Christmas 2009

What was Christmas like before TLB came? I honestly don't remember. Christmas 2009 was the most awesome Christmas ever.

Things I've Learned

It's been a while since I've updated, but in my absence, I've learned a few things:

Elmo isn't as annoying as I initially believed. Apart from referring to himself in third person, he's really not that bad. Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to go out and buy a bunch of Elmo stuff for TLB's room, but I can totally handle watching "Elmo's World" on Sesame Street. Telly Monster and Baby Bear are annoying as all get-out, though (though the episode where Gabi babysat Baby Bear and his sister and made up that song "Now You're Doing the Bear" was really cute), and I'm convinced Zoe is borderline retarded.

Fevers don't need a reason. Sometimes they just happen, with no other symptoms. Really high ones. For, like, a week.

It takes a village to raise a child. Okay, maybe not, but having a couple extra villagers on hand from time to time is pretty convenient (see "Fevers don't need a reason"). My mom and dad ROCK.

Babies are hams. At least mine is. I don't know how he knows how to mug for the camera, but... he does.

Drama doesn't have to happen. At least, so far. Alex doesn't cry without a reason, and every reason has a solution. Feed him. Change him. Put him down for a nap. Sometimes a combination of those three (bottle + bedtime = magic). I think that a secure baby is a good baby. He knows I'm there for him, so whatever else is happening can't be that bad. I realize the Drama Factor may change when he's a Terrible Two. We'll see.

Bedtime Routine = Bedtime. This is magic. If the proper steps are followed, my son will go to sleep anywhere -- our house, my parents' house, the playpen at Uncle Roland's house, the playpen in a hotel room, anywhere. He knows that after dinner comes a bath; after his bath comes bottle, prayers and story; then the lullabye playlist goes on, the lights go off, and it's time to go to sleep. DO NOT STRAY FROM THE ROUTINE.

Five people cannot go on vacation in one vehicle if a baby is involved. Not if the driver wants to see out the back window, anyway.

There is no life before baby. Or at least if there was, I can't remember what it was like. I can't imagine being without him. Ever. Which confirms my theory that Casey Anthony is an evil, inhuman whore. EVIL.

This list is by no means complete. It probably never will be. Every day brings a new lesson. Luckily, I have always loved to learn.

Silent Night

So, we've been having some sleeping issues. By "we" I mean TLB, of course, but when he wakes up at 4 am yapping over the monitor, it's really hard for me to get back to sleep afterwards, so his issues are my issues. My first impulse was to point my finger at day care. "His Cuddle-Gram says his last nap was at 11:15 and it was only for twenty minutes!" I'd cry. But people kept telling me that it's just something that happens. Just when you get on a schedule, the baby will change the schedule. THEY say.

I like to think I'm smarter than the average bear. So you'd think when my husband, who is always first up to change TLB's diaper in the morning, starts telling me morning after morning "I didn't put his pajamas back on him because they were wet" a bell would go off? Right? Right?!

It took ME getting Alex out of bed and feeling the sogginess of his Sleep-sack to realize that maybe something wasn't right. So last night, after he chugged 10 ounces of formula like a frat boy at a kegger, I thought I'd try out those size 3 Baby Dry Pampers that Philip picked up at the store the other day.

My alarm went off at 5:15 am as usual. I was asleep when it happened. So was TLB. I woke him up to change his diaper and give him a bath at 6 am as usual, and holy cow! That diaper weighed a TON! But baby was dry and happy. And well-rested.

Another mystery solved.

Hopefully he'll sleep so hard again tonight that he won't roll onto his tummy. But just in case he does, he'll be wearing his new Snuza movement monitor. Now Mommy can sleep better, too.

Peace of Mind

Alex rolls over now. He's pretty good at it, in fact:



That is to say, he's good at rolling from back to tummy. He HAS rolled from tummy to back before, but he hasn't quite figured out that he could do it at will. So a lot of times he rolls to his tummy, then gets unhappy about it because he can't figure out how to get back.

