Anything Said: September 2006

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

You say it's your birthday, Part 2: Putting the "um" in postpartum

I'd like to offer this post as a public service announcement for any of you crazy cats who think you might want to birth a child of your loins some day. I read a lot of books about pregnancy while Cletus the Fetus was incubating away in my uterus. What I did not read so much about, though? Was the morning(s) after. There are many things I wish I had known in advance about this special, special time. Here are but a few:

1. You will emerge from labor looking like you just returned from war. Your chest, neck, and face will be covered in tiny broken blood vessels, the result of pushing a baby through an inappropriately-sized hole. This will make you look polka-dotted and feel like you can't breathe or swallow. Your limbs will shake uncontrollably on and off for a few hours after birth. Your eyes will be red and swollen. Your stomach will be a pot of jelly; it will wiggle around as if it possessed free will.

2. You will have 50 different nurses during the course of your hospital stay, and they will give you 50 radically different courses of advice. Some will be kind. They will knock before entering the room, announce their presence before kneading your shrinking uterus like a wad of dough. They will ask you if you need anything, and bring you big glasses of ice water with bendy straws in them. Others will be less kind. They will shove your nipple in between your baby's chomping gums, pronounce her "latched on", and write the words "Breastfeeding well" onto your chart even though you are crying out in pain. They will barge into your room at 4:00 AM, after you have finally gotten the baby off to sleep, and flood the place with light in order to take your blood pressure for the 57th time. They will ignore your requests for ice packs and towels until you have to send your husband out to get them for you.

3. The supplies the hospital gives you in your postpartum care bag are limited; make sure not to use them all up unless you are prepared to go all MacGyver over here. Like, for instance, if you deliver in the same hospital as me, you will be given 1 (one) pair of disposable underwear and 3 (three) jumbo-sized maxi pads. The underwear and pads are intended to help attach and hold in place the ice-packs you are to apply constantly to your swollen and sore nether-regions. When you use them all up and naively ask for more, you will be told, essentially, "No pads for you!" You will then be forced to fold up the sheets of blue paper that they put on top of your bed sheets and use them as temporary ice-pack placeholders until you are able to make the switch to regular old maxi pads. Which, by the way, you will wear in multi-layered fashion because...

4. They weren't kidding about all the blood. There will be lots. Much more than you ever imagined possible. You will wonder how you are still alive. You will wonder if someone crept into your room in the night and bled you for science. For days after you go home, you will wear sweatpants under your nightgown because you can't imagine ever feeling safe sitting down on your furniture again. This will upset you a great deal. And while we're on the subject of being upset...

5. They also weren't kidding about the hormones. You will cry. Probably every day. Not just a little trickle of tears, but big gut-wrenching soul-sucking sobs. You will cry in your hospital bed while a comedy show plays on the television. You will cry when your baby cries and you feel like a failure for not being able to calm her down. When you take the baby for her first visit to the pediatrician and the doctor recommends that you go back to the hospital for blood work to make sure the baby isn't too jaundiced, you will break down bawling like a crazy fool right there in her office. And most of all, you will cry pretty much every time your daughter's funny little cross-eyed stare focuses on you for just a second and you realize how nothing in your life, for better or for worse, will ever be quite the same again.

6. Breastfeeding is hard and it sucks. Yeah, whatever, it's all roses and sunshine and bonding with the baby for some people, but it won't be for you. For you, it will be nipples gummed to pieces by a baby who refuses to latch on. It will be frantic calls to your doula for help after you've spent the last 3 hours trying to fold your recalcitrant boob into the appropriate shape to make it appealing for your screaming daughter. It will be applying cold packs to your throbbing breasts, salivating at formula commercials, and taking the name of Dr. Sears in vain. And then... you will discover the $5 miracle that is the plastic nipple shield. You will apply this tiny piece of heaven to your breast, your baby will latch on immediately, and you will decide right then and there to change her name to Medela. You will remember that most of the breastfeeding books you read before giving birth instructed you to avoid nipple shields at all costs, as they would doom your baby to a life of starvation due to reduced milk production and "nipple confusion" (because your baby is dumb). You will remind yourself never to read another book again. When you go back to the doctor two days later, your daughter will have gained 4 ounces.

