The First Month

The first month of my daughter's life has flown by. It's really incredible how much has happened and how much has changed. She went from being this little ball of mush that couldn't really do anything but eat, sleep, poop, and cry, to a big ball of mush who has added smiling and cooing to her repertoire. Oh, AND sleeping through the night! That's right, my 5 week old daughter sleeps through the night in up to 7 hour stretches.

*ducks from being hit by stuff being thrown by other new moms*

Her sleeping routine goes like this: She falls asleep at 1 a.m., sleeps til about 7 or 8. Eats for an hour or so. Then goes back to sleep until noon. Not bad, not bad. I'm NOT complaining.

So in this first month, I've tried to keep mental track of some observations I've made about babies and being a parent:

1. BABIES MAKE WEIRD SOUNDS. I was warned about newborns being noisy sleepers, but I had no idea that my infant daughter was capable of sounding like a variety of jungle animals (mammals, birds, and insects included), Yoda, and a gremlin all at the same time. It's really quite bizarre. Add on top of this my husband's snoring and it's a miracle I fall asleep at all.

2. BREASTFEEDING IS HARD. While Samantha and I have mostly worked out our problems with this, the first 3 weeks were NOT fun. I don't know why I expected it to "just work," but it "just doesn't." Is it the media that portrays bf'ing as easy or is it just that nobody tells you how painful it is? Sorry if it's TMI for some of you (does anyone even read my blog anymore?), but the redness, blistering, scabbing, peeling, and irritation of my poor nipples make we want to just remove them and soak them overnight in cool water. Or trade them in for rubber ones. Nevertheless, I stuck with it and the aforementioned symptoms subsided. So, we're sticking with the bf'ing.

3. PARENTS NEED AT LEAST 3 ARMS. When you hold a baby who can't support her own head, you need to use one hand to hold her under her butt and one hand to support her head/back. Uh, what happens when you need to answer the phone or write something down or basically anything else that you need to do? Well, at first you don't. Then you learn ways to hold your baby that only require one arm and learn how to do things that usually require 2 hands with one.

4. MY BABY IS FOREVER DESTINED TO WEAR PINK. Everything that was gifted to me during pregnancy was green and yellow. Now everything is pink. Funny thing is, I think my baby looks "better" in greens and yellows!

5. MY HUSBAND AND I ARE SCREWED. This is one cute kid. She gets cuter by the day and now that she's started smiling, we are sucked in by her cuteness. Hell, it's not even her smile, it's everything: her sneezes, cooing, burps, hiccups, farts, poops, cries...EVERYTHING. I'm hoping this infatuation will last.

6. EAU DE BABY SPIT-UP. I think I am forever destined to be covered with and smelling of baby spit-up. It does not smell good, but I only have so many clothes and only so much time to do laundry, so now half the time, I don't even bother to change. I'm like, "Eh, it'll dry!" and just leave it.

Samantha's Birth Story

I pretty much wrote the following for me, so I wouldn't forget how it all went down. But I figure that I would share it as long as I have it! Sorry if it's TMI for some, but nobody said birth was pretty.

June 27, 2008

I woke up for about the sixth time that night to use the bathroom, about 4 a.m. When I came back to bed, I couldn’t fall back asleep. At about 4:45, I felt the baby move A LOT and heard a “popping” sound. I had heard of this happening to others with no effect, so I just ignored it. About 5 minutes later, I felt slight wetness, but not enough to wet the bed or anything, so I just ignored that, too (there’s a lot of wetness/discharge during pregnancy). About 5 minutes later I felt even more wetness, so I got up to check it out. Once I got into the bathroom, there was a sudden gush that came out, the end of which was tinged with blood. I figured my water broke! So I woke Brian up (me: “Brian, my water broke!” Brian: “Really?”) and called the doctor. She said that if it was my water breaking, it would probably still be trickling, so she wasn’t convinced. She said that my baby’s head might be blocking the rest of the trickle, though, so she told me to go to the hospital. No rush, though, just be there within the hour and eat something light. So Brian and I took our time, got our stuff together, and ate something light: toast. I started having non-painful, but time-able, contractions which were coming about 10 minutes apart. I had just taken 2 bites into an apple when a contraction hit me more strongly and I just knew that this was it. “We gotta go,” I told Brian as I threw the rest of the apple away. My contractions continued in the car and got slightly closer together. When we got to L&D, the doctor checked me out and said I was 2 cm dilated and that she did not feel my bag of waters inside me, and I was admitted at about 6:15 a.m.

