Labor Day ~ February 2nd, 2014

Journal notes from Owen's labor

1:23pm; Feb 2nd
My bp is high they say. Don't stress and try to relax they said. The medication I didn't want drips into me through the iv I didn't think I would need and know I didn't want. They're doing their best to compromise with me. Ladadol (sp?) instead of magnesium sulfate, "yet" they say. No side effects they said as I start to feel groggy and a little shaky.

Jamie and Angie left to get food. I convinced them - yet another interruption to my rest and sanity from the charge nurse, very Mrs. Ratchet-esque. What was I saying? I'm alone for a moment. Something I never craved as much as I do now as a mom. Even with contractions right now, I'm enjoying the serenity of being able to hear my thoughts, your heartbeat on the monitor, and look at photos of our family. There's a wonderful view out the window. The same window in the same room I birthed Nora in. May this birth be faster and without the back labor pain. Thankfully you're not stuck like Nora was along my spine and tailbone. Poor thing came out with bruised eyelids, screaming, and pooping everywhere as a mile length of cord shot out of me.

Please let me not have preeclampsia as they fear. The medication is dropping my bp and not yours. The best outcome is for you to arrive quickly. Let that be the case.

Let you arrive as naturally as possible, let me be healthy enough to care for you, and lets hope Jamie can find me a good corned beef sandwich while he's out like I asked. We're so excited to meet you. 

1:44pm; Feb 2nd

Your heartbeat has dropped. You keep moving away from the monitor. Nurse Ratchet, Megan, pissed you off trying to rearrange me in the bed during a contraction. She needs to brush her teeth. Then her cohort and her huddled a few feet from me to gossip about coworkers while I labored. They're constantly in the way and rude.

(They turned on the pitocin without telling me I found out later. Everything became too slow and fast all at once. The pain slowed everything to stop motion pace. My mind and tongue struggled to complete simple exchanges and pay attention to every detail to be able to make decisions. It felt like I was trying to take photos of singular objects from a speeding train. My eyesight became blurred, my hands and feet numb, my bp was skyrocketing and yours dropping. Every contraction was stopping your heart and making mine burst. I was at 8 cm with back labor when they discovered that you were hung up on your cord and it was squeezing you with every contraction and you were scrambling to make progress in between.

Van Houten left us to have some private time together before the surgery. Nurse Megan wouldn't leave and insisted on trying to take blood samples while I was having a contraction, crying, and dilated 8cm. I told her to get out and called her a condescending bitch for speaking to us as if we she was addressing children.)

Feb 3rd

Why would anyone ever elect to have a C section? I thought Nora's natural birth of 23 hours with posterior presentation and back labor was hard. This was terrifying and demoralizing. Length and repeat of Nora's birth with the addition of preeclampsia, a triple nuchal for Owen (cord wrapped three times around him) and knots in the cord. (Triple Nuchal - Sochi Olympics watch out!)

Evil nurse Megan stood blocking my view so I missed seeing your first moments when your dad cut your cord and held you. I had to ask the anesthesiologist to yell at her. By then you were being brought over to be held against my cheek. It was hard to feel the contact with you. My skin felt numb from the cold and my teeth were chattering from my body adjusting to the blood loss. I was itching from the magnesium sulfate to prevent seizure.

4:08am; Feb 4th

Its dark and quiet in the hospital room save for the cacophony of man-made interference of monitor beeps, blowing air vents, timed hydraulic squeezing of my legs, and Owen's owl-hoot-coo in his sleep. Everything is uncomfortable. I woke at one point to the bassinet empty and panicked. Jamie reassured me that Owen was alright, that he was asleep next to him in the pull-out bed. One of the kind nurses, Kate, was worried about them sleeping that way but relented when I said that it was ok with me. I read her expression and had a feeling that I might have already garnered a reputation after my interactions with some of the nurses over the past two days. I didn't mind. I was just hoping to eat at some point and be able to drink more than 16oz of water for the day. The magnesium sulfate was still dripping. No food, imprisoned to the bed, and no liquids.

Nurse Kate gave me a hug when she discovered me crying in the night at one point. We talked for awhile and joked. She asked if there was anything she could do to make me more comfortable. I asked if she could help me jump out of my skin.

Owen Atticus Kelso ~ February 2, 2014

11:34pm; February 2nd, 2014,
Owen Atticus Kelso was born via unscheduled c-section after 25 hours of labor. 8lbs,2oz; 20.75" length; 9 Apgar

We were heartbroken that I had to get a caesarian section Besides my gestational diabetes, I developed preeclampsia in the last few days leading up to delivery unbeknownst to me or my OB. It came on so quickly just like the rest of the realities of the day. The quick, easy second birth promised to me was not going to happen. Nora's birth was the easy one after all.

