Bao in the Oven

Mama Jae and I are learning this whole parenting thing as we go. I think we’re doing a pretty good job so far. We are figuring things out bit by bit, like how breastfeeding while lying down at night means more sleep for me and less fussiness for Essie. There were a couple of nights before we tried that tactic that were pretty sleepless. We’ll see how long this technique works!

I am loving watching Mama Jae with Essie. She is a natural, and the baby really responds to her as she rocks her and walks around with her and talks to her. It’s so beautiful to watch them bond. Essie herself is pretty amazing, too. I love stroking her incredibly soft skin and silky hair and looking at her tiny fingers and fingernails and ears and eyes and pouty little lips. I look at her and think about how, the whole time I was pregnant, it was this specific little person inside of me. Her little grunts and swallows while she’s breastfeeding are so primal and immediate, as are her cries, especially when she gets really worked up. And we are in charge of meeting the very primal and immediate needs of this very specific little person. Our days are sculpted around doing just that.

I’ve been having some anxiety about my parenting abilities, especially on those days when I haven’t had much sleep and it seems that nothing I try calms her down. I also sometimes worry that I don’t know enough about how to provide appropriate stimulation for her at this stage of her development. But the anxiety is mixed with the knowledge that we will figure it all out. I’m so lucky that Mama Jae is around during my maternity leave—doing these early weeks together makes things much more manageable, and I like that we are figuring things out together. It can be hard but it is so rewarding and lovely at the same time.

We’re about halfway through my maternity leave. I am trying not to think too much about going back to work, focusing instead on enjoying this time with my new little family. I know it’s going to fly by.

Several of you have asked if we’re going to share the baby’s name. In keeping with the anonymous nature of this blog, we’ve decided to give her a pseudonym that matches ours. Her name begins with S, so on the blog we’ll be calling her Ess, or more likely Essie. Added bonus is that “es” means “eat” in Yiddish, and she has been doing quite a lot of that already, with her mamas’ hopes that she will love to es as much as we do throughout her life.

We celebrated Essie’s first week of life with a baby-naming ceremony, which my parents and little sister threw together on July 11. A lot of our friends came, and everyone went around the room and shared a wish or hope they had for the baby. Mama Jae and I each lit a candle, and together took our candles and lit a third. We talked a little about her name and its significance, and gave her a Hebrew name. It was such a beautiful ceremony. I cried pretty much the whole way through. There was just so much love and support in the room.

A couple of days later, when Essie was a mere 8 days old, she had her first court date. As it turns out, in the lovely state of Tennessee, since Mama Jae’s and my marriage is not recognized, I am considered an unwed mother, and in this state, the babies born to unwed mothers have to have their same last names. So I couldn’t write the last name we wanted for Essie, which was Mama Jae’s and my names hyphenated, on her birth certificate. So trampy whore me, my bastard child, and the woman I’m living in sin with all had to go to court to get her name legally changed.

Mama Jae and Essie at the court house

It cost about $700, to add a hyphen and two letters (Mama Jae’s last name is wicked short). And we still have to wait for the incorrect birth certificate and social security card to come in the mail, and then go through god knows how much red tape to get those changed.

That same day, my parents headed back home to Virginia. They made me promise before they left that I would not write a thank you note. Lucky for me, I can go a step further and talk about them on my blog for all the world to see. HA!

You would not believe how much my parents did while they were here. They cooked and cleaned and did laundry and pulled weeds and planted things and fixed doors and put up shelves and towel racks and painted the crib and assembled it and put together the pack n’ play and baked scones and ran errands and took gifts to the nurses at the hospital and bought us a glider and ottoman and brought us delicious meals in the hospital and gave me massages and a pedicure and hosted the baby-naming ceremony and put up artwork in the house and god knows what else they did that I’m forgetting or that they did without me knowing. Basically, they came in and made our lives not only easy, but vastly better. They made it so all we had to do the first week was bond with our daughter. Our house is finally unpacked and liveable and clean and lovely to be in, thanks to them. They were just amazing and Mama Jae and I are grateful beyond the capacity of mere words to express.

