Just Powers

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family reunion - Dynasty

To those folks who are convinced that Emma looks just like me…I guess you are right, but just barely!

I always knew it would happen. The minute I gave birth to Emma I began bracing myself for the moment when Mike became the parent of choice. She has consistently chosen me over Mike for the last 18 months but every time he starts to look sad about this I have reminded him “Look, I get a year, maybe two, and then she will be all about her daddy, for the rest of her life.”

Since she has had such trouble going to sleep lately, I have been the only one putting her to bed for a few weeks while we try to establish a consistent routine and figure out what works. Even though she has gone to sleep with no problems at all for a week or two, we have been afraid to jinx it by switching it up and start having Mike put her to bed too.

Tonight, after I brushed her teeth and washed her hands, we were on our way to the bedroom when Emma suddenly veered off towards the kitchen. She found her Daddy there and reached out for his hand and led him to the bedroom, where the two of them got her pajamas out and started the routine for bed. Mike and I looked at each other over her head with our eyebrows raised, and I took a step back and let Mike take over.

I thought when this happened I might feel pangs of jealousy or sadness. Instead I feel such joy that Emma has two parents she loves and feels safe with. No doubt the jealousy and sadness will rear their ugly heads at some point, but for now I am just happy to have a night off.

Update: Tonight, one night later, Emma went to kitchen, found her Dad, took his hand, then turned and took my hand and led us both to her room to get ready for bed. To say we were both little puddles on the floor would be an understatement. We just can’t believe this kid is for real sometimes.

I have heard a lot of people talk about the fact that when you have kids you become abnormally obsessed with their poop and love to talk about it with anyone who will listen.

Actually, not so much for me. My obsession is with Emma’s sleep. I think about it, worry over it, dream about it and talk to everyone about it as if it is the most important thing IN THE WORLD. Last week I went into a 20 minute description of Emma’s sleep issues with an unsuspecting but very nice mother at the park. Oddly, as I write this, I realize I haven’t blogged about it too much. Lucky you.

For the last two months, Emma has gone from being a model sleeper to my worst nightmare. She used to go into her crib drowsy, look at us as we said goodnight and left the room, and then roll over and go to sleep without a peep. We rejoiced, we high fived, we secretly thought we were the best parents in the world.

On the day she turned 15 months, she decided to make it very clear who is the boss when it comes to her sleep. Only once in the last two months has she gone to sleep without crying. Sometimes it is a quick, whimpering cry - those are happy times. Other times it takes us two hours to get her to sleep - those are the why-did-we-decide-to-have-kids-we-obviously-are-the-worst-parents EVAH times. We aren’t really sure what happened to cause her hatred of sleep. There have been a string of events that might be behind it - vaccinations, teething, sickness, travel, weaning from the nighttime bottle (which is uh, not going so well. Please don’t tell our ped…I plan on lying about it when we see him in a month.) If anyone knows about a 15 month old “screw this sleeping thing” phase that kids go through, I am all ears.

But maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Just now, not 20 minutes ago, my old Emma came back to visit. I put her down for a nap, she watched me leave, and rolled over and went to sleep. Aaaaahhhhh.

No doubt she will bring me back down to earth tonight - bedtime seems to be worse than naps for some reason - but I can always hope that the stage has finally come to an end.

And also, if anyone has any tips about weaning off a bottle at bedtime, please let me know. We have been able to switch her from the bottle to a sippy cup with milk at bedtime - but really isn’t that just cheating? Still milk, still the sucking action. I am torn about whether to go cold turkey on the sippy cup or whether to just go a little more slowly and trust that she will wean herself when she is ready. In the past we have leaned more towards trusting that she will do what she needs to do when she is ready, and it has worked, but I don’t want to set my kid up for future therapy centered around dependence issues just because I didn’t know how to take the bottle away. Which is not to say I am under any illusion that she will not already be in therapy for something else I have done to her…

Taking turns from Justpowers on Vimeo.

I took this video back in January and never got a chance to put it up. I remembered it the other day and decided the cute factor far outweighed how late I am sharing it with you.