7. You will feel lonely. Because, whether or not it's actually the truth, no one else seems to really get it. You know? And yet - at the same time...

8. You will feel happy and a more than a little awed. Because your baby is way, WAY cuter than any other baby who has ever existed, and you made her! You, who are not even slightly crafty. You who cannot make a scrapbook or even a cake from scratch -- you made a patently adorable tiny person who drools. What are the odds?

9. And finally, your peeps are awesome. But you knew that already. [Seriously, though? To all of you who have left comments, written emails, called, mailed gifts, and sent positive vibes our way: I can't thank you enough. It really means so much right now. As a lovely and wise fellow blogger said a few days ago, "blog friends are real friends." Ain't it the truth? Thanks, from the bottom of my milk-clogged heart.]

Sunday, September 24, 2006

You say it's your birthday

It all started with a squirt. Early Monday morning, having made certain that she received her due at the last of her three baby showers held Sunday night at my boss' house, Cletus the Fetus finally decided that she had had enough of this crazy womb business. She kicked at my insides, I rolled over in bed, and out came a big juicy squirt. Like, if my life were a comic book, the moment would totally be punctuated by a big bubble bearing the word "SQUIRT!" in comic sans font. I went to the bathroom where I found my underwear to be nice and soaked. I paged my midwife, who was all "pipe down, have some breakfast, pack your bags, and i'll meet you at the hospital in 30." I was 36 weeks and 6 days pregnant.

At the hospital, the husband and I were set up in a triage room, where I was hooked up to a fetal monitor and told to wait for my midwife's arrival. The monitor showed that I was having pretty regular contractions that I had only just then started to feel. They felt like tiny menstrual cramps. When my midwife arrived, she did some kind of weird test with a Q-tip to make sure that my water had, in fact, broken, followed by the first of many godforsaken cervical checks. I was dilated to 3 centimeters. As the hospital would not admit me until I was 4 centimeters dilated, the midwife suggested that we "walk the halls" until I reached that magic cervical milestone.

At this point, our triage nurse kindly informed us that we would not be permitted to deliver in the hospital's Alternative Birthing Center -- two fancy non-intervention birthing suites all pimped out with king-sized beds, birthing tubs, and DVD players -- due to the fact that my pregnancy was less than 37 weeks gestation. Did I mention that I was, at that very moment, 36 weeks and 6 DAYS pregnant? The husband and I were all "jigga-wha?" and the midwife was all "yo nurse, let's step outside." When the midwife returned, she patted me on the leg and said "Your due date is now October 8th. It has always been October 8th. Got it?" Thus, our pregnancy instantly became full-term. We commenced the walking of the halls.

A couple of hours, many phone calls, and one pack of Starburst later, I was dilated to 4 cm and on my way to my cushy birthing suite. By this time the contractions were getting stronger, just to the point where I felt the need to concentrate to breathe through them. My doula arrived and she, the husband, and I sat around and chatted for awhile between contractions. After awhile, the contractions seemed to slow down, so my midwife had me take a shower and move around a bit to try to get things rolling again. Nothing seemed to work until she suggested I try that old classic standby of labor positions: sitting backward on the toilet with one leg bent and propped up on a crock-pot. What? That one's not in your birth plan?

Dude, this position was awesome -- if by "awesome" you mean totally got contractions up and running to the point where I couldn't speak through them. Now this is where things started to hurt. Or at least, so I thought at the time. After about 30 minutes of rocking the toilet/crock-pot mambo, I moved onto the birthing ball (just one of those big inflatable exercise balls), where I sat and rocked and breathed through contractions for what seemed like hours. The husband played a Gillian Welch CD and a Catie Curtis CD, and he and the doula sat with me and said nice, encouraging things and brought me cups of Gatorade and water when I grunted in their general direction.

This went on until about 8:00 PM or so, when the time came for my midwife's shift to end. I go to a group practice of four midwives, so I know them all and wasn't particularly concerned about the shift change. Turns out - maybe I should've been. Enter Midwife #2. Midwife #2's style was much more no-nonsense than Midwife #1 -- after being filled in on the events of the day, she got right down to business, announcing that she was going to check me to see if I had dilated beyond 6 cm. If I hadn't, she said, she was going to finish breaking my bag of water (the earlier rupture had been a tear, not a total break) using a medieval torture device she clutched in her hand like a crochet hook.