Saying goodbye to Bubbe and Granddaddy

On a vastly different note, I haven’t mentioned yet that while we were in the hospital, the pediatrician, on his first visit, told us that Essie’s hip was not fully developed, and that she needed to see a pediatric orthopedics doctor. I mostly blocked this idea out of my head the first week of Essie’s life, because every time I thought about it it made me cry. She just seemed so perfect, so how could her hip be messed up? and why couldn’t she just BE as perfect health-wise as she was in every other way? It turns out that this is relatively common, happening in  3 out of 1000 births, and more often to girls. So when Essie was nine days old, off we went to the orthopedics guy. She got outfitted for a harness, which she has to wear from now until whenever her hip finishes developing, which could be a few weeks or months from now. She had an ultrasound and x-rays. It was a long visit, and a lot for her mamas to handle.

Essie in her harness

Neither the hip nor the harness seem to hurt or bother her all that much. The harness is kind of a pain in the ass—it makes diaper and clothing changes longer and harder and less fun for everyone involved. Also, we have to keep her legs as close to the open position as they can be at all times, so no swaddling at this household (she hated it anyway), and not a lot of time in the swing or car seat. But that’s okay; she sleeps pretty well on her back and when we wear her.

Luckily, breastfeeding got off to a great start and has been going really well ever since. We saw her regular pediatrician yesterday for her two-week visit and she’d gained 7 ounces in a week, and is above her birth weight. Everyone is delighted that that’s going well. I’m enjoying breastfeeding—I love the closeness with my baby, and the enforced downtime every couple of hours or so. I love that my body is making food that is sustaining this amazing human life. It seems incredible to me that my body knows how to do this, no problem. I know I’m a broken record about this, but every time my body does what it’s supposed to, it comes as a bit of a shock.

Ooo! The UPS guy just delivered the birth announcements we ordered. I have more to say about Essie and how amazing she is, and about how we’re learning to be parents, but this post is long enough that I think I’ll save it for another time. Thanks again to everyone for your amazing support and sweet comments—they mean so much. xo

Oh! And if you asked for the password and didn’t get an email from me, it means that I didn’t have your e-mail address. So you can email me at moms [at] baointheoven [dot] com if you still need it.

In one of the rest periods between those contractions where the baby’s head was half out, everyone was making comments about how much hair there was.  I made a joke that we could actually tie a bow in her hair, rather than tape it to her head (not that I have any intentions of putting ribbons on her head while she is a baby).  Then the doctor said that a lot of people use KY for that.  And that’s how you can tell it’s not a very good lube, because it can keep a bow stuck to a baby’s head.

Next post will be password protected—comment or email if you need the password (it’s the same as before).

You really don’t have to read this. Really. It’s mad long, and I’m trying to record every single detail so I can remember it later.

After a fun night having some friends over, I woke up at around 1 or 1:30 because I felt a gush of liquid coming out. I’d been having similar feeling but smaller gushes for about a week (most memorably when we had just parked the car to go into the grocery store), so I didn’t think much of it. I cleaned myself off and got back in bed, only to have a contraction. I thought it might be labor starting, but I wasn’t sure, so I decided not to wake up Mama Jae quite yet. Mild contractions came about every ten minutes in the hour that followed, during which time I composed the following haiku in my head, because clearly, what else would one spend their time doing in early labor?