My contractions were very regular at this point and getting more and more intense, but manageable. I breathed through each one with Brian’s help as my coach. At some point, however, they got INCREDIBLY PAINFUL, so painful that I threw up. I cannot even describe what the contractions were like. The closest I can get is comparing them to menstrual cramps x 4,000,000. At about 9 a.m., I requested (demanded?) an epidural. The anesthesiologist came in and set me up. It was a longer process than I thought and difficult to stay perfectly still to get the catheter and shot (or whatever he did) in my spine while having these insanely painful contractions. I remember, though, when the medicine hit me. I was sitting up and slowly the room came back into focus. I remembered where I was and was again aware of who was around me. Yes, the pain is so intense it bends your mind like that. I cannot believe that women go through labor naturally. They have super-powers that I do not possess.

So from about 10:00 a.m. on, I felt nothing. That’s right…NOTHING…from my waist down. It was strange to not be able to feel or move my legs, especially my left one. (For some reason, the anesthetic usually affects one side more strongly than the other). At this point, I think I was 3 cm dilated and almost completely effaced. I felt great, carrying on conversations, answering the phone, etc. My mom and father-in-law showed up. Around noon, Brian, my mother and my FIL went down to eat lunch. By the time they returned, I was 7 cm…progressing very, very quickly! Around 3:00, I was 10 cm dilated and ready to push!

Brian and my mom stayed during the pushing. It was pretty grueling and repetitive. I had been worried that with the epidural I wasn’t going to feel the urge to push, but I did, even though I didn’t feel the pain of the contraction that accompanied it (yay modern medicine!). Brian was an awesome coach, helping me lift my head and put my chin to my chest, reminding me to use my arms and pull up (on the bed handles). The contractions were slowing down, not coming as often as they were before, so my doctor gave me a shot of pitocin, which helps move the contractions along. When that didn’t help, I had another round of pitocin, which also didn’t produce the desired effect. After 2 1/2 hours of pushing, the baby was NOT moving down. The baby was faced the wrong way and had a big head. Between contractions, the doctor would reach in (yeah, this part was greeeaaat) and physically turn the baby around, but when I started pushing, the baby just flipped right back over. (Stubborn like mommy). The doctor was afraid that the baby’s head was just swelling in the birth canal instead of moving down. She said that she usually gives her patients 3 hours of pushing before considering a C-section and that she was absolutely willing to go for another 1/2 hour. I asked her for her professional opinion: Would another 1/2 hour of pushing move the baby down at all? She didn’t think so since the past 2.5 hours had barely moved that baby. After some crying, I decided to have a C-section.

This part is kind of a blur for me. I think it was about 5:30 p.m. when I was wheeled in to surgery. I remember seeing Brian dressed in scrubs. He was told to wait in some holding room for about 5 minutes until I was ready. (He later told me it was the longest 5 minutes of his life). I remember being moved from my rolling bed to the surgery table by many people. I remember the anesthesiologist, Dr. Eng, was really, really nice. He stayed up by my head and told me exactly what he was injecting into me. Brian was brought in and was sitting right next to me (on the “safe” side of the curtain). It was weird to be awake the whole time and not feel my body being cut open. I remember the doctor announcing when she was making the incision. During the next hour, I pretty much just laid there and listened to the doctors’ idle chit-chat. I remember finding that to be strange, but I guess this is routine for them. After about an hour, the doctors announced, “Okay, this is it!” I felt an intense amount of pressure and then heard the most joyous sound I have EVER heard in my entire life: my baby crying. Of course, Brian and I sobbed. Then we heard the doctor say, “It’s a GIRL!” I was shocked. I was so sure it was going to be a boy. The doctors were all surprised at how big she was and I heard them betting on the baby’s weight. One said at least 9 lbs., another said 8 lbs. 5 oz. She ended up being 8-3.

Brian was beckoned to the table where our daughter was being evaluated and cleaned up. They handed her to him and he brought her to me, or as close as he could. (There were lots of machines in the way). Out of the corner of my eye and through my tears, I could just make her out: our daughter.

I was then sewn back up with stitches and staples and brought into recovery where I spent an eternity before they brought the baby to me. At this point, it was about 2 hours since she was born and I still hadn't really seen her, let alone hold her. Even though I was totally out of it, I was going crazy waiting for her and Brian. Finally, FINALLY, they brought her in. She still had no name at this point because I wanted to see her before we chose one of our two girls' names we had picked out. We chose Samantha Florence, which I think is the most beautiful name in the world.