Again, I was all "jigga-wha?" I mean, in all my natural childbirth fantasies, such interventions were presented as options in kind, whispered tones by gentle midwives who understood your pain and suffering -- not as orders handed down by weapon-wielding women. I felt pretty helpless to protest, though, in my pain haze, so she checked me, and I was 6 cm dilated, and before I even knew what was happening there was a plastic hook mauling my insides. And then, my friends. Then, I began to know Pain.

Contractions after your water breaks are NOTHING like contractions before your water breaks. Before going into labor, I remember thinking that I should really try to come up with words - an analogy maybe, or something poetic - to describe what labor pains really feel like. Cause you know how no one ever really tells you what to expect? Well now I know why. It's because there are. no. words. People, I have never in my life felt anything as painful as I did during those last few hours of labor. I honestly thought I was going to die; each time a contraction came, I thought there was no way I was going to make it through the next one. The midwife filled up the birthing tub and helped me inside. The husband and my doula sat on either side and gave me drinks of water when I came up to gasp for air. Did laboring in water help? I have no way of knowing -- all I know is, if it was that bad in the tub, I don't even want to think about what kinds of demonic forces I might have channeled had I tried to labor on dry land.

Finally, I got out of the tub. I don't really remember why -- I think the midwife decided I need to try to pee or something. Whatever - somehow I ended up on the toilet again, curled up over myself, yelling out because I thought no one was listening to me: "I can't keep from pushing. I CAN'T KEEP FROM PUSHING!" This unbearable need to push came over me and it felt like my body was fighting against itself. Someone came and helped me up onto the bed on my hands and knees, where I was intended to labor through a few more contractions to help the baby move downward. This, I remember, pissed me off to no end. Didn't any of these bitches hear me? I couldn't KEEP FROM PUSHING. Who did a pregnant lady have to screw around here to get permission to push a baby out of her vagina??

Finally, FINALLY, the midwife flipped me over onto my back, had me pull my knees up to my chest, and said the magic words: "Ok, with your next contraction, push down against my fingers." And that I did. And it was so. freaking. hard. I tried pushing on my hands and knees, I tried squatting on the floor next to the bed, I tried perched up on the bed. With every push, I would hear a chorus of excited "that's great"s and "just like that"s and "here she comes"... and then, nothing. She just wouldn't budge. The husband was excited; he could see the baby's hair peeking out. The doula was excited; she thought we were making good progress. Between pushes, the midwife would say things that sounded mean at the time, like "Come on, push again, quick, don't let her slide back up!" But in the end, I guess there's a reason for that whole "Push! Push!" mentality: if people didn't say it, you might just pass out from sheer exhaustion and sleep through the whole damn thing. It was some serious work.

After what seemed like a day but was actually more like an hour, the baby's head started crowning. It felt tight and hot, like a burning sensation. I was so excited, all "I'm almost done, where's my beer?" But then the baby got tripped up again, wouldn't budge, stuck right there in the middle of my lady parts. The midwife called for the nurse to bring her the scissors for an episiotomy and I immediately whined like a big baby "But I don't WANT one!" - which, come on, who WANTS an episiotomy? On the list of unnecessary things to say after like 15 hours of labor, that must be up there with "Anyone for a hand of Euker?" The midwife was all "I know you don't want one, but this head is not coming out without it." And then she gave me a snip and a snap, and with the next push there was a big fat goopy head poking out from between my legs. The husband was all "Look! Look!" and the midwife was all "No, don't look -- push!" and I pushed and pushed and out came a wiggly purple body, squirmy and alive and completely alien in every possible way.