Unless he is sleeping. He has become a stomach sleeper, just like his mom. Try as I might to put him to bed on his back, I will go into the nursery to check on him and find this:


As I've said before, SIDS terrifies me. While I realize that there is likely many more factors to it than just a mattress and a baby's face, it's still a frightening prospect. And since I cannot spend my entire life watching my baby sleep to make sure he keeps breathing, the feature FOX News did on the Snuza Halo Baby Movement Monitor definitely caught my attention.

My peace of mind is definitely worth $130 with free shipping. I'll just be spending my nights by Alex's crib until it arrives.

Day Care

Eventually, the day had to come. School pre-planning arrived, which meant day care for my little Monkey. Earlier in the summer, my mother and I spent a day shopping for day cares, and I found one that I liked reasonably well. The big selling point was that it was less than a mile away from school. It was also fairly new, so it was small and clean. Alex would be one of two babies.

My husband went with me the first morning. He said it was so he could meet the workers there, so they'd know him if he ever had to pick Alex up, but it was really for moral support. It wasn't that I was worried. I was just going to miss my baby, that's all. We'd been together ALL SUMMER.

Anyway... I was prepared! I had Alex's bag all packed with his diapers, formula, a bottle, a change of clothes, a burp cloth, a toy... everything I thought he'd need. It's a good thing I packed a change of clothes, because I forgot to pack a bib. I also wrote up Alex's "typical" schedule (naps, feedings, etc.). Not because I expected them to follow it, of course -- I'm not THAT much of a spaz-mom -- but because I'd noticed on the application there was a space for "Is there anything we should know about your child" and I thought my schedule might help them out if they were trying to figure out why he was fussy.

The owner of the center seemed appreciative of the list, but told me, "You'll probably notice that he'll be more tired in the evenings, because we try to keep the babies up doing brain activities." Keep them up?! Strange, I would have thought they'd want the babies to nap. I know I DO.

So it was at that moment I decided to look for another place. The mother of a couple of my students had given me a card for a woman who runs a day care out of her home. We were on the same page for napping, but she lost me when she said I would still be paying for the space if she took a vacation. She decides to go on vacation for a week, and I have to pay her AND find someone else to keep my child? I don't think so.

Anyway, to make a long story short, Alex's first week at day care was surprisingly smooth. The baby teacher is far more accommodating about nap time than I was led to believe, and she seems to do very well with Alex. I like getting his daily "Cuddle-gram" that tells me when he napped, ate, peed and pooped. I like seeing "Alex was [x] happy [ ] sad [ ] fussy [x] other __outside___" (I am assuming someone TOOK him outside, and that that's a good thing). He's going to stay there for now.

Plus, it literally takes me TWO MINUTES to drive there after school. That's less time I have to spend away from my boy.

My Baby's Brain (and other things)

Because that's really what all this sleep stuff is all about. I'm concerned about my baby's brain development. Especially because I don't eat fishy Omega-3-rich foods, and I'm terrible about remembering to take my vitamins. My little monkey needs every advantage I can give him, and sleep seems like the easy one.

"Cry It Out" has gone well, and now sleep is achieved with minimal to no crying. Monkey-boy is back to putting himself to sleep at night after I lay him down, and he sleeps for 11 to 13 hours. The trouble has been naps. He has only napped for 30 to 45 minutes at a time...

UNTIL YESTERDAY.

Yesterday I laid him down for his late-afternoon nap, which is normally pretty short. At 3 p.m. he laid down without fussing, and promptly fell asleep. HE WOKE UP AT 5 P.M.! A two-hour nap is unheard of, and the fact that he did it so close to bedtime alarmed me a little. But we started our evening routine shortly after he woke up, and he went right back to bed at 6:30 p.m. and slept all night.



I thought it was a fluke. This morning, his 9 a.m. nap was the same 45 minutes it usually is. When he went down shortly before noon, he was awake 35 minutes later. I was eating my lunch, so I just listened to him on the monitor. He tossed and grunted a little, but didn't cry. And then something magical happened. He went back to sleep.

He slept for two hours again. Two glorious hours. I was able to DO STUFF. Like, more than one thing. I didn't have to prioritize my chores and do the one that was most important. I could do several. It was wonderful.