A Star is Born

I have a really, really good reason for not posting in such a long time. My baby was born!

Samantha Florence was born on Friday, June 27, 2008 at 6:25 p.m.

She weighed 8 lbs. 3 oz. and was 20 inches long. I will eventually post her birth story (in the process of writing it), but for now,

here are some pictures of the day she was born. Looking at them, I'm amazed at how much she's already changed!

My husband and I feel so lucky to have her in our lives. All our nervousness and fear has been replaced by happiness and thankfulness.

Closing Thoughts

I found this blog entry saved as a draft and figured I could use it as a way to sum up my school year. (There are actually many other school-related happenings I didn't blog about, so those may pop up from time to time).

While I'm happy to have this year off to care for my baby (if s/he EVER SHOWS), there are definitely some THINGS I WILL MISS ABOUT TEACHING:

1. Field trips: I've been to countless interesting places in my tenure as a teacher, from boat tours to obscure museums to weird (and bad) plays. I'll miss bringing my kids as they experience things in Chicago for the first time. It's a pain in the ass to schedule field trips, and sometimes not worth it when all some kids do is complain the whole time about how boring this is, but for the most part, who doesn't love a field trip? It's like a day off!

2. A Paycheck: What the hell is wrong with the USA? No obligatory paid maternity leave? What the hell is that? According to a USA Today article that came up when I googled "maternity leave in other countries," Canadians get 14 months of paid maternity leave. Swedes get approximately 24 months.

3. Humor: While I live with quite possibly the world's funniest person, I will miss the humor 4th graders provide.

4. Structure: While I'm a relatively flexible person and can move my schedule around when needed, teaching (or working in general) gives me a sense of structure to my day. Y'know, like I have to wake up by 6:20, and I have to have my kids to library by 11:00, and we always eat lunch at 11:40. Yeah, now...not so much. Don't get me wrong: the best thing ever (in my opinion) is to not have to wake up to an alarm clock and I appreciate that this past week I've pretty much been able to do whatever the hell I want whenever I want to do it (or not do it!), but after a while without structure to my day, I tend to fall apart. I guess this is something I don't have to worry about too much, though, because I have an 8-pound ball of structure headed my way, don't I?

5. That Feeling: I will never forget when I realized that I wanted to become a teacher. I was a sophomore in high school in the reading and writing lab, a place students could go for extra help. Mr. Silverwood was helping me answer an essay question for my English class about Huck Finn that I just did not know the answer to. We reread the part together in the book and he helped me realize the answer. He didn't tell me the answer, he helped me arrive at it on my own. Apparently I gave off some visible cue that I got it because he said to me, "See, that right there! That's why I became a teacher." And I knew what he meant. And I wanted it, too.

Okay, so granted that feeling doesn't happen every day, but it's something a teacher strives for every day, and when it happens, it makes the rest of the bullshit worthwhile. Speaking of bullshit...


THINGS I WILL NOT MISS:

1. Lack of supplies: Not having paper towels in the bathroom with which to dry my hands has gotten old after 11 years. I always have paper towels at home! Stealing toilet paper from the teachers' bathroom so my kids can use some toilet paper when they go to the bathroom OR having to bring my own from home is something I could use a break from as well.

2. Weird sounds: Dealing with kids making farting sounds, tapping sounds, and general weird sounds is a-n-n-o-y-i-n-g. Not that I'm expecting peace and quiet with a newborn, but at least the sounds s/he makes are not purposefully annoying.

3. The "computer" teacher: who does as little as possible all the time. Get this, she's not teaching computers next year! Hey, maybe the kids will actually learn something about technology now that she's not going to be teaching it. She is assigned to 2nd grade next year, so god help those 30 kids. I think her reassignment was a ploy to get her to retire (I think she's at least 70 years old!), but it failed.

4. Complaints: like, "He keeps bumping my desk when he walks by," or "She keeps talking about me," or "They called me dumb/ugly/retarded." Y'know...at the beginning of the year, I was on top of this behavior. The kid would immediately "pull their card" and apologize. By the end, though, I just wanted to yell, "I DON'T CARE" or "JUST DEAL WITH IT!" That's what spending 160 days with 9-year olds will do to you.

5. Preparing students for assemblies, like Christmas or Black History: What. A. Pain. Like I don't have enough to do without having the kids memorize a song or poem.