The baby was "juicy" according to the nurse, meaning that she had tons of fluid in her mouth and nose and had to be suctioned out quite a bit before she could make a sound. This, of course, freaked me out to no end -- I kept saying "She can't breathe! She can't breathe!" thinking that, again, no one was listening to me. But within a few minutes the baby was squawking like the best that "A Baby Story" has to offer. The nurse put her under the warmer while the midwife delivered the placenta (a sight so gross I'm not even equipped with the vocab to share) and stitched up my episiotomy; then she put her on my chest and the doula helped me to get her latched on for breastfeeding. I'm not sure the baby did much during that initial latch-on, other than gnaw her initials into my nipples (more on that later) with the sheer force of her gums, but it was still pretty cool to have her on my skin, opening and closing her mouth like a baby bird waiting for a worm.

Apparently during all this action, I started bleeding like some kind of extra on CSI. The midwife gave me an IV of pitocin to encourage my uterus to contract and to slow down the bloodflow. The nurse took the baby to be weighed and I instantly got incredibly weak and shaky. The doula brought me apple juice to drink, which helped a bit, but not enough to keep me from balking when, just five minutes later, the nurse ordered me to get up and pee. If I couldn't pee on my own, she said, she would have to give me a catheter, because they had to move me to a recovery room immediately; there was another laboring couple waiting to use the birthing suite. The trek to the bathroom felt like an Olympian feat. I sat on the toilet with my hand under running water from the sink until finally, under the watchful eyes of time-obsessed nursing staff, I managed to squeeze out a little trickle. The husband and the doula ran around the room like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to gather up all of my things. The baby laid under the warmer, oblivious. It was just after 1:00 AM. I had delivered at 12:30.

A wheelchair arrived and I was guided, shaking and - honestly - slightly out of my gourd, into it. The doula carried my stuff; the husband went along with the baby who was being wheeled in a little baby-mobile. I was delivered to my recovery room, a palatial estate the approximate size of a van down by the river. And with that, I was officially "in recovery." No longer pregnant. A mom.

Check back for You Say It's Your Birthday, Part 2: Postpartum Edition, now with extra boob pain and hospital chicken noodle soup.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Cooked and ready to serve in just 37 weeks

Introducing Cletus -- now in new Post-Womb Actual Baby Flavor:

Dramatically-rendered birth story to follow. For now, just the facts, ma'am (and not because I'm holding out on you, but rather because my nether-regions are on fire in a distinctly non-Fabio kind of way):
Born: September 19th, 12:30 AM. 37 weeks on the dot.
How big? Really big. 9 pounds, to be exact. 21 inches long. Squeezed out through a space not nearly that large.
How much did it hurt? Words cannot describe.
Can she possibly be as cute as she looks in this picture? Yes. Jealous?
First advertisement that ran along the side of my gmail screen this morning when I checked my inbox for the first time post-baby?

"Lose Your Fat Stomach Today!"

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Yeast: the new criminal element

We're all friends here, right? Look away if you can't handle a little TMI.

Two days ago, I had to follow up my weekly midwife appointment with a trip to Walgreens for the following items: hemorrhoid cream, yeast infection medicine, and two varieties of the maxiest maxi pads you have ever seen. This, for any of you who are uninitiated, is what pregnancy is all about.

I found the hemorrhoid cream and pads, no problem, then commenced searching the store for any signs of Monistat-3. Couldn't find it anywhere. I looked and looked, all the while feeling so very attractive and inconspicuous with my arms full of diaper-sized Stayfrees. Finally, after like 10 minutes of doing laps around the store, I finally stumbled upon my prize. Why were the yeast infection meds so hard to find, you ask?

Because they were LOCKED UP in a freaking glass case, people!!

I was all: you have GOT to be kidding me. It's not bad enough that I have to buy this stuff, but I have to go ask some surly cashier to unlock it for me, like I'm a naughty child trying to steal a cookie or something? Since when did treating a yeast infection require a note from mom?

Not wanting to go all the way up to the front counter to ask the one and only employee working the cash register, in front of a line of customers, to unlock the lady-meds for me, I did a quick scan of the nearby aisles to see if there were any other Walgreens employees running around loose in the wild. I finally found one in the greeting card aisle. She looked mean, but at least she was a "she"; I would take my chances.

"I need to have a case unlocked, please," I called out to Probably Mean Employee Lady.

She looked up at me, clearly annoyed. "Which one?" she barked back. This did not look good.