I met a FellowMom today. I like to think that I am pretty outgoing and make friends easily, but honestly I have found the task of making new mom friends to be a little daunting. So when I connected via email and a local moms Yahoo list with the mom of two kids who attend the same day care as Emma, I was excited to meet her. We agreed that we might meet today when we picked our kids up.

I arrived at daycare and met FellowMom. She seemed very nice and her kids are great, which is always a good sign, although I, like a dork, was as nervous as the first time I asked Mike if he wanted to get together sometime. We exchanged pleasantries and when our kids got restless we made the “Well, I guess I gotta run” face and got in our cars to go home.

On the way home I was in a left turn lane at a stoplight - with an arrow that must be further away than normal or something, cause I have almost missed the light more than once - and when the arrow turned green the person in front of me didn’t move.

“Argh-I-hate-everyone-why-can’t-anyone-drive-can’t-they-see-the-light-changed-what-
the-heck-are-they-waiting-for-oh-wait-this-is-the-light-I-always-miss-maybe-I-will-just-
give-this-slacker-a-little-horn-action-and-then-they-will-finally-move-their-butt” I thought. I tapped lightly on the horn once or twice and the driver waved in the mirror and started to turn.

As we turned, I looked a little more closely and realized…well you know exactly where this is going. The driver was FellowMom.

Beautiful. Just beautiful. Way to go Jen.

And I wonder why I have trouble meeting people.

Emma turned 16 months old today. It was a tough, but exciting month for her.

She spent the first half of the month feeling pretty sick from the vaccines she got at her 15 month visit - I suspect it was the MMR that did her in. She spiked a fever of 103.4, had what I guess is the classic rash associated with measles (or is it mumps?), and was really really miserable for two full weeks. Around the same time, Mike was out of town and she seemed to really miss him, which only exacerbated how bad she was feeling.

Once Daddy returned and she started feeling better, the slide incident showed us that Emma is pretty much fearless, even if the same can’t be said of her parents. She continues to go down the slide on her belly, face first, any chance she gets, as this video documents.

The climbing she was just beginning to enjoy last month has become an obsession. She climbs up on the dining room chairs at every opportunity and once even pulled one down on top of herself. Luckily we were right there to rescue her and she didn’t get hurt. The incident did prompt a “no climbing” rule for the dining room chairs however. It’s a battle we are not likely to win, but we keep trying.

She also decided this month that going down the stairs backwards on her belly is for losers, pah! She now walks up and down the stairs holding on to the railing, if there is one. If a railing isn’t there, then Mommy or Daddy better be, cause she is going anyway. When we leave the house in a hurry and I have to carry her down the stairs to get her in the car, she screams in protest. As soon as we arrive home and I take her out of the car seat, she wriggles out of my arms so she can walk up to the front door.

As if sliding and climbing and stair-walking weren’t enough, just in the last week she has started *jumping*. She bends her knees and then jumps up by straightening her legs without her feet leaving the ground. She thinks it is hysterical. Imagine what she will do when she can actually get some air.

Even though she is fearless on the slide and the dining room chairs, Emma started showing some pretty classic signs of separation anxiety this month, which certainly wasn’t helped by how sick she felt during the first half of the month. She was tearful and clingy much more than usual and it tugged on my heart something fierce. I used to be able to leave her at day care and she would happily run off to play with the other kids without so much as a “see ya mom”. Now I can’t get out of there without lots of tears and a pouty lower lip and the arms reaching for me in desperation. This of course causes me to have my own tears and pouty lower lip all the way to work.

I know it’s just a stage, and a developmentally appropriate one at that, but it is a tough one. She wants me to hold her all the time and has lost any ability to entertain herself, even though she used to be great at it. One day I know she will grow out of this though and I will pine for the moment in time when she wouldn’t even let me put her down so I could go to the bathroom. I will grab her and sneak in a hug and a kiss in the nanoseconds it takes her to peel herself away from me to go play with her friends. So I am trying just to cherish the closeness that comes with her new neediness and not feel smothered by it.