Gushes of water
Could this be labor starting?
Contractions follow

It is 2 a.m.
Do I wake J up or not?
That is the question

So after the hour of 10-minute-apart contractions, I did decide to wake her up. I cuddled up to her and tried to wake her up sweetly, but then a stronger contraction came and I told her I was in labor. We spent the next little bit of time with Jae rubbing my back through each contraction and resting in between. My memories and sense of time during this part of labor are pretty vague—I remember Jae saying she was texting the doula and we discussed whether or not she should come, and whether or not we should call my parents yet. I also remember thinking that as soon as it was an appropriate hour, I had to tell Jae to call my boss, because I was supposed to be overseeeing a deinstallation of a show on Monday and that clearly was not going to happen, so my boss was going to have to come in and do it on her day off.

Anyway, Jae was timing my contractions and trying to soothe me at the same time. The contractions were getting stronger, and I began rolling over onto all fours and rocking through them and moaning, then flopping over onto my side between them to rest. It was pretty exhausting getting myself in and out of that position, but I remember thinking after each contraction that although it was strong, it wasn’t un-doable. At one point I told Jae I thought I needed a bucket, and good thing she brought it when she did because I yakked up the cereal she had tried to get me to eat and some of the dinner from the night before.

At some point the doula showed up, and she and Jae found a good rhythm of taking me through the contractions. Eventually she suggested getting me on the birth ball, which was fantastic, because I could be in a similar position to all fours but rest my head on the bed between contractions. She talked me through the breathing and she noticed when I was tensing muscles in my body and helped me relax them. And she somehow always had a cool washcloth to put on the back of my neck.

The contractions got closer together, and seemed to be progressing a lot more quickly than our class had lead us to believe was possible. The doula asked us if we felt like we should get ready to go to the hospital, and it was only a couple of hours after she’d arrived, so we said no, that we’d wait a bit longer, because it couldn’t possibly be time already. She suggested we give it another half-hour. Shortly thereafter, though, she asked me about the pressure, and I told her that the last contraction made me feel like I had to poop. In her calm and serene way, she made it clear that we had to go ahead and go to the hospital. She instructed me on how to breathe so I wouldn’t push. A few contractions later, I think, we were getting me into the car and I was panting or blowing so that I could resist the urge to push.

The contractions were really strong and really close together in the car ride. I had my eyes closed the entire time and was resting on my hip with my head thrown back, concentrating on not pushing. It was hard, and sometimes even the breathing strategies didn’t work and my body worked on pushing anyway. Eventually we got to the hospital—this was around 5 in the morning, maybe?—and this lady brought us a wheelchair. I thought she was associated with the hospital, but no—just out having her early-morning cigarette after having had her baby a couple of days before. Whatever: she seemed like an angel to me, because she gave us the wheelchair and we were on our way inside.

I still was keeping my eyes closed for the most part, so I don’t remember much of how we got to the triage floor, but suddenly there we were, along with a ton of nurses and a doctor and whoever else. I had a brief moment of panic because I thought the doctor was that same doctor we’d seen last time we were in the ER there, the one who patted Jae on the head, but it turns out he wasn’t. Anyway, everyone was trying to get me into a hospital gown and get an IV in and check my dilation etc etc, little of which I actually remember because of my focus on not pushing. Apparently I announced that I was having the baby in triage, not on the L&D floor. I also remember the nurse announcing that I was completely dilated and the doctor saying that he could deliver the baby in the next two contractions if I wanted. I did not want, and kept panting and blowing through contractions so as not to push.

It was as hot as crap in there, and I was sweating sweating sweating. The doula was still talking me through the breathing and working her magic with the cool cloths. Jae was holding my hand. I was just focusing, focusing.

We were so happy to see our OB when she came in. I remember watching her put on her scrubs and getting her stool situated and being so, so grateful that she was going to deliver our baby, and being happy that I could stop resisting the pushing. Once she was set up, I started pushing with some of the contractions, and it was such a relief.

I pushed for a long, long time. Pushing was hard, but not really because the contractions hurt. It was more because I was having a hard time figuring out how to push effectively. The doctor and the doula were encouraging me to push in a J shape and push toward the ceiling, which I would do, but I didn’t seem to be making much progress. The baby’s head was stuck at the widest part, so half of her head was inside and half out. The nurses and doctor kept marveling that her heartbeat indicated that she was taking it in stride.