"Um. The one over here," I pointed, and then walked over in the direction of the case in question, hoping that Definitely Mean Employee Lady would follow. She did.

When we arrived at our destination, I tapped my finger against the case's glass window. "Can you unlock this one, please?" Mean Employee Lady whipped a magic key out of her pocket and obliged. But just as I started to reach my hand into the case to pull out and examine some options, Mean Employee Lady thrust out an arm to block me, pulling out a small box and asking, "This is what you wanted?"

I looked at her. "Um, I was planning on reading the information on the back of a couple of these boxes. Can I just close the case myself when I'm done?"

Mean Employee Lady scoffed in disbelief. "Well, I'm the one with the key, aren't I?"

Not even kidding; she actually said that. I was all: ok, whatever, it's all Monistat, how different can they be? This was not a battle I felt up to fighting. I chose a box, pulled it from the case, and started to walk away.

"You're WELCOME," Mean Employee Lady called after me.

Now, in my imaginary version of this story, this is the part where I wheeled around, yelled "Welcome THIS, bitch!" and doused her with a toxic blend of Monistat, Preparation H, and my own righteous indignation. But in reality, I didn't even turn around -- just kept right on walking up to the cash register, paid for my contraband, and left the Drug Store of Oppression with my head hung just a little bit lower than it had been when I entered.

I ask you: what is the point of incarcerating the Monistat? Anyone have any ideas? Because, unless it's for the personal entertainment of Mean Employee Lady and her colleagues who sit around and watch the surveillance camera footage with a bag of microwave popcorn and a 6-pack, I just don't get it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some healing to do.

Monday, September 11, 2006

If you were on the couch with me

The thing about lying around all day trying to keep a baby crammed up inside your business for at least one more week? Is that you have nothing to blog about. I could tell you about how I watched 14 episodes of "Veronica Mars" yesterday. I could tell you about how it's rainy and gloomy outside, which matches my crampy, uncomfortable, gloomy mood. I could tell you about how my dog has become so clingy over the past few days it's unbelievable, how she refuses to leave my side and how she has developed an irrational fear of both the big purple "birthing ball" we recently inflated and the baby bathtub we have propped up next to the shower. I could tell you about how I was super-hungry for cake with gooey frosting the other night, and when my husband went out to get it for me he brought me the wrong kind and I got mad at him, even though he had just driven all the way to the grocery store just to buy my lazy ass some cake.

If you were sitting here on the couch with me, I would probably talk to you about how much I love that new Beyonce song "Ring The Alarm." You would, of course, nod in agreement because no matter how much indie cred you've established for yourself, you have to admit that your head bobs involuntarily for that song. We would discuss how, despite her stubborn insistence on occasionally dressing like a hooker and stealing dance routines from Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814, Beyonce fights the man by a) eating, and b) playing live with an all-female backing band. Your standard girl-power "womyn rock!" female musicians are a dime a dozen, but how many of them can say that they actually put their money where their politics are by refusing to follow the status-quo of hiring dude drummers, dude bass players, and dude guitarists? I went to Lilith Fair; I bought my organic image-of-the-goddess stamped baby-tee. For a tour that was supposed to be all about celebrating women in music, there sure were a hell of a lot more men on stage at any given time than there were women. Even the freaking Indigo Girls were backed up by male musicians!

At this point you would, of course, remind me that the Indigo Girls now tour with Julie Wolf, the backup singer/musician who used to tour with Ani Difranco, and I would be all "fine, that's one, but you get my point, right?" And you would be all "Sure Melinda, have some more cake."

Then we would talk about that awful commercial I saw for some new brand of chocolate bars designed for and marketed exclusively towards women. Because in these busy and stressful times, what a woman really needs? Is a chocolate bar of her own. These particular candy bars were allegedly fortified with calcium and vitamins and whatever, and the commercial showed women biting into them, sighing with near-orgasmic pleasure, and then walking down the street empowered and strong. Because that's what it takes, ladies. Fulfillment, job satisfaction, happiness, joy and success: wrapped up in foil and sold at CVS for $1.99. I like chocolate; I eat a lot of it. It is a food that tastes good, not wholly unlike blueberries or sweet corn. When I eat chocolate, I might say "yum." And that's about the extent of it. You and I would agree that we are so very, very over the implication that there is some kind of inherent special relationship between women and chocolate whereby chocolate serves to solve women's problems, heal women's wounds, and satisfy other non-food-related needs for women in a way that it does not do for men.