She is still mostly just chattering, not a lot of intelligible words yet, although every once in a while we hear something that is unmistakable. Last week, she said…wait for it…”lasagna”. Yep. Lasagna. She also says “EJ”, a friend she plays with about once a week, although it sounds more like “Eej”.

Her sign language on the other hand is going great - she seems to pick up a sign after only seeing it a couple of times, something that has amazed me on more than one occasion. In addition to “more”, “finished” and “milk” which she has been signing for a while, she now signs “again” (to be fair, a sign that is pretty close to more, but she uses it in context which blows us away), “apple”, “bird”, “thank you”, “eat”, “raisin” (my favorite) and we are working on “please”.

This month she shared Easter with her Aunt Jocelyn (who doubled as the Easter Bunny with her rockin’ Easter baskets - yes plural), went to the Kite Festival at the Washington Monument with us and visited the cherry blossoms in full bloom with EJ and Bridget. She did some gardening with Mommy and was fascinated by all the flowers showing up the yard - especially the hyacinths and daffodils in the front.

She continues to eat almost anything, and this month discovered she loves berries of any kind. She also enjoyed fajitas for the first time, and wolfed down the aforementioned lasagna. Oh! And finally this month, she got really good at drinking from a cup. At the beginning of the month she could do it without my help, as long as I was there, hovering, to make sure the cup didn’t end up in her lap. Now she is so good at it that I can give her the cup and leave the room, feeling pretty confident that she won’t spill. Of course, now we are working on getting her not to tip the cup over when she has finished drinking, which is a favorite game…

The separation anxiety notwithstanding, she is quickly turning into a little girl which is so fun to watch, even if it makes us feel sad at how fast it is happening.

Jumping for Cherry Blossoms from Justpowers on Vimeo.

Emma, her friend EJ, his mom Bridget and I all went down to the Jefferson Memorial yesterday to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom. Despite the freezing cold wind whipping off the Tidal Basin all four of us stayed in pretty good spirits and were even able to find a sunny spot among the blooms to practice jumping.

Just for fun I went back to our pictures from last year’s blossoms - here’s Emma then. Big shout out to our friend Jack and his mommy Kate who went with us last year and moved away not long after. We miss them lots.

Lunch with Emma from Justpowers on Vimeo.

I just took this video with our new Flip video camera, plugged it into my computer and got it uploaded to Vimeo almost before Emma finished her lunch. What a huge change from our other video camera that takes me what feels like hours to transfer from my camera, edit and upload to the web.

If you are interested, Amazon has the Ultra version on sale right now for $139.99 and an older model for $105.86

This could be seriously addictive…

I have been trying for months to get the story of Emma’s birth posted here. Over at Sarcastic Mom, Lotus has finally been able to get my rear end moving on this with her Birth Story Carnival. This story is really really really long so, you know, schedule some bathroom breaks in here somewhere.

I am a planner. I like having a plan. The thought of going into a weekend with no idea what I am doing fills me with dread and confusion. I don’t need every minute planned, but I need a rough outline please. It soothes me. Over the years I have worked very hard at decreasing my need for plans all the time, and have done better, but it is still, at my core, who I am. I knew when I got pregnant that my planning tendency would be put to good use, but I also knew I would need to PLAN to throw out everything when the birth actually happened.

As soon as I found out I was pregnant I started the planning, but to be honest it seemed pretty simple to me. I had a plan A: no epidural and a plan B: epidural. I knew I didn’t want an epidural but also knew that I had no idea what I was really getting into so an epidural in the end might be my best friend. That was pretty much all I knew about my birth plan.

A friend of mine used the Bradley method when she gave birth to both of her kids. She swore by it and even though it was years ago now, I remembered it when it was my turn to think about how I wanted to give birth.