A nurse had brought a mirror, so I could see the baby’s head as it began to emerge, complete with a shock of black hair. It was flopping all over the place, and I remember thinking at one point that I had torn, but it was just the shape of a lock of her hair resting on me.

In between contractions, the tone of the room was amazing. Everyone was quiet if I was quiet, and kind of joking around if that’s what I was doing. Some of the most wonderful moments for me during the whole experience were between pushes, when I felt these waves of serenity and euphoria wash over my body and everything was so quiet, except for the sound of the baby’s heart beating on the monitor. It was an incredible feeling. At other times the mood was light and happy, and we were all laughing. Jae was on my left side, holding my hand and my leg somehow, and a nurse was on my right side, holding that leg. The doula was still there with the magic cool washcloths.

Eventually our OB started encouraging me to use each contraction more, and telling me when to push. They still weren’t super effective, and I began to think that there was just no way the baby could come out of my tiny hoo-ha—I just wasn’t big enough to fit her through. It didn’t feel like any progress was being made. The OB said to me that she thought I might be a good candidate for an episiotomy, and I would have said yes if it weren’t for Jae, who told me I could say no. I asked if we could try without an episiotomy for a couple more contractions, and apparently the threat was just the motivation I needed, because at the end of the second or third contraction after that conversation, on a push that I had been indecisive about taking, I felt a huge whoosh of baby body parts slide out of me, and our daughter was born.

Most of what happened after is a little blurry and I don’t remember the order of things happening. I watched Jae cut the cord. Someone passed me the baby and I put her warm little body on my chest. Someone put an IV in my arm. The placenta was delivered. The doctor was going back and forth between massaging my abdomen and stitching up my tear (I had a partial 3rd degree tear in my perineum, almost to the rectum, and during the stitching, one of the nurses said something to our OB about her new role as a plastic surgeon. I have not looked to see what she was talking about. Obviously). That part of the process was definitely the worst. I think there was some pitocin in the IV along with the fluids to help me deliver the placenta or maybe whatever clots were still inside me—I’m not sure what it was for—and the stitching hurt and the abdominal massages were pure misery. I had also lost 600 cc’s of blood, and was pretty woozy. I’m sad that I remember that time as being about the pain, not about the baby on my chest.

However, when I think about the birth, I am overwhelmed with how wonderful and positive an experience it was. I had some fears about whether I’d be able to go natural, but for me, labor was never hard enough for me to wish I had pain relief. I was nervous about how long it was going to take and whether I would have the necessary endurance, but I was lucky enough to have a super quick labor—between 6 and 6 1/2 hours from when it started to when the baby was born. Although a huge part of it was luck, I am really proud of myself for doing it, and doing it naturally and without intervention. I am amazed at what my body was capable of doing, and at how my brain and emotions cooperated. I am thrilled and a little shocked that I experienced feelings of calm and happiness during the labor and delivery, and that I didn’t make the experience hard for anyone involved—myself, the baby, Jae, the doctor, the hospital staff. I really like knowing that.

And now we have this…

…and nothing could be sweeter.

On July 4th, we had a sort of last minute shindig at our house. 13 people came over and we grilled, drank beer, chatted. Everyone was gone by 9:30 or so, and Mama Bea and I went to bed early; she was tired from a long day at work, and I was tired from mowing, cleaning, and cooking. The next day I was going to get up early for a day on the lake (we had gone in with our friends on a pontoon boat rental), and Bea was going to work in the morning, and try to join us in the afternoon. Except, at 2:30 in the morning, Mama Bea woke me up and said, “I think I’m in labor.”