The umbilical cord was wrapped around him 3 times and had knots in it as well. I labored to 8cm, with back labor, and he wouldn't descend. His bp dropped and he went in to distress. He wasn't getting enough nutrients through his cord.

Shooken up but confident that it was the only option we had, I tried to keep it together even as thoughts of losing my family whirled through my head. A torrent of relief overwhelmed me during the surgery when Jamie exclaimed in relief to me, as he had the vantage point of looking over the screen, that Owen was ok and that we had gotten him out just in time.

I heard his cries, waited to see him and know for certain he was ok

Big as a house and ready for eviction ~ February 1st, 2014

We were in disbelief when our OB estimated our due date for January 25th back in May of last year. Now we're both wrong. This kid does not want to leave. I've taken to smooshing my belly back in forth to wake him up in the morning if he hasn't woken already to the sound of Nora's voice. He wiggles his butt back in forth in response and headbutts my tailbone. My life has become the stuff of science fiction.

He responds the most to Nora in general. He spoons with her when we nap so I have to roll away from her or I'm in too much pain to nap myself. (That and she's snoring even louder lately due to cutting molars.) He does his upside down frog dance in response to her singing, laughing, or shouts of glee. When she cries he becomes upset and writhes around in protest. Like the external child in protest isn't enough to deal with. Thanks, buddy.

We celebrated Jamie's new job last night by going out one last time. I barely fit in my maternity dress and my leggings felt more like support hose but we had a great time toasting his success and talking about our, fingers crossed, imminent arrival of our fourth family member. It's a relief to know that he has secured a job, one that he will like, one with benefits, one that is located close enough to home that we get to see him, and he can ride his bike still. More than we could hope for and an answer to our many worries. The stress of the past two weeks is now letting up and we're more than ready to meet the new Kelso...

Fortress of solitude ~ January 31, 2014

I remember from an early age liking to hide in small spaces. My mother is fond of telling the story as to how I lost my two front teeth due to this. I was about Nora's age now and had decided to hide in a raised kitchen cabinet so I could jump out to surprise my mother. The surprise unfortunately was on me since her hands were full of a laundry basket and she wasn't able to catch me as I anticipated.
Because of my epic fail I looked like Bunnicula until I was about 7 years old and my permanent teeth came in.

Nora has a similar tendency for wanting to hide and I have a healthy dose of paranoia that she'll reenact my failed stage dive. So we help to create areas where she can safely hide and perform her "ta-da's!" without dental or other physical injury to herself. Her newest is the tent we erected by the dining room window. (Thank you, husband and Ikea!) She likes to climb in with Elmo and tell him stories. (Side note, it use to be there were laundry baskets in the background of all my photos...now there is Elmo. Evil d'elmo...)

TA-DAAAA!

The things we miss ~ January 28th, 2014

As I laid next to Nora taking a nap with her yesterday, the same thought passed through me that I've had lately during similar moments, "Is this the last time I'll get to nap with her like this?" Part of me knows that we'll always have chances to cuddle, and that she's a very affectionate kid no matter what, but I can't help feeling like I'm nearing the end of a really good book all the time lately. As much as I don't want to finish the chapter I'm drawn towards the end out of curiosity and inevitability. It's no longer just the two of us during the day and it's no longer the three of us in our home. It's the four of us soon enough and there's no going back to the beginning of the story without reflecting on the knowledge of the present.

As excited as we are, part of me sees how there will be a grieving period for her, and us, over the old dynamic. Just like there was for Jamie and I over the loss of just the two of us. We felt guilty admitting it to each other at first but now we discuss it and can commiserate about the heartbreak and the humor of parenting. Life is full of birth and death but no one warns you that being a grown up is all about experiencing it in different scales of change repeatedly. We grieve the ending of a phase just as we celebrate the beginning of the next and both are equally important and relevant yet the grieving is suppose to be silent. That's one of many realities of being a parent, and an adult, that really sucks. The pressure within and around us to suffer in silence when there's no need to do so and to turn that into a morass of guilt that hangs on us. I'm weird, I'd rather talk about it and acknowledge it then pretend it's not there. Forced ambiguity pisses me off. It's like most packaging, wasteful and pointless.

The three of us will now be the four of us just like our singlehood ended when we married, our twosome ended when we became parents, and our childhoods ended when we became parents. You can be an adult without being a parent but there's a definite finality about being a kid when someone else is depending on you to be the adult. We would need to set aside time just for Nora from now on and that will no longer be the default. There will be another set of hands clamoring for ours, if he listens and we're lucky, and another little body trying to squirm into our bed at night. Our love will change, stretch, and include him just like our hearts did for each other, our marriage, Nora, and I had to for Jamie's cats.