But really, nap time isn't about me. Honest, it isn't. It's about my happy, well-rested little boy... and his brain.

Cry It Out... or not.

I know it's way, WAY too soon to say "hooray!" but TLB just went to bed without fuss. I thought he was asleep when I laid him down (and maybe he was). I put his Sleep Sack on him, then when I kissed him good night and told him I loved him he opened his eyes and smiled at me -- one of those whole-body, curl-his-legs-up smiles.

Best. Feeling. Ever.

Search Overload: Sleep

Sleep is my current obsession. If one were to click on my Google history, he would find searches like "baby napping" and "baby sleep schedule" occasionally broken up by something random like "bottle-nosed dolphin" or "Sugar Ray Leonard."

My son is a fantastic sleeper. I always knew he would be. While I was pregnant, I diligently counted kicks. My little Wormie would sometimes go for long periods (like, hours) without moving, but when he did move, there was absolutely no doubt about it, so I never worried. I just figured, "No big deal, he's just sleeping." I hoped this meant he would have a long sleep cycle when he was born.

I had such a horrible time sleeping during my last trimester. I would wake up pretty much every half-hour, and have to completely reposition myself and all the bedding to ease the pain in my back and hips. People thought I was completely delusional when I would say that I couldn't wait for the baby to be born so I could get a decent night's sleep.

When Alex was born, I was in the hospital for two nights afterward. "Enjoy it," people would tell me. "It's not the same after you go home." Thank God for that! The problem was never Alex sleeping. It was the constant parade of people into my room -- nurses, techs, doctors, dietary, lactation consultants, etc. I never got more than a half-hour of sleep before someone else would come in to feed me, take my vitals, or just check on me or the baby. My lactation consultant (who for the most part totally didn't get me, but she meant well, bless her) finally had the nursery take Alex for a while and put a note on my door that I was not to be disturbed. Of course, this didn't stop the geniuses at the front desk from calling my room to tell me that I had a visitor and could they come in or did the note apply to them, too, but that wasn't so bad.

Anyway, we got Alex home finally, and my husband and I fell into the routine almost instantly. Alex would cry, Philip would get up and change him, and I'd get situated to nurse. Occasionally, Philip would volunteer to feed him, too, so I could get some sleep, but I was lousy noob at pumping, had no breast milk in storage, and didn't want Alex to have a feeding that was solely formula because I was a spastic new mom.

Anyway, after Alex's bout with jaundice and our strict two-hour bili-bed cycle (which wasn't always so strict and once or twice turned into a four-hour cycle due to a faulty alarm clock), he became a great sleeper. Within a week he was sleeping for stretches of five hours at night. By six weeks, he was sleeping through the night. Now at three months he sleeps 11 to 13 hours at night.

Alex's nighttime sleeping habits have never been in question, and I wouldn't trade them for anything. He does not nap, however. Oh, sure, a little cat-nap here and there, but he very, very rarely sleeps for more than 30 minutes during the day. He's a goodnatured baby, and this doesn't seem to be affecting his nighttime sleeping at all, but it still concerns me because I know he ought to be napping.

The very first book I got for my Amazon Kindle, on the recommendation of PopMommy, was Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Marc Weissbluth -- a fascinating read, which has once again given me some ideas to implement. Unfortunately, this week is going to be disrupted by my summer camp, but I am bringing Alex's bassinet, will black out the window in my office in the gym, and will hope for the best.

Don't Tell My Mom

If my mom read this blog, she'd tell me to lay off the Google. My father accused me of being one of those "search overload" people from the Bing.com commercials.

This time it was SIDS, which I happen to find terrifying. Gone now is my adorable sailboat bumper pad for the crib. The cute little quilt (which I would never have used as a blanket anyway) is awaiting a quilt hanger for nursery wall. In their places are a breathable mesh bumper and a Halo Sleep Sack. Safer, but not nearly as cute, gosh-darnit.

Okay, well, the kid is just as cute as before.

Nursery Update

Walls are painted. I was going to put this job off for another couple weeks, but my mom talked me into doing it this weekend. I'm glad she did. Uncle Roland and I made short work of it, and I'm pleased with the way it turned out.