It was sort of surreal, to be honest.  I’d had a few beers the night before, so I woke up groggier than even a normal person would be at 2:30.  I asked Bea some questions about what she felt like and how long she’d been up, when suddenly she sort of gasped and started a contraction.  She got on her hands and knees right away, and I tried to rub her back until it went away.  I asked her if I should call the doula, and she said maybe, maybe not yet.  I knew this was the time when I was supposed to be making decisions instead of giving her lots of options, but I didn’t know what she was feeling like, and from everything we’d learned, calling the doula the second you go into labor is totally unnecessary.  At the next contraction though, it seemed like Bea was in some pain, and I texted the doula:

Me: Bea is in labor, maybe since 1:30.  I’ve only timed 3 contractions, they seem to be about a minute long and btw 5 to 7 min apart.

Doula: U guys ready for me? It’ll take me about an hour + a few to get dressed and over there.

Me: We’re not sure.  I guess we’ll wait a little

Doula: I’ll go ahead and get dressed. u just say the word and I’ll be there. Can she talk through them?

Me: Ok. Not really. Does that mean something?

Doula: Means she’s probably in active labor. If you’re cool with it, I’m going to get ready and head over.

Me (on the verge of panicking): Sounds great

Doula: See u in about an hour. Let’s have us a baby!

Me: Let’s have a baby!

That’s from my text messaging logs.  I was grateful that she texted me right back, even though it was 2:50am.  Mind you, I was only a little panicked when she said “active labor.”  It still seemed so impossible that, after an hour of labor, Bea was already in active labor.  Everything in our class and our books said we’d be putting around for like 12 hours before anything like this could possibly happen.  But, the doula was on her way, Bea was in some pain with the contractions but handling them beautifully, and we were going to have a baby!

Between contractions we started  to think about all the things we needed to do still.  Print out the birth plan, get last minute things in the bag, make sure all our legal paperwork was ready.  I was trying to get Bea to eat and drink, since we knew it was important to keep her energy up.

Around 3:45 we decided it was time to call Bea’s parents.  I don’t have a log of that conversation, but it went something like this:

Bea’s Dad: Hello?

Me: Good morning!

Dad: What?

Me: Good morning! It’s Jae.

Dad: It’s what?

Me: IT’S JAE!

Dad: Oh. Hi.

Me: It’s time!

Dad: OH! It’s time?

Me (suddenly a little choked up): Yep, I think it’s time!

Dad: Ok, we’re coming!

I was a little surprised that I got emotional then.  I thought for sure I’d cry when the baby was born (I didn’t), but not so soon.  But, there it is.  It went away after I hung up the phone though, and went back to tending to Bea.

The doula got there in good time, and was fantastic in helping us through contractions.  She could see things like when Bea was clenching her shoulders or her feet, and had this amazing calming voice.  While I rubbed Bea’s back and said encouraging things, she was very instructive and authoritative in saying things like “Relax your feet” and  ”long, slow breaths.”  Bea is really responsive to things like that, and I think it helped both of us feel like this was under control, and it helped Bea physically get through contractions.  She also suggested different positions to help us conserve energy.

Once the doula got there I completely lost track of timing contractions. I was feeling a little frantic about not having things ready and fetching things in between contractions. It was amazing to have her there to take care of Bea while I got water, or vice versa. I also discovered that I was reluctant to tell Bea things like “long slow breaths” because I didn’t know what it felt like, and I didn’t know if it was helpful, or irritating, or if she did what I said it would make it worse.

Around an hour after the doula arrived I told her I’d forgotten to be timing, and she said that she’d been paying attention (duh) and that we were progressing pretty fast.  We were like 5 minutes between contractions.  A little while later she said that, anytime we felt like going to the hospital, just let her know.  Because our instructor had told us so many horror stories about getting to the hospital too early, we both said we’d wait. In retrospect, I don’t know what we thought we were waiting for. The contractions were hard, and pretty close together. But it had just been so fast, and a lot of signs that we’d been told to look for hadn’t shown up yet (puking, pooping, etc). The doula said we could wait another 30 minutes and see how we felt.

