Year One, Motherhood and Me

Most of my friends and family will probably tell you that they always knew I would be a mother.  I earned the nickname "Mama Nicole" in 4th grade because A) I was so bossy and B) I tried to take care of everyone, including and especially the trouble kids.  But mostly because I was bossy and liked everyone following the rules.

For a long time I thought I didn't want to have kids.  Kids did not fit very well into my Broadway dreams.  Also, to have kids you generally have to have a significant other (well, not always, but in my vision of kids I did), and that search wasn't going so well.  To top it all off, I wasn't sure I could really take care of myself, much less a kid.

Basically, kids weren't that glamorous and I wanted some serious glam in my future.

I was right about one thing.

Kids are not that glamorous.

You go into the hospital 50 pounds heavier than you were nine months ago and you leave the hospital with this tiny bundle that comes with no instruction manual and no return policy.  And, by the way, you're still almost 50 pounds heavier than you were nine months ago.  You wonder why the hell they're letting you leave the hospital without first checking that you at least know how to change a diaper or bathe the wriggly bundle.  You wonder why they don't quiz you to make sure that you know what every little sigh and cry and sound mean.  You wonder why you had to score near perfect on your SATs to get into the college of your choice but there is absolutely no requirement for taking this baby home other than at one time you knew how to have sex.

And they fail to warn you that sex as you knew it will change dramatically too.

You will get home and realize that babies are poopy and hungry and poopy and sleepy and poopy...and the words "poopy" "poop" "turd" and when it's really messy "shit" will enter your vocabulary way more than is acceptable in normal, or at least non-baby society.  You will try to breast feed because that's what's best for the baby...but they don't tell you that maybe you won't be able to for whatever reason and you will struggle with overwhelming guilt for weeks before realizing that it doesn't matter where your baby's food is coming from as long as you are nourishing him.

And suddenly you will really be a mother.

As hard as the first year has been-and I've had my moments, believe me-I know that my friends and family were right.  I was born to be a mom.  I'm not claiming to be a perfect mother, but I am the perfect mother for Aidan.  Life as Blake and I know it has changed dramatically.  Gone are the Saturday morning sleep-ins and the spontaneous casino trips.  I'm not gonna lie-I MISS THOSE THINGS.  And no, it's not always worth it.  At least in the short run.  Like when your kid projectile vomits all over you in the parking lot of a Chick-fil-A after two of the biggest meals of his life.  But when he curls up to sleep on your chest gripping your little finger, his lips curled in a little smile as he dreams, you will hear music swelling in your head as though you were in your own movie montage and all thoughts of vomit will (almost) be erased.

So, in short, this last year has been the hardest and best year of my life.  I wish I had recorded more of the memories and thoughts I had as we went along, because it truly was happily that we went.  This year I won't let that happen.  After all, who doesn't love a good vomit story?

Stay tuned.  I may even talk about poop.

Aidan's Arrival, Part 2

I am not one of those moms who planned every moment of their baby's arrival.  I didn't read "What to Expect When You're Expecting", I didn't write a birth plan, I didn't go to Lamaze class, and I didn't even watch a video on labor and delivery.  My entire birthing philosophy was, basically:, if cave people, teenagers, and women who end up on "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" can do this, so can I.  I've always found that experience is the best teacher anyway.

I did, however, have some expectations.  Or maybe they were just assumptions.  I figured I would go into labor, do the heavy breathing thing, a nurse would eventually tell me to push, I would grunt and pray for hormones and drugs to block out the blinding pain, and then there would be a baby.  There are a lot of details missing from this scenario, I know, but come on.  That's generally how it goes, right?!

Wrong.

All those assumptions went flying out the window as the doctors wheeled me into an operating room-ALONE-for my not-emergency-c-section.  Blake had to stay out of the room while they prepped.  I was paralyzed from the neck down thanks to the drugs, and my brain was pretty addled from the whole day.  That didn't stop me from being slightly terrified as they transferred me onto the surgery table.  All I could see was a very white room with very sterile stainless steel instruments everywhere.  Somewhere to my right was a woman counting-Blake told me later she was counting the instruments they were using.  You know, so none of them ended up somewhere they shouldn't, like-oh, say IN MY UTERUS.  My overriding thought was, "Oh my God, I'm in an episode of The X-Files.  This looks just like an alien autopsy room.  OMG I HOPE THEY DON'T THINK I'M AN ALIEN!!!"  It didn't help that when they strap you down you are on a very small table in the shape of a cross.  And when I say they strap you down, I'm not kidding.  And while the strapping in, counting, and sterilizing is going on, the nurses were having a casual conversation about the next Twilight movie and my anesthesiologist was playing Angry Birds on his iPhone.

So apparently the arrival of a new life on this planet isn't as momentous for some of us as it is for others.

When Blake was finally allowed in, I calmed a bit, although the meds were starting to really kick in and the room was spinning in that I'm-gonna-hurl-any-moment kind of way.  The doctor asked, "Can you feel this?"  My response was, "Um...."  He said, "Good answer" and suddenly everyone was rushing towards me.  I had my eyes closed trying to stop the room from spinning, and all I could hear was the anesthesiologist saying, "Oh.  My.  God."  And the doctor saying, "I thought he'd be about 9 pounds but I'll bet he's bigger than that!"  And I opened my eyes long enough to say to Blake, "Please get pictures!!!  I'm gonna close my eyes for awhile..."  And then I threw up.