The basic philosophy behind the Bradley method is that with the right preparation, education and support women can give birth naturally. The preparation part focuses on nutrition during pregnancy and exercises that help strengthen all the necessary muscles. The education part teaches relaxation techniques and also what happens during the birth process, with the idea that if you know what to expect you will be less afraid and less likely to ask for an intervention you might not need. The support part helps the coach - usually a husband or partner - know what to expect and how to provide the right support to the woman in labor. All of this is taught in a once a week class for twelve weeks that both partners attend.

So I did the research and decided we would definitely go with Bradley. I checked the Bradley website and found a teacher near us and signed us up. Little did I know that this would be the single most important thing I would do during the entire pregnancy.

A few weeks before our Bradley classes were scheduled to begin Mike got offered a new job. It was a really good job with a popular Governor running for re-election and possibly (probably) a higher office after that. It was the kind of opportunity that really only comes along once in a while and when it does, you don’t turn it down.

Only problem was, it was in a different state. Not only a different state, but a different climate and time-zone too. Together we decided he had to take the job and that I would be fine, especially since my family lives in the area. Plus, since it was an campaign and would be over on election day, he would be back well before my December 31 due date.

So Mike went across the country and I went to Bradley class. Normally Bradley classes have 3-6 couples in them, so I was a little apprehensive about being the only single there, but figured it would be fine. Turns out I needn’t have worried. The two other couples who were scheduled for the class backed out leaving, yup, just me.

So I got my very own private Bradley sessions once a week. Ninety minutes of uninterrupted me time. My instructor Maria was wonderful and I couldn’t wait to go to class each week. After class I would call Mike and tell him what topic we covered and if there was homework we would do it together. By together I mean that I would do it and tell him about it and he would say “cool!”

Being alone during the pregnancy was much harder than I imagined it would be. Mike was gone from 24 weeks to 34 weeks. It’s bizarre to write that it was only 10 weeks because it felt like 10 months. It was the daily household things that were the most difficult, especially because most days I just wanted to come home from work, sit on the couch and fall asleep. Taking the trash out? Hell.

Mike finally came home and we started doing little things to prepare. He was able to attend a Bradley class with me and the plan was that Maria would continue to see us for a few weeks after our 12 weeks were over to make sure he was caught up.

One of the things that we discussed over and over in the Bradley class was the idea that intervention begets intervention. Because of this, I knew that I wanted to try to stay away from any intervention for as long as possible, and in fact, planned on staying away from the hospital for as long as possible. I had wonderful images of laboring at home for hours, listening to music between contractions, possibly going for a walk, and then finally going to the hospital, giving birth on my own, cheered on by my husband and a supportive medical staff.

We went to two Bradley classes together and I bookmarked a couple chapters in the Bradley book for him to read. On the morning on December 4 we went to my 36 week check up. The doctor did an internal exam and said that everything seemed fine, that there was no dilation and no indication of anything out of the ordinary. She also told us that I had tested positive for Group B Strep, so if my water broke, I would need to get to the hospital ASAP so that I could receive antibiotics that would protect the baby from an infection. I was devastated that my plan to stay home until the last possible moment was not going to happen, but reluctantly began to rethink my birth plan since keeping the baby safe was the priority. One thing I talked to her about was that I didn’t want an intravenous line that would restrict my movement. She said they would need to have access to an IV but that they could do a hep lock, a little thingy the IV attaches to if it becomes necessary. “Cool, a hep lock, that’s what I want” I told her, and she made a note of it on my record.

That night I picked Mike up at the Metro, we picked up some dinner and went home. At about 7:45 I was leaning down to pick up something and I had the sudden sensation that I had wet my pants. “Huh” I thought. I went to the bathroom and although it didn’t feel like I had to go, I figured I had just entered another glorious phase of pregnancy - one where I could no longer control my bladder.

When it happened two more times in the hour and I couldn’t stop the flow of liquid, it dawned on me what was happening. I told Mike that I thought my water just broke. He looked panicked and grabbed the Bradley book. “I didn’t do my homework…I’m not ready” he said. I assured him he was ready and more importantly, it didn’t matter, this thing was happening. I called a friend and told her my water broke, and also that I was positive for Group B Strep - as she had been with her son. She reminded me that I needed to get to the hospital and I broke down crying. “But I’m not ready to go” I wailed.

