am. I'm breastfeeding and my nipples are on fire and I find myself watching her sleep all day and night, depriving myself of even more sleep and I have to say, it's all worth it. A hundred billion times over...worth it.

I'm in love.

41 Weeks...

Let's start off with this morning's breakfast....Corned beef hash with two eggs over easy, two slices of sourdough toast, two chocolate frosted buttermilk donuts, lots of watermelon and pineapple a half a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and a decaf green tea.

I had a doctor's appointment today. Getting bigger and bigger and no sign of labor. Minor contractions (having one right now actually), but nothing to call home about. I asked about being induced, he told me anytime I want, I said thursday and he said..."I'll see you on Friday to check the fluids if you haven't given birth by then". God bless the man for trying to maintain a natural state here, because I'm all for it, but I'm also for meeting this child and becoming human again. I've morphed into a monster. Just this last week, gratefully. I'm very happy I haven't been like this for say....months or weeks. I'm also grateful I didn't feel this way for the baby shower. I was a very gracious and happy showeree. Had we by chance had it this week or last week, I would probably be sending out apology notes along with my thank you notes. I'm really more defeated and emotional than actually mean. Before I can really fuss about anything the waterfalls begin....pitiful really.

I know the due date is a guestimate and the child was probably still incubating, but by my calculations, she is ready. Officially this week, even if the doctor's were off, it would be time this week. I would prefer to avoid a forced labor, but uhhh, errrr,, uhhhh, I'm willing to make an exception. I've walked and walked, worked and worked, moved and moved and still nothing. I know at the end of the day it's up to a higher power and I'm fine, I just need to feel like I'm putting my ducks in a row.

So I wound up with an appointment for thursday, to see if the fluids are all good because if not, my doctor and I will talk about inducing. They will have to induce by March 2nd not matter what, but again, uuuhhh, errrrm uuuhhhh. I as born on a Friday, I don't object to Friday. Hopefully this little one will show me and get me up in the middle of THIS night to take my trip to the hospital for delivery. I'm all for it. Show me up little girl.

OVERDUE

For real? I'm 40 weeks and 4 days pregnant. You've got to be kidding me. This child is apparently very comfortable. I've been to the hospital twice but no cigar. I'm hurting. It's one thing to have a growing child in the womb. I can take all she dished out. The nausea the exhaustion the bone pain and insomnia. But it's a whole other show Oprah, when the child is fully baked. It's time little girl, come on. There is a lot more room outside of my womb than in my womb. And I think i have a future soccer player in there because when she stretches and kicks...whoa.

Gratefully, she is still head down. That whole "Version" magic was insane. I've been walking and going walking today again, trying to use the laws of gravity to help speed the process. Plus the longer she's in there the more I worry. Even though when she moves it is uncomfortable and sometimes truly painful, I still try to wake her when I feel she hasn't moved enough.

Ease my mind and my body and make your entrance into this world, pronto. Due date of Feb 16 has come and gone. We have left Aquarius and are now in Pisces. Erykah Badu, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Ron Howard, Bobby Fischer and Liza Minelli and Albert Einstein are all Pisces. Not bad.

38 weeks/5 days

My baby shower was last Saturday, January 30th. It was beyond wonderful. Good food, friends and fun and great gifts. About eleven family members and friends from the east coast traveled clear cross country to share the special day. We had two cakes..German Chocolate and Red Velvet and I can't wait until there is a occasion to go back and get more of these heavenly cakes.

i thought maybe I could will the child out the day after the baby shower while my family and friends were still here, but apparently she won't be rushed. And even though I'm quite miserable, her health and safety are first so if she wants to bake longer, Mommy will deal with the discomfort of having a full grown baby sharing my belly with all of my organs. :)

And speaking of "her", no less than twenty strangers have told me I'm having a boy, so I had the father come up with some boy names just in case. I was told girl during an Ultrasound in October, but hey, you never know. Most of the clothes are neutral as I love organic and neutral colors and loathe pink, but the child's room is painted lilac. If it's a boy he'll be like the recording artist Prince. :-) At the end of the day, boy or girl, doesn't matter to me...healthy and thriving child is the concern.

And though I say I'll just wait until she's ready I have tried, walking, eating lots of pineapple and I even went to a place famous for selling a salad that makes women go into labor. "The Maternity Salad", it was featured in several news articles. The salad was delicious, but no labor.

So I sit, pace, cry, moan, smile and wait to meet my upcoming bundle of joy.

37 weeks today - Breeched Baby

Oh yes, talk about neglect. I just couldn't do it. Blog that is. I haven't felt like doing anything constructive, besides eating and trying to find a comfortable position. I have started nesting, but because I'm very pregnant, the cleaning and organizing only happens in spurts. Most of it happens in my mind.

So, today I'm officially 37 weeks and due to my breeched baby (wrong position for birth) today I had an "External Cephalic Version."

The little girl, seemingly as stubborn as her mother, had not moved into the proper position for birth. She was completely head up. Painfully head up. She had her little head wedged in my chest and didn't seemed concerned about being a few weeks away from entering the world. So my doctor wanted to do this external version to attempt to get her into position to avoid labor complications and avoid a c-section.

There is a 50/50 chance it works. I am in the "it worked" percentile. It was very strange and now that my adrenaline is subsiding I can feel more pain. I'm just sore, as if I did one hundred too many sit-ups (As if I can do more than five on my best day). The nurse told me to focus on one thing. I sang Whitney Houston's remake of For the Love of you, in my head as the doctor coached me to breathe and used his fist and all of his strength to flip the child into position. YIKES! The nurse told me I had a high tolerance for pain. I do, but I'm certain I won't think so when it's labor time. But today, because I wanted this to work, I tried to remain as quiet as possible, when I really wanted to jump up and run out of the room, but not before kicking someone. Instead, I was grown. It probably took all of five minutes. But it felt longer.

It's insane to suddenly feel the baby kicking me in the spot where her head was just a few hours ago. But the relief of having her head lower instead of in my chest is wonderful. I had wicked, wicked, lava like heartburn and pain when she was head up, but I didn't know why. I just thought it was par for the course. But after the ultra-sound at the doctor's office and learning she was up, no further explanation was needed. Ahhh a little relief and a chance to have a natural birth. There is a a chance she may flip back around , but the doctor explained if the baby is hard to flip into position, it will be less likely for her to flip back. My little stubborn girl did not flip without a fight. So that is good news, because if she flips back. I will go ahead and reluctantly schedule a c-section. Though, so far so good.

Other news - I've gained 40 pounds for this pregnancy so far. I can't believe it's not more, because I've taken to cooking and baking brownies with brown sugar toasted pecans (i toast them myself). But I think I'm pretty active. If nothing else, I have to walk up and down a flight of stairs several times a day.

3 weeks to go before I meet this bundle of kicking joy.