You would then note how lying around watching tv all day makes me spout a lot of Gender and Women's Studies 101 anger, even though thirty minutes later I will probably turn the channel to MTV and watch two hours of "Laguna Beach" reruns. I would agree.

Then we would turn the channel to Animal Planet, which was supposed to be playing an episode of my beloved "Animal Precinct" but was instead playing a tribute montage to the Crocodile Hunter for the 75th time that week. I would tell you about how, on Friday, a woman called the reference desk to ask for confirmation that Steve Irwin had, in fact, died, and then burst into tears when I read her the text of Irwin's obituary. I would tell you about how I get tired of hearing people talk about how Irwin was "asking for it." Yes, I found his interests and methods creepy and irresponsible in a "Grizzly Man" sort of way. But the guy DIED, people. He just died, in a horrible way, and he's got a family in mourning somewhere, and they don't need to hear some guy from PETA (who no doubt endorsed the subtle and respectful use of naked women with lettuce leaves slapped on their breasts to promote vegetarianism) spouting off about how Irwin was nothing but a "cheap reality tv star." Let the dust settle, at least. He may have been a caricature, and he may even have done some bad stuff, but can we wait 5 minutes, maybe until after the funeral even, to start talking smack? Geez.

And after I said all that, you would be like "I thought I was coming over to sit on the couch and watch tv." And I would be all "We are watching tv." And you would be all "Um, ok, but you keep talking and getting mad about stuff." And I would be like "Hey, look! A Lifetime movie starring pre-Rilo Kiley Jenny Lewis!" And we would settle back into the couch cushions, all forgiven, content.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

And freedom tastes of reality

So I am sprung from the bed-rest slammer, at least on a trial basis. This means I get to go to work today, and every day after that, but the instant I start to feel that something is a little off -- whether that something be back pain, contractions, or looking down to see a baby hanging halfway out between my legs -- I am to hit the ground running and not come back until I've got a babe in arms. When I'm not at work, I'm supposed to resume my position on the couch. The goal, according to my midwife, is to keep Cletus the Fetus tucked up inside for two more weeks, at which point I will be 37 weeks pregnant. After I hit that milestone, she assures me, I can "jump up and down, have sex, do yoga, and have all the nipple stimulation [I] can handle." So, you know, look forward to hearing about that.

I'm pretty nervous about how I'm going to feel at work today, and it showed in the psycho dreams I had last night. In the first, I was sitting in a public computer lab, trying to access the internet. I kept going from computer to computer, double-clicking on the Internet Explorer icon, but each time I tried I got the same result: the computer screen flooded with a mobile image of knights in armor, marching around and calling out my name. The image was actually really ominous; the knights looked angry, or desperate, and there was like a humming/crackling noise surrounding them, like the noise from the videotape in "The Ring."

In the second dream, I was alone in my parents' house and the phone kept ringing. Every time I picked it up, I heard that same crackling/humming noise from the first dream, along with a male voice saying, "Answer the call." This happened over and over again. With each call I got increasingly upset, crying, "I DID answer the call! I'm on the phone right now! What do you want?" But the voice would never say anything else; just "answer the call."

Finally, in the third dream (I should note that these dreams were all separated by short bathroom break wake-ups), I was hanging out at my grandparents' house. They had redone the walls of their house in corkboard, on which they'd hung photos of their grandchildren and their grandchildren's pets. I searched and searched those walls but couldn't find a single picture of me. My dog was up there, though. I thought that was weird. My grandma's phone rang and she went to answer it -- but when she picked it up and held the receiver to her ear, the phone just kept on ringing. Somehow, in the dream, I knew this was a sign that something terrible was going to happen. I yelled, "Grandma, put the phone down," and ran over to her, but it was too late. This weird look came over her face and she turned to me and said, "You should've answered the call." Then - people, I kid you not - she freaking turned to dust. Like the vampires do on "Buffy" after she stakes them through the heart. What. the. hell?