We decided to wait to call the doctor. It was very important to me to hold on to that small period of time I had to be in control of the process. I knew once we called the doctor and went to the hospital that I would no longer be in control, as much as I wanted to be. I also, of course, didn’t want to put the baby at risk by waiting too long to call the doctor, but I reasoned that an hour or two would not make too much of a difference.

So Mike and I put the baby’s bassinet together, we packed for the hospital, (both things we thought we had a couple more weeks to accomplish) and I took a shower and shaved.

Once I was ready to go, we called the doctor who told us he didn’t expect anything to happen tonight but that since my water broke I would be admitted and he would probably stop by in the morning and get a pitocin drip started. I figured I would argue with him about the pitocin in the morning, at this point I would just be the model patient. He told us to head over to the hospital, and our adventure began.

We arrived at the hospital with my contractions about 8 minutes apart and almost a minute in duration. We checked in at 11:45 and sat in the lobby until 1:00 waiting for a free bed in triage. I didn’t mind because we were the only ones there and I just walked and walked and stopped to lean on Mike and breathe when a contraction started.

We finally got into triage and the nurse made me get into bed, strapped me to a fetal monitor and told me not to move. Weeks before I had told my doctor that I wanted the minimal amount of monitoring required so that I could move around as much as possible, to which he said “Fine!” and noted in my medical record. When the nurse attached the monitor, I started to object, and then figured it was probably necessary since I was in triage after all and she probably needed a sense of what was happening. At this point I would just be the model patient and do what she asked of me.

For the next 30-45 minutes the nurse asked me a huge list of questions and she kept repeating “If your water broke then we will admit you.” In between contractions I kept saying, “my water did break” and she kept saying, “well, we will see.” It made me wonder if she gets a lot of women in there claiming their water broke just so they can spend a little extra time at the hospital. So weird.

She did an internal exam and declared “Your water broke!” Huh, you don’t say!? She also said that I was dilated one centimeter and that it was “going to be a looong night”. I knew my contractions were getting closer together and they were definitely getting stronger but I didn’t argue with her. I just focused on my breathing and started to envision waves going in and out at Salomon Beach on St. John, a memory that brought me great peace and calm.

Once the nurse was finished with my intake she told us we needed to wait for a bed in labor and delivery and that she would come get us when a bed became available. She left the room and I lay flat on my back, strapped to the monitor - not exactly what I had planned. Waves. Beach. Palm trees.

Finally at 3:30 am they moved us to the labor and delivery unit.

Once I arrived in L&D, my nurse, Pat, started to strap another fetal monitor on me. By now my contractions were really hard and I was tired of being the model patient. I told her that I wanted intermittent monitoring and that my doctor had made a note of it in my medical chart. Pat told me in no uncertain terms that the monitor was going on, that I had no choice and that if my doctor showed up he could give permission for the monitor to be taken off.

Mike and I looked at each other, completely stunned by how little Pat even pretended to treat us as if we had a say in the process. We were both completely bewildered and didn’t know what to do. Pat knew what to do however, stick an IV in my arm, of course. Now I was mad, as mad as I could be while breathing through contractions.

I stopped her from inserting the IV and both Mike and I told her that we asked for a hep lock just that morning and that our doctor had said it was fine. She repeated that I had to have the IV and that my doctor could change it if he came in. Because I had gone into labor three weeks early, my medical records had not yet been delivered to the hospital, so all of those nice notes my doctors had written about what I wanted were nowhere to be found.

We could tell we were fighting a losing battle, and frankly I needed to focus on my labor, which felt like it was progressing pretty rapidly, so we gave up the fight.

Pat proceeded to ask me the same series of questions the nurse in triage had asked me, and then I heard the words “…when you get the epidural..” come out of her mouth. Here is sort of how the conversation went:

Nurse Ratchett Pat: …so when you get the epidural…”

Me: Oh no, I am not having an epidural.