I also bought the first section of cube storage and put it together while Alex supervised.


More cubes to come, but for now, I'm pleased.

The Nursery

... finally has a little boy living in it!

We have owned nursery furniture since March. It was unloaded from my husband's truck and deposited in our front living room for storage until there was room in Alex's room. Alex's room was formerly our guest room, but has been filled with miscellaneous crap for the past few years.

Two weeks ago, you couldn't even walk into that room. Now a little boy lives and plays in there. Talk about miraculous transformations. There's still work to be done, like painting the walls and adding shelves and storage cubes, but it's a livable room.

Love, love, LOVE the nursery bedding and accessories. Couldn't be happier with them. They're part of the reason there is furniture in there before the walls are painted (light blue).

The dresser, which doubles as a changing table (for now). Planning to mount some cabinets and shelves over it for storage and decoration.

This chair was my grandmother's. She rocked me in it when I was a baby. I love it more than I could love any glider rocker, because it creaks. Rocking chairs should creak. Plus I found those great lighthouse cushions for it. The Winnie the Pooh swing is likely going to be evicted to another room of the house -- mainly because it doesn't match! The wall behind the chair is where I'm going to go nuts with cube storage.

I am also searching for a large wooden toy box that I can paint. It will live under the window on the fourth, unpictured wall.

So the more I think about it, the more I realize that the nursery is far from complete. But hey, Alex doesn't seem to mind.

Woohoo!

New header, courtesy of Alex's Uncle Roland. Thanks, Unc!

Things for Mommy to Remember About Nail Trimming

1. Alex's nails grow FAST.
2. Nail clippers are sharp and clumsy.
3. It is hard to be accurate while trimming the nails of a baby who is awake.
4. Nipped fingers bleed A LOT.

This is the second time I've done this. Transformers Band-Aids are now kept in the diaper bag for such emergencies.

A Grain of Salt

My mom has told me more than once to STOP READING. I can't help it. I hear about something that might affect or is affecting my baby, I want to KNOW STUFF. Polyhydramnios. Group B Strep. Fifth disease/Parvovirus B19. Jaundice. Gas. "Why the heck won't my baby wake up?" (Seriously, I've never seen anyone sleep like my baby slept the day after we brought him home from the hospital.) I've read about all that stuff. Sure, a lot of it's scary, but it's also good to know.

The thing about my reading is that I know how to take things with a grain of salt. I've done a lot of investigation into feeding babies, teaching babies, getting babies to sleep. I don't accept any one book as a "bible." Rather, I've gotten a lot of different ideas. If you read enough, every once in a while you come across something that totally makes sense to you. You'll also come across stuff that makes you think, "There's no way I'll ever be able to make that work." What's cool is that there's no absolute Right Way. But if you read enough, you can find techniques that can work for you.

I know I still have a lot to learn. I'm a total noob when it comes to babies. At the same time? I have a ten week old baby who puts himself to sleep without crying when I lay him down in his bassinet, and stays that way for ten hours. There is definitely something to be said for reading.

Someone who I respect a great deal as a mother, teacher and disciplinarian told me the other day that she is convinced that all babies start out good, and it's parents who cause the bad habits. I totally agree. Oh, sure, there are things you probably can't help. Colic comes to mind. But babies learn from day one, and I am bound and determined to make sure my baby stays a "good baby."

Next into Google: "How do you teach a baby to swallow cereal?"

Summer Days, Driftin' Away

Once again, I have to wonder how I got so lucky. I really do have an awesome baby. He smiles a lot. He sleeps through the night. He hardly ever cries. He loves to snuggle.

Every summer I run two week-long summer day camps for my martial arts students. This year I am doing so with baby in tow. My little Wormie spent the morning alternating between napping and watching kids train and play in a gym with no AC. When he slept, I let him do so in his stroller in my office, which has a window-unit AC and was considerably cooler. There were times, though, that he simply wanted to be held, and I as I had to supervise ten other children, I had to let him snuggle against me in the 90+ degree heat of the gym. It could have been a horrible day -- but he never fussed. He just ate, slept, played and snuggled. Alex rocks.