6. Meetings: 'nuff said.

7. Preps/specials being cancelled with no advanced notice: Or is this good preparation for babysitters?

8. Clueless parents: Parents of all the students I've taught, thank you for preparing me to not be a total idiot who has the wool pulled over my eyes by a 9-year-old. While some of you are great parents, others of you need to get a clue.


I feel bad that my lists are so uneven (5 things I will miss vs. 8 things I won't), but not so bad that I'm going to sit here and think of 3 more things that I will miss. It's time for me to go eat some breakfast. That's right...breakfast at 9:30 a.m...when I want to eat breakfast...not at some prescribed time that my job says I should eat breakfast.

The Next Chapter

School is officially over. The next 14 months are mine, all mine! Okay, who am I kidding? The next couple days/weeks are mine-all-mine...after that, they belong to my future son/daughter.

*giggles nervously*

While I can't wait to meet him/her and start this next chapter of life together, part of me is like, "What the hell was I thinking???" I was perfectly happy before getting pg, why did I think I needed to be any happier? Have I bitten off more than I can (or want to) chew?


Mothers assure me that having a baby is "the best thing there is," and then follow it up with horror stories of labor, complaints about how little sleep they got the first month, difficulties breastfeeding, and so on. "It's all worth it," they say. I hope so, because at this point, this kid has GOT to come out of me.


Being pregnant has been great...up until about 2 weeks ago. Now, not so much. The little things I used to take for granted are now some of my greatest obstacles. Tying my shoes, for example, is the hardest thing I do all day. Turning over in bed without waking up...forget it.


So while I'm ready to get this kid OUT, the aforementioned fears make me want to keep the kid IN. Better yet, I wish there was a hidden option "C," in which I wake up from this dream and I'm on vacation in Belize or something.

Polka Dots

I'm all about the comfort these days. At 9 months pregnant, you gotta be because you're so friggin' uncomfortable most of the time! One of my most comfortable items of clothing (besides my pjs) is my pair of white capris. I swear, I could wear them to bed, they're that awesome.

I wear them to work at least once a week, always careful to wear the right color underwear underneath, y'know like a nude or white.

Well...I was walking my kids outside the other day for recess where we encountered another class coming in. I stopped for a minute to talk to the teacher and then we continued on our way. Once we got out to recess, some of my girls came up to me.

Q: Ms. M, do you know why that other class was laughing? [and, yes, I have a female student whose name starts with "Q"]

Me: No, I didn't even notice anybody was laughing.

Q: Oh, it's because you can see your underwear.

At this point I look down and, sure enough, I'm wearing orange and blue polka-dotted underwear! Crap.

Me: You sure can, huh? Oh well, I'll live.

Q: We were going to tell you this morning [at this point it's 1:15 p.m.], but we didn't want to embarass you.

Me: We?

Q: Yeah, the whole class noticed right away.

Me: Terrific.


In all honesty, I really don't care. (I'm finding you really don't care about much when 9 months pregnant). But I am glad she told me because I had to go to the dentist and Target after work, so I stopped and changed before going to these places. Thank god there's only 3 school days left. The white capris will probably only be worn to work once more. I'll make sure to have the right color underwear on.

Food Fight!

I've been bad, I know. I haven't posted for a while. At least I'm not as bad as my husband who hasn't posted in over a month.

So I witnessed an honest-to-god, real-life FOOD FIGHT! Just like in the movies! It was unreal. My fourth graders have lunch at a time when the lunch room is filled with 5th and 6th graders. As we leave, 7th graders come in. However, on this particular day, I kept my kids at lunch late because we arrived late and they didn't have time to finish their lunch. Despite the bad feeling I had about staying 5 minutes late, we stayed. Yes, I literally had an intuitive feeling that we should not stay, but damnit, I'm 9 months pregnant and hungry!

From where I sit in the lunchroom, I have a wide vantage point. I can pretty much see everybody. It started with a 7th grader throwing an orange. Then another kid throwing an orange. Then hamburgers started flying. Then chocolate milks. Then whole trays of food were going all over the place. We're talking over 100 students in this room, in this mess.

My class was pretty much out of the way (as we're all the way at the front of the room) so we weren't in the food fight, but we witnessed the whole thing. My poor little 4th graders either ran out of the room or took cover under the table. I pretty much just sat their, mouth agape, and watched the chaos unfold. Crazy, but the whole thing lasted under 30 seconds...there's only so much food you can throw, right? Good thing it wasn't spaghetti day. ( ;