Nurse Patchett: OH!???? You know there is no prize for bravery in here, you don’t have to feel the pain. You should have an epidural.

Me: Ok, thanks. I think I will be ok. But I guess we’ll see huh!? (nervous laughter)

Five minutes later. Me, strong contraction.

Nurse Patchett:So, if you do decide to get an epidural, just don’t wait too long. Some women wait too long and then it is too late.

Me: nnnn…nnnn…..uh huh ok thanks….I think I’m good…

Ten minutes later. Me, really intense contraction.

Nurse Patchett: You know, I hate seeing my women in pain, and if you don’t get an epidural you will scream and when you start screaming I am going to have to just go in the other room and do paperwork so I don’t have to listen to you scream.

Me: speechless

Go do paperwork so I don’t hear you scream?? Are you for real? I truly didn’t know what to say.

When I was preparing for giving birth I spent a lot of time envisioning what my ideal birth would look like. I also spent a little bit of time thinking about my fears and concerns about giving birth. Without a doubt, my biggest fear was encountering unsupportive medical staff. I was mostly concerned about the doctors, that they wouldn’t listen to me or respect my decisions. But in my head the nurses were always on my side. It had not even crossed my mind that they would be the ones I had to battle.

At this point I realized that Mike and I were on our own. If I was going to give birth naturally it was going to be because we made it happen.

Pat finished with me and after telling me it was going to be a long night, she left the room to go assist with another labor. I don’t know what time it was, or how far I had progressed, since no one had checked me since about 1:30. I laid in bed, still flat on my back and did my thing. So much for the squats I had practiced. Pat came in on several occasions to yell at me for moving during the contractions.

The pain was indescribable and overwhelming at times, but I never got to a point where I felt ready to ask for the epidural. When I could start doing deep breathing before the contraction started I found I was a lot more successful at getting through it. Sometimes though the contraction would come on so fast and so hard that I felt like a fish gasping for air and I would try desperately to relax and get on top of the wave before it came crashing down on top of me.

Mike was worried about me, I could see it between contractions. He hated seeing me in pain and I think he felt like there wasn’t anything he could do to help. At one point he said “what do you think?” and I knew that even if I wasn’t ready to ask for the epidural, he was ready to ask for me. I told him I was ok for a little longer and let’s just see how it went. I also told him to keep doing what he was doing - that he would never know how important it was for me to have him right there next to me, whispering in my ear to breathe, breathe, relax.

As labor progressed I could feel the massive muscle known as my uterus pushing the baby down into the birth canal. At one point during those contractions I let out a sound like nothing I have ever heard, and it literally made me stop and laugh out loud at the noise. “Was that a cow? Oh my god I sound like a cow” I laughed. Mike agreed that yes indeed it sounded like a cow and we laughed together, until the contraction took over again.

Not long after the cow incident I started feeling like I was doing everything wrong. I wasn’t breathing, I was tensing up, I was definitely NOT doing Bradley right. I started crying and apologizing to Mike. “I am so sorry, I am so sorry” I sobbed “I am doing it all wrong.” “What? What are you doing wrong?” he asked. “I don’t know, but I am not doing it right, I’m not, I know it” I cried. Mike assured me that I was amazing (I know, isn’t he the best?) and that I was doing everything exactly right. Somewhere in the back of my head I remember thinking “huh, I wonder if I am in transition” (the stage of childbirth that occurs right before stage two - pushing!) Being emotional and tearful is pretty typical of transition and when I looked back later I realized that was exactly what I had been going through. Because a few minutes later…

…I felt the overwhelming need to push. Mind you it was now about 4:50 AM. I had only been in the room for a little over an hour so OBVIOUSLY I didn’t really need to push. So I fought it. Except, I really needed to push. I thought I could almost feel the baby crowning so I reached down to see if I could feel her head and I didn’t feel anything, although I had been bleeding some. The fact that I didn’t feel her told me that I was wrong, that I had hours and hours of labor to go.