Even as miserably and oppressively hot as it's been, I don't want summer to end. The more time I spend with my son, the more I'm dreading sending him to daycare in August. Every day, he does something just a little cuter, or a little cooler, or a little better. I don't want to miss any of his "firsts," and I'm afraid I will.

What I wouldn't give to be a stay-at-home mom! At least I'll have next summer to look forward to...

Pregnancy is Beautiful

Pregnancy is beautiful -- at least, that's what I've always heard other people say. To be honest, before I was pregnant myself, I didn't really care. Now, having done it, I must say I do appreciate the process more, but I still don't consider it "beautiful."

Admittedly, there are some women who pull it off really well. They stay in awesome shape, and sport a tight little sphere in their tummy, and after the baby is born they look ready to throw on their Asics go run a marathon.

That was totally not me. I remember trying to climb into my husband's truck at only 4 months and asking him if I looked as big as I felt. (He told me no, of course. He was wonderful.) I remember being about 20 weeks (only half as pregnant as I was going to be) -- the teeny little filipino moms at school would ask me when I was due, and when I'd tell them, their eyes would get really big and they'd just reply in awe, "Oh."

My pregnancy was not beautiful. I put on 50 pounds of baby and fluid. I had a near constant cold from August to April. My ankles were about as big around as my thighs. I had heartburn like a mofo, and I had to eat my supper around 4 pm or else the baby would kick it back up into my mouth in the middle of the night. I bought Tums in bulk. Every time I'd sneeze, I'd pee a little, too. Most days, I felt like I was leaking from every orifice of my body.

I recall a day near the end of my pregnancy -- I was climbing the stairs of the 5th-8th grade building at my school to eat lunch in the teacher's lounge. There is a set of double doors at the top of the stairs. A class of 7th graders was coming down the stairs for lunch, but one boy remained at the top to hold the door for me. However, another boy, seeing me coming, ran back up to open the OTHER door.

Pregnancy for me was definitely not beautiful. What I did decide was that it was absolutely amazing. Amazing, that something like this:


could become this:

and eventually this:




And even though not all pregnancies are beautiful, all babies are. Even though they sometimes look like this:

Baby Classes

For years before my son's birth, I have been planning activities for him in the hopes of someday raising the Most Awesome Child Ever. One of the things I was absolutely set on was some sort of dance class. Oh, I don't expect my son to wear tights and frolic about. But I'd like him to learn to move to music, and not feel self-conscious about doing it. Neither of his parents are dancers, but we both wish we were. A lot of men I've spoken to agree that dance lessons are a good idea. Chicks dig guys who can dance, right?

However, my little Wormie can't exactly dance until he learns to walk, so I'm looking for other alternatives to help with his physical and mental development in the meanwhile. A Spaz Mom like me could go nuts with all the choices available! Swimming, gymnastics, music... SIGN LANGUAGE! I found a baby signing class for 6 month olds. How awesome.

Swim lessons are a must, especially in Florida. Those start at 6 months. It'll be October, but the pool is heated. By that time, Alex should be big enough for swimmie diapers.

Baby gymnastics would be cool for developing strength and coordination. Plus, the class at the Little Gym is called "Bugs." I'm looking forward to saying, "Time to take Wormie to Bugs class!" That starts at 4 months, so it'll give me something to do until we start swimming!

In the meanwhile, I guess I'll stick with our daily activities of singing, playing 1-2-3-Jump! and the Baby Einstein play gym.

Nighttime routine results

After being put to bed at 7 pm, Alex slept -- or at least was quiet -- until 5:30 am. A new personal best!

When I was pregnant with Alex, I would count kicks like a good new mommy. I read that he should make ten movements per hour. Sometimes he would go a few hours without moving at all! But when he did move, he really moved, so I never worried that anything was wrong. I figured he was sleeping, and I predicted he would have a good sleep cycle when he was born. I was right!

Nighttime routine

There are so many things I want to write about, as I have two months of mommyhood to catch up on, but I'm doing this one while it's fresh.