I am used to having lots of fucked up dreams in one night, but this is the first time I can remember where they were all connected together like this. Maybe it's the new antibiotic my midwife put me on. Maybe it's the weird head-space I've been occupying lately. Or maybe it's a result of the sum total of television/dvd watching I've been doing over the past week: 1 disc of Buffy, 2 discs of Gilmore Girls, 1 disc of Arrested Development, 2 discs of The Dog Whisperer, 1 disc of Mystery Science Theater, Clueless, Hoop Dreams, Roll Bounce (yes, I said Roll Bounce), and countless Tivo-recorded treasures.

I don't know. What do you think? And while you're thinking, ponder these two questions as well: What does it mean that the only song my child responds to in utero is "What's Left of Me" by Nick Lachey? And if Suri Cruise is truly the natural-born product of Tom and Katie, then why is she Asian?

Friday, September 01, 2006

A day in the life of a temporary bed-rester

8:00 AM: Arise and greet the day. Smile, stretch -- you only got up to pee twice last night! That's like a new 3rd-trimester record or something.

8:05 AM: Notice that Cletus the Fetus is quiet. Poke her a few times to wake her up. You two really don't spend enough quality time together.

8:10 AM: Take a shower, fully enjoying the way the hot water soothes the lower back pain that reemerges every time you walk around.

8:30 AM: Get dressed and settle into the deep, comfy ass-ditch you have dug into the couch cushion over the past few days. You have essentially created a homemade boppy with your butt. Pat yourself on the back for being so crafty! Enjoy a breakfast of toast and yogurt.

9:00 AM: Watch Oprah. Remember that you hate Oprah. Keep watching Oprah anyway. Oprah is talking to a married couple who has only had sex 10 times in the past year. Wonder about when you will next get to have sex, since part of the terms of your bedrest, according to your midwife, include - and I quote - "nothing in your vagina." Amuse yourself for a few minutes thinking up scenarios in which you could call your midwife to ask her questions like, "What about this? Can I put this in my vagina?"

10:00 AM: Oprah is over. The View makes you ashamed to have ovaries. There are music videos playing on VH1. You watch a few and feel very, very old, and also surprisingly out of touch. What is that about? After all, you subscribe to Defamer.com and TMZ! You're supposed to be down with what the kids are into these days.

10:30 AM: Turn off the TV and read the last quarter of Every Visible Thing by Lisa Carey. Decide that it is a disappointingly standard family-in-crisis novel, in the style of We Were The Mulvaneys or any Jodi Picoult book. Wonder why every book featuring a teenaged gay male character has to set up said character to be "caught" by a horrified parent while in the act of giving or receiving a blow job. Can this really be that common of a scenario? Is it, like, a rite of passage or something?

12:30 PM: Eat some peanut butter and crackers and a Nutrigrain bar. Drink a bunch of water. Watch episodes of Animal Precinct, 30 Days, and South Park (shut it) that you taped on the Tivo. Then use the Tivo to search for upcoming movies that will be playing on Tivo. After all, you have at least a few more days of bed rest before your next appointment with the midwife. When you asked your husband to bring you home some chick-flicks from the library, he brought you "Girl With a Pearl Earring," which just will not do. Set the Tivo to tape "Edward Scissorhands" and "Fast Times At Ridgemont High." Also, so you can share some special couch-time with the husband, tape "The Fly" and "Alive!"

2:30 PM: Answer your mom's daily phone call. Tell her there is no baby just yet.

3:00 PM: Work an online chat-reference shift from home. Respond to two questions from patrons. Spend the rest of the time surfing blogs, writing this blog entry, and subscribing yourself to both Bust and Bitch magazines.

4:00 PM: Log off of online chat session. Drink a bunch more water. Finish blog entry. Feel a Braxton-Hicks contraction.

4:20 PM: Log off of Blogger and resume horizontal position on couch. Fondle remote control. Lather, rinse, repeat.

** Schedule edited to omit 37 trips to the bathroom and 12 instances of yelling "FRODO, NO!!!!" at the dog.