Pat came into the room at 5:00 to see why the fetal monitor had stopped working and to tell me to stop moving around so much. I mentioned in passing that I felt like I needed to push and she said there was no way I had to push since I was only one centimeter and that I would “tear myself up” if I pushed. It was going to be a long night after all, and we were still at the beginning of it. When I insisted she grudgingly agreed to check me.

She checked me and a look of disbelief and, dare I say, horror crossed her face. I was 10 cm and fully effaced.

All of a sudden she was telling me not to push unless I wanted her to deliver my baby. And, irony of ironies, because she thought it was going to “be a long night” she hadn’t finished administering the second of two doses of antibiotics I was supposed to have for the Group B Strep. She started on that as my mom arrived.

My own doctor could not get there in time so the doctor on the L&D floor came in to deliver Emma. He was wonderful and as soon as he got there told me to go ahead and push. My mom held one leg and Mike held the other and I pushed with every ounce of energy I had. After the first push I asked if Emma was crowning and the doctor said to feel for myself. I reached down and felt her little head and was amazed. After I pushed a second time one of the nurses who had arrived when Pat called the cavalry looked at me and said “Is this your first? You are doing an amazing job!” Whew, I was doing it right. While I was pushing I told Pat and Mike and my mom to put Emma on my chest as soon as she came out. I didn’t trust that Pat would follow through with my wishes and I remember clutching Mike and begging him to make sure the baby was placed on my chest.

The third time, I closed my eyes and held my breath and PUSHED and when I looked up I saw Emma fly across the table, with such a force that I swear the doctor almost didn’t catch her. I reached out for her and they placed her on my chest and I snuggled with the teeny little life that had just arrived. She didn’t nurse yet, but she found the target, which just reaffirmed for me that not only was she gorgeous, she was smart too. Mike cut the cord and they gave me a minute or two more and then they took her to clean her up.

The second Emma arrived, the second I saw her for the first time, I was completely overwhelmed with how beautiful she was and how completely in love I was with her. I remember saying over and over “Oh my god she is so beautiful, she is so beautiful.” I kept looking at Mike in astonishment, and he returned the look, his eyes filled with tears.

My doctor showed up at the same time Emma did - I looked up and he was standing in the doorway in his street clothes. He scrubbed up and took over to deliver the placenta - which, OW, was honestly more painful than the birth (not the labor, but the birth). The cord had pulled away from the placenta, so he had to massage my abdomen to encourage the delivery. He was ready to give me an epidural at that point so he could go in and retrieve that stubborn placenta - a procedure that I guess would have been more painful than I could handle. I was actually ok with the idea of the epidural at that point but I asked him to try one more time, which he did, and the placenta was delivered.

They cleaned Emma up, wrapped her in a blanket and gave her back to me and Mike and I were in awe. They moved us to our room a little later and once we settled in I knew I should sleep but I couldn’t. I watched my little family as they slept and knew that all was right with the world. We spend the next couple of days sleeping and eating and snuggling and learning how to nurse and it was wonderful.

In the end it is true that our nurse was really NOT GOOD and I did have to labor entirely on my back (turns out Emma was posterior, so really, being on my back? Worst position possible) and I did end up with an IV and constant fetal monitor which I had been clear about NOT wanting. Despite all of this, we both know that it was the Bradley method and accompanying education that gave us the knowledge and strength we needed to end up with the birth we wanted. I gave birth with no epidural, no pitocin, and no episiotomy. I gave birth on my terms, to a healthy beautiful baby, with Mike by my side offering more support and love to me than he will ever know.

There is a huge slide at our local park. It is of the corkscrew variety and to get to the top a child has to climb up many stairs. We let Emma go down the slide but only when both Mike and I are present so that one of us can help her at the top and one can help her at the bottom. I never let her go up there when I am at the park alone with her.

This weekend we were at the park and Emma made a beeline for the slide. She got to the top of the stairs and launched herself down the slide on her belly before you can say “overprotective-first-time-parents”. On the way down, she laughed and laughed. By the time Mike and I had started breathing again, she was back at the top doing it all over again.

This is going to take some getting used to.