I want to be the best mom I can be. As a teacher, I have had plenty of examples of what not to do. As a daughter, I've had an awesome example of parenting from my own mom and dad. I've done tons of research, and I have my own ideas as well.

I am a firm believer in routines. Children like structure. So far, I've been so overwhelmed by, well, everything that I've neglected to actually start any routines with my son. We have "things we do," but we don't have a schedule. So as of tonight, I'm starting a bedtime routine.

So far, I've been really lucky. Alex is an awesome sleeper. Once he got off the bili-bed (which had Alex and me on a very strict 2-hour eat-and-sleep schedule), he instantly slept four hours at a time at night, and that time has increased gradually. By the time he was a month old, he was sleeping six hours, and by six weeks, he'd sleep from 9 pm to 5 am. As far as I'm concerned, that is "through the night," but I know babies need more sleep than that.

Up until now, Alex has started dozing around 7 pm, so I'm pushing bedtime up. Here was tonight's schedule:

6:15 pm -- Bath time, lotion, PJs (this part of the routine is also for me -- sometimes I procrastinate putting on the PJs, and I end up waking him up to do it. Not good.)

6:30 - 7 pm -- Quiet time and nursing in the recliner. Tonight it was just nursing and singing the alphabet, but once I get into the routine, I'll start reading to him as well.

7 pm -- Bedtime. I laid him down and said prayers, even though he was already mostly asleep, then kissed him goodnight, turned on his lullaby music and turned out the light. Unfortunately, it's still not very dark in the bedroom. Once I get the nursery finished, I need to make sure I have good, heavy shades on the windows.

He has been in there 45 minutes so far. He has woken up at least once, because I could hear him cooing to himself, but he never cried, and now he's asleep again. Tomorrow's update will tell how things went.

Labor

When I was about six months pregnant, a friend of mine asked me if I was worried about labor. I was worried about everything, of course, but I knew he was asking if I was afraid of the pain. I told him I wasn't, not really.

In my life, my exposure to babies and pregnant women has been limited. I'm a teacher, though, on a faculty that consists almost entirely of women, so my workplace is chock-full of mothers, and all through my pregnancy I'd gotten lots of advice. I knew that the pain I would feel would be like no other pain I'd felt before. But I was pretty sure I could handle it.

I'm no stranger to pain. I competed in a combat sport for over a decade. I've fought at least four different Olympians. I've fought men. I've had countless bruises, scrapes and sprains. I've dislocated my hip. I've had ACL surgery. And I've never been a huge fan of pain medication. I figured, if nothing else, I was just tougher than a lot of other women.

I had initially wanted to go a childbirth class with my husband. I wanted to do this for him, not for me, so he could meet other dads and bond and stuff. My husband pointed out to me that, at 49, he would be twice as old as many of the other men who were becoming fathers for the first time, and he thought trying to bond with them was silly. He had a point.

My mom is a veteran Labor & Delivery nurse, so instead of going to a class, I just asked her lots of questions about what to expect. About a week before I was going to be induced, she brought home some videos for me to watch. I watched clip after clip of these women with their husbands petting their faces and feeding them ice chips, and their midwives and their birthing balls and their doulas and their birth plans. It all looked so ridiculous, and I warned my husband that when I was in labor, there would be zero petting.

I was delivering at the hospital at which my mom used to work, so many of the nurses there knew her, and therefore knew who I was. My husband and I checked in at 6 pm to the chorus of, "Oh, it's little Sharbo!" My mom arrived shortly after, and asked me loudly in front of the nurse, who was an old friend of hers, if I'd already handed out copies of my birth plan. The nurse looked at both of us, determined we were joking, and looked vastly relieved.

And so it began. The first night was uneventful, and incredibly boring -- one can watch only so many episodes of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" on late-night TBS, after all. I was strapped up to so many monitors and IVs that getting up and walking around was not an option. All I could do was sit and wait -- and Facebook! A tray table, my laptop, and the hospital's wifi were my best friends, and through Facebook, friends and relatives all over the country were receiving updates from me like "Sharon hopes she doesn't deliver during American Idol" and pictures of my husband sleeping on the uncomfortable little cot.