Around 5:15 the contractions started getting worse.  Bea is very vocal, and groaned through all of the contractions.  But some of these were clearly much harder, and once she said she didn’t think she could do it.  The doula asked her if she was feeling pressure, and she said she felt like she had to poop.  That’s when the doula said we should go. We started grabbing everything we needed, and on the next contraction Bea said she wanted to push.  The doula reminded her to blow instead of push, and pretty much after that we threw everything in the car and got on the road.  Just before I got in the car, the doula whispered to me, “we’re kind of in a hurry now.”

It was 5:30 the morning after July 4, and I knew there would be cops.  But the hospital is 20 minutes away with no traffic assuming you don’t chose a stupid route by accident (we’re still figuring out how to get places from our new house), and Bea wanted to push.  So I sort of stepped on it, slowing down when I saw cops and once when an emergency vehicle was going the other way (later the doula said she couldn’t believe I’d pulled over).  The whole way I was trying to help Bea concentrate on her not-pushing (she had her head thrown back on the side of the seat, and kept declaring that she was going to push), and also trying to remember what we’re supposed to do once we get to the hospital.  It was flooded out in the storm back in May, so the whole first floor is a construction zone, and registration is in a weird place. Plus, if the baby is about to fall out, do you still go to registration?

It turns out, no, you don’t.  We pull up to the hospital, and a nice lady who was sitting in a wheelchair (turned out she had  had a baby 2 days ago and was just chillin in the wheelchair having a cigarette) gave us the wheelchair.  We went to registration on the 3rd floor, where some nurses and I stared at each other until a nurse said, “are you having a baby?” and I said, “she is” (I know, duh), and she told us to go to the 8th floor. So we got back in the elevator to go to triage. Thank goodness the doula was there, because it gets blurry for me here.

From what I remember, the nurses there saw Bea panting, and directed us straight to a room. I remembering hearing a nurse ask our doula about how far along Bea was, and she said, “She’s not pushing, but pushy.”  I tried giving the birth plan to a nurse, and she gave it back to me, saying to save it for labor and delivery.  I think it was around this point when Bea declared, “I’m going to have the baby here.”  One nurse was trying to get a gown on Bea, and wanted her to lie down because she needed to check her. Bea was in the middle of a contraction, standing but leaning forward with her arms on the bed, and desperately trying not to push, and the nurse says, all exasperated,  ”I really need to check you.”  I was almost pissy at her, but I sort of took the doula’s cues and just helped Bea through the contraction, ignoring the nurse, and helped her take off her bottoms and lie down (sans hospital gown).  The nurse checked her, and declared that she was “complete.”

At this point it felt like there were a million people in the room.  Someone asked me Bea’s social security number, which I don’t know (we were supposed to have filled out a piece of paper with all that info on it so that it would be ready for just this situation, but of course we hadn’t done that yet).  Luckily Bea was between contractions, so she told them.  They pulled up her info right away. I assume this was when our OB was called, but I never actually saw or heard that happening.  The on-call doctor came in, and I saw nurse that I showed the birth plan to scoop it up and show it to him, then to all the other nurses.  He was really nice, but we’re glad he didn’t deliver the baby.  He said that he Bea could lie down and he could deliver the baby in the next two contractions, or we could wait on the OB, who was en route.  He also told me that the birth plan was all fine, except that he couldn’t not put an IV on Bea because women lose blah blah units of blood and blah blah medical mumbo jumbo so he had to put one in.  Which is fine with me, but I feel like the way he said it was kind of like a power move and/or paternalistic.  The nurses blew two veins trying to put the IV in anyway, and gave up.

