For everyone that hasn’t heard [are there still people who haven't heard?] Aiden [dubbed Babysticks by the LSGers] was born Tuesday, July 15th at 1:53pm after 6 quick hours of labor. He weighed in at a crushing 9lbs, 5oz and is absolutely perfect. And I’m not just saying that because he’s mine, he had perfect pink skin, a round head, 10 fingers, 10 toes, and feathery blond hair. Seriously…look at him…I make damn pretty babies!!
He is such a good baby. Only cries when he’s hungry [which is a lot, he didn't get to be a nine pounder by accident] and is probably the snuggliest baby ever. And he smells good. And his sister, who insisted she didn’t want a “stinky brother”, is absolutely smitten with him.
The labor was crazy. I woke up at 9am feeling a bit crampy [I was crampy the night before, like PMS level crampy] and went into the bathroom, came out, Zoe asked me if Aiden was kicking me and I told her “No, I think I might be in labor”. I went into my bedroom and woke up the husband and told him I thought we might be heading to the hospital soon, and just as I said it I was slammed with horrible pain. It came on so hard I started thinking something must be wrong. A minute later we’re packing up and I feel something warm, thought it was my water and ran into the bathroom to check. Nope- blood. My first thoughts went to those stupid pregnancy books, all of which said blood is BAD and could mean placenta rupture or placenta previa or whatever. I burst into hysterics and run out of the house barefoot with a barefoot Zoe and freaked out husband behind me.
I sobbed the whole way to the hospital thinking either I or my baby was dying. I burst into the ER and screamed incoherently at the poor receptionist that “THERES BLOOD, BLOOD IS BAD, PLEASE HELP ME”. Poor Zoe chatted with the nurse who wheeled me upstairs while Jon parked the van, she was trying to comfort me and make the nurse laugh. I guess she started crying as soon as I was out of sight. I can’t believe my 8 year old handles crisis better than I do.
They let me go on thinking I or Babysticks was dying for a while until the nurse finally turned up the heart monitor so I could hear his heartbeat and told me blood can just mean that I dilated really fast. She admitted me to labor and delivery. I went about 2 hours drug-free with massive, rapid contractions. The nurses couldn’t believe how fast I was progressing. They made me sign shit and answer questions and I just remember bashing everyone’s skulls in inside my head while I tried to answer and breathe through the contractions. You know, you really forget how much that hurts…what a reminder.
Once I got my epidural and was finally comfortable they had me at 8cm, they broke my water and I was 10cm MINUTES later. I pushed once, gave a little half-push for the head, and one last one and Aiden was born! The best part of the pushing process was watching the face of the twenty-something paramedic student who was watching his first birth. When blood shot across the room I took a mental snapshot of his face. I will laugh at it for years to come.
So now we’re home and settled. I have an etsy order to get to, I’m going to try and make a batch of earrings so I’ll be all stocked up, but we’ll see how much time I get from this little meatball.
I HAVE been knitting but I have to keep one project on the down-low for a few weeks. The other is a modified Pea Pod sweater. I’m having mountains of problems with the pattern directions, they’re really confusing to me and even the threads on Ravelry don’t quite help. I nix’d the weird ribbing and just did 2×2. Hopefully I can make it work with some mods.
So that’s it for now, I smell something brewing in Babysticks’ pampers so I better put the idiot box away and get to Mom-ing. A huge thanks and tons of love to everyone that’s emailed and posted in LSG getting me through the long wait of the final month. There were 3 or 4 threads on Ravelry I will be saving and burning to disk and wedging in Aiden’s baby book. It meant a lot to me and I won’t forget it! <3