It wasn't until the following afternoon that things really got rolling, and I was tough, just like I hoped I'd be. Oh, I was grumpy because I hadn't eaten in over 24 hours, but I never complained about the pain. As it turned out, I was a little too tough. Whenever I had a contraction, I'd just close my eyes and take deep breaths and wait for it to pass -- because I knew it would pass. After this had gone on a while, a nurse asked me what my level of pain was on a scale of 1 to 10, and was shocked when I told her, "Oh, seven or eight." Meds were ordered up, but after the first dose, I realized that all they did was give me that foggy, blurry feeling that I hate about pain meds, and I vowed I wouldn't have any more.

That evening, the anesthesiologist arrived to give me my epidural. I can see why people consider that a godsend, but in the end I decided I didn't like that either. I hated not being able to move my legs, or feel whether my injured knee was supported properly. Most of all, I hated having to wear the oxygen mask because the epidural was so strong I had to work hard just to breathe.

So when the epidural started to wear off, I wasn't sure whether I ought to tell anybody -- and again, because I wasn't crying and carrying on, the nurses had no clue. Then suddenly, I was informed it was time to push. I'd been told that pushing usually lasted about 3 hours, but since at this point I was essentially "natural" and could actually feel to push, it only took me about 35 minutes. I don't remember too much about those 35 minutes. I remember that yes, it was indeed the worse pain I'd ever been in. I remember being embarrassed because I thought I might throw up, and my husband had to hold a little pink tray under my chin in case I did (I didn't). I don't remember telling the nurse in no uncertain terms that I didn't want her mopping my face with a cool washcloth, but apparently I did.

My doctor made it there for about two contractions before my son was born -- he spent more time stitching me up than he did delivering Alex. By that time, I so wanted to be done that I didn't bother telling him that I could feel the stitches, too.

How It All Started

2008 didn't start off as the best year ever. In February, I was approached by my principal and told that I was going to be cut back to four days a week for the 2008-09 school year. In April, I tore my ACL completely playing volleyball. Later that month, our family dog died. Things were NOT going well. I could only hope that the law of averages would kick in soon.

We got a new puppy. She was a lot of work, but she's a really good dog. In June I had ACL construction surgery, and that went really well. Our principal at school retired, and the new principal informed me that there was no possible way they could not have me work five days a week, and had me sign a new contract. Things were looking up.

I had no idea how much.

From 1994 to 2004, I had been a nationally-ranked taekwondo competitor. I competed at the Olympic qualifiers in 2000, and I was on the AAU national team from 2002 to 2004. In 2004, an ankle injury compelled me to retire from competition, and it was then that my husband and I started trying to have a child. My body had other ideas. Oh, it liked to make me think I was pregnant -- then I'd take a home pregnancy test, and everything would go back to normal. People kept telling me, "It'll happen when you stop worrying about it."

With everything that happened in the first six months of 2008, the last thing my husband and I were thinking about was a baby. Then on August 18, tired after six of weeks of waiting for my period, I took an HPT to kickstart my monthly routine and this happened:


As you can see, that second line is not very dark, so -- like Juno -- I remained unconvinced. I took the second HPT in the pack, with the same result. A little research on the internet revealed that there is no such thing as a "false positive." If the test showed two lines, however faint, I was indeed knocked up.

I called my husband. His response was a bland, "You're kidding." My mom's? "Don't joke about that." Nobody believed me! There were times I didn't believe it myself. I never had morning sickness. I could chalk the exhaustion up to the start of school. I didn't really feel pregnant.

There would come a time, and it would be soon, that there would be no doubt.

By 20 weeks, I looked like this:And I was only half as pregnant as I was going to be!


By Easter 2009, I was ready to burst. I had already been having weekly nonstress tests and biophysical profiles for a few months because of my elevated blood pressure and the ridiculous amount of fluid I was carrying. Finally, after nine months of increasing hugeness and all the scares the medical profession can lay on someone of Advanced Maternal Age, my doctor scheduled me for labor induction on Monday, April 13, at 6 pm.

At 3:07 am on Wednesday, April 15, I became a mommy!


What will follow are the adventures of a first-time mom.