By then our OB came, and it seems like everyone forgot about the IV.  At this point I think it must have been around 6:45.  She set up, and Bea started pushing in earnest.  This part was also a blur, even though it seemed to last forever at the time.  Bea was sort of sitting up in the bed, with me at her side and the doula at the head of the bed.  We all (me, doula, and OB) coached her through each contraction, encouraging her and the doula helping her breathe.  After a few pushes the OB suggested that Bea pull her knees up to help open up her pelvis.  We could see the baby’s head, but it would retreat after the pushing stopped. So I helped hold up one leg while a nurse held another.  Meanwhile, the OB was massaging Bea’s perineum with her finger, while a nurse poured sweet oil in and around.  Another nurse was sort of standing there. I don’t know what for, but at one point she rolled in a mirror and angled it so that Bea could see the head coming out.  This pushing/head coming out/going back in routine lasted a while.  Bea was working so hard on each contraction that she was purple with the exertion.  But in between, she was calm as can be, resting with her eyes closed.  In between contractions it was so quiet and everyone was watching the monitor (on which you could see the contractions) so carefully that it felt a little like Jurassic Park to me, where everyone was all quiet and alert waiting for all hell to break loose.  And the little lines on the monitor going up was like the water in the glass trembling when dinosaurs were approaching.  It wasn’t scary, but more suspenseful.

Probably around 7:30 the OB said quietly to the nurse, “she doesn’t want an episiotomy” with this sort of half laughing half resigned voice.  After another push, she gently said, “Hey Bea? This might be one of those few situations where an episiotomy would help the baby come.”  At this point, by the way, the baby’s head had been at least an inch out (not enough to see forehead yet, but enough that the OB could get her fingers on either side to pull a little during pushes) for about half an hour.  It was just sort of stuck there, with all this dark black hair flopping around.  The OB kept using her index finger to rub it between contractions.  Later, she said that she’d never seen a mom talking and laughing when the head was stuck there, like Bea was.  Anyway, Bea was ready to just do the episiotomy, “if it would help the baby come out.”  The one part of the Bradley class that I think really helped: I knew what to say in this situation.  So, I said to Bea, “Ok, but you don’t have to, you know.”  And she said, “ok, can we try one more contraction?”  So the OB handed her scissors back to the nurse, and after two or three more hard hard pushes, the baby FLEW out.  In all the videos we’d seen (and there were A LOT), the baby’s head would come out, then in the next contraction or so the rest of the body followed.  Not here. The whole effing baby squirted out. I really think the OB had to literally catch her.

It was totally amazing.  Suddenly the OB was holding up this screaming baby girl, whose face (and scream) is already familiar and family to us.  One nurse was sucking fluid out of her mouth and nose, while another wiped her a little before plopping her on Bea’s chest.  They clamped the cord, and the doctor said, “Jae, it’s all you” (or something like that).  I hadn’t really wanted to cut the cord, but in that half second I decided I’d probably regret not doing it.  FYI it is rubbery and tendony, and I had to sort of saw at it to get through it.  Not quite what I’d expected.

And that was it. Our baby was born. Delivering the placenta was pretty painful for Bea, and there was a lot of blood.  She also had a pretty bad tear, and the doctor was stitching her up for quite a while.  At one point I heard her say to the nurse, “Ah, that’s starting to look familiar now.”  They also made jokes about her being a vagina plastic surgeon. So I knew it was pretty bad.

Bea has been a real trouper though, and I think that she will heal up great in no time.  She was really woozy for a while after delivery, and I thought she was going to faint on the way to the recovery room.  Luckily we had a fantastic nurse who was paying good attention and taking good care of us.

I have to say, we definitely chose the right hospital.  Everyone was totally respectful about me being the partner from delivery through recovery, and about Bea wanting natural childbirth, rooming in, and breast feeding only.  Our OB was amazing and we are both completely in love with her now.

It’s an amazing feeling to have been through that together, and to have this gorgeous bundle as a result.  We  keep saying how lucky we are, and we continue to know that day after day.