There was a lot of cleaning up, stitching up, and sadly some more throwing up, but within moments of weighing my 10 pound 3 ounce pride and joy, Aidan was in my arms.  We were quickly moved to recovery, where Blake ended up taking the baby because my blood pressure was super low and I couldn't get rid of the shivers.  It was almost an hour before someone thought to say, Hey-isn't the family waiting?!  Our poor families were in the waiting room, waiting to find out if Aidan and I were okay.  Blake went down and gave them the good news, and soon after I was well enough to go to our room.

My recovery was a nightmare-I was sick all night from the drugs, I couldn't move on my own for 2 days, I couldn't even pick up Aidan on my own while the scar from the c-section healed.  It took about 2 weeks for the burning to subside enough to stop calling it "pain".  C-sections may be common these days, but it is still a pretty major surgery.  I still occasionally get pains in the region of my scar, although I think it's because I'm getting more feeling back in that area.  Oh yeah, my lower abdomen went numb after the surgery from having the nerves cut through.  Just another one of those lovely side effects of surgery.

In the end, though, what I mostly remember is this:

And that is how, on March 19, 2012, Aidan Patrick Miller entered this world.  The end.

Which is really just the beginning of everything else...

Aidan's Arrival, Part 1

I'll admit up front, I don't remember a lot of the details of Aidan's arrival.  I had an epidural and eventually a C-section, so I was pretty drugged up.  Not to mention the several hours of labor pain that I went through before the epidural.  And the really long recovery period from the C-section. You get the picture.  So a lot of what I remember comes back in waves, and some of it is just what other people have told me since.  But I digress.

My third trimester was pretty uneventful.  I was getting pretty big, but I felt great so I didn't think much of it.  I was happy...until about week 32 and then I was ready to have that baby already.  So fast forward to week 40 and the doctor is telling me that I'm about 20% effaced (meaning the plug that's holding the kid in has only 20% disintegrated, which means I'm nowhere near going into labor)...well, you can imagine my slight disappointment.

Going into week 41 the doc scheduled an inducement date.  For some reason this scared me-I had no good reason to be against an inducement, I have no problem with drugs and pregnancy (I was ALL FOR the epidural), but something in me just did not want to have the Pitocin (which is what they use to start labor).  Fortunately, the night before my last doc appointment, I went into labor.

Everyone told me that when I went into labor, I would know.  Including my doctor.  "Trust me," he said, "you'll KNOW."  So for the last 8 weeks of my pregnancy I was walking around feeling every twinge in my abdomen going, "Wait, was that it?  Am I in labor?!"  Trust me.  When you go into labor, YOU KNOW.

Mr. Wonderful packed our bags into the car and off we went to the OB/GYN, who confirmed that I was in the very early stages of labor (again, NOT WHAT I WANT TO HEAR) and that unfortunately Labor & Delivery was all booked up at the moment, but if I came back in about 2 hours they would have a room ready for me.  What does a pregnant mama with no L&D room do with 2 hours to kill?  Go to Target, obviously.  Blake and I trotted off to the Target across the street and roamed the aisles while I stopped every 10 feet to breathe through a contraction.

After 90 minutes of waddling through DVDs, home decor, and baby clothes, we headed back to the hospital where we were immediately sent to our room.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the labor room was HUGE, with a nice big bathroom, seating, a tv, and huge windows overlooking all of Grapevine (I delivered at Grapevine Baylor).  Once the epidural kicked in (God bless modern medicine) things were pretty uneventful, and there was a whole lot of hurry up and wait.  It was evident early on that this baby was going to take after his dramatic mama-first he kept kicking the monitor off my belly, then his heart rate dropped to next to nothing when they gave me Pitocin to help things along (I knew I didn't want that drug!).  As the afternoon wore on, a huge storm rolled in.  We had a great view thanks to those giant windows...and the view was even more impressive when all the electricity (including the hospital's) went out over the entire city.  Twice.

Blake spent most of the day amusing himself by watching the monitor showing my contractions and saying, "That was a REALLY BIG ONE!  And you felt NOTHING?!  WOW!"  Lucky for him I did, actually, feel nothing.  Early in the evening he was showing a couple of family members (my L&D room was party central) where Aidan's heartbeat was and what my contractions were doing when he suddenly said, "Uh oh, that doesn't look good."  Aidan's heartbeat had dropped dramatically again, and this time the nurse actually looked concerned.  I knew things were serious when the doctor came in, nicely but firmly broke up the party, and said to me, "I think it's time we get this baby out of there.  We're going to do a C-section and IT'S NOT AN EMERGENCY."

Which immediately made me think, "This is an emergency."

Within minutes I was being introduced to a new anesthesiologist, a new nurse, and a host of people I can't remember.  Blake was changed into scrubs and a new medication was pumped into my spine and my bed was wheeled down the hall to an operating room.  And a whole new adventure started.

Our New Normal

You'll forgive me for failing to write up any of our little adventures for the last...well, almost year.  The arrival of Aidan has thrown our world into a whirlwind of diaper changes, bottle feedings, grandparent visits, and general happy chaos.  It's only taken six months for us to get into somewhat of a routine, and I'm now finding myself with a few free spare moments...at least until the next phase of whatever.

It's not that I'm at a loss for things to write about.  There's Aidan's birth, for starters.  My 10 pound bowling ball took after his mama and made a dramatic entrance...which you will be able to read about soon.  Then there's motherhood itself...all it's cracked up to be and then some.  There's my marriage, my in-laws, and my crazy awesome supportive parents who just happen to live on what I lovingly refer to as the funny farm.  My life is a plethora of stories just waiting to be told.

And here it is, a Thursday night at 9:00 and I have a glass of wine in hand, the baby in bed, and the dog sleeping on the couch (my wonderful husband is at work, which is a story in itself...).  And I have some free time.  So let's get started...