I can’t think of any graceful way to end this tome, so I’ll give you all this:

The short version for now, since my left hand is otherwise occupied! i hope to write out a nice big juicy (and that’s definitely the right word) description of the labor and delivery, because i want to savor it yet again and i want to remember as much of it as possible. for now, suffice it to say that i loved the birth experience and couldn’t be happier with how things went. it was amazing and i feel so lucky that i got to experience it the way i did.

i went into labor at around 1 or 1:30 a.m., and the baby was born at 7:45 a.m. it was fast, and i got to go natural, and i had wonderful, perfect support from mama jae and our doula–hiring her was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. our ob caught the baby and she was awesome, and the l&d staff was great and respected every piece of our birth plan. after a lot of pushing and being stuck with a baby’s head halfway out of my vagina for about 45 minutes (i think), our daughter came out in one big whoosh. she weighed 8 lbs and was 20 inches and is the most incredible thing in the world. i had a partial 3rd degree tear and lost a lot of blood, and getting stitched up and delivering the placenta was not the most fun thing ever, but it was a small price to pay to have had everything else go so perfectly. and to have such a perfect little girl.

more details & photos to come. thank you all—those of you i “know” and those i don’t—for your sweet congratulatory comments. we are overjoyed and so in love with our daughter. thank you for sharing our delight. xoxo

More later…

I’m 39 weeks today. And big. And starting to feel ready. And getting cues from my body that it’s starting to feel ready. The bao has dropped into my pelvis, and at my last doctor’s visit on Thursday I was still 2cm dilated, but had gone up to 80% effacement. I’d been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for a few weeks now, and in the past week or so some general crampiness has been added to the mix.

Here’s a photo from last week:

38 weeks, 3 days

In other news, VICTORY IS MINE: Although the smelly dresser of doom won nearly every single battle, I won the war, with the help of my new best friend Killz. The smell is GONE. Hooray! Plus, the washing machine finally got fixed last week, so all of the bao’s little clothes, burp cloths, and other washables have been washed, folded, and put away. FINALLY. I attached the changing pad to the top of the dresser, finished painting the bookshelf, and spent a lovely evening while Mama Jae was away arranging all of her little books and toys and other paraphernalia in it. I’d been looking forward to doing that for so long, and it was just as fun as I’d anticipated.

Mama Jae is back from her conference (incident-free, hooray!), and yesterday she finished the mural. It looks amazing, and I’m so sad to think that we’ll have to paint over it eventually.

So other than touching up the paint on the crib and assembling it, and getting a rug and installing curtains and finding an end table, the baby’s room is in excellent shape. Yesterday I spent half an hour sitting in there with the dog next to me while Mama Jae finished the mural. It felt so good to relax in there and think about the baby.

The hospital bag is as packed as it can be. I am tying up loose ends at work. Our dogsitting friend is on standby, as are my parents. Now we all wait.

Things I’m looking forward to:

• Sharing the labor and delivery experience with Mama Jae
• Seeing our baby’s little face for the first time
• Seeing Mama Jae hold our daughter
• Watching my parents meet their granddaughter
• Full-frontal hugs with Mama Jae
• Sleeping without the body pillow in the bed so she and I can cuddle
• Wearing something other than the same 5 outfits I’ve been wearing for weeks
• Introducing Oliver and the bao to one another
• Having my parents stay with us after the bao is born and celebrating this new little life together.

Things I’m nervous about:

• Labor and delivery (duh)
• Breastfeeding (also, duh)
• Parenting (yep: duh)

But I think we will be okay. I think we will be great. Mama Jae and I are a good team, I think, and we’re supportive of one another. We have our moments of crabbiness and snapping at one another, but those are few and far between. Generally we approach life as a “we” rather than as two “me”s, and that’s made for a really solid foundation in our relationship.

I hope everyone has a lovely July 4. I’m at work today, and then tonight we are having some friends over to grill as our last little hurrah of entertaining